Develop Consciousness, Not Character

You need not learn from others what is right and what is wrong. You need to simply go inwards. Open up small windows into your own being. Get a glimpse of who you are. The deeper you go, the clearer you will see...
— Swami Chaitanya Keerti

Our relationships have little happiness as they are too burdened by complaints about others. Everybody finds faults with everybody else. No one looks at one’s own faults. This is the root cause of all conflicts. Why? Osho says: “Our eyes are focused on others; we are other-oriented. We only see the others—it is not only a question of faults—we never see ourselves. Even if we want to see ourselves, we look in a mirror. We create an image. When there’s an image, the other appears. Otherwise, we have forgotten how to look in. As a consequence, we can’t see our own faults. Nobody can.” How should we get rid of our faults? Osho, the enlightened mystic, finds it very easy. He says: “The moment you start seeing your faults, they start dropping like dry leaves. To see them is enough. To be aware of them is all you need. In that awareness, faults evaporate. One can go on committing an error only if one remains unconscious of it. Even if you try to change, you will commit the same error in some other form. You will substitute it but won’t drop it because deep down you don’t see it as a fault. That’s why everyone thinks himself so beautiful, so intelligent, so virtuous, so saintly—and nobody else agrees! The reason is simple: When you look at others, you see their reality. But, about yourself, you carry fictions, beautiful fictions. All that you know about yourself is more or less a myth; it has nothing to do with reality.” The moment you see your faults, a radical change sets in. Hence all the buddhas down the ages have preached only one thing: Awareness. Not character, for that’s taught by priests and politicians. Buddhas teach you consciousness, not conscience. Conscience is a trick played on you by others. Others tell you what is right and what is wrong. They force their ideas on you. From your very childhood, when you are so vulnerable that it’s possible to make any impression on you. They condition you. That conditioning or conscience dominates your whole life. It’s a social strategy to enslave you! Buddhas teach consciousness. It means you needn’t learn from others what is right or wrong. You simply go in. The deeper you go, the more consciousness is released. When you reach the centre, you’re so full of light that darkness disappears. Osho suggests: “You need a 180° turn. That’s what meditation is all about. Close your eyes, start watching. Initially, you will find only darkness, nothing else. And many may get frightened and rush out, where there’s light. But that light won’t enlighten you. You need inner light, which cannot be extinguished even by death, an eternal light. You are born with it, but you never look at it. You must open up small windows into your own being from where you can have a glimpse of who you are!”