follow your nature

The text below is part of one of Osho's lectures on "The Dhammapada". It was delivered on June 23, 1979. The Dhammapada is considered the essence of Buddha's teachings.

"This is one of the most beautiful statements: 'Look into your heart. Follow your nature.'
Buddha is not saying, follow the scriptures. He is not saying, follow me. He is not saying, follow certain rules of conduct. He is not teaching you any morality. He is not trying to create a certain character in you, because every character is a beautiful prison cell. He is not giving you a certain way to live. Rather, he is giving you the courage to follow your own nature. He wants you to be brave enough to listen to your own heart and follow it.
'Follow your nature' means: flow with yourself. You are the scripture... and hidden deep within you is still a small voice. If you become silent, you will be guided by it.
The Master has only to make you aware of your inner Master. Then your function will be complete. Then he can leave you to yourself, he can send you back to yourself. A Master's proposal is not to enslave a disciple, a Master's proposal is to free him, is to give him total freedom. And that is the only possibility to attain total freedom: 'Follow your nature'.
By 'nature' Buddha means Dhamma. Just as it is the nature of water to flow downwards and it is the nature of fire to expand upwards, so there is a certain nature hidden within you. If all the conditionings that have been imposed on you by society are removed, suddenly you will discover your nature.
Its nature is to become God. Ais Dhammo sanantano - this is the eternal and inexhaustible law: your nature is to become God.
Man is a potential God, a Bodhisattva🇧🇷 The meaning of man is to become God. Less than that won't satisfy you, less than that will be of no use. You can have all the money in the world, all the power, all the prestige possible, and you will still remain empty. Unless your divine nature blossoms, open your buds, unless you become a lotus, thousand lotus petals, unless your divinity is revealed to you, you will never be satisfied. The ordinary religious man is told to remain satisfied and content, whatever the situation. The so-called religious saints go on teaching people: 'be satisfied'. Satisfaction is one of its fundamental teachings. This is not the way of true Masters.
The real Master creates discontent in you, such discontent that nothing in this world can satisfy you. It creates such a longing in you that unless you reach the maximum you will remain fireless, flameless. It creates pain in your heart, it creates anguish... because life is slipping away every moment, and every moment that is gone is gone forever, and you still haven't reached God and another day has passed.
It creates such a deep longing in you, such an ache in your heart! It creates tears in your eyes, because only through that divine discontent will you move, you will take the quantum leap, the biggest leap into the unknown. Only through this divine discontent will you gather all your energies and venture out into the greater adventure of discovering who you are.
Follow your own nature. Its nature is consciousness. But the priests told you: follow certain rules of conduct, the Ten Commandments, follow certain principles, not your nature. Priests are very afraid of their nature, because if you follow your nature you will get out of their control, you will no longer be a slave. You will no longer go to churches, temples and monasteries, and you will no longer listen to your stupid priests, politicians, so-called leaders. I say they are the 'so-called leaders' because what is really happening is that blind people are leading blind people.
If you listen to your own nature, you won't listen to them anymore. If you know your own inner voice you will become free. So your inner voice has to be crushed, destroyed, completely destroyed, or at least distorted in such a way that even if you hear it, you cannot understand it. And they have been successful. Unless you fight them hard, there is no possibility of success. Their exploitation is so old, their oppression is so old, their strategies are so cunning... and they have infinite power in their hands. And who are you individually against them?
But if you go within, if you listen to your heart, you will reach such power that no power on Earth can enslave you again.
Follow your nature. But how can you follow your nature if you don't know what it is? And you are not allowed to know what it is! You have been given precise instructions on what to do: what to eat, when to get up in the morning, when to go to bed... You have been given precise instructions. Those instructions, if followed, make you a slave. If not followed, they make you a criminal. If followed, you become a saint, but a slave. People will love you, respect you, but all that respect is a mutual understanding: 'If you follow our instructions, we will respect you. If you don't follow, you will go to prison.'
Either you will become a slave spiritually or a prisoner physically: those are the two alternatives society gives you. And that never allows you to become aware that there is an infinite source of guidance and direction within you. And that's where God speaks from.
God still speaks, he has not stopped speaking. He is not partial. It's not that he spoke to Mohammed and Moses and he doesn't speak to you. He is speaking to you as much as he spoke to Mohammed. The only difference is that Mohammed was ready to listen to you and you are not ready to listen to you. Mohammed was available and you are not available.
Making yourself available to your own inner nature is what I call meditation.
Remember those two words. Character is an invention of politicians and priests, it is a conspiracy against you. Consciousness is your nature. Yes, the man of conscience has a certain character, but that character follows his nature. It was not imposed on you by someone, this character is your own decision. And he's not stuck with that character, he's totally free to change it at any time. Circumstances change, his conscience gives him different directions, and he changes his character.
The man of character, the 'so-called man of character', is under arrest. Even if circumstances change, it keeps repeating the same character, even if it is no longer relevant, even if it is no longer adequate. The context in which it had meaning has disappeared, but it goes on repeating the same nonsense. He's like a parrot. He is a machine: he does not respond, he simply reacts.
A man of conscience responds and his responses are spontaneous. He is like a mirror. It reflects everything that confronts it. And out of that spontaneity, out of that awareness, a new kind of action arises. That action never creates any bondage, any karma. This action frees you. You achieve freedom if you listen to your nature.
But this simple advice seems to be very difficult for people. He should be the simplest thing in the world. Each child is born following his nature, but as you grow, little by little you lose contact with him. You are forced to lose contact with her. Contact can be retrieved, it can be rediscovered. Years later, when you have become an educated person, trapped within a certain character, completely blind to your heart and your nature, you begin to ask many questions.
The other day, Prem Vijen asked: 'Osho, what do you mean when you say Go inside?'
Such a simple statement, 'Go inside', and you ask me 'what do I mean by it?' Can't you understand these simple words, 'go inside'? I know you know the words, but going in has become very difficult because you only learned how to go out. You can only go outside, you only know how to go outside. Your consciousness is turned towards others, it has forgotten the way towards itself. You go on knocking on others' doors and whenever you are told, 'go home' you say, 'Osho, what do you mean by going home?' You only know other people's houses, you don't know your own home. And you are carrying that home within you. You were forced to be an extrovert. You have to learn again the way to go within.
Soren Kierkegaard said: 'Religion means going within', going into your own interiority. But the simple words 'go inside' became so difficult to understand. The mind knows only how to go out, and there is no reverse gear in it....
I'm teaching you here that reverse gear is there, built in, you just forgot about it. You know how to go outside. No one asks 'What do you mean when you say 'go outside'?' But everyone wants to ask 'What do you mean when you say 'go inside'?' Simple words!
To think is to go outside and not to think is to go inside. Think and you have already started to move outside of yourself. Thought is the way to take you away. Thought is a project. No-thought... and suddenly you're in. Without thought you cannot go outside, without desire you cannot go outside. You need the fuel of desire and the vehicle of thought to go outside.
Sitting silently, doing nothing... not even thinking, not even wishing... and where will you be?
Going in is not really going in. It's just stop going outside... and suddenly you find yourself inside.
Prem Vijen, you don't have to go inside because if you go, you will always go outside. Going means going outside. Stop going! Stop going anywhere! Can you sit silently without going anywhere? Yes, physically you can sit down, this is not very difficult. You can learn a yoga posture and you can make your body almost like a statue, but the problem is, what are you doing on the inside? Desires, thoughts, memories, imagination, all kinds of projects? Stop them too.
How to stop them? Simply become indifferent to them, carefree. Even if they are there, pay no attention to them. Even if they are there, don't give them any importance. Even if they are there, let them be. Sit silently inside, watching🇧🇷 Remember that word: watching, witnessing, simply being alert.
And as that watching grows, becomes deeper, the same energy that was becoming desires, thoughts, memories and imagination, that same energy is absorbed in new depth. The same energy is used by this inner deepening. And you will know what I mean when I say 'Go inside'.
Don't start looking in dictionaries or the Encyclopedia Britannica. It's not a matter of words. Words are simple to understand. When I say 'Go inside', that's exactly what I mean: go inside! Don't start asking about the words. Listen to the hidden message, otherwise you will miss the train. What do I mean by 'missing the train'?............
If you become too interested in words, 'What do you mean by going within? What does that mean...?' Verbally, linguistically, Vijen, you're going to miss your train. Don't waste time with words!
And this is a particularly new kind of disease that has been hitting the intellectuals of the world. For at least fifty years, the philosophical world has become very interested in words and linguistic analysis. They no longer ask what God is. They no longer ask whether God exists or not. Contemporary philosophers ask, 'What does it mean when you use the word God?' The question is not whether God exists or not. The question is not what God is. The question is not how to reach God. Now the question took a new turn: 'What do you mean when you use the word God?' What do you mean when you use the word pink? This question is easier. You can grab the philosopher, force him into the garden and show him the rose. 'That's what I mean when I use the word pink.' But this cannot be done with the word God, this cannot be done with the word meditation, this cannot be done with the words 'go within'. These are subtle phenomena. Don't become interested in linguistics. I'm not here to teach you linguistic analysis.
My whole approach is existential. If you really want to know what it means to go in, then go in! And the way is: watch your thoughts and don't get identified with them. Simply remain an observer, completely indifferent, neither for nor against. Don't judge, because any judgment brings identification. Don't say, 'These thoughts are wrong' and don't say, 'These thoughts are good'. Do not comment on thoughts. Let them pass by as if they were just passing traffic and you're standing there on the side of the road carefree, watching the traffic. It doesn't matter what's going by, a bus, a truck or a bicycle. If you can observe the thought process of your mind with such ease, with such detachment, the day will not be far off when all traffic disappears... because traffic can only exist if you go on giving energy to it. If you stop giving energy to it... And that is the watching: stop giving energy to it, stop the energy that moves into the traffic. It is your energy that makes those thoughts move. When your energy is not feeding them, they start to fall down, they can't stand up for themselves.
And when the highway of the mind is completely empty, you're in. That's what I mean, Vijen, when I say 'Go inside'. And that's what Buddha means when he says, 'Follow your nature'."

OSHO - The Book of the Books - Volume I