Osho Swimming in the river

Swimming in the river, 

and early spiritual experiences 

The first thing my own father taught me--and the only thing that he ever 

taught me-- 

was a love for the small river that flows by the side of my town. He taught 

me just this--swimming in the river. That's all that he ever taught me, but I 

am tremendously grateful to him because that brought so many changes in 

my life. Exactly like Siddhartha, I fell in love with the river. Whenever I think 

of my birthplace I don't remember anything except the river. 

The day my father died I only remembered the first day he brought me to 

the riverbank to teach me swimming. My whole childhood was spent in a 

close love affair with the river. It was my daily routine to be with the river for 

at least five to eight hours. From three o'clock in the morning I would be 

with the river; the sky would be full of stars and the stars reflecting in the 

river. And it is a beautiful river; its water is so sweet that people have 

named it Shakkar- shakkar means sugar. It is a beautiful phenomenon. 

I have seen it in the darkness of the night with the stars, dancing its course 

towards the ocean. I have seen it with the early rising sun. I have seen it in 

the full moon. I have seen it with the sunset. I have seen it sitting by its bank 

alone or with friends, 

playing on the flute, dancing on its bank, meditating on its bank, rowing a 

boat in it or swimming across it. In the rains, in the winter, in the summer... 

I can understand Herman Hesse's Siddhartha and his experience with the 

river. It happened with me: so much transpired, because slowly slowly, the 

whole existence became a river to me. It lost its solidity; it became liquid, 

fluid. 

And I am immensely grateful to my father. He never taught me 

mathematics, language, grammar, geography, history. He was never much 

concerned about my education. He had ten children, .and I had seen it 

happen many times: people would ask, "In what class is your son 

studying?"-and he would have to ask somebody because he would not 

know. He was never concerned with any other education. The only 

education that he gave to me was a communion with the river. He himself 

was in deep love with the river. 

Whenever you are in love with flowing things, moving things, you have a 

different vision of life. Modern man lives with asphalt roads, cement and 

concrete buildings. 

These are nouns, remember, these are not verbs. The skyscrapers don't go 

on growing; the road remains the same whether it is night or day, whether it 

is a fullmoon night or a night absolutely dark. It doesn't matter to the asphalt 

road, it does not matter to the cement and concrete buildings. 

Man has created a world of nouns and he has become encaged in his own 

world. He has forgotten the world of the trees, the world of the rivers, the 

world of the mountains and the stars. There they don't know of any nouns, 

they have not heard about nouns; they know only verbs. Everything is a 

process. 

God is not a thing but a process. dh0503 

In my childhood I used to go early in the morning to the river. It is a small 

village. 

The river is very very lazy, as if not flowing at all. And in the morning when 

the sun is not yet arisen, you cannot see whether it is flowing, it is so lazy 

and silent. And in the morning when there is nobody, the bathers have not 

come yet, it is tremendously silent. Even the birds are not singing in the 

morning-early, no sound, just a soundlessness pervades. And the smell of 

the mango trees hangs all over the river. 

I used to go there, to the furthest corner of the river, just to sit, just to be 

there. 

There was no need to do anything, just being there was enough, it was 

such a beautiful experience to be there. I will take a bath, I will swim, and 

when the sun will arise I will go to the other shore, to the vast expanse of 

sand, and dry myself there under the sun, and lie there, and sometimes 

even go to sleep. 

When I came back my mother used to ask, "What have you been doing the 

whole morning?" I will say, "Nothing," because, actually, I had not been 

doing anything. 

And she will say, "How is it possible? Four hours you have not been here, 

how is it possible that you have not been doing anything? You must have 

been doing something." And she was right, but I was also not wrong. 

I was not doing anything at all. I was just being there with the river, not 

doing anything, allowing things to happen. If it felt like swimming, 

remember, if it felt like swimming, I would swim, but that was not a doing on 

my part, I was not forcing anything. If I felt like going into sleep, I would go. 

Things were happening, but there was no doer. And my first experiences of 

satori started near that river: not doing anything, simply being there, 

millions of things happened. 

But she would insist: "You must have been doing something." So I would 

say, "Okay, I took a bath and I dried myself in the sun," and then she was 

satisfied. But I was not, because what happened there in the river is not 

expressed by words: "I took a bath"- 

-it looks so poor and pale. Playing with the river, floating in the river, 

swimming in the river, was such a deep experience. To say simply, "I took a 

bath," makes no sense about it; or to just say, "I went there, had a walk on 

the bank, sat there," conveys nothing. 

Even in ordinary life you feel the futility of words. And if you don't feel the 

futility of words, that shows that you have not been alive at all; that shows 

that you have lived very superficially. If whatsoever you have been living 

can be conveyed by words, that means you have not lived at all. 

When for the first time something starts happening which is beyond words, 

life has happened to you, life has knocked at your door. And when the 

ultimate knocks at your door, you are simply gone beyond words--you 

become dumb, you cannot say; not even a single word is formed inside. 

And whatsoever you say looks so pale, so dead, so meaningless, without 

any significance, that it seems that you are doing injustice to the experience 

that has happened to you. Remember this, because Mahamudra is the last, 

the ultimate experience. 

Mahamudra means a total orgasm with the universe. supremOl 

My own experience in childhood was., the flooded river of my town--nobody 

used to cross it by swimming when it was flooded. It was a mountainous 

river. Ordinarily, it was a small river, but in rainy times it was at least one 

mile wide. The current of the water was tremendous; you could not stand in 

it. And the water was deep, so there was no way to stand anyway. 

I loved it. I waited for the rainy season because it always helped, .there 

would come a moment when I would feel that I was dying, because I was 

tired and I could not see the other shore, and the waves were high and the 

current was strong...and there was no way to go back, because now the 

other shore was as far away. Perhaps I was in the middle; it was the same 

either way. I would feel so completely tired and the water would take me 

down with such a force that there would come a time when I would see, 

"Now there is no possibility of living any more." And that was the moment 

when I would suddenly see myself above the water and my body in the 

water. When it happened the first time, it was a very frightening experience. 

I thought I must have died. I had heard that when you die, the soul goes out 

of the body: "So I have gone out of the body and I am dead." But I could see 

the body was still trying to reach the other shore, so I followed the body. 

That was the first time I became aware of a connection between your 

essential being and the body. It is connected just below the navel--two 

inches below the navel--by something like a silver cord, a silver rope. It is 

not material, but it shines like silver. 

Each time I reached the other shore, the moment I reached the other shore 

my being would enter into the body. The first time it was frightening; then it 

became a great entertainment. 

When I told my parents, they said, "Someday you are going to die in that 

river. This is enough of a sign. Stop going into the river when it is flooded." 

But I said, "I am enjoying it so much, .the freedom, no force of gravitation, 

and seeing one's own body completely away.".. 

The same experience had happened in the river many times, so there was 

no fear... 

It used to happen automatically that when the body reached the shore, my 

being would enter into the body. I had no idea how to enter the body; it had 

always happened of its own accord. transm03 

In my childhood days I used to take my friends to the river. There was a 

small path by the side of the river. To walk on that edge was very 

dangerous; just one step taken in unconsciousness and you will fall into the 

river, and that was the place where the river was the deepest. Nobody used 

to go there, but that was my most loved spot. And I will take all my friends 

to come along with me to move on that narrow edge. Very few were ever 

ready to go along with me, but those few had really a beautiful experience. 

They will all report, "This is strange, how the mind stops!" 

I will take my friends to the railway bridge to jump from the bridge into the 

river. It was dangerous, certainly dangerous; it was prohibited. There was 

always a policeman standing on the railway bridge because that was the 

place from where people used to commit suicide. We had to bribe the 

policeman, that "We are not committing suicide, we have just come to enjoy 

the jump!" And slowly slowly he became aware that these are the same 

people--they don't die or anything, they come again, they come again and 

they are not interested in suicide. In fact, he started loving us and stopped 

taking bribes. He said, "You can jump-1 will not look at that side. Whenever 

you want you can come." 

It was dangerous. The bridge was very high and to jump from there.. And 

before you will reach the river there was a time between-the gap between 

the bridge and the river-when the mind will suddenly stop. 

Those were my first glimpses of meditation; that's how I became more and 

more interested in meditation. I started inquiring how these moments can 

be made available without going to the mountains, to the river, to the 

bridges; how one can allow oneself to move into these spaces without 

going anywhere, just by closing one's eyes. Once you have tasted, it is not 

difficult. ggate208 

You are asking me: Although you were born almost enlightened, when I 

listen to your stories of your early life, I never get the impression that you 

saw yourself as a spiritual seeker. Were you looking for enlightenment, or 

was enlightenment a by-product of an impeccable resolve to never 

compromise what you felt to be true? 

There are things which cannot be sought directly. The more valuable a 

thing is, the more indirectly you have to go into it. In fact you have to do 

something else that simply prepares the situation around you-in which 

things like enlightenment, truth, can happen. 

You cannot go seeking and searching for truth. Where will you go? Kabul? 

Kulu-Manali? Kathmandu? Goa?., and then back home. All seekers of truth 

go this route and come back home looking more foolish than before. They 

have not found anything. 

Where will you go to seek the truth? You don't know the way, there is no 

map, there is no direction available. Nobody knows what, where, when it is 

possible to realize truth. 

The real seeker of truth never seeks truth. On the contrary, he tries to clean 

himself of all that is untrue, unauthentic, insincere--and when his heart is 

ready, purified, 

the guest comes. You cannot find the guest, you cannot go after him. He 

comes to you; you just have to be prepared. You have to be in a right 

attitude. 

I have never been spiritual in the sense that you understand the word. I 

have never gone to the temples or the churches, or read scriptures, or 

followed certain practices to find truth, or worshipped God or prayed to 

God. That has not been my way at all. 

So certainly you can say that I was not doing anything spiritual. But to me 

spirituality has a totally different connotation. It needs an honest 

individuality. It does not allow any kind of dependence. It creates a freedom 

for itself, whatever the cost. It is never in the crowd but alone, because the 

crowd has never found any truth. The truth has been found only in people's 

aloneness. 

So my spirituality has a different meaning from your idea of spirituality. My 

childhood stories--if you can understand them--will point to all these 

qualities in some way or other. Nobody can call them spiritual. I call them 

spiritual, because to me they have given all that man can aspire to. 

While listening to my childhood stories you should try to look for some 

quality in it~ 

not just the story but some intrinsic quality that runs like a thin thread 

through all of my memoirs. And that thin thread is spiritual. 

Spiritual, to me, simply means finding oneself. I never allowed anybody to 

do this work on my behalf-because nobody can do this work on your 

behalf; you have to do it yourself. And you cannot do it directly either, you 

have to create a certain milieu in which it happens. It is a happening; 

enlightenment, liberation, awakening, realization-all these words point 

towards absolutely one thing and that is a happening. 

That creates a kind of fear in many people: "If it is happening, then what are 

we supposed to do? Whenever it will happen, it will happen." That is not so. 

It is a happening, but you can do much to prepare the ground for it to 

happen. 

Preparing the ground may not look spiritual to those who do not 

understand. But it must be spiritual because the enlightenment has 

happened. 

The end proves that whatever means were used were substantially right. It 

is the goal that proves that the way that was followed was right. transmIO 

I was from my very childhood in love with silence. As long as I could 

manage I would just sit silently. Naturally my family used to think that I was 

going to be good for nothing--and they were right. I certainly proved good 

for nothing, but I don't repent it. 

It came to such a point that sometimes I would be sitting and my mother 

would come to me and say something like, "There seems to be nobody in 

the whole house. I need somebody to go to the market to fetch some 

vegetables." I was sitting in front of her, and I would say, "If I see somebody 

I will tell..." 

It was accepted that my presence meant nothing; whether I was there or 

not, it did not matter. Once or twice they tried and then they found that "it is 

better to leave him out, and not take any notice of him"--because in the 

morning they would send me to fetch vegetables, and in the evening I 

would come to ask, "I have forgotten for what you had sent me, and now 

the market is closed.." In villages the vegetable markets close by the 

evening, and the villagers go back to their villages. 

My mother said, "It is not your fault, it is our fault. The whole day we have 

been waiting, but in the first place we should not have asked you. Where 

have you been?" 

I said, "As I went out of the house, just close by there was a very beautiful 

bodhi tree"--the kind of tree under which Gautam Buddha became 

awakened. The tree got the name bodhi tree--or in English, bo tree-- 

because of Gautam Buddha. One does not know what it used to be called 

before Gautam Buddha; it must have had some name, but after Buddha it 

became associated with his name. 

There was a beautiful bodhi tree, and it was so tempting for me. There 

used to be always such silence, such coolness underneath it, nobody to 

disturb me, that I could not pass it without sitting under it for some time. 

And those moments of peace, I think sometimes may have stretched the 

whole day. 

After just a few disappointments they thought, "It is better not to bother 

him." And I was immensely happy that they had accepted the fact that I am 

almost non-existent. 

It gave me tremendous freedom. Nobody expected anything from me. 

When nobody expects anything from you, you fall into a silence.. The world 

has accepted you; now there is no expectation from you. 

When sometimes I was late coming home, they used to search for me in 

two places. 

One was the bodhi tree-and because they started searching for me under 

the bodhi tree, I started climbing the tree and sitting in the top of it. They 

would come and they would look around and say, "He does not seem to be 

here." 

And I myself would nod; I said, "Yes, that's true. I'm not here." 

But I was soon discovered, because somebody saw me climbing and told 

them, "He has been deceiving you. He is always here, most of the time 

sitting in the tree"-so I had to go a little further.