Osho on ‘Who Am I’ Question

Aik TC SG

Question - Osho, Please, In the Question”WHO AM I?” What does “I” mean? Does it mean the essence of Life?

Osho - Hermann Sander, “WHO AM I?” IS NOT REALLY A QUESTION because it has no answer to it; it is unanswerable. It is a device, not a question. It is used as a mantra. When you constantly inquire inside, “Who am I? Who am I?” you are not waiting for an answer. Your mind will supply many answers; all those answers have to be rejected.

Your mind will say, “You are the essence of life. You are the eternal soul. You are divine,” and so on and so forth. All those answers have to be rejected: NETI NETI — one has to go on saying, “Neither this nor that.”

When you have denied all the possible answers that the mind can supply and devise, when the question remains absolutely unanswerable, a miracle happens: suddenly the question also disappears. When all the answers have been rejected, the question has no props, no supports inside to stand on any more. It simply flops, it collapses, it disappears.

When the question also has disappeared, then you know. But that knowing is not an answer: it is an existential experience. Nothing can be said about it, or whatever will be said will be wrong. To say anything about it is to falsify it. It is the ultimate mystery, inexpressible, indefinable. No word is adequate enough to describe it.

Even the phrase “essence of life” is not adequate; even “God” is not adequate. Nothing is adequate to express it; its very nature is inexpressible. But you know. You know exactly the way the seed knows how to grow — not like the professor who knows about chemistry or physics or geography or history, but like the bud which knows how to open in the early morning sun. Not like the priest who knows about God; about and about he goes, around and around he goes.

Knowledge is beating around the bush: knowing is a direct penetration. But the moment you directly penetrate into existence, you disappear as a separate entity. You are no more. When the KNOWER is no more then the knowing is. And the knowing is not ABOUT something — you are that knowing itself.

So I cannot say, Sander, what “I” means in the question “Who am I?” It means nothing! It is just a device to lead you into the unknown, to lead you into the uncharted, to lead you into that which is not available to the mind. It is a sword to cut the very roots of the mind, so only the silence of no-mind is left. In that silence there is no question, no answer, no knower, no known, but only knowing, only experiencing.

That’s why the mystics appear to be in such difficulty to express it. Many of them have remained silent out of the awareness that whatsoever you say goes wrong; the moment you say it, it goes wrong. Those who have spoken, they have spoken with the condition: “Don’t cling to our words.”

Lao Tzu says: “Tao, once described, is no more the real Tao.” The moment you say something about it you have already falsified it, you have betrayed it. It is such an intimate knowing, incommunicable.

“Who am I?” functions like a sword to cut all the answers that the mind can manage. Zen people will say it is a koan, just like other koans. There are many koans, famous koans. One is: “Find out your original face.” And the disciple asks the Master, “What is the original face?” And the Master says, “The face that you had before your parents were born.”

And you start meditating on that: “What is your original face?” Naturally, you have to deny all your faces. Many faces will start surfacing: childhood faces, when you were young, when you became middle-aged, when you became old, when you were healthy, when you were ill…. All kinds of faces will stand in a queue. They will pass before your eyes claiming, “I am the original face.” And you have to go on rejecting.

When all the faces have been rejected and emptiness is left, you have found the original face. Emptiness is the original face. Zero is the ultimate experience. Nothingness — or more accurately NO-THINGNESS — is your original face.

Or another famous koan is: “The sound of one hand clapping.” The Master says to the disciple, “Go and listen to the sound of one hand clapping.” Now this is patent absurdity: one hand cannot clap and without clapping there can be no sound. The Master knows it, the disciple knows it. But when the Master says, “Go and meditate on it,” the disciple has to follow.

He starts making efforts to listen to the sound of one hand clapping. Many sounds come to his mind: the birds singing, the sound of running water…. He rushes immediately to the Master; he says, “I have heard it! The sound of running water — isn’t that the sound of one hand clapping? And the Master hits him hard on the head and he says, “You fool! Go back, meditate more!”

And he goes on meditating, and the mind goes on providing new answers: “The sound of wind passing through the pine trees — certainly this is the answer.” He is in such a hurry! Everybody is in such a hurry. Impatiently he rushes to the door of the Master, a little bit apprehensive, afraid too, but maybe this is the answer….

And even before he has said a single thing the Master hits him! He is very much puzzled and he says, “This is too much! I have not even uttered a single word, so how can I be wrong? And why are you hitting me?”

The Master says, “It is not a question of whether you have uttered something or not. You have come with an answer — that is enough proof that you must be wrong. When you have REALLY found it you won’t come; there will be no need. I will come to you.”

Sometimes years pass, and then one day it has happened, there is no answer. First the disciple knew that there was no answer to it, but it was only an intellectual knowing. Now he knows from his very core: “There is no answer!” All answers have evaporated.

And the sure sign that all answers have evaporated is only one: when the question also evaporates. Now he is sitting silently doing nothing, not even meditating. He has forgotten the question: “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” It is no more there. It is PURE silence.

And there are ways…there are inner paths which exist between a Master and a disciple. And now the Master rushes towards the disciple. He knocks on his door. He hugs the disciple and says, “So it has happened? This is it! No answer, no question: this is it. Ah, this!”

Aik TC SG

AEN - Come across above article before?

sinweiy SG

“WHO AM I?” IS NOT REALLY A QUESTION because it has no answer to it; it is unanswerable. It is a device, not a question. It is used as a mantra. When you constantly inquire inside, “Who am I? Who am I?” you are not waiting for an answer. Your mind will supply many answers; all those answers have to be rejected.

indeed, like the koan posted before 万法归一，一归何处？

http://buddhism.sgforums.com/forums/1728/topics/415249

reborn76 SG

oops!!! I m afraid OSHO teaching is not Buddhism in nature so it will be good if you post this article in new age forum for better respond.

sinweiy SG

lol, i thought i saw "Ohio", a state in US, and the teaching is from Hermann Sander.

used to read Osho's philosophy before, and ya, AEN did mentioned, it's not main stream buddhism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osho_(Bhagwan_Shree_Rajneesh

Influenced by

Mahavira
Gautama Buddha
Lao Tzu
Guru Nanak
Krishna
G. I. Gurdjieff
Zen

realization SG

oops!!! I m afraid OSHO teaching is not Buddhism in nature so it will be good if you post this article in new age forum for better respond.

I've read some of Osho's stuff before. To me it sounded like his philosophy has no fixed rules and consists of abstract speculation from a variety of sources, and also a bit 故弄玄虚 (be deliberately mystifying).

At first, I wasn't sure. But what convinced me was these few paragraphs.

"There is a subtle balance somewhere. In fact, for each man a woman exists; for each woman a man exists – they are part of one whole. Whenever one man becomes enlightened, one woman has to become also. Because one man is freed out of existence, now he will not be coming back; he will no more enter into a womb, into the world. Somewhere one woman has to be relieved of the bondage. So this is my reading: as many men as women, the same number, have become enlightened, but women are not known because they don’t make a fuss about it. They enjoy it."

(edited to shorten Osho quote)

realization SG

lol, i thought i saw "Ohio", a state in US, and the teaching is from Hermann Sander.

Aiyo... u so funny. Haha!

Dawnfirstlight SG

indeed, like the koan posted before 万法归一，一归何处？

http://buddhism.sgforums.com/forums/1728/topics/415249

My Zen Master said we should keep on contemplating on 万法归一，一归何处 or Who is the one that is dragging the corpse. Hopefully one day, we will be enlightened. He said there were many who contemplated for many years and were enlightened suddenly. I still don't get what he meant. How come there is no answer ? Can the person who has enlightened tell us who is the one dragging the corpse and 一归哪里？Or is it enlightenment is 只能体会，不能言语.

By the way, are you guys contemplating on these koan everyday ?

Aik TC SG

oops!!! I m afraid OSHO teaching is not Buddhism in nature so it will be good if you post this article in new age forum for better respond.

I am only interested in posting specific article that is of relevant to Buddhism. Who wrote it frankly, does not matter to me. Anyway thanks for your suggestion.

sinweiy SG

By the way, are you guys contemplating on these koan everyday ?

not really. have u read before Shurangama Sutra (with the Commentary of the Venerable Master Hsuan Hua)?

http://online.sfsu.edu/~rone/Buddhism/Shurangama/Shurangama.htm

if not:

http://www.purifymind.com/ShurangamaSutra.htm

http://www.e-sangha.com/alphone/shurangama.html

think can read the potion where Buddha asked Ananda where's the mind is and Ananda is so wise to name many "places" in the body, but the Buddha rejected all of them.

sinweiy SG

Aiyo... u so funny. Haha!

:) learn Buddhism is to become happy mah... hehe..

i can only recall Osho's article on how to help to cure people who had an addiction, eg smoking. and that's to go slow motion and mindful when smoking.

realization SG

OSHO: Hermann Sander, “WHO AM I?” IS NOT REALLY A QUESTION because it has no answer to it; it is unanswerable. It is a device, not a question. It is used as a mantra. When you constantly inquire inside, “Who am I? Who am I?” you are not waiting for an answer. Your mind will supply many answers; all those answers have to be rejected.

Master Hsu Yun says don't use koan as a mantra:

In the hua t'ou: ‘Who is repeating the Buddha’s name?’ emphasis should be laid upon the word ‘Who’, the other words serving only to give a general idea of the whole sentence. For instance in the questions: ‘Who is wearing this robe and eating rice?’, ‘Who is going to stool and is urinating?’, ‘Who is putting an end to ignorance?’, and ‘Who is able to know and feel?’, as soon as one lays emphasis upon the word ‘Who’, while one is walking or standing, sitting or reclining, one will be able to give rise to a doubt without difficulty and without having to use one’s faculty of thought to think and discriminate. Consequently the word ‘Who’ of the hua t’ou is a wonderful technique in Ch’an training.

However, one should not repeat the word ‘Who’ or the sentence ‘Who is repeating the Buddha’s name?’ like, adherents of the Pure Land School, who repeat the Buddha’s name. Neither should one set one’s thinking and discriminating mind on searching for him who repeats the Buddha’s name. There are some people who unremittingly repeat the sentence: ‘Who is repeating the Buddha’s name?’; it would be far better merely to repeat Amitabha Buddha’s name, as do followers of the Pure Land School, for this will give greater merits. There are others who indulge in thinking of a lot of things and seek after everything here and there, and call this the rising of a doubt; they do not know that the more they think, the more their false thinking will increase, just like someone who wants to ascend but is really descending. You should know all this.

web source: http://buddhismnow.wordpress.com/2009/12/22/hua-tou/

___________________

OSHO: Your mind will say, “You are the essence of life. You are the eternal soul. You are divine,” and so on and so forth. All those answers have to be rejected: NETI NETI — one has to go on saying, “Neither this nor that.”

When you have denied all the possible answers that the mind can supply and devise, when the question remains absolutely unanswerable, a miracle happens: suddenly the question also disappears. When all the answers have been rejected, the question has no props, no supports inside to stand on any more. It simply flops, it collapses, it disappears.

Master Sheng Yen says:

In this method, you're actually not trying to solve the koan. Rather, the method involves asking the koan to give you the answer. A koan may be like, "What is wu [nothingness]?" So you keep asking and asking the koan to give you the answer to that question. But actually, it's impossible to answer. Of course, in the process of asking, your mind will give you answers, but whatever answer you get you have to reject. And you just stay with this method—keep asking and keep rejecting whatever answer comes up in your mind. In the end you will develop a sense of doubt. You will not be able to ask the koan anymore. In fact, it'll be meaningless to ask anymore. Then there is nothing to do except to finally put down the self and that is when enlightenment appears in front of you. But if you ask the koan and you simply get tired, if you can't get an answer and so you just stop, that's not enlightenment. That's just laziness.

web source: http://www.enlightennext.org/magazine/j17/sheng.asp?page=2

From the book "Sitting with Koans" (p. 84-5)

Doubt is the perplexity the student feels from his inabiity to resolve the riddle of (the koan). Doubt acts as the force that pressures the mind to break out of the complacency engendered by its habitual ways of thinking. Doubt places the person at a disconcerting loss, for he soon finds that his ordinary ratiocinative processes are inadequate to the task of penetrating the hua-t'ou. Because the person ordinarily assumes that he is in control (a notion attacked in Buddhism's virulent critiques of the theologies positing an eternal self, of atman), the insecurity created by the hua-t'ou becomes frustrating and unnerving, a feeling akin to "a mosquito atop an iron ox." But it is precisely this sensation of doubt that hua-t'ou are intended to produce, and after it is present, their purpose is fulfilled.

... From this point, continued investigation of the doubt-cum-hua t'ou will eventually trap the mind in an unmoving state of perfect concentration. That is to say, when the sense of frustration over one's inability to resolve the hua-t'ou through ordinary logic has brought an end to random thought, intense one-pointedness of mind is engendered, which eventually produced the experience of no-thought...

An Eternal Now SG

I think Realization basically said what I want to say.

I have not read Osho's article. I have also not read the quotes that Realization posted in the reply.

Basically, self-inquiry is not a mantra - it is a direct investigation to find out the real Self. Who am I? There is actually an answer, but this answer basically precedes all conceptual answers so it is indeed beyond the framework of conceptual questioning and answering. It can only be discovered, realized, as an immediate fact of Being.

Here's what I wrote in my e-book (Who am I? ) which should give you some pointers:

29th July 2010

Ramana Maharshi's books are good guides... you have all the pointers you need in that book for self-inquiry practice. In actual fact, the question ‘Who am I’ is itself an adequate pointer to self-realization, and a most potent one. That is all you need. The pointer ‘Who am I?’ will allow the practitioner to investigate his own experience and touch the Self directly.

But just an additional 2 cents from me:

You don't learn self-inquiry... it's not a technique that you master until perfection like visualization or yoga - self-inquiry is simply a tool, a question 'Who am I', that allows you to trace the mind back to its Source - and at that point the question itself dissolves. You do not need to master the thought 'Who am I' (what's there to master about it? it's just asking yourself 'Who am I', it's that simple!), you don't need to master the question or technique because the question/technique itself is not the point (though an important tool), rather, just allow the question to lead you back to the Source, to trace the radiance back to its Source as Zen Master Chinul puts it. The true Source of the radiance (all awareness) is upstream from all objects, mind or body… trace all perceptions to its Source by asking ‘Who am I?’ The thought ‘Who am I’ is simply a pointer, like a pointer to the moon, you don’t grasp/look at the pointer, but let the pointer direct you to look at the moon.

Ramana Maharshi puts it very well when he said: "By the inquiry 'Who am I?'. The thought 'who am I?' will destroy all other thoughts, and like the stick used for stirring the burning pyre, it will itself in the end get destroyed. Then, there will arise Self-realization."

It is simply an inquiry, an investigation, into 'Who am I?' And this investigation takes you to the core of your Being... it bypasses the mind and its conceptualizations - any mind made conceptual answer will ring hollow and are to be negated/dropped. All speculations, concepts, ideas have no certainty to it - it is merely theories of the mind and always have room for doubts - but the Essence of your Being that lies prior to the mind and the conceptualization rings with utter certainty and undeniability - when you realize who you are, you no longer can deny or doubt your Existence.

Notice that even Right Now... you are undeniably present, your being cannot be negated and is an irrefutable fact of existence. Pause all thoughts, and in that gap between thoughts, you are still effortlessly present and aware - your Being is nothing inert, it is pure aliveness, presence, clarity, vitality and intelligence. You cannot say you are not - undeniably, You Are... So what is This? What is this sense of existence and presence? Who am I? The question is simply a tool to turn the light around, so that Awareness withdraws its identification with thoughts and forms... to realize ItSelf, it's true identity. The question is not meant to be repeated or recited verbally like a mantra, rather it is simply a non-conceptual exploration, looking, investigation into the fact of your Being... your Existence... eventually all concepts and ideas and even the question 'Who am I' subside, and in that thoughtless gap You realize Who You Are...

Self-Knowing, Self-Shining Presence-Awareness reveals itself as your true identity, and there is no more doubts about it - only utter thoughtless certainty, authentication, still and unmoving ground of being and knowing.

An Eternal Now SG

At first, I wasn't sure. But what convinced me was these few paragraphs.

(edited to shorten Osho quote)

Haha... his quotes are sometimes funny and nonsensical ;) but he does have some insight...

If I am not wrong, Osho is still at the I AM level of realization, but he has experienced non-dual. As an insight, I am not so sure.

Here's more funny from osho lol http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6D7rWLzloOI

sinweiy SG

Here's more funny from osho lol http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6D7rWLzloOI

humourous... lol

geis SG

Haha... his quotes are sometimes funny and nonsensical ;) but he does have some insight...

If I am not wrong, Osho is still at the I AM level of realization, but he has experienced non-dual. As an insight, I am not so sure.

Here's more funny from osho lol http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6D7rWLzloOI

this is funny

realization SG

Haha... his quotes are sometimes funny and nonsensical ;) but he does have some insight...

If I am not wrong, Osho is still at the I AM level of realization, but he has experienced non-dual. As an insight, I am not so sure.

Here's more funny from osho lol http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6D7rWLzloOI

*LOL* Thank goodness I already swallowed my drink of water.

Weychin SG

Haha... his quotes are sometimes funny and nonsensical ;) but he does have some insight...

If I am not wrong, Osho is still at the I AM level of realization, but he has experienced non-dual. As an insight, I am not so sure.

Here's more funny from osho lol http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6D7rWLzloOI

Enjoyable, I have a ____ing good laugh!!!

Dawnfirstlight SG

Haha... his quotes are sometimes funny and nonsensical ;) but he does have some insight...

If I am not wrong, Osho is still at the I AM level of realization, but he has experienced non-dual. As an insight, I am not so sure.

Here's more funny from osho lol http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6D7rWLzloOI

Ha ha......... at the end of the clip, Osho was also smiling away. By the way, who is this guy. Where is he from ? India? His dressing look like from middle east.

An Eternal Now SG

He is Indian.