Osho Rajneesh Book "The Ultimate Alchemy, Vol 2"

The Ultimate Alchemy, Vol 2

The Lamp of Awareness
3 July 1972 pm in

CHIDADITYA SWAROOPAM DEEPAH

”TO BE ESTABLISHED IN THE SUN OF AWARENESS IS THE ONLY LAMP.”

ONE DAY a lady came to Mulla Nasrudin’s school with her small child, her son. The lady asked

Mulla to frighten the boy. He had become unruly and he would not listen to anyone. He needed to

be frightened by some big authority. Of course, Mulla was a big authority in his village. He assumed

a very frightening posture. His eyes were bulging, all fiery, and he began to jump. The lady felt,

”Now it is impossible to stop the Mulla – he may even kill the boy.”

The lady fainted, the boy escaped, and Mulla became so frightened of himself he had to run out of

the school. He waited outside and the lady came back. Then he entered, slowly, silently, seriously.

The lady said, ”Mulla, it is strange! I never asked you to frighten ME.”

Mulla said, ”You do not see the real fact. It was not only you who was frightened; I myself was

frightened of myself. When fear takes over, it destroys all. To start it is easy, but to control it is

difficult. So I was the master when I started, but soon fear took over and it was the master and I was

the slave; I could not do anything. And, moreover, fear has no favourites. When it strikes, it strikes

all.”

This is a beautiful parable, one which shows a deep insight into the human mind. You are conscious

in everything just in the beginning, and then the unconscious takes over. The unconscious takes

charge and the unconscious becomes the master. You can start anger, but you can never end

it. Rather, the anger ends you. You can start anything, but sooner or later the unconscious takes

charge; you are relieved of your duty. So only the beginning is in your hands, never the end. And

you are not the master of the consequences that follow.

This is natural because only a very small fragment of the mind is aware. It works just like a starter

in your motor car. It starts, and then it is of no use; then the motor takes it over. It is needed only to

start; without it, it is difficult to start. But do not go on thinking that because you start a certain thing

you are the master. This is the secret of this parable. Because you started, you begin to feel that

you are the master. Because you started, you think you could have stopped.

You may not have started, that is another thing, but once started soon the voluntary becomes the

non-voluntary and the conscious becomes unconscious, because the conscious is just the upper

layer, just the surface of the mind, and nearly the whole mind is unconscious. You start, and the

unconscious begins to move and work.

So Mulla said, ”I am not responsible for what has happened, I am not responsible! I am responsible

only for starting, and it is you who told me to start. I started to frighten the boy, then the boy was

frightened, then you fainted, then I was frightened, and then everything was a mess.”

Everything is a mess in our lives also, with the conscious starting and the unconscious taking over

every time. If you do not feel it, if you do not realize it, this mechanism, you will always be a slave.

and the slavery becomes more convenient if you go on thinking that you are the master. It is difficult

to be a slave knowingly, knowing that you are a slave. It is easy to be a slave when you go on

deceiving yourself that you are the master – of your love, your anger, your greed, your jealousy, your

violence, your cruelty; even your sympathy and your compassion.

I say ”your”, but it is yours only in the beginning. Just for a moment, just a spark is yours. Then

your mechanism has started, and your whole mechanism is unconscious. Why is this so? Why this

conflict between the conscious and the unconscious? And there is a conflict. You cannot predict

even about yourself. Even you, your acts, are unpredictable to you, because you do not know what

is going to happen, you do not know what you are going to do. You are not even aware of what you

are going to do the next moment because the doer is deep in darkness. You are not the doer. You

are only a starting point. Unless your whole mechanism becomes conscious, you will be a problem

to yourself and a hell. There will be nothing but a long misery.

As I have been emphasizing daily, one can become whole in only two ways. The first is that you can

lose the fragmentary consciousness, throw this fragment of the mind which has become conscious,

into the dark unconscious, dissolve it, and you are whole. But then you are just like an animal, and

that is impossible. Whatsoever you may do, it is not possible. It is conceivable, but not possible. You

will be thrown forward again and again.

That small part which has become conscious cannot become unconscious again. It is like an egg

which has become a hen. Now the hen cannot move back to be an egg again. A seed which has

sprouted has begun the journey to be a tree. Now it cannot go back; it cannot regress and become

a seed. A child which has come out of the womb of his mother cannot now go back, no matter how

pleasant the womb may be.

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