MORALITY & RELIGION

Meditation is a state of awareness, watchfulness, witnessing. Ordinarily we live just like a robot: we go through all the gestures of living, but they are only gestures; there is no consciousness behind it. We are functioning like a mechanism. And that's what the society wants us to do. The society needs machines, not men. Machines are good in a way; they are very obedient. Nobody has ever heard of any machine being rebellious, of any machine saying no.

They are always at your disposals push the button and they start functioning, and whenever you want. They don't even need a coffee break; day in, day out, they can go on working for you. Hence slowly slowly society bas tried to reduce man to a machine. It has almost succeeded. Fortunately it has only almost succeeded. With a few persons it has failed -- and those few are the salt of the earth. Moise is a form of Moses. Moses is one of those few people who can be called the salt of the earth. Existence is beautiful because there have been people like Moses.

They function consciously; they create great rebellions. The whole evolution has depended on these few people. Meditation means undoing what the society has done to you. It has reduced you to a machine; you have to de-automatise yourself, you have to become a man again. You have to come out of this state of unconsciousness, of mechanicalness. You have to come out of this sleep. It is possible only through meditation. There is no other way, there has never been, there will never be.

The only way to reduce a man to a machine is take away his consciousness force him to function unconsciously. And just the opposite is the way of meditation: give him back his consciousness. That's my work here: to help you to become conscious again so you can be rid of all structures that have been imposed upon you, which are keeping you in slavery, in a mental slavery. The slavery is so subtle that one is not ordinarily even aware of it, that it exists. People take it for granted that they are Christians, Hindus, Mohammedans, Indians, Japanese, French.

They never think, even for a single moment, that each child is born without any religion, without any nation, without any race; he is simply born as a conscious being. But we take away his consciousness, and instead of it we give him poor substitutes. We take away his real identity and give him false ideas; 'You are this, you are that,' and then he goes on living according to those ideas. His whole life becomes a falsification. One has to wake up from this sleep. The meaning of Moise is very beautiful.

It has two meanings. Those two meaning are like two sides of the same coin. The first meaning is servant of god. It simply means one who is surrendered to tao, to existence, to nature. God is just a metaphor for the ultimate law of existence. And the second meaning is one who is saved by god. The first has to precede, then the second succeeds of its own accords if you surrender to the ultimate law of existence you are saved; to surrender is to be saved. Sannyas is nothing but a discipline of surrendering, and the outcome is deliverance.

You have to disappear as an ego and then you are suddenly born as the very ocean. You have to disappear as a person, as a separate entity, and then you appear as the whole. And to be the whole is to be holy. The discipline that is imposed from the outside is always ugly because it is destructive, it is paralysing, It cripples you. Rather than cutting the cloth according to you and then making a dress out of it, it does just the opposite: the dress is already there, made by somebody maybe thousands of years before, and you have to fit into it.

If you don't fit into it then You have to be cut, not the dress. Then something is wrong with you, not with the dress. That is the moralistic attitude, the puritan attitude, that the moral rules are always right. If something is wrong it is always you, so you have to fit with the moral rules. If you don't fit it creates guilt; if you try to fit, it creates discomfort. If you are stupid you try to fit, but then your whole life becomes a misery. If you are clever, cunning, then you become a hypocrite. You pretend 'Yes, everything is okay.

I am fitting in perfectly -- the dress is beautiful, it is lovely!' But then you have to live a double life: one life in your drawing room, the other life, which is your real life, from the backdoor. And then there is a split; then you are constantly in a kind of inner struggle, an inner tension, and you can never be at ease. You are pulled apart: if you try to be real you start feeling you are being oral; if you try to be moral you start feeling you are being unnatural. And both prove to be tense states. My approach is totally different; it is not moralistic at all.

And I make a clear-cut distinction between morality and religion. Morality is discipline imposed from the outside, religion is an inner discipline. It arises out of your own consciousness. Morality depends on creating a conscience, and very conscience is bound to create problem for you because it is against you somewhere. It may look right basically, but nature knows no logic. You may have to agree intellectually, but existence is far bigger than the intellect. You cannot manage to force existence into intellectual patterns.

Moreover, the patterns were created long ago. Manu, the Indian law-maker, the Hindu founder, prescribed certain rules. Five thousand years have passed and the Hindu still has to follow them. Now, the whole world has changed, man bas changed; nothing is the same. If Manu comes back he will not even be able to recognise anything. But his rules are still there. If the Hindu follows those rules, in one sense he feels good that he is following the right path.

But then there is repression, and then the whole situation is against him and he looks silly and stupid -- to himself, to others too. He does not look contemporary. He becomes a mess. Morality is for man -- man is not for morality. And morality has to change with the times. Peoples' needs change, requirements change; you cannot continue with old rules. Ten commandments were given three thousand years ago; now everything is different -- they are absolutely irrelevant. You have to find new ways to live, new ways to be.

The only possibility is that we drop the whole idea of conscience. Instead of conscience we should depend on consciousness. Conscience is always created by others. It is a manipulation, it is a subtle slavery. Consciousness is created by you. It is your own effort to stand on your own two feet, to look at life and to gather enough courage to live according to your light. Of course when you live according to your light you may commit many mistakes, but there is nothing wrong in committing mistakes because that's the only way to learn.

The more mistakes one commits, the more one learns. He only thing to be remembered is: don't commit the same mistake again and again, because that is stupid' Commit new mistakes, find out ways to commit new mistakes. As you grow, as you learn, as you become conscious, as you become more and more alert, a certain inner discipline arises without any imposition, because you can see what is right and what is wrong. And when you see it, there is no split; then you are not of a double mind, then it does not create a kind of schizophrenia.

Otherwise the whole humanity has lived a schizophrenic life up to now, because of the moralistic past. We have to free religion from morality. Once religion is freed from morality, then religion gives you a totally new kind of morality, but it will not be of Manu and it will not be of Moses and it will not be of Jesus, and it will not be of Buddha, it will not be mine -- it will be yours. And when it is yours there is a joy in living it, there is great growth through it.

You don't feel crippled, paralysed, hampered, obstructed, manipulated; you become more and more natural, simple, spontaneous. You become more and more attuned to the universe. That's the way of sannyas: it is non-moralistic but absolutely religious. I teach an amoral religion: not immoral, not moral, but amoral -- a religion that transcends morality. Then it brings freedom to you, and freedom is the ultimate value. There is nothing higher than that. Freedom is the highest truth. It is another name for god.

Bliss is not something philosophical, something intellectual. It is existential, it is an experience -- like love, like light, like life. You cannot teach a blind man what light is. You can tell him about the physics of light, you can tell him about the mathematics of light, you can tell him all the theories about light, but even all those theories, physics and mathematics, will not give him a single glimpse of light. He will not know even a single ray of light: he is blind. In fact he does not even know darkness -- what to say about light?

People ordinarily think that blind people live in darkness. That is absolutely wrong. That is just our idea, because we close our eyes and there is darkness, so we think blind people must be living in darkness. The blind person cannot see at all, how can he see darkness? To see darkness eyes are needed as much as eyes are needed to see light. You cannot even explain darkness to a blind man, what to say about light? Impossible! The only possible tray is to help him so that his eyes are cured, so that he can also see.

Then he may not know the physics -- who knows the physics of light. I don't know, but I know what light is. Who knows the mathematics of light? Millions of people use light without knowing anything about it. It is said that once it happened that Thomas Alva Edison, who was the inventor of the electric bulb, went to a village, a hill station, for a holiday. The hill station had a small school and the school was celebrating its hundredth anniversary, so they had many functions; many celebrations were going on.

He had nothing to do so he went to see what was going on there. The school children had arranged a small exhibition and they had made a few electrical things. A boy was showing him: 'Push this button and the light comes on, push this button and the fan starts moving,' and the villagers were very enchanted, amused. It was so new; they had never seen electricity.

Edison also showed much interest, and nobody knew that he was Edison, the inventor. Humorously he asked the young boy, 'What is electricity?' The boy said, 'What is electricity? Wait. I don't know -- I will call my teacher, my science teacher.' So the science teacher was called and Edison asked, 'What is electricity?' The science teacher was almost at a loss for an answer. He said, 'Wait. I am not very educated, just a B.Sc., but our principal holds a doctorate in science; I will call him.'

The principal came and Edison asked, 'What is electricity?' The principal looked very puzzled and said, 'You have asked such a great question.' Seeing the difficulty, Edison laughed and said, 'Don't be worried -- I am Thomas Alva Edison. I myself don't know what electricity is. Not that we know is how to use it. So don't get worried about it. I am the inventor of all these things that you are showing here. I was just joking. I myself don't know what electricity is exactly -- it is indefinable. But we are using it, are using light, we are using air, we are using water.

People were drinking water even before they came to know that water means H2O. It was not needed. Without knowing what water consists of, people have been drinking and surviving perfectly well... The blind man needs eyes and then he will know light. He does not need theories about it. Exactly is the case with bliss: you don't need theories about it. I am not a theoretician and I don't encourage my sannyasins to be philosophical. I discourage them as much as I can.

I destroy all their philosophical curiosity in order to emphasise the existential, because once you start moving into the philosophic direction, there is no end to it; you will never come to know what bliss is. You will go on thinking and thinking and thinking; and one thought leads to another thought, ad infinitum. Bliss is an experience. I can teach you how to experience it, I cannot tell you what it is. If you become silent, still, calm and quiet and collected, you will experience it. Bliss is the experience of a silent state of mind, because in a silent state of mind, mind disappears. It is no more mind; it becomes no-mind.

And with the disappearance of the mind all desires disappear, all tensions disappear, all anxieties disappear. And these are the barriers which do not allow the flow of bliss in you, otherwise bliss is your nature. If all the rocks are beloved, suddenly it with great force -- your bliss starts flowing like a stream. A sannyasin has to remember it continuously because mind always distracts you towards philosophy. And it is very easy to talk about, to thing about, to read about; the real problem is to experience. That is arduous, because for that you will have to go through, an inner transformation, from mind to no-mind, from thought to no-thought, from desire to no-desire.

OSHO

IS THIS MEDITATION AT ALL?

Question: Beloved 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 watch the clouds, you can watch children playing around. Watching is meditation. What you watch is not the point; the object is not the point. The quality of observation, the quality of being aware and alert – that’s what meditation is. So perfectly good!

Children are beautiful – pure energy dancing around, pure energy running around. Delight in it and watch it. I don’t see why you are feeling yourself in trouble. The mind goes on creating trouble. Whatsoever you do, the mind goes on creating trouble. Now the mind says: Is this meditation at all?

Remember one thing: meditation means awareness. Whatsoever you do with awareness is meditation. Action is not the question, but the quality that you bring to your action. Walking can be a meditation if you walk alertly. Sitting can be a meditation if you sit alertly. Listening to the birds can be a meditation if you listen with awareness. Just listening to the inner noise of your mind can be a meditation if you remain alert and watchful. The whole point is: one should not move in sleep. Then whatsoever you do is meditation – and don’t be worried about it!

The mind constantly creates some anxiety. Many times people come to me. They say they are feeling very good, very high – but is this real? Now the mind is creating a new trouble: Is this real? The mind has never asked this before. When you have a headache, do you ask: Is this real? You trust in misery too much. A headache is necessarily real, but if you go high and you feel a peak of bliss, the mind starts creating a subtle anxiety: Is this real? You may be in a delusion, hallucination, imagination. You may be seeing a dream.

Or if you cannot find anything else, then: Osho must have hypnotized you. You must be in hypnosis. You cannot believe that you can be blissful, that you can be happy. Because of this tendency of the mind, the mind clings to the miserable. Mind is always seeking and searching for hell, because it can exist only in misery; in bliss it disappears. Only in misery does it have throbbing life; only in misery does its business go well. Whenever you are happy it is not needed; when you are blissful, who needs mind? – you have already gone beyond it.

The mind feels left behind, neglected, it starts nagging you. It says: Where are you going? Are you hypnotized? What illusions are you seeing? These are all dreams! Because of this tendency, millions of people have come to a meditative point some time or other in their life but they miss the door. The door comes but they cannot believe in it. Meditation is as natural a phenomenon as love. It happens to everybody! It is part of your being, but you cannot believe in it. Even if it happens, you somehow overlook it.

Or even if you feel that something is happening, you cannot say to others that something is happening because you are afraid others will think that you have gone mad. Your own mind goes on saying that this is not possible; this is too good to be true. So you forget about it.

Remember again: in your childhood, or later on when you were young, there must have been a few moments. It is impossible that those moments were not there; they have been there in everybody’s life. Just try to recollect again and you will remember there have been moments when something was opening, but you closed it, afraid. Sometimes, sitting on a silent night, looking at the stars – and something was going to happen and you shrank; apprehensive, frightened, you started doing something else. It was too good to be true.

You missed an opportunity. Sometimes, in deep love, just sitting by the side of your beloved, something started happening; you were moving in some unknown direction. You became scared, you pulled yourself back to earth. Sometimes, for no reason at all, just swimming in the river, or running around in the hot sun, or just relaxing on the beach and listening to the wild roar of the ocean, something started happening inside you, some inner alchemical change, as if your body was creating LSD.

Something inside... and you were moving in a totally unknown dimension – as if you had wings and you could fly. You became afraid, you started clinging to the earth. It has happened many times when people come to be initiated into sannyas. Sometimes, if I see very perceptive people, very receptive, and I touch their head, immediately they become scared. Just a few days ago the daughter of Ashok Kumar, one of the very famous film actors, took sannyas. The moment I touched her head she started crying, ”Stop, Osho! Stop! Stop!”

And her whole body was shaking. She started clinging to the earth. A door was very, very close. Something tremendously valuable could have happened, but she became afraid. Many times in each person’s life, such moments come; but those moments are not aggressive, they cannot force anything against you. If you are ready you can move, drift into them, slip into them, float with them, to the farthest end of existence. If you are afraid you cling to your shore, and you miss the boat. The boat cannot wait for you.

So don’t be disturbed by the mind. Watching children playing around is a beautiful meditation –because watching is meditation. But remember, don’t think about it. If children are dancing, running around, playing, shrieking, jumping, jogging, don’t start thinking – just watch. Watch without any thought. Be aware, but don’t think. Remain alert – just seeing, a pure seeing, a clarity, but don’t start thinking about it; otherwise you have already moved away. Watching children, you can remember your own child back home. Then you have missed, then you are not watching these children. Some memories are floating in your mind. A film starts moving; then you are in a daydream. Simply watch!

OSHO

CREATE A PERFECT EGO

Question - Isn't it true that all meditation techniques are really doings which lead the seeker to his Being?

In a way, yes; and in a deeper way, no. Meditation techniques are doings, because you are advised to do something. Even to meditate is to do something, even to sit silently is to do something, even to not do anything is a sort of doing. So in a superficial way, all meditation techniques are doings. But in a deeper way they are not, because if you succeed in them, the doing disappears.

Only in the beginning it appears like an effort. If you succeed in it, the effort disappears and the whole thing becomes spontaneous and effortless. If you succeed in it, it is not a doing. No effort on your part is needed then. It becomes just like breathing – it is there. But in the beginning the effort is bound to be, because the mind cannot do anything which is not an effort. If you tell it to be effortless, the whole thing seems absurd.

In Zen, where much emphasis is paid to effortlessness, the masters say to the disciples, ‘Just sit. Don’t do anything.’ And the disciple tries. Of course, what can you do other than trying? The disciple tries to just sit, and he tries to just sit, and he tries to not do anything, and then the master hits him on his head with his staff and he says, ‘Don’t do this! I have not told you to try to sit, because that becomes an effort. And don’t try not to do anything, because that is a sort of doing. Simply sit!’

If I tell you to simply sit, what will you do? You will do something, which will make it not a simple sitting; an effort will enter. You will be sitting with an effort; a strain will be there. You cannot simply sit. It looks strange, but the moment you try to sit simply, it has become complex. The very effort to simply sit makes it complex. So what to do?

Years pass, and the disciple goes on sitting and being blamed, condemned by the master that he is missing the point. But he simply goes on, goes on, goes on, and every day he is a failure, because the effort is there. And he cannot deceive the master. But one day, just patiently sitting, even this consciousness to sit simply disappears. One day suddenly he is sitting – like a tree or like a rock – not doing anything. And then the master says, ‘This is the right posture. Now you have attained it. Now remember this. This is the way to sit.’ But it takes patience and long effort to achieve effortlessness.

In the beginning, effort will be there, doing will be there, but only in the beginning as a necessary evil. But you have to remember constantly that you have to go beyond it. A moment must come when you are not doing anything about meditation – just being there and it happens; just sitting or standing and it happens; not doing anything, just being aware, it happens.

All these techniques are just to help you to come to an effortless moment. The inner transformation, the inner realization, cannot happen through effort, because effort is a sort of tension. With effort you cannot be relaxed totally; the effort will become a barrier. With this background in mind, if you make effort, by and by you will become capable of leaving it also.

It is just like swimming. If you know about swimming, you know that in the beginning you have to make effort – but only in the beginning. Once you know the feel of it, once you know what it is, the effort has gone; you can swim effortlessly. And even a good swimmer cannot say what swimming is, what exactly he is doing. He cannot explain to you what he is doing. Really, he is not doing anything. He is simply allowing himself to be in a deep responsive relationship with the water, with the river. He is not doing anything really. And if he is still doing, he is still not an expert swimmer – he is still amateur, still learning.

I will tell you one anecdote. In Burma, one Buddhist monk was ordered to make a design for the new temple, particularly for the gate. So he was making many designs. He had one very talented disciple, so he told that disciple to be near him. While he made the design the disciple was simply to watch, and if he liked it he had to say that it was okay, it was right. If he didn’t like it then he had to say no. And the master said, ‘When you say yes, only then will I send the design. If you go on saying no, I will discard the design and will create a new one.’

Hundreds of designs were discarded in this way. Three months passed. Even the master became afraid, but he had given his word so he had to keep it. The disciple was there, the master would make the design, and then the disciple would say no. The master would start another one.

One day the ink was just about to be finished, so the master said, ‘Go out and find more ink.’ The disciple went out. The master forgot him, his presence, and became effortless. His presence was the problem. The idea was constantly in his mind that the disciple was there, judging. He was constantly wondering whether he was going to like it or not, whether he would discard it again. This created an inner anxiety and the master could not be spontaneous.

The disciple went out. The design was completed. The disciple came in and he said ‘Wonderful! But why couldn’t you do it before?’

The master said, ‘Now I understand why – because you were here. Because of you – I was making an effort to get your approval. The effort destroyed the whole thing. I couldn’t be natural, I couldn’t flow, I couldn’t forget myself because of you.’

Whenever you are doing meditation, the very effort that you are doing it, the very idea of succeeding in it, is the barrier. Be conscious of it. Go on doing, and be conscious of it. A day will come... just through patience a day comes when effort is not there. Really, you are not there, only meditation is. It may take a long time. It cannot be predicted, no one can say when it will happen. Because if something is to be achieved by effort, it can be predicted – that if you do this much effort you will succeed – but meditation is going to succeed only when you become effortless. That’s why nothing can be predicted. Nothing can be said about when you will succeed. You may succeed this very moment, and you may not succeed for lives.

The whole thing hinges on one thing – when your effort drops and you become spontaneous, when your meditation is not an act but becomes your being, when your meditation is just like love....

You cannot do anything about love, or can you? If you do anything, you falsify it. It will become artificial. It will not go deep. You will not be in it. It will become an acting. Love IS – you cannot do anything about it.

You cannot do anything about meditation also. But I don’t mean don’t do anything, because then you will remain whatsoever you are. You have to do something, perfectly conscious that by only doing you will not achieve. Doing will be needed in the beginning. One cannot leave it; one has to go through it. But one has to go through it, one has to transcend it, and an effortless floating has to be achieved.

The path is arduous and very contradictory. You cannot find anything more contradictory than meditation. Contradictory because it has to be started as an effort and it has to end as effortlessness. But it happens. You may not be able to conceive logically hot it happens, but in experience it happens. A day comes when you just get fed up with your effort. It falls.

It happened to Buddha this way. For six years he was making every effort possible. No human being has been so obsessed with becoming enlightened. He did everything that he could do. He moved from one teacher to another, and whatsoever he was taught, he did it perfectly. That was the problem, because no teacher could say to him, ‘You are not doing well, that’s why you are not achieving.’ That was impossible. He was doing better than any master, so the masters had to confess. They said, ‘This much we have to teach. Beyond this we don’t know, so you go somewhere else.’

He was a dangerous disciple – and only dangerous disciples achieve. He studied everything that was possible. Whatsoever he was told, he would do it – absolutely as it was told. And then he would come to the master and say, ‘I have done it, but nothing has happened. So what next?

The teachers would say, ‘You go somewhere else. There is one teacher in the Himalayas – go there.’ Or, ‘There is one teacher in some forest – go there. We don’t know more than this.’

He went around and around for six years. He did all that can be done, all that is humanly possible, and then he got fed up. The whole thing appeared futile, fruitless, meaningless. One night he relaxed all efforts. He was sitting under the Bodhi tree, and he said, ‘Now everything is finished. In the world there is nothing, and in this spiritual search also there is nothing. Now there is nothing for me to do. Everything is finished. Not only this world, but the other world also. Suddenly all efforts dropped. He was empty. Because when there is nothing to do, the mind cannot move. The mind moves only because there is something to do – some motivation, some goal. The mind moves because something is possible, something can be achieved, the future. If not today then tomorrow, but the possibility is there that one can achieve it – the mind moves.

That night Buddha came to a dead point. Really, he died that very moment, because there was no future. Nothing was to be achieved, and nothing could be achieved – ‘I have done everything. The whole world is futile and this whole existence is a nightmare.’ Not only the material world became futile, but the spiritual also. He relaxed. Not that he did something to relax. This is the point to understand: there was nothing to be tense, therefore he relaxed. There was no effort on his part to relax.

Under the Bodhi tree he was not trying relaxation. There was nothing to do, nothing to be tense, nothing to desire, no future, no hope. He was absolutely hopeless that night – relaxed. Relaxation happened. You cannot relax, because something or other is still there to be achieved. That goes on stirring your mind; you go on spinning and spinning around and around. Suddenly the spinning stopped, the wheel stopped – Buddha relaxed and fell asleep.

In the morning when he awoke, the last star was setting. He looked at the last star disappear, and with that last star disappearing, he disappeared completely, he became an enlightened one. Then people started asking, ‘How did you achieve this? How? What was the method?’

Now you can understand Buddha’s difficulty. If he said that he had achieved through some methods, then he was wrong, because he achieved only when there was no method. If he said that he had achieved through effort, then he was wrong, because he achieved only when there was no effort. But if he said, ‘Don’t make any effort and you will achieve,’ then too he was wrong, because to his no-effort those six years of effort were the background. Without that effort, that six years’ arduous effort, this state of no-effort could not have been achieved. Only because of that mad effort he came to a peak and there was nowhere further to go; he relaxed and fell down in the valley.

This has to be remembered for many reasons. Spiritual effort is the most contradictory phenomenon. Effort has to be made, with full consciousness that nothing can be achieved through effort. Effort has to be made only to achieve no-effort, only to achieve effortlessness. But don’t relax your effort, because if you relax you will never achieve that relaxation which came to Buddha. You go on doing every effort, so automatically a moment comes when just by sheer effort you reach a point where relaxation happens to you.

For example, you may take it in a different way. As I see it, in the west, ego has been the central point: the fulfillment of the ego, the development of the ego, the achievement of a strong ego, has been the whole western effort. In the east, it has been how to achieve egolessness, how to be a non-ego, how to forget, surrender, dissolve yourself completely so that you are not. The east has been trying for egolessness. The west has been trying for the perfect ego.

But this is the contradictoriness of things: if you don’t have a very developed ego, you cannot surrender. You can surrender only if you have a perfectly clearcut ego. Otherwise you cannot surrender, because who will surrender? So to me, both are half and both are in misery – east and west both. Because the east has taken egolessness, which is the end part, and the beginning part is missing.

Who will surrender the ego? The peak is not there, so who will create the valley? The valley is created only around a peak. The greater the peak, the deeper the valley. If you don’t have an ego, or a very lukewarm one, surrender is not possible. Or, your surrender will be a lukewarm surrender, just so-so. Nothing will happen out of it; there will be no explosion.

In the west, the beginning part has been emphasized. So you can go on growing with your ego. It will create more and more anxiety. And when you have really created it, you don’t know what to do with it, because the end part is not there.

To me, the spiritual search is both. Create a very great peak, create a perfect ego, just to dissolve it. That seems absurd – just to dissolve it, just to achieve a deep surrender, just to lose it somewhere. And you cannot lose something which you don’t have. So in my view, humanity has to be trained for these two things together: help everyone to create a perfect ego, a fulfilled ego – but this is only half the journey – and then, help them to surrender it.

The greater the peak, the deeper will be the valley. The higher the ego, the deeper you will move in your surrender. And this is for everything. On the spiritual path, remember this continuous contradictoriness. Don’t forget it even for a single moment. Become perfect egoists so that you can surrender, so that you can dissolve, melt. Do every effort that you can do, just to reach a point where effort leaves you and you are totally effortless.

OSHO

WHY MAN CAN’T BE MEDITATIVE

Meditation is a danger, it is a risk. It is a danger to all the vested interests, and it is a risk to the mind. Mind and meditation cannot co-exist. There is no question of having both of them. Either you can have mind or you can have meditation, because mind is thinking and meditation is silence. Mind is groping in the dark for the door. Meditation is seeing. There is no question of groping, it knows the door. Mind thinks. Meditation knows.

This is a very fundamental reason why man cannot become meditative -- or why very few men have dared to become meditative. Our training is of the mind. Our education is for the mind. Our ambitions, our desires, can only be fulfilled by the mind. You can become president of a country, prime minister, not by being meditative but by cultivating a very cunning mind. The whole education is geared by your parents, by your society, so that you can fulfill your desires, your ambitions. You want to become somebody. Meditation can only make you a nobody.

Who wants to become a nobody? Everybody wants to go on higher on the ladder of ambitions. People sacrifice their whole life to become somebody. Alexander was coming to India. A madness had entered in his mind: he wanted to conquer the whole world. Everybody has a little bit of that kind of madness, but he had the whole chunk. And while he was coming towards India, passing the boundaries of Greece, somebody said to him, "You have been asking many times about a mystic, a very strange man, Diogenes. He lives nearby. If you want to see him, it is a few minutes' walk, just by the side of the river."

Diogenes was certainly a very strange kind of man. In fact, if you are a man you are going to be a strange kind of man, because you are going to be something unique. He lived naked... he was one of the most beautiful men possible. But he always used to have a lighted lamp in his hand -- day or night, it made no difference. Even in the day, in the full light of the sun, he was holding his lamp while walking on the streets. People used to laugh at him, and used to ask him, "Why are you carrying this lamp, unnecessarily wasting the oil and becoming a laughingstock?"

And Diogenes used to say, "I have to keep it, because I am looking for the authentic, real man. I have not come across him yet. I come across people but they are all wearing masks, they are all hypocrites."

He had a great sense of humor. To me, that is one of the most important qualities of a genuine religious man. While he was dying, he still kept his lamp by his side. Somebody asked Diogenes, "You are dying. Let us know about the man you were searching for. Your life is ending; have you been successful in finding the authentic man?"

He was almost on the verge of death, but he opened his eyes and said, "No, I could not find the authentic man. But I am happy that nobody has stolen my lamp yet -- because all around there are thieves, criminals, all kinds of robbers, and I am a naked, unprotected man. This gives me great hope: my whole life I carried the lamp and nobody has stolen it yet. This gives me great hope that some day the man will be born whom I have been looking for; perhaps I have come too soon." And he died.

So many stories about him Alexander had heard and had loved. He said, "I would like to go." It was early morning, the sun was rising. Diogenes was lying on the sand on the bank of the river taking a sunbath. Alexander felt a little awkward, because Diogenes was naked. He also felt embarrassed because this was the first time that somebody had continued to lie down in front of him -- "Perhaps the man does not know who I am."

So he said, "Perhaps you are unaware of the person who has come to meet you."

Diogenes laughed. He also used to have a dog. That was his only companion. Asked why he had made a dog a friend, he said, "Because I could not find a man worth making a friend." He looked at the dog who was sitting by his side and said, "Listen to what this stupid man is saying. He is saying I do not know who he is. The fact is, he himself does not know who he is. Now what to do with such idiots? You tell me."

Shocked... but it was a fact. Still, Alexander tried to make some conversation. He bypassed the insult. He said, "I am Alexander the Great."

Diogenes said, "My God." And he looked at the dog and said, "Did you listen?" -- that was his constant habit, to refer to the dog -- "Did you listen? This man thinks himself the greatest man in the world. And that is a sure sign of an inferiority complex. Only people who suffer from inferiority pretend to be great; the greater the inferiority the more they start projecting themselves higher, bigger, vaster."

But he said to Alexander, "What is the point of your coming to me? A poor man, a nobody, whose only possession is a lamp, whose only companion in this whole world is a dog, who lives naked.... For what have you come here?"

Alexander said, "I have heard many stories about you, and now I can see that all those stories are bound to be real -- you are a man... certainly strange, but in a way immensely beautiful. I am just going to conquer the world, and I heard you are just residing here. I could not resist the temptation to come and see."

Diogenes said, "You have seen me. Now don't waste time, because life is short and the world is big -- you may die before you conquer it. And have you ever considered... if you succeed in conquering this world, what are you going to do next? -- because there is no other world than this. You will look simply foolish. And can I ask you, why are you taking so much trouble conquering the world? You call me strange, who is just having a beautiful sunbath. And you don't think yourself strange, stupidly strange, that you are on your way to conquer the world? For what? What will you do when you have conquered the world?"

Alexander said, "I have never thought about it, to be frank with you. Perhaps I will relax and rest when I have conquered the world."

Diogenes turned to the dog and said, "Do you listen? This man is mad. He is seeing me already resting, relaxing -- without conquering a thing! And he will relax when he has conquered the whole world."

Alexander felt ashamed. There was truth, so clear, so crystal clear -- if you want to rest and relax, you can rest and relax now. Why postpone it for tomorrow? And you are postponing it for an indefinite time. And meanwhile you will have to conquer the whole world, as if conquering the whole world is a necessary step in being relaxed and finding a restful life.

Alexander said, "I can understand... I am looking foolish before you. Can I do anything for you? I have really fallen in love with you. I have seen great kings, great generals, but I have never seen such a courageous man as you, who has not even moved, who has not even said 'Good morning.' Who has not bothered about me -- on the contrary, who goes on talking to his dog! I can do anything, because the whole world is in my hands. You just say, and I will do it for you."

Diogenes said, "Really? Then just do one thing: stand a little away from me, because you are blocking the sun. I am taking a sunbath, and you don't understand even simple manners."

Alexander remembered him continually. All through his journey up to India and back, that man haunted him -- that he did not ask for anything. He could have given him the whole world just for the asking, but he asked only that Alexander move a little away because he was preventing the sun from reaching his body.

And as he was leaving, Diogenes had said, "Just remember two things, as a gift from Diogenes: one, that nobody has ever conquered the world. Something always remains unconquered -- because the world is multi-dimensional; you cannot conquer it in all its dimensions in such a small life. Hence everybody who has gone to conquer the world has died frustrated.

"Secondly, you will never come back home. Because this is how ambition goes on leading you further and further: it goes on telling you, 'Just a few miles more. A few miles more and you will be attaining the very ambition of your heart.' And people go on chasing hallucinations, and life goes on slipping through their hands. Just remember these two things as gifts from a poor man, a nobody."

Alexander thanked him -- although in the cool morning he was perspiring. That man was such... each thing he said would make you perspire even in the cold breeze on a cold morning, because he would hit exactly the wounds that you are hiding.

Alexander never could reach to being the conqueror of the whole world. He could not reach to the very end of India; he could not reach to Japan, to China, to Australia, and of course America was not known. He turned back from Punjab. He was only thirty-three, but the ambition and the continuous struggle to fulfill it had made him so tired and spent, like a used cartridge. He was only thirty-three, at the prime of his youth, but in his inner world he had become old and was ready to die. Somehow, perhaps in death, there would be rest. And Diogenes' shadow was always following him: "You will not be able to conquer the world."

He turned back, and before reaching Athens, his capital -- just twenty-four hours more....

Sometimes small incidents become so symbolic and so meaningful. Just twenty-four hours more and he would have at least been back in his capital, in his home -- not in the real home that Diogenes was pointing at, but at least in the house which we all try to make a home. The home is inside. Outside there are only houses. But he could not even reach the outside house. He died twenty-four hours before reaching Athens.

A strange coincidence: the day Alexander died, Diogenes also died. In Greek mythology, like many other mythologies... In Indian mythology the same is the case: before entering the other world you have to pass through a river, the Vaitarani. In Greek mythology also you have to cross a river; that river is the boundary line of this world and that world. Up to now, whatever I said is historical fact. But after the death of Diogenes and Alexander, this story became prevalent all over Greece. It is very significant. It cannot be historical, but it is very close to truth. It is not factual.

That's how I make the difference between facts and truth: a thing may be factual, but still untrue; a thing may be non-factual, but still true. A story may be just a myth -- not history, but of immense significance because it indicates towards truth.

It is said that Diogenes died a few minutes after the death of Alexander. They met while crossing the river -- Alexander was ahead, Diogenes was coming behind. Hearing the sound Alexander looked back. It was an even more embarrassing encounter than the first one, because at least at that time Alexander was not naked; this time he was also naked.

But people try to rationalize, try to hide their embarrassment. So just to hide his embarrassment he said, "Hello, Diogenes. Perhaps this may be the first time in the whole history of existence that a great emperor and a naked beggar are crossing the river together."

Diogenes said, "It is, but you are not clear about who is the emperor and who is the beggar. The emperor is behind the beggar. You wasted your life; still you are stubborn! Where is your empire? I have not lost anything because I had nothing, only that lamp. That too I had found by the side of the road -- I don't know to whom it belongs -- and by the side of the road I have left it. I had gone into the world naked, I am coming from the world naked."

That's what Kabir says in one of his songs -- Jyon ki tyon dhari dinhin chadariya. Kabira jatan se odhi chadariya -- "I have used the clothes of life with such care and such awareness that I have returned to God his gift exactly as it was given to me."

The whole society -- your parents, your teachers, your leaders, your priests -- they all want you to become somebody special, Alexanders. But if you want to be meditative they will all be against you, because meditation means you are turning away from all ambitions.
I was a student in the university. The head of my department was so worried about my examinations, he said, "I have taught in almost a dozen countries all over the world, hundreds of students, but I have never been concerned about their examinations. It is very puzzling to my mind -- why am I so much concerned about your examination? You have to promise me that you will reach the examination hall in time."

I told him, "This is not part of your work. Your part is to teach me. It is my business to be worried about the examination or not. If I can manage, I will reach the hall."
He was suspicious. The old man used to stand every day with his car outside the hostel, in front of my room, to pick me up and to see me enter the examination hall. And then he would leave.

I said, "This is too much unnecessary trouble you are taking. Your house is four miles away. You have to wake up, and you are not an early riser."

He was a drunkard. But life is a mystery. Here, the people who are non-vegetarians, drunkards, gamblers, you may find them so loving and so human that it is surprising. And on the other hand, the people who are strictly vegetarian.... Adolf Hitler was strictly vegetarian. He never smoked, he never drank any alcoholic beverage, he went to bed early, he got up early in the morning -- he was a saint! If you just look at his life-pattern and style, he was a monk. And he killed six million people. It would have been better if he had been a drunkard, non-vegetarian -- a chain smoker, but a nice human being.

This old man, my professor, did not drink for those few days. He had to wake up early in the morning to pick me up and force me into the examination hall. The whole university knew; they all thought, "This is strange!" I said, "It is not strange. He loves me. He loves me just like his son, and he wants me to be somebody in life. That is the trouble: that love is creating the trouble. He is afraid that I am too careless about being somebody in the world."

He used to instruct the chief examiner, "Keep an eye that he does not leave when I have left -- because I cannot wait outside for three hours unnecessarily. Keep an eye on him and don't let him go. And watch to see that he is writing and is not doing something else."

Sometimes I would finish the answers in two hours but the chief examiner would not allow me to go out. He would say, "Your professor will torture me. You simply sit here, do whatsoever you want to do. Or just go through the answers you have written; maybe you can add something more."

I said, "This is strange. I am finished with the answers, I should be allowed to go. Everybody else is allowed."

He said, "Everybody else is allowed, but nobody else is being brought here like a prisoner every day!"

And after the examination the professor would ask me -- every day with the question-paper in his hand -- "What have you written about it?" Just to console him I would say things which I had not written at all -- and he knew it. I knew that he knew it because he was the dean of the faculty, so he was looking at my papers. Before asking me, he had already looked at what I had written. And now I was answering him according to the textbooks, although what I had written was according to myself.

But he could not say to me, "I have looked" -- because that is illegal. So he would say, "You know; I know...."

I said, "What to do? You should not do anything illegal, and if you are caught doing anything illegal I will be the first to report it to the vice-chancellor."

He said, "But these are not the answers that you have written. Do you want to remain a nobody for your whole life? It hurts me. You have the talent, you have the genius, you can become anything you want."

I said, "I don't want to use my talent and my genius to become anybody. I simply want to relax into myself and be myself, anonymous, because my decision is in favor of meditation, not in favor of mind. Whatever you are saying is mind -- and I have to use the mind, but the more you use the mind the farther away it takes you from yourself."

This is the reason why man is not meditative: The whole society forces him to be in a state of mind, not in a state of meditation. Just imagine a world where people are meditative. It will be a simple world, but it will be tremendously beautiful. It will be silent. It will not have crimes, it will not have courts, it will not have any kind of politics. It will be a loving brotherhood, a vast commune of people who are absolutely satisfied with themselves, utterly contented with themselves. Even Alexander the Great cannot give them a gift.

If you are running to get something outside yourself, you have to be subservient to the mind. If you drop all ambitions and you are concerned more about your inner flowering; if you are more concerned about your inner juice so that it can flow and reach to others, more concerned about love, compassion, peace... then man will be meditative.

And you have asked how we can make meditation a great movement. Don't be worried about making it a great movement because this is how the mind is very tricky. You will forget all about your meditation and you will be concerned about the movement -- how to make it big, how to make it worldwide, how to make many more people meditate. If they are not willing then force them to meditate. It has been done; the whole of history is the proof.

Mohammed founded a religion called Islam. `Islam' means peace. And he wanted the whole world to be a peaceful place. But people are not willing to be peaceful -- then cut their heads, a dead man at least is peaceful. A living man is a nuisance, you cannot rely on a living man -- he may be peaceful this moment, and the next moment he may do something troublesome. On Mohammed's sword the words were written: Peace is my message. Now the message has to be written on the sword, and the message is peace, and people have to be forced to become peaceful at the point of a sword, that is, to become Mohammedans. A Mohammedan is a man of peace. Don't be concerned about a movement, because your mind is so tricky, so slippery....

I have heard, one man and one woman were in love for years. And as expected, the woman was asking every day, sitting on Chowpati Beach.... Who else goes to sit there? She was constantly harassing the man: "When are you going to marry me? We are getting old."

And the man said, "Just look at the full moon." It was just rising above the ocean.

And the woman said, "Shut up! Don't change the subject. Whenever I bring up the real subject you always try to change the subject. The moon will remain there, we will discuss it later on. First, answer my question. When are we going to get married?"

The mind is constantly trying to change the subject.

Whenever you will be thinking of meditation, the mind will change the subject in such a way that you will not even be aware that the subject has been changed. The mind will start making a great movement of meditation, transforming the whole world and forgetting meditation itself. Because where is the time? -- you are in a great revolution, changing the whole world.

In fact, the mind is so cunning that it condemns those people who meditate. It says, "They are selfish, just concerned about themselves. And the whole world is dying! People need peace, and people are in tension; people are living in hell and you are sitting silently in meditation. This is sheer selfishness."

Mind is very cunning. You have to be very aware of it. Tell the mind, "Don't change the subject. First I have to meditate, because I cannot share that which I don't have. I cannot share meditation with people, I cannot share love with people, I cannot share my joy with people, because I don't have it. I am a beggar; I can only pretend to be an emperor."

But that pretension cannot last for a long time. Soon people start seeing that "This man is just a hypocrite. He himself is tense, he himself is worried; he himself lives in pain and suffering and misery, and he is talking about creating the world as a paradise."

So for the second part of your question, I would like to say to you: forget about it. It is your mind which is trying to change the subject. First the marriage, marriage with YOURSELF... first the meditation, and then out of it the fragrance will come, out of it the light will come. Out of it, words which are not dead but alive, words which have authority in them will come. And they may help others, but that is not going to be your goal; it will be a byproduct.

The changing of other people through meditation is a byproduct, it is not a goal. You become a light unto yourself, and that will create the urge to become a light to many people who are thirsty. You become the example, and that example will bring the movement on its own accord.

OSHO

MEDITATION IS NOT CONCENTRATION

What is meditation? -- because this whole Heart Sutra is about the innermost core of meditation. Let us go into it. The first thing: meditation is not concentration. In concentration there is a self concentrating and there is an object being concentrated upon. There is duality. In meditation there is nobody inside and nothing outside. It is not concentration. There is no division between the in and the out. The in goes on flowing into the out, the out goes on flowing into the in. The demarcation, the boundary, the border, no longer exists. The in is out, the out is in; it is a non dual consciousness.

Concentration is a dual consciousness: that's why concentration creates tiredness; that's why when you concentrate you feel exhausted. And you cannot concentrate for twenty-four hours, you will have to take holidays to rest. Concentration can never become your nature. Meditation does not tire, meditation does not exhaust you. Meditation can become a twenty-four hour thing -- day in, day out, year in, year out. It can become eternity. It is relaxation itself. Concentration is an act, a willed act. Meditation is a state of no will, a state of inaction. It is relaxation. One has simply dropped into one's own being, and that being is the same as the being of all. In concentration there is a plan, a projection, an idea. In concentration the mind functions out of a conclusion: you are doing something. Concentration comes out of the past.

In meditation there is no conclusion behind it. You are not doing anything in particular, you are simply being. It has no past to it, it is uncontaminated by the past. It has no future to it, it is pure of all future. It is what Lao Tzu has called wei-wu-wei, action through inaction. This is what Zen masters have been saying: Sitting silently doing nothing, the spring comes and the grass grows by itself.

Remember, 'by itself' -- nothing is being done. You are not pulling the grass upwards; the spring comes and the grass grows by itself.

That state -- when you allow life to go on its own way, when you don't want to direct it, when you don't want to give any control to it, when you are not manipulating, when you are not enforcing any discipline on it -- that state of pure undisciplined spontaneity, is what meditation is.

Meditation is in the present, pure present. Meditation is immediacy. You cannot meditate, but you can be in meditation; you cannot be in concentration, but you can concentrate. Concentration is human, meditation is divine.

Concentration has a center in you; from that center it comes. Concentration has a self in you. In fact the man who concentrates very much starts gathering a very strong self. He starts becoming more and more powerful, he starts becoming more and more an integrated will. He will look more collected, more one piece.

The man of meditation does not become powerful: he becomes silent, he becomes peaceful. Power is created out of conflict; all power is out of friction. Out of friction comes electricity. You can create electricity out of water: when the river falls from a mountainside there is friction between the river and the rocks, and the friction creates energy. That's why people who are seeking power are always fighting. Fight creates energy. It is always through friction that energy is created, power is created. The world goes into war again and again because the world is too dominated by the idea of power. You cannot be powerful without fighting.

Meditation brings peace. Peace has its own power, but that is an altogether different phenomenon. The power that is created out of friction is violent, aggressive, male. The power -- I am using the word because there is no other word -- the power that comes out of peace, is feminine. It has a grace to it. It is passive power, it is receptivity, it is openness. It is not out of friction; that's why it is not violent.

Buddha is powerful, powerful in his peace, in his silence. He is as powerful as a rose flower, he's not powerful like an atom bomb. He's as powerful as the smile of a child... very fragile, very vulnerable; but he's not as powerful as a sword. He is powerful, as a small earthen lamp, the small flame burning bright in the dark night. It is a totally different dimension of power. This power is what we call divine power. It is out of non-friction.

Concentration is a friction: you fight with your own mind. You try to focus the mind in a certain way, towards a certain idea, towards a certain object. You force it, you bring it back again and again. It tries to escape, it runs away, it goes astray, it starts thinking of a thousand and one things, and you bring it again and you force it. You go into a self-fight. Certainly power is created; that power is as harmful as any other power, that power is as dangerous as any other power. That power will again be used to harm somebody, because the power that comes out of friction is violence. Something out of violence is going to be violent, it is going to be destructive. The power that comes out of peace, non-friction, non-fight, non-manipulation, is the power of a rose flower, the power of a small lamp, the power of a child smiling, the power of a woman weeping, the power that is in tears and in the dewdrops. It is immense but not heavy; it is infinite but not violent.

Concentration will make you a man of will. Meditation will make you an emptiness.

That's what Buddha is saying to Sariputra. Prajnaparamita means exactly 'meditation, the wisdom of the beyond'. You cannot bring it but you can be open to it. You need not do anything to bring it into the world -- you cannot bring it; it is beyond you. You have to disappear for it to come. The mind has to cease for meditation to be. Concentration is mind effort; meditation is a state of no-mind. Meditation is pure awareness, meditation has no motive in it.

Meditation is the tree that grows without a seed: that is the miracle of meditation, the magic, the mystery. Concentration has a seed in it: you concentrate for a certain purpose, there is motive, it is motivated. Meditation has no motive. Then why should one meditate if there is no motive?

Meditation comes into existence only when you have looked into all motives and found them lacking, when you have gone through the whole round of motives and you have seen the falsity of it. You have seen that the motives lead nowhere, that you go on moving in circles; you remain the same. The motives go on and on leading you, driving you, almost driving you mad, creating new desires, but nothing is ever achieved. The hands remain as empty as ever. When this has been seen, when you have looked into your life and seen all your motives failing....

No motive has ever succeeded, no motive has ever brought any blessing to anybody. The motives only promise; the goods are never delivered. One motive fails and another motive comes in and promises you again... and you are deceived again. Being deceived again and again by motives, one day suddenly you become aware -- suddenly you see into it, and that very seeing is the beginning of meditation. It has no seed in it, it has no motive in it. If you are meditating for something, then you are concentrating, not meditating. Then you are still in the world -- your mind is still interested in cheap things, in trivia. Then you are worldly. Even if you are meditating to attain to God, you are worldly. Even if you are meditating to attain to nirvana, you are worldly -- because meditation has no goal.

Meditation is an insight that all goals are false. Meditation is an understanding that desires don't lead anywhere. Seeing that.... And this is not a belief that you can get from me or from Buddha or from Jesus. This is not knowledge; you will have to see it. You can see it right now! You have lived, you have seen many motives, you have been in turmoil, you have thought about what to do, what not to do, and you have done many things. Where has it all led you? Just see into it! I'm not saying agree with me, I'm not saying believe in me. I'm simply making you aware of a fact that you have been neglecting. This is not a theory, this is a simple statement of a very simple fact. Maybe because it is so simple, that's why you go on without looking at it. Mind is always interested in complexities, because something can be done with a complex thing. You cannot do anything with a simple phenomenon.

The simple is overlooked, the simple is neglected, the simple is ignored. The simple is so obvious you never look into it. You go on searching for complexities -- the complexity has a challenge in it. The complexity of a phenomenon, of a problem, of a situation, gives you a challenge. In that challenge comes energy, friction, conflict: you have to solve this problem, you have to prove that you can solve this problem. When a problem is there you are thrilled by the excitement that there is a possibility to prove something. But what I am stating is a simple fact, it is not a problem.

It gives you no challenge, it is simply there. You can look at it or you can avoid it. And it doesn't shout; it is so simple. You cannot even call it a still, small voice within you; it does not even whisper. It is simply there -- you can look, you may not look.

See it! And when I say, "See it," I mean see it right now, immediately. There is no need to wait. And be quick when I say, "See it"! Do see it, but quickly, because if you start thinking, if you don't see it quickly, immediately, in that split second then the mind comes in and the mind starts brooding, and the mind starts bringing thoughts, and the mind starts bringing prejudices. And you are in a philosophical state -- many thoughts. Then you have to choose what is right and what is wrong, and speculation has started. You missed the existential moment.

The existential moment is right now. Just have a look, and that is meditation -- that look is a meditation. Just seeing the facticity of a certain thing, of a certain state, is meditation. Meditation has no motive, hence there is no center to it. And because there is no motive and no center, there is no self in it. You don't function from a center in meditation, you act out of nothingness. The response out of nothingness is what meditation is all about.

Mind concentrates: it acts out of the past. Meditation acts in the present, out of the present. It is a pure response to the present, it is not reaction. It acts not out of conclusions, it acts seeing the existential.

Watch in your life: there is a great difference when you act out of conclusions. You see a man, you feel attracted -- a beautiful man, looks very good, looks innocent. His eyes are beautiful, the vibe is beautiful. But then the man introduces himself and he says, "I am a Jew" -- and you are a Christian. Something immediately clicks and there is distance: now the man is no more innocent, the man is no more beautiful. You have certain ideas about Jews. Or, he is a Christian and you are a Jew; you have certain ideas about Christians -- what Christianity has done to Jews in the past, what other Christians have done to Jews, how they have tortured Jews down the ages... and suddenly he is a Christian -- and something immediately changes. 

This is acting out of conclusions, prejudices, not looking at this man -- because this man may not be the man that you think a Jew has to be... because each Jew is a different kind of man, each Hindu is a different kind of man, so is each Mohammedan. You cannot act out of prejudices. You cannot act by categorizing people. You cannot pigeonhole people; nobody can be pigeonholed. You may have been deceived by a hundred communists, and when you meet the hundred and first communist don't go on believing in the category that you have made in your mind: that communists are deceptive -- or anything. This may be a different type of man, because no two persons are alike.

Whenever you act out of conclusions, it is mind. When you look into the present and you don't allow any idea to obstruct the reality, to obstruct the fact, you just look into the fact and act out of that look, that is meditation. Meditation is not something you do in the morning and you are finished with it, meditation is something that you have to go on living every moment of your life. Walking, sleeping, sitting, talking, listening -- it has to become a kind of climate. A relaxed person remains in it. A person who goes on dropping the past remains meditative. Never act out of conclusions; those conclusions are your conditionings, your prejudices, your desires, your fears, and all the rest of it.

In short, you are there! You means your past. You means all your experiences of the past. Don't allow the dead to overrule the living, don't allow the past to influence the present, don't allow death to overpower your life -- that's what meditation is. In short, in meditation you are not there. The dead is not controlling the living.

Meditation is a kind of experience which gives you a totally different quality to live your life. Then you don't live like a Hindu, or a Mohammedan, Indian or German; you simply live as consciousness. When you live in the moment and there is nothing interfering, attention is total because there is no distraction -- distractions come from the past and the future. When attention is total the act is total. It leaves no residue. It goes on freeing you, it never creates cages for you, it never imprisons you. And that is the ultimate goal of Buddha; that's what he calls nirvana.

'Nirvana' means freedom -- utterly, absolute, unobstructed. You become an open sky. There is no border to it, it is infinite. It is simply there... and then there is nothingness all around you, within and without. Nothingness is the function of a meditative state of consciousness. And in that nothingness is benediction. That nothingness itself is the benediction.

OSHO