life is not a dream and dreaming is not life. Dreaming functions as a blindfold and we go on missing the reality, says OSHO
A piece of rock is God asleep. Nothing is wrong in the piece of rock, it has to be awakened. Hence, I have given you sannyas. You say, “how could you give me sannyasIJ” Sannyas is nothing but an effort to wake you, an effort to shake you, an effort to shock you into awareness. Sannyas is nothing but an alarm. Even this I don’t dare to realise — that I am a piece of rock in the middle of the mountain — I dream instead. That’s how the rock avoids its own growth, the rock avoids its own future — by dreaming. Dreaming is the barrier. By dreaming we are avoiding the reality, by dreaming we avoid the real. It is our escape. You don’t have any other escape route. This is the only escape route — dreaming.
When you are listening to me, you can also dream. Sitting here you can have a thousand and one thoughts roaming around in your mind. You can think of the future or of the past. You can be for and against what I am saying, you can argue, you can debate with me inside yourself. But then you are missing me. I am a fact here. You need not dream here, you can just be here with me. And the result of it will be tremendous. But we go on dreaming. People are dreamers, and that is their way.
When they have gone for a walk in the morning, the sun is rising, the day is beautiful, the people are waking up, life is coming back again — they are dreaming. They are not looking at anything.
Dreaming functions as a blindfold, and we go on missing the reality. But dreaming functions as the barrier. Being a rock is not a problem: Being too much in dreams is the problem. Start dropping them. They are futile, meaningless, a wastage and nothing more. But people keep dreaming, go on dreaming. By and by people start thinking that dreaming is their only life. life is not a dream and dreaming is not life. Dreaming is avoiding life. let me tell you an anecdote.
On his 75th birthday, Turtletaub rushed into a physician’s office. ‘Doctor,’ he exclaimed, ‘I have got a date tonight with a 22-year-old girl. You have to give me something to pep me up.’ The MD smiled sympathetically and supplied the old man with a prescription. later that night, out of curiosity, the medical man phoned his elderly patient, ‘Did the medicine helpIJ “It’s wonderful,’ replied Turtletaub. ‘Seven times already.’ ‘That’s great,’ agreed the doctor. ‘And what about the girlIJ’ ‘The girlIJ’ said Turtletaub. ‘She didn’t get here yet!’ Don’t go on dreaming, otherwise you will miss life. Stop dreaming, look at that which is. And it is already in front of you. It is already around, it is within and without.
God is the only presence if you are not dreaming. If you are dreaming, then your dreams occupy your inner space. They become the hindrances for God to enter into you. This dreaming we call maya.
Maya means a magic show, a dream show. When you are not dreaming, when you are in a state of no-dream, the reality is revealed. The reality is already there, you are not to achieve it. You have only to do one thing: you have to put aside your dreams. And you will no longer be a rock, you can fly with me to the very end of the sky. Receive my invitation, receive my challenge. That’s what sannyas is all about.
Excerpts from Osho’s discourses