AA-HOO! The Mystic Rose

Osho, YAA HOO! The Mystic Rose,  367 pages, Hardcover, euro 20.50 - order here

'Man is only a beginning and one should not die as a beginning; that is ugly, insulting, damaging to your dignity. Man should reach to the absolute fulfillment -- not only for his own contentment, but for the contentment of the cosmos. That is the secret of the mystic rose.'

The heart is the soil - trust is the climate
BELOVED OSHO,
IN WHAT SOIL AND IN WHICH CLIMATE MIGHT ONE FIND THE MYSTIC ROSE?

Maneesha, the symbol of mystic rose vibrates tremendously significant memories...
It was one day in the early morning, a gathering of seekers just like you are... but the time goes twenty-five centuries back. Gautam Buddha was expected to deliver his morning sermon.
Everybody was surprised... He came right on time, carrying a rose in his hand. They had listened to him for many years, and he has never carried anything. Everybody wondered: What is this rose, and why is he carrying it? But they sat silently - perhaps he will explain.

And he did explain, but not with words.
He sat silently looking at the rose. The rose was immensely beautiful. So were those two eyes, so was that silent moment - pregnant, expectant, that he is going to say something very special.
He was - but he was not using words.
There are things which can be shown but cannot be said.
The silence became heavy; people were not accustomed. This behavior of Gautam Buddha was so unexpected, so new. Everybody sat like a marble statue and Buddha was looking at the rose with such blissfulness, showering so much love and so much blessing and so much grace on the rose that nobody dared to interrupt him and ask, What is going on?

At that very moment...
Mahakashyap was a very strange disciple of Gautam Buddha; he is known to be the founder of the long tradition of Zen.
And this moment when Gautam Buddha was looking at the rose is the moment of a source that is still blossoming. Perhaps it is the only rose that has not faded away. Many others have blossomed and faded away.
Mahakashyapa's laughing shocked everybody. They were not even courageous enough to ask the question, and this strange fellow - he was strange from the very beginning. Since he had come he had never asked a question. He had monopolized a tree, under which nobody else dared to sit. Whether he was late or early, his place was certain.
People even wondered - does he understand what Gautam Buddha is saying? or does he simply take a good morning sleep? because he always listened with closed eyes. He never made any friends; even if people wanted to talk to him, he would simply make one simple sign.
Slowly, slowly people accepted that Mahakashyap was a little bit crazy... but a very silent and beautiful person. He was a prince, had left his kingdom. He just came to see Gautam Buddha and never went back. He never even asked for initiation. He simply touched Gautam Buddha's feet, tears rolled down from his eyes and he said to Gautam Buddha, "I am grateful that you initiated me."

Those who were present said, "This is strange, he has taken everything upon himself. He has touched the feet, he has cried and now he is thanking Gautam Buddha: `I am thankful and grateful that you have initiated me.' "
And since then there had been no communication, verbally at least, between Mahakashyap and Gautam Buddha.

But this day - it must have been after ten years - he laughed and people became aware that he was still here. People had started forgetting. A person who remains for ten years without making any noise, naturally, is taken for granted. Just as the tree was taken for granted, he was also taken for granted.
But his sudden burst of laughter...
Gautam Buddha called him close and gave him the rose. And he told the other ten thousand disciples, "What I can give you in words I have given to you. And what I cannot give in words I am transferring to Mahakashyap."
Thus began a strange transference of the innermost experience of truth from the master to the disciple. Mahakashyap never wrote anything and Mahakashyap never did anything. It is not known how he initiated people. The man was not only strange, his methods were also strange.

Before dying he gave his robe to a person to whom he had never spoken a single word. And the person touched the feet of Mahakashyap and again the same story... the tears of joy and gratitude and thankfulness. And the man said, "You were a great master; you have given me a great responsibility, but I promise you that I will fulfill it with my total heart." This man became the second patriarch of Zen Buddhism. And because Mahakashyap gave his robe, this became the form of choosing the successor. For all these twenty-five centuries, Zen masters have chosen their successors by just giving them their bowl, their robe.
It is called the transmission of the light, the opening of the mystic rose.

You are asking: "In what soil and in which climate might one find the mystic rose?"
Your heart is the soil.
Your trust is the climate.
And your being is the mystic rose - its opening, blossoming, releasing its fragrance.
The mystic rose became just a symbol of the man whose being is dormant no more, is asleep no more, but is fully awake and has opened all its petals and has become sensitive to all that is truthful, beautiful, good - the very splendor of existence. His being has become part of the eternal and the immortal. He is no more the same man he used to be. He has found his real self, his original face.
The only way is to look inwards: there is the soil. To look with trust, with love and with a guarantee that if other people have found themselves there is no reason why you cannot find.

The rose flower signifies his fundamental attitude of momentariness.
That is your being, your witness.
Otherwise, who will witness the change?
Their emphasis on the changing is to find the unchanging. A very strange approach, but very significant: more people have become enlightened through this process than any other. Just watch everything that is changing, so finally only the watcher remains.
Everything moves, only the mirror remains.
That mirror is you.
Realizing it is the greatest experience of life.

"remember, `let-go' is the most important word in existence."
Love is Freedom from Attachment
Life is an eternal source of energy
This silence is let-go.

On no other subject Osho has talked more than on Zen.