Meditation Is Relaxation

Meditation is rest, absolute rest, a full stop to all activity - physical, mental, emotional. When you are in such a deep rest that nothing stirs in you, when all action as such ceases, as if you are fast asleep yet awake, you come to know who you are. Suddenly the window opens. It cannot be opened by effort, because effort creates tension, and tension is the cause of our whole misery. Hence this is something very fundamental to be understood that meditation is not effort.

One has to be very playful about meditation, one has to learn to enjoy it as fun. One has not to be serious about it - be serious and you miss. One has to go into it very joyously. And one has to keep aware that it is falling into deeper and deeper rest. It is not concentration, just the contrary, it is relaxation. When you are utterly relaxed, for the first time you start feeling your reality; you come face to face with your being. When you are engaged in activity you are so occupied that you cannot see yourself. Activity creates much smoke around you, it raises much dust around you; hence all activity has to be dropped, at least for a few hours per day.

That is only so in the beginning. When you have learnt the art of being at rest you can be both active and restful together, because then you know that rest is something so inner that it cannot be disturbed by anything outer. The activity goes on at the circumference and at the center you remain restful. So it is only for beginning that activity has to be dropped for a few hours. When one has learned the art then there is no question : for twenty-four hours a day one can be meditative and one can continue all the activities of ordinary life.

But remember, the key word is rest, relaxation. Never go against rest and relaxation. Arrange your life in such a way, drop all futile activity, because ninety per cent is futile; it is just for killing time and remaining occupied. Do only the essential and devote your energies more and more to the inner journey. Then that miracle happens when you can remain at rest and in action together, simultaneously. That is the meeting of the sacred and the mundane, the meeting of this world and that, the meeting of materialism and spiritualism.

Concentration is human, meditation is divine

"Meditation is a single lesson of awareness, of no-thought, of spontaneity, of being total in your action, alert, aware. It is not a technique, it is a knack. Either you get it or you don't." - Osho

One thing has to be remembered about meditation; it is a long journey and there is no shortcut. Anyone who says there is a shortcut is befooling you. It is a long journey because the change is very deep and is achieved after many lives - many lives of routine habits, thinking, desiring. And the mind structure; that you have to drop through meditation. In fact it is almost impossible - but it happens.A man becoming a meditator is the greatest responsibility in the world. It is not easy. It cannot be instant. So from the beginning never start expecting too much and then you will never be frustrated. You will always be happy because things will grow very slowly.Meditation is not a seasonal flower which within six weeks is there. It is a very very big tree. It needs time to spread its roots.-OSHO

Meditation is not concentration

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 no-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 exahaust 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 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 pure of all future, It what Lao Tzu has called wei-wu-wei, action through inaction. It 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 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, you can be in meditation. You cannot be in concentration, but you can concentrate. Concentration is human, meditation is divine.

How Meditation Flowers

Meditation is not something that you do. It is, only when your doer has gone and you are totally relaxed and not doing anything, in a deep state of let-go, rest - there is meditation. Then meditation flowers. It is the flowering of your being. It has nothing to do with becoming. It is not an achievement, it is not an improvement; it is just being that which you already are.

Inner Power

INTOXICATION WITH POWER
Power is dangerous without meditation. Any kind of power is bound to become destructive if there is no meditation involved in it. Lord Acton’s famous statement is basically true, that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, because power means energy. What is one going to do with energy if one has not the understanding to use it rightly, if one has not the perspective to see clearly where to go, what to do, what not to do? Then power gives a certain intoxication. The unconscious person becomes even more unconscious, the mad person becomes even more mad.
Latest researchers into psychiatry have come to a very significant conclusion: that many people who are insane are really insane because they have so much power that it is beyond their control. They cannot cope with it. Basically they are not bad people, not evil, but their power is like a sword, a naked sword in the hands of a child. What is the child going to do with a sword? Either he will harm somebody or he will harm himself; hence power either becomes murderous or it becomes suicidal. These are the only two possibilities without meditation.
But once meditation becomes the foundation, then power is creative, then it brings great poetry and great music and great dance in your life. And not only in just your life; it starts overflowing you, it starts reaching others.
Osho in: The Old Pond - Plop!

BLESSED ARE THE MEEK
When power is gentle, it has a beauty; then it is nothing but the power of love. In other words it is no more power, it is simply gentleness. It is in this context that Jesus’ statement can be rightly understood: Blessed are the meek for theirs is the kingdom of God.
Osho in: Going All the Way

A RESERVOIR OF POWER
When you try to possess, your power becomes invested in meaningless things. When you desire, your power becomes desire and desires are infinite. Each desire becomes a leakage of your power.
When all possessiveness and all desires have been understood as futile, and dropped, you become a reservoir of power. And to be a reservoir of power is the only experience that gives you the feeling that God is - because God is power. When you also experience power within yourself, overflowing, abundant power, you know God is.
If you are empty, with no power, tired, wasted in your desires, no proof that God exists can help you. All these proofs are for impotent people.
The real person needs no proof for God. He comes to know God from the experience of inner power, from his inner glow.
Osho in: The Book of the Books, Vol. XII