A Tantra method

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If one sees naught when staring into space; if with the mind one then observes

the mind, one destroys distinctions and reaches buddhahood.

 

If one sees naught when staring into space.... This is a method, a tantra

method: to look into space, into the sky, without seeing; to look with an empty

eye. Looking, yet not looking for something: just an empty look.

 

Sometimes you see in a madman's eyes an empty look -- and madmen and sages are

alike in certain things. A madman looks at your face, but you can see he is not

looking at you. He just looks through you as if you are a glass thing,

transparent; you are just in the way, he is not looking at you. And you are

transparent for him: he looks beyond you, through you. He looks without looking

at you; the "at" is not present, he simply looks.

 

Look in the sky without looking for something, because if you look for something

a cloud is bound to come: "something" means a cloud, "nothing" means the vast

expanse of the blue sky. Don't look for any object. If you look for an object,

the very look creates the object: a cloud comes, and then you are looking at a

cloud. Don't look at the clouds. Even if there are clouds, you don't lookat them

-- simply look, let them float, they are there. Suddenly a moment comes when you

are attuned to this look of not-looking -- clouds disappear for you, only the

vast sky remains. It is difficult because eyes are focused and your eyes are

tuned to look at things.

 

Look at a small child the first day born. He has the same eyes as a sage -- or

like a madman: his eyes are loose and floating. He can bring both his eyes to

meet at the center; he can allow them to float to the far corners -- they are

not yet fixed. His system is liquid, his nervous system is not yet a structure,

everything is floating. So a child looks without looking at things; it is a mad

look. Watch a child: the same look is needed from you, because again you have to

attain a second childhood.

 

Watch a madman, because the madman has fallen out of the society. Society means

the fixed world of roles, games. A madman is mad because he has no fixed role

now, he has fallen out: he is the perfect drop-out. A sage is also a perfect

drop-out in a different dimension. He is not mad; in fact he is the only sanest

possibility. But the whole world is mad, fixed -- that's why a sage also looks

mad. Watch a madman: that is the look which is needed.

 

In old schools of Tibet they always had a madman, just for the seekers to watch

his eyes.

 

A madman was very much valued. He was searched after because a monastery could

not exist without a madman. He becomes an object to observe. The seekers will

observe the madman, his eyes, and then they will try to look at the world like

the madman. Those days were beautiful.

 

In the East, madmen have never suffered like they are suffering in the West. In

the East they were valued, a madman was something special. The society took care

of him, he was respected, because he has certain elements of the sage, certain

elements of the child. He is different from the so-called society, culture,

civilization; he has fallen out of it. Of course, he has fallen down; a sage

falls up, a madman falls down -- that's the difference -- but both have fallen

out. And they have similarities. Watch a madman, and then try to let your eyes

become unfocused.

 

In Harvard, they were doing one experiment a few months ago, and they were

surprised, they couldn't believe it. They were trying to find out whether the

world, as we see it, is so or not -- because many things have surfaced within

the few last years.

 

We see the world not as it is, we see it as we expect it to be seen, we project

something onto it.

 

It happened that a great ship reached a small island in the Pacific for the

first time. The people of the island didn't see it, nobody! And the ship was so

vast -- but the people were attuned, their eyes were attuned to small boats.

They had never known such a big ship, they had never seen such a thing. Simply

their eyes would not catch the glimpse, their eyes simply refused.

 

In Harvard they tried it on a young man: they gave him spectacles with

distorting glasses, and he had to wear them for seven days. For the first three

days he was in a miserable state, because everything was distorted, the whole

world around him was distorted.... It gave him such a severe headache, he

couldn't sleep. Even with closed eyes those distorted figures would be

there...the faces distorted, the trees distorted, the roads distorted. He

couldn't even walk because he couldn't believe: "What is true and what is given

by the projection of distorting glasses?"

 

But a miracle happened! After the third day he became attuned to it; the

distortion disappeared. The glasses remained the same, distorting, but he

started looking at the world in the same old way. Within a week everything was

okay: there was no headache, no problem, and the scientists were simply

surprised; they couldn't believe it was happening. The eyes had completely

dropped, as if the glasses were no longer there. The glasses were there, and

they were distorting -- but the eyes had come to see the world for which they

were trained.

 

Nobody knows whether what you are seeing is there or not. It may not be there,

it may be there in a totally different way. The colors you see, the forms you

see, everything is projected by the eyes. And whenever you look fixedly, focused

with your old patterns, you see things according to your own conditioning.

That's why a madman has a liquid look, an absent look, looking and not looking

together.

 

This look is beautiful. It is one of the greatest tantra techniques:

 

[Osho]Tantra: The Supreme Understanding