‘A white cloud is a mystery, the coming, the going, the very being of it... The White Clouds' Way means a pathless path, a wayless way. Moving, but not with a fixed mind - moving without a mind.’ Osho chooses the symbol of the white clouds for all the adventures we call life, storm, wind, sun, rain and rainbows.`

Chapter Titles

Preface
Chapter 1: The Way of the White Clouds
Chapter 2: The Mystery beyond Mind
Chapter 3: Just Be Happy
Chapter 4: All Hopes Are False
Chapter 5: Dropping the Ego Now
Chapter 6: Repression or Transformation?
Chapter 7: The Mystery of Relationship
Chapter 8: Only a Ripe Fruit Falls
Chapter 9: Surrender Can Only Be Total
Chapter 10: No Goal, No Effort
Chapter 11: A Meeting of Life with Death
Chapter 12: Be Total
Chapter 13: Passive Alertness Is the Key
Chapter 14: Parenthood: Giving Your Child a Wholeness
Chapter 15: Sannyas Is Desirelessness

Excerpt from My Way: The Way of the White Clouds
Chapter 1

Just before Buddha died somebody asked him: When a buddha dies where does he go? Does he survive or simply disappear into nothingness?” This is not a new question, it is one of the oldest, many times repeated and asked. Buddha is reported to have said: “Just like a white cloud disappearing…”

Just this very morning there were white clouds in the sky. Now they are there no longer there. Where have they gone? From where do they come? How do they evolve, and how do they dissolve again? A white cloud is a mystery, the coming, the going, the very being of it. That’s the first reason why I call my way The Way of the White Clouds.

But there are many reasons, and it is good to ponder, to meditate upon them. A white cloud exists without any roots. It is an unrooted phenomenon, grounded nowhere or grounded in the “now-here”. But still it exists. The whole of existence is like a white cloud; it exists without any roots, without any causality, without any ultimate cause. It exists as a mystery.

A white cloud really has no way of its own. It drifts. It has nowhere to reach, no destination, no destiny to be fulfilled, no end. You cannot frustrate a white cloud because wherever it reaches is the goal. If you have a goal you are bound to get frustrated. The more goal-oriented a mind is, the more anguish, anxiety and frustration there will be, because once you have a goal you are moving with a fixed destination. And the whole exists without any destiny. The whole is not moving anywhere; there is no goal to it, no purpose.

Once you have a purpose you are against the whole – remember this – then you will get frustrated. You cannot win against the whole. Your existence is so tiny – you cannot fight, you cannot conquer. It is impossible to conceive how an individual unit can conquer the whole. And if the whole is purposeless and you are with purpose, you are going to be defeated.

A white cloud drifts wherever the wind leads – it doesn’t resist, it doesn’t fight. A white cloud is not a conqueror, and still it hovers over everything. You cannot conquer it, you cannot defeat it. It has no mind to conquer – that’s why you cannot defeat it. Once you are fixed on a goal, purpose, destiny, meaning, once you have got that madness of reaching somewhere, then problems will arise. And you will be defeated, that is certain. Your defeat is in the very nature of existence itself.

A white cloud has nowhere to go. It moves, it moves everywhere. All dimensions belong to it, all directions belong to it. Nothing is rejected. Everything is, exists, in a total acceptance. Hence I call my way The Way of the White Clouds.


Beloved Osho,
You said  the ego can be dropped this very moment.
Can the ego also be dropped  progressively?

The dropping always happens in the moment and always in THIS moment. There is no progressive, gradual process for it. There cannot be. The happening is instantaneous. You can't get ready for it, you can't prepare for it, because whatsoever you do - and I say whatsoever - will strengthen the ego.

Any gradual process will be an effort, something done on your part. So you will be strengthened more and more through it. You will become stronger. Everything gradual helps the ego. Only something absolutely non-gradual, something like a jump, not like a process, something discontinuous with the past, not in continuity with it - only then the ego drops. The problem arises because we cannot understand what this ego is.

The ego is the past, the continuity, all that you have done, all that you have accumulated, all the karmas, all the conditionings, all the desires, all the dreams of the past. That whole past is the ego. And if you think in terms of gradual process, you bring the past in.
The dropping is non-gradual, sudden. It is a discontinuity - the past is no more, the future is no more. You are left alone here and now. Then the ego cannot exist.
The ego can exist only through the memory: Who you are, from where you come, to whom you belong, the country, the race, the religion, the family, the tradition, and all the hurts, wounds, pleasures - all that has happened in the past. All that has happened is the ego. And you are that to whom all this has happened.

This distinction has to be understood: you are that to whom all has happened, and the ego is that which has happened. The ego is around you. You are in the center, egoless.
A child is born absolutely fresh and young - no past, no ego. That's why children are so beautiful. They don't have any past. They are young and fresh. They cannot say I, because from where will they bring the I? The I has to develop gradually. They will get educated, they will get awards, punishments, they will be appreciated, condemned - then the I will gather.
A child is beautiful because the ego is not there. An old man becomes ugly, not because of old age, but because of too much past, too much of the ego. An old man can also become again beautiful, even more beautiful than a child, if he can drop the ego. Then there is a second childhood, then a rebirth.

This is the meaning of the resurrection of Jesus. It is not an historical fact, it is a parable. Jesus is crucified and then he resurrects. The man who was crucified is no more; that was the son of the carpenter, Jesus. Now Jesus is dead, crucified. A new entity arises out of that. Out of this death a new life is born. This is Christ - not the son of a particular carpenter in Bethlehem, not a Jew, not even a man. This is Christ, something new, egoless.
And the same will happen to you whenever your ego is on the cross. Whenever your ego is crucified, there is a resurrection, a rebirth. You are born again. And this childhood is eternal, because this is a rebirth of the spirit, not of the body.

Now you will never become old. Always and always you will be fresh and young - as fresh as the dew-drop in the morning, as fresh as the first star in the night. You will always remain fresh, young, a child, innocent - because this is a resurrection of the spirit.
This always happens in a moment.
Ego is time - the more time, the more ego. Ego needs time. If you penetrate deeply you may even be able to conceive that time exists only because of the ego.
Time is not part of the physical world around you, it is part of the psychic world within you, the mind-world. Time exists just as a space for the ego to evolve and to grow. Room is needed; time gives the room.

If it is said to you that this is the last moment of your life, next moment you are going to be shot dead, suddenly time disappears. You feel very uneasy. You are still alive, but suddenly you feel as if you are dying. And you can't think what to do. Even to think becomes difficult, because even for thinking, time is needed, future is needed. There is no tomorrow, then where to think, how to desire, how to hope? There is no time. Time is finished.
The greatest agony that can happen to a man happens when his death is fixed and he cannot avoid it; it is certain. A person who is sentenced, imprisoned, waiting for his death - he cannot do anything about it, death is fixed, after a certain period he will die, beyond that time, there is no tomorrow for him - now he cannot desire, he cannot think, he cannot project, he cannot even dream. The barrier is always there.
Then much agony follows. That agony is for the ego, because ego cannot exist without time. Ego breathes in time. Time is breath for the ego. The more time, the more possibility for the ego.
...
Have you really thought about it, have you ever meditated on it, whether you want to drop it? Do you really want to become a non-being, a nothing? Even in your religious projections you want to be something, you want to achieve something, reach somewhere, be something. Even when you think of being humble, your humility, your humbleness, is just a secret hiding-place for the ego and nothing else. . . .