The first question:

Osho,
Last night you said that when there are no thoughts in the mind, the mind becomes an empty space and the doors to all the mysteries are opened. I feel this inner space deeply and clearly but there is nothing special that I feel as mystery.
Will you explain what you mean by the mystery and how is it felt?

The inner emptiness itself is the mystery. You cannot feel it and you cannot know it. You become it. You are it. When the inner space is there, then you are not. You cannot observe it. If you observe it, then the inner space has not yet appeared. Who will observe it? If you can observe it you are separate from it, so it is not inner, it is outer. It is “out” to you. The inner has not yet become empty, it is filled. The ego is there – in a very subtle form; as an observer or onlooker, it is there. The inner is not empty yet, because when the inner is empty, you are not.

So the first thing to remember is that you will not be a witness to the mystery, you will be the mystery. You will not be able to observe it because you cannot be separate, there cannot be any duality.

One thing…when the inner is really empty, you are not, because you are the thing by which the inner is filled. Because of you it is not empty; because of you the space is covered, occupied. When you dissolve, when you simply disappear, only then the inner emptiness is there. So you will not be a witness to the mystery. Until you are not, the mystery will not be revealed; when you are not, the mystery will be revealed. So if you say that you feel inner emptiness it means you are not the emptiness; emptiness is something that is happening to you, around you, but you are not empty. So really this emptiness is just a “thought” of emptiness – that is why you can say that now your inner space has become empty. This is a thought: this emptiness is not real, this emptiness is just part of the mind. The observer is there so the object must be there. You can make emptiness an object, a thought.

It is reported that Bokuju became empty like this. He must have come across this type of emptiness. He came to his master and he said, “Now there is nothing, I have become empty.” The master said, “Go out and throw this nothingness also. This nothingness is still something, why are you carrying it? If you have really become nothing you will not be able to report it. Who will carry it? Who will feel in it a certain achievement?” The master said to Bokuju, “You have done well, you have become empty, now go and throw out this emptiness also.”

You can be filled with emptiness – that is the problem. And if you are filled with emptiness you are not empty.