....

Don’t start with a conclusion, otherwise you have started wrongly from the very beginning. Go without a conclusion! That’s what I mean when I say again and again: Go without knowledge if you want to find truth. The knowledgeable person never finds it. His knowledge is a barrier.

Choose the unknown

Zen says truth has nothing to do with authority, truth has nothing to do with tradition, truth has nothing to do with the past - truth is a radical, personal realization. You have to come to it.

Knowledge is certain; the search for personal knowing is very, very hazardous. Nobody can guarantee it. If you ask me if I can guarantee anything, I say I cannot guarantee you anything. I can only guarantee danger, that much is certain. I can only guarantee you a long adventure with every possibility of going astray and never reaching the goal. But one thing is certain: the very search will help you to grow.

I can guarantee only growth. Danger will be there, sacrifice will be there; you will be moving every day into the unknown, into the uncharted, and there will be no map to follow, no guide to follow. Yes, there are millions of dangers and you can go astray and you can get lost, but that is the only way one grows.

Insecurity is the only way to grow, to face danger is the only way to grow, to accept the challenge of the unknown is the only way to grow.

Going astray, you will learn something, you will become richer. You can come back and you will be happy that you went astray, because there are many things which can be learnt only by going astray. There are things which can be learnt only if you are courageous enough to make mistakes. Remember only one thing: don't make the same mistake again.

The beauty of facing life unprepared is tremendous. Then life has a newness, a youth; then life has a flow and freshness. Then life has so many surprises. And when life has so many surprises boredom never settles in you.

Remain in wonder if you want the mysteries to open up for you. Mysteries never open up for those who go on questioning. Questioners sooner or later end up in a library. Questioners sooner or later end up with scriptures, because scriptures are full of answers. And answers are dangerous, they kill your wonder.

My suggestion is that whenever you have to choose, always choose the unknown, because the known you have already lived. Never miss the unknown. Always choose the unknown and go headlong. Even if you suffer, it is worth it -- it always pays.

Laugh at yourself!

The ego can exist only if you take yourself and everything seriously.
Nothing kills the ego like playfulness, like laughter.
When you start taking life as fun, the ego has to die, it cannot exist anymore.
Ego is illness, it needs an atmosphere of sadness to exist.
Seriousness creates the sadness in you.
Sadness is a necessary soil for the ego.
Hence your saints are so serious, for the simple reason that they are the most egoistic people on the earth.
They may be trying to be humble, but they are very proud of their humbleness.
They take their humbleness very seriously.
The real saint cannot be serious.
The really religious person has to be a celebrant.
Just look around...
Look at the trees - are they serious?
Look at the birds, listen to them - are they serious?
Look at the stars, the moon, the sun - are they serious?
Existence is utterly non-serious, it goes on dancing.
It is an eternal celebration, it is a festivity!

....

Buy why does success fail? It fails because you were searching
not for wealth, you were searching not for power, you were
searching not for security and safety; you were not searching for
a house, you were searching for something else. You were
searching for the eternal home, from where there is no going away.
You were searching for eternal rest, you were searching for a peace
which lasts forever, non-temporal. That is what the search is: a
search for the home.

Either/Or

Mind is never decisive. It is not a question of your mind or somebody else's mind; mind is indecisiveness. The functioning of the mind is wavering between two polar opposites and trying to find which is the right way.

Mind is the wrong thing, and through the wrong thing you are trying to find the right way. It is as if by closing your eyes you are trying to find the door. Certainly you will feel yourself hanging between the two -- to go this way or that; you will be always in a condition of either/or. That's the nature of mind.

With the mind, that is the problem -- it is not your problem -- and the better mind you have, the more will be the problem. Lesser minds don't come across that problem so much. It is the genius mind that is opposed, with two polarities, and cannot choose. And then he feels in a limbo.

What I have been telling you is that it is the nature of the mind to be in a limbo. It is the nature of the mind to be in the middle of polar opposites. Unless you move away from the mind and become a witness to all the games of the mind, you will never be decisive. Even if you sometimes decide -- in spite of the mind -- you will repent, because the other half that you have not decided for is going to haunt you: perhaps that was right and what you have chosen is wrong. And now there is no way to know. Perhaps the choice was better that you had left aside was better. But even if you had chosen it, the situation would not have been different; then this which would have been left aside would haunt you.

Mind is basically the beginning of madness.
And if you are too much in it, it will drive you mad.

- Osho

So much in this small quote

Any genuine philosophy leads to action and from action back again to wonder, to the enduring fact of mystery.

- Henry Miller

Keith Jarret's words of wisdom

Try to imagine
the first musician.
He was not playing for an audience,
or a market, or working on
his next recording,
or touring with his show,
or working on his image.

He was
playing out of need,
out of his need for the music.
Every year the number of
musicians who remember why
they play music in the first place
gets smaller and smaller.

Beyond right and wrong

The man who lives with fixed ideas lives a dead life. He is never spontaneous and he is never in a right relationship with the situation that exists. He is never response-able; he functions out of his old conclusions which are no longer relevant, he does not look at the situation itself.

There is nothing right or wrong.
It all depends on your standpoint.

If somebody wants to decide absolutely, he will be
paralyzed; he will not be able to act.
If you want to act only when you have an absolute decision
about what is right, you will be paralyzed.
You will not be able to act. One has to act, and to act in a
relative world. There is no absolute decision, so don't wait for it.
Just watch, see, and whatever you feel is right, do it.

Any action that happens through awareness is right;
any action that happens through unawareness is wrong.

Whatsoever you are doing, do it with such consciousness
as if it is a question of life and death; as if a sword is hanging over you.

But see the emphasis! The emphasis is not on the action itself,
the emphasis is on the source — awareness or unawareness.
If you act fully aware, then whatsoever you do is right.
If you move mechanically and do things unconsciously
as if you are a sleepwalker, a somnambulist,
then whatsoever you do is wrong.
Awareness is right, unawareness is wrong.

- Osho

Beholding the mind

Bodhidharma :

The most essential method, which includes all methods, is beholding the mind.

Ramana Maharshi :

You are the mind or think that you are the mind. The mind is nothing but thoughts. Now behind every particular thought there is a general thought, which is the `I', that is yourself. Let us call this `I' the first thought. Stick to this `I'-thought and Question it to find out what it is. When this Question takes strong hold on you, you cannot think of other thoughts.

Gurdjieff :

Remember your self always and everywhere. Without self knowledge, without understanding the working and functions of his machine, man cannot be free, he cannot govern himself and he will always remain a slave.

Osho :

This technique is one of the most helpful, and it has been used for millennia by many teachers, masters. Buddha used it, Mahavira used it, Jesus used it, and in modern times Gurdjieff used it. Among all the techniques, this is one of the most potential. Try it. It will take time; months will pass. When Ouspensky was learning with Gurdjieff, for three months he had to make much effort, arduous effort, in order to have a glimpse of what self-remembering is. So continuously, for three months, Ouspensky lived in a secluded house just doing only one thing – self-remembering.

Thirty persons started that experiment, and by the end of the first week twenty-seven had escaped; only three remained. The whole day they were trying to remember – not doing anything else, just remembering that ”I am.” Twenty-seven felt they were going crazy. They felt that now madness was just near, so they escaped. They never turned back; they never met Gurdjieff again. Why? As we are, really, we are mad. Not remembering who we are, what we are, we are mad, but this madness is taken as sanity. Once you try to go back, once you try to contact the real, it will look like craziness, it will look like madness. Compared to what we are, it is just the reverse, the opposite. If you feel that this is sanity, that will look like madness.

But three persisted. One of the three was P. D. Ouspensky. For three months they persisted. Only after the first month did they start having glimpses of simply being – of ”I am.” After the second month, even the ”I” dropped, and they started having the glimpses of ”am-ness” – of just being, not even of ”I”, because ”I” is also a label. The pure being is not ”I” and ”thou”; it just is. And by the third month even the feeling of ”am-ness” dissolved because that feeling of am-ness is still a word. Even that word dissolves. Then you are, and then you know what you are. Before that point comes you cannot ask, ”Who am I?” Or you can go on asking continuously, ”Who am I?”, just continuously inquiring, ”Who am I ? Who am I?”, and all the answers that will be provided by the mind will be found false, irrelevant.

You go on asking, ”Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?” and a point comes where you can no more ask the question. All the answers fall down, and then the question itself falls down and disappears. And when even the question, ”Who am I?” disappears, you know who you are. Gurdjieff tried from one corner: just try to remember you are. Raman Maharshi tried from another corner. He made it a meditation to ask, to inquire, ”Who am I?” And don’t believe in any answers that the mind can supply. The mind will say, ”What nonsense are you asking? You are this, you are that, you are a man, you are a woman, you are educated or uneducated, rich or poor.”

The mind will supply answers, but go on asking. Don’t accept any answer because all the answers given by the mind are false. They are from the unreal part of you. They are coming from words, they are coming from scriptures, they are coming from conditioning, they are coming from society, they are coming from others. Go on asking. Let this arrow of ”Who am I?” penetrate deeper and deeper. A moment will come when no answer will come.

The non-dual nature of knowledge and action

How can knowledge and action be separated? This is the original substance of knowledge and action, which have not been separated by selfish desires. In teaching people, the Sage insisted that only this can be called knowledge. Otherwise, this is not yet knowledge. This is serious and practical business... I have said that knowledge is the direction for action and action the effort of knowledge, and that knowledge is the beginning of action and action the completion of knowledge. If this is understood, then when only knowledge is mentioned, action is included, and when only action is mentioned, knowledge is included... But people today distinguish between knowledge and action and pursue them separately, believing that one must know before he can act. They will discuss and learn the business of knowledge first, they say, and wait till they truly know before they put their knowledge into practice. Consequently, to the last day of life, they will never act and also will never know. This doctrine of knowledge first and action later is not a minor disease and it did not come about only yesterday. My present advocacy of the unity of knowledge and action is precisely the medicine for that disease.

— Wang Yang Ming (1472-1529)
Instructions for Practical Living, I.8a