The thinker is creative with his thought. This is one of the fundamental truths to be understood. All that you experience is your creation. First you create it, then you experience it, and then you are caught in the experience--because you don't know that the source of all exists in you.
There is a famous parable: Once an Indian man accidentally entered paradise. In the Indian concept of paradise there are wish-fulfilling trees called kalpatarus. You just sit underneath them, desire anything, and immediately it is fulfilled--there is no gap between desire and its fulfillment.
There is no gap between a thought and a thing. You think, and it becomes a thing; the thought realized automatically. The kalpataru is nothing but a symbol for mind. Mind is creative ...creative with its thoughts.
The man was tired, so he fell asleep under such a tree. When he awoke he was feeling very hungry, and said, "I am feeling hungry, I wish I could get some food from somewhere." Immediately food appeared out of nowhere--just floating in the air...delicious food.
He was so hungry that he didn't pay much attention to where it had come from--when you are hungry you are not very philosophic. He immediately started to eat, and the food was so delicious that he became caught up in eating it. Once his hunger was gone he looked around. Now that he was feeling satisfied, another thought arose in him: "If only I could get something to drink..." Immediately fine wine appeared.
Drinking the wine relaxed in the cool breeze of paradise under the shade of the tree, he started wondering, "What's the matter? What's happening? Have I fallen into a dream, or are some ghosts playing tricks with me?
And ghosts appeared. And they were ferocious and horrible. He started trembling, and a thought arose in him: "Now I am sure to be killed. These people are going to kill me."
And he was killed.
This parable is an ancient one, of immense significance. It portrays so many peoples lives. Your mind is the wish-fulfilling tree, kalpataru, and whatsoever you think, sooner or later it will be fulfilled. Sometimes the gap is such that you have completely forgotten that you had desired it in the first place; sometimes the gap is of years, or lifetimes.
If you watch deeply you will find that all your thoughts are creating you and your life. They create your hell, they create your heaven. They create your misery, and they create your joy. They create the negative, they create the positive. Yet the pain and pleasure, the sweet dream and the nightmare are all illusory.
The only meaning is that they are your creation. You are creating a magic world around yourself--the word in Sanskrit is called maya. Everyone is spinning and weaving a magic world, and then becomes caught, like the spider in its own web.
There is no one torturing you except yourself. There is nobody except yourself; your whole life is your work--your creation.
Once you grasp this, things start changing ...transforming. You can play at changing your hell into heaven, or, if you are in love with misery, create as much as you wish.
Finally, a new possibility of reality arises: you can drop creating the world. Simply stop creating. The creator can relax...retire.
That retirement of the mind I call meditation. You have seen it all, the ups and the downs...enjoyed and suffered. Slowly, slowly this experience makes you alert to the fact that you are the creator.
If you have been on any drug trip, you know it. The drug simply releases your mind energy and things start happening. You are transported into other worlds. If a person suffers from paranoia and goes on an LSD trip, the trip is probably going to be horrible. However, if the person is not living out of fear, but living out of love and joy, there will be beautiful experiences.
Aldous Huxley said that he lived great heavenly experiences through LSD, while Karl Reiner went through hell. Both are right, yet the drug created nothing. All that is created is done so with the mind; drugs only magnify it. They can exaggerate, they can allow things to appear in a very magnified form, a thousand fold bigger than they are. Molehills can be turned into mountains.
Your whole life is a kind of drug trip. When you are under the impact of a drug, things happen faster. When you are living the usual ordinary life, things take a little longer. But it is the same trip.
Scientists say that fifty thousand thoughts pass through the average person in a day. Fifty thousand thoughts passing, yet you don't allow all these thoughts to be realized; you choose. It is almost as if you have a radio with all stations available. The whole noise of the world and the politicians is available on the radio, However, you choose the station--the choice is yours. You can also choose to turn off the radio, and all the noise disappears.
In meditation that is what happens, a meditator simply disconnects the radio. Yet people become addicted to stations. Slowly, a person becomes fixed on a particular station. People become addicted to their thoughts. Your thoughts become your reality, and you believe yourself to be a helpless victim.
However, you are not a victim at all--not a victim of fate, not a victim of God, not a victim of the so-called theory of karma. These are all tricks, strategies to avoid seeing the fundamental law of life.
When you are suffering you look for explanations. There are so many beautiful explanations. Some say "This is how God wants it to be, so what can I do?" Another for those who do not believe in any God is, "What can I do, it is my past life's karma, and I have to go through it."
That is why so many people are in so much misery...because of their explanations!
However, at each minute you are in control. You simply have to see it, and you will begin to become more aware.
What you have called you life is just an act. Maybe you have practiced it long but it is still an act. Once you learned the trick of changing your acts from one to another, you will be able to see your freedom.
© 1996 Osho International Foundation. All rights reserved. For information write Osho Commune International, 17 Koregaon Park, Poona, India 411 001, Osho VIHA, PO Box 352, Mill Valley, CA 94942, 415/381-9861, or the Nepal Institute, 41 White Oak Rd., Arden, NC 28704