Actions are clouds, doings are clouds: the being is like the sky

The first sutra:

AS A CLOUD THAT RISES FROM THE SEA

ABSORBING RAIN, THE EARTH EMBRACES,

SO, LIKE THE SKY, THE SEA REMAINS

WITHOUT INCREASING OR DECREASING.

AS A CLOUD THAT RISES FROM THE SEA

ABSORBING RAIN, THE EARTH EMBRACES,

SO, LIKE THE SKY, THE SEA REMAINS

WITHOUT INCREASING OR DECREASING.

HE IS SAYING to the king: Look at the sky. There are two Phenomena -- the sky and the cloud. The cloud comes and goes. The sky never comes and never goes. The cloud is there sometimes, and sometimes it is not there -- it is a time phenomenon, it is momentary. The sky is always there -- it is a timeless phenomenon, it is eternity. The clouds cannot corrupt it, not even the black clouds can corrupt it. There is no possibility of corrupting it. Its purity is absolute, its purity is untouchable. Its purity is always virgin -- you cannot violate it. Clouds can come and go, and they have been coming and going, but the sky is as pure as ever, not even a trace is left behind.

So there are two things in existence: something is like the sky and something is like the cloud. Your actions are like the cloud -- they come and go. You? -- you are like the sky: you never come and you never go. Your birth, your death, are like the clouds -- they happen. You? -- you never happen; you are always there.


Things happen in you: you never happen.


Things happen just like clouds happen in the sky. You are a silent watcher of the whole play of clouds. Sometimes they are white and beautiful and sometimes they are dark and dismal and very ugly; sometimes they are full of rain and sometimes they are just empty. Sometimes they do great benefit to the earth, sometimes great harm. Sometimes they bring floods and destruction, and sometimes they bring life, more greenery, more crops. BUT the sky remains all the time the same good or bad, divine or devilish, the clouds don't corrupt it.


Actions are clouds, doings are clouds: the being is like the sky.


Saraha is saying: Look at my sky! Don't look at my actions. It needs a shift of awareness -- nothing else, just a shift of awareness. It needs a change of gestalt. You are looking at the cloud, you are focussed on the cloud, you have forgotten the sky. Then suddenly you remember the sky. You unfocus on the cloud, you focus on the sky then the cloud is irrelevant, then you are in a totally different dimension.


Just the shift of focussing... and the world is different. When you watch a person's behavior, you are focussing on the cloud. When you watch the innermost purity of his being, you are watching his sky. If you watch the innermost purity, then you will never see anybody evil, then the whole existence is holy.

The Tantra Vision, Vol 1 Chapter #3 Chapter title: This honey is yours

This honey is yours - only one sky

AS A CLOUD THAT RISES FROM THE SEA
ABSORBING RAIN, THE EARTH EMBRACES,

SO, LIKE THE SKY, THE SEA REMAINS

WITHOUT INCREASING OR DECREASING.

SO FROM SPONTANEITY THAT'S UNIQUE,

REPLETE WITH THE BUDDHA'S PERFECTIONS,

ARE ALL SENTIENT BEINGS BORN, AND IN IT COME

TO REST. BUT IT IS NEITHER CONCRETE NOR ABSTRACT.

THEY WALK OTHER PATHS AND SO FORSAKE TRUE BLISS,

SEEKING THE DELIGHTS THAT STIMULANTS PRODUCE.

THE HONEY IN THEIR MOUTHS, AND TO THEM SO NEAR,

WILL VANISH IF AT ONCE THEY DO NOT DRINK IT.

BEASTS DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE WORLD

TO BE A SORRY PLACE. NOT SO THE WISE

WHO THE HEAVENLY NECTAR DRINK

WHILE BEASTS HUNGER FOR THE SENSUAL.

EVERYTHING CHANGES... and Heraclitus is right: you cannot step in  the same river twice. The river is changing, so are you changing too. It is all movement. It is all flux. Everything is impermanent, momentary. Only for a moment it is there, and then gone... and you will never find it again. There is no way to find it again. Once gone it is gone for ever. And nothing changes -- that too is true. Nothing ever changes. All is always the same. Parmeneides is also right; he says: There is nothing new under the sun. How can there be? The sun is old, so is everything. If you ask

Parmeneides, he will say you can step in any river you want -- but you will be stepping in the same river always. Whether it is the Ganges or the Thames does not make any difference. THE WATER IS THE SAME! It is all H20.

And whether you step in the river today or tomorrow, or after millions of years, it will be the same river. And how can you be different? You were a child; you remember it. Then you were a young man; you remember that too. Then you became old; that too you remember. Who is this one who goes on remembering? There must be a non-changing element in you -- unchanging, permanent, absolutely permanent. Childhood comes and goes; so comes youth and is gone, so old age -- but

something remains eternally the same.

Now, let me say to you: Heraclitus and Parmeneides, both are right -- in fact, they both are right together. If Heraclitus is right, it is only half the truth; if Parmeneides is right, that too is only half the truth. And half the truth is not the true thing. They are stating half-truths. The wheel moves and the hub does not move. Parmeneides talks about the hub, Heraclitus talks about the wheel --

but the wheel cannot exist without the hub! And what use is a hub without the wheel? So those two contradictory looking half-truths are not contradictory but complementary. Heraclitus and Parmeneides are not enemies but friends. The other can stand only if the complementary truth is there -- otherwise not.

Meditate on the silent centre of a cyclone....

But the moment you state something, it can at the most be only half the truth. No statement can cover the whole truth. If any statement wants to cover the whole truth, then the statement will have to be of necessity self-contradictory, then it will have to be of necessity illogical. Then the statement will look crazy.

Mahavir did that -- he is the craziest man because he tried to state the whole truth and nothing but the whole truth. He drives you crazy, because each statement is immediately followed by its contradiction. He developed a sevenfold pattern of statements. One is followed by its contradiction, that is followed by its contradiction... so on and so forth. He goes on contradicting

seven times, and only when he has said seven times, seven different things contradictory to each other, then he says now the truth is told perfectly -- but then you don't know what he has said.

If you ask him: "God is?" he will say, "Yes," and he will say, "No," and he will say, "Both," and he will say, "Both not," and so on and so forth he goes.... Finally you don't come to any conclusion; you cannot conclude. He does not give you any chance to conclude. He leaves you hanging in the air.

This is one possibility if you are insistent on saying the truth.

The other possibility is that of Buddha -- he keeps silent, knowing that whatsoever you say will be only half. And half is dangerous. He does not say anything about ultimate truths. He will not say the world is a flux, and he will not say that the world is permanent. He will not say that you are, and he will not say that you are not. The moment you ask anything about the absolute truth, he prohibits. He says, "Please don't ask, because by your question you will put me into trouble. Either I have to be contradictory, which is going crazy; or I have to utter a half-truth, which is not truth and dangerous; or I have to keep quiet." These are the three possibilities: Buddha has chosen to

keep silent.

This is the first thing to be understood about today's sutras, then with this context it will be easy to understand what Saraha is saying.

Osho The Tantra Vision, Vol 1, Chapter #3 Chapter title: This honey is yours