Can one be absorbed in doing something- for instance, these active techniques-with absolute total intensity, and at the same time remain a witness who is separate, apart?
OSHO: The same is the problem in many forms. You think that a witness is something apart, separate. It is not. Your intensity, your wholeness, is your witness. So when you are witnessing and doing something you are not two-the doer is the witness. For Example, You are dancing: the dancer and the witness are not two, there is no separation. The separation is only in language. The dancer is the witness. And if the dancer is not the witness then you cannot be total in the dance, because the witness will need some energy and you will have to divide yourself.
A part will remain a witness and the remaining will move in the dance. It cannot be total, it will be divided. And this is not what is meant, because really this is the state of a schizophrenic patient -divided, split. It is pathological. If you become two you are ill. You must remain one. You must move totally into the dance, and your totality will become the witness. It is not going to be something set apart, your wholeness is aware. This happens. So don’t try to divide yourself. While dancing become the dance,
Just remain alert; don’t fall asleep, don’t be unconscious. You are not under a drug; you are alert, fully alert. But this alertness is not a part standing aloof; it is your totality, it is your whole being. But this is again the same thing as whether two lovers are two or one. Only on the surface are they two, deep inside they are one. Only in language will you appear two, the dancer and the witness, but deep down you are the one. The whole dancer is alert. Then only peace, equilibrium, silence, will happen to you.
If you are divided there will be tension, and that Tension will not allow you to be totally here and now, to merge into existence. So remember that, don’t try to divide. Become the dancer and still be aware. This happens. This will happen to you also. This may have happened to many already. But remember this: don’t get split. Remain one and yet aware.
And Dancing is not passive, it is very active. In the end you become movement; the body is forgotten, only movement remains. Really, dancing is a most unearthly thing, a most unearthly art, because it is just rhythm in movement. It is absolutely immaterial so you cannot hold on to it. You can hold on to the dancer, but never to the dancing.
It just withers in the cosmos. It is there, and then it is not there; it is not here, and then suddenly it is here - it comes out of nothing and it is here - it comes out of nothing and then, again, goes into nothing. A dancer is sitting here; there is no dancing in him. But if a poet is sitting here, poetry may be in him; poetry can exist in the poet.
A painter is here: in a very subtle way, painting is present. Before he paints, painting is there. But with a dancer nothing is present, and if it is present, then he is simply a technician and not a dancer. The movement is a new phenomenon coming in. The dancer becomes just a vehicle: the movement takes over.
One of the greatest dancers of this century was Nijinsky, and in the end he just went mad. He may have been the greatest dancer in all of history, but the movement became so much for him that dancer was lost in it. In his last years he was unable to control it. He could begin dancing at any moment, anywhere, and when he was dancing, no one could say when it would end. It might even continue the whole night.
When friends asked him, “what has become of you? You begin, and then there is no end,” Nijinsky said, “I am only in the beginning. Then something takes over and ‘I’ am no more - and who dances, I do not know.” He went mad. He was in a madhouse; he died in a madhouse.
Take any activity and go to the limit where there is either madness or meditation. Lukewarm search will not do.
During the peak of Michael Jackson’s career when he was performing to sold-out audiences across the globe, he released some statements about his strange/unique experiences.
-Still dancing – and dancing – and dancing,
-Until there is only the dance”
-Michael Jackson
A part will remain a witness and the remaining will move in the dance. It cannot be total, it will be divided. And this is not what is meant, because really this is the state of a schizophrenic patient -divided, split. It is pathological. If you become two you are ill. You must remain one. You must move totally into the dance, and your totality will become the witness. It is not going to be something set apart, your wholeness is aware. This happens. So don’t try to divide yourself. While dancing become the dance, Just remain alert; don’t fall asleep, don’t be unconscious. You are not under a drug; you are alert, fully alert. But this alertness is not a part standing aloof; it is your totality, it is your whole being. But this is again the same thing as whether two lovers are two or one. Only on the surface are they two, deep inside they are one. Only in language will you appear two, the dancer and the witness, but deep down you are the one. The whole dancer is alert. Then only peace, equilibrium, silence, will happen to you.
If you are divided there will be tension, and that Tension will not allow you to be totally here and now, to merge into existence. So remember that, don’t try to divide. Become the dancer and still be aware. This happens. This will happen to you also. This may have happened to many already. But remember this: don’t get split. Remain one and yet aware.
And Dancing is not passive, it is very active. In the end you become movement; the body is forgotten, only movement remains. Really, dancing is a most unearthly thing, a most unearthly art, because it is just rhythm in movement. It is absolutely immaterial so you cannot hold on to it. You can hold on to the dancer, but never to the dancing.
It just withers in the cosmos. It is there, and then it is not there; it is not here, and then suddenly it is here - it comes out of nothing and it is here - it comes out of nothing and then, again, goes into nothing. A dancer is sitting here; there is no dancing in him. But if a poet is sitting here, poetry may be in him; poetry can exist in the poet.
A painter is here: in a very subtle way, painting is present. Before he paints, painting is there. But with a dancer nothing is present, and if it is present, then he is simply a technician and not a dancer. The movement is a new phenomenon coming in. The dancer becomes just a vehicle: the movement takes over.
One of the greatest dancers of this century was Nijinsky, and in the end he just went mad. He may have been the greatest dancer in all of history, but the movement became so much for him that dancer was lost in it. In his last years he was unable to control it. He could begin dancing at any moment, anywhere, and when he was dancing, no one could say when it would end. It might even continue the whole night.
When friends asked him, “what has become of you? You begin, and then there is no end,” Nijinsky said, “I am only in the beginning. Then something takes over and ‘I’ am no more - and who dances, I do not know.” He went mad. He was in a madhouse; he died in a madhouse.
Take any activity and go to the limit where there is either madness or meditation. Lukewarm search will not do.
OSHO.
Osho has used all sort of creative expressions for taking people into meditation, and dancing is one of them and one of most important medium also, as many people loves to dance. According to osho, if one can be total in dancing then it becomes a meditation. In fact in any activity, if we involved our self so totally, that we are no longer present, then it becomes a meditation. Totality is the key in any form of meditation. Similarly when we dance with totality then one moment comes, when dancer is lost and only dance is left and dancing has become a meditation.
During the peak of Michael Jackson’s career when he was performing to sold-out audiences across the globe, he released some statements about his strange/unique experiences.
Here is a quote from Michael Jackson on his dancing:
“The awareness is expressed through creation.
This world we live in is a dance of the creator.
The dancers appear and disappear at a glance
But the dance is still living.
On many occasions when I am dancing,
I am touched by something sacred.
In these moments I feel my spirit is raised
The dancers appear and disappear at a glance
But the dance is still living.
On many occasions when I am dancing,
I am touched by something sacred.
In these moments I feel my spirit is raised
and become one with all there is
I become the winner and the subjugated,
I become the master and slave,
I become the singer and song,
I become the expert and the known.
Still dancing and then this is the eternal dance of creation.
The creator and creation merge in one of joy.
I become the winner and the subjugated,
I become the master and slave,
I become the singer and song,
I become the expert and the known.
Still dancing and then this is the eternal dance of creation.
The creator and creation merge in one of joy.
-Still dancing – and dancing – and dancing,
-Until there is only the dance”
-Michael Jackson
