Why Meditate? – Osho

Why meditate? Why seek?

I don’t say that you should meditate, I don’t insist that you should meditate. It is you who are seeking it. And you have to seek it. It is just like a man who is ill and asks, “Why take medicine?” Because you are ill, that’s why. If you are not ill, then there is no need. Why seek health? There is no need if you are healthy. But if you are not healthy; then you have to seek health.

Meditation is not meaningful for a Buddha, for one who has attained the wholeness of his being. Meditation is a medicine; it has to be thrown. Unless you become capable of throwing your meditation, you are not healthy. So remember, meditation is not something to be carried forever and ever. The day will come when the meditation has worked and it is no longer needed. Then, you can forget it.

People come to me and they ask me, “When do you meditate?” Never, I don’t meditate at all; there is no need. Meditation is just medicinal. When you are ill, in conflict, in misery, it is needed.

And you go on asking, “Why meditate?” I’m not saying that you should meditate. If you think you are happy, happy with yourself, if you think you have no problems, if you think you have no worries, no anguish, no anxiety, there is no need.

But there is. Everyone has a deep anguish within him, a deep madness within him. And because of that, you ask: Why meditate? You ask because you are afraid. Through meditation you may lose your madness, your anxiety, your anguish, and you have become so accustomed to it, so habituated to it. The friendship has been going on so long that you will feel very lonely if you become healthy, very lonely. If a person has been living with a headache his whole life and suddenly the headache disappears, he will feel as if he has become headless. Now, he cannot feel his head!

You have become accustomed to your miseries. They give you a sense of being. If you have nothing to complain about, you feel that you are no more. That’s why people go on complaining every day with everyone. They talk about their miseries and they are very happy when they talk about them. Look at a person when he talks about his miseries. He feels that he is something. The more he talks, the more he exaggerates his miseries, the greater he becomes. Look at his face when a man is talking about his miseries. He looks ecstatic!

If you go to a doctor and you think that you have cancer or you have TB or something big and the doctor says, “It’s nothing. This ordinary medicine will do,” you feel very disheartened. Such a deep misery and he is saying that it is nothing, just an ordinary illness, and it will disappear by using an ordinary medicine. You feel as if you have been dethroned. You were sitting on the throne of cancer and this is just an ordinary disease; an ordinary medicine will cure it.

You talk about your miseries, your diseases, illnesses; you magnify them. When they are magnified, you feel that you yourself are magnified.

That’s why the mind, the ill mind, asks: Why meditate? The very question means that you need meditation. The ‘why’, the very ‘why’. A person who is not in need of meditation never asks why. He stops asking, because all asking is part of anxiety. If you are silent within, peaceful, blissful, you don’t ask.

Philosophers are the most miserable men. They go on asking, “Why this? Why that?” Their constant ‘why’ is an inner disease. Look at it in this way: only when something goes wrong do you ask why. When everything is okay, you never ask why. You ask why there is misery; you never ask why there is bliss. You ask why there is death; you never ask why there is life. You ask why there is hate; you never ask why there is love. When there is love, there is no question about it. You accept it totally. When there is hate, the question arises. When you are in bliss, no questioning, no inquiry, no philosophy arises out of it. When you are in anguish, suffering, you ask, “Why this suffering? Why am I suffering? Why is the whole world suffering?” Only when something goes wrong does the question arise. When everything is okay, there is no questioning. You accept existence in its totality.

So remember this: if you have a ‘why’ you need meditation, because without meditation the ‘why’ will not disappear.

And the answer comes only to those who have stopped questioning. The answer can only be understood by those who are not in the mood to question. A questioning mind is not in the mood to hear. It goes on questioning. Questions are created in the mind just like leaves grow on a tree. If your mind is ill, questions will come out of it. Only if your mind has disappeared, and inner wholeness and health has been gained, will questions stop.

And when there is no question, you have got the ultimate answer. That ultimate answer is not in words. It is existential. You live it; you become it.

–Osho

From The New Alchemy: To Turn You On

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