Is Everything a

Dream?
t Think that all phenomena are like dreams....

t
he mind is he mind is nothing but dreams and dreams --
nothing but dreams of the past, dreams of the future, dreams
dreams and of how things should be, dreams of great
ambitions, achievements. Dreams and desires, that
dreams -- dreams
is the stuff the mind is made of. But it surrounds
of the past, you like a China Wall. And because of it the fish remains
dreams of the unaware of the ocean.
future, dreams The sutra:
of how things Think that all phenomena are like dreams....
Now the work starts. Atisha is very condensed, seed-
should be,
like. That is the meaning of a sutra: it is just a thread, just a
dreams of great hint, and then you have to decode it.
ambitions, Think that all phenomena are like dreams.
achievements. "Phenomena" means all that you see, all that you
Dreams and experience. All that can ever be experienced is all
phenomena. Remember, not only are the objects of the
desires, that is the
world phenomena and dreams, but also objects of
stuff the mind is consciousness. They may be objects of the world, they may
made of. be just objects of the mind. They may be great spiritual
experiences. You may see kundalini rising in you: that too

04
OCTOBER 2009 05
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 tremendously 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 immediately
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
06
if the seen is a dream, then who is
this 'I'? If the object is a dream, then
the subject is also a dream. If the
object is false, howcan the subject
be the truth? 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 by-
product of the illusion that
w
atch
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.
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 -- a very
paradoxical experience, but of great
benefit.
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; you were not really awake.
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.
But if the dream has
disappeared because awareness
happened, suddenly you became
aware in the dream.... And
remember, awareness and
dreaming cannot exist together.
Here, awareness arises, and there,
the dream disappears. When you
become awake in your sleep, the
next morning is going to be
something so important that it is
incomparable. Nothing like it has
ever happened. Your eyes will be so
clear, so transparent, and
everything will seem so
psychedelic, so colourful, so alive.
Even rocks will be felt to be
breathing, pulsating; even rocks
will have a heartbeat. When you are
awake, the entire existence changes
its quality. We are living in a dream.
We are asleep, even when we think
we are awake.
Think that all phenomena are like
dreams....
First, objects will lose their
objectivity. And second, the subject
will lose its subjectivity. And that
brings you to a transcendence.
The object is no longer
important, the subject is no longer
important, then what is left? A
transcendental consciousness:
bodhichitta -- just a witnessing,
with no idea of 'I' and 'thou'; just a
pure mirror which reflects that
which is.
And God is nothing but that
which is.
The third sutra:
Examine the nature of unborn
awareness.
Now you know what awareness
is. You have known this
transcendental awareness where
Examine the nature of
unborn awareness
objects and subjects are no more
existential. You have known for the
first time this purity, this crystal-
clear mirror. Now examine the
nature of this awareness. Look into
it, look deep into it. Shake yourself
into as full alertness as possible.
Wake up and see! And you will
start laughing -- because now you
will see there has never been a
birth, and there is never going to be
a death. This is unborn and
undying consciousness. It has
always been here. It is eternal, it is
timeless. And how afraid you were
of death, and how afraid you were
of old age, and how afraid you
were of a thousand and one things!
And nothing has ever happened: all
was a dream. Seeing this, one
smiles, one laughs. Your whole life
up to now has been ridiculous,
absurd. You were unnecessarily
afraid, unnecessarily greedy,
unnecessarily suffering. You were
living in a nightmare and it was
your own creation.
Examine the nature of unborn
awareness. And you are freed from
all misery, all suffering, all hell.
Let even the remedy itself go
free on its own. And now don't start
clinging to the remedy, to the
method. That temptation arises. It is
the last temptation, the very last
effort of the mind to survive. The
mind comes from a back door, it
tries once more. Before it
disappears forever, it makes one
more effort, and that effort is to
cling to the method -- the method of
thinking that all phenomena are
dreams. It has given you such joy,
such a deep experience of reality,
that naturally wish to cling to it.
And once you cling you are back
in the same old rut again: the mind
is back in disguise. Cling to
anything and the mind is back,
because clinging is the mind. Hold
on to anything, depend on
anything, and the mind is back,
because the mind is dependence,
slavery. Possess anything -- even a
spiritual method, even a method of
meditation -- become a possessor,
and you are possessed by it.
Whether you possess money or you
possess a tremendously significant
method of meditation, it doesn't
matter.
Whatever you possess, you will
be possessed by it and you will be
afraid to lose it.
Once a Sufi mystic was brought
to me. For thirty years continuously,
he had used the Sufi method Zikr,
and he had attained great
OCTOBER 2009 07

experiences. One could see it; even
ordinary people were aware that he
lived in a totally different world.
You could see it in his eyes, they
were shining with joy. His very
being had a vibe of the beyond.
His disciples brought him to me,
and they said, "Our master is a
realised soul. What do you say
about him?"
I said, "Leave your master with
me for three days, and then come
back." The master stayed with me
for three days. On the third day he
was very angry, and he said, "You
have destroyed my thirty years'
work!"
Because I told him a simple
thing -- just this sutra of Atisha: Let
even the remedy itself go I told him,
"Now for thirty years you have
remembered one thing, that all is
divine. The tree is God, the rock is
God, the people are God, the dog is
God, everything is God -- for thirty
years you have been remembering
it continuously." And he had really
made a sincere effort.
He said, "Yes."
I said, "Now stop remembering.
How long are you going to
remember? If it has happened, then
stop remembering and let us see
what happens. If it has really
happened, then even after dropping
remembering, it will remain."
It was so logical that he agreed.
He said, "It has happened." I said,
"Then give it a try. For three days
08
t he mind always
functions in an
eccentric way,
the mind is always
an idiot. The really
intelligent person
has no mind.
Intelligence arises
out of no-mind,
idiocy out of the
mind. The mind is
idiotic,
no-mind is wise.
No-mind is
wisdom,
intelligence.
you forget remembering, stop
remembering."
He said, "I cannot stop, it has
become automatic."
I said, "You just wait and try." It
took him at least two days, forty-
eight hours, to stop. It was hard to
stop, it had become automatic.
There was now no need to
remember; for thirty years he had
been remembering, it was simply
there like an undercurrent. But
within forty-eight hours it stopped.
And on the morning of the third
day he was very angry. He said,
"What have you done? All that joy
has disappeared. I am feeling very
ordinary, I am feeling the same as I
was before I started on the journey
thirty years ago." He began crying
out of anger and out of sadness;
tears came to his eyes. He said,
"Give me back my method -- please
don't take it!"
I said, "Just look! If this is so
dependent on the method, then
nothing has happened. It is just an
illusion that you are creating by
continuous remembering. This is
nothing but auto-hypnosis."
All the great masters say this,
that one day you have to drop the
method. And the sooner you drop
it, the better. The moment you
attain, the moment awareness is
released in you, immediately drop
the method. Just look: this is only
the fourth sutra. In the third sutra
Atisha says: Examine the nature of
unborn awareness.
Let even the remedy itself go....
Now no more examination, no
more mindfulness, no more
remembering that all is a dream.
Once the first taste of awareness has
happened on your tongue, be
quick! Because the mind is very
cunning -- the mind can start telling
you, "Look, you are no longer
ordinary, you are extraordinary.
Look, you have attained. Look, you
have become a Buddha, you are
enlightened. Look, this is the goal
of all human beings, and very
rarely, one in a million attains. You
are that one in a million."
The mind will say all these
beautiful sweet nothings, and of
course the ego can come back. You
can start feeling very good, holier
than thou. You can start feeling
special, spiritual, saintly. And all is
lost. Through the remedy, the
disease is back. Cling to the remedy,
and the disease is back. One has to
be very alert about dropping the
method. Once you attain
something, immediately drop the
method, otherwise your mind will
start clinging to the method. It will
talk very logically to you, saying, "It
is the method that is important."
Buddha used to tell a story
repeatedly. Five idiots passed
through a village. Seeing them,
people were surprised, because
they were carrying a boat on their
heads. The boat was really big; it
almost crushed those five idiots,
they were almost dying under the
weight of it. And people asked,
"What are you doing?"
They said, "We cannot leave this
boat. This is the boat that helped us will carry it on our heads in sheer
to come from the other shore to this gratitude."
shore. How can we leave it? It is This can happen, because all
because of it that we have been able minds are idiots. The mind as such
to come here. Without it we would is idiotic. The origin of the word
have died on the other shore. The idiot is beautiful to remember.
night was coming close, and there Idiocy means something private,
were wild animals on the other something special, something that
shore. It was as sure as anything is your own, something eccentric.
that by the morning we would have That is the basic meaning of idiocy -
been dead. We will never leave this - to function in an eccentric way.
boat, we are indebted forever. We The mind always functions in an
eccentric way, the mind is always
an idiot. The really intelligent
person has no mind. Intelligence
o nce you have
seen your dream
arises out of no-mind, idiocy out of
the mind. The mind is idiotic, no-
mind is wise. No-mind is wisdom,
intelligence. The mind depends on
knowledge, on methods, on money,
disappearing
on experience, on this and that. The
because you have mind always needs props, it needs
become aware of supports, it can not exist on its own.
the dream, your On its own, it flops.
quality of So the ultimate effort of the
consciousness mind to come back will be when
you attain some awareness. It will
will have a new say, "Look, so we have arrived." The
flavour to it. The moment something inside you says,
next morning you "We have arrived," beware! Be very
will wake up very cautious now, each step has to
with a totally be of great caution.
different quality Osho
you had never The Book of Wisdom,
known before. Chapter 1
You will wake up
for the first time. Read or Listen to
Full Discourse on
www.oshoworld.com
OCTOBER 2009 09