• I'm not giving you another dream, remember. You hanker for it, you would like me to give you another dream, but I am not going to give you another dream. That's why to be with me is difficult and arduous - because I am insisting that you wake up. Enough is enough. You have dreamed a lot; since eternity you have been dreaming. You have just been changing dreams. When you get fed up with one dream, you start changing it; you dream another dream. My whole effort is to shake you, to shock you - to wake you.
    - Osho

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Question 2:

Kindly explain contemplation, concentration and meditation.

 

 

'Contemplation' means directed thinking. We all think; that is not contemplation. That thinking is undirected, vague, leading nowhere. Really, our thinking is not contemplation, but what Freudians call association. One thought leads to another without any direction from you. The thought itself leads to another because of association.

 

You see a dog crossing the street. The moment you see the dog, your mind starts thinking about dogs. The dog has led you to this thought, and then the mind has many associations. When you were a child, you were afraid of a particular dog. That dog comes to the mind and then the childhood comes to the mind. Then dogs are forgotten; then just by association you begin to daydream about your childhood. Then the childhood goes on being connected with other things, and you move in circles.

 

Whenever you are at ease, try to go backwards from your thinking to where the thoughts came from. Go back, retrace the steps. Then you will see that another thought was there, and that led to this. And they are not logically connected, because how is a dog on the street connected with your childhood?

 

There is no logical connection - only association in your mind. If I was crossing the street, the same dog would not lead me to my childhood, it would lead to something else. In a third person it would lead to still something else. Everyone has associated chains in the mind. With any one person some happening, some accident will lead to the chain. Then the mind begins to function like a computer.

 

Then one thing leads to another, another leads to another, and you go on, and the whole day you are doing that.

 

Write down on a sheet of paper whatsoever comes to your mind, honestly. You will be just amazed what is happening in your mind. There is no relation between two thoughts, and you go on doing this type of thinking. You call this thinking? This is just association of one thought with another, and they lead themselves... you are led.

 

Thinking becomes contemplation when it moves not through association, but is directed. You are working on a particular problem - then you bracket out all associations. You move on that problem only, you direct your mind. The mind will try to escape to any bypath, to any side route, to some association. You cut off all the side routes; on only one road you direct your mind.

 

A scientist working on a problem is in contemplation. A logician working on a problem, a mathematician working on a problem is in contemplation. A poet contemplates a flower. Then the whole world is bracketed out, and only that flower and the poet remains, and he moves with the flower. Many things from side routes will attract, but he does not allow his mind to move anywhere.

 

Mind moves in one line, directed. This is contemplation.

 

Science is based on contemplation. Any logical thinking is contemplation: thought is directed, thinking guided. Ordinary thinking is absurd. Contemplation is logical, rational.

 

Then there is 'concentration'. Concentration is staying at one point. It is not thinking; it is not contemplation. It is really being at one point, not allowing the mind to move at all. In ordinary thinking mind moves as a madman. In contemplation the madman is led, directed; he cannot escape anywhere. In concentration the mind is not allowed to move. In ordinary thinking, it is allowed to move anywhere; in contemplation, it is allowed to move only somewhere; in concentration, it is not allowed to move, it is only allowed to be at one point. The whole energy, the whole movement stops, sticks to one point.

 

Yoga is concerned with concentration, ordinary mind with undirected thinking, the scientific mind with directed thinking. The yogic mind has its thinking focused, fixed at one point; no movement is allowed.

 

And then there is 'meditation'. In ordinary thinking, mind is allowed to move anywhere; in contemplation, it is allowed only in one direction, all other directions are cut off. In concentration, it is not allowed to move even in one direction; it is allowed only to concentrate on one point. And in meditation, mind is not allowed at all. Meditation is no-mind.

 

These are four stages: ordinary thinking, contemplation, concentration, meditation.

 

Meditation means no-mind - not even concentration is allowed. Mind itself is not allowed to be! That is why meditation cannot be grasped by mind. Up to concentration mind has a reach, an approach.

 

Mind can understand concentration, but mind cannot understand meditation. Really, mind is not allowed at all. In concentration, mind is allowed to be at one point. In meditation, even that point is taken away. In ordinary thinking, all directions are open. In contemplation, only one direction is open. In concentration, only one point is open - no direction. In meditation, even that point is not open: mind is not allowed to be.

 

Ordinary thinking is the ordinary state of mind, and meditation is the highest possibility. The lowest one is ordinary thinking, association, and the highest, the peak, is meditation - no-mind.

 

And with the second question, it is also asked: CONTEMPLATION AND CONCENTRATION ARE MENTAL PROCESSES. HOW CAN MENTAL PROCESSES HELP IN ACHIEVING A STATE OF NO-MIND?

 

The question is significant. Mind asks, how can mind itself go beyond mind? How can any mental process help to achieve something which is not of the mind? It looks contradictory. How can your mind try, make an effort to create a state which is not of mind?

 

Try to understand. When mind is, what is there? A process of thinking. When there is no-mind, what is there? No process of thinking. If you go on decreasing your process of thinking, if you go on dissolving your thinking, by and by, slowly, you are reaching no-mind. Mind means thinking; no mind means non-thinking. And mind can help. Mind can help in committing suicide. You can commit suicide; you never ask how a man who is alive can help himself to be dead. You can help yourself to be dead - everyone is trying to help. You can help yourself to be dead, and you are alive. Mind can help to be no-mind. How can mind help?

 

If the process of thinking becomes more and more dense, then you are proceeding from mind to more mind. If the process of thinking becomes less dense, is decreased, is slowed down, you are helping yourself toward no-mind. It depends on you. And mind can be a help, because really, mind is what you are doing with your consciousness this very moment. If you leave your consciousness alone, without doing anything with it, it becomes meditation.

 

So there are two possibilities: either slowly, gradually you decrease your mind, by and by. If one percent is decreased, then you have ninety-nine percent mind and one percent no-mind within you.

 

It is as if you have removed some furniture from your room - then some space is created there.

 

Then you remove more furniture, and more space is created there. When you have removed all the furniture, the whole room becomes space.

 

Really, space is not created by removing the furniture, the space was already there. It is only that the space was occupied by the furniture. When you remove the furniture, no space comes in from outside; the space was there, occupied by furniture. You have removed the furniture, and the space is recovered, reclaimed. Deep down mind is space occupied, filled by thoughts. If you remove some thoughts, space is created - or discovered, or reclaimed. If you go on removing your thoughts, by and by you go on regaining your space. This space is meditation.

 

Slowly it can be done - suddenly also. There is no need to go on for lives together removing the furniture, because there are problems. When you start to remove the furniture, one percent space is created and ninety-nine percent space is occupied. That ninety-nine percent occupied space will not feel good about the unoccupied space; it will try to fill it. So one goes on slowly decreasing thoughts and then again creating new thoughts.

 

In the morning you sit for meditation for some time; you slow down your process of thought. Then you go to the market, and again there is a rush of thoughts. The space is filled again. The next day you again do this, and you go on doing this - throwing it out, and inviting it in again.

 

You can also throw all the furniture out suddenly. It is your decision. It is difficult because you have become accustomed to the furniture. You may feel uncomfortable without the furniture; you will not know what to do with that space. You may become afraid even to move in that space. You have never moved in such freedom.

 

Mind is a conditioning. We have become accustomed to thoughts. Have you ever observed - or if you have not observed, then observe - that you go on repeating the same thoughts every day. You are like a gramophone record, and then too not a fresh, new one - old. You go on and on repeating the same things. Why? What is the use of it? Only one use, it is just a long habit; you feel you are doing something.

 

You are lying on your bed just waiting for sleep to come and the same things are repeated every day.

 

Why are you doing this? It helps in a way. Old habits, conditionings, help. A child needs a toy. If the toy is given to him, he will fall into sleep; then you can take away the toy. But if the toy is not there, the child cannot fall into sleep. It is a conditioning. The moment the toy is given to him, it triggers something in his mind. Now he is ready to fall into sleep.

 

The same is happening with you. The toys may differ. One person cannot fall into sleep unless he starts chanting, "Ram, Ram, Ram..." He cannot fall into sleep! This is a toy. If he chants, "Ram, Ram, Ram..." the toy is given to him; he can fall into sleep.

 

You feel difficulty in falling asleep in a new room. If you are accustomed to sleeping in particular clothes, then you will need those particular clothes every day. Psychologists say that if you sleep in a nightgown and it is not given to you, you will feel difficulty in falling asleep. Why? If you have never slept naked and you are told to sleep naked, you will not feel at ease. Why? There is no relationship between nakedness and sleep, but for you there is a relationship, an old habit. With old habits one feels at ease, comfortable.

 

Thinking patterns are also just habits. You feel comfortable - the same thoughts every day, the same routine. You feel everything is okay.

 

You have investments in your thoughts - that is the problem. Your furniture is not just rubbish to be thrown; you have invested many, many things in it. All the furniture can be thrown immediately: it can be done! There are sudden methods of which we will speak. Immediately, this very moment, you can be freed of your whole mental furniture. But then you will be suddenly vacant, empty, and you will not know who you are. Now you will not know what to do because for the first time your old patterns are no more. The shock may be too sudden. You may even die, or you may go mad.

 

That is why sudden methods are not used. Unless one is ready, sudden methods are not used.

 

One may go suddenly mad because one may miss all the moorings. The past drops immediately, and when past drops immediately you cannot conceive of the future, because the future was always conceived of in terms of the past.

 

Only the present remains, and you have never been in the present. Either you were in the past or in the future. So when you are just in the present for the first time, you will feel you have gone berserk, mad. That is why sudden methods are not used unless you are working in a school, unless you are working with a master in a group, unless you are totally devoted, unless you have dedicated your whole life for meditation.

 

So gradual methods are good. They take a long time, but by and by you become accustomed to space. You begin to feel the space and the beauty of it, and the bliss of it, and then your furniture is removed by and by.

 

So from ordinary thinking it is good to become contemplative - that is the gradual method.

 

From contemplation it is good to move to concentration - that is the gradual method. And from concentration it is good to take a jump into meditation. Then you are moving slowly, feeling the ground at every step. And when you are really rooted in one step, only then do you begin to go for the next one. It is not a jump, it is a gradual growth. So these four things - ordinary thinking, contemplation, concentration, meditation - are four steps.

 

- Osho, "The Book of Secrets, Discourse #10, Q2"

 

 

 


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  47. No Image

    Watching is meditation. What you watch is irrelevant.

    Question 3: Osho, For me the most beautiful meditation is to sit in a corner and watch the children playing around the ashram. but i'm in trouble: is this a meditation at all? Watching is meditation. What you watch is irrelevant. You can watch the trees, you can watch the river, you can wat...
    Categoryon Meditation
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    Awareness is the technique for centering oneself

    CHIDAGNI SWAROOPAM DHOOPAH "TO CREATE THE FIRE OF AWARENESS IN ONESELF IS DHOOP, THE INCENSE." For philosophy, many are the problems - infinite. But for religion there is only one problem, and that problem is man himself. It is not that man has problems, but man is the problem. And why is m...
    Categoryon Awareness
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    Constantly remember the host.

    I AM NOT THE DOER. I AM NOT THE CONSUMER. I AM SIMPLY THE WITNESS OF NATURE. AND JUST BECAUSE OF MY NEARNESS, THE BODY, ET CETERA, HAVE THE FEELING OF BEING CONSCIOUS, AND THEY ACT ACCORDINGLY. BEYOND A SHADE OF DOUBT, I AM STILL, ETERNAL, EVERLASTING BLISS -- EVERKNOWING PURE SELF OR SOUL....
    CategoryThat art thou
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    Become ordinary and you shall attain. 

    Question 3 Lao tzu has talked about pure, absolute truth and has looked upon all conceptions as the only barrier that prevents man from entering his nature. from this are we to assume that religion and truth are beyond the capabilities of an ordinary person? will the embracing of the simple...
    Categoryon Ego, Ordinary, Humble
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    Sex, Love, Prayer - Tantric, Baul, Sufi

    Question 2 What really is the difference between a baul, a tantrika, a bhakta, and a sufi? do they all belong to the path of love? they seem to be intermingled. please enlighten. THE boundaries are overlapping. They are all on the path of love, but still there are subtle distinctions. Even ...
    CategoryThe Path of Love, The Path of Meditation
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     Don't try to be special 

    Don't try to be special All the nonsense that goes on in the name of religion and spirituality is nothing but ego decoration. A really religious man is bound to be very ordinary. [....] Don't try to be special -- because the only way to be special is to run counter to the ordinary man. If t...
    Categoryon Ego, Ordinary, Humble
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    Let Go : You are not fighting for anything in life, but giving everything to life to take care of.

    Question 1 Osho, Recently i heard you say that transcendence of life's misery and confusion can occur by either a let-go of life or by fight -- as long as either is done with totality. mahavira's way was fight, and yours is let-go. could you say more about let-go and its relationship to int...
    Categoryon Relax, Let-go
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    The Fire of Witnessing

    Question 3 Beloved Osho, I have done so many therapy groups in order to deprogram myself; and above all i have the greatest fortune in existence to be so close to you. still, sometimes i feel like having moved miles from where i was stuck a few years ago, and sometimes i feel i haven't move...
    Categoryon Witnessing, Watching
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    Seeking : Do not seek it, and find!

    I do not believe in fixed methods. I use methods just to push you into a very chaotic consciousness, because the first thing to be done with you, as you are, is to disturb your whole pattern. You have become solid, rigid; you must become more and more liquid and flowing. And unless you beco...
    Categoryon Effort, Effortless
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    Sufism is the path of via positiva. Zen transcends mind through the negative

    EXISTENCE IS A DIALECTICS. IT DEPENDS ON POLAR OPPOSITES: man/woman, yin/yang, life/death, daylight. But the basic polarity in all the polarities is that of positive and negative. Only positive cannot exist, neither can the negative exist alone. They depend on each other. They are opposites...
    CategoryThe Path of Love, The Path of Meditation
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    To be aware of the mind is being a witness of the mind.

    To be aware of the mind is being a witness of the mind. As the witnessing grows stronger, you already start feeling yourself beyond the mind. Slowly, slowly the distance grows. Your witness reaches to a sunlit peak and the mind is left in the dark valleys, far away. You can still hear the e...
    Categoryon Witnessing, Watching
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    Meditation and love. This is the ultimate polarity.

    Meditation and love These are two polarities in life: meditation and love. This is the ultimate polarity. The whole of life consists of polarities: the positive and the negative, birth and death, man and woman, day and night, summer and winter. The whole of life consists of polar opposites....
    CategoryThe Path of Love, The Path of Meditation
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    The ocean is always waiting for you.

    Life is just a river, a long river – a long line through snowy fields. And then what happens? Each river, small or big, dissolves into the ocean, finds its way without any guide, without any sutras, without any masters. It may go astray, zigzag, but finally it reaches to the ocean. And that...
    CategoryTo you who search the truth
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    A holy man : Be meditators and lovers and together

    My sannyasins have to be meditators and lovers and together, because both are supportive energies for each other. If you love, you will be able to meditate more deeply; if you meditate you will be able to love more totally, and so on, so forth. They go on helping each other; they are very s...
    CategoryThe Path of Love, The Path of Meditation
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    Choiceless Awareness

    Observation, the constant observation of oneself, of the mind′s unconscious tendencies, awakens the consciousness and allows it to penetrate into the unconscious mind. The unconscious enters the conscious through the door of stupor, ignorance, intoxication and carelessness, and is able to d...
    CategoryThe Observer, Watcher
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    Would you please speak about the art of watching?

    Question 2 Osho, For the last four days i have been taking part in the zazen group. when anger arises, it is so difficult for me to watch this feeling instead of throwing this anger on others. Osho, would you please speak about the art of watching? Everything that I have been saying to you ...
    Categoryon Witnessing, Watching
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    Live in the now : Do not think of the past and do not project into the future.

    Question 1 Osho, Last night you explained inner stillness through the dimension of inner silence. please explain inner stillness from some other dimension. STILLNESS has many dimensions. One is silence: it is the polar opposite of sound; it is soundlessness. The second dimension is no-movem...
    CategoryTo you who search the truth
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  64. No Image

    The world of the gurus has ended.

    The world of the gurus has ended. My Friends and my Fellow Travelers, I would have loved to use the Urdu words for the same, because they have a depth and a poetry . . . even the very sound of them rings bells in the heart. The ordinary meaning is the same: my friends, my fellow travelers. ...
    CategoryDon’t try to be a guru
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    Is spontaneity compatible with watching?

    "Sitting silently, doing nothing, the spring comes and the grass grows by itself." ------------------------------------------------------------- Question: We are constantly drilled with the aphorism, "Don't just stand there – do something! Yet, Buddha would say, "Don't just do something – s...
    Categoryon Meditation
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    There are No Problems

    Question 2 Why do I make mountains out of molehills? Because the ego does not feel good, at ease, with molehills -- it wants mountains. Even if it is a misery, it should not be a molehill, it should be an Everest. Even if it is miserable, the ego doesn't want to be ordinarily miserable -- i...
    Categoryon Ego, Ordinary, Humble
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    It is true meditation.

    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 ...
    Categoryon Witnessing, Watching
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    Waiting : Meditation is waiting without prospect, waiting for waiting's sake.

    Waiting Enlightenment has not to be sought actively, to be brought about, because it is already there. Waiting is all that is needed: waiting, just waiting, TADA, with no object. If you are waiting for something, you are not waiting; then positive thinking has come in. If you are waiting fo...
    CategoryLonging, Patience, Waiting
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    Witnessing: A Simple Phenomenon

    Question 2 Beloved Osho, I am a first grade student in the subject of witnessing. Whenever I am listening to you talking about watching, witnessing, something in me feels so thrilled, excited, joyful, and a big "Ah!" comes up. Recently I have heard you talk about watching the witness, yet I...
    Categoryon Witnessing, Watching
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    The path of meditation is for the pursuers of knowledge; the path of prayer is for the lovers, for the devotees.

    There are two ways to reach the destination. One way is that of meditation; the other, that of prayer. The path of meditation is for the pursuers of knowledge; the path of prayer is for the lovers, for the devotees. On the path of meditation there is a danger that the ego, the "I," may not ...
    CategoryThe Path of Love, The Path of Meditation
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    Go like an arrow

    Hakuin said to his disciples: THE STUDY OF ZEN IS LIKE DRILLING WOOD TO GET FIRE. An old, ancient method. THE WISEST COURSE IS TO FORGE STRAIGHT AHEAD WITHOUT STOPPING. IF YOU REST AT THE FIRST SIGN OF HEAT AND THEN AGAIN AS SOON AS THE FIRST WISP OF SMOKE ARISES, EVEN THOUGH YOU DRILL FOR ...
    CategoryTo you who search the truth
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    What is the difference between a seeker and a sannyasin?

    Question 2: What is the difference between a seeker and a sannyasin? can't one be a seeker without being a sannyasin? One cannot be a seeker without being a sannyasin, because to be a seeker is the beginning of sannyas. A seeker is one who is seeking sannyas. What else can a seeker do excep...
    CategoryTo you who search the truth
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    Three Stages of Enlightenment

    This is the first step of enlightenment: Gautam Buddha behind you as a shadow. But the shadow is miraculous, the shadow is not dark; the shadow is pure light, pure presence. You can feel the warmth of it, you can almost feel the touch of it. It surrounds you with a new fragrance, and it giv...
    CategoryEnlightenment, Samadhi, Satori
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    Is there really no difference between an ordinary person and one who is enlightened?

    Question 4: Osho, Is there really no difference between an ordinary person and one who is enlightened? Narendra, everyone is born enlightened. Everyone is born absolutely innocent, absolutely pure, absolutely empty. But that innocence, that purity, that emptiness, is bound to be lost becaus...
    CategoryEnlightenment, Samadhi, Satori
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    What is unawareness?

    Unawareness Question 5 Osho, What is unawareness? To be in the mind, to be identified with the mind, is unawareness. To think that “I am the mind,” is unawareness. To know that mind is only a mechanism just as the body is, to know that the mind is separate…. The night comes, the morning com...
    Categoryon Awareness
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    What is presence of mind?

    Question 4 Beloved Osho, What is presence of mind? Kavita, presence of mind is really a state of no-mind. You can call it mindfulness, awareness, or you can call it a state of no-mind. The words seem to be contradicting each other, but they are indicative of the same state. Presence of mind...
    Categoryon Mind, No-Mind, Master of your own mind
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    Everything can be argued, but argument leads nowhere.

    Question 3: You say that millions of lives and millions of years of natural evolution can be avoided through reaching total awareness and total freedom can it not be argued that karma, with its natural forces of cause and effect, should not be interfered with by any shortcuts, or is it also...
    CategoryTo you who search the truth
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    Mind can go on playing tricks unless you learn how not to associate with it

    [A sannyasin had written to Osho about feeling guilty about recurrent sickness, and wondering if, in her involvement with a love relationship, she was diverting energy formerly invested in Osho. Osho checks her energy.] Nothing is wrong with your energy, mm? just your mind goes on playing t...
    Categoryon Mind, No-Mind, Master of your own mind
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    Three Step Towards Enlightenment

    Enlightenment has no polar opposite to it. Unenlightenment is not the polar opposite of enlightenment; it is only the absence of enlightenment. It is just like darkness and light. You ordinarily think they are opposites, but that is not true. Darkness simply does not exist, it is only the a...
    CategoryEnlightenment, Samadhi, Satori
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    The Difference between Satori and Samadhi

    Question 1: What is the difference in experience between satori – in Zen, a glimpse of enlightenment – and samadhi, cosmic consciousness? Samadhi begins as a gap, but it never ends. A gap always begins and ends - it has boundaries: a beginning and an end - but samadhi begins as a gap and th...
    CategoryEnlightenment, Samadhi, Satori
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    The Ocean is not Far Away

    The Ocean is not Far Away Enjoy, live, love. But when things change, let them change; when things move, don't stop their movement. Always remain with the changing flux of existence, never be against it, and then nobody can create misery for you. Then whatsoever is, brings bliss, because you...
    Categoryon Relax, Let-go
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    Without love there is no prayer

    Without love there is no prayer, no grace, no mercy. On the tree of love all these flowers bloom. People can pray without love -- that's what they are doing all over the world, in all the churches, temples and synagogues: they don't know what love is trying to pray. That is very absurd, the...
    CategoryThe Path of Love, The Path of Meditation
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    A contented pig, a discontented Socrates

    Question 4: What is the difference between a contented pig, a discontented Socrates, and a natural man of Zen? You will have to understand these five categories. First, the contented pig. It has nothing to do with pigs, remember: all these categories are of human beings. The contented pig i...
    Categoryon Consciousness
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    Find out the inner voice, and then everything will follow.

    Find out the witness and then obey him. First find the witness and then obey him, because to find the witness means to find one's own innermost core. We live on two layers, two levels. One is the periphery: the world of action. The other is the inner being, the world of no-action: the world...
    Categoryon Witnessing, Watching
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    Tension and Relaxation

    Tension and Relaxation Question 2 Osho, Please talk to us of tension and relaxation. usually, when i sit in front of you i relax all through myself. i lose any alertness i may have. when i am alert, there is a subtle tension which i need to maintain this wakefulness. it winds me up like a s...
    Categoryon Relax, Let-go
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    on Four steps of Awareness

    The first step in awareness is to be very watchful of your body. Slowly slowly one becomes alert about each gesture, each movement. And as you become aware, a miracle starts happening: many things that you used to do before simply disappear, your body becomes more relaxed, your body becomes...
    Categoryon Awareness
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    Laugh and the whole world laughs with you

    Meditation is a simple art, very simple. It need not be taken seriously. It is so simple that even a child can learn it, in fact a child can learn it more easily. The older one becomes, the more serious one becomes. In fact it is thought that if you are mature you have to be serious. Seriou...
    Categoryon Meditation
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    Enlightenment is Not a Device

    Question 1 Osho, I see you here every day, so radiant, so full of light, so far away from the everyday reality of my life. You are a shining beacon showing the way, and the possibility of something more that can happen in me. Years ago, here with you, I used to feel that enlightenment was j...
    CategoryEnlightenment, Samadhi, Satori
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    Awareness - and that is the secret key

    Awareness - and that is the secret key, the most essential part of religious experiment, of religious investigation, enquiry, exploration. One has to become more aware than one ordinarily is. To be a sannyasin means to enter into the phenomenon of the sacred. For that more awareness is need...
    Categoryon Awareness
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    Can one practise the path of relaxation and the path of effort simultaneously?

    Question 3: Osho, Seeing the dialectical facts of life, can one practise the path of relaxation and the path of effort simultaneously? No, it is not possible! You cannot practise both simultaneously because both are diametrically opposite. They lead to one point, but they don't pass through...
    CategoryQuestion on Meditaton & Techniques
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    The difference between Introspection, Self-Remembering and Witnessing

    Question 2 What is the difference between introspection and self-remembering? A lot of difference. Introspection is thinking about yourself. Self-remembering is not thinking at all: it is becoming aware about yourself. The difference is subtle, but very great. The Western psychology insists...
    Categoryon Witnessing, Watching
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    The whole existence exists in enlightenment

    Question 3 Since your program began, what results have there been with your sannyasins? Has anyone become enlightened? They are all enlightened people. I don't deal with unenlightened people at all. I have never come across any unenlightened person. Since I became enlightened I have been co...
    CategoryEnlightenment, Samadhi, Satori
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    The seeker of truth has to start dropping all beliefs, disbeliefs and is not to have any conclusion.

    Sannyas is to be true to your original face. Then all your fragments start melting into each other and they create a centre, they create integrity, they create individuality. And that's what religion is all about. Religion has nothing to do with god or heaven and hell and all kinds of theor...
    CategoryTo you who search the truth
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    The Watcher Is You

    Question 1 Beloved Osho, What does it mean when you say, "Just be yourself"? How can I be myself when I don't know who I am? I know many of my preferences, likings, dislikings and tendencies, which seem to be the outcome of a programmed biocomputer called the mind. Does just being oneself m...
    CategoryThe Observer, Watcher
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    Meditation requires courage.

    The most fundamental message of Gautama the Buddha is not God, is not soul... it is freedom: freedom absolute, total, unconditional. He does not want to give you an ideology, because every ideology creates its own slavery. He does not want to give you a religion, because religion binds you....
    CategoryTo you who search the truth
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    Sufism is nothing but pure prayer, Zen is nothing but meditation.

    Truth is one - cannot be otherwise because existence is a universe, it is not a 'multiverse'. It is one. It is glued together. It is a togetherness. It is a cosmos. That which keeps the universe together is what we call truth, or Tao, or God. Tao is not a person, neither is god a person, bu...
    CategoryThe Path of Love, The Path of Meditation
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    Find out where you are. : Before you enter any path, first find out whether this I exists or not. Only then will your path be spiritual.

    Buddha has said, “Unless you cease to be, you cannot be still. You are the problem, you are the noise, you are the movement. So unless you cease completely you cannot attain perfect stillness. Because of this, Buddha is known as anatmawadi — one who believes in no-self. We go on thinking th...
    CategoryTo you who search the truth
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    Witnessing Is Not An Experience

    Question 1 Beloved Osho, I find that the true moments of joy and peace in my life come when I am the witness. Witnessing seems to come easier when I make some effort for it, such as now, in Vipassana group. You talked recently about the futility of will, but for me, it seems some effort or ...
    Categoryon Witnessing, Watching
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    That’s why I called even enlightenment the last game.

    Man is so miserable that he cannot live consciously with this misery. He needs a few gaps, at least a few holidays from this miserable anguish, anxiety, and all kinds of tortures. Drugs have been a tremendous help. But not only the chemical drugs - Karl Marx is right when he says that the r...
    CategoryTo you who search the truth
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