Whenever you want to forget yourself you take alcohol, drugs;whenever you want to forget yourself you drink. Drinking means forgetfulness,and the whole of religion consists of remembering; hence, all the religions insist against drinking. Not that there is something wrong in drinking in itself– if you are not moving on the path there is nothing wrong in it.But if you are moving on the path,then there cannot be anything more wrong than that, because the whole path consists of self-remembering, and drinking is forgetfulness.
But why do you want to forget yourself?
Why are you so bored with yourself?
Why can’t you live with yourself?
Why can’t you be alert and at ease?What is the problem?
The problem is that whenever you are alert, alone, you feel empty; you feel as if you are nobody. You feel nothingness inside and that nothingness becomes the abyss. You get scared, you start running from it. Deep inside you, you are an abyss, and that’s why you go on escaping. Buddha called that abyss no-self, anatta. There is nobody inside.
When you look it is a vast expansion, but nobody is there – just inner sky, an infinite abyss, endless, beginningless. The moment you look you get dizzy, you start running, you immediately escape. But where can you escape to? Wherever you go that emptiness will be with you because it is you. It is your Tao, your nature. One has to come to terms with it.
Meditation is nothing but coming to terms with your inner emptiness: recognizing it, not escaping; living through it, not escaping; being through it, not escaping. Then suddenly the emptiness becomes the fullness of life. When you don’t escape from it, it is the most beautiful thing, the purest, because only emptiness can be pure. If something is there, dirt has entered; if something is there, then death has entered; if something is there, then limitation has entered. If something is there, then God cannot be there. God means the great abyss, the ultimate abyss. It is there, but you are never trained to look into it.
It is just like when you go to the hills and look into the valley: you get dizzy. Then you don’t want to look because a fear grips you – you may fall. But no hill is so high and no valley so deep as the valley that exists inside you. And whenever you look inside you feel a dizziness, nausea – you immediately escape, you close your eyes and start running. You have been running for millions of lives, but you have not reached anywhere, because you cannot. One has to come to terms with the inner emptiness. And once you come to terms with it, suddenly the emptiness changes its nature – it becomes the all. Then it is not empty, not negative; it is the most positive thing in existence. But acceptance is the door.
That’s why there is so much attraction for alcohol, LSD, marijuana – drugs. And there are many types of drugs: physical, chemical, mental; wealth, power, politics – everything is a drug.
Look at a politician: he is drugged, he is drunk with power; he does not walk on the earth. Look at a man of wealth: you think he walks on the earth? No, his feet never touch the earth, he is very high, he has wealth. Only poor men walk on the earth, only beggars; a rich man flies in the sky. When you fall in love with a woman, suddenly you are on high; suddenly you never walk again on the earth – a romance has entered. The whole quality of your being is different, because now you are drunk. Sex is the deepest alcohol that nature has given to you.
~ OSHO – The mustard seed, The most loved gospel on Jesus