What Is Is What Ain't Ain't

Osho talked to Swami Atmanand

 2 February 1977, afternoon, Chuang Tzu Auditorium.

From What Is Is What Ain't Ain't, Chapter 2, p.25 to 29.

“Always remember that even if you don't like a certain thing, it is not necessarily bad. Liking and disliking makes no difference. Sometimes the thing that you like may be harmful, and vice versa: the thing that you don't like at all may prove a great transformation. In fact that is more likely.

The thing that you don't like is more likely to help you, because liking comes out of the past, liking comes out of your mind. The mind likes that which fits with it, and anything that fits with the mind is never going to change you. Anything whatsoever that fits with the mind will strengthen the same mind, will make it even stronger.

So something that the mind feels repelled by has to be explored. There is a possibility that it may prove a radical change in your life. And right now you misunderstand because you are identified too much with the mind. You don't know what is really beneficial and what is not. Whatsoever you decide, you decide through the mind. You don't know yet how to look at things without the mind interfering.

Now for example, this: if you had listened to the mind, the mind was telling you, 'Leave! It is pointless, and why are you wasting your time? I don't like it!'

That mind tries to say that you don't like it, and you are so identified that you don't make the distinction that this is the mind saying, 'I don't like it.' But the mind's liking or disliking is not your liking or disliking. You are separate from the mind, different from the mind.

So sometimes try that which the mind does not like, and sometimes don't try that to which the mind feels attracted and likes. Go on playing with this game. By and by the mind and you become loose, and then you have a tremendously new perspective. Then sometimes it happens that you can see a thing without the mind coming in, because now you are loose, not so tightly attached to each other.

This loosening comes only when you sometimes go on trying the thing that the mind does not like, and sometimes not trying the thing that the mind likes.

Gurdjieff would always give just the opposite. To somebody who likes physical exercise very much, goes for a morning walk, evening walk, horse-riding, this and that, Gurdjieff would say to just sit silently and not to do anything. He would feel restless and would boil inside.

But this is the way the mind and you become loose. When you don't listen to the mind, a distance arises. So learn this one thing from this experience - don't decide in a hurry.

Sometimes you don't like a woman and she may prove the best companion. Sometimes you like the woman at the first sight - you 'fall in love' as it is said - and she may prove the worst enemy to you. That's how it is happening all over the world: people fall in love at first sight and then they suffer their whole life. Because this is decided by the mind...and the mind is blind!

The mind has no awareness. Awareness is a totally different thing, far away from mind, and awareness becomes available only when the mind is no more making its chattering, its noise, so you can hear the still, small voice, from somewhere beyond the mind.

Keep it as a key, and sometimes go on trying something against the mind. Enjoy it, and you will be benefited tremendously.”

Rajneesh Foundation, Poona, India, 1980

mr monster by simon bisley