OSHO International Foundation presents
This Too Will Pass
Life is constantly changing.
Only one thing is unchanging:
and that is
your witnessing capacity.
You can see the anger flash by,
you can see the compassion flash by;
but the mirror before they flash
remains always unaffected --
and that is your transcendence.
And that's what I call meditativeness.
Meditate on every state of mind
so you can achieve to the witness.
Meditation is the way
of detaching your witness
from moods
which go on passing.
There is a Sufi story....
A king asked his court
that he wants the whole wisdom
condensed into one sentence,
and the sentence has to be as small as possible
so that he can engrave it
underneath his diamond ring.
And he will open it only
in a situation when there is no way out.
It was a difficult task.
But one
of his ministers said --
"I will prepare
the ring. You give me the ring.
But don't open at it until
every other possibility is finished
and you are facing death --
in the ultimate
emergency,
because only then you will understand it."
The king was curious, but he has
to keep his word that he will not open it.
And soon the day came
the country was invaded,
the king was defeated;
he escaped into the mountains
to hide.
He reached to a point
where there was the
end of the mountain,
and an abysmal
depth facing him.
There was no way to go further,
and back he cannot go.
He can hear the enemy,
the horses,
approaching near.
He waited for few minutes, when he heard
the steps of the horses so close
that it is only a question of a few seconds
to be caught,
he opened
the diamond,
looked --
laughed in that silent place.
The whole valley was full of his laughter,
because what was written was a very simple sentence.
In his ring it was engraved: "This too will pass."
The whole wisdom he had asked --
and this is the essence of whole wisdom:
This too will pass.
And as it happened,
the horses must have turned
into some other way,
and he heard their steps going farther and farther away.
He gathered his army again,
conquered back his country,
and there was great celebration
all over the capital that they have become
again independent.
He was garlanded,
his chariot was full of flowers,
and people were throwing flowers
in joy, and dancing and singing.
At that moment he again opened
his diamond ring
and read the sentence: This too will pass.
And this moment became his enlightenment.
Sadness comes,
joy comes,
and everything passes by.
What remains always is the witness.
And the witness is beyond all polarities.
It is the transcendental element in existence.
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