Watching is Not a Doing – Osho

I say to you that now is the time for the first religion to happen.

For three hundred years the pseudo-religions have been fighting against science. Now they are tired, fed up, and know perfectly well that science is going to win; it has already won.

So the old religions have lost their ground. You have to understand it. What you see in the churches and in the synagogues and in the mosques and in the temples, is the dead body of the religion that once was alive. It is only a corpse. But they are pretending that it is alive, hoping against hope that some miracle is going to happen. But no miracle ever happens. And no miracle is going to happen. Science has taken firm roots.

Now, if you want anything in the world to be called religion, then you have to start from ABC, from the very scratch: a religion which is a science, and not a fiction.

Just as science discovers in the objective world, outside, religion discovers in the inner world. What science is to the objective existence, religion is to the subjectivity.

Their methods are exactly the same. Science calls it observation; religion calls it awareness. Science calls it experiment; religion calls it experience. Science wants you to go into the experiment without any prejudice in your mind, without any belief. You have to be open, available. You are not going to impose anything on reality. You are just going to be available to the reality whatsoever it is, even if it goes against all your ideas. You have to drop those ideas – but the reality cannot be denied.

The scientific endeavor is risking your mind for reality, putting your mind aside for reality. Reality counts, not what you think about it. Your thinking may be right or may be wrong, but the reality will decide it. Your mind is not going to decide what is right and what is wrong.

The same is the situation of an authentic religion, a scientific religion.

If I am allowed, I would like to describe science as two dimensions, the outer and the inner. The word religion can be dropped. You have two sciences: one, objective science; another, subjective science.

And that’s what is going to happen; whether you call it a religion or science does not matter – names don’t matter, but the methodology is exactly the same: you should not go in with a belief. No believer is ever going to know the truth. To believe is to miss.

You have to put aside your ideology. Howsoever beautiful it looks, howsoever systematic it looks, howsoever philosophical you have made [it] and decorated it, you have to put it aside and see within. That’s the whole method of meditation, awareness, watchfulness. Meditation, in short, is putting your mind aside. […]

Remember, concentration is not meditation because concentration is a discipline of the mind and meditation is putting the mind aside.

In fact, the English word meditation is not the right word because in the West nothing like meditation has ever happened. The Sanskrit word is dhyana.  […]

“Meditation” gives again the wrong idea, as if you are meditating upon something – as if it is an activity – not much different from concentration. You are concentrating on something, you are contemplating on something, you are meditating on something, but you are always concerned with something. And what dhyana is, is dropping all objects, dropping anything on which you can concentrate, contemplate, meditate; dropping everything, nothing is left – only the one who was concentrating, only the one who was contemplating.

That pure awareness is dhyana.

In English there is no right word, so you have to understand that we are using “meditation” for dhyana.

Dhyana means a state of being where there is no thought, no object, no dream, no desire, nothing – just emptiness. In that emptiness you come to know your self. You discover the truth. You discover your subjectivity. It is perfect science. […]

The pseudo-religion depends on disciplining the mind. The real religion’s first work is to put the mind aside. And it is, in a way, very simple. Those disciplines are very difficult. To train the mind for concentration is very difficult because it goes on revolting; it goes on falling back into its old habits.

You pull it again, and it escapes. You bring it again to the subject you were concentrating on and suddenly you find you are thinking of something else, you have forgotten what you are concentrating upon. It is not an easy job.

But to put it aside is a very simple thing – not difficult at all. All that you have to do is to watch.

Whatsoever is going on in your mind, don’t interfere, don’t try to stop it. Do not do anything because whatsoever you do will become a discipline.

So do not do anything at all. Just watch.

Watching is not a doing. Just as you watch the sunset or the clouds in the sky or the people passing on the street, watch the traffic of thoughts and dreams, nightmares – relevant, irrelevant, consistent, inconsistent, anything that is going on. And it is always rush hour. You simply watch; you stand by the side unconcerned.

The pseudo-religions don’t allow you to remain unconcerned because, they say, greed is bad. So if a thought of greed comes, you jump to prevent it; otherwise, you will become greedy. Anger is bad; if an angry thought passes by, you immediately jump – you have to change it, you have to be kind and compassionate, and you have to love your enemy just like yourself. If something against your neighbor comes up . . . no, you have to love your neighbor just like yourself. So all the old religions have given you ideas of what is right and what is wrong – and if the wrong thing is passing by, you certainly have to stop it. You have to interfere; you have to jump in and pull that thing out. You miss the point.

That’s why I don’t say to you what is right and what is wrong. All that I say is: to watch is right; not to watch is wrong.

I make it absolutely simplified: Be watchful.

It is none of your business – if greed is passing by, let it pass; if anger is passing by, let it pass. Who are you to interfere? Why are you so much identified with your mind? Why do you start thinking, “I am greedy . . . I am angry”? There is only a thought of anger passing by. Let it pass; you just watch.

There is an ancient story . . . A man who has gone out of his town comes back and finds that his house is on fire. It was one of the most beautiful houses in the town, and the man loved the house. Many people were ready to give double the price for the house, but he had never agreed to any price, and now it is just burning before his eyes. And thousands of people have gathered, but nothing can be done.

The fire has spread so far that even if you try to put it out, nothing will be saved. So he becomes very sad. His son comes running and whispers something in his ear: “Don’t be worried. I sold it yesterday, and at a very good price – three times . . . The offer was so good I could not wait for you. Forgive me.”

But the father said, “Good, if you have sold it for three times more than the original price of the house.” Then the father is also a watcher, with other watchers. Just a moment before he was not a watcher, he was identified. It is the same house, the same fire, everything is the same – but now he is not concerned. He is enjoying it just as everybody else is enjoying.

Then the second son comes running, and he says to the father, “What are you doing? You are smiling – and the house is on fire?”

The father said, “Don’t you know, your brother has sold it.”

He said, “He had talked about selling it, but nothing has been settled yet, and the man is not going to purchase it now.” Again, everything changes. Tears which had disappeared have come back to the father’s eyes, his smile is no more there, his heart is beating fast. But the watcher is gone. He is again identified.

And then the third son comes, and he says, “That man is a man of his word. I have just come from him. He said, ‘It doesn’t matter whether the house is burned or not, it is mine. And I am going to pay the price that I have settled for. Neither you knew, nor I knew that the house would catch on fire.’” Again the father is a watcher. The identity is no more there. Actually, nothing is changing; just the idea that “I am the owner, I am identified somehow with the house,” makes the whole difference. The next moment he feels, “I am not identified. Somebody else has purchased it, I have nothing to do with it; let the house burn.”

This simple methodology of watching the mind, that you have nothing to do with it . . . Most of its thoughts are not yours but from your parents, your teachers, your friends, the books, the movies, the television, the newspapers. Just count how many thoughts are your own, and you will be surprised that not a single thought is your own. All are from other sources, all are borrowed – either dumped by others on you, or foolishly dumped by yourself upon yourself, but nothing is yours.

The mind is there, functioning like a computer; literally, it is a bio-computer. You will not get identified with a computer. If the computer gets hot, you won’t get hot. If the computer gets angry and starts giving signals in four letter words, you will not be worried. You will see what is wrong, where something is wrong. But you remain detached.

Just a small knack . . . I cannot even call it a method because that makes it heavy; I call it a knack. Just by doing it, one day suddenly you are able to do it. Many times, you will fail; it’s nothing to be worried about . . . no loss, it is natural. But just doing it, one day it happens.

Once it has happened, once you have even for a single moment become the watcher, you know now how to become the watcher – the watcher on the hills, far away. And the whole mind is there deep down in the dark valley, and you are not to do anything about it.

The most strange thing about the mind is, if you become a watcher, it starts disappearing. Just like the light disperses darkness, watchfulness disperses the mind, its thoughts, its whole paraphernalia. So meditation is simply watchfulness, awareness. And that reveals – it is nothing to do with inventing. It invents nothing; it simply discovers that which is there.

And what is there? You enter and you find infinite emptiness, so tremendously beautiful, so silent, so full of light, so fragrant, that you have entered into the kingdom of God.

In my words, you have entered into godliness. And once you have been in this space, you come out and you are a totally new person, a new man. Now you have your original face. All masks have disappeared. You will live in the same world but not in the same way. You will be among the same people but not with the same attitude and the same approach. You will live like a lotus in water: in the water, but absolutely untouched by water.

Religion is the discovery of this lotus flower within.

-Osho

From From Unconsciousness to Consciousness, Discourse #19

Copyright© OSHO International Foundation

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