CHAPTER 2.

NO MISSION, NO MESSAGE

is no transformation – then there is no further search; the mind has become closed with knowledge.
This may seem contradictory, but this is the truth: a mind that thinks it knows becomes incapable of
knowing.

THIRD QUESTIONER: IT IS SAID, ”AS YOU THINK, SO YOU BECOME.” IF ONE THINKS OF THE
REAL SELF....?

No! This is one of the very wrong conceptions. This conception says, that as you think so you
become. No, you cannot become as you think. But you can feel that you have become something.
As you think, you can feel that you have become something, you can imagine it. But imagination
is not knowing. If someone thinks I am brahma, I am god, and goes on thinking it, and thinking
and thinking, then he comes to feel that he is divine. But this feeling is not knowing. This is simply
imagination being suggested, repeated, hypnotized. He has hypnotized himself by suggestions, by
constant repetitions.

You cannot become what you think. Rather, the contrary is true: what you become you can think
about. The becoming is first, the thinking is secondary – because the being which you are is always
behind the primary foundation of your thinking.

First you can exist without your thinking, but your thinking cannot exist without you. So you are
foundational, the thinking is secondary. Thinking is only on the periphery, the circumference; your
being is in the center. So one can be without any thoughts, but no thought can be without any being.
If you think something and imagine something, you may come to a feeling – imaginary, psuedo – but
you cannot come to your very being, because that which you don’t know... how can you think about
it? We can only think about something which we already know. If you know your self, then there is
no question of any thinking about yourself. If you don’t know your self, then how can you think about
it? Then you will borrow something from others....

SECOND QUESTIONER: KNOWING ONESELF WILL BE THINKING IT.

No! Knowing one self will be a total cessation of thinking; it will be simply existing in oneself – not
thinking. Thinking is always about something. Thinking cannot exist in a vacuum, it is always about
something. You can think about a chair, you can think about a house, you can think about a friend
or an enemy; you cannot think about yourself, because you are! Who is to think? So, if you are to
know yourself, you have to cease completely – totally – the process of thinking....

The process of thinking must not be there then you are, in your simple authentic existence. Then
you are, simply. Then you come to know that mind is not through thinking, that mind is through
non-thinking. That’s why I define meditation as a state of mind which is not thinking, but is aware –
not thinking and aware. There is no thinking in the mind, but the mind is, and is totally aware. So,
about what can it be aware now? There is nothing to think, so it cannot go outside....

SECOND QUESTIONER: AWARENESS... IS IT ALWAYS SOMETHING IN CONTACT WITH

OTHERS?

A: No, it is not. You can be simply aware. There is no need of...

SECOND QUESTIONER: AWARE OF WHAT?

Early Talks 7 Osho