OSHO,

WHAT IS MEDITATION?

 

IT is the most important question as far as my religion is concerned.

Meditation is the very center of my whole effort.

It is the very womb out of which the new religion is going to be born.

 

But it is very difficult to verbalize it. To say something about meditation is a contradiction in terms. It is something which you can have, which you can be, but by its very nature you cannot say what it is. Still, efforts have been made to convey it in some way. Even if only a fragmentary, partial understanding arises out of it, that is more than one can expect.

 

But even that partial understanding of meditation can become a seed. Much depends on how you listen. If you only hear, then even a fragment cannot be conveyed to you, but if you listen.... Try to understand the difference between the two.

Hearing is mechanical. You have ears, you can hear. If you are getting deaf then a mechanical aid can help you to hear. Your ears are nothing but a certain mechanism to receive sounds. Hearing is very simple animals hear, anybody who has ears is capable of hearing -- but listening is a far higher stage.

 

Listening means: when you are hearing you are only hearing and not doing anything else -- no other thoughts in your mind, no clouds passing in your inner sky -- so whatever is being said reaches as it is being said. It is not interfered with by your mind; not interpreted by you, by your prejudices; not clouded by anything that, right now, is passing within you -- because all these are distortions.

 

Ordinarily it is not difficult; you go on managing just by hearing, because the things that you are hearing are common objects. If I say something about the house, the door, the tree, the bird, there is no problem. These are common objects; there is no need of listening. But there is a need to listen when we are talking about something like meditation, which is not an object at all; it is a subjective state. We can only indicate it; you have to be very attentive and alert -- then there is a possibility that some meaning reaches you.

 

Even if a little understanding arises in you, it is more than enough, because understanding has its own way of growing. If just a little bit of understanding falls in the right place, in the heart, it starts growing of its own accord.

 

First try to understand the word "meditation." It is not the right word for the state about which any authentic seeker is bound to be concerned. So I would like to tell you something about a few words. In Sanskrit we have a special word for meditation, the word is dhyana. In no other language does a parallel word exist; that word is untranslatable. It has been recognized for two thousand years that this word is untranslatable, for the simple reason that in no other language people have tried it or experienced the state that it denotes; so those languages don't have that word.

 

A word is needed only when there is something to say, something to designate. In English there are three words: the first is concentration. I have seen many books written by very well-meaning people but not people who have experienced meditation. They go on using the word "concentration" for dhyana -- dhyana is not concentration. Concentration simply means your mind focused on one point; it is a state of mind. Ordinarily the mind is continuously moving, but if it continuously moves you cannot work with the mind on a certain subject.

 

For example, in science concentration is needed; without concentration there is no possibility of science. It is not strange that science has not evolved in the East -- I see these deep inner connections -- because concentration was never valued. For religion something else is needed, not concentration.

 

Concentration is mind focused on one point. It has its utility, because then you can go deeper and deeper into a certain object.

 

That's what science goes on doing: finding more and more about the objective world. A man with a mind which is continuously roaming around cannot be a scientist. The whole art of the scientist is that he is capable of forgetting the whole world and putting his whole consciousness on one thing. And when the whole consciousness is poured into one thing then it is almost like concentrating sun rays through a lens: then you can create fire.

 

Those rays themselves cannot create fire because they are diffused; they are going farther away from each other. Their movement is just the opposite of concentration. Concentration means rays coming together, meeting on one point; and when so many rays meet on one point they have enough energy to create fire. Consciousness has the same quality: concentrate it and you can penetrate deeper into the mysteries of objects.

 

…

 

So before I answer your question, What is meditation? you have to understand what it is not. First: it is not concentration. Second: it is not contemplation.

Concentration is one-pointed; contemplation has a wider field. You are contemplating about beauty.... There are thousands of things which are beautiful; you can go on moving from one beautiful thing to another. You have many experiences of beauty; you can go on from one experience to another. You remained confined to the subject matter. Contemplation is a wider concentration, not one-pointed, but confined to one subject. You will be moving, your mind will be moving, but it will remain within the subject matter.

 

…

 

Whenever you can find time for just being, drop all doing. Thinking is also doing, concentration is also doing, contemplation is also doing. Even if for a single moment you are not doing anything and you are just at your center, utterly relaxed -- that is meditation. And once you have got the knack of it, you can remain in that state as long as you want; finally you can remain in that state for twenty-four hours a day.

Once you have become aware of the way your being can remain undisturbed, then slowly you can start doing things, keeping alert that your being is not stirred. That is the second part of meditation. First, learning how just to be, and then learning little actions: cleaning the floor, taking a shower, but keeping yourself centered. Then you can do complicated things.

For example, I am speaking to you, but my meditation is not disturbed. I can go on speaking, but at my very center there is not even a ripple; it is just silent, utterly silent.

 

So meditation is not against action.

It is not that you have to escape from life.

It simply teaches you a new way of life:

You become the center of the cyclone.

 

Your life goes on, it goes on really more intensely -- with more joy, with more clarity, more vision, more creativity -- yet you are aloof, just a watcher on the hills, simply seeing all that is happening around you.

You are not the doer, you are the watcher.

That's the whole secret of meditation, that you become the watcher. Doing continues on its own level, there is no problem: chopping wood, drawing water from the well. You can do all small and big things; only one thing is not allowed and that is, your centering should not be lost.

 

Osho in the talk on ´What is meditation`on DVD included in the new Book of Secrets

Tantric meditations by Veet Marco from ´The Book of Secrets´
Absorb the Senses in Your Heart, Be aware who is sensing, Expand in All Directions, Focus on Fire, Intone a Sound, Wave-Ing, Remember Yourself as Light, Stop-Dance, Chakra-Dance

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