Beloved Osho,
What is the mystic conception of ultimate reality?
The mystic’s conception of the ultimate reality is the only authentic, real experience. It is not a thought or a concept, but an existential experience.
But the mystic does not deal with the mind. His whole effort is to get rid of the prison of the mind. The mystic is not a philosopher; his world is beyond all philosophies. Philosophies are simply by-products of mental processes. They do not reflect the reality, they only reflect you. That’s why there are so many philosophies in the world, contradicting each other.
The reality is one. How can there be so many philosophies? – there are not so many mystical experiences. There is only one experience; neither time changes it, nor space. Since millennia, the mystic in every country, in every race, in every age has experienced the same reality. The philosopher thinks about reality; the mystic simply drops all thinking. In his silence, utter silence and serenity, he becomes a mirror, and the reality reflects itself.
The mystic is the greatest flowering of human consciousness. His ultimate vision can be described in three beautiful words which have been used for thousands of years and there has not been any improvement on them. There are three words from the ancientmost sources: Satyam, Shivam, Sundaram.
Satyam means the truth – not what you think about it, but what it is; not your idea about it, but its reality. To know this truth you have to be utterly absent. Your very presence will distort the vision, because your presence means the presence of your mind, your prejudices, your conditionings. You are nothing else but a bundle of all that has been forced upon you by the religions, by the society, by the so-called leaders of humanity.
Your absence means absence of all prejudices, all borrowed knowledge, absence of the Cristian, absence of the Hindu, absence of the Mohammedan… just pure sky, a pure being. I am using the word absence to deny all that is not you.
But don’t misunderstand me; this absence of you is your real presence. Only the prejudices are absent, the ego is absent, your knowledgeability is absent – but your being shows in its utter purity. You disappear as a personality and there remains only a pure presence. So it is absence on one side of all that is real in you. In this state you don’t think, you simply see.
This seeing of existence is the first experience of the mystic contained in the word satyam. Satyam means the truth- not any conception about it, but truth itself.
The second word, shivam, means virtue – all that is good, all that is valuable, all that is the most precious in you, the ultimate good. The man who comes to experience the truth starts living the truth immediately. There is no other alternative. His living the truth is shivam. Shivam means truth in action, truth in your life, truth in your love, truth in your friendship, truth in your eyes, and truth in your heart.
Shivam is the action of truth; truth itself is the center of the cyclone. But if you experience the truth, the cyclone around you becomes shivam. It becomes pure godliness.
A man of truth is the only proof that the world is divine. No argument can prove that the world is divine.
Shivam is the mystic in action – his gestures, the music in his words, the poetry of his life, the light and the depths of his eyes. Whatever he does, whether he is chopping wood or carrying water from the well, you can see that there is a subtle difference. He is total in his every act, and that totality brings the third word, sundram.
Sundaram means beauty. So this is mystic trinity: satyam, the truth, shivam, the good, the divine; and sundram, the beauty.
The greatest beauty is to see the totality, the intensity of the mystic. That is the greatest flowering in existence of consciousness itself. It is available only to those who are humble enough to receive it, who are not living a closed life of fear, of paranoia, but who are living a life of love, with all the windows open, and are ready to go with life wherever it leads.
These receptive souls are the only real seekers in the world. These receptive souls are blessed with their experience of sundram: the beautiful rose that is opening in the heart of the mystic. These three words are so unique, so incomparable, there is nothing parallel to them.
All my effort is not to give you knowledge, but to take all knowledge away from you, to make you so innocent, just like a newly born child who is fully conscious, sensitive, alert, but knows nothing. His not knowing makes every child experience something which is available only to the greatest sages of the world.
The mystic is a lover, not a knower. His path is of love, not of knowledge. Love is his God, not logic. Through his love he has come to realize three things: satyam, shivam, sundram – the truth, the godliness of existence and the tremendous beauty… the unbelievable poetry, the song of the silence, the music without songs.
Only the mystic knows without any knowledge.
The mystic’s concern is to create a song in your heart and a dance to your feet and a joy that never fades in your very being.
Remember these three words. They are the most beautiful words ever uttered by anyone, and they reveal the very essence of the ultimate reality – satyam, shivam, sundram.
Osho, From the book ‘The Fish in the Sea is Not Thirsty’ ‘Satyam Shivam Sundram’
‘The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 11’ ‘Dance Til Stars Come Down From the Rafters’, ‘Ecstasy – The Forgotten Language’