Dreaming While Awake
I
f you just put a watch with a second hand in front
of you and keep your eyes on the second hand,
you will be surprised: you cannot continue to
remember even for one minute completely. Perhaps
fifteen seconds, twenty seconds, at the most thirty
seconds, and you will forget. You will get lost in some
other idea -- and then suddenly you will remember
that you were trying to remember.
Even to keep awareness continuous for one minute is
difficult, so one has to be aware that it is not child's
play. So when you are trying to be aware of the small
things of life, you have to remember that many times
you will forget. You will go far away into something
else. The moment you remember, don't feel guilty --
that is one of the traps.
If you start feeling guilty, then you cannot come back
to the awareness that you were practicing. There is no
need to feel guilty, it is natural. Don't feel repentance.
It is simple, and it happens to every seeker. Accept it
as natural; otherwise you will be caught in
repentance, in the guilt that you cannot remember
even for a few moments and you go on forgetting.
Mahavira is the first man in history who has actually
worked out that if a man can remember, be aware for
forty-eight minutes continuously, that's enough -- he
will become enlightened, nobody can prevent him.
Just forty-eight minutes... but it is difficult even for
forty-eight seconds -- so many distractions.
No guilt, no repentance -- the moment you remember
that you have forgotten what you were doing, simply
come back; simply come back and start working
again.
My emphasis is: simply come back. Don't cry and
weep for the spilled milk, that is stupid.
It will take time, but slowly you will become aware
that you are remaining alert more and more, perhaps
for a whole minute, perhaps two minutes.
And it is such a joy that you have been aware for two
minutes -- but don't get caught in the joy.
Don't think that you have attained something. That
will become a barrier. These are patterns where one is
lost. Just a little gain and one thinks one has come
home. Go on working slowly, patiently. There is no
hurry -- you have eternity at your disposal.
Don't try to be speedy. That impatience will not help.
Awareness is not like seasonal flowers that grow in
six weeks' time and are then gone. Awareness is like
the cedars of Lebanon which take hundreds of years
to grow; but they remain for thousands of years and
rise to one hundred and fifty feet, two hundred feet
high in the sky. They are really very proud people.
Awareness grows very slowly, but it grows. One has
to just be patient.
As it grows you will start feeling many things which
you have never felt before. For example, you will
start feeling that you are carrying many tensions in
your body of which you have never been aware
because they are subtle tensions. Now your
awareness is there you can feel those very subtle,
very delicate tensions.
So wherever you feel any tension in the body, relax
that part. If your whole body is relaxed, your
awareness will grow faster because those tensions are
hindrances.
As your awareness grows even more, you will be
surprised to know that you don't dream only in sleep;
there is an undercurrent of dreaming even while you
are awake. It goes just underneath your wakefulness
-- close your eyes any moment and you can see some
dream passing by like a cloud in the sky. But only
when you become a little more aware will it be
possible to see that your wakefulness in not true
awakenedness.
The dream is floating there -- people call it daydream.
If they relax in their chair for a moment and close
their eyes, immediately the dream takes over. They
start thinking that they have become the president of
the country, or they are doing great things -- or
anything, which they know at the very moment they
are dreaming is all nonsense. You are not the
president of the country, but still the dream has
something in it, that it continues in spite of you.
Awareness will make you aware of layers of dreams
in your waking state. And they will start dispersing,
just as you bring light into a dark room and the
darkness starts dispersing.
-Osho, Awareness : the key to living in balance