Osho - Truth is achieved only by Awareness

Osho - One cannot find truth by mere thinking. Thinking is not the process that leads you to the truth. It leads only to inference. And inferences are just inferences, they are hypothetical. They may be true, they may not be true. They are just conjectures, not real conclusions. But the mind lives in thinking and it goes on believing that its conjectures are conclusions. They are not conclusions.

Truth is achieved only by awareness. It is not a mind process at all, it is a totally different phenomenon. You are not to think the truth, you have to stop all thinking to know truth; you have to forget all about truth, to know truth. You have to unburden yourself of all the theories, hypothesizes, philosophies, ideologies, that you have learned.

The process of achieving the truth is a process of unlearning, it is a process of unconditioning. Slowly, slowly one has to get out of the mind, to slip out of the mind; and one has to become just a pool of consciousness, a pure awareness. Just a sheer watchfulness: doing nothing, just watching, watching all that is happening in the outside world and in the inside world.

When one can just watch without any judgement interfering, without any old ideas coming in, then truth is revealed. And the miracle is: it does not come from somewhere else to you, it does not descend from above; it is found within you -- it is your intrinsic nature. It is really a great revelation to know truth because you are it and you have never lost it -- even for a single moment. You have always been it. It is impossible to lose it, because it is your nature and your nature cannot be lost. That's why we call it nature. That which cannot be lost is the very definition of nature. That which can be lost is not nature but nurture.

Truth is your nature, your very being, your very existence, your very center. It is through awareness that slowly slowly you reach your own center. When you have arrived at your own center, then you know what truth is. And it is not just knowledge of something objective, something there , but something subjective, something in here . And once known, it is known forever, once discovered, it cannot be forgotten. And to know truth is to be liberated, truth liberates, but remember: only your own truth liberates. Nobody else's truth can liberate you, Somebody else's truth will always become a bondage to you.

So the real master helps you to discover your own truth. He does not hand over to you a theory, a dogma, a creed. He does not hand to you anything at all. He never gives you anything; on the contrary, he goes on taking away all that you have been carrying with you for many many lives. Slowly slowly, he dismantles your mind, he cuts off your head. The day your head disappears you have arrived home. The master does not give you the truth, but he does take away all the lies from you. And once all the lies are taken away, truth is found within yourself. It was lying there, covered underneath the rubbish of thousands of lies.

Sannyas means, putting your head at the feet of the master and praying to him: "Please cut it off!" It is a strange prayer, but that's exactly what it is!

Source - Osho Book "Eight Four Thousand Poems"