Osho Quotes on Meditation

 

 

 

Meditation is not contemplation either because it is not thinking at all -- consistent, inconsistent, crazy, sane. It is not thinking at all; it is witnessing. It is just sitting silently deep within yourself, looking at whatsoever is happening inside and outside both. Outside there is traffic noise, inside there is also traffic noise -- the traffic in the head. So many thoughts -- trucks and buses of thoughts and trains and airplanes of thoughts, rushing in every direction. But you are simply sitting aloof, unconcerned, watching everything with no evaluation.

 

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So meditation is not really mind-effort. Real meditation is not effort at all. Real meditation is just allowing the mind to have its own way, and not interfering in any way whatsoever -- just remaining watchful, witnessing. It silences, by and by, it becomes still. One day it is gone. You are left alone.

 

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Mind is elusive, you cannot hold it in your hand. You cannot force it into a test-tube. The only way to know it is to know it from within, from your witnessing self. The more you become aware, the more you can watch your mind -- its subtle functioning. The functioning is tremendously complex and beautiful. Mind is the most complex phenomenon on the earth, the most subtle flowering of consciousness. If you want to really understand what the mind is, then you will have to detach yourself from your mind, and you will have to learn how to be just a witness. That's what meditation is all about.

 

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I have been teaching you all the methods of meditation. You can choose any method that suits you. There are only one hundred and twelve methods; there is no possibility of adding more. It is exhaustive. All the methods possible have been explored. The simplest is witnessing.

 

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There is a difference. You watch television, you don't witness it. But, while watching television, if you start witnessing yourself watching television, then there are two processes going on: you are watching television, and something within you is witnessing the process of watching television. Witnessing is deeper, far deeper. It is not equivalent to watching. Watching is superficial.

 

So remember that meditation is witnessing.

 

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When your witnessing is ninety percent, your mind is reduced to ten percent. And when your witnessing is one hundred percent -- total, absolute -- the screen is empty, the film has disappeared. This is the state of meditation: when there are no thoughts, no feelings -- nothing moves, everything stops. There is tremendous serenity. Out of this serenity, silence, peace, a new kind of experience arises, new flowers blossom.

 

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Only one thing is going to remain with you: that is your witnessing, that is your watchfulness. This watchfulness is meditation.

 

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Witnessing can be called the seed and enlightenment can be called the flowers. But begin from witnessing, and then it starts growing. Go on nourishing it, go on caring for it, go on watering it, strengthen it in every possible way -- and one day it is going to blossom. That day will be the greatest day of your life.

 

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Meditation, witnessing, silently sitting and looking at the mind, will be of much help. Not forcing, simply sitting and looking. Not doing much, just watching as one watches birds flying in the sky. Just Lying down on the ground and watching, nothing to do, indifferent. Not your concern really, where they are going; they are going on their own.

 

Remember, thoughts are also just like birds: they are moving on their own. And sometimes it happens that people who are around you, their thoughts enter into your sky, your thoughts go on entering into their sky. That's why sometimes you feel that with some man suddenly you become sad; with some other man suddenly you feel an upsurge of energy and happiness and delight. Just looking at somebody, being near to him, something changes in your mood.

 

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Meditation has only one meaning, and that is going beyond the mind and becoming a witness. In your witnessing is the miracle -- the whole mystery of life.

 

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Meditation is nothing but putting the mind aside, putting the mind out of the way, and bringing a witnessing which is always there but hidden underneath the mind. This witnessing will reach to your center, and once you have become enlightened, then there is no problem. Then bring the mind in tune with you.

 

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You are the witness, to whom things happen but who remains a witness. Witnessing is the art of nonidentification, and nonidentification is all. Nonidentification is all there is to meditation. It is the whole meditation.

 

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Just by being a simple witness of your thought processes. That's my method of meditation. It is not a prayer because there is no God to pray to. It is simply sitting silently, witnessing the thoughts passing before you. Just witnessing -- not interfering, not even judging, because the moment you judge you have lost the pure witness. The moment you say this is good, this is bad, you have already jumped into the thought process. It takes a little time to create a gap between the witness and the mind. Once the gap is there, you are in for a great surprise: you are not the mind, you are the witness, a watcher.

 

This process of watching is the very alchemy of real religion, because as you become more and more deeply rooted in witnessing, thoughts start disappearing. A moment comes when there is no thought at all. You are, but the mind is utterly empty. That is the moment of enlightenment. That is the moment when for the first time you become unconditioned, sane, a really free human being.

 

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(Osho) whatever I am doing, my meditation continues. It is not something that I have to do it separately; it is just an art of witnessing. Speaking to you, I'm also witnessing myself speaking to you. So here are three persons: you are listening, one person is speaking, and there is one behind who is watching and that is my real me. And to keep constant contact with it is meditation. So whatever you do does not matter, you just keep contact with your witness.

 

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(Osho) My teaching is meditation. Meditation means to me, witnessing on three levels: action of the body, thoughts of the mind, feelings of the heart. Once a person becomes aware of these three things, the fourth step happens on its own accord. A quantum leap, suddenly he is at his very center, which is his life, deathless life. You can call it his soul, his being, and it is the greatest bliss in existence. There is nothing above it.

 

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Meditation simply means a discipline that makes you capable of being aloof and detached from your mind. So even if the mind is sick, your consciousness is never sick. Even if your mind is going crazy, you are just witnessing it. Mind is only a machine. You are not. Meditation is the experience: "I am not my body, not my mind -- I am the witness of it all." This experience, this transcendental experience, immensely transforms the whole situation. Many things which were driving you crazy simply drop away.

 

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Slowly slowly each act of your life should turn into a meditative act. Then there is a possibility to attain to enlightenment. Then you can sit also because that too is an act, but you are not specifically identifying sitting with meditation -- that too is a part. Walking you meditate, working you meditate, sometimes sitting silently you meditate, sometimes lying on your bed you meditate... meditation should become your constant companion.

 

And this meditation that can become constant companion is a very simple thing, I call it witnessing. Just go on witnessing whatsoever is happening. Walking you witness, sitting you witness, eating you witness yourself eating, and you will be surprised that the more you witness things the better you can do them because you are non-tense, their quality changes. You will also note that the more meditative you become every gesture of yours becomes soft, non-violent, has a grace in it. And not only you will notice it, others will start noticing it.

 

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With your witnessing there will be a few difficulties: your old friends may not remain your friends any more, not that you have done any harm to them but simply you have changed and now you no longer fit with their state, with their consciousness. So don't be worried about that. If you are married and you find that your wife is falling far away from you then it is better to tell her what you are doing: that if she wants to be with you, if she loves you the way you love her, you would like her also to be a companion on the path of meditation. Otherwise, soon you will be so far away from each other that everything will be misunderstood.

 

Your children will find that you are a different person -- you are no more the same old papa. It is better to help your children to learn a little bit of witnessing. And don't think that they cannot learn; they can learn better than grown up people because they are fresh, they are not loaded with any past. Just you have to be more friendly with them than fatherly. And before the rift happens it is better to make it clear to them, "It will not be my fault if the family falls apart. I have chosen a path which is going to give me something and I would like it to be shared by you all."

 

I don't want any family to be disturbed by anybody in the name of spirituality, and if we can be a little more loving and compassionate and make them understand -- and they will be able to see that you are less angry, you are less tired, you are less frustrated, you are more loving, more compassionate -- they will surely come with you.

 

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The mind can stop, but not by your effort but by your effortless witnessing. That is the whole meaning of meditation. Relax. Don't force, and just watch. Let the mind do its things. It will take a little patience, but it has always happened. It is almost a scientific law, without exception, that if you can manage a little patience you will come to a point where the watcher is nourished and the mind becomes unnourished, and the thoughts start disappearing. When the whole energy of your consciousness moves into watching, you will find there is no mind at all. And to know a state of no-mind is the greatest experience in life a man is capable of. It is ecstasy. It is superconsciousness. It is self-realization. There is nothing higher than that.

 

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You don't have to do anything, you have just to sit silently doing nothing, because any kind of doing is going to take you away from yourself. When you are not doing anything, the whole energy gathers inside; it is not invested anywhere. The moment you pass your mind, all the energy that was invested in thoughts is released. When you pass your heart, all the energy that was invested in your emotions, feelings, sentiments, is released. Now you are becoming too full of energy. This abundance of energy gives you the first taste of existence, and as this energy becomes a pillar of tremendous height and depth, you have found the connection with the cosmos. You are no longer alone. In fact, you are no more, only existence is. Then the existence, the cosmos, the life, is a sheer dance.

 

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This insight is the beginning of real life. How to start this insight? That's what meditation is all about. Start witnessing. Walking on the street, become a witness. Watch the body walking... and you, from the innermost core, are just watching, witnessing, observing. Suddenly you will have a sense of freedom. Suddenly you will see that the body is walking, you are not walking. Sometimes the body is healthy, sometimes the body is ill. Watch, just watch, and suddenly you will have a sense of a totally different quality of being.

 

You are not the body. The body is ill, of course, but you are not ill. The body is healthy, but it has nothing to do with you. You are a witness, a watcher on the hills... far beyond. Of course, tethered to the body, but not identified with the body; rooted in the body, but always beyond and transcending. The first meditation is to separate yourself from the body. And by and by, when you become more acute in your observation of the body, start observing the thoughts that continuously go on within your mind.

 

But first watch the body, because it is gross, can be observed more easily, will not need much awareness. Once you become attuned, then start watching the mind. Whatsoever can be watched becomes separate from you. Whatsoever you can witness, you are not it. You are the witnessing consciousness. The witnessed is the object; you are the subjectivity.

 

The body, and the mind also, remain far away when you become a witness. Suddenly you are there -- with no body and no mind... a pure consciousness, just simple sheer purity, an innocence, a mirror. In this innocence, for the first time you know who you are. In this purity, for the first time existence becomes life. For the first time you are. Before it, you were simply asleep, dreaming; now you are.

 

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Any judgment is past oriented, and existence is always herenow, life is always herenow. All judgments are coming from your past experiences, your education, your religion, your parents -- which may be dead, but their judgments are being carried by your mind and they will be given as a heritage to your children. Generation after generation, every disease is being transferred as a heritage. Only a non-judgmental mind has intelligence, because it is spontaneously responding to reality.

 

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One has to become more and more centered in the process of watching. One has to disidentify oneself from the bodymind complex and this is the whole process of meditation: the process of disidentification. That is the negative part of the process. And the positive part is centering into the process of witnessing, becoming more and more rooted in watchfulness.

 

These two things done, the negative and the positive -- disidentification with the bodymind complex and centering in the process of awareness -- that's the whole of religion. Nothing else is needed. No scripture, no doctrine, no dogma. This is enough to liberate. More than that is an unnecessary burden.

 

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Meditation does not mean concentration, it does not mean contemplation: it means getting beyond the mind. Concentration, contemplation, are both of the mind. Meditation means getting unidentified with the mind, seeing the mind as separate, knowing the mind as separate, witnessing the mind but not getting identified with it. Slowly slowly as witnessing grows, the distance grows between you and the mind. Soon the mind is a faraway echo, and finally you cannot even hear the echo; then you are left utterly alone.

 

That needs courage, hence very few people have been able to know their own selves, and very few people have been able to become Buddhas. Before one can become a Buddha, one has to pass through a death -- of the mind, of the ego, of all that we think we are. We have to lose all that we think we possess, then only can we possess the eternal.

 

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Bliss follows witnessing -- and that is going to be your meditation. Witness your body as separate, witness your mind as separate. Remain rooted in witnessing: "I am only a watcher." That is going to transform your whole life, it is going to give you the ultimate.

 

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Wake up from your dreams and make every possible effort to get deeper into meditation, into awareness, into witnessing. Become more and more conscious and you will become a king. Everybody has the potential to become a king. If we miss, we miss only because of our lethargy. We never make any effort, we never try to go inwards.

 

Or if once in a while we try, within minutes we are tired and again we start running and rushing into the outside world. A persistent effort is needed and perseverance is needed and patience is needed. Victory is bound to happen, but it happens only when you are really ready. That readiness comes through intense effort. Make every effort to be meditative -- that is the key, the master key to the doors of the kingdom of god.

 

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Man can live in freedom only if he is meditative, otherwise not. Meditation is the source of all freedom. Without meditation you are a slave, a slave of your own instinct, a slave of your unconscious desires. You may think and believe that you are free, but you are not. Somebody insults you and you become angry.

 

Are you free to be angry or not to be angry? You are not free. He has simply pushed your button and you have behaved in a mechanical way. You are predictable. It was not within your capacity not to be angry.

You see something and greed arises. You are not free, you can't do anything about this greed. Or lust arises and you are simply a victim of it.

 

It is only through meditation that slowly slowly more consciousness is created within you, more light is created; more watchfulness, witnessing, happens. And that is the miracle of awareness: if you become aware of anger you become a master of anger. Then it is up to you whether to be angry or not. You are absolutely free to be this way or that way.

 

To people who have not meditated may go on believing that they are free but they are deceiving nobody else except themselves. Be more meditative and you will know how to live in freedom. And of course, life is life only when you are able to live in freedom.

 

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In samadhi, in the highest form of meditation, the same thing happens: the mind stops functioning... but you are conscious. That is the only difference, but the difference that makes the difference. One is fully alert, luminous. One is there witnessing, watching, but there is no cloud of thought. The sky is utterly empty: as far as you can see you cannot see any content.

 

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Meditation is a simple method. Your mind is like a TV screen. Memories are passing, images are passing, thoughts, desires, a thousand and one things are passing; it is always rush hour. And the road is almost like an Indian road -- no traffic rules, everybody, is going in every direction. One has to watch it without any evaluation, without any judgement without any choice, simply watching unconcerned as if it has nothing to do with you, you are just a witness. That is choiceless awareness.

 

If you choose, if you say 'This thought is good -- let me have it', or 'It is a beautiful desire, a beautiful dream, I should enjoy it a little more, I can go into it a little deeper'... if you choose you lose your witnessing. If you say 'This is bad, this is immoral, this is a sin, I should throw it out,' you start struggling, again you lose your witnessing.

 

You can lose your witnessing in two ways; either being for or against. And the whole secret of meditation is to be neither for nor to be against, but unconcerned, cool, without any preference, likes, dislikes, without any choice. If you can manage even a few moments of that witnessing one will be surprised how much bliss happens, how ecstatic one becomes.

 

In the beginning there are only a few moments, then those moments become bigger. And as you become a true witness, without any choice, in that moment the whole traffic disappears. Suddenly the TV screen just a white screen, there are no pictures at all. And to see your mind as utterly empty is the greatest experience in life because it turns your consciousness inwards. There is nothing to see there, so the consciousness takes a turn, a one-hundred-and-eighty degree turn, an about-turn. And in that turning you encounter yourself. That is selfknowledge, and to know oneself is to know all. You have found the door to the divine.

 

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Meditation means that no outer light is going to help, no outer treasure is going to make you rich, no outer conquest is going to make you a real conqueror. The real treasure is within you and the real conquest has to be made there. It is such a ridiculous thing that we go on searching for something which we have already got, but we never look within. We look everywhere else we can go to the very corners of the earth or even to the moon in search of some illusory pleasure -- just one territory we never enter, and that is our own being.

 

Meditation is a simple technique of entering it. Meditation means awareness, alertness, watchfulness, witnessing. Witness your actions, witness your thoughts witness your feelings so that slowly slow you can see you are neither the body nor the mind nor heart -- that you are the witness of it all.

 

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When you start meditating on your ego, on your thoughts, on your mind, you are suddenly separate, because whatsoever you meditate on, you are separate from it. That has become the object and you have become the subject.

 

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Meditation brings a third state: mind is non- functioning, just as it is in deep dreamless sleep -- that is one part of meditation, the circumference of meditation. And the second part is when you are not asleep, you are fully awake, alert, a flame of witnessing -- that is the centre of meditation. Whenever these two things happen -- you are aware and there is no mind, no thought, no desire, no dream passing through the screen of consciousness -- you attain to ultimate clarity. That is the meaning of Beryl: crystal clear.

 

In that crystal clarity one knows what truth is, what bliss is, what beauty is. And to know it is to have attained the ultimate flowering, to know it is to have come to the highest peak. Then one feels at home, at rest. Now finally there is nowhere to go, nothing to attain. One has arrived. We in the East call it samadhi. Samadhi means a state of ultimate realisation, of truth, beauty, bliss, consciousness, freedom -- of all the higher values.

 

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You can repeat a certain mantra continuously -- it will hypnotise you, it is auto-hypnosis. You will fall into a peaceful sleep, that's true, and if you are searching fora peaceful sleep a mantra can be used. I am not against it. It is a good non-medicinal tranquilliser but it is not meditation and not at all transcendental meditation, because transcendence simply means transcending the mind, and that can be done only by one thing and that is witnessing the mind; not by doing anything, not by repeating a mantra, chanting or anything. Any doing will be part of the mind.

 

There is only one secret which is not part of the mind, and that is witnessing, watching. Thoughts are passing, desires are moving, memories are coming and going like clouds in the sky and you are sitting silently simply watching, not doing anything. If you do anything immediately the mind starts functioning. What you do does not matter -- doing is part of mind. A non-doing witnessing, just witnessing, as if a mirror goes on witnessing whatsoever passes by -- that is awareness. And that awareness takes you beyond the mind. It is true meditation.