9 Meditation is a way of living

‌CHAPTER 9

Meditation is a way of living

10 June 1977 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

[A visitor, a poet and teacher of creative writing, said he felt very moved by Osho’s books, but now he feels confused. He will stay for the camp.]

Very good! So do the camp, mm? and get into meditations, because the thing that has brought you towards me is a deep desire somewhere for meditation. It may not be very conscious but we are all groping towards something – we don’t know what. We only know that the groping is there, we only know that something is missing. We don’t know what exactly... and how can we know unless we find it?

This is the paradox: we will be able to know what was missing only when we have found it. Before it we cannot even know what is missing; there is no way to know. We have always missed it, something is missing, hence the groping, hence the enquiry.

Whatsoever we are and wherever we are, this is not the space in which we are meant to be; that is the situation. Something is not fitting, we are not falling into an organic gestalt. The joy is missing. Yes, there are many pleasures and many miseries but the joy is missing.

The pleasures are also superficial, as are the miseries. Yes, one can forget oneself in those pleasures for the time being, and then again one feels empty. And when one looks back those pleasures also seem to be just ways of escaping from something. They help us to relax a little bit but they don’t help us to celebrate existence. They function more or less like intoxicants. They are good to help one forget oneself and one’s miseries and worries but again when one comes back the miseries are there, the worries are there.

And even if one lives a life of a merry-go-round, finally one feels ‘What is the point of it all?’ Even if life was good, pleasant, then too there seems to be no profound meaning in it.

That’s what I feel – a search for the profound meaning, something that will make everything luminous, something that will give the touch of divineness to every small act of life so that each moment becomes a fulfillment. And that I call the desire to meditate.

Meditation is not just a method – it is more a new way of living. A method helps, a method prods us, provokes us, challenges us, but finally it culminates in a new style of being. And everybody is in search of that: the religious people and the irreligious people, the theists and the atheists, the educated and the uneducated, the poor and the rich, man and woman; everybody is in search of that.

So it happens not only to you; it happens to many people, particularly to people who live in the world of intellect. When they read they are tremendously thrilled; things seem very clear because their intellectual perception is very clear. As far as intellect is concerned they are efficient people; they can go with the logic.

But when you come really across a person of religion you will be confused, you will be very mixed up... because a religious person, howsoever intellectually he talks, is basically a non-intellectual. When you look at me you are looking at an irrational man. When you read my books you are reading something rational.

My assertions can be rational but I am not. So whenever an intellectual person comes to me this happens almost always, without exception. Books make him very very clear. With me, he starts feeling confused, mixed up... because I am more than the books! And the other part that is missing in the books is the real part; the part that is creating this confusion is the real part. The books are just invitations to come to this part: to the non-rational, the irrational, the absurd.

God is an absurdity; it is not a logical proposition. No argument can prove it and no argument, of course, can disprove it. All argumentation is futile – only experience is of value... but experience is no argument! In fact experience is the failure of argument.

The intellectual mind wants first to be logically convinced then it will take the second step; but there are things which cannot be logically proved. First you have to go into them and then you become logically convinced – but that is a secondary thing. The experience comes first and the logic comes later, not otherwise.

So when you come to me, I am there, very absurd. If you start feeling love for me and if a trust arises – which I can see... it can arise! And when it arises in an intellectual person it is of tremendous depth because it arises against your own mind. The pull has to be greater than the mind, only then does it arise: it is moving to the opposite polarity.

You have used your intellect but you have not used your intuition at all, so in an intellectual person there is a great need for balance. Once he starts falling into some trap somewhere, where he can be pulled towards the intuitive, towards the feminine, towards the illogical, then a great revolution is on the way. An intellectual will really start participating with somebody’s being. He goes to deeper depths of irreason than an ordinary, non-rational person can go.

It is almost in the same proportion: if you have gone too much into the intellect, to the same extent you can move in the opposite direction; if you have not gone too much into the intellect, you cannot move to the opposite so deeply. It is like a tree: the higher it goes, the deeper go the roots – in the same proportion. If it is thirty feet high, the roots go down thirty feet. When the tree is only one foot, the roots cannot go down thirty feet: the roots will go, at the most, one foot.

But when you read my books the logic comes first. When you come to me, experience comes first, the person comes first. And I am an illogical person, so I confuse. Be here and I will confuse you more and more! But out of this confusion, something great can be born. In fact, everything that is ever born is born out of confusion, out of chaos, really.

When you are in chaos, there is a possibility of a star. When you are settled, very logically settled and everything looks fine, your syllogism is perfect, nothing is born. The mind is not very creative, it is very repetitive. All creation comes from beyond the mind, and whatsoever is produced by the mind is at the most a composition, not a creation.

Always, whenever something really creative penetrates you, it comes from beyond the mind. It may be a scientific discovery or it may be the birth of a poem, or the birth of a painting or a song or a dance – it doesn’t matter – but it always comes from somewhere that the mind doesn’t know; it comes from out of the blue. It comes through the mind but it doesn’t come from the mind. It passes through the mind, it takes the shape of the mind, but it never comes from the mind itself.

So when you read my books or you are just aware of what I say, it will not be confusing. I try hard even then but it is very difficult to confuse intellectual people just by books! But when they come, then it is going to happen. You are fortunate: it is going to happen!

Be here, and give me a chance!

[Another visitor says: I’ve been searching for something most of my life... I have very low energy.]

In the search it does not matter – low or high energy. It matters only if you are a low energy person and you choose some high energy method: then it will be difficult. In the same way, if you are a high energy person and you choose a low energy method, it will be difficult. If you choose the right method there is no problem at all. There are low energy methods, there are high energy methods, because the whole humanity is divided in two categories – the low and the high. When I say low and high, I don’t mean any evaluation.

The low energy person is a passive person and the high energy person is an active person. The difference is of passivity and activity; the difference basically is that of male and female, yin and yang. But for the passive person there are beautiful methods – as beautiful as those for the active person.

Lao tzu is for you, tao is for you. Mm? – tao is the ancientmost lazy man’s guide to enlightenment! (Laughter) There is no problem in it. There are certain methods that will suit you and which are only for the low energy person – for a person who cannot go in active search for god, who can sit silently, who can open his heart and wait for god to come to him.

And god comes... because you are not only in search of him; he is also in search of you. The fire is on both the sides. It is not only that you are athirst; he is also athirst. It is not only that you are aflame with desire to know; he also wants... the same desire.

Existence is reciprocal; there is a synchronicity. Whatsoever is happening in us must be happening somewhere in existence also, otherwise it could not exist in us either. If we are thirsty, there must be some water. In fact before the thirst is created, water is created. Before the child is born, the mother’s breasts are getting ready: they are becoming bigger, the milk starts flowing.

This is synchronicity, this is the harmony of existence. If you are searching for something, then something is searching for you. What name you give that something does not matter: you call it god, you call it truth. God is a better word because to think that truth is searching for you looks a little illogical. Truth searching for you? It does not fit rightly. Truth has no personality in it, it is very impersonal. God is a person, truth is a person; then it becomes god.

I don’t see that there is any problem, mm? – you have just to avoid active methods. You have to avoid aggressive methods, you have to avoid aggressive religions; they are not for you. It is not that they are wrong. They are simply not for you; they are for somebody else.

You have to fall in tune with passive methods. Buddhist vipassana will help: just sitting silently, waiting. Mm? and the way you are sitting is just a zen posture.

[The visitor said she had done some TM and zen. At first she liked TM, but then it did not seem enough.]

Right, exactly right. It is a very shallow method: it works only so far. If somebody is really going to do it, within three months he will be finished with it. If you don’t really do it, then you can hang around it for years. If you are really doing it, within three months you will be finished because then it never leads you any further. It is a very very elementary method. It is good because many people need elementary methods; then they start searching for something deeper. In the beginning the deeper may not be of any use. It brings many people to the search, but it itself is not enough; that’s exactly how it is. But it scratches the ground, that’s good.

Do a few meditations here... and when I say ‘passive’, I don’t necessarily mean that if you are sitting then the method is passive. Sometimes while you are dancing the method can be passive and sometimes sitting you can be very aggressive. So when I say ‘passive’ I mean the attitude – not to hanker for it, allow it to happen. Don’t be greedy for it, don’t go to grab it. Open your heart and wait. Learn waiting.

So do a few methods here – dancing, singing, sufi dancing – and just float very easily. Don’t make a strain on yourself; that will not help. Just go very very lightly; don’t take it seriously. If you take it seriously it becomes active; if you take it as fun it remains non-active, it remains passive.

Take it as fun rather than thinking that you are doing something great – very religious or something. Drop all that nonsense! You are just enjoying this dance. It is beautiful to dance, it is beautiful to sing; it is beautiful to be with so many people and to just feel their vibe.

If you can allow it to happen, it will happen.

[The visitor said she had done some groups, and some sufi, but not the whirling.]

No, I don’t feel that it will suit you – it is very drastic; it won’t suit you. It will create nausea and dizziness in you... but you can try. It will create much nausea and dizziness if it doesn’t suit, and a very deep trembling and weakness. If it suits it is great but it very rarely suits. That’s why it never became a very very prevalent method; even in mohammedan countries it never became very prevalent. Only a few mad people have been doing it; it never suits the greater majority.

But try – if it suits, then there is nothing to compare with it. First, you are a low energy person so it won’t suit. You are a passive person, it is a very active method so it won’t suit.

But zen can suit you. And sooner or later the world is going to be divided between zen and sufi. These are the two competitors in the world; the coming future will be divided like that.

Do the camp and then we will see what can be done!

< Previous | Contents | Next >