Patanjali says that God is only an arbitrary, hypothesis. | Philosia: The Existential Drama
Patanjali says God is arbitrary
While talking to his disciples from 75 countries who gathered at his commune in Pune, India for 20+ years as part of experiment to live life according to his concept of New Man of 21st century. The topic of the talk was treaties of Saint Dionysius Theologica Mystica, Chapter Transluscent Darkness, Osho says:-
Patanjali says that God is only an arbitrary, hypothesis: you can use it if you want, but remember it has no truth about it; it is only a means towards meditation. See the radical, revolutionary,, rebellious spirit of the statement from a man like Patanjali, who has never been surpassed as far as methodologies for the inner journey are concerned, who is the suprememost Master of Yoga and meditative methods.
All over the world it is thought that meditation is a means to God; God is the end. Patanjali reverses the whole situation: he says meditation is the goal, God is only a hypothesis. If your mind is very childish and you need the support of a God to meditate, okay, you can take the support. But remember, the moment you have learned how to meditate, drop that support. It was just to help you in the beginning.
It is like small children’s books. If you look at them you will see big pictures, colored pictures, with small texts. If a child has to be helped to understand things and words ant language, that’s the only way. If you want to teach him what the word “mango” means you have to paint a colorful, very juicy- looking mango. He is interested in the mango, he is not interested in the word “mango.” Children are very very pragmatic; they are not as stupid as theologians. But through the picture you can help the child to understand the word “mango.” Slowly slowly the picture will disappear — but it was only an arbitrary device.
Because we are all children as far as the ultimate truth is concerned, Patanjali says, there are many supports. One of those supports is the belief in God. If it helps you to surrender the ego, good; if it helps you to drop the mind, good; because the ultimate thing, the essential thing, the important thing is how to drop the ego, how to drop the mind. Any excuse will do. God is just an excuse. Once the mind is dropped God is also dropped — because God was nothing but a thought in the mind.
Once the ego is dropped God is dropped, because God was nothing but a projection of the ego.
The ego means “I” and God means “thou.” How can the “thou” exist without the “I”? They can either both exist together or both disappear, evaporate together. They are simultaneous phenomena.
Mahavira, Patanjali, Buddha — all the three deny any existence to God — Osho, Theologica Mystica, #5 Translucent Darkness.
Osho in chapter 4 of this book says :- Logic will not be able to comprehend Dionysius’ idea of Translucent or luminous darkness; it will look simply mad.
Luminous darkness? How can darkness be luminous? How can darkness be translucent? Darkness has to be dark, light has to be light. Logic believes in pigeonholes, in categories, and life is one organic unity. Everything penetrates everything else. There are no categories; life goes on flowing.
Light becomes darkness, darkness becomes light. Birth becomes death, death becomes birth. Love becomes hate, hate becomes love. Friendship becomes enmity, enmity becomes friendship.
And now we know that a man can become a woman, a woman can become a man. There is no intrinsic impossibility in it. Just as electricity consists of two poles, the negative and the positive, the whole existence consists of polarities. Logically they look opposite, but if you put logic aside then they are not opposites but complementaries: without The negative the positive cannot exist. Then how can you call them opposites? If the negative is a necessity for the positive to exist, if the positive is a must for the negative to exist, they are not opposites, they are complementaries.
Now a totally different vision is arising slowly: the vision that takes opposites as complementaries.
Aristotelian logic is dying, it is on its deathbed. In fact, it is dead; it is being kept alive by artificial breathing. The Theory of Relativity has dealt it the final blow, the death blow. The Theory of Relativity has simply transcended all logic. And that is the beauty of Einsteinian physics: it is for the first time that a physicist has spoken the language of the mystic. It is one of the greatest events that has happened in our lifetime: that physics speaks the same language as mystics have always spoken.
Physics has come very close to mysticism; that is the beginning of a meeting, of a synthesis. And the synthesis Is not very far away. Soon you will see — those who have clear eyes can see it right now — that logic has no more relevance because physics has gone deeper than the superficial, objective world. Now matter exists no more. You SEE matter, it is very logically there; in fact logically you cannot disprove matter.
God is a hypothetical reality, self is a hypothetical reality. Logically they are needed — I and thou are needed — but the need is logical, not existential.
Those who have penetrated the subjective reality, they have come to know that all our words, all our logic, all our hypotheses are only arbitrary. And now even physics agrees. (Recently scientists have agreed that the world exists not!) The Theory of Relativity is the beginning of a totally new science, the beginning of the meeting of East and West. (Quantum physics too has given statements like Atom is a wave and particle both so in a way agreed to many of the statements of mystics like Dionysius’s Translucent Darkness. This also proves that logically we need to pray God but only till we get the first experience of going beyond duality ie no-thought moment through awareness meditation.
My suggestions:-
Awareness Meditation is the way worked for me and I tried it first during brushing my teeth in the morning after trying 8–10 meditations over period of 15 years! So there is no need to reinvent the circle for you. May be you too find it suitable otherwise with Dynamic meditation and/or Kundalini in the evening it is suitable for most of the people. There are 110 other meditation techniques discovered by Indian Mystic Gorakhnath about 500years before and further modified by Osho for contemporary people that one can experiment and the suitable one could be practiced in routine life.
Hi ….. I write my comments from my personal experiences of my inner journey. This post may include teachings of Mystics around the world which from my personal experience I found worth following even today. For more have a look at my linktree website for getting regular updates through social media lor subscribe to YouTube channel or listen to the podcasts etc.
For references of content on Osho, Copyright © OSHO International Foundation, An MP3 audio file of this discourse can be downloaded from Osho(dot)com or you can listen or watch his discourses @ OSHO International channel of YouTube where you can get subtitles in language of your choice or you can read the entire book online at the Osho Library. Many of Osho’s books are available online at Amazon.
My suggestions:-
Osho International Online (OIO) provides facility to learn these from your home, through Osho Meditation Day @€20.00 per person. You can learn Dynamic meditations from disciples of Osho. OIO rotate times through three timezones NY,Berlin and Mumbai.
Originally published at https://philosia.in on January 31, 2024.
