Heraclitus was not understood in the West

“If Heraclitus had been accepted, the whole history of the West would have been totally different. But he was not understood at all. He became more and more separate from the main current of Western thinking and the Western mind.” Osho

Heraclitus would have been greet in the East

“Heraclitus was like Gautam Buddha or Lao Tzu or Basho. The Greek soil was absolutely not good for him. He would have been a great tree in the East: millions would have profited, millions would have found the way through him. But for Greeks he was just outlandish, eccentric, something foreign, alien; he didn’t belong to them. That’s why his name has remained just on the side, in a dark corner; by and by he has been forgotten.” Osho

Talks on Heraclitus

Osho on Heraclitus, inventor of ‘The Hidden Harmony’

“Heraclitus is really beautiful. Had he been born in India, or in the East, he would have been known as a buddha. But in Greek history, Greek philosophy, he was a stranger, an outsider. He is known in Greece not as an enlightened person but as Heraclitus the Obscure, Heraclitus the Dark, Heraclitus the Riddling. And the father of Greek philosophy and of Western thought, Aristotle, thought that he was no philosopher at all. Aristotle said, ‘At the most he is a poet,’ but that too was difficult for him to concede. So later on he said in other works, ‘There must be some defect in Heraclitus’ character, something …” Osho

HERACLITES: DE VERBORGEN HARMONIE

Van de Osho klassieker “The Hidden Harmony” is een prachtige exotische herdruk uitgekomen.
De titel The Hidden Harmony is een deel van een bekende uitspraak van de Griekse Mysticus Heraclitus: ‘The Hidden Harmony is better than the Obvious.’
Oppervlakkig gezien kunnen de dingen er verstoord uitzien. Maar tegengestelde zaken brengen harmonie.
Zo kan er uit een vraag en antwoordspel, iets wat Osho in zijn talloze discourses laat zien, een prachtige samenhang tevoorschijn komen.
Heraclitus is ook de wijsgeer die het bestaan van processen benadrukt. In plaats van over “tree” zou men over tree-ing moeten spreken, omdat een boom in ontwikkeling is.
Dit veranderlijke element vind je terug in Heraclitus’ uitspraak: Alles stroomt, Niets blijft.

Het boek The Hidden Harmony is zeldzaam geworden of in het buitenland te bestellen. Mogelijk is het tweedehands verkrijgbaar bij de Boekhandel en het is er als audiobook.

Osho about the Influence of Heraclitus 

“If Heraclitus had been accepted, the whole history of the West would have been totally different. But he was not understood at all. He became more and more separate from the main current of Western thinking and the Western mind.

“Heraclitus was like Gautam Buddha or Lao Tzu or Basho. The Greek soil was absolutely not good for him. He would have been a great tree in the East: millions would have profited, millions would have found the way through him. But for Greeks he was just outlandish, eccentric, something foreign, alien; he didn’t belong to them. That’s why his name has remained just on the side, in a dark corner; by and by he has been forgotten.

“At the moment when Heraclitus was born, precisely at that moment, humanity reached a peak, a moment of transformation. It happens with humanity just as with an individual: there are moments when changes happen. Every seven years the body changes, and it goes on changing – if you live for seventy years, then your total bio-physical system will change ten times. And if you can use those gaps when the body changes, it will be very easy to move in meditation.

“For example, at fourteen for the first time sex becomes important. The body goes through a biochemical change, and if at that moment you can be introduced into the dimension of meditation, it will be very, very easy to move because the body is not fixed, the old pattern has gone and the new has yet to come in – there is a gap. At the age of twenty-one, again deep changes happen, because every seven years the body completely renovates itself: all the old cells drop and the new cells come in. At the age of thirty-five again it happens, and this goes on. Every seven years your body comes to a point where the old goes and the new settles – and there is a transitory period. In that transitory period everything is liquid. If you want some new dimension to enter into your life, that is precisely the moment.” Osho

Fragment uit ‘The Hidden Harmony’

YOU COULD NOT DISCOVER THE LIMITS OF THE SOUL
EVEN IF YOU TRAVELED EVERY ROAD TO DO SO —
SUCH IS THE DEPTH OF ITS MEANING.

Try to understand three words: one word is the known, that which we already know; then there is another word, the unknown, that which we don’t know yet, but there is every possibility we will know it. Science divides existence into these two words: the known and the unknown. The known we have known, and the unknown we will know; just time is needed. Religion divides this world into three words, not two: the known, the unknown and the unknowable.
You cannot exhaust the unknowable. The unknown will become known, then the known may become again unknown. It has happened many times. Many things have been known and then they became unknown because the society became uninterested in them. Many times it has happened. If you go back and ask people who work deeply into the past, they say almost all that we know has been known some time before and then it was forgotten.
…
The known will become unknown, the unknown will become known. But there is a third dimension: the unknowable. Science doesn’t believe in the unknowable. She says, “The unknowable is nothing but the unknown.” And religion says it is a totally different dimension: that which will always remain unknown — because its intrinsic nature is such that the mind cannot cope with it. The vast, the infinite, the endless, the beginningless, the total — the total cannot be comprehended in any way by the part, because how can the part comprehend the total? How can the mind comprehend that from which the mind arises? How can the mind know that to which the mind goes back? It is impossible! It is simply impossible. How can we know that from which we come? We are just like waves — how can a wave comprehend the whole ocean? It can claim, because the ocean never refutes anything — it simply laughs. It is just like a child claiming something before the parents, and they laugh.
The incomprehensible is there — the unknowable is there.
Says Heraclitus in The Hidden Harmony :

YOU COULD NOT DISCOVER THE LIMITS OF THE SOUL
EVEN IF YOU TRAVELED EVERY ROAD TO DO SO —
SUCH IS THE DEPTH OF ITS MEANING.

How can you know yourself? Every religion says: “Know thyself!” But how can you really know yourself? Then who will be the knower and who will be the known? — because knowledge depends on a division. I can know you, you can know me, because I become an object and you become the knower — but how can you know yourself? And if you try to know, that which you will know will not be yourself. The knower will always recede; the knowledge will always be bracketed as an object and you will be bracketed as a subject.
For example, you can know about the body. That’s why all knowers have said that you are not the body — because we can know it. You can know the mind. That is why those who know, they say you are not the mind — because the mind becomes the object and you are the knower. You recede, you go on receding; you are a subtle transcendence. Whatsoever you know, you transcend it immediately. The moment it has become known you are separate from it. If you say, “I have known myself,” what do you mean? Who has known whom? Is the known you? — or the knower you? If you are the knower then you still remain unknown. Selfknowledge is impossible. ‘The Hidden Harmony’
But why has it always been said, “Know thyself”? It has been said because only through the effort to know oneself will you come to the dimension of the unknowable. It has been insisted: “Know thyself” — not that you can know, don’t be deceived. Nobody has ever known, nobody will ever know. And all those who have known knew this — that the great, the vast, the ultimate, remains unknowable.
Insistence is there: Know thyself! I also insist: Know thyself! — just to bring you to a point where you suddenly become aware that this is the gate for the unknowable. Just by making efforts to know yourself you will come to know the unknowable. And I don’t mean when I say you will come to know the unknowable that you will know it. No! You will enter into it. It is never a knowledge, it is a jump. You take a jump into the sea and you are lost. Not that you know it — you become it. Of course, in a very, very subtle way you know, and at the same time you don’t know.
That is why Heraclitus looks paradoxical, he looks defective, he looks a little mad. But such is the nature of things, such is the depth of things, such is the deeper meaning of things — nothing can be done. Hence it happens that if you move into the unknowable without getting ready to take it, you can become mad. It is such a paradox that you cannot make any head or tail of it. It is such a depth that you never come to the bottom of it. It is such an infinity that the more you enter into it the more you are lost. You can never possess it, you can only be possessed.
God cannot be possessed, you can only allow him to possess you. That’s all that can be done. That’s why it is a surrender. You allow him to possess, you are ready to be possessed. And for this readiness you have to be ready to lose your rationality, reason, because it is sheer madness. Nothing is clear, everything becomes confused and blurred. It looks blurred and confused because you have been trying to make a clarity out of it. It is not possible. Life comprehends all that is paradoxical. ‘The Hidden Harmony’

YOU COULD NOT DISCOVER THE LIMITS OF THE SOUL
EVEN IF YOU TRAVELED EVERY ROAD TO DO SO —
SUCH IS THE DEPTH OF ITS MEANING.

You can travel all the paths but you will never reach the goal. All the paths combine together and you will never reach the goal.
Why? — because life has no goal.
It is a celebration.
It has no purpose, it is not going anywhere.
It is simply enjoying the going, not going anywhere.
It is a play, it is a game.
And don’t be serious about it, otherwise you will miss it.
Be sincere, but not serious.
…
Sincerity is of the heart.
He is true, but not serious.
He is seeking, but not as a goal.
He is seeking it just like a child seeks things: if he finds, it is okay:
if he doesn’t find, it is okay also.
From: Osho, ‘The Hidden Harmony’