OSHO - Once you realize your inner being and the light, you are no more of this world; whatsoever happened in the past happened in a dream

For millions of lives, for ages together, you have been in darkness – but don’t feel depressed and don’t feel hopeless, because even if you have lived in darkness for millions of lives, this very moment you can attain to the light.

Just look: a house has remained closed for one hundred years, dark, and you go into it and you light a light. Will the darkness say, ”I am one hundred years old and this light is just a baby”? Will the darkness say, ”I am not going to disappear. You will have to burn light at least for one hundred years, only then...”? No, even a baby flame is enough for very very ancient darkness. Why? In one hundred years the darkness must have become engrained. But no, darkness cannot become engrained because it is NOT. It was simply waiting for the light – the moment the light comes in, the darkness disappears; it cannot resist because it has no positive existence.

People come to me and they say, ”You teach that sudden enlightenment is possible. Then what will happen of our past lives and our past karmas?” Nothing – they are of the nature of darkness. You may have murdered, you may have been a thief, a robber, you may have been a Hitler, a Genghis Khan, or somebody, the worst possible, but that doesn’t make any difference. Once you remember yourself, the light is there; the whole past disappears immediately; not for a single moment can it stay there. You murdered, but you cannot become a murderer; you murdered because you were not aware of yourself, you were not aware what you are doing.

Jesus is reported to have said on the cross, ”Father, forgive these people because they know not what they are doing.” He was saying simply, ”These people are not of the nature of light, they don’t remember themselves. They are doing in complete forgetfulness, in darkness they are moving and stumbling. Forgive them, they are not responsible for whatsoever they are doing.” How can a person be responsible who does not remember himself?

If a drunkard kills somebody, even the court forgives him if it can be proved that he acted when he was completely unconscious. Why? Because how can you make a person responsible? You can make him responsible for drinking, but you cannot make him responsible for murder. If a madman kills somebody, he has to be forgiven because he is not himself.

Responsibility means remembering.

Whatsoever you have done, I tell you, don’t be worried by it. It has happened to you because you were not aware. Alight your inner flame – find it, seek it, it is there – and suddenly the whole past disappears, as if it all happened in a dream. In fact, it has happened in a dream, because you were not conscious. All karmas have happened in a dream, they are made of the same stuff as dreams are made.

You need not wait for your karmas to be fulfilled – then you will have to wait for eternity. And even then you will not be out of the wheel because you cannot simply wait for eternity: you will be doing many things meanwhile; then the vicious circle cannot be completed ever. You will move on and on and on, and you will go on doing things, and new things will make you entangled in more future things – then where will the end be? No, there is no need. You simply become aware and suddenly all karmas drop. In a single moment of intense awareness, the whole past disappears, becomes rubbish.

This is one of the most fundamental things the East has discovered. 

Christians cannot understand it; they go on thinking of judgment, and the Last Day of Judgment, that everybody has to be judged by his acts. Then Christ is wrong when he says, ”Forgive these people because they know not what they are doing.” Jews cannot understand it, Mohammedans cannot understand it.

Hindus are really one of the most daring races, they have penetrated to the very core of the problem: the problem is not action, the problem is being. Once you realize your inner being and the light, you are no more of this world; whatsoever happened in the past happened in a dream.

 That’s why Hindus say this whole world is a dream – only you are not a dream, only the dreamer is not the dream; otherwise, everything is a dream.

Look at the beauty of this truth: only the dreamer is not a dream, because the dreamer cannot be a dream; otherwise the dream cannot exist. At least somebody, the dreamer, has to be a real phenomenon.

In the day you are awake; you do many things: you go to the shop, you go to the market, you work in a farm, or in a factory, and you do millions of things. By the night when you are asleep, you forget everything about it; it disappears – a new world starts, the world of the dream. And now scientists say that the same time has to be given to dream as you give to awakening. The same waking hours have to be given to dreaming. In sixty years’ time, if twenty years have been devoted to work in the waking state, twenty years have been devoted to dreaming; the SAME time, exactly the same time,has to be devoted to dreaming. So dreaming is not less real, it has the same quality.

In the night you dream, you forget about your waking world. In the deep sleep you forget about your waking world, your dreaming world. In the morning again the waking world comes into existence,you forget about your dreaming and you sleep. But one thing continuously remains – you. Who remembers the dreams? In the morning who says, ”I dreamt last night”? In the morning who says,”Last night I had a very very deep sleep without any dreams”? Who?

There must be a witness to it who stands aside, who always stands aside and goes on looking.

Waking comes, dreaming comes, sleep comes – and somebody stands by the side and goes on looking. Only this is the real, because it exists in every state. Other states disappear, but it has to remain in every state, it is the only permanent thing in you.

Attain to this witness more and more. Become more and more alert, and become more and more a witness. Rather than being an actor in the world, you be a witness, a spectator. Everything else is a dream, only the dreamer is the truth. He has to be true, otherwise where will dreams happen? He’s,the base; illusions can happen only because... if he is there.

And once you remember, you start laughing. What type of life existed without remembering? You,were a drunkard, moving from one state to another, not knowing why, drifting with no direction.

But:

THE DARKNESS OF AGES – CANNOT SHROUD THE GLOWING SUN; – THE LONG KALPAS

OF SAMSARA...

many many ages, aeons of this world, kalpas,

 Osho - Tantra: The Supreme Understanding THE NATURE OF DARKNESS AND OF LIGHT