de Mystieke Roos
The heart is the soil – trust is the climate
BELOVED OSHO,
IN WHAT SOIL AND IN WHICH CLIMATE MIGHT ONE FIND THE MYSTIC
ROSE?
Maneesha, the symbol of mystic rose
vibrates tremendously significant
memories…
It was one day in the early morning, a
gathering of seekers just like you are… but
the time goes twenty-five centuries back.
Gautam Buddha was expected to deliver
his morning sermon.
Everybody was surprised… He came
right on time, carrying a rose in his hand.
They had listened to him for many years,
and he has never carried anything.
Everybody wondered: What is this rose,
and why is he carrying it? But they sat
silently – perhaps he will explain.
And he did explain, but not with
words.
He sat silently looking at the rose. The rose
was immensely beautiful. So were those
two eyes, so was that silent moment -
pregnant, expectant, that he is going to say
something very special.
He was - but he was not using words.
There are things which can be shown but
cannot be said.
The silence became heavy; people were not
accustomed. This behavior of Gautam
Buddha was so unexpected, so new.
Everybody sat like a marble statue and
Buddha was looking at the rose with such
blissfulness, showering so much love and
so much blessing and so much grace on the
rose that nobody dared to interrupt him
and ask, What is going on?
At that very moment…
Mahakashyap was a very strange
disciple of Gautam Buddha; he is known to
be the founder of the long tradition of Zen.
And this moment when Gautam
Buddha was looking at the rose is the
moment of a source that is still blossoming.
Perhaps it is the only rose that has not
faded away. Many others have blossomed
and faded away.
Mahakashyapa’s laughing shocked
everybody. They were not even courageous
enough to ask the question, and this
strange fellow - he was strange from the
very beginning. Since he had come he had
never asked a question. He had
monopolized a tree, under which nobody
else dared to sit. Whether he was late or
early, his place was certain.
People even wondered - does he
understand what Gautam Buddha is
saying? or does he simply take a good
morning sleep? because he always listened
with closed eyes. He never made any
friends; even if people wanted to talk to
him, he would simply make one simple
sign.
That’s the sign which Avirbhava
makes to me. Whenever I want to say
something to her, either she screams to stop
me, or she makes this sign…
Slowly, slowly people accepted that
Mahakashyap was a little bit crazy… but a
very silent and beautiful person. He was a
prince, had left his kingdom. He just came
to see Gautam Buddha and never went
back. He never even asked for initiation. He
simply touched Gautam Buddha’s feet,
tears rolled down from his eyes and he said
to Gautam Buddha, “I am grateful that you
initiated me.”
Those who were present said, “This
is strange, he has taken everything upon
himself. He has touched the feet, he has
cried and now he is thanking Gautam 2
Buddha: `I am thankful and grateful that
you have initiated me.’ ”
And since then there had been no
communication, verbally at least, between
Mahakashyap and Gautam Buddha.
But this day - it must have been
after ten years - he laughed and people
became aware that he was still here. People
had started forgetting. A person who
remains for ten years without making any
noise, naturally, is taken for granted. Just
as the tree was taken for granted, he was
also taken for granted.
But his sudden burst of laughter…
Gautam Buddha called him close
and gave him the rose. And he told the
other ten thousand disciples, “What I can
give you in words I have given to you. And
what I cannot give in words I am
transferring to Mahakashyap.”
Thus began a strange transference of
the innermost experience of truth from the
master to the disciple. Mahakashyap never
wrote anything and Mahakashyap never
did anything. It is not known how he
initiated people. The man was not only
strange, his methods were also strange.
Before dying he gave his robe to a
person to whom he had never spoken a
single word. And the person touched the
feet of Mahakashyap and again the same
story… the tears of joy and gratitude and
thankfulness. And the man said, “You were
a great master; you have given me a great
responsibility, but I promise you that I will
fulfill it with my total heart.” This man
became the second patriarch of Zen
Buddhism. And because Mahakashyap gave
his robe, this became the form of choosing
the successor. For all these twenty-five
centuries, Zen masters have chosen their
successors by just giving them their bowl,
their robe.
It is called the transmission of the
light, the opening of the mystic rose.
You are asking: “In what soil and in
which climate might one find the mystic
rose?”
Your heart is the soil.
Your trust is the climate.
And your being is the mystic rose - its
opening, blossoming, releasing its
fragrance.
The mystic rose became just a
symbol of the man whose being is dormant
no more, is asleep no more, but is fully
awake and has opened all its petals and
has become sensitive to all that is truthful,
beautiful, good - the very splendor of
existence. His being has become part of the
eternal and the immortal. He is no more the
same man he used to be. He has found his
real self, his original face.
The only way is to look inwards:
there is the soil. To look with trust, with
love and with a guarantee that if other
people have found themselves there is no
reason why you cannot find.
The day Gautam Buddha became
awakened, something in you has also
become awakened. No man is an island; we
are all connected, deep down in our roots.
In the awakening of Gautam Buddha or in
the laughter of Mahakashyap I am also a
part. The moment I understood the beauty
and silence of those tears, something in me
has also responded.
Just in this century, Carl Gustav
Jung has been able to find a right word for
this experience which in the past has been
called the transmission, the transfer, the
communion. Jung’s word is certainly very
significant - although he himself is not a
mystic, he is a man of great intelligence. He
calls it synchronicity. And it was only by
chance that he discovered the word. 3
He was staying in an old castle with
a friend. The old castle had two big antique
clocks and the mystery about those clocks
was that they were hanging on the same
wall – and people used to come to see them
- and they always kept the same time. Even
if you disturbed their balance, set one clock
a few minutes back or put it ahead, you
would be surprised: soon, within a few
minutes, they would start coming back
again, closer to each other.
Jung was very mystified - what
miracle is there? There was really no
miracle, it was a very simple thing, but
nobody before Jung had bothered.
Everybody thought it was something
mysterious. It was something mysterious,
but it is not something that cannot be
understood. The mystery was that the
clocks were hung upon a piece of board,
very sensitive wood, so that the “tick-tick”
of one clock was heard by the other clock -
“tick-tick” - and they would slowly find
that they were not in step. Something
vibrated on the wood, and the clocks fell
into step.
Jung was in great difficulty to find
the right word. What is happening between
these two clocks? He coined the word
`synchronicity’ - something like deep
sympathy, such a deep love that they
cannot move differently.
The mystic rose… When it was given
to Mahakashyap, certainly there were
many disciples who asked Buddha, “We are
puzzled – what is happening? You have not
said a word; neither has he said any word,
not even in thankfulness. You have given
him the rose and he has received it. No
language has been used from either side.”
Gautam Buddha said, “It is for that
purpose I have brought the rose. It is very
symbolic, because the heart is so beautiful,
your innermost being is beautiful as no rose
can be, but the rose is the nearest symbol.
And when it opens… the fragrance also is
the closest symbol, because the same
fragrance, similar – of a higher level, more
mysterious - the rose can represent in the
mundane world of our day-to-day reality.
“This rose that I have given to
Mahakashyap will die. Right now it is so
alive, so beautiful and so young. Just by the
evening its petals will start dropping,
dying. Today it is - tomorrow there will
not be even a trace left behind. Tomorrow it
will be impossible to think what beauty,
what fragrance has been existing in reality
yesterday.”
One of Gautam Buddha’s most basic
philosophical standpoints is
momentariness. Everything is only in the
moment. It is changing. Nothing is
permanent. What seems to be permanent is
your inability to see the impermanence of
it! Otherwise… mountains disappear,
continents disappear, stars disappear,
what to say about flowers? Everything that
is born, dies. Only this moment is real; you
cannot be certain about the next moment.
The rose flower signifies his
fundamental attitude of momentariness.
Nataraj has asked a question which
will be very significant in this reference. It
will help you to understand the mystic rose
and it will help him to understand the
answer to his question.
He has asked:
PLEASE SPEAK TO US ON THESE FEW
LINES BY OMAR KHAYYAM:AH, FILL THE CUP – WHAT BOOTS IT TO
REPEATHOW TIME IS SLIPPING UNDERNEATH
OUR FEET
UNBORN, TOMORROW, AND DEAD
YESTERDAY, 4
WHY FRET ABOUT THEM IF TODAY BE
SWEET!
ONE MOMENT IN ANNIHILATION’S
WASTE,
ONE MOMENT, OF THE WELL OF LIFE
TO TASTE
THE STARS ARE SETTING AND THE
CARAVAN
STARTS FOR THE DAWN OF NOTHING -
OH MAKE HASTE!
Before Gautam Buddha, there has
not been any other mystic who has
emphasized the changing reality, the
momentariness of everything. After
Gautam Buddha there have been a few
people like Heraclitus in Greece… like
Omar Khayyam, who in a poetic way is
saying, Fill the cup now, time is fleeting!
Yesterday is dead, who knows about
tomorrow? The caravan is ready to start
towards nothingness. Make haste! Don’t
waste this moment, this opportunity to be
your authentic self.
It is very strange that Gautam
Buddha, Heraclitus, Omar Khayyam - all
are very different types of persons. Their
approach to reality is different. They all
emphasize changingness, but if you simply
understand that they are preaching change
you have misunderstood them. Behind this
changing phenomenon there is a flame
which is eternal, which is timeless… which
simply is.
That is your being, your witness.
Otherwise, who will witness the
change?
Their emphasis on the changing is to
find the unchanging. A very strange
approach, but very significant: more people
have become enlightened through this
process than any other. Just watch
everything that is changing, so finally only
the watcher remains.
Everything moves, only the mirror
remains.
That mirror is you.
Realizing it is the greatest
experience of life.
And those who have not realized
this mystic rose have not lived at all. They
simply pretended to live, carrying their
suitcases… I told Sarjano, “Clean the
grease from your suitcase.” And the second
thing I have not told him, I thought he
would understand himself, was that he
should open the suitcase and give the
things back to the people to whom they
belong. I was thinking he would
understand. But now, anybody who is
missing anything can go to Sarjano, before
he leaves for Italy. Of course the things
will be a little greasy, but something is
better than nothing. My suspicion is that
even the suitcase is not his own. And he is
here, sitting…
Don’t try to find the soil anywhere;
don’t try to wait for any climate, any
season, for that which is, is already within
you.
That’s why Mahakashyap laughed.
Nobody in these twenty-five centuries has
been able to explain why he laughed. In the
tradition of Zen it has been asked
continuously - in China, in Japan, in
Taiwan, in Korea, in the whole East,
continuously – in every mystic school it has
been asked, “Why after all did
Mahakashyap laugh?”
I have always wondered why this
question has not been answered by anyone.
Perhaps silence is the answer? But I feel
that there is something more than silence,
which can be brought to you in language.
Mahakashyap laughed when
Gautam Buddha gave him the rose because,
“What you are giving to me is already
within myself. What kind of a joke…? And
you are giving me a flower, which is going
to die - and I know the flower, I have
known it in your presence; you have been 5
the cause, the one who has triggered the
process. Now, after all this, you are giving
me this rose!”
And he must have laughed at those
ten thousand serious people, that
something beautiful is happening and they
are not even clapping!
Serious people are psychologically
sick people. Even if they laugh, they laugh
when the moment is passed. They laugh
because others are laughing, so something
must be there. Later on they will think,
“My god, I was laughing? And I had no
idea what the thing was.”
People take everything seriously.
Now look at poor Niskriya - now he has
become a Chinaman. Now he is incurable. I
was trying to somehow announce that he is
the reincarnation of the prophet Elijah and
he is here sitting with closed eyes.
First the Germans were very angry,
because Germans can never forgive Adolf
Hitler – and they should not. That man was
absolutely insane and he drove the whole
country insane and he managed in the
second world war to kill near about forty
million people. He is the only one who
equals Genghis Khan. Naturally the
German feels a wound that he or his
forefathers supported this insane man.
Now the Jews are angry. Somehow I
managed the Germans to cool down, to
have a little more ice cream. Now the Jews
are freaking out. And they have a reason to
freak out! But one has to understand one
thing, that whatever happens we also play
a part in it. If there are people who have
been enslaved then it is not only the
enslavers who are responsible, the enslaved
are equally responsible. At least they could
have committed suicide.
I have never thought… this country
for twenty centuries has been in slavery to
one country, then another country, then
another race. My father was a freedom
fighter, but I used to tell him that “You
should remember that the slave is as much
responsible or perhaps more responsible
than the one who enslaves you. Such a big
country, a whole continent, and a small
group of people comes and you lose your
freedom. It is simply inconceivable.”
If Adolf Hitler could kill six million
people – I hate what he did, but I cannot be
very compassionate to the Jews who
allowed him to do it. Six million people! It
would have been better to commit suicide
rather than to be killed by that man. At
least you would have saved your dignity
and your freedom.
But I can understand that time
passes, but wounds remain. Even if wounds
heal, scars remain. And my effort here is to
take away all your scars and all your
wounds and make you aware that you are
just a watcher – which cannot be wounded;
no bullet can pass through it, no nuclear
bomb can destroy it.
But now Niskriya is strange… now
Chinamen are going to be very angry.
Fortunately there is only one Chinaman
here, so I will manage him separately – and
he is a very intelligent person. But this
Niskriya has to be put right. This is not
good. Just stand up! Just… Attention!