Meditation

"By using the word "meditation" there is a possibility of moving in a wrong direction – because English has no exact word for "dhyana," meditation only comes close to it.

"English has three words: concentration, contemplation, meditation. Concentration is of the mind. You focus your mind on a particular object, you exclude everything else, you just go on narrowing your vision. Hence in concentration everything can become a distraction. A dog starts barking and you will be distracted because you were excluding everything and now the barking dog has come in. Hence the concentrator is always angry because small things – a mosquito – can disturb his concentration. Anything is capable of distracting you because you are doing something unnatural.

"Concentration is unnatural. It is enforced, a regimentation. It is something military-like; violently forcing the mind to remain pinpointed on one thing. And the nature of the mind is constantly flowing, moving. It is natural for the mind to move, it is a dynamic process, and you are trying to make this dynamic process stagnant.

"Because it is against nature any excuse and the mind will immediately jump in and start moving. Even if you force the mind to be still for long periods you will be sitting on a volcano. It will be like a small child: you can force the child by saying, 'I will not give you food today. Sit in the corner and sit silently.' He can do it. You can tell him 'Close your eyes,' and he can. But just see: he is fidgeting, he is screwing up his eyes, afraid to open them but with every desire to. You can see the turmoil that is inside, but he is somehow holding himself back. He is in great trouble. That is the situation, when one is in the process of concentration.

"Meditation is not concentration; it is not contemplation either. Contemplation means you are a little more fluid, a little more flowing, but you have to remain tethered to a particular subject. In concentration you have to remain pinpointed; in contemplation you have a little longer rope. You can roam around but you are tethered. For example, you are thinking about love. Mm? – you can go on but you are only allowed to think about love.

"Certainly it has more freedom than concentration but still the freedom is limited. You are in a bigger prison, that's all, but you are imprisoned. And still distractions will come – less than in concentration but they will still come.

"In English even “meditation” gives a wrong idea; it is as if you have to meditate upon something. But “dhyana,” the word in Sanskrit out of which the Japanese word “zen” has come, means there is no object, no subject, no concentration, no contemplation. You are simply sitting silently, witnessing whatsoever is. A dog starts barking, you witness it – it is not a distraction. Music is being played, you listen to it – it is not a distraction because you are not making any effort to concentrate. You are all-inclusive, nothing is excluded. The freedom is absolute. The only thing that has to be remembered is not to get identified with anything. Listen to the music but don't become the music, remain a witness.

"So meditation can be defined as witnessing, not getting identified. Now this is a totally different phenomenon; there is no question of concentration, no question of contemplation.

"You are just sitting by the side of the road and watching the traffic of the mind; allowing the mind whatsoever it wants to do fearlessly, allowing it wherever it wants to go – to Timbuktu, to Toronto... wherever it wants to go. You just remain alert, aware, watchful.

"And then a miracle starts happening: you start becoming aware of godliness in everything. Even the barking of the dog starts having a divine quality to it. Maybe the dog is a little bit upside-down, but still the dog is god – just written wrongly, that's all. You have to read it the other way, otherwise there is no difference. And then everything starts having a new message, a new feel, a new splendor.

"When the whole is transformed through your witnessing it becomes fragrant. There is no flower but there is immense fragrance. You have entered into the unmanifest.

If you meditate. first concentration will disappear and you will be feeling a little at a loss. But if you go on, by and by you will attain to an unfocused state of light — that’s what meditation is. Once meditation is attained. concentration is child’s play — whenever you need to, you can concentrate. There will be no problem about it and it will be easy and without any tension.

Right now, you are being used by society. Society wants efficient people. It is not worried about your soul, it is worried about your productivity. I am not worried about your productivity: man has already too much, more than he can enjoy — there is no need to go on producing more. Now there is more need to play around more and there is more need to be more conscious. Science has developed enough. Now, whatsoever science is doing is almost futile. Now, going to the moon is simply useless. But tremendous energy is wasted. Why? Because scientists are now obsessed — they have to do something. They have learned a trick of concentration and they have to do something. They have to produce, they have to go on producing something — they cannot relax. They will go to the moon, they will go to Mars, and they will persuade people that whatsoever they are doing is tremendously important. It is absolutely useless. But this happens.

Once you become trained in a certain thing, you go on in that line, blind, unless a cul de sac comes and you cannot go on anymore. But life is infinite. There comes no cul de sac. You

can go on and on and on.

And now scientific activity has almost become ridiculous.

Religious activity is totally different. It is not worried about being more efficient; the whole point is how to be more joyful, how to be more celebrating. So if you be with me, by and by, concentration will relax. And in the beginning you will feel afraid because you will see your skill disappearing, your efficiency disappearing. You will feel you are losing something that you have gained with so much effort. In the beginning it will happen. The ice is melting and becoming water. The ice was solid, something concentrated; now it is water — loose, relaxed, flowing in all directions. But anytime you need ice, the water can be turned into ice again. There is no problem — just a little more cooling is needed.

This is my own experience. Whatsoever I say, I say from my own experience — the same has happened to me. First, concentration disappeared; but now I can concentrate on anything. There is no problem. But I don’t remain in concentration; I can concentrate and relax — whenever the need arises. Just as whenever the need arises, you walk; you don’t sit on the chair and go on moving your Legs. There are a few people who go on moving because they cannot sit relaxed — you will call this man restless!

Legs in perfect order are needed so that whenever you need to, you can walk, you can run. But when there Is no need, you can relax, and the legs will no longer be functioning.

But your concentration has become almost as focused as if you are continuously preparing for an Olympic Runners in an Olympic cannot relax. They have to run a particular amount every morning and evening; they are continuously on the go. If they relax for a few days they will lose their skill. But I call all Olympics political, ambitious, foolish. There is no need.

Competition is foolish. There is no need. If you enjoy running — perfectly good. Run. and enjoy. But why compete? What is the point of competition? Competition brings illness, unhealthiness; competition brings jealousy, and a thousand and one diseases.

-Osho

Go Deep in whatever you do

You cannot seek the divine, it cannot be sought after, because you can seek only that which you know already. Seeking means desiring and you cannot seek something that is unknown. How can you seek something that you have not known at all? The very urge to seek comes only after you have tasted something, known something – even a glimpse. So the divine cannot be sought. But when I say the divine cannot be sought, I do not mean that it cannot be found. It cannot be sought, but it can be found.

The more you seek it, the less will be the possibility to find it. Seek, and you will not find at all, because the very seeking, the very seeking, becomes the barrier. So do not seek something that is not known to you; rather, go deep into that which is known to you. Do not long for the unknown; go deep into the known. And if you go deep into the known, you will stumble upon the doors to the unknown, because the known is really the door to the unknown. So go deep.

For example, you cannot seek the divine, but if you have loved, then you have known love; so go deep into love. And as you go deep into love, somewhere, the lover and the beloved are not there and the divine appears. So rather than seek the divine, it is better to go into that which is actual to you, that which is known to you, near to you. Do not go far; begin from the near. We are so anxious to go far that we never take the first step, which can be taken from the near. We ask for the last step first, but you cannot take the last step in the beginning. The first must be taken first; the first is here and now, but we are concerned with there and then.

Seeking means seeking in time. Seeking is a postponement, a deep postponement, because seeking is always in the future; it can never be in the present. How can you seek here and now? There is no space. You can be here and now, but you cannot seek. So the very mind that seeks creates time, because time is needed; only then can you seek.

That is why those who are seeking moksha, liberation, absolute liberation, have had to create the concept of transmigration. More time is needed. One life is not enough, many lives are needed. Only then, within this expanse of time, this space that time creates, can you move. If you have to find the absolute, one moment is not enough; and of course, one life is also not enough.

Time is really a byproduct of desiring. The more you desire, the more time you need. You can deal with this in two ways: one is to conceive of life after life, time not ending at all. This is one way, the Eastern way, to create more space for the desire. Another is the Western way: to be more conscious of time and to do many things in the allotted time period. There is one life: there is no possibility of further lives, this life is all, so you have to do many things – many, many things. You have to accommodate so many desires in the allotted period. And this is why the West has become so conscious of time; in fact, time consciousness is one of the most common aspects of the Western mind.

But either way, whenever you desire, you create time. Time is a fourth dimension of space, it is a sort of space. Without time your desires cannot move, so any desire creates time and future; and then you can postpone the present moment, which is not really time but existence. So it is better to go deep into what is known to you, what is life to you. Go deep in it; whatever it may be, go deep in it. Do not be on the surface, go into it to its ultimate depth. And the moment you begin to go deep, fall deep, you come to a different dimension. It is not a going into the future, it is going deep into the present, into this very moment.

For example, you are hearing me. You can hear very superficially, then only your ears are involved; that is the first layer of hearing. You can say, ”Of course I am listening,” but only the ears are hearing, only the body mechanism; your mind may be somewhere else. But if you can go deep, you can listen very intently and the mind is also involved; then you are going deeper into this very moment. But even if your mind is involved, your being may not be involved. If you are thinking about what I am saying, the mind is involved, but there are still deeper depths. Your being may not be here at all; there may be unconscious currents because of which you are not here. You can go even deeper; that means that the being is involved. Then you are just vacant, not even thinking about it. Your mechanism is here, your mind is here, your being is here – all focused. Then you go deep.

So whatever you are doing at the moment, go deep in it. The more deep you are in it, the nearer you will be to the unknown. And the unknown is not something opposite to the known; it is something hidden in the known. The known is just a screen.

So do not go into the future; do not seek. Just be here – and be. In seeking you spread yourself out, but in being you are intense, and that intensity, that total intensity in the moment, brings you to a certain crystallization. In that total, intense moment, you are. That being, that happening of being, becomes the door; and you have found it without seeking; you can get it without even seeking. So I say: Do not seek it, and find! All the devices and all the methods I use are just to make you more and more intense here and now, to help you to forget the past and the future. Any movement of your body or mind can be used as a jumping board: the emphasis is that you jump in the here and now.

Even dancing can be used, but then be just the dancing, not the dancer. The moment the dancer comes in, dancing is destroyed. The seeker has come in, the time-oriented has come in; now the movement is divided, dancing has become superficial, and you have gone far away.

When you are dancing, then be dancing, do not be the dancer, and the moment comes when you are just the movement, when there is no division. This nondivided consciousness is meditation. And you can use anything. If you are eating then eating can become a meditation – if there is no eater. If you are walking then walking can become a meditation – if there is no walker. If you are loving then love can become a deep meditation – if there is no lover, the lover disappears. Love with a lover becomes poisonous, but love without the lover becomes divine and something of the unknown suddenly opens.

From ,

OSHO - The art of Ecstacy