Question – Please explain whether Awareness is also one of the modifications of the Mind.
Osho – No, awareness is not part of the mind. It flows through the mind, but it is not part of the mind. It is just like this bulb — the electricity flows through it, but the electricity is not part of the bulb. If you break the bulb, you have not broken electricity. The expression will be hindered, but the potentiality remains hidden. You put another bulb, and the electricity starts flowing.
Mind is just an instrument. Awareness is not part of it, but awareness flows through it. When mind is transcended, awareness remains in itself. That’s why I say even a Buddha will have to use the mind if he talks to you, if he relates to you, because then he will need flow, flow of his inner pool. He will have to use instruments, mediums, and then mind will function. But mind is just a vehicle.
You move in a vehicle, but you are not the vehicle. You go in a car, or you fly in an aircraft, but you are not the vehicle. Mind is just the vehicle. And you are not using the mind to its total capacity. If you use it to its total capacity, it will become right knowledge.
We are using our mind as if someone can use an airplane like a bus. You can cut the wings of the airplane and use it like a bus on the road. That will do; it will work like a bus. But you are foolish. That bus can fly! You are not using it to its right capacity!
You are using your mind for dreams, imaginations, madness. You have not used, you have cut the wings. If you use it with the wings, it can become right knowledge; it can become wisdom. But that too is part of the mind; that too is the vehicle. The user remains behind; the user cannot be the used. You are using it, you are awareness. And all the efforts for meditation mean to know this awareness in its purity, without any medium. Once you know it without any instrument, you can know it! And this can be known only when mind has stopped functioning. And mind has stopped functioning — you will become aware that awareness is there; you are filled with it. Mind was just a vehicle, a passage. Now, if you want, you can use the mind; if you don’t want, you need not use.
Body, mind, both are vehicles. You are not the vehicle, you are the master hidden behind these vehicles. But you have forgotten completely. And you have become the cart; you have become the vehicle. This is what Gurdjieff calls identification. This is what, in India, yogis have called tadatmya becoming one with something which you are not.
Source – Osho Book “Yoga : The Alpha and the Omega, Vol1”
