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The Transcendental
The Transcendental

     Transcendence of the mind is consciousness. But you have to use the mind because right now there is no other way, and the mind can be used perfectly. But don't use one side of the mind, which is what I see Krishnamurti and Gurdjieff teaching: using one side of the mind. When you use one side of the mind, at the most you can emphasize the other side of the mind, but not transcend it.
     Transcendence needs both the minds.

     Zen has been using the inactive mind and is based on a fallacy that the inactive mind is total relaxation.
It is not. The inactive mind is in partnership with the active mind. It is simply a reservoir for the active mind. It simply goes on supplying energy for the active mind, so it cannot be the ultimate.
     That's why I used the word satori. Zen has reached, at the most, satori, and they have thought that this is the end. This is not so. This is not samadhi. The meaning of the words is the same, but satori is just half the mind realizing its inactivity, silence, and thinking that it is the whole. Samadhi is a far higher word. The word sam, from which samadhi comes, means ultimate balance. Samadhi is above and beyond the duality of the two minds.
     There is a certain similarity between satori and samadhi; hence the fallacy. Satori is just like a moon reflected in calm and quiet water. It looks just like a moon, but simply throw a small stone in the water and your moon is split into thousands of fragments; each wave distorts it. It is not reality. But one can have a misunderstanding between the moon in the water and the moon in the sky. Samadhi is the moon in the sky, and satori is the moon in the water. Satori is certainly the reflection of the same moon, but a reflection is not the reality.
     The inactive mind has that capacity because it is relaxation, silence, no action, no disturbance. It is a calm pool of water; it can reflect the moon. The active mind cannot reflect it; it is in too much turmoil: the winds are strong and the water is disturbed.

     So I say effort is needed in understanding these two sides of your mind; and effortlessness is needed to relax, not into the other side of the mind but beyond both sides.
     But before you can go beyond, you have to understand clearly the two sides of the mind so you can make the distinction; otherwise the inactive side of the mind has deceived many people.

     It looks almost like the real moon; you have never seen the real moon, so it is the real moon to you. Satori is only a reflection of samadhi. I have never said that because I don't want to disturb Zen people, because they are the best people around in the world. Although they are clinging to a reflection, at least the reflection is of the moon. Sooner or later they will become aware that it is a reflection: any small disturbance, and the reflection is distorted.
     But the point has to be noted that neither side of the mind is your ultimate reality.
     Krishnamurti and Gurdjieff are not even as close as Zen people are, because they are still engaged with the active mind. Gurdjieff may come closer to the inactive mind because he exhausts the body and its energies in his exercises. Then naturally there is a change; the active mind feels emptied out. It needs the support of the inactive mind – and that was the method of Gurdjieff: to force you to work to the point where suddenly you feel an onrush of energy. According to him...he thought it was coming from your second layer, the emergency layer, or from your third layer, your basic universal energy.
     As I see it, it comes from your inactive mind, which is doing this every day. The more tired you are, the more you fall into a deep sleep. That falling into deep sleep relaxes your tired muscles, your body, your whole system. It lubricates it; it gives a rest period, and by the morning, when life is again rising up, you are again full of energy. It is not coming from any emergency source or from any basic universal energy; it is simply coming from the inactive side of your mind…which is continuously doing this.
     The transcendental mind, once known...whenever you get a small gap between your activities, you will be suddenly transported to the transcendental mind. The transcendental mind cannot do the work of the inactive mind, because it is consciousness twenty-four hours a day, around the clock. It is never unconscious.
     I myself have experienced that it is very difficult to move to the inactive mind, because the moment you are not doing anything, your whole energy simply moves towards the transcendental.

     So some effort is needed to become aware of these two sides of the mind. Once you have become aware of these two sides of the mind then, without any effort, just watching these two sides, a sudden quantum leap happens.
     Your whole consciousness is centered beyond the mind – and that beyondness is neither male nor female.

Osho Light on the Path

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