Chapter #10

meditation transforms you into a beloved of the whole existence as the meditator becomes centred, silent, aware the whole existence starts converging upward the same world but no more the same before it was cold, alien now it is cosy, a home

a man without meditation lives in the world as a stranger as you enter meditation you enter a love affair with existence and for love everything is possible even the impossible is not impossible all that is needed is a deep, profound silence in your being that becomes a magnetic pull then whatsoever is beautiful in existence starts moving towards you meditation creates gravitation for truth for beauty, for love for freedom, for godliness for all that is really valuable

one need not go searching for anything one has simply to rest in one’s being and all that is needed follows in its own course

meditation is the only magic that has yet been known and i don’t think it can ever be transcended there will not be any magic greater than meditation

meditation cannot be a logical enquiry you cannot study it from the outside it is not an object hence no scientific enquiry is possible by its very nature it is a matter of love not of logic the head is incapable of meditation so those who start thinking about meditation studying meditation go on missing the point they are starting from a wrong space their very first step has gone wrong and the first step is the most important step it is almost half the journey because the next step follows the first the next step is implied in the first

so i want my sannyasins to be reminded again and again to let meditation be your love affair don’t think about it don’t philosophise about it take a plunge just as one falls in love, fall into meditation then all the mysteries are yours just a moment’s thought and you are thousands of miles away from it no thought and you are it

one cannot expect, one cannot desire one cannot demand as far as meditation is concerned expecting, demanding, desiring are barriers one can simply wait, utterly relaxed it comes but it comes like a sudden breeze it comes and refreshes you it comes and rejuvenates you it comes and it transforms you but it does not come according to your ideas it does not come according to your prejudices

that is something significant never to be forgotten because the whole functioning of our mind is such that whatsoever we do we do with a motive if we are meditating then we look sideways

looking at the clock, expecting now it is going to happen it is time enough it should happen now i have been meditating for three days or three months or three years how long can one go on meditating? enough-is enough if all these things are going on then you are creating a barricade

meditation should be done for its own joy it is an end unto itself not a means to something else and then the miracle happens but you cannot do it, it happens it comes like a breeze it surprises you, it wakes you up for a moment you miss a heartbeat because the guest has come so unexpectedly and it is so glorious, so fulfilling so tremendously blissful its whole beauty depends on its unexpectedness, its surprise

millions of people have meditated but very few have reached for the simple reason that only very few have meditated for its sheer joy

meditation is a state of suspendedness a state of interval before meditation you live in the darkness of the mind with all its desires, greeds, angers, jealousies after meditation you live in the world of bliss benediction, truth, freedom but there is a gap between the two when one is in fact nowhere neither here nor there and that is the most significant passage

the mind tries to go back because that twilight zone is frightening because suddenly all your ideas, all your notions your very ego is getting lost a fear grips one, one wants to fall back and cling to all the old things at least there was something to cling to

meditation is emptiness hence the master is needed the most significant function of the master is in the twilight zone because when the disciple starts falling back which is a natural thing nothing extraordinary about it it happens to everybody because the known, the familiar was at least the known and the familiar

and now one is simply melting and one knows not what is going to happen next it is almost like death the death of the old and the new is not born yet that is the moment when the master can go on holding your hand and he can say don’t be worried – the dawn is not far away just look at the east, the sun is rising

sometimes the master has to devise things just to keep you occupied in the twilight zone some toys to cling to, some methods, some words so you are not utterly empty as the twilight zone passes by you will be able to see that these are toys and that they have served their function

mind is full full of all that is ugly, it is full of hell and the soul is full full of all that is beautiful it is full of heaven between these two fullnesses there is a gap of utter emptiness that’s what meditation is it takes you from the fullness of the ugly mind to the fullness of the beautiful soul but there is no way to escape the gap one has to pass through it and if one knows one can pass joyously

then one can even enjoy the interval its silence, its emptiness, its nothingness

meditation can be thought of either as silence or as song it can be thought of as silence if you compare it with the mind compared to the mind it is silence but compared to the soul it is a song it is not something dead, it is very alive it is not the silence of the cemetery but the silence of the high altitudes of mountains in that silence if you have enough sensitivity you can decipher many songs

all the creativity that has happened in the world has come through meditation knowingly or unknowingly all the poetry, all the music, all the dance is possible only if something deep inside you starts bursting forth in celebration

you have to come out of seriousness there is no need to be so serious no need to be so sacred, holy learn to laugh, learn to sing

and that will help you immensely because the whole existence is a celebration if we are serious then we are not part of the universe

the old proverb is right if you laugh the whole world laughs with you it you weep, if you cry you weep and cry alone people have their own problems more than are needed who wants to participate with someone who is sad and serious?

so make it a point to drop your seriousness wherever it exists and it can be dropped because it is unnatural no child is born serious, it is taught by others and my function here is to help you to become a child again

nobody has ever defined meditation as a sense of humour but to me the sense of humour is the most significant religious quality the person who cannot laugh cannot pray either the person who cannot see existence with all its incredible beauty and also with all its infinite ridiculousness

cannot understand life and life is god, there is no other god

the more you become silent the more you will be able to see things in clear perspective and then you will be surprised that things are so incredibly beautiful that the whole existence is giggling except foolish man and his foolish saints who are sitting like mummies dead, holding themself together afraid that if they lose control if they start laughing they will lose all respectability

i don’t teach my sannyasins to be respectable i teach them to be alive whatsoever it costs be totally alive even if you have to risk your life it is worth it in fact when a man has something to die for only then has he something to live for

always look at the humorous side of existence and you will start getting more and more in tune with yourself and with the world

the sense of humour makes a man very ordinary but to me that ordinariness is in fact the most extraordinary phenomenon

the desire to be extraordinary is very ordinary everybody wants that to relax into ordinariness is a very rare phenomenon, very extraordinary

and the sense of humour brings you many gifts it is not only a question of laughing at others more fundamentally it is a question of laughing at oneself too if you see your own life and its ridiculousness you will start laughing what have you been doing? what are you doing? and if you can start laughing at your own actions a tremendous relief happens and when you can laugh at yourself you cannot be hard on others

your so-called saints are very hard on others just for small things for example, somebody loves smoking he has to be thrown into hell this is too much… and for eternity he will be thrown alive into hellfire and for eternity he will have to burn there just because he was smoking so he has to smoke for eternity now and what was so wrong with it? it is everybody’s right if one wants to take smoke in and out it is nobody else’s business, nothing is wrong in it

but our saints have been too hard for the simple reason that they had no sense of humour they created hell i cannot conceive hell the whole of existence is paradise

your silence should not only be silence it should also be laughter it should also be a dance it should have many dimensions to it and if you meet god anytime tell him a few jokes and he will be far happier with you than with jesus carrying his cross than with your saints going to him with sad faces

friedrich nietzsche said god is dead but i suspect he must be hiding from the so-called saints just look at your saints – they are such a torture if he is dead then it cannot have been a normal death he must have committed suicide surrounded by all kinds of saints particularly the christian saints and all the popes and all the priests… i cannot conceive god alive in such wrong company

god needs better company, he deserves it i am preparing better company for god

meditation is the last boundary beyond which nothing can be said beyond which starts the inexpressible beyond which is the truth but you can reach to that beyond only through meditation meditation is an antidote mind is the disease meditation is the antidote the moment mind is dropped meditation is also dropped

you have come to the ultimate boundary now begins real experiencing so remember my people are not to cling to meditation it is only medicine in fact the words meditation and medicine come from the same root: that which cures that is the meaning of the root word medicine cures your physical diseases meditation cures your psychological diseases but a medicine is needed only if the disease is there when the disease is finished medicine is of no use there comes a point in the life of a meditator when he drops meditation because the mind is no more there and there is no need to meditate at all that is the ultimate line

the moment mind and meditation are both dropped you have come home for the first time you are whole for the first time you are really holy and from this moment real things start happening but nothing can be said about them nothing has been written about them it is the world of the inexpressible

meditation is only a pointing of the way a milestone, an arrow showing you, go on, go on and then the milestone comes with a zero on it miles have disappeared, arrows have disappeared now the zero has come that zero is the ultimate search of all sannyas and to achieve it is to achieve all because the zero is synonymous with the whole

meditation is a transcendence a transcendence of three things the body, the mind and the heart

the body consists of actions the mind of thoughts, the heart of feelings ordinarily we think we are just a combination of these three we are not – we are the fourth

these three are there surrounding us but the centre is beyond all three and to find that centre of the cyclone is the whole art of meditation

so first one has to transcend the body and it is simple by just watching and remembering i am not the body slowly slowly the remembrance becomes an undercurrent then you don’t remember it is there, you know it and the same has to be done with the mind i am not my thoughts

thoughts are like birds who come in the evening for an overnight stay in the tree and in the morning they are gone thousands of thoughts have been taking shelter in your mind and have left they don’t belong to you, they come and go you abide, they don’t abide they are changing, you are eternal the remembrance that i am not my thoughts slowly slowly seeps deep into you and becomes a realisation and then nothing has to be done the body goes on doing its work

the mind goes on doing its work only our identification is no more there we attain to a certain detachment a deep aloofness, a certain coolness

the most difficult is the third because feelings are very close emotions are very close, moods are very close but if one succeeds with the first two it is not difficult to succeed with the third one should start with the first, the body then with the mind, then with the heart once all these three are transcended for the first time you experience who you are and that experience is liberation liberation from misery liberation from death liberation from everything from every limitation

to know oneself as transcendental is to know oneself as divine

the only problem in front of man is the ego it is the ancientmost problem there is no other problem and the problem is soluble because it is our own invention, it does not really exist

ego is a put-together phenomenon we have manufactured it for certain purposes the society has supported it, the society needs it the simple process is that if you have a false centre it can be controlled if you have a real centre it cannot be controlled reality cannot be enslaved hence the society has invented a false centre and before the child becomes aware of his real centre he is handed over a false centre and the false centre is useful for the society politicians, priests, pedagogues they will all be using it

the man who lives with the false centre never becomes aware of what has gone wrong with him he always feels something is missing he is not what he should be there is a constant subtle awareness that he is false, pseudo, that he is wearing a mask but because he has never seen his original face he cannot discard the mask either because he is afraid maybe there is no face at all it is better to have a false face than to be faceless who knows what is behind the mask?

behind the mask is the real, original face behind the ego is the real centre but unless we discard the false the real cannot be found discarding the false is the only way to find the real

meditation is a process of elimination go on eliminating whatsoever is false mercilessly go on peeling whatsoever others have imposed upon you and soon you will come to a source which is authentically yours and the moment that source is found life has a different juice to it a different perfume, a different freedom then nothing is felt to be missing there is great contentment, fulfilment one has come to flowering

in the state of egolessness one starts hearing the celestial music the music of the stars one starts hearing the message of the whole it is wordless but it is heard and understood it is

the Sound of one hand Clapping

in fact it is soundless because one hand clapping cannot create any sound but still there is a music to that silence a subtle rhythm in that silence and that rhythm is the rhythm of the universe once you have found it you are no more separate all walls disappear and become bridges

these are the two ways to live your life either surrounded by walls disconnected from the whole

that is the way of the ego, the way of the mind and the other style of life is making all the walls into bridges connected, part of the whole that is the way of meditation, the way of egolessness

the first person lives in hell and only he is responsible, nobody else and the second person lives in heaven again he is responsible, nobody else it is our choice so don’t ever blame stars, don’t ever blame fate don’t shirk your responsibility don’t throw it on anybody else’s shoulders

this is one of the fundamentals of sannyas that i am responsible for whatsoever is happening to me only i am responsible and nobody else once this responsibility is totally accepted life goes through a revolution a revolution that brings thousands of blessings and benedictions

[!info] Copyright 1964-1990 Osho (Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh)