In the book Sermons in Stones, Osho creates a structure for the psychology of the Buddhas. He uses the image of man as a building with at least three floors.
The first floor is the body. Some continue to live mainly on the first floor, in their bodies; that is the most limited life anyone can choose, as if you were living on the steps of a building that actually belongs entirely to you.
The second level of life is the mind*. This is the area that modern psychology deals with. The difficulty of the psychologist is that he does not recognize that there is something beyond the mind. Therefore, because mind cannot watch itself, one goes on circling in the same level, without moving on.
The third level is consciousness. From consciousness we can watch the mind without identifying with it.
Disturbances that we experience in the mind are caused by our own energy, we ourselves supply the energy needed for e.g. anger, sadness, hatred or jealousy. We can slip out of the mind by being aware of the mind and letting go of our identification with it. As soon as we step out of the mind, it comes to rest. Then we can choose what we give energy to. Then the mind can be used as a mechanism, but it will no longer be the master.
“A person who can get out of his mind helps the mind to cool down. The mind is getting no more energy – it cools, calms down on its own accord.”
The psychology of the buddhas is based on the art of slipping out of the mind. In the East techniques have been developed that help you with this, these are meditation techniques.
Even consciousness is only one step: by experiencing the body, the mind and the consciousness, a person becomes ripe to dissolve into the universal. Osho paints the following picture to illustrate this dissolution into the ocean of the universal:
“In the early morning sun the dewdrops on the lotus petals look like pearls – or it will be better to say that pearls look like dewdrops. They are slipping slowly, slowly towards the vast ocean, in which they will be lost and yet not lost. As dewdrops they will be lost, but they will emerge as the whole ocean”.
A psychology that cannot bring people to this oceanic experience is still immature. Western psychology moves in a circle, going round and round in the mind because higher realities are not accepted.
Not being identified with the mind is the shortest way to our own being, which is always whole and healthy. It’s not about healing the mind, it’s about shifting the energy, a focus from mind to being. Meditation helps you make this shift.
Modern psychology is the science of the mind. The psychology of the buddhas will be the science of no-mind.
* Mind here means the entire system of thoughts and feelings.
Based on and quoted from: Osho, Sermons in Stones, 1987