Osho Quotes on Meditation

 

 

 

The moment you put the mind aside, you have entered into the world of meditation.

 

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My whole effort is to create a no-mind state in you. I am not here to convince you about anything. I am not here to give you a dogma, a creed to live by. I am here to take all creeds away from you because only then will life happen to you. I am not giving you anything to live by, I am simply taking all props away from you, all crutches.

 

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Meditation or religion is a totally different world: it is relaxation, it is let-go -- it is not concentration at all. It is not one-pointedness, it is no-pointedness.

 

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A meditator has to remember not to struggle with the thoughts. If you want to win, don't fight. That is a simple rule of thumb. If you want to win, simply don't fight. The thoughts will be coming as usual. You just watch, hiding behind your blanket; let them come and go. Just don't get involved with them.

 

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Meditation is not a state of concentration; it is not a state of mind at all. It is a state of total mindlessness -- and not a state of sleep either. No mind, no sleep; no mind, but total awareness. Out of that awareness you bring a different quality to music, to painting, to poetry. And out of that meditativeness you can bring a totally different quality to science too. But before that can happen we will need large numbers of meditative people around the earth.

 

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When I say to you that meditation is nothing but thoughtlessness, you can misunderstand me. You are not to do anything to become thoughtless, because whatever you will do will be again a thought. You have to learn to see the procession of thoughts, standing by the side of the road as if it does not matter to you what is passing by. Just the ordinary traffic -- if you can take your thoughts in such a manner that they are not of much concern, then easily, slowly, the caravan of thoughts which has continued for thousands of years disappears.

 

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When you are in deep meditation, you feel a great serenity, a joy that is unknown to you, a watchfulness that is a new guest. Soon this watchfulness will become the host. The day the watchfulness becomes the host, it remains twenty-four hours with you. And out of this watchfulness, whatever you do has a wisdom in it. Whatever you do shows a clarity, a purity, a spontaneity, a grace.

 

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You cannot move into meditation by controlling. You can move into meditation only by being indifferent, just a watcher. Whether it comes or not makes no difference; just let the thoughts flow on their own accord and you stand aloof, just watching. The word `watching' simply means being a mirror, reflecting and not making any commentary. No mirror makes any commentary. No mirror says to you, "Aha, how beautiful!" It is not interested in whether you are beautiful or weird, sane or insane, standing on your feet or on your head. It makes no difference to the mirror, the mirror simply reflects. The watcher is a mirror. It simply watches and remains empty. No content is caught by the mirror. Things come and go, the mirror does not cling to anything. The mirror is not in favor of something or against it. It has no notions about what passes before it.

 

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Witnessing is such a sharp sword -- it cuts thoughts, feelings, emotions, in a single blow.

 

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To be here and now, you have to be in meditation, beyond mind. Then suddenly all time disappears, you are in eternity. The very present moment becomes eternal.

 

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Meditation sharpens every sense -- not only the eyes, not only the ears, but every sense, even your touch. A meditator's touch will be so full of warmth and love, you will feel something is flowing through him towards you. He has so much joy, so much contentment, he cannot contain it. It goes on flowing all around him. He creates a certain feel. If you come closer to a master, into his field of energy, suddenly you will feel a change.

 

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Every addiction is going to prevent you from becoming a meditator. All addictions have to be dropped. But to be total in your work is a totally different thing. To be total in your work is not addiction, it is a kind of meditation. When you are totally in your work, your work has a possibility of perfection, you will have a joy arising out of a perfect work. If you can be perfect and total in work, you can be total in no-work -- just sitting silently, totally silent. You know how to be total. You can close your eyes and you can be totally in. You know the secret of being total.

 

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Be total in everything that you do or do not do. Be total -- then your whole life becomes a meditation.

 

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Remember around the clock that essentially you are a buddha. Behave as a witness, with great grace. And by and by, even your ordinary activities of day-to-day life will become divine. Unless we can transform the mundane into the sacred, your meditation is not complete, is not perfect.

 

To be here now, to be totally here now, and you are the buddha, the ultimate perfection humanity has ever achieved.

 

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Meditation always means no-mind. When the mind is extinguished, the same energy that was involved in the mind becomes your meditation.

 

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Creative persons get more easily into-meditation and go deeper. Poets, painter, musicians, dancers, can get into meditation more easily than businessmen -- they live a routine life, absolutely uncreative.

 

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Mind means words; self means silence. Mind is nothing but all the words that you have accumulated; silence is that which has always been with you, it is not an accumulation. That is the meaning of self. It is your intrinsic quality. On the background of silence you go on accumulating words, and the words in total are known as the mind. Silence is meditation. It is a question of changing the gestalt, shifting the attention from words into silence -- which is always there.

 

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The ambitious mind cannot meditate because the basic foundation of meditation is to be non-ambitious. Ambition means the effort to control others. That is what politics is: the effort to control the whole world. If you want to control others you will have to listen to the mind, because the mind enjoys violence very much.

 

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In Japan they have developed strange things for meditative purposes... Japan has done a tremendous service to humanity. Meditation was developed in India, but it remained a very limited phenomenon -- just sitting in a lotus posture witnessing your thoughts, becoming silent. It did the work, but Japan tried different dimensions, strange dimensions: swordsmanship, but with meditation. Two swordsmen bent upon killing each other have to remain centered in themselves without tension, without fear, without anger, without revenge, just playful.

 

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In meditation you are not unconscious, you are conscious -- more conscious than ever.

 

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Meditation will make you ultimately rich by giving you the world of your innermost being and also relatively rich, because it will release your powers of mind into certain talents that you have. My own experience is that everybody is born with a certain talent, and unless he lives that talent to its fullest, something in him will remain missing. He will go on feeling that somehow something is not there that should be. Give mind a rest -- it needs it! And it is so simple: just become a witness to it.

 

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Slowly, slowly mind starts learning to be silent. And once it knows that by being silent it becomes powerful, then its words are not just words; they have a validity and a richness and a quality that they never had before -- so much so that they go directly, like arrows. They bypass the logical barriers and reach to the very heart. Then mind is a good servant of immense power in the hands of silence. Then the being is the master, and the master can use the mind whenever it is needed and can switch it off whenever it is not needed.

 

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Meditation is the source, compassion is the overflow of that source. The nonmeditative man has no energy for love, for compassion, for celebration. The nonmeditative person is disconnected from his own source of energy; he is not in contact with the ocean. He has a little bit of energy that is created by food, by air, by matter -- he lives on physical energy.

 

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Remember, each situation has to become an opportunity to meditate. What is meditation? Becoming aware of what you are doing, becoming aware of what is happening to you. Somebody insults you: become aware. What is happening to you when the insult reaches you? Meditate over it; this is changing the whole gestalt. When somebody insults you, you concentrate on the person -- "Why is he insulting me? Who does he think he is? How can I take revenge?" If he is very powerful you surrender, you start wagging your tail. If he is not very powerful and you see that he is weak, you pounce on him. But you forget yourself completely in all this; the other becomes the focus. This is missing an opportunity for meditation. When somebody insults you, meditate.

 

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No-mind is another name for meditation.

 

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To me, music and meditation are two aspects of the same phenomenon. And without music, meditation lacks something; without music, meditation is a little dull, unalive. Without meditation, music is simply noise -- harmonious, but noise. Without meditation, music is an entertainment. And without music, meditation becomes more and more negative, tends to be death-oriented.

 

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The man who believes in individualism is not an individual. The man who is really an individual need not believe -- he knows it, so what is the point of believing? Belief is always needed in ignorance, and individualism is a belief. To be an individual is an experience! Individualism is very cheap, but to be an individual needs arduous discipline. It needs great perseverance, work, watchfulness. It comes only out of years of effort in awareness, in meditation.

 

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Remember the source: real knowing comes through meditation, awareness, consciousness, mindfulness, watchfulness, witnessing. And unreal knowledge comes through scriptures. You can learn the unreal knowledge very easily and you can brag about it, but you will remain a fool -- a learned fool, but a fool all the same.

 

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Only the meditator is not an escapist -- everybody else is. Meditation means getting out of desire, getting out of thoughts, getting out of mind. Meditation means relaxing in the moment, in the present. Meditation is the only thing in the world which is not escapist, although it is thought to be the most escapist thing. People who condemn meditation always condemn it with the argument that it is escape, escaping from life. They are simply talking nonsense; they don't understand what they are saying. Meditation is not escaping from life: it is escaping into life. Mind is escaping from life, desire is escaping from life.

 

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MEDITATION comes naturally to a happy person. Meditation comes automatically to a joyous person. Meditation is very simple to a person who can celebrate, who can delight in life.

 

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Miss the present and you live in boredom. BE in the present and you will be surprised that there is no boredom at all. Start by looking around a little more like a child. Be a child again! That's what meditation is all about: being a child again -- a rebirth, being innocent again, not-knowing.

 

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Meditation makes you a master and the mind becomes a slave. And remember: the mind as a master is dangerous because, after all, it is a machine; but the mind as a slave is tremendously significant, useful. A machine should function as a machine, not as a master. Our priorities are all upside-down -- your CONSCIOUSNESS should be the master.

 

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That's what meditation is all about: putting the mind aside, seeing without any prejudice, without any a priori conclusion, without any conclusion at all. When your eyes are functioning just like mirrors, simply reflecting that which is, neither condemning it nor appreciating it... when your eyes are nonjudgmental, when you don't say, "This is good, this is bad. This should be, this should not be" -- when you don't say anything, you simply reflect... then you see that which is -- otherwise not, ordinarily not. You have to disappear to see the reality as it is. If you are there, the more you are there, the less you see the real.

 

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It has happened down the ages. Millions of people have escaped from life for the simple reason that they wanted to meditate and life is a disturbance. They can't meditate in the marketplace, they can't meditate in the family, they can't meditate with the children around. They have to go to the Himalayan caves; only then they can meditate. That is a wrong meditation. If meditation is so poor, so impotent that you can't meditate in your own home, then your meditation is not worth anything. If it needs the Himalayas, then it is not your meditation that is making you silent; it is the silence of the Himalayas.

 

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Right meditation has to become a strength in you, not a weakness. It has to make you stronger -- so strong that you can sit in the marketplace and yet be meditative.

 

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Right samadhi is a transcendence: you go beyond mind, but you are fully alert, aware. Only then is samadhi right -- when it grows in awareness and when awareness grows through it. When you become enlightened you have to be absolutely awakened.

 

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Just do two things: meditate, watch your thought processes; become just a spectator of your mind. That is meditation, becoming a witness. And second: follow the law, follow the natural course. Don't be unnatural, don't try to fight with nature -- stop being a fighter. Learn how to relax with nature, learn to let go. Flow with nature, allow nature to possess you totally. By "nature" he means dhamma, tao, the ultimate nature of things, the universal law. Do these two things, and you will free yourself from desire and desire will disappear. Meditate and let go. This is the path, the only path... and desire disappears on its own accord.

 

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It is desire that keeps you in bondage, that is the cause of misery. And because of desire you have to do so many stupid things; you have to behave like a fool. Running after money is foolish, running after power is foolish. You are making a fool of yourself, but you never become aware of it because others are also doing the same. Because the majority is doing the same nobody takes note of it; otherwise you would be thought to be mad.

 

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This is what meditation is all about: watching your desires, understanding their nature... and letting them fall like dry leaves from the trees in the autumn.

 

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All kinds of cunning people are thought to be intelligent people. And you have to watch your own cunningnesses. To be cunning is not to be intelligent; to be intellectual even is not to be intelligent. Intelligence has a totally different flavor from intellectuality. Intelligence is the fragrance of meditation -- only a master is intelligent.

 

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All your prayers are nothing but whistling in the dark. Buddha is not in favor of prayers. And this difference has to be understood: he is absolutely in favor of meditation, but never in favor of any prayer. Prayer is again the old trick, the old game which does not allow you to be alone. Meditation is the art of being alone.

 

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That's exactly the definition of meditation according to Buddha and according to all other buddhas too. Watch your mind, and whatever is not yours, whether it is good or bad, great or small, don't get identified with it.

 

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Music comes closest to meditation. Music is a way towards meditation and the most beautiful way. Meditation is the art of hearing the soundless sound, the art of hearing the music of silence -- what the Zen people call the sound of one hand clapping. When you are utterly silent, not a single thought passes your mind, there is not even a ripple of any feeling in your heart. Then you start, for the first time, hearing silence.

 

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All knowing becomes knowledge. The moment it becomes knowledge, drop it. It is just like dust gathers on the mirror; every day you have to clean it. On the mirror of your mind dust gathers, dust of experience: it becomes knowledge. Clean it. That's why every day meditation is needed. Meditation is nothing but cleaning the mirror of your mind. Clean it continuously! If you can clean it every moment of your life, then there is no need to sit separately for meditation.

 

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Once you have started choosing happiness, once you have decided that you have to be happy, then no meditation is needed. Then meditation starts happening of its own accord. Meditation is a function of being happy. Meditation follows a happy man like a shadow: wherever he goes, whatsoever he is doing, he is meditative. He is intensely concentrated.

 

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Happiness happens when you fit with your life, when you fit so harmoniously that whatsoever you are doing is your joy. Then suddenly you will come to know: meditation follows you. If you love the work that you are doing, if you love the way you are living, then you are meditative. Then nothing distracts you. When things distract you, that simply shows that you are not really interested in those things.

 

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When Buddha says meditate he means don't think -- it is just the opposite of the English meaning. He says: drop all thinking and see. That is the only way to know things as they are... because if you are thinking, you are bringing your prejudices in. If you are thinking, you are bringing your past conclusions in. If you are thinking, your mind is functioning -- and mind is past, and the past never allows you to see the present. Thinking has to stop for meditation to be. Thinking has to evaporate totally. In that state of no-thought you can see.

 

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Thinking is a blind state, it is a groping in darkness. Meditation is a state of having eyes, you are capable of seeing. You simply see what is right and what is wrong. And when you see what is right and what is wrong you can't do the wrong, you can't go against the right.

 

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A meditator naturally follows that which is good -- not that he decides to follow it -- and naturally avoids that which is bad. Not that he decides to avoid it; a meditator never takes any vows -- there is no need. A man with eyes never takes the vow that "I will always enter from the door, go out from the door. I promise you, God, that I will never try to enter from the wall. Believe me, I am a man of my word, I will keep it, although I know there will be many temptations." If somebody is saying that, you will laugh. "What nonsense he is talking! What temptations?" Have you ever been tempted by the wall to get in and out through it? No such temptation is there.

 

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Buddha says: RECEIVING ALL OPINIONS EQUALLY.... Without any prejudice, without any opinion already arrived at, without any a priori.... Just listen to, and watch, all kinds of things. Be a pure mirror -- that is meditation. And without haste, because if you are in a hurry you will jump upon the conclusion. You are not really concerned with truth, you are more concerned with a conclusion, because the conclusion gives comfort, the conclusion gives you a security, the conclusion makes you feel that you know. It covers up your ignorance, it makes you feel sure and certain.

 

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There are only two approaches: one is of the mind, the other is of meditation. The approach of the mind remains confined to the world of beliefs, and the approach of meditation is the approach without thoughts, without beliefs, without prejudices.

 

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Mind becomes knowledgeable, meditation brings wisdom.

 

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A chaotic, a dynamic meditation, is a very cruel method. It is not like sweet prayer, it is bitter, but it can cleanse much dust off your being. It can bring great awakening to you. It can become your first satori. Just a hundred-percent commitment is needed.

 

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Meditation is far closer to sleep than to any other activity, with only one difference: in sleep you fall unconscious, in meditation you remain conscious, but with the same relaxation.

 

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Meditation has to be experienced. If you try to figure it out, what it is, you will miss the point because it is not a question of mind at all. Meditation means a state of no-mind.

 

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Only the master can look because only the master has eyes. Without meditation you are blind. You can see, but only the most superficial things, only the surface of things, only the circumference and never the center. You cannot penetrate into the nature of things. And truth remains hidden at the very core. Meditation gives the master an insight into himself and the same insight becomes his bridge to the whole of existence. He is no more blind. Only a man of meditation is not blind. Unless you have attained meditation think of yourself as blind. Yes, you can see, but you can see only outwardly. And the real nature is inside you; it is in your interiority, it is in your subjectivity.

 

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Meditation is not something occult, it is very scientific. It is a process of cleansing your eyes, of giving you clarity, of making you alert. Your minds are so full of prejudice that you can't see. Your minds are so full of a priori conclusions that whatsoever you see is colored by your conclusions, by your conditionings. Your observation is not pure; it is polluted, it is poisoned. You don't see what is the case, you go on seeing what you want to see or what you are prepared to see or what you are conditioned to see. This is not real seeing.

 

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Meditation means removing all your prejudices, putting all your conclusions aside -- seeing without any hindrance, seeing without any curtains, seeing clearly without any mediation of any thought, seeing without Buddha standing between you and reality, or Krishna standing or Christ standing.

 

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If meditation really happens, whatsoever the cause, compassion has to follow. Compassion is the flowering of meditation. If compassion is not coming, your meditation is, somewhere, wrong.

 

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Meditation is not an effort against the mind. It is a way of understanding the mind. It is a very loving way of witnessing the mind -- but, of course, one has to be very patient. This mind that you are carrying in your head has arisen over centuries, millennia. Your small mind carries the whole experience of humanity -- and not only of humanity: of animals, of birds, of plants, of rocks. You have passed through all those experiences. All that has happened up to now has happened in you also. In a very small nutshell, you carry the whole experience of existence.

 

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The art of meditation makes you aware where the switch is: it is in witnessing. Witnessing is the switch that can put your mind on or off. You become the master, so when you want to use it you use it and when you don't want to use it you simply put it off and it gives rest to the mind. Hence the mind of a meditator is far more brilliant, far more intelligent, far more alive, sensitive, than the mind of a nonmeditator, because the mind of a meditator has a few periods of deep deep rest that rejuvenates it. If you see a meditator and he is not intelligent, that simply means he is not a meditator at all. A meditator cannot be stupid, a meditator cannot be mediocre; that is impossible. If he is a meditator, then he will radiate sharpness, intelligence, brilliance. He will be a genius, he will be creative.

 

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In fact, if we can create more and more meditators in the world, in every dimension of life there will be more creativity, more intelligence, less stupidity, less lethargy. But it has not happened down the ages. Just the opposite has happened because in the name of meditation, something else has continued. In the name of meditation people either have been concentrating or contemplating. Both are not meditation.

 

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Concentration is just the opposite of meditation and so is contemplation, in a different way. Concentration means closing your mind, focusing your mind, on a certain point, on a certain object. You are so focused on a certain object that you become unaware of everything else; that is concentration. It excludes everything else; it includes only one thing: the object of your concentration, whatsoever it is. And meditation means absolute openness. It includes all, it excludes nothing. Hence it is not concentration at all. It is a state of vulnerability, openness, availability.

 

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The person who is trying to concentrate can be distracted. He can be easily distracted by anything. Just a dog in the neighborhood starts barking and he is distracted, a child starts giggling and he is distracted, a bird starts singing and he is distracted. Anything will do, as if he is just waiting for anything to distract him; he is tired of focusing his mind. It is a tension, it is a strain. Meditation is not a tension, it is not a strain. One is never tired of meditation. It is relaxation -- how you can be tired of it? It is deep rest, it is utter restfulness. One is available to everything; nothing can distract you.

 

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You can listen to me either as concentration or as meditation. If you listen to me as concentration, then anything can distract. A car passes by... the cuckoo starts calling from the distance -- the chattering of the birds. Anything can distract you, any small thing. Not that the birds are interested in distracting you; they are not concerned with you at all. But you will feel anger arising in you. That's why so-called religious people become more angry than anybody else. They live almost in rage. If a single person in your house becomes religious, he is enough to create trouble for everybody, because each small thing distracts him and then he takes revenge.

 

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You can listen to me in meditation. Then you are not concentrating on me; you are simply sitting available, open. The birds go on chattering; that too comes to you, but because you are not concentrating it is not a distraction -- it enriches. What I am saying to you is enriched. The singing of the birds becomes a background to it. And you never feel angry and you never feel tense.

 

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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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Buddha says: Meditation brings two things. It brings wisdom, it brings freedom. These two flowers grow out of meditation. When you become silent, utterly silent, beyond the mind, two flowers bloom in you. One is of wisdom: you know what is and what is not. And the other is of freedom: you know now there are no more any limitations on you, either of time or of space. You become liberated. Meditation is the key to liberation, to freedom, to wisdom.

 

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In science, concentration is enough; at the most, contemplation is needed. In religion, meditation is the only way. Concentration is not needed, is not a help; it is a positive hindrance. Contemplation also is not a help; it is a compensation for not being meditative, it is a poor substitute for it. Meditation -- only meditation -- can bring the inner revolution.

 

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Meditation means getting out of the mind, looking at the mind from the outside. That's exactly the meaning of the word 'ecstasy': to stand out. To stand out of the mind makes you ecstatic, brings bliss to you. And great intelligence is released. When you are identified with the mind you cannot be very intelligent because you become identified with an instrument, you become confined by the instrument and its limitations. And you are unlimited -- you are consciousness.

 

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Meditation takes you beyond sex; nothing else can ever take you beyond sex. Everything else is a substitute for sex. Somebody is running after money -- money is his sex; and somebody is running after power -- power is his sex; and somebody is running after something else. Those are all sexualities, substitutes for sex. These people can easily avoid sex because they have found their own new version.

 

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When you become more meditative, the deeper you go into meditation, the more will be your capacity and clarity to understand the scriptures. Scriptures will become witnesses to you that you are on the right track. And when you reach to your innermost core, when you realize your being, then you will know what Jesus means by the kingdom of God, then you will know what Buddha means by nirvana, then you will know what the Upanishads mean by truth -- not before that.