Stopping Thoughts
THE CLOUDS THAT WANDER THROUGH THE SKY HAVE NO ROOTS AND NO HOME....
And the same is true for your thoughts, and the same is true for your inner sky. Your thoughts have no roots, they have no home; just like clouds they wander. So you need not fight them, you need not be against them, you need not even try to stop thought.
This should become a deep understanding in you, because whenever a person becomes interested in meditation he starts trying to stop thinking. And if you try to stop thoughts they will never be stopped, because the very effort to stop is a thought, the very effort to meditate is a thought, the very effort to attain buddhahood is a thought. And how can you stop a thought by another thought? How can you stop mind by creating another mind? Then you will be clinging to the other. And this will go on and on, ad nauseam; then there is no end to it.
Don't fight -- because who will fight? Who are you? Just a thought, so don't make yourself a battle ground of one thought fighting another. Rather, be a witness, you just watch thoughts floating. They stop, but not by your stopping. They stop by your becoming more aware, not by any effort on your part to stop them. No, they never stop, they resist. Try and you will find: try to stop a thought and the thought will persist. Thoughts are very stubborn, adamant; they are HATHA YOGIS, they persist. You throw them and they will come back a million and one times. You will get tired, but they will not get tired. It happened that one man came to Tilopa. The man wanted to attain buddhahood and he had heard that this Tilopa has attained. And Tilopa was staying in a temple somewhere in Tibet. The man came; Tilopa was sitting, and the man said, "I would like to stop my thoughts.“
-Osho, “Tantra: The Supreme Understanding, #2”