Number of words – 261

The seed is an introversion. Try to understand the phenomenon of the seed. A seed is an introverted phenomena. It is centripetal. The energy is moving inward. That’s why it is a seed. Closed from the outer world completely. In fact a seed is the loneliest, most isolated thing in the world. It has no roots in the soil, no branches in the sky. It has no connection with the earth, no connection with the sky, it has no relationship. A seed is an absolute island, isolated, caved in. It does not relate. It has a hard shell around it. There are no windows, no doors. It cannot go out and nothing can come in. The seed is natural to India. The genius of India can produce seeds of tremendous potentiality, but cannot give them soil. India is an introverted consciousness. India says the outer doesn’t exist and even if it seems to exist, it is made of the same stuff that dreams are made of. The whole genius of India has been in trying to discover how to escape from the outer, how to move to the inner core of the heart. How to be centred in oneself and how to realize that the whole world that exists outside consciousness is just a dream. The most beautiful or the worst Nightmare. Whether beautiful or ugly, in reality it is a dream and one should not bother much about it. One should awaken and forget the whole dream of the outer world.

Excerpted from ‘Zen: It’s History & Teaching’ by Osho