The Perfect Way
ISBN: 978-0-88050-611-3
Copyright © 1978, 2017 OSHO International Foundation
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The Perfect Way is also available as a print edition ISBN: 978-1-938755-98-9
The material in this book is from a series of talks by Osho, originally published in Hindi as Sadhana Path. The complete OSHO text archive can be found via the online OSHO Library at www.osho.com/library
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eBook ISBN: 978-0-88050-611-3
Introduction
It is a hot summer day in the early 1960’s and a group of people interested in meditation have gathered in a secluded retreat in the hills of Rajasthan, India. Few, if any, can imagine they are participating in an event which will prove to be the first seed of a revolutionary experiment in the flowering of human consciousness – one which will eventually transform the lives of millions of people all over the world.
Osho, the man around whom these people have gathered, was at that time a professor of philosophy at Jabalpur University. This first meditation camp in Ranakpur, Rajasthan, became a model for the evolution of his work over the following years.
“I want you to become a participant in the bliss I am experiencing as the result of my awakening,” says Osho in these talks, which became his first published book. “And so I have decided to call you.... Pardon me if my call disturbs your sleep and disperses the fog of your dreams.”
In his dream-breaking, Osho carefully guides us through the maze of our own minds, through our process of creating thoughts, toward a zone of silence. His genius is in full flight. And the subject couldn't be more mysterious nor important: one’s own self. He unravels fundamental questions about what meditation is and how one can begin and sustain a life of meditation. He does this with a precision, thoroughness and compassion that can only come from a master – one who knows, and is able to convey what he knows. He points us as far as one can with words toward the inner world of the self, of our being.
Osho, himself, has spoken of this book on several occasions. When the second prime minister of India traveled to Russia, a copy of The Perfect Way was in his hands. And when someone who had been seeking his whole life stumbled upon The Perfect Way at the age of ninety, he commented, “All my learning of the scriptures was futile, only this small book is enough.”
“To be without thoughts is meditation,” Osho says. “When there are no thoughts, it is then we come to know the one hidden by our thoughts. When there are no clouds, the blue sky is revealed.”
This book is page after page of blue sky.
Chapter: 1
Prologue: Invitation into Light
I see man engulfed in a deep darkness. He has become like a house where the lamp has gone out on a dark night. Something in him has been extinguished. But that which has been extinguished can be relit.
I see as well that man has lost all direction. He has become like a boat that has lost its way on the high seas. He has forgotten where he is to go and what he is to be. But the memory of what has been forgotten can be reawakened in him.
Hence, although there is darkness there is no reason for despair. In fact, the deeper the darkness the closer the dawn. I see a spiritual regeneration for the whole world on the horizon. A new man is about to be born and we are passing through the throes of his birth. But this regeneration needs the cooperation of each one of us. It is to come through us, hence we cannot remain mere spectators. We must give way for this rebirth within ourselves.
The approach of that new day, of that dawn, is possible only if each one of us fills himself with light. It is in our hands to turn that possibility into an actuality. We all are the bricks of that palace of tomorrow and we all are the rays of light out of which the future sun will be born. We are the creators, not just spectators. It is not only a creation of the future, it is a creation of the present itself, it is the creation of ourselves. It is through creating himself that man creates humanity. The individual is the unit of the whole and it is through him that both evolution and revolution can take place. You are that unit.
This is why I want to call you. I want to awaken you from your slumber. Don’t you see that your lives have become utterly meaningless and useless, totally boring? Life has lost all meaning and purpose. But this is natural. If there is no light in man’s heart there cannot be any meaning in his life. There cannot be any bliss in man’s life if there is no light in his inner being.
The fact that we find ourselves overburdened with meaninglessness today is not because life in itself is meaningless. Life is infinite meaningfulness, but we have forgotten the path that leads to that meaningfulness and fulfillment. We simply exist and have no contact with life. This is not living, it is just waiting for death. And how can waiting for death be anything but boring? How can it be bliss?
I have come here to tell you this very thing: there is a way to awaken from this bad dream that you have mistaken for life. The path has always been there. The path that leads from darkness to light is eternal. It is there for certain, but you have turned away from it. I want you to turn toward it. This path is dharma, religion. It is the means of rekindling the light in man; it gives direction to man’s drifting boat. Mahavira has said that religion is the only island of safety, the anchor, the destination and the refuge for those being swept away by the rapid current of the world with its old age and its death.
Do you have a thirst for the light that fills life with bliss? Do you have a longing for the truth that unites man with immortality? If so, I invite you into that light, into that bliss, into that deathlessness. Please accept my invitation. It is simply a matter of opening your eyes, and you inhabit a new world of light. You don’t have to
