Osho - Sri Aurobindo is a strange case. He knows everything about enlightenment, but he is not enlightened. He is one of the greatest scholars of this age, a genius; vast is his knowledge. But his knowing is nil. He knows about the scriptures, and he knows better than anybody else. His interpretation is profound, very logical, but heartless. It is dead; it is not coming out of his own realization.
This is one of the great problems for all seekers of truth: one can get lost in knowledge without knowing anything about the reality. He knows all the theories, all the philosophies, but he is just a blind man who knows everything about light but has not seen the light himself. And it is possible to remain in a deception for your whole life -- because you know so much, and people start worshipping you, people start believing you. And belief has its own psychology: if many people believe in you, you are bound to believe in yourself.
I have often told a small story about a great journalist who died and reached the doors of heaven. The doors of heaven and hell are not far apart; they are just opposite each other. The distance is not much, and naturally one would like to enter heaven. So he knocked on the door. The doorkeeper opened a small window in the door and asked, "What do you want?"
He said, "I am a great journalist. I have just died, and I want to enter."
The doorkeeper said, "I am sorry but I have to refuse you -- because we have a quota; we can have only twelve journalists in heaven. That quota has been filled for centuries -- for centuries, no new journalist has entered. And anyway, even those twelve are utterly useless because nothing happens in heaven. They tried to publish a newspaper, but only one issue appeared -- because there are only saints here -- no murder, no suicide, no crime, no politics, no struggle for power... no change ever happens; everything is eternally the same. From where can you get news?"
"And," the doorkeeper said, "you must have heard the definition of news: when a dog bites a man it is not news, but when a man bites a dog it is news. So nothing sensational happens here, no love affair... When people get bored, they read the first issue that was published centuries ago.
"You should go to hell. Every moment tremendous things happen there. All the active people of the world, all the creative people of the world are there -- painters, musicians, poets, actors, dancers, thieves, murderers, rapists, psychoanalysts, philosophers -- you will find every variety.
"Heaven is monotonous. Only dull, dead saints -- skeletons. Their only quality is that they don't do anything. So just go to hell and enjoy. You will find everything that you may have missed on earth -- because for centuries upon centuries, all the juicy people have collected there. In fact, I myself want to go... but once you get into heaven, you cannot escape. So I am stuck here. My suggestion is that you just go."
But journalists are stubborn people. He said, "I have a suggestion, and I think you must be compassionate enough to do it for me. Just give me twenty-four hours' entry. If I can convince one of the journalists inside to go to hell then you can put me in the quota; twelve journalists will remain twelve."
The gatekeeper said, "It is unheard of, there is no precedent. But I cannot say no to you. Go in, have a try. But remember, after twenty-four hours.... I am taking a risk. After twenty-four hours, come back."
After twenty-four hours he came back. In those twenty-four hours he had created a rumor among all the journalists: "A big newspaper is going to be started in hell and there is great need for editors, sub-editors, story writers, all kinds of journalists. The salaries are great. So what are you doing HERE?"
After twenty-four hours when the journalist came to the gate, the gatekeeper said, "Go back. You cannot go out now."
The journalist said, "Why not?"
The gatekeeper said, "I have kept my word, and you have to keep your word. You were very convincing. All twelve journalists have gone. I tried hard to explain that `This is just a rumor; don't spoil your heaven.' But they wouldn't listen."
The man himself had created the rumor, but he had started thinking perhaps there was something in it; otherwise twelve persons wouldn't go to hell for no reason.
He said, "Just open the door!" He was convinced by others being convinced. And this happens to millions of people.
When you see that seven hundred million people are convinced that Catholic Christianity is the only religion, it is difficult to say that those seven hundred million people can be wrong. The sheer number has such weight.
That's why all the religions go on trying to increase their numbers. They have their methods to increase their numbers because the more you increase the numbers the more you convince those who are not in your fold that they are wrong and you are right. Your sheer majority is an argument; it validates anything you say.
Sri Aurobindo was a great intellectual, a very convincing, rational philosophical genius. He convinced many people, and those many people convinced him that he was enlightened.
He knows nothing of enlightenment. It is true that there is something more in existence than the enlightenment Gautam the Buddha achieved. But it is Gautam the Buddha himself who, for the first time in the world, indicated the possibility of the beyond. Naturally, nobody else can say that there is something beyond -- unless they reach that boundary.
So when Sri Aurobindo says there is something more than the enlightenment of Gautam Buddha, he is hiding the fact that it was Gautam Buddha himself who was the first man in the whole of history to say that "This is not all; there is something beyond."
Buddha says -- and you can see the sincerity of the man -- that "A man who has entered the path, srotapanna, who has entered the stream that leads to the ocean, is millions of times more respectable than anybody else, just because he has entered the path in search of the truth. He has not found, but just the urge, just the effort, the first step, and he has become millions of times more honorable than all your respectable generals, kings, emperors and world conquerors.
"The person who has reached the point from which he will not turn back, anagamin, is millions of times more honorable than the srotapanna, than the one who has entered the stream. And the man who has become enlightened, who has become a buddha, is millions of times more honorable than the person who has reached the point of no return."
The point of no return is something worth understanding.
Many people start the search and then drop out. It is arduous, it is moving into the unknown; nobody knows whether there is anything like enlightenment or just a fiction created by a few people like Gautam Buddha. Perhaps they are not lying, perhaps they themselves are deceived -- who knows? There is no guarantee.
So many start, but very few remain. Most of them return to the world. Sooner or later, finding that they are going into an unknown territory without a map, without any guide, they start feeling crazy. Because the whole world is going in a totally different direction, and they are left alone. Their whole strength was in the crowd. Alone, a thousand and one doubts arise. Alone, one starts feeling that millions of people cannot be wrong, "And I am alone, thinking that I am right -- I must be getting crazy."
Anagamin is one who has come to a point from where he cannot return. He is not enlightened but he has seen, from far away, the possibility. He has not reached the peak; he is still in the dark valley. But he can see the sunlit peak; it is a reality, it is not a fiction. Now there is no force in the world which can make him go back.
Buddha says, "But the one who has become enlightened is millions of times more honorable than the person who has reached the point of no return."
And here is the sincerity of the man -- he says: "The man who has transcended buddhahood, who has gone beyond enlightenment, is millions of times more honorable than anyone who is enlightened." He is not claiming that he has gone beyond; he is simply saying "I can see from my place that faraway star."
And he was the first to see that faraway star: beyond enlightenment.
Sri Aurobindo is not sincere. He never quotes this passage, which was his duty to quote. He tries to convince his readers and followers that he is working to open the door beyond enlightenment. He is not even courageous enough to declare himself... to say that he is enlightened. He never declared that. But only indirectly... he is assuming that you will understand that he is enlightened because he is trying to open the door beyond enlightenment. Naturally he must be enlightened, but he is not saying it. To declare it needs courage, not scholarship.
He gives a hint, as if he is enlightened and he is working for others so that they can also go beyond enlightenment. They have not even reached enlightenment. It is hilarious, the very idea that he is trying to open the door... his whole life's aspiration.
All his aspirations were stupid.
This is stupid because others will need that door only if they have become enlightened. First help people to become enlightened! Rather than helping people to become enlightened, you are devoting your whole energy to opening the door beyond enlightenment. And it is not only on this point that he was talking nonsense, he was talking nonsense on many points.
Another of his aspirations was physical immortality; he was working so that man can become physically immortal. Naturally you will think he has become physically immortal -- these are natural assumptions. And his followers all over the world started spreading the great news, the good news, that Sri Aurobindo had become physically immortal: "Now he is trying to find the right techniques so that every human being can become physically immortal." And then one day he died.
One of my friends was living in Sri Aurobindo's ashram. I phoned him immediately and asked him, "What happened?"
But such is blindness... he said, "Here in the ashram everybody was shocked. But the mother of the ashram told us that he has simply gone into a long samadhi. He is not dead; it is part of his project to find immortality. He has found all, but just for the last, missing link he has to go into deep samadhi, to dive deep into the ocean." And he told me that everybody believed it!
For three days they did not cremate his body or bury his body because they believed that he would be coming back. But in three days the body started stinking. Then they became afraid that if the news spread that the body was stinking...
The man was dead, he was not going to come back. After three days they put his body into a marble grave.
Still they did not burn his body because he might come back at any moment. The really faithful ones still believe that one day he will come back. And the whole belief shifted towards the mother -- she was the co-partner in the business of finding immortality for humanity. And it looked as if she had found it, because she lived for almost a century. It seemed probable; perhaps she had found it. And she was saying that she was going to live forever.
Now this is the beautiful thing about spirituality: I can say to you that I am going to live forever and tomorrow I can die -- who are you going to argue with? And one day the mother died. Again the same thing: they waited for three days, and when the body started stinking, she was put into another marble grave next to Sri Aurobindo. And the faithful ones still sit beside the graves every day, waiting for them to return. Slowly slowly, the number of faithful ones is lessening. The hope is turning into hopelessness, into despair. Perhaps they have not yet found the missing link together. It is enough that man has an immortal soul, an immortal consciousness, an immortal life principle.
But Sri Aurobindo was obsessed with the idea that he had to bring some original contribution to the spiritual progress of humanity. That the human soul is immortal is as ancient an experience as humanity itself. Even the VEDAS, five thousand years old, declare man as amritasya putrah -- "you are sons of immortality." Something new, something original... and this was a great original idea, that your body can be immortal.
Sandip Jadhav I would like to hear your views on the same questiongs?
Santthosh Kumaar All agendas are within the illusion, which appears in the form of mind or universe or waking experience. The self is within the illusion as its formless substance and it is without the illusion as its formless witness. The formless witness is the one which witnesses the body and universe together. Thus the ordinary awareness is physical awareness [waking] is not self-awareness. In self-awareness the body is not the body but it is the consciousness, the ego is not ego but it is the consciousness, the world is not the world but it is the consciousness even though they exist but their unreal nature is exposed. Just as the dream becomes unreal when waking takes place, the waking also becomes unreal when nondual wisdom dawns. The witness [knower] is that witnesses the coming and going of the three states. This truth has to be grasped mentally to realize the existence of the formless witness. Once this truth is grasped mentally, then one has to cling to the formless witness. Once one clings to this formless witness mentally than the subconscious has the yardstick to accept the truth and reject the untruth. Thus deeper self-search is necessary to understand, assimilate to have firm conviction of what is what in order to get self-awareness. .
