Conversion

 

 

Meditation means a state of no-mind — where all the functioning of the mind has ceased. The moment the functioning of the mind ceases you have a profound silence such that you have never known before, such clarity, such transparency — because all the clouds are gone, all the smoke is gone, there is nothing to hinder your insight. All is absolutely clear.

 

Meditation gives you innocence, clarity, insight into your own being and into the very being of the existence that surrounds you. Suddenly all misery disappears, all desires disappear. Desires are by-products of misery; because you are miserable you are always hankering for a better state of things — more money, more power, more prestige and that more is non-ending. When you attain it, again the mind is there asking for more.

 

Mind simply means the desire for more and more, ad infinitum. Mind means discontent, unquenchable thirst. The moment mind ceases there is suddenly contentment, absolute contentment, because there is no desire. One is so utterly happy in the now and the here that one cannot even conceive that things could be better than this. Then one moves in a world which is absolutely perfect. It is the same world, only you are not the same person.

 

And when there is deep contentment inside you, of course it changes everything in your life. Your very aura becomes that of peace, you carry an energy field around you. You become infectious. Even people who sit by your side will start feeling that something very strange and mysterious is there.

 

Those who are sensitive will be immediately moved, their hearts will start beating with a new joy. They will be surprised at what is happening. You are not doing anything, it is simply happening; you become a triggering point, a catalytic agent. Just your presence triggers some process in them.

 

It is a synchronicity. You don’t cause it, it simply happens. You are not a doer in it. It is like the sun rising and the birds starting to sing; suddenly from nowhere the trees are awake and the flowers start opening. The sun is not telling them to do it, the sun is not doing anything, the sun is simply present, but the presence is enough. It stirs the life on earth immediately, sleep starts disappearing, a deep awakening happens in nature. When one is contented one carries the climate of contentment around oneself.

 

First become contented, then your very life will become a source of joy for others. That’s the only true service — not the service that Christian missionaries go on doing. That is mischief and nothing else. It is exploiting people in the name of service, it is converting people, it is a political game. And the people who are converting them are not themselves converted.

 

Conversion does not mean a change of religion; it means a change of consciousness. That’s exactly the meaning of conversion: when you are no more asleep but awake, when you are no more full of the rubbish of thoughts and memories and desires, when you are utterly silent — that is conversion. When the head has disappeared — you are no more a head person — when the heart has taken its place then you are headless and just a pure heart — that is conversion. It is not a Hindu becoming a Christian or a Christian becoming a Hindu — that is sheer stupidity; just changing prisons from one prison to another prison, that is not conversion.

 

Conversion is something inner. The only conversion I know of is from mind to meditation, because is changes your whole being; from discontent it brings tremendous contentment to you. The lifestyle of a sannyasin has to be that of contentment. He lives in the now and lives fulfilled. If he dies the next moment, he happily dies, dancingly dies — because there is nothing more! All is already complete! He does not need any more time to do anything, nothing is incomplete. At every moment all is complete, all is accomplished. He is ready to go at any time. He will not even want to linger a single moment more.

 

- Osho, “Just the Tip of the Iceberg, #24”