The Goose Called Awareness

Fr: Osho.com

“The basic thing to be understood is that you are not the mind — neither the bright one nor the dark one. If you get identified with the beautiful part, then it is impossible to disidentify yourself from the ugly part; they are two sides of the same coin. You can have it whole, or you can throw it away whole, but you cannot divide it.

“The whole anxiety of man is that he wants to choose that which looks beautiful, bright; he wants to choose all the silver linings, leaving the dark cloud behind. But he does not know that silver linings cannot exist without the dark cloud. The dark cloud is the background, absolutely necessary for silver linings to show.

“Choosing is anxiety.

“Choosing is creating trouble for yourself.

“Being choiceless means: the mind is there and it has a dark side and it has a bright side — so what? What has it to do with you? Why should you be worried about it?

“The moment you are not choosing, all worry disappears. A great acceptance arises, that this is how the mind has to be, this is the nature of the mind — and it is not your problem, because you are not the mind. If you were the mind, there would have been no problem at all. Then who would choose and who would think of transcending? And who would try to accept and understand acceptance?

“You are separate, totally separate.

“You are only a witness and nothing else.

“But you are being an observer who gets identified with anything that he finds pleasant — and forgets that the unpleasant is coming just behind it as a shadow. You are not troubled by the pleasant side — you rejoice in it. The trouble comes when the polar opposite asserts — then you are torn apart.

“But you started the whole trouble. Falling from being just a witness, you became identified. The biblical story of the fall is just a fiction. But this is the real fall — the fall from being a witness into getting identified with something and losing your witnessing.

“Just try once in a while: Let the mind be whatever it is. Remember, you are not it. And you are going to have a great surprise. As you are less identified, the mind starts becoming less powerful, because its power comes from your identification; it sucks your blood. But when you start standing aloof and away, the mind starts shrinking.

“The day you are completely unidentified with the mind, even for a single moment, there is the revelation: mind simply dies; it is no longer there. Where it was so full, where it was so continuous — day in, day out, waking, sleeping, it was there — suddenly it is not there. You look all around and it is emptiness, it is nothingness.

“And with the mind disappears the self. Then there is only a certain quality of awareness, with no ‘I’ in it. At the most you can call it something similar to ‘am-ness,’ but not ‘I-ness.’ To be even more exact, it is ‘is-ness’ because even in am-ness some shadow of the ‘I’ is still there. The moment you know its is-ness, it has become universal.

“With the disappearance of the mind disappears the self. And so many things disappear which were so important to you, so troublesome to you. You were trying to solve them and they were becoming more and more complicated; everything was a problem, an anxiety, and there seemed to be no way out.

“I remind you of the story The Goose is Out. It is concerned with the mind and your is-ness.

“The master tells the disciple to meditate on a koan: A small goose is put into a bottle, fed and nourished. The goose goes on becoming bigger and bigger and bigger, and fills the whole bottle. Now it is too big; it cannot come out of the bottle’s mouth — the mouth is too small. And the koan is that you have to bring the goose out without destroying the bottle, without killing the goose.

“Now it is mind-boggling.

“What can you do? The goose is too big; you cannot take it out unless you break the bottle, but that is not allowed. Or you can bring it out by killing it; then you don’t care whether it comes out alive or dead. That is not allowed either. “Day in, day out, the disciple meditates, finds no way, thinks this way and that way — but in fact there is no way. Tired, utterly exhausted, a sudden revelation...suddenly he understands that the master cannot be interested in the bottle and the goose; they must represent something else. The bottle is the mind, you are the goose...and with witnessing, it is possible. Without being in the mind, you can become identified with it so much that you start feeling you are in it!

“He runs to the master to say that the goose is out. And the master says, “You have understood it. Now keep it out. It has never been in.”

“If you go on struggling with the goose and the bottle, there is no way for you to solve it. It is the realization that, “It must represent something else; otherwise the master cannot give it to me. And what can it be?” — because the whole function between the master and the disciple, the whole business is about the mind and awareness.

“Awareness is the goose which is not in the bottle of the mind. But you are believing that it is in it and asking everyone how to get it out. And there are idiots who will help you, with techniques, to get out of it. I call them idiots because they have not understood the thing at all.

“The goose is out, has never been in, so the question of bringing it out does not arise.

“Mind is just a procession of thoughts passing in front of you on the screen of the brain. You are an observer. But you start getting identified with beautiful things — those are bribes. And once you get caught in the beautiful things you are also caught in the ugly things, because mind cannot exist without duality.

“Awareness cannot exist with duality, and mind cannot exist without duality.

“Awareness is non-dual, and mind is dual. So just watch. I don’t teach you any solutions. I teach you the solution: Just get back a little and watch. Create a distance between you and your mind.

“Whether it is good, beautiful, delicious, something that you would like to enjoy closely, or it is ugly — remain as far away as possible. Look at it just the way you look at a film....

“Identification is the root cause of your misery. And every identification is identification with the mind.

“Just step aside, let the mind pass.

“And soon you will be able to see that there is no problem at all — the goose is out. You don’t have to break the bottle, you don’t have to kill the goose either.”

The "Rubber Band" theory in relationships-- Is it real?

By Susie and Otto Collins


IMPORTANT: If you've ever felt like you couldn't say what
you thought or how you felt to your partner or spouse out
of fear for what they might say, do or how they'd react...

Then download a copy of "stop Talking On Eggshells"--

This is a program we created to show you how to say anything
to your partner, spouse or lover without fear of what
they'll say, what they'll think or how they'll react.

Download "Stop Talking On Eggshells" now from THIS
web page

If there's one dynamic that's a sticky issue between two people
who decide to be a couple, it's this...

One person feels the need to "retreat" every now and then
and the other person feels unloved and abandoned when
it happens.

Pretty simple to describe but not simple to deal with!

One of our long time subscribers to our newsletters wrote
to ask if we support the "rubber band" theory in relationships
in relationship breakthrough coaching practice.

We hope we're talking about the same thing because
as we think about it, the first time we heard about the
"rubber-band" theory was when we originally read
John Gray's book "Men are from Mars, Women are
from Venus."

While we know that many people get a lot of benefit
from John Gray's gender difference information, we
think the issue is much broader and deeper than
just being about a differences between men and
women.

We have seen this dynamic too many times in both
genders to assign one set of behaviors to one and
another set to another.

In the past, we've called this dynamic the
"relationship push-pull."

Here's a description of what we've seen...

One person (either gender) pulls away for whatever
reason and the other person pushes in some form
or another because he or she feels a loss of love
and connection.

Why do some people feel the need to pull away at
times?

--Overwhelm --the need to feel "in control" when
emotions get out of control.

--Habit--the way you learned to "resource"
yourself or make yourself feel better--maybe
from watching someone in your family do it
that way.

--Protection--you may feel threatened in some
way and feel the need to withdraw and protect
yourself.


So why do some people "push" when the partner
pulls away (even though they may not think they
are pushing)?

--Fear--you feel abandoned and fear that your
love will be taken away from you.

--Habit--you learned to "push" when you weren't
getting what you wanted.

--Protection--you learned to protect yourself
from losing what you have by reacting and pushing.


We could go on and on but the point is that we
are all different and react differently to situations
and to the triggers in our lives.

What can you do about it if you're in this kind of
dynamic?

The woman sent us the question told us that she
and her boyfriend were working through it. He is
beginning to recognize when he pulls away and
is also trying to reassure her that he will be back.

She has shared with him how his pulling away
makes her feel and she "allows him to pull away"
but maybe "not at the level he thinks it should be."

We think the two of them are taking solid steps
toward understanding one another, allowing each
other to be who they are, and keeping their connection--
even when it's tough.

Here are some more suggestions...

1. Notice your patterns and when you either withdraw
and pull away or feel abandoned and either push
against or withdraw.

Don't label it "right or wrong." Just notice what
happens.

2. Go inside.

When you notice you are doing whatever it is you
are doing to separate from each other, instead
of trying to figure it out in your head, take your
attention to the feeling.

From the feeling, you may get a sense of what
you need.

For instance, if you withdraw, you may get a
strong sense that you feel out of control or
fearful for some reason and you need to be
alone for awhile--and it may or may not have
anything to do with your partner.

Or you may feel suffocated and it comes
down to a fear of commitment and a fear of
opening deeply to another.

If you feel abandoned, feel what you need--
maybe it's reassurance and maybe it's just
to learn to resource yourself in some way.

3. Keep the lines of communication open.

Like our newsletter subscriber, allow yourself
to open to listening and understanding how the
other person thinks and feels.

Even if you've been in a relationship with each
other for many years, there is still much to learn
if you truly listen.

Have the courage to say what you need--not
from blame but from your heart.