Transcendence
Transcendence precisely defines meditation. One has to transcend three things and then the fourth is achieved. The fourth is our true nature. Gurdjieff used to call his way the fourth way and in the East we have called the ultimate state of being, turiya, the fourth.
We have to transcend the body -- that is our outermost circumference. We have to become aware that we are in the body, but we are not it. The body is beautiful, one has to take care of it, one has to be very loving to the body. It is serving you beautifully. One has not to be antagonistic to it.
The religions have been teaching people to be antagonistic to their body, to torture it -- they call it asceticism. That is sheer stupidity! And they think that by torturing the body they will be able to transcend it. They are utterly wrong.
The only way to transcend is awareness, not torture. There is no question of torturing. You don't torture your house; you know that you are not it, it is your house. Just awareness is needed. There is no need to go on a fast, there is no need to stand on your head, there is no need to contort your body in a thousand and one postures. Just watching; becoming aware, is enough. And the same is the key for the other two transcendences.
The second is, you have to transcend the mind -- that is a second concentric circle, closer to your being than the body. The body is the gross, the mind is the subtle, and then there is a third, the subtlest: your heart -- the world of your feelings, emotions, moods. But the key is the same.
Start with the body because the body is the most easily observable thing. It is an object. Thoughts ere also objects but they are more invisible. Once you have become aware of the body you will be able to watch your thoughts too. Once you have become aware of your thoughts you will be able to watch your moods too but they are the subtlest; so only at the third state that awareness has to be tried. Once one becomes aware of all these three concentric circles around your centre the fourth happening of its own accord. Suddenly you know who you are -- not verbally; you don't get an answer, you cannot tell anybody -- but you know. You know in the same way you know when you have a headache. You know in the same way as you know when you are hungry or thirsty. You know in the same way you know that you have fallen in love.
You cannot prove it, there is no way to prove it, but you know. And that knowing is self-evident; you cannot suspect it, it is indubitable. When one has come to the fourth, one has transcended the world.
I don't teach renunciation of the world. I teach transcendence of the world -- and this is the way.
-Osho, "The Old Pond ... Plop, #20“