The Madman’s Guide to Enlightenment

The Madman’s Guide to Enlightenment

Do at least one meditation every day. Choose any meditation, but persist with one method; don’t go on changing. Whether results come or not, go on persisting in it. Results certainly come; all that is needed is patience. Methods don’t work. What really works is patience. Methods are devices to help you to remain patient and open.

If a person simply sits in his room for one hour every day doing nothing — no method, no technique, just sitting there — if he sits long enough it is going to happen. All meditations are just explanations for people who cannot just sit, rationalisations for people who cannot allow themselves to just sit. They need something, so when they think they are doing meditations they can allow themselves a one-hour gap, otherwise they won’t allow. In fact meditation is nothing. It is simply waiting, resting, a state of no action… and that is our natural state.

Think of the child in the mother’s womb, doing nothing. That is a nine-month meditation marathon. And the child is utterly happy. In fact, because of that blissfulness, one always feels a suffering in life. Compared to it whatsoever happens in life falls short. Although consciously you have forgotten about it, unconsciously it persists as a nostalgia. We know in some subtle way, our body knows, that there was a time when all was just bliss. But you were not doing anything in the womb; you were in a state of no action — ‘wu-wei’. You were just there. That’s what meditation is all about: again creating a womb situation.

So close your doors, sit silently; even that will do. But make it a point that one hour has to be given every day. And results won’t pop up immediately, because we have learned habits of action and they have become so deep-rooted that even when you are sitting, you find some ways to do something. At least you can go on changing your posture, you can think of a thousand and one things. You can have dreams. You can wonder ‘Who is this child crying? Why? Why is this dog barking?’ Or you can create subtle mechanisms in the body to distract you. Maybe an ant is creeping on your leg or there is pain and you have to change the posture. These are nothing but tricks, strategies of the mind to keep you occupied, because the mind dies utterly if there is no occupation. The mind is occupation. Meditation means a state of no occupation.

So if you like any method, you can do it; if you don’t, just sit. Twenty-three hours are yours; one hour give to me.

And finally you will see that only that one hour has been saved; all the other twenty-three hours have gone down the drain.

You have to put the energy into your earning because you have to come forever, so settle things. But one hour for meditation, mm? that will be a contact with me, a connection, and it will rejuvenate you every day. It will go on creating new spaces for you. But don’t hanker for them and don’t expect them. Don’t even think about them. When they happen say ‘thank you’ to the sky and forget all about it.

And don’t for a single moment have the idea in your mind ‘Now it has happened it has to happen every day.’ Once you desire a repetition you are getting into trouble; it will not happen again. It happens only in an innocent mind. It happens only when there was no expectation, no desire, no action, no occupation, just a simple passivity. One was, nothing else — a pure being, a naked, bare being. One was just breathing, one was aware.

So give one hour to meditation and put your energies into the work and come back as soon as you can.

Source: OSHO

Popularity: 18% [?]

Seeds of Wisdom

I too am a farmer and I sowed some seeds. They sprouted and now flowers have come to them. My whole life is filled with the fragrance of these flowers and because of this fragrance now I am in a different world. This fragrance has given me a new birth, and now I am no longer that which is seen by ordinary eyes.

Seeds of Wisdom

The unseen and the unknown have flung open their closed doors, and I am seeing a world which is not seen through the eyes, and I am hearing music which ears are not capable of hearing. Whatsoever I have found and known is eager to flow just as the mountain waterfalls and springs flow and rush towards the ocean.

Remember, when the clouds are full of water they have to shower. And when the flowers are filled with fragrance they have to give off their fragrance freely to the winds. And when a lamp is lit, the light is bound to radiate from it.
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Sku: sow

Shipping Rate: A

Popularity: 15% [?]

CAN PROBLEMS BE SOLVED THROUGH THINKING?

Yes, certain problems can be solved through thinking — only those problems which are created by thinking can be solved by it. But no real problem can be solved by it, no lived problem can be solved by it. It is not created by it; it is there in life itself. Thinking will not be of much help. Only in one way can thinking help you, and that is that through thinking and thinking and thinking, you will stumble upon the truth that thinking is futile. And the moment you realize that thinking is futile for existential problems, it has helped you in a way. It is through thinking that you have come to this realization.

But problems which are created by thinking can be solved by thinking itself. For example, a mathematical problem: it can be solved by thinking, because the whole mathematics is created by thinking. For example, if there is no man on earth, will there be mathematics? There will be no mathematics. With the disappearance of human mind, mathematics will disappear. There is no mathematics in life and existence. In the garden, trees are there, but when you count ONE, TWO, THREE, three trees are not there, because the THREE is a mental thing. The trees are there, but the figures are not there. The figure three is in your mind. If you are not there, the trees will be there, but not three trees, only trees. The THREE is a quality given by the mind, it is a projected quality.

Mind creates mathematics, so any problem of mathematics will be solved by mind, it will be solved by thinking. Remember, you cannot solve a mathematical problem through non-thinking. No meditation will be of help, because meditation will dissolve the mind, and with the mind the whole mathematics will dissolve. So there are problems which are created by the mind; they can be solved. But there are problems which are not created by the mind, but are existential. Those problems cannot be solved by the mind. You will have to move deep in existence itself.

For example, love. It is an existential problem. You cannot solve it by thinking; rather, you will get more puzzled. The more you think, the less you will be in touch with the source of the problem. Meditation will be of help. It will give you insight, it will lead you to the unconscious roots of the problem. If you think about it, you will remain on the surface.

So remember, life problems cannot be solved by thinking. On the contrary, really, because of too much thinking you are missing all solutions, and more problems are created. For example, death. Death is not a problem created by thinking; you cannot solve it by thinking. Whatsoever you think, how can you solve it? You can console, and you can think that consolation is a solution — it is not. You can deceive yourself; that’s possible through thinking. You can create explanations, and through explanations you can think that you have solved it. You can escape the problem through thinking, but you cannot solve it. And see the distinction clearly.

For example, death is there. Your beloved dies, or your friend, or your daughter — the death is there. Now what can you do? You can think about it. You can think and you can say that the soul is immortal — because you have read it. In the Upanishads it is said that the soul is immortal, only the body dies. You don’t know it at all, because if you really know, there is no problem — or is there a problem? If you really know that the soul is immortal, then death has not occurred; there is no problem at all. But the problem is there: death has occurred, and you are disturbed and deep in sorrow. Now you want to escape this sorrow. Now somehow you want to forget this sorrow.

You can take the explanation that the soul is immortal — now this is a trick. Not that the soul is not immortal — I am not saying that — but for you this is a trick. You are trying to deceive yourself. You are in sorrow, and now you want to escape this sorrow, so this explanation will be helpful. Now you can console yourself that the soul is immortal, no one dies, only the body — just as if one changes the clothes, or one changes the abode — so from one house to another the soul has gone. You can go on thinking, but you don’t know anything about it. You have heard, you have collected information; but through these explanations you will be at ease. You can forget the death.

Really this is no solution to the problem. Nothing has been solved. The next day someone else will die and the same problem will be there. Again someone will die and the same problem will be there. And deep down you know that you will have to die. You cannot escape death — and the fear is there. But you can go on postponing, and you can go on escaping through explanations. This won’t do.

Death is an existential problem. You cannot solve it through thinking. You can create only fake solutions. What to do then? Then there is another dimension — the dimension of meditation; not of thinking, not of mentation. You just encounter the situation.

Death has occurred. Your beloved is dead. Don’t move in thinking. Don’t bring the Upanishads and the Gita and the Bible. Don’t ask the Christs and Buddhas. Leave them alone. Death is there: face, encounter. Be with this situation totally. Don’t think about it. What can you think? You can only repeat old rubbish. The death is such a new phenomenon, it is so unknown, that your knowledge is not going to help in any way. So put aside your mind. Be in a deep meditation with death.

Don’t do anything, because what can you do which can be of any help? You don’t know. So be in ignorance. Don’t bring false knowledge, borrowed knowledge. Death is there; you be with it. Face death with total presence. Don’t move in thinking, because then you are escaping from the situation, you are becoming absent from here. Don’t think. Be present with the death.

Sadness will be there, sorrow will be there, a heavy burden will be on you — let it be there. It is part — part of life, and part of maturity, and part of the ultimate realization. Remain with it, totally present. This will be meditation, and you will come to a deep understanding of death. Then death itself becomes eternal life.

But don’t bring the mind and knowledge. Remain with death; then death will reveal itself to you, then you will know what death is. You will move into the inner mansions of it. Then death will take you to the very center of life — because death is the very center of life. It is not against life; it is the very process of life. But mind brings the contradiction that life and death are opposites. Then you go on thinking, and because the root is false, the opposition is false, you can never come to any conclusion which can be true and real.

Whenever there is a lived problem, be with the problem without your mind — that’s what I mean by meditation — and just being there with the problem will solve it. And if you have really been there, death will not occur to you again, because then you know what death is.

We never do this — never with love, never with death, never with anything that is authentically real. We always move in thoughts, and thoughts are the falsifiers. They are borrowed, not your own. They cannot liberate you. Only the truth which is your own can become your liberation. And you can only come to your own truth through a very silent presence. With any problem, that fails. Thinking will not solve the real problems, but thinking can solve unreal problems created by thinking itself — because those problems follow the rules of logic. Life doesn’t follow the rules of logic. Life has its own hidden laws, and you cannot force logic on them.

One point more about this: wherever you bring the mind, the mind dissects, analyzes. Reality is one, and mind always divides. And when you have dived a reality, you have falsified it. Now you can struggle for your whole life — nothing will be achieved, because basically the reality was one and the mind divided into two, and now you are working with the division.

For example, as I was saying, life and death are one, but for the mind they are two and death is the enemy of life. It is not, because life cannot exist without death. If life cannot exist without death, how can death be the enemy? It is the basic situation. It makes life possible. Life grows in it; it is the soul. Without it life is impossible. But mind, thinking, divides it and puts it as a polar opposite. Then you can go on thinking about. Whatsoever you think will be false, because in the beginning you have committed a sin — the sin of division.

Source: Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2
Chapter 12 – Enter this moment

Popularity: 16% [?]

Kundalini: The Awakening of the Life Force

Beloved OSHO

One reason is that any knowledge about kundalini or about esoteric paths of bioenergy — the inner paths of elan vital — is generalized. It differs from individual to individual; the root is not going to be the same. With A it will be different, with B it will be different, with C it will be different. Your inner life has an individuality, so when you acquire something through theoretical knowledge it is not going to help — it may hinder — because it is not about you. It cannot be about you. You will only know about yourself when you go within.

There are chakras, but the number differs with each individual. One may have seven, one may have nine; one may have more, one may have less. That is the reason why so many different traditions have developed. Buddhists talk of nine chakras, Hindus talk of seven, Tibetans talk of four — and they are all right!

The root of kundalini, the passage through which kundalini passes, is also different with each individual. The more you go in, the more individual you are. For instance, in your body your face is the most individual part, and in the face the eyes are even more individual. The face is more alive than any other part of the body; that is why it takes on an individuality. You may not have noticed that with a particular age — particularly with sexual maturity — your face begins to assume a shape that will continue, more or less, for the whole life. Before sexual maturity the face changes much, but with sexual maturity your individuality is fixed and given a pattern, and now the face will be more or less the same.

The eyes are even more alive than the face, and they are so individual that every moment they change. Unless one attains enlightenment, the eyes are never fixed. Enlightenment is another kind of maturity.

With sexual maturity the face becomes fixed, but there is another maturity where the eyes become fixed. You cannot see any change in Buddha’s eyes: his body will grow old, he will die, but his eyes will continue to be the same. That has been one of the indications. When someone attains nirvana, the eyes are the only door by which outsiders can know whether the man has really attained it. Now the eyes never change. Everything changes, but the eyes remain the same. Eyes are expressive of the inner world.

But kundalini is still deeper.

No theoretical knowledge is helpful. When you have some theoretical knowledge, you begin to impose it on yourself. You begin to visualize things to be the way you have been taught, but they may not correspond to your individual situation. Then much confusion is created.

One has to feel the chakras, not know about them. You have to feel; you have to send feelers inside yourself. Only when you feel your chakras, and your kundalini and its passage, is it helpful; otherwise, it is not helpful. In fact, knowledge has been very destructive as far as the inner world is concerned. The more knowledge gained, the less the possibility of feeling the real, the authentic, things.

You begin to impose what you know upon yourself. If someone says, “Here is the chakra, here is the center,” then you begin to visualize your chakra at that spot; and it may not be there at all. Then you will create imaginary chakras. You can create; the mind has the capacity. You can create imaginary chakras, and then, because of your imagination, a flow will begin that will not be kundalini but will be simple imagination — a completely illusory, dreamlike phenomenon.

Once you can visualize centers and can create an imaginary kundalini, then you can create everything. Then imaginary experiences will follow, and you will develop a very false world inside you. The world that is without is illusory, but not so illusory as the one you can create inside.

All that is within is not necessarily real or true, because imagination is also within, dreams are also within. The mind has a faculty — a very powerful faculty — to dream, to create illusions, to project. That is why it is good to proceed in meditation completely unaware of kundalini, of chakras. If you stumble upon them, then it is good. You may come to feel something; only then, ask. You may begin to feel a chakra working, but let the feeling come first. You may feel energy rising up, but let the feeling come first. Do not imagine, do not think about it, do not make any intellectual effort to understand beforehand; no pre-notion is needed. Not only is it not needed, but it is positively harmful.

And another thing: kundalini and the chakras do not belong to your anatomy, to your physiology. Chakras and kundalini belong to your subtle body, to your sukshma sharira, not to this body, the gross body. Of course, there are corresponding spots. The chakras are part of your sukshma sharira, but your physiology and anatomy have spots that correspond to them. If you feel an inner chakra, only then can you feel the corresponding spot; otherwise you can dissect the whole body, but nothing like chakras will be found.

Source: Meditation: The Art of Ecstasy
OSHO – Kundalini: The Awakening of the Life Force

Popularity: 20% [?]

The Emperor Wu of China asked Bodhidharma, ‘My mind remainS very tense, in anxiety. I am always feeling restless, uneasy. I never find any peace of mind. Help me, sir.’

Bodhidharma looked into his eyes. And that was not an ordinary look — Bodhidharma was a very ferocious Master. The king was a very brave man, had fought in many battles and won, but he started trembling when Bodhidharma looked into his eyes.

And he said, ‘Okay, come tomorrow, early in the morning at four o’clock, and bring your mind to me and I will put it at ease forever.’

When the king was going down the steps, Bodhidharma shouted again, ‘Listen, don’t forget to bring your mind! Come at four o’clock and bring your mind. And I am going to put it at ease forever!’

The king was a little puzzled. ‘What does he mean, “Bring the mind, don’t forget”? Can I come without the mind too? I and my mind are the same. This man looks mad! And the way he looked at me… those ferocious eyes… And he looks murderous too! And going alone, early in the morning at four o’clock when it is dark, to this madman… and one never knows what he will do, how he will treat me.’

But he could not sleep. Many times he decided not to go, but there was a great attraction too, something like a great magnetic pull. The man was ferocious, but there was great love in his eyes too. Both were there — his eyes were like swords and also like lotuses. He could not resist. He said, ‘I have to take this risk.’ And at four o’clock he had to go.

Bodhidharma was waiting with his big staff. He told the king, ‘Sit in front of me. And where is your mind? I told you to bring it with you!’

And the king said, ‘What nonsense are you talking about? If I am here, so is my mind. Mind is something inside me. How can I forget it? How can I “bring” it?’

Bodhidharma said, ‘So, one thing is certain: that mind is inside. So close your eyes and go inside and try to find it. And whenever you catch it, just tell me and I will put it at rest forever. But first it has to be caught, only then can I treat it.’ The king closed his eyes. The whole thing was stupid, but there was nowhere to go now — it had to be done. He closed his eyes. And the Master was sitting there with his staff — and he might beat or he might hit, so it was no ordinary situation. He could not go to sleep. He had not slept the whole night — he had been thinking of whether to come or not to come… And the presence of the Master and the silence of the forest and the darkness of the night and the whole weird situation: that this man could even cut his head… He became very alert. The danger was such that he became very attentive. For the first time in his life he looked inside himself — what the book, THE SECRET OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER, calls ‘turning the light inwards’. For the first time he looked inside, he searched inside. He really searched, sincerely he searched. And the more he searched, the more aware he became that there is no mind, there is nobody inside. It is an empty house; we had only believed in it. We have accepted others’ belief about the soul, the self, the ego. We never looked at it, we never checked it. And the more he found that there is nobody to be found, the more happy, joyous, he became. His face relaxed; a great grace surrounded him. Hours passed, but for him there was no question of time at all. He was sitting and sitting, and enjoying this blissfulness that he was tasting for the first time in his life. Something immensely delightful was descending on him.

Then the sun started rising, and with the first rays of the sun, Bodhidharma said to him, ‘Sir, it is time enough! Now open your eyes. Have you found yourself inside or not?’

And the king opened his eyes, looked at the Master, saw the beauty, saw that the ferociousness was out of compassion, saw the love, bowed down, touched the feet of the Master and said, ‘You have put it at rest forever. It is not there. Now I know that I was creating an unnecessary fuss about something which doesn’t exist at all.’

This is the quantum. Searching inside you find you are not. Then there is no question of ‘how’ and no question of ‘where’. It has already happened.

Source: OSHO
The Secret of Secrets

Popularity: 12% [?]

Ninety-nine percent of people start meditating because meditation is talked about

Question

NO EFFORT IS REQUIRED TO BE BORN.

NO EFFORT IS REQUIRED TO DIE.

NO EFFORT IS REQUIRED TO FALL IN LOVE

WHY IS SUCH EFFORT REQUIRED TO KNOW GOD (THROUGH MEDITATION)

WHEN THIS SEEMS TO BE THE MOST NATURAL THING?

IS GOD TRYING TO TEST US IN SOME WAY?

First thing: no effort is required in meditation either. Meditation also comes on its own accord. Through effort it never comes. To whom has meditation happened through effort? It will be almost like making an effort to love somebody. How can you make any effort to love somebody? The more effort you make, the more the love will be false, pseudo, just a pretension. Love has to arise naturally. So arises meditation.

But all meditators are not spontaneously in it — and neither are all lovers spontaneously in it. In fact, psychologists say — a tremendous discovery — that if love is not talked about, ninety-nine percent of people will never know anything about it. If love is not talked about, if poets don’t go on praising it, and if traditional literature is not available about love, ninety-nine percent of people will never be aware that anything like love exists. They will know about sex, but not about love. But because of the poets and because of the novelists and because of the films and the TV, love is talked so much about that everybody starts thinking that he is in love. That love is also false.

And the same is the case with meditation. Ninety-nine percent of people start meditating because meditation is talked about. There are times when it becomes fashionable. If you are not doing it you must be missing something. You don’t feel any need for it, it has not arisen in your being, you have not come to that point of evolution where meditation happens on its own accord; but everybody is doing it and everybody is going to the Masters and everybody is sitting silently. Somebody is doing Vipassana and somebody is doing Nirvana and somebody is doing Dynamic. You must be missing something. So greed arises; out of greed you start making effort.

That effort is not for meditation. That effort is to gain something which you think will be gained out of meditation.

These phases come and go. These cults arise and disappear. These are just like fashions. The real meditator has not come to meditate because others are meditating, but a deep need has arisen in him, has become a knocking in his heart, a continuous knocking. The whole world seems to be meaningless; he wants to go in. He wants to know who he is. Not because others have known! If there is nobody propagating meditation and no books are available and all books are destroyed and all Masters go and hide in the caves in the Himalayas, then too there will be a few people who will meditate, who will find out how to meditate on their own accord. Those will be the real meditators. And for them meditation will be just as easy as anything. It will be just like breathing.

Source: OSHO The First Principle
Chapter 4 – Go with the River

Popularity: 16% [?]

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

Popularity: 17% [?]

MAN SLEEPS almost one-third of his life, twenty years approximately. But sleep has been neglected, terribly neglected

Nobody thinks about it, nobody meditates on it. This has happened because man has paid too much attention to the conscious mind.

Mind has three dimensions. Just as matter has three dimensions, mind also has three dimensions. Only one dimension is conscious, another dimension is unconscious, and still another dimension is there which is superconscious. These three dimensions are of the mind — just like the matter, because deep down mind is also matter. Or, you can say it otherwise, that matter is also mind. It has to be so, because only one exists.

Mind is subtle matter; matter is gross mind. But ordinarily man lives only in one dimension, the conscious. Sleep belongs to the unconscious; dreaming belongs to the unconscious. Meditation, ecstasy, belong to the superconscious, just like waking and thinking belong to the conscious. So, we have to go slowly into this phenomenon of mind.

The first thing about mind to be remembered is, it is just like an iceberg — the topmost part is on the surface; you can see it, but it is only one-tenth of the whole. Nine-tenths is hidden underneath. You cannot see it ordinarily unless you move in the depth. But these are only two dimensions. There is a third dimension — as if a part of the iceberg has evaporated and has become a small cloud and hovers in the sky. It is difficult to reach to the unconscious; it is almost impossible to reach to that cloud — of course, part of the same iceberg, but evaporated.

That’s why meditation is so difficult, samadhi so arduous. It takes one’s total energy. It demands one’s total devotion. Only then does the vertical movement into the cloud-like phenomenon of the superconscious become possible. The conscious is there; you are listening to me from the conscious. If you are thinking what I am saying, if you are inside making a sort of dialogue with whatsoever I am saying, a sort of commentary goes on inside, this is the conscious mind.

But you can listen to me without thinking — in deep love, heart-to-heart, not in any way verbalizing what I am saying, judging what I am saying, right or wrong, no. No valuation — you simply listen in deep love, as if the mind has passed, and the heart listens and beats with joy. Then the unconscious is listening. Then whatsoever I say will go very deep to your roots.

But the third possibility is also there, that you can listen through the superconscious. Then even love is a disturbance — very subtle, but even love is a disturbance. Then there is nothing, no thought, no feeling. You simply become a void, an emptiness, end to end. And into that emptiness falls whatsoever I say and whatsoever I am. Then you are listening from the super-conscious.

These are the three dimensions. While you are awake, you live in the conscious — you work, you think, you do this and that. When you fall into sleep, the conscious is no more functioning, it is resting. Another dimension starts working, the unconscious. Then you cannot think, but you can dream. And the whole night there are almost eight cycles of dreaming continuously. Only for a few moments you are not dreaming, otherwise you are dreaming.

Source: OSHO

Popularity: 65% [?]

Someone asked Buddha, “How shall we meditate?”

Buddha replied, “Whatsoever you do, do it with awareness; this is meditation. Walking, walk attentively, as if walking is everything; eating, eat with awareness, as if eating is everything; rising, rise with awareness; sitting, sit with awareness; all your actions become conscious, your mind does not travel beyond this moment, it remains in the moment, settles in the moment — this is meditation.”

Meditation is not a separate process. Meditation is simply the name for life lived with awareness. Meditation is not an hour-a-day affair where you sit for one hour and then it is over till tomorrow. No, if twenty-three hours are empty of meditation and only one hour is meditative, then it is certain that the twenty-three hours will defeat the single hour. Non-meditation will win, meditation will lose. If you are living twenty-three hours a day without awareness, and only one hour with awareness, then you will never attain to the state of buddhahood. How can this single hour triumph over the other twenty-three hours?

There is something else that also has to be understood. How can one be aware for one hour if in the remaining twenty-three hours one is not aware? How can you be healthy for one hour if you are sick the other twenty-three hours of the day? Health and sickness are the result of an internal flow. If you are healthy for twenty-three hours of the day, you will be healthy for all twenty-four hours, because the internal flow cannot suddenly be broken for just one of those hours. The current that is flowing goes on flowing.

Meditation cannot come about just because you visit a temple or mosque or gurudwara.. If you were not awake in the shop, in the marketplace, or at home, how can you all of a sudden be awake in the temple? Nothing is going to come about suddenly, when it is not part of an internal flowing. This is why Buddha has said that meditation can happen only if you are meditative for twenty-four hours a day.

So understand well that meditation is not just one of life’s innumerable activities. It is not just one link in the chain of man’s endless doings. It is like the thread on which all the flowers of a garland have been strung. Meditation is a lifestyle, not an activity. If one is meditative in everything one is doing, if the thread is running through each of the flowers, only then a garland is created. The thread is not even visible, it is hidden underneath the flowers. Nor can the meditator be seen; he is present, but hidden behind all the activities being done through him. An individual is awakened the day when he begins to live meditatively. While he lives nonmeditatively, he sleeps.

Source: Nowhere To Go But In
Chapter 2 – OSHO (26 May 1974 am in Buddha Hall)

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Meditation is not a method but a process

meditation is not a technique but an understanding. It cannot be taught; it can only be indicated. You cannot be informed about it because no information is really information. It is from the outside, and meditation comes from your own inner depths.

So search, be a seeker, and do not be a disciple. Then you will not be a disciple of some guru, but a disciple of the total life. Then you will not just be learning words. Spiritual learning cannot come from words but from the gaps, the silences that are always surrounding you. They are there even in the crowd, in the market, in the bazaar. Seek the silences, seek the gaps within and without, and one day you will find that you are in meditation.

Meditation comes to you. It always comes; you cannot bring it. But one has to be in search of it, because only when you are in search will you be open to it, vulnerable to it. You are a host to it. Meditation is a guest. You can invite it and wait for it. It comes to Buddha, it comes to Jesus, it comes to everybody who is ready, who is open and seeking.
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