Buddhafield: a Mysterious Phenomenon
Beloved Osho,
What is a Buddhafield? Just living together, running businesses,
doesn′t seem to be enough, it is not satisfying. It feels like
something deeper - something more challenging for the collective and
the individual, in which both grow - is needed.
A buddhafield is one of the most mysterious phenomena in
existence. It simply means whenever someone becomes awakened, his
consciousness radiates a certain aura around him. Whoever is
receptive, available, can be transformed by the radiating energy
from an awakened being. The very presence of the awakened person can
hit you so deep that your dormant energy starts awakening.
It has been described as a sleeping serpent being awakened. It was
lying coiled, looking almost dead, and when provoked, it uncoils
itself. Because of the similarity of the phenomena, in the East the
uncoiling energy in the presence of the awakened person is called
Kundalini. Kundalini simply means the serpent power.
The buddhafield can become a network. In the hands of a skilled
master it need not be confined to a small area; hence I have
introduced the communes. It is as if you put a mirror in front of a
light. The mirror has no way of producing light, but it can reflect
light. A single light surrounded by thousands of mirrors can create
a light of immense quantity.
In India there is a temple made completely of small pieces of
mirror. When you enter the temple you are suddenly surrounded by
yourself from every side, in thousands of ways: from the ceiling,
from the floor, from the walls. Each piece represents you in your
totality. It is not that the piece of mirror is going to reflect
only a certain part of you; it reflects you totally, your whole
personality. And those thousands of mirrors all reflect you.
Just take a burning candle inside with you and you will be surprised
at the effect: just one candle suddenly becomes thousands of
candles, and all the reflections create tremendous light.
The man who had made the temple was one of the richest men in India.
He simply loved to make unique things. He loved me very much. I
asked him - he had taken me to the temple to show me - I asked him,
"Do you know the meaning of this temple?"
He said, "Meaning? I have simply created a unique piece of beauty,
architecture, and something which has no parallel in the whole
world."
I said, "That′s true, but there is meaning also in it, and you must
know it, because it is very embarrassing that you created the temple
and you don′t know the meaning of it. The meaning is, this temple
represents in a material way the fabric of a buddhafield."
One buddha can create thousands of seekers around him. They are not
awakened but they are willing to be awakened. They have not yet
reached the goal, but they are very receptive, open, available. In
the presence of the master they can at least function as mirrors
very easily; then one buddha becomes millions of buddhas.
I had made the communes so that five thousand people could live
together and learn to reflect me. Not to imitate me, remember -
these are two totally different things. The mirror never imitates
you; the mirror simply reflects you.
Now I have dissolved the communes, because now I want the whole
world to be my commune.
Wherever there is a sannyasin, he has to be a mirror. And time and
space make no difference: If he is available to me, he is as close
to me as you are. And from the farthest corner of the earth he can
reflect me.
And now I have millions of sannyasins around the world. I have
withdrawn all conditions that can hinder people from becoming
sannyasins. These millions of people are going to create a network
of energy enveloping the whole earth.
Just one sun rises in the morning, but it is being reflected by all
the oceans, all the lakes, all the rivers, all the ponds. Small
ponds reflect the same sun as the biggest ocean. Just one sun rises,
and millions of places start reflecting it. And it is not only the
ocean, lake, river, ponds - there are other reflections too, which
are more subtle.
Even before the sun comes above the horizon, the birds suddenly
start singing. They are awakened, something has happened to them,
and something tremendously beautiful; otherwise from where will the
song arise? And they are so full of life! The flowers open their
petals... these are also reflections. There is no obligation on
their part; they can remain buds. There is no obligation on the part
of the birds; they may decide not to sing, but something
irresistible which is beyond their control....
When the sun is rising, something is rising in them too: their life
energy, their kundalini. Of course a bird cannot become a buddha,
but he can at least sing, dance, fly in the sky just out of sheer
joy, open his wings as an indication of freedom, aliveness. He can
claim the whole sky as his own.
And all the flowers - from the smallest grass flower to the biggest
lotus - they suddenly all fall into a symphony. They forget their
differences; they forget that there are poor flowers and there are
rich flowers, that there is the proletariat and there are the
bourgeois; suddenly all classes disappear. And in their flowering,
in their opening, they release whatsoever they have.
They give back to existence as a gift whatever existence has given
to them. They don′t keep it, they don′t hoard it. They give it back
a thousandfold, they multiply it, because what was - apparently -
not in the seed, what was not in the roots, what was not in the
tree, in the branches, in the leaves... has suddenly come to blossom
in the flower: all the colors, all the fragrance. But they waited
long in the dark night for the sun to rise.
The presence of the sun suddenly gets reflected in millions of ways
and creates a network of light, life, joy, fullness, overflowing
ecstasy. That′s what I mean by a buddhafield.
One man getting awakened means the sun has risen. It is the
declaration that the dark night of the soul is at an end.
But it is possible only if there are millions of people spread all
over the earth to create a connectedness. With this net of energy we
may be able to transform many people who had no idea, who had never
dreamed that there is something more than a mundane life.
So you are right - just working together, creating a commune,
creating finances to run it, is not enough. It has nothing to do
with the buddhafield. Seeing the fact that in communes you will get
entangled in so many unnecessary things, that there is a possibility
to forget for what you had gathered there in the first place.... Now
I don′t want big communes but small groups, more intimate, or
individuals doing their ordinary work in the world. That takes only
five hours, five days a week, and leaves you immense time and energy
to become part of a great, ecstatic experience.
In the commune I found it is difficult, because you are trying to
create an alternative society - which takes too much time, too much
energy. People were working for twelve hours, fourteen hours, and
had no energy left. Even if the sun rises, the bird has no energy to
sing. The sun rises, but the rose has no energy to open its petals
and release the fragrance.
And because you are creating an alternative society, the ordinary
world is going to be antagonistic to you. You are strangers and you
are trying something which their tradition and their experience
prohibits. And they are in the majority; they have governments in
their hands, they have the law in their hands. So creating takes
your time and energy; and then fighting with the society - which is
too big for you - that also takes your energy.
I was thinking that humanity had progressed since the days of
Socrates, but I was wrong. It is still where it was, it has not
progressed at all. Civilization has not yet happened, culture is
still a dream, and democracy a faraway utopia.
So whenever you come in conflict you will see the barbarous, the
primitive, the animalistic, coming up to destroy you. And naturally
you cannot survive against the vast masses, the blind people.
I am reminded of a story - not a story but a real fact; it is so
strange that it looks like a story. In South America in a hidden
valley deep in the mountains, it was found that there lived a small
community of people, not more than three hundred - all blind. It was
strange - what had happened to these people? What calamity had
fallen on them?
One man, very adventurous, a scientific enquirer, wanted to know
what had happened to these people... because people were afraid to
go into the valley, it was dangerous. If three hundred people are
blind, perhaps there is something wrong in the air, something wrong
in the water, something wrong in the food - who knows what is wrong?
You may go blind!
But this courageous young man entered the commune and was
surprised... he did not become blind. He figured out what was
happening: there was a certain fly in the mountains.... Every child
was born with eyes, as every child is born everywhere else, but
within three, four months - if the fly bites the child - he will go
blind. Three or four months was too great a time, and the fly was a
common fly, all around, everywhere.
So everybody was born with eyes, but nobody ever remembered that
once he had eyes because he had lost them so early in life - when he
was two months old, at the most four months old. But that fly′s bite
was not capable of destroying a young man′s eyes. So anybody who had
passed at least one year was beyond the reach of the fly; it needed
only the very vulnerable child.
The man wanted to help them because he had found the cause; the
cause could be destroyed and those common children could be saved.
While he was working on the plans of how to destroy the fly, the
whole commune of those primitive people used to laugh at the madman.
They used to laugh because they could not believe that he had eyes
and they didn′t. And of course they were three hundred and he was
alone and there was no way to prove that he had eyes. Those three
hundred people had never heard about eyes - he was just a poet, a
dreamer!
But living with them he fell in love with a girl of the community.
He wanted to marry that girl, but the community had a condition:
"You will have to drop this illusion that you have eyes. And to make
certain, we have our elders who will check you. If they find
something that you call eyes, they will destroy them... because you
have something which you should not have. No human being has eyes -
something is wrong with you.
"You can marry the girl of our community, but the condition is that
you have to become part of our community. You have to become blind.
You can choose. Either you have to leave - leave us alone and don′t
disturb us. Since you have come it has been a continuous
disturbance. You have been corrupting our youth, putting in their
minds the idea of eyes - which we have never heard of from our
elders, our forefathers. We have always lived this way. And we don′t
need eyes. What will we do with eyes? - we are perfectly happy and
content.
"You have disturbed our peace and now you want to get entry into our
community. You will have to choose: you will have to lose your
so-called eyes if you want to get married, or you forget all about
this love affair and leave this valley and never come back again."
The young man thought for the whole night. He really loved the
woman, but this was stupid, the condition was simply idiotic, that
he had to lose his eyes. In fact he loved the woman because of his
eyes. She was so beautiful, and all those three hundred people were
not aware of her beauty and they would never be aware of her beauty.
It was his eyes that had given the glimpse of the beauty of the
woman.
He had seen so many women, but he settled for a blind woman.
Although she was blind, she had something indescribable, something
otherworldly. But to lose one′s eyes to get that woman seems to be a
very strange bargain, because in losing your eyes you will be also
losing that woman; you will never be able to see her again. Then all
women are equal. To a blind man what difference does it make that
you have a homely woman or a Cleopatra? It doesn′t matter.
No, he could not manage to convince himself to lose his eyes,
because his eyes were the source of the experience of the beauty. In
the middle of the night he escaped from the valley.
And this is not a story, it is a historical fact.
So when we created communes, I was thinking humanity has progressed,
has come a long way from the days of Socrates and Buddha. But I was
wrong. They have not moved a single inch! They have changed their
masks, they wear better masks than their ancestors, but behind the
mask is hidden a barbarous soul - uncivilized, uncultured.
It is not able to accept the stranger. It is not vast enough to
absorb the new, the unknown, the unexperienced. It becomes
irritated, it becomes annoyed. It wants to destroy your eyes,
because it is blind and your eyes will remind it about its
blindness.
Seeing the situation, I have dissolved the communes. I would rather
rely on individuals. In that way I can spread my message far and
wide. I have even allowed you, if you feel it difficult, not to use
the red color, not to use the mala, so no blind man is annoyed by
you.... Because I want to protect your eyes - and they are very
vulnerable because you are in the situation of a child and just a
fly can destroy your eyes. And these people are not flies, they are
monsters.
The buddhafield has expanded its area, but its strategy has changed.
Now I will depend on the individuals - and individuals can move
around the world, to faraway corners; still there will be a
connecting link with me. Wherever there is a sannyasins of mine, I
am there. He will be my mirror, he will reflect me and my light. He
will transmit my energy, my understanding.
So you are right: just being together and working hard and running a
disco and making money and doing all kinds of things does not seem
enough. It is not enough. It is not only not enough, it is a sheer
wastage.
So you work in the world; and it is a simple thing - whenever you
feel a deep urge to be with me, I will be available. You can always
come to me.
To make it a reality, now we will not be having any celebrations;
now the celebration will continue all the year round - three hundred
and sixty-five days of celebration! And I will be living somewhere,
soon - my people are searching for the right place for me to be. And
all the year round you can come to me, whenever you have time. So
there will be always three to five hundred people coming and going.
And I would like a more intimate contact with you because now I am
going to depend on the individual.
You cannot understand how painful it has been for me that people
longing for years to come, would come to the commune but then there
would be twenty thousand people and they would not be able even to
see me while I am speaking. I will not be able to see their faces, I
will not be able to look into their eyes - and they have come from
far away. Waiting for years, earning money, somehow they have
managed to come. But with twenty thousand people gathering I cannot
manage individual intimacy.
So my new format of work is going to be an all-year-round festival.
So you are welcome any moment, because the festival will be
continuous, so we don′t collect twenty thousand or fifty thousand
people at one time. We distribute people all over the year, so I can
sit with you on the lawn, I can sit with you under the trees, I can
sit with you under the stars, and I can talk to you or I can be
silent with you. So when you go back you are full of me.
And this is going to be the new order of the buddhafield.
Note:
- From the chapter titled: Whenever there is a sannyasin of mine I am there - Kathmandu 1985)