OSHO – What Is Meditation

OSHO – What Is Meditation

Meditation is a simple process

Of watching your own mind.

Not fighting with the mind

Not trying to control it either.

Just remaining there, a choiceless witness.

Whatsoever passes you simply take note of it.

With no prejudice for or against.

You don’t call it names

That “This should not come to my mind”

That “This is an ugly thought and

This is a very beautiful and virtuous thought.”

You should not judge

You should remain nonjudgmental.

Because the moment you judge

You lose meditation.

You become identified.

Either you become a friend or you become a foe.

You create relationships.

Meditation means

Remaining unrelated with your thought process.

Utterly unrelated, cool, calm.

Watching whatsoever is passing.

And then a miracle happens:

Slowly slowly one becomes aware

That less and less thoughts are passing.

The more alert you are, the less thoughts pass.

The less alert you are, the more thoughts pass.

It is as if traffic depends on your awareness.

When you are perfectly aware

Even for a single moment

All thinking stops.

Immediately, there is a sudden stop

And the road is empty, there is no traffic.

That moment is meditation.

Slowly slowly those moments come more and more.

Those empty spaces come again and again

And stay longer.

And you become capable of moving easily

Into those empty spaces with no effort.

So whenever you want you can move

Into those empty spaces with no effort.

They are refreshing, rejuvenating

And they make you aware of who you are.

Freed from the mind you are freed

From all ideas about yourself.

Now you can see who you are

Without any prejudice.

And to know oneself

Is to know all that is worth knowing.

And to miss self-knowledge is to miss all.

A man may know everything in the world

But if he does not know himself

He is utterly ignorant.

He is just a walking Encyclopedia Britannica.

Freedom without awareness is only an empty idea.

It contains nothing.

One cannot be really free without being aware

Because your unconscious goes on dominating you

Your unconscious goes on pulling your strings.

You may think, you may believe that you are free

But you are not free

You are just a victim

Of natural forces, blind forces.

So there are two types of people.

The majority

Follows the tradition, the society, the state.

The orthodox people, the conventional, the conformists

They follow the crowd

They are not free.

And then there are a few rebellious spirits

Drop-outs, bohemians, artists

Painters, musicians, poets

They think they are living in freedom

But they only think.

Just by rebellion against the tradition

You don’t become free.

You are still under the rule of natural instincts.

You are possessed by lust, by greed, by ambitions.

And you are not a master of these things

You are a slave.

Hence I say

Freedom is only possible through awareness.

Unless one transforms one’s unconsciousness

Into consciousness there is no freedom.

And that is where only very few people

Have succeeded – a Jesus, a Lao Tzu

A Zarathustra, a Buddha

Just a few people

Who can be counted on one’s fingers.

They have really lived in freedom

Because they lived out of awareness.

That has to be the work for every seeker:

To create more and more awareness.

Then freedom comes of its own accord.

Freedom is the fragrance of the flower of awareness.
Osho, Eighty Four Thousand Poems
(This title is no longer available at Osho’s request)