I would like to tell you… Buddha tried for six years continuously to know what the divine is, and it cannot be said that he left anything undone. He did everything that is humanly possible, even some things which seem humanly impossible. He did everything. Whatever was known up to his day he practiced. Whatever methods were taught to him, he became a master of them.
He went to all the gurus that existed in his time, to everyone. And whatever they could teach, he learned, he practiced. And then he said, “Anything more, Sir?” And the guru said, “Now you can go, because all that I could give you I have given, and I cannot say, as I say in other cases, that you have not practiced. You have practiced. This is all that I can give.” Buddha said, “I have not known the divine yet.”
With each guru this happened. Then he left all the gurus. Then he invented his own methods. Continuously, for six years, he was in a struggle of life and death. He did everything that could be done. Then, at last, he was so tired of doing, so deadly tired, that one day when he was taking his evening bath in the Niranjana River near Bodhgaya, he felt so weak and so tired that he could not come out of the river. He just clung to a root of a tree and a thought came to his mind, “I have become so weak, I cannot even cross this small river. How will I be alive to cross the whole ocean of the world? I have done everything, and I have not found the divine. I have only tired my body.”
He felt that he was on the verge of death. At that very moment he felt that he had done everything, and now there was nothing to do. He relaxed, and new energy came upon him because of his relaxation. All that was suppressed through those six years flowered. He came out of the river, he felt just like a feather, a bird’s feather — weightless. He relaxed under a Bodhi tree.
It was a bright fullmoon night. Someone came — a girl, a shudra girl named Sujata. The name shows that the girl must have been a shudra because to have the name Sujata means she has not come from a higher caste. Sujata means wellborn. She had promised the Bodhi tree to pay it some homage daily, so she has come with some sweets.
Buddha is there — tired, pale, bloodless, but relaxed, absolutely unburdened — and it is a fullmoon night with nobody around. The girl, Sujata, felt that the deity of the tree had come to receive her homage. Had it been another day, Buddha could have refused. He would not rest in the night, he would not eat any food. But today he was totally relaxed. He took the food, and he slept. This was the first night after six years that he really slept.
He was relaxed with nothing to do. Then there was no worry. There was no tomorrow even, because tomorrow exists only because one has to do something. If one has not to do anything, then there is no tomorrow. Then the moment is enough.
Buddha slept, and in the morning, at five o’clock, when the last star was withering away, he was out of the sleep. He saw the last star disappearing, with no mind, because when you have nothing to do there is no mind. The mind is just a faculty for doing something, a technical faculty. No mind, nothing to do, no effort on his part, indifferent to whether he was alive or dead, he just opened his eyes, and he began to dance. He had come to that knowing to which he could not come through so many efforts.
Whenever someone would ask him how he achieved, he would say, “The more I tried to achieve, the more I was at a loss. I could not achieve. So how can I say I have achieved? The more I tried, the more I was involved. I could not achieve. The mind was trying to transcend itself, which was impossible. It is just like trying to be a father to yourself, just trying to give birth to yourself.”
So Buddha would say, “I cannot say I achieved. I can only say I tried so much that I was annihilated. I tried so much that any effort became absurd. And the moment came when I was not trying, when the mind was not, when I was not thinking. Then there was no future because there was no past. Both were always together. Past is behind, future is in front; they are always conjoined. If one drops, the other drops simultaneously. Then there was no future, no past, no mind. I was mindless, I was I-less. Then something happened, and I cannot say that this something happened in that moment. I can only say that this was always happening, only I was not aware. It was always happening, only I was closed. So I cannot say I have achieved something.”
Buddha said, “I can only say I have lost something — the ego, the mind — I have not achieved anything at all. Now I know that all that I have was always there. It was in every layer, it was in every stone, in every flower, but now I recognize it was always so. Only I was blind. So I have lost my blindness; I have not achieved anything, I have lost something.”
If you begin with the divine, then you begin to achieve. If you begin with yourself, then you begin to lose. Things will begin to disappear, and ultimately you will disappear. And when you are not, the divine is — with all its grace, with all its love, with all its compassion, but only when you are not. Your nonexistence is the categorical condition. For no one can it be relaxed. It is categorical, it is the absolute. You are the barrier. Fall down, and then you know. And only when you know, you know. You cannot understand it, I cannot explain it to you. I cannot make you understand it. So whatever I am saying, I am not saying anything metaphysical. I am only trying to show you that you must begin with yourself.
If you begin with yourself, you will end with the divine, because that is your other part, the other pole. But begin from this bank. Do not begin from the other, where you are not. You cannot begin from there. Begin from where you are, and the more you will go deep, the less you will be.
The more you will know yourself, the less a self you will be. And once you have come to total understanding about yourself, you will be annihilated, you will go into nonexistence, you will be totally negative — not. And in that not, in that total negation, you will know the grace which is always falling, which is always raining down from eternity. You will know the love which is always around you. It has always been, but you have not paid any attention to it. Be annihilated, and you will be aware of it.
From “I Am the Gate” By Osho
