Meditation is the Primary Preparation – Osho

You have said that inner revolution is a sudden explosion. And then suggest we practice meditation. Isn’t this contradictory?

No, there is no contradiction between these two statements. If I say that when water evaporates it is an explosion, and that it evaporates at one hundred degrees – and also I say to someone that he should heat up the water so that it can evaporate … He can say, “You were saying that water evaporates suddenly, so why do we need to warm it up slowly, slowly? Isn’t there a contradiction between these two?” And I will say to him that there is no contradiction.

When we heat water, water warmed to one degree or ninety-nine degrees does not become vapor. Water warmed to one degree is still water and water heated to ninety-nine degrees is still water. At one hundred degrees, the water suddenly turns into steam. But while heating it up to one hundred degrees, the temperature increases gradually. That level of heat does not happen suddenly.

So when I say that water turns into vapor suddenly, I am saying that it is not that water first turns a little into vapor, and then a little more, and then a little more. The water turns into steam at one hundred degrees with a sudden explosion. The vapor replaces the water. But when I say you should heat it up, it means that the hundred-degree temperature comes slowly, slowly. I say that inner revolution is an explosion, but before the revolution, the warming up of the consciousness takes place slowly, slowly. It does not happen suddenly. Otherwise there would be no need to practice meditation. Hence, I said that when the explosion happens it happens.

But your consciousness is not at that point where the explosion can take place; the explosion has a boiling point and after reaching that point, the explosion happens. But you are not there. If you are at that point, the explosion can happen this very moment. The explosion does not take time, but it takes time to reach the point of explosion.

We plant a seed; it suddenly bursts into a sprout. But before sprouting, it remains underground: it disintegrates, it breaks, it cracks – and then it sprouts. Sprouting happens like an eruption.

A baby is born out of the mother’s womb. The birth is an explosion. It is not that the child is born a little now and then he will be born a little more a while later. Birth is not a gradual happening. The birth takes place in a moment. But before the birth, the baby is gradually growing for nine months. He is getting ready to be born, he is preparing. Then the birth will happen instantaneously. But the preparation will take nine months continuously. When birth happens, there will have been a preparation of nine months behind it. If that preparation is not there, birth cannot happen instantly. There is a gradual growth to reach the point of birth, but birth is an explosion.

Revolution is an explosion and meditation is a gradual growth. And meditation is the primary preparation for that life revolution. I am talking about that preparation; the day the preparation is complete, that very day the explosion will take place. When it happens, you will not say, “I am a little enlightened, I will be more enlightened in a while.” It will not happen like that.

The day enlightenment happens, it happens as a sudden explosion and all the doors will be broken down. But until it happens, the primary preparation for it will continue step by step.

There is no contradiction between these two.

-Osho

From Falling in Love with Darkness, Chapter Nine

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