Your mind is nothing but dreams — of the past and future, of how things should be, of great ambitions and achievements, says OSHO
Think that all phenomena are like dreams. The mind is nothing but dreams and dreams — dreams of the past, dreams of the future, dreams of how things should be, dreams of great ambitions, achievements. Dreams and desires, these are the stuff the mind is made of.
“Phenomena” means all that you see, all that you experience. All that can ever be experienced is all phenomena. Remember, not only are the objects of the world phenomena and dreams, but also objects of consciousness. They may be objects of the world, they may be just objects of the mind. They may be great spiritual experiences. You may see kundalini rising in you: that too is a phenomenon — a beautiful dream, a very sweet dream, but it is a dream all the same. You may see great light flooding your being, but that light is also a phenomenon.
You may see lotuses blooming inside you and a great fragrance arising within your being: Those too are phenomena, because you are always the seer and never the seen, always the experience and never the experienced, always the witness and never the witnessed. All that can be witnessed, seen, observed, is phenomena. Material phenomena, psychological phenomena, spiritual phenomena — they are all the same.
There is no need to make any distinction. The basic thing to remember is: That which can be seen is a dream. Think that all phenomena are like dreams... This is a powerful technique. Start contemplating in this way: If you are walking on the street, contemplate that people passing by are all dreams. The shops, shopkeepers, customers and the people coming and going, are all dreams. The houses, the buses, the train, the airplane, all are dreams. You will be surprised by something of tremendous import happening within you. The moment you think “All are dreams” suddenly, like a flash, one thing comes into your vision: “I am a dream too.” Because if the seen is a dream, then who is this ‘I’IJ If the object is a dream, then the subject is also a dream. If the object is false, how can the subject be the truthIJ Impossible.
If you watch everything as a dream, suddenly you will find something slipping out of your being: the idea of the ego. This is the only way to drop the ego, and the simplest. Just try it — meditate this way. Meditating this way again and again, one day the miracle happens: you look in, and the ego is not found there. The ego is a by-product, a byproduct of the illusion that whatever you are seeing is true. If you think that objects are true, then the ego can exist; it is a by-product. If you think that objects are dreams, the ego disappears. And if you think continuously that all is a dream, then one day, in a dream at night, you will be surprised: suddenly in the dream you will remember that this is a dream too! And immediately, as the remembrance happens, the dream will disappear. And for the first time you will experience yourself deep asleep, yet awake.
Once you have seen your dream disappearing because you have become aware of the dream, your quality of consciousness will have a new flavour to it. The next morning you will wake up with a totally different quality you had never known before. You will wake up for the first time. Now you will know that all those other mornings were false. The dreams continued — the only difference was that at night you were dreaming with eyes closed, during the day you were dreaming with eyes open.
Excerpts from Osho’s The Book of Wisdom
