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Sobre el Libro The Hidden Harmony
Heraclitus says, "The hidden harmony is better than the obvious. Opposition brings concord. Out of discourse comes the fairest harmony. It is in changing that things find repose." Osho weaves together the fragments of the Greek mystic Heraclitus to reveal the startling implications of the difference between logic, Aristotle’s intellectual doctrine about what is true; and logos, the existential experience of truth which Heraclitus lived.
Del LibroThe Hidden Harmony
You Cannot Step into the Same River Twice
Osho: The Hidden Harmony, Chapter 11
Into the same rivers we step and do not step.
You cannot step twice in the same river.
Everything flows and nothing abides.
Everything gives way and no thing stays fixed.
Cool things become warm, the warm grows cool.
The moist dries, the parched becomes moist.
It is by disease that health is pleasant;
by evil that good is pleasant;
by hunger, satiety, by weariness, rest.
It is one and the same thing to be living or dead,
awake or asleep, young or old.
The former aspect in each case becomes the latter,
and the latter again the former,
by sudden unexpected reversal.
It throws apart
and then brings together again.
All things come in their due seasons.
Into the same rivers we step and do not step
because the appearance, and remember, only the appearance, remains the same. Otherwise, everything changes and flows.
Here is the basic difference between the ordinary religious conception and the really religious. Hindus say that that which changes is the appearance, the maya; and that which never changes, is permanent, is brahma. Heraclitus says just the opposite: that which appears permanent is the appearance, the maya, and that which changes is the brahma. And the same is the understanding of Buddha, that change is the only permanence, change is the only eternal phenomenon. Only change abides, nothing else. My feeling is also the same.
In search of a permanent truth you are searching for nothing but your own ego. In search of a permanent God, what are you seeking? You are seeking permanence in some way or other. You would like to abide so that if this world changes there is nothing to worry about. Your mind says: "Seek the divine and there will be no change, and you will live for ever and ever."
The ordinary religious conception -- Hindu, Jewish or Christian -- is basically an ego-trip. Why do you say that change is appearance? Because with change you are afraid. Change looks like death. You would like something absolutely permanent to stand upon. You would like a house that will be always and always. In this world you cannot find that house that abides. In this world you cannot find any relationship that abides. Then you project a relationship with God, because God abides, and with God you will abide. But this search, this desire, this seeking to abide forever -- this is the problem! Why do you want to be? Why not not be? Why are you so afraid of not being? If you are afraid of non-being, nothingness, emptiness, death, you cannot know the truth. One knows the true when one is ready to drop oneself totally, utterly.
That’s why Buddha says: "There is no soul. You are not a self, not an atma. You are an anatta, a no-self. There is nothing permanent in you, nothing substantial -- you are a flow, a river."
Why does Buddha insist on a no-self?
He insists because if you accept non-being, if you accept nothingness, then there is no fear of death, then you can drop yourself completely. And when you drop yourself completely, the vision arises. Then you are capable of knowing. With your ego you cannot know. Only in an egolessness, in a deep abyss, in the absence of the ego, does the perception happen -- then you become a mirror. With the ego you will always interpret, you cannot know the truth. With the ego you will always be there interpreting in subtle ways, and your interpretation is not the truth. You are the medium of all falsification. Through you everything becomes false. When you are not there, the true reflects.
Somehow you have to come to an understanding: the understanding of the no-self, of a changeless flux, no substance as such -- just a river flowing and flowing. Then you are a mirror, a clarity. Then there is nobody to disturb and nobody to interpret and nobody to distract. Then existence mirrors in you as it is. That mirroring of existence as it is, is the truth.
Second thing: if you want to abide always and always, you have not lived the moment. One who has lived his life truly, authentically, one who has enjoyed it, is always ready to die, is always ready to leave. One who has not enjoyed and celebrated, one who has not lived the moment, the life, is always afraid to leave because "the time has come to leave and I am yet unfulfilled." The fear of death is not the fear of death, it is a fear of remaining unfulfilled. You are going to die, and nothing, nothing at all could you experience through life -- no maturity, no growth, no flowering. Empty-handed you came, empty-handed you are going. This is the fear!
One who has lived is always ready to die. His readiness is not a forced attitude. His readiness is just like a flower. When the flower has flowered, has sent its perfume to the infinite corners of existence, enjoyed the moment, lived it, danced through the breeze, risen against the wind, looked at the sky, watched the sunrise, lived it, a fulfillment comes by the evening and the flower is ready to drop to the earth, to go back, to rest. And it is always beautiful -- when you have lived, rest is beautiful. It is the thing! The flower simply drops to the earth and goes to sleep. There is no tension, no anguish, no cry, no effort to cling.
You cling to life because your life is unfulfilled.
You have not risen against a strong wind. You have not known the morning, and the evening has come. You have never been young, and old age is knocking at the door. You never loved, and death is coming. This unfulfilled state and the coming of death creates the fear. Buddha says that if you have lived you will always be ready to die. And that readiness will not be something forced upon you. It will be the thing, it will be a natural thing! As you are born, you die. As you come, you go. This is the wheel of existence. You lived the being part, now you will live the non-being part. You existed, now you will not exist. You rose, you manifested, now you will move into the unmanifested. You were visible, embodied, now you will move without the body to the invisible. You had your day; now you will take rest in the night. What is wrong in it?
The search for the permanent shows that you remain unfulfilled. The search to have a permanent self is a clinging. You know that death is going to be there, so what to do? The body will disintegrate, disappear; now you have your hopes that some permanent self must be there which will go on and on and on. Remember: those who are afraid, they always believe in the eternal soul.
Look in this country: the whole country believes that the soul is eternal, but you cannot find a more cowardly country in the world. It is not accidental. Why are Indians so cowardly? In fact, if they know that the soul is never going to die they should be the bravest -- because death doesn’t exist! They go on talking about the deathless, and if you watch their life they are more afraid of death than anybody else. Otherwise, how can you explain the one thousand years of slavery of this country? Very small races -- England is no bigger than a small province of India. Three crore people only were able to dominate a country of fifty crore. It seems simply impossible! How did it happen? -- Because the country is cowardly. They cannot fight, they are afraid of death. They talk about the deathless -- and this is not accidental, there is a reasoning behind it.
Whenever somebody talks too much about the deathless it means he is afraid of death, he is a coward.
And India has not lived because of the priests. India has not lived life because of the priests. They have been teaching people to renounce, so everybody is ready, before he has lived, to renounce. Then the fear comes in. If you have lived, lived to your total capacity, to the optimum, the fear of death disappears. Only then does the fear of death disappear, never before it. If you renounce life, if you don’t love, if you don’t eat, if you don’t enjoy and dance; if you simply renounce and condemn and you say: "This is all materialistic. I am against it" who is this "I" who says "I am against it"? This is the ego.
You cannot find greater egoists than so called spiritualists. They are always condemning the materialist. They are always saying: "What! You are wasting your life. Eat, drink, and be merry -- this is your religion. You are a burden on the earth. You have to be thrown into hell." Who is condemning? What is wrong in "Eat, drink, and be merry"? What is wrong in it? That is the first part of life. It should be so. You should eat, drink, and be merry. You should celebrate. Only then, when you have celebrated to the optimum, are you ready to go, are you ready to leave and with no grudge, with no complaint. You lived the day, now the night has come. And when the day was so beautiful -- you rose with the waves in the sky, and you did whatsoever the moment demanded -- then the rest, then going back to the earth is beautiful.
India has been renouncing, and a religion that renounces is false. A religion that makes you capable of celebrating to the optimum is the true religion. And this is the beauty of it: if you live life, a renunciation comes automatically. It happens -- that is the nature. If you eat well, satiety comes. If you drink well, the thirst disappears. If you lived well, the clinging to life disappears. It has to be so. This is the law, the logos. If you have not lived well, then you always remain clinging, then you always dream about how to live. And if you have renounced this life you have to project another life. You need a permanent self, otherwise what will you do? You missed this life, and there is no other life? You need a permanent self. You have to believe and console yourself: "Okay, the body dies but the self never dies."
If you listen to Buddha and Heraclitus and to me, the self dies even before the body dies -- because the self is of a more dreamy stuff than the body. The body is more substantial -- at least it takes seventy years to die, and the self dies every moment. Watch: in the morning you have one self, by the afternoon another. In the morning you were happy and it was a different self; by the afternoon it has gone, already gone. Yes, Heraclitus is right:
Into the same rivers we step and do not step.
It simply appears that in the afternoon you are the same self. It simply appears. Where is the self of the morning when you were so happy, and you could sing with the birds, and you could dance with the rising sun? Where is that self? By the afternoon you are already sad; the evening has already descended on you. In the middle of the afternoon it has already become night -- you are sad. Is this the same self? When you hate and when you love, do you think it is the same self? When you are depressed and when you reach a peak of joy, is this the same self? It is not, it simply appears to be. It appears the same, just like if you go the Ganges: in the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening, it appears the same Ganges -- but it is not. It is constantly flowing.
Heraclitus loves the symbol of the river, Buddha loves the symbol of the flame. That symbol of the flame is even more subtle. The flame appears to be the same but it is not. Every moment it is disappearing; the old is going and the new is coming. Buddha says that in the evening you light a candle, and in the morning you blow it out -- but never think that it is the same candle. It cannot be. The whole night it burnt and burnt and burnt. The whole night the flame disappeared and disappeared and disappeared, and a new flame was constantly being supplied. But the difference between the two flames -- the old going out and the new coming in, the gap -- is so subtle that you cannot see it.
Buddha says: "The self that is born will not die -- it has died already. The man you were born as and the man you will be when you die are not the same." Buddha says: "It is the same continuum, but not the same thing." The flame in the evening and the flame in the morning constitute the same continuum, the same series of flames, but not the same self. The Ganges looks the same; it is not the same. And everything is changing .
The nature of the reality is change.
Permanence is illusion.
And this is a deeper insight than the Hindus’. This is the deepest ever attained because the mind would like to have a permanent home, to have a permanent standing ground, to have permanent roots. Permanence is false; it appears because of the sameness of things. Your face remains the same in the evening and the morning, so we think you are the same person. You were here yesterday, the day before yesterday; your face appears to be the same, but are you the same? When you came to see me this morning you were different, you have already changed. And when you leave you will not be the same person -- because you listened to me and something else has entered into you. Your self has already changed.
New rivers falling into the Ganges, new rivulets, new streams. I have fallen into you. How can you be the same again? You will never be the same. There is no way. Every moment millions of streams are falling into your consciousness. You pass by the road and a flower smiles -- the flower is changing you. And a cold breeze comes and gives you a cool bath -- the breeze is changing you. And then the sun rises, and you feel a warmth -- the sun is changing you.
Every moment, everything is changing. And there is no permanent thing.
What will happen if you can understand this? If you can understand this, this becomes the greatest situation to drop the ego. When everything is changing, why cling? And even by your clinging you cannot make change stop. You cannot stop the river. It flows! Stopping is not possible. And because we like to stop things, to make them permanent, we create a hell around us. Nothing can be stopped. I love you this morning -- who knows what will happen tomorrow morning? But you would like to stop the love: as it is this morning, tomorrow also. If you cling and stop, you are dead. Tomorrow morning nobody knows -- the unknown, the unexpected.
You can only expect if things are permanent. If nothing is permanent expectation drops. When there is no expectation because things are moving and moving and moving, how can you be frustrated? If you expect, there is frustration. If you don’t expect, there is no frustration. You expect because you think that things are permanent. Nothing is permanent.
Into the same rivers we step and do not step.
Just the appearance is the same -- of the river, and of you also.
You cannot step twice in the same river
because the river will never be the same again. And you also will never be the same again. That’s why each moment is unique, incomparable. It has been never before and will never be again. This is beautiful! It is not a repetition, it is absolutely fresh. You will miss this freshness if you have a clinging and possessive mind and are seeking something permanent. And just try to think: if you have a permanent self, that self will be like a rock. Even rocks change. But the self cannot be like a flower. If you have a permanent self, and if things have a permanent self, a substratum, then the whole existence will be a boredom, it cannot be a celebration.
Celebration is possible if each moment brings you something new.
If each moment brings you something from the unknown, if each moment is a penetration of the unknown into the known, then life is an excitement -- without expectation. Then life is a constant movement into the unknown. Nothing can frustrate you because in the first place you never expected that anything was going to be the same for ever.
Why is there so much frustration in the world? -- Because everybody is expecting permanence. And permanence is not the nature of things. Nothing can be done about it. You have to grow and drop the idea of permanence. You have to grow and become a flow. Don’t be like solid rocks; be like fragile flowers. Your brahma is just a solid rock. The absolute of Hegel and Shankara is a solid rock. But the nirvana of Buddha, the understanding of Heraclitus, is like a fragile flower, changing. Enjoy it while it lasts, and don’t ask for more.
You are in love -- celebrate while it is there! Don’t start making arrangements so that it is always there; otherwise you will miss the moment in making arrangements. And by the time arrangements are ready, the flower is dead. By the time you are ready to enjoy, the moment has already gone. And nobody can bring it back, there is no going back. The river is onward and onward flowing, and you are being thrown to new shores every moment.
This is the problem, the anxiety of man, the anguish, that the mind thinks of the shores that are no more. The mind wants to project the shores that are no more into the future, and every moment the river is reaching to new shores -- unknown, unexpected. But this is beautiful. If your wish is fulfilled you will make the whole life ugly.
Just think: Hindus, Jainas, have a conception of a moksha, of a state of consciousness where nothing changes. Just think for a moment -- nothing changes, and people who have become enlightened, according to Jainas and Hindus, they will remain in that absolutely permanent moksha, nothing changing, not at all -- that will be absolute boredom. You cannot improve on it. That will be absolute. You cannot think of a more boring situation: God sitting there and you sitting there and nothing changing, nothing to say even. Even one moment will look like eternity -- so boring. No, for Heraclitus and Buddha and Lao Tzu, the soul of existence is change.
And change beautifies everything.
A young woman -- you would like her to remain always young and the same. But if it really happens you will be bored. If it really happens that a young woman, by some biological device, some trick of science and it is possible! Sooner or later, man is so foolish, it is possible that you may find some biological trick, inject some hormones in the body, and a person remains at the same age. A girl of twenty remains twenty and twenty and twenty -- can you love this girl? It will be a plastic girl. It will remain the same but there will be no changing seasons, no summer, no winter, no spring, no fall. The woman will be dead! You cannot love such a woman; it will be a nightmare. You will want to escape to the other corner of the world to escape from this woman.
Seasons are beautiful, and through seasons every moment you become new -- every moment a new mood, every moment a new nuance of being; every moment new eyes and a new face.
And who has told you that an old woman is ugly? The old woman will be ugly if she is still trying to look young; then she will be ugly. Then her face will be painted and lipstick and this and that, and then she will be ugly. But if an old woman accepts old age as natural, as it should be, then you cannot find a more beautiful face than an old face -- wrinkled; wrinkled through many seasons, seasoned; many experiences, mature, grown-up.
An old person becomes beautiful if he has lived life. If he has not lived, then he wants to cling to some past moment which is there no more. And this is the ugly man: when youth has passed and you are trying to show that you are young; when sex has passed -- should have passed if you have lived -- and you are still seeking things which are good in their season, which are beautiful in certain moments of life. But an old man is ridiculous falling in love ridiculous! He is as ridiculous as a young man not falling in love -- out of season, out of step with life.
That’s why they say "dirty old man." The saying is good. Whenever an old man thinks about sex, it is dirty; it shows that he has not grown. Sex was good at its own stage, but an old man now should be getting ready to leave, now should be ready to die, now should make arrangements -- because soon his ship will be ready and he will be leaving for the unknown shore. He should make arrangements for it now, and he is behaving like a young man or a child. Nothing is more ugly than that: pretending something which has passed, living in the past. He is mad!
Everything is beautiful at its moment, and everything has a moment for it. Never be out of step. That’s what I call being religious -- never to be out of step. Be true to the moment: when young, be young; when old, be old. And don’t get mixed, otherwise you will be a mess, and a mess is ugly. There is no need to do anything on your part really; you simply have to follow nature. Whatsoever you do goes wrong. Doing itself is wrong simply flowing.
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