THE STUDENT OF TAO AIMS AT LOSING DAY BY DAY

Just the opposite is the student of  Tao, the student of truth, not of knowledge, the student of being, not of becoming. He is just the opposite. He goes on losing day by day, he unburdens himself, he unlearns. His only learning is how to unlearn. The only thing he is interested in is how to be totally unburdened.

A German philosopher came to see Maharshi Raman. Of course he had travelled long, and he must have thought much about what he was going to ask. When he reached Raman he said, I have come to sit near you, to learn much. Raman looked at him with deep compassion and said, Then you have come to the wrong person because here I teach only unlearning. If you have come to learn you have come to the wrong place, go somewhere else; but if you are ready to unlearn, mature enough to unlearn, then you can stay here.

He was right. Near a sage you go to unlearn. When you are fed up with your learning, when you have learned much and gained nothing, when you know much and you are lost in your knowledge, when you know much but you have completely forgotten who you are, when you know much about unnecessary things, non essential things, and the essential knowledge about your own being is lost, then you come to a sage to unlearn.

And that is the greatest surrender. It is easy to surrender your wealth, because it is outside you. Robbers can take it, it can be stolen, it is nothing that is part of you, it is outside! You can drop it easily. But your knowledge becomes an inner phenomenon, it gets inside you, it runs in your blood, it becomes part of your bones, it becomes your very marrow; it is difficult to surrender it.

It is easy to learn a thing, it is very very difficult to unlearn it. How to unlearn when you know a certain thing? It becomes very very difficult to not know it. How to drop it? It is so deep in you. Unless you move beyond the mind, for you are identified with the mind, you cannot drop it because then you think ‘It is me’. Then you think your knowledge is your being.

Move! All meditations are techniques to move from the mind, to gain a little distance from the mind, to become a little aloof and unidentified with it, to transcend the mind, to become a watcher on the hills so you can see what is happening in the mind. When you are separate from the mind, only then is there a possibility to drop something, to drop knowledge, to unlearn.

THE STUDENT OF TAO AIMS AT LOSING DAY BY DAY.

That is his gain. He gains by losing day by day. That is his learning, he learns by unlearning day by day. A moment comes when he is again a child, not knowing anything. A moment comes when he enters into the paradise again.

He tasted the bitter fruit of knowledge, but he found out it was stupid. Knowledge is deep stupidity.

He found it out, now he comes into paradise again. Now no serpent can seduce him. He comes mature — childlike but mature; a child, innocent — but alert, aware, conscious.

Now he attains to a greater purity, because a purity which has no awareness is bound to be lost. Somebody is going to seduce, somebody is going to corrupt, and if there is nobody, you yourself will corrupt yourself, because you are not alert.

Adam had to be thrown out of the garden of paradise. He was simply innocent. He was Buddha like in one part: he was innocent, he was like Jesus in one part: he was innocent, but the other part was lacking, he was not aware.

Adam is the be inning, Jesus is the end. Adam is half, Jesus is complete — the other half has become aware. Now Jesus is incorruptible. He is not only pure he is also incorruptible, his innocence is now absolute.

THE STUDENT OF TAO AIMS AT LOSING DAY BY DAY. BY CONTINUAL LOSING ONE REACHES DOING NOTHING.

This is very subtle. Pay as much attention as you can pay to it. Be as meditative about it as possible.

You may not know that the word meditation comes from the same root as medicine, medical, and the original meaning of the word was — a technique to become whole, a technique to become healthy. Medicine is medicinal, just like that, meditation is also medicinal. It makes you whole, integrated, healthy.

Pay attention, listen to it as meditatively as possible. When you listen meditatively you understand, when you listen concentratedly you learn. If you listen with concentration, you will gain knowledge, if you listen meditatively, you will lose knowledge. And the difference is very subtle.

When you listen attentively, attention means a tension, it means you are tense, too eager to learn, to absorb, to know. You are interested in knowledge, concentration is the way towards knowledge; mind focussed on one thing of course, learns more.

Meditation is unfocussed mind, you simply listen silently, not with a tension in the mind, not with an urge to know and learn, no, with total relaxedness, in a let go, in an opening of your being.

You listen, not to know, you simply listen to understand. These are different ways of listening.

If you are trying to know, then you are trying to memorize what I am saying, deep down you are repeating it, you are taking notes inside the mind, you are writing it in the world of your memories, you are interested in letting it become deeply rooted in you so you don’t forget. Then it will become knowledge.

And the same seed could have become unlearning, understanding. Then you simply listen, you are not interested in accumulating it, you are not interested in writing it in your memory, in your mind. You simply listen open, as you listen to music, as you listen to birds singing in the trees, as you listen to wind passing through ancient pines, as you listen to the sound of water in a waterfall — there is nothing to remember, nothing to memorize, you don’t listen with a parrot mind, you simply listen without any mind — the listening is beautiful, it is ecstatic, there is no goal in it, in itself it is ecstatic, it is blissful.

Listen meditatively, not with concentration. All schools, colleges, universities, teach concentration, because the goal is to memorize. Here the goal is not to memorize, the goat is not to learn at all, the goal is to unlearn.

Source:  Tao: The Three Treasures, Vol 3
Chapter 3 – Conquering the World by Inaction

The first thing to be remembered about meditation is that it is not something that can be done…

The first thing to be remembered about meditation is that it is not something that can be done. Throughout the world people have the notion that meditation means doing something. It is not a doing, it is not an act, it is something that happens. It is not that YOU go to it; it comes to you and penetrates you. It destroys you in one way and recreates you in another. It is something so vital and so infinite that it cannot be a part of your doing.

Ordinarily we are like prisons: we are closed up within ourselves with no openings. In a way we are dead. One can say we have become “life-proof”: life cannot come to us. We have created barriers and hindrances to life, because life can be dangerous, uncontrollable; it is something which is not in our hands. We have created a closed existence for ourselves so that we can be certain and secure, so that we can be comfortable. This closed existence is convenient, but at the same time it is deadening. The more closed we become the less alive we are. The more open we become the more alive we are.

Meditation is an openness to all dimensions, an openness to everything. But to be open to everything is dangerous, to be open to everything unconditionally makes us insecure. It cannot be comfortable because anything can happen. A mind which longs for security, which longs for comfort, which longs for certainty, cannot be a meditative mind. Only a mind which is open to anything that life offers, welcoming each and everything that happens, even death, can create a situation in which meditation happens.

So the only thing that can be done by you is to be receptive to meditation, to be totally receptive — not to any particular happening but to anything that comes.

Meditation is not a particular dimension, it is a dimensionless existence, an existence that is open to each and every dimension without any conditions, without any longings, without any expectations. If there are any expectations, then the opening will not be total. If there are any conditions, any longings, if there are any “ifs,” then the opening cannot be total. No part of you should remain closed. If you are not totally open, then no vital, vigorous, infinite happening can be received by you. It cannot become the guest, and you cannot become the host.

Meditation is just the creation of a receptive situation in which something can happen, and all you can do is wait for it.

A mind that waits is waiting for the unknown, because what is going to happen cannot be known beforehand; you cannot even conceive of it. You may have heard something about it, but that is not your knowledge; it remains unknown. A mind that is waiting for the unknown is a mind that is meditative.

When you are waiting for the unknown your knowledge becomes a barrier, because the more aware you are of your knowledge the more solidly you imprison yourself. You must not be in a “knowing” mood, you must be completely ignorant; only then can the unknown come to you. The moment your ignorance becomes aware of itself, the moment you know that you don’t know, that is the moment you begin to wait for the unknown.

There are two types of ignorant people. The first type are not aware of their ignorance — they automatically think that they know. This is ignorant knowledge. The other type are those who are aware of their ignorance. This is a knowing ignorance. And the moment you become aware of your ignorance you come to the point where knowing begins.

A pundit, a person who thinks he knows, can never be a religious man. A person who thinks that he knows is bound to be nonreligious, because the knowledgeable ego is the most subtle thing. But the moment you know your ignorance there is no ego, there is no space in which the ego can exist. The greatest attack on the ego is to become aware of your ignorance; the greatest strengthening of your ego is to claim knowledge.

The second thing that I would like to say about meditation is that your mind must be totally aware of its ignorance. And you can only become aware of your ignorance when your accumulated, borrowed knowledge is known as not-knowledge. It is not knowledge, it is simply information, and information is not knowledge even though that is the way it appears.

A person who knows is not dogmatic about his knowledge; he hesitates. But a person who thinks that he knows is dogmatic, assertive; he is absolutely certain.

You must become aware of the fact that what you have not known cannot be your knowledge. You cannot borrow knowledge: that is the difference between a theological mind and a religious mind. Theology is one of the most irreligious things in the world and theologians are the most irreligious people, because what has been claimed by them as knowledge is borrowed.

Knowledge never makes any claims, because inherent in it is the phenomenon that the moment one knows, the I is lost. The moment one knows, the ego is no longer there. Knowledge comes when the ego is not, so the ego cannot claim to have it. The ego can only collect information; it can accumulate many facts, it can quote scriptures.

To go into meditation is to transcend your accumulated knowledge. The moment this knowledge is transcended, learning begins. And a learner is something quite different: he never claims that he knows, he is always aware of his ignorance. And the more aware of it he is, the more receptive he becomes to the new.

The moment you have learned something, discard it; otherwise there is every possibility that it will become part of your knowing, part of your accumulation. If your knowledge comes from your past experiences, then too it is borrowed, because you are not the same person any more. And whether your knowledge is borrowed from the past or it is borrowed from someone else makes no difference at all.

Source The Great Challenge by OSHO

As mind exists, it is not meditative. The total mind must change before meditation can happen. Then what is the mind as it now exists? How does it function?

The mind is always verbalizing. You can know words, you can know language, you can know the conceptual structure of thinking, but that is not thinking. On the contrary, it is an escape from thinking. You see a flower and you verbalize it; you see a man crossing the street and you verbalize it. The mind can transform every existential thing into words. Then the words become a barrier, an imprisonment. This constant transformation of things into words, of existence into words, is the obstacle to a meditative mind.

So the first requirement toward a meditative mind is to be aware of your constant verbalizing and to be able to stop it. Just see things; do not verbalize. Be aware of their presence, but do not change them into words. Let things be, without language; let persons be, without language; let situations be, without language. It is not impossible; it is natural. It is the situation as it now exists that is artificial, but we have become so habituated to it, it has become so mechanical, that we are not even aware that we are constantly transforming experience into words.

The sunrise is there. You are never aware of the gap between seeing it and verbalizing. You see the sun, you feel it, and immediately you verbalize it. The gap between seeing and verbalizing is lost. One must become aware of the fact that the sunrise is not a word. It is a fact, a presence. The mind automatically changes experiences into words. These words then come between you and the experience.

Meditation means living without words, living nonlinguistically. Sometimes it happens spontaneously. When you are in love, presence is felt, not language. Whenever two lovers are intimate with one another they become silent. It is not that there is nothing to express. On the contrary, there is an overwhelming amount to be expressed. But words are never there; they cannot be. They come only when love has gone.

If two lovers are never silent, it is an indication that love has died. Now they are filling the gap with words. When love is alive, words are not there because the very existence of love is so overwhelming, so penetrating, that the barrier of language and words is crossed. And ordinarily, it is only crossed in love.

Meditation is the culmination of love: love not for a single person, but for the total existence. To me, meditation is a living relationship with the total existence that surrounds you. If you can be in love with any situation, then you are in meditation.

And this is not a mental trick. It is not a method of stilling the mind. Rather, it requires a deep understanding of the mechanism of the mind. The moment you understand your mechanical habit of verbalization, of changing existence into words, a gap is created. It comes spontaneously. It follows understanding like a shadow. The real problem is not how to be in meditation, but to know why you are not in meditation. The very process of meditation is negative. It is not adding something to you; it is negating something that has already been added.

Society cannot exist without language; it needs language. But existence does not need it. We are not saying that you should exist without language. You will have to use it. But you must be able to turn the mechanism of verbalization on and off. When you are existing as a social being, the mechanism of language is needed; but when you are alone with existence, you must be able to turn it off. If you can’t turn it off — if it goes on and on, and you are incapable of stopping it — then you have become a slave to it. Mind must be an instrument, not the master.

Source: OSHO The Psychology of the Esoteric | The mystery of meditation