N

Loneliness is like othingness can either be just emptiness or it can be a

tremendous fullness. It can be negative, it can be positive.
a wound, If it is negative it is like death, darkness. Religions have
aloneness is like called it hell. It is hell because there is no joy in it, no song in it, there is
a flower. no heartbeat, no dance. Nothing flowers, nothing opens. One is
simply empty.
Loneliness is sick
This empty nothingness has created great fear in people. That's
-- Soren why in the West particularly, God has never been called
Kierkegaard has nothingness except by a few mystics like Dionysius, Eckhart,
called it "sickness Boehme; but they are not the main current of Western thinking.
The West has always conceived nothingness in negative terms;
unto death" -- and hence it has created a tremendous fear about it. And they keep
aloneness is saying to people that the empty mind is the Devil's workshop.
life, abundant The East has known its positive aspect too; it is one of the
greatest contributions to human consciousness. Buddha will laugh
life. It is health at this statement that emptiness is the Devil's workshop. He will
say: Only in emptiness, only in nothingness, does godliness
happen. But he is talking about the positive phenomenon.
For Gautam Buddha, for Mahavira, for the long tradition of

36 OSHO WORLD
Zen Masters and the Taoists,
nothingness simply means no-
thingness. All things have
disappeared, and because things
have disappeared there is pure
consciousness left behind. The
mirror is empty of any reflection,
but the mirror is there.
Consciousness is empty of content,
but Consciousness is there. And
when it was full of content, so many
things were inside you could not
have known what it is. When the
consciousness is full of contents,
that's what we call the mind. When
consciousness is empty of all
contents, that's what we call no-
mind or meditation.
To create nothingness in you is
the goal of meditation, but this
nothingness has nothing to do with
the negative idea. It is full,
abundantly full. It is so full that it
starts overflowing. Buddha has
defined this nothingness as
overflowing compassion.
The word "compassion" is
beautiful. It is made out of the same
word as "passion." When passion is
transformed, when the desire to
seek and search for the other is no
more there, when you are enough
unto yourself, when you don't need
anybody, when the very desire for
the other has evaporated, when you
are utterly happy, blissful, just
being alone, then passion becomes
compassion. Now you don't seek
the other because you feel empty
and lonely; now you seek the other
because you are too full and you
would like to share.
When consciousness is empty
of all contents, that's what we
call no-mind or meditation
The enlightened person also
seeks the other just as the
unenlightened person seeks, but
there is a qualitative difference. The
unenlightened person seeks the
other because he feels a negative
nothingness in him. Left alone he
does not feel aloneness, he feels
loneliness.
Remember, loneliness and
aloneness are not synonymous,
notwithstanding what the
dictionaries go on saying. It is not a
question of language; it is
something existential. Loneliness is
negative -- you are missing
something; aloneness is positive --
you have found something.
The unenlightened seeks the
other because it is his need; he is
needy and greedy. He grabs the
other, he clings to the other. He is
always afraid the other may leave.
Husbands are afraid, wives are
afraid, parents are afraid, children
are afraid, everybody is afraid.
Even your so-called religious
teachers are afraid their disciples
may leave them, so they have to
concede and compromise with
the disciples. Can you see the irony
of it?
Jain monks send messages to me
saying, "We want to see you, but we
cannot because our followers don't
allow it. They become angry, they
become antagonistic." Now the
teachers are afraid of the followers!
What kind of teachers are these?
They need the follower because
without the follower they are
nobody -- and that is the power in
the hands of the follower. The
follower really dictates the rules. He
says, "Do this, say this, behave like
this -- only then am I going to
respect you. Of course I will respect
you if you follow all the rules
prescribed by me." It is a contract.
The so-called religious leaders
keep following their own followers!
And the followers, of course, in
return pay great homage, respect.
Both are satisfied. The follower
needs somebody whom he can
follow and the leader needs
somebody to follow him. Both are
fulfilling each other's needs, but
both are dependent; both are
clinging, possessive.
Just the other day I was reading
a statement... one Christian
organisation in England has asked
Sheldon Press -- because Sheldon
Press belongs to that Christian
SEPTEMBER 2008 37
association, it is one of the branches
of the association -- why they have
published my books. Sheldon Press
has published seven of my books;
the director seems to have fallen in
love with me. The director has
replied, "We have published the
books because they are beautiful,
and we have published the books
because they come closest to the
teachings of Jesus." But the head of
the association and the members
who possess the association are
very angry; they may even throw
this director of Sheldon Press out of
his job.
They have asked one of my
sannyasins who is a chaplain in
Cambridge University, "Why do
you, being a Christian priest, go on
wearing orange?" And in the church
Dynamic Meditation is being done!
They have asked for an explanation;
naturally they are afraid.
But the sannyasin is not afraid.
He has written a beautiful letter to
them saying, "I am doing the work
of Christ -- and I am doing the work
of a living Christ! And I don't see
any difference." But ordinarily...
now he can be thrown out, is bound
to be thrown out. No organised
religion can tolerate such
individuals, such rebels.
The followers want you to
behave the way they decide, the
way the tradition decides, and if
you need their respect, you are
bound to follow them. They will
follow you, you follow them. Hence
I say, religious or political, it does
not matter: leaders are the followers
of their own followers.
And that is the criterion of
whether a man is really a Master or
not. The Master is one who does not
follow the followers, who does not
compromise in any way, because he
has no need. Whether there are
people or not doesn't matter; there
is no question of greed.
The unenlightened seeks the
other because he feels lonely. It may
be the teacher-disciple thing, it may
be the husband-wife trip, it may be
friendship... it may be any kind of
relationship. You seek the other out
of your loneliness, and the other is
also seeking you out of her or his
loneliness. And two lonelinesses are
bound to create hell, great hell,
because both are negative. And
when two negatives meet it is not a
simple addition, it is a
multiplication. The same is true
about two positives: when they
meet it is not simple addition, it is
multiplication.
The enlightened also seeks the
other. Jesus moved from one village
to another -- for what? Mahavira
travelled thousands of miles on foot
-- for what? For forty-two years
Buddha was going... he was always
on the go. Even when he was very
old, eighty-two, he was still moving
from village to village, for the
simple reason that somebody had
to be found with whom he could
share. But now it was not a need,
hence he will not compromise. It is
not a need, hence he will not
possess. It is not a need, in fact it is
just the opposite of it: it is
abundance.
He is like a raincloud full of
rainwater: it wants to shower
somewhere. If it can find a garden,
good; if it cannot find a garden,
then too it has to shower. It may

The word "compassion" is beautiful. It is made out of the

same word as "passion." When passion is transformed,
when the desire to seek and search for the other is no more
there, when you are enough unto yourself, when you don't
need anybody, when the very desire for the other has
evaporated, when you are utterly happy, blissful, just
being alone, then passion becomes compassion

38 OSHO WORLD
shower even on the rocks; it does
not matter, but it has to shower.
When the flower opens up, the
fragrance has to be released.
Whether anybody comes to know
of it or not is immaterial. It is not a
need, it is overflowing joy. When
there is overflowing love it is
compassion.
Passion arises out of negative
nothingness and compassion arises
out of positive nothingness.
Buddha says that the real man of
wisdom can be judged only by one
thing: his compassion, his love. He
will be radiating compassion. He
always be prepared to help people
on the path. The people will be
insulting him, the people will be in
every possible way against him, the
people will be angry with him,
because the people are fast asleep
and to put them on the path he has
to wake them up. And nobody likes
to be awakened because people are
dreaming beautiful dreams. And
you shake them and you wake them
and you destroy their dreams, and
that's all that they have got.
Otherwise they are lonely,
otherwise they are empty. So they
are somehow filling their inner
spaces with dreams, projections,
imaginations.
And the function of the Master
is to destroy all your dreams, to
make you empty of all content. But
when you drop all content
consciously, deliberately, you are
not lonely: you become alone. And
aloneness is beautiful, loneliness is
ugly. Loneliness is like a wound,
It is my own experience that
there is no greater joy than
to be alone
aloneness is like a flower.
Loneliness is sick -- Soren
Kierkegaard has called it "sickness
unto death" -- and aloneness is life,
abundant life. It is health.
The Sanskrit word for health is
very beautiful; the English word
also has its own beauty. "Health"
means the wound is healed; it
comes from healing. The person is
no longer sick; the wound of
negative nothingness is no more
there it has healed. It is beautiful,
but nothing compared to the
Sanskrit word for health. The
Sanskrit word for health is
Swasthia; it means becoming
centred. It means coming to one's
own self, realising one's own self.
SVA means self; Swasthia means
getting rooted in the self.
People are not rooted in their
own selves, hence they are cling to
others. All clinging is an indication
that you are afraid that if you are
left alone you will not be alone, you
will be simply lonely, miserable.
The West has yet to recognise
this tremendously significant fact.
The Western religions have
remained confined to prayer. They
have not touched even the
periphery of meditation, for the
simple reason that meditation
means nothingness, and to them
nothingness has only one
connotation: that of loneliness,
emptiness. And they start feeling
that if you are nothing then you
will start falling into an abyss, you
will be lost.
But we have tasted a totally
different quality of nothingness. We
have tasted the hidden godliness in
it, we have known the uttermost of
bliss in it, we have known its
benediction.
It is my own experience that
there is no greater joy than to be
alone; the joy of love is secondary.
And the joy of love is possible only
if you have known the joy of being
alone, because then only do you
have something to share.
Otherwise, two beggars meeting
each other, clinging to each other,
cannot be blissful. They will create
misery for each other because each
will be hoping, and hoping in vain,
that "The other is going to fulfil
me." The other is hoping the same.
They cannot fulfil each other. They
are both blind; they cannot help
each other.
I have heard about a hunter who
got lost in the jungle. For three days
he could not find anybody to ask
for the way out, and he was
SEPTEMBER 2008 39
becoming more and more panicky -
- three days of no food and three
days of constant fear of wild
animals. For three days he was not
able to sleep; he was sitting awake
on some tree, afraid he may be
attacked. There were snakes, there
were lions, there were wild animals.
After the third day, the fourth
day early in the morning, he saw a
man sitting under a tree. You can
imagine his joy. He rushed, he
hugged the man, and he said,
"What joy!" And the other man
hugged him, and both were
immensely happy. Then they asked
each other, "Why are you so
ecstatic?" The first said, "I was lost
and I was waiting to meet
somebody." And the other said, "I
am also lost and I am waiting to
meet somebody. But if we are both
lost then the ecstasy is just foolish.
So now we will be lost together!"
That's what happens: you are
lonely, the other is lonely -- now
you meet. First the honeymoon:
that ecstasy that you have met the
other, now you will not be lonely
any more. But within three days, or
if you are intelligent enough, then
within three hours... it depends on
how intelligent you are. If you are
stupid, then it will take a longer
time because one does not learn;
That experience makes you enlightened. That experience
makes you full of light, life, love, so full That you start
overflowing, that sharing is now possible
40 OSHO WORLD
otherwise the intelligent person can
immediately see after three
minutes..."What are we trying to
do? It is not going to happen. The
other is as lonely as I am. Now we
will be living together -- two
lonelinesses together. Two wounds
together cannot help each other to
be healed. Two blind people
leading each other..." Kabir says,
both are bound to fall in a well
sooner or later, and more possibly
sooner than later .
But, nothingness,
meditativeness, no-mindness is a
totally different phenomenon.
Loneliness is natural. You are born
lonely, and immediately the child
starts searching and seeking for the
other; for the mother he starts
searching, he starts groping. He
clings to the mother; he does not
want to be left alone even for a few
moments. He starts crying, he starts
screaming; he makes so much fuss
that the mother comes back. He
learns the language of how the
mother can be manipulated. It is a
very strange world! Even small
babies become politicians. They
know how to manipulate. They will
start crying. they will start weeping.
The child behaves differently
when his mother is there. When the
mother is not there he is far more
grown-up, far more mature,
because he has to be alert and
cautious -- he is alone, the mother
is not there. When the mother is
there he can do anything; he can
take risks.
From the very childhood we
know the negative aspect, but the
positive aspect has to be
discovered. It is a lifelong
discovery; one has to go on
discovering it.
Meditation is nothing but the
method of discovering the positive
aspect of nothingness, the positive
quality of it. Meditation means
dropping the content of the mind
very consciously, knowing that you
are dropping it. And when you
have dropped everything, suddenly
you realise that everything has
disappeared but you are and you
are fuller than ever because all
those things, all that junk that you
have been carrying all along was
simply taking your space. Now the
whole space, the whole sky is
available, and your heart can open
its petals. We call it in the East "the
one-thousand-petauled lotus." Now
there is space. With all the junk that
you carry in your mind, where is
the space for the one-thousand-
petaled lotus to open? You are not
spacious enough. You are so full of
 Only a meditator can be a lover. In the past,
people have tried to be lovers or to be
meditators; both have failed

junk, rubbish, that only weeds can
grow in you, not roses. It is
impossible for the roses to grow;
they need a little spaciousness.
Nothingness is spaciousness,
and to be spacious mean to be vast.
The moment you feel nothingness
in its positive quality you feel
vastness, you feel infinity. You don't
see any limit anywhere; you are
unlimited. Even the sky is not the
limit! That experience makes you
enlightened. That experience makes
you full of light, life, love, so full
that you start overflowing, that
sharing is now possible.
Only a meditator can be a lover.
In the past, people have tried to be
lovers or to be meditators; both
have failed. The whole history of
humanity is a history of failures,
and the greatest failure has been
this: lovers have failed because they
were not meditators, and without
meditation you don't have anything
to share; before you can share
something, you have to have it.
And the meditators have failed
because instead of being nothing,
instead of being nobodies, instead
of being the experience of utter
emptiness, Shunyata, they were full
of mantras, chanting, praying,
repeating any word constantly. But
they were not nothing, they were
not in a state of nothingness. Maybe
they were not thinking of the
market, not thinking of money, not
thinking of politics -- but they were
thinking of God. It does not matter
what you are thinking: thinking as
such keeps you away, far away
from experiencing the beauty of
nothingness. Whether mantras fill
you or film songs fill you, it is all
the same -- you are too full of
rubbish. Whether that rubbish
has been collected through
scriptures or through magazines
like Playboy, it does not matter; it is
the same rubbish. One has to be
utterly empty of all Playboys, all
Bibles, all Gitas. One has to be
completely empty of all Korans, all
Vedas. When you are in that
beautiful space, you will know
what God is, what truth is, what

SEPTEMBER 2008 41
 Nothingness is spaciousness, and to be spacious
mean to be vast. The moment you feel
nothingness in its positive quality you feel
vastness, you feel infinity

freedom is. In fact knowing this,
love is bound to happen as a
shadow of it, as a consequence of it.
Meditators have failed because
they were not real meditators; they
were doing something else in the
name of meditation. Concentration
they were doing, contemplation
they were doing, prayer they were
doing, chanting they were doing,
and a thousand other things they
were doing, but not meditation. In
fact they were avoiding meditation
-- in a religious way. Ordinarily
people avoid meditation in worldly
ways, and your so-called saints
avoid meditation through other-
worldly ways, but it is the same:
avoiding.
One has to discover the positive
quality of nothingness. One has to
be courageous enough to go into it.
Once you have known it you have
known everything that is worth
knowing. Then you can share. Not
only then can you share, but only
then will you be able to understand
the Koran, the Bible, the Gita,
because those are expressions of
people who had known the same
positive emptiness, the same
beautiful nothingness. You cannot
understand Christ unless you are a
Christ, you cannot understand
Buddha unless you are a Buddha.
Before being a Buddha you will be
simply a parrot repeating the
Dhammapada. Before being a
Mohammed you cannot understand
a single word of the Koran. That is
impossible, because unless you
have the same consciousness and
the same connection with the
ultimate source of things, how can
you understand Mohammed? No
Muslim understands Mohammed,
no Christian understands Christ, no
Buddhist understands Buddha, no
Jain understands Mahavira. They
are simply imitators, repeaters, just
going on parrotlike, mechanically.
And their whole effort is how to fill
the negative nothingness. The
negative nothingness has not to be
filled; you have to be consciously
aware of it, that "yes, it exists there."
The moment negative emptiness
is joined with awareness, it
becomes positive, the miracle
happens. That very moment the
alchemy transforms you. Let me
repeat: negative nothingnesss plus
awareness is equal to positive
nothingness.
-Osho,
Guida Spirituale, Ch 11.

42 OSHO WORLD