Also known as Illumination, Awakening, Enlightenment, Christ, Self Realization, Christ Consciousness, Cosmic Consciousness, Superconscious
- Osho, Is a Master needed after Satori?
- Yes! Even more so, because satori is just a glimpse, and a glimpse is dangerous because now you enter the territory of the unknown. Before it, Master is not necessary. Before it you were moving in the known world. Only after satori he becomes absolutely necessary, because now somebody is needed to hold your hand and to lead you towards that which is not simply a glimpse, but becomes an absolute reality. After satori you have the taste, and the taste creates more desire. And the taste becomes so magnetic that you would like to rush into it madly. Now the Master is needed.
After satori, many more things are going to happen. Satori is like seeing the peak of Gourishankar, Everest, from the plains. Some day, a clear morning, a sunny morning, and mist is not there, you can see from thousands of miles away the beautiful peak of Gourishankar rising high in the sky. This is satori. Now the actual traveling starts. Now the whole world looks useless.
This is a turning point. Now all that you knew becomes useless, all that you had becomes a burden. Now the world, the life that you had lived up to now, simply disappears like a dream because the greater has happened. And this is satori, a glimpse. Soon the mist will be there, and the peak will not be visible. The clouds will come and the peak will disappear. Now you will be in an absolute uncertain state of consciousness.
The first thing will be whether whatsoever you have seen was real or just a dream, because where it is now? It has disappeared. It was just a breakthrough, just a gap, and you are back - thrown to your own world.
Suspicions will arise: whatsoever you have seen, was it true? Was it really there or you dreamed about it or you imagined it? And there are possibilities. Many people imagine, so the suspicion is not wrong. Many times you will imagine, and you cannot make the distinction, what is real and what is unreal. Only a Master can say that, "Yes, don't be worried. It was real," or a Master can say, "drop, throw it! It was just imaginary."
Only one who has known the peak - not from the plains - only one who has attained to the peak, only one who has become the peak himself, only he can tell you because he has the criterion, he has the touchstone. He can say, "Throw it! Rubbish! It is just your imagination," because when seekers go on thinking about these things, the mind starts dreaming.
Many people come to me. Only one percent of them have the real thing; ninety-nine percent bring unreal things. But it is difficult for them to decide - impossible, not difficult - they cannot decide. You suddenly feel an upsurge of energy in your backbone, in the spine: how you will decide whether it is real or unreal? You have been thinking too much about it; you have been desiring also. Unconsciously you are sowing seeds that it should happen, the kundalini should rise. Then you have been reading Patanjali, then you have been talking about it, then you meet people who say their kundalini has risen. Your ego, and then everything mixed...
Suddenly one day, you feel the upsurge; it is nothing but a creation of the mind - just to satisfy you - that, "Don't be worried: don't be so much worried. Look! Your kundalini has arisen," and just mind imagining. Then who will decide? And how you will decide? - because you don't know the true. Only truth can become the criterion to decide whether this is true or untrue.
A Master is needed even more after first satori. There are three satoris. The first satori is just a glimpse. This is possible even sometimes through drugs; this is possible through many other things - sometimes accidents. Sometimes you were climbing a tree and you fell down, and it was such a shock that the mind stopped for a single moment, and the glimpse will be there, and you will feel so euphoric that you are taken out of your body, you have known something.
Within a second you are back, the mind starts functioning: it was simply a shock. Through electric shock it is possible, through insulin shock it is possible, through drugs it is possible. Even sometimes in illness it happens. You are so weak that the mind cannot function; suddenly you have a glimpse. Through sex it is possible. In the orgasm, when the whole body vibrates, it is possible.
The first glimpse is not necessarily through religious effort. That's why LSD, mescaline, marijuana, have become so much important and appealing. The first glimpse is possible, and you can be caught because of the first glimpse in a drug. It can become a permanent trip; then it is very dangerous because glimpses won't help. They can help, but there is not necessarily help coming from them. They can help only around a Master, because then he will say, "Now don't be after the glimpse. You have got the glimpse, now start traveling to reach the peak." Because it is not only to reach the peak; finally one has to become the peak.
These are the three stages: first is glimpse - this is possible through many ways, not necessarily religious. Even an atheist can have the glimpse, a person who is not interested in religion can have the glimpse. Drugs, chemicals can give you the glimpse. Even after an operation, when you are coming out of chloroform, you can have the glimpse. While the chloroform is given to you and you are going deeper and deeper, you can have the glimpse.
Many people have attained to first satori; that is not very, very significant. It can be used as a step for the second satori. Second satori is to reach the peak. That never happens accidentally. That happens only through methods, techniques, schools, because it is a long effort to reach the second satori.
And then there is the third satori, what Patanjali calls samadhi: that third is to become the peak. Because from the second also you can come down. You reach to the peak; it may be unbearable. Bliss is also sometimes unbearable - not only pain, bliss also - it is too much; one comes back to the plains.
To live on a high peak is difficult - very difficult! - and one would like to come back. Unless you become the peak itself, unless the experiencer becomes the experience, it can be lost. And up to the third - samadhi - a Master is needed. Only when the final samadhi, the ultimate, has happened, a Master is not needed.
Osho, “Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega“
Once long ago a pilgrim found himself in the desert beyond Tibet. It was a starless night, the sky like black lacquer, the dusty wind importunately pulling at his hair and beard, and the jagged rocks rising to wound his stumbling feet. The pilgrim had hoped to reach a great spiritual teacher beyond the wilderness, but now that hope was gone. He might well die of thirst before morning. Fervently, the pilgrim prayed to Amida Buddha – the Lord of Light – for help.
Immediately, his foot struck something that was not a stone. It was a silver bowl filled to the brim with pure cold melting snow. The pilgrim drank all he could, in his weakened condition, and then, with a cracked prayer of gratitude, sank down upon the sand. He fell asleep. When dawn awakened him, the pilgrim reached once again for the saving silver bowl. It proved to be a human skull. Bits of flesh, fringing the bare bone still, showed that the skull must have been full of life until quite recently.
Besides, the hollow of it held what seemed to be brain-fluid, swimming thick with maggots like dirty grey thoughts. The pilgrim vomited at the sight. As he did so, SATORI came to him. He turned homeward, without delay. That which he sought was accomplished. He had found his teacher, and his temple as well – the temple of the skull.
This story is of tremendous importance. What happened? How did the SATORI happen?
In the night he believed in his thirst that Buddha has given him this silver bowl. It was a dark night, starless – it was just his belief; created by his thirst. He was dying, he was on the verge of death – his mind must have dreamed, must have projected. In a human skull he saw a silver bowl – he projected. And he thought the brain-fluid was just pure ice-water – he drank it.
And it was so – when he thought it was pure ice-water, it was pure ice-water; and when he thought it was a silver bowl, it was a silver bowl. You live in your projections. Happy, he thanked Buddha and fell asleep. In the morning when the sun was rising, he opened his eyes. He wanted to see the silver bowl that had saved his life... and it was a human skull. bits of flesh fringing the bare bone still, showed that the skull must been full of life untill quite recently, Disgusting.
Besides, the hollow of it held what seemed to be brain-Fluid... nauseating... Swimming thick with Maggots like dirty Grey thoughts. You can think of that man, that poor man. He vomited. Now it was no more a silver bowl, and it was no more pure ice-water. He vomited. And in that vomiting, something dawned in his consciousness. He could see that it is all a mind game: if you see it as a silver bowl, it becomes a silver bowl. In the night, there was no nausea.
He had drunk the brain-fluid with maggots in it, but there was no nausea and no question of vomiting. And he had thanked God, thanked Buddha, in great gratitude. And he had fallen asleep, and he slept the whole night beautifully, and there was nothing wrong. And now, seeing it, the vomiting comes – after hours. A great understanding happened – that it is all the mind. If it is all the mind, then there is no need to go anywhere: you can drop the mind at your own home. That was the satori, just seeing the point of it – it is just an idea.
If he had got up early in the morning and had left, then there would never have been any vomiting. It is just an idea. And who knows? – in the night, maybe Amida Buddha had managed to produce a silver bowl. Mm? these Buddhas are strange people, they can do things like that. In the night he may have drunk out of a silver bowl – who knows? – and there was nothing to vomit over. Or maybe in the morning Amida Buddha had managed to produce this skull filled with brain-fluid, streaming with maggots, dirty maggots. Who knows?
But that is not the point. One thing is certain – that when you believe one thing you live in one reality, when you believe another thing you live in another reality. It is only a question of belief. All your worlds are belief-worlds. Hence the satori. He must have laughed: that vomit was a great experience. He must have laughed, he must have understood the very root of it all. And then there was no need to seek the teacher, the teacher has been found. And there was no need to go to the temple where he was going, the temple has been found... in the human skull.
He must have come back dancing, he must have come back celebrating, he must have come back a totally different man. A man who is no more asleep in thoughts, in the mind – a man who lives no more in projections, a man who dreams no more. A man who now sees – whose clarity has become absolute, whose consciousness now has a transparency. This is what satori is.
Source: from Osho book "Zen: The Path of Paradox, Volume 2"
See Also
Asana
Awakening
Christ
Christ Consciousness
Cosmic Consciousness
Enlightenment
Illumination
Kaibalyam
Kriya Sutras
Moksha
niyama
Samadhi
Self Realization
Superconscious
Pratyahara
yama
Yoga