The Non-Doing of Meditation – Osho

A few things before we enter this sutra of Sosan. In the West, just a few years back, there was a French hypnotist, Emile Coué – he happened to rediscover one of the basic laws of the human mind. He called it “the law of reverse effect” – that is one of the oldest sutras in Taoist and Zen thinking. Sosan is talking about this law. Try to understand this law, then his sayings will be simple to understand.

For example, if you don’t feel sleepy what will you do? You will try to get into sleep – you will make efforts, you will do this and that, but whatsoever you do will bring just the reverse; just that which you need will not come. Just the opposite will happen, because any activity, any effort, is against sleep.

Sleep is a relaxation. You cannot bring it; you cannot do anything for it to happen. You cannot force it; you cannot will it. […]

So when you make efforts to go into sleep, it is a self-destructive thing. You are doing something which will become just the opposite – you will become more awake. The only way to enter into sleep is: not to do anything.

If it is not coming, it is not coming. Wait . . . don’t do anything! Otherwise, you will push it further away and a distance will be created. Just wait on the pillow, put off the light, close your eyes, relax and wait. Whenever it comes, it comes. You cannot bring it by any act of your will. […]

And this happens in many things in life: just the opposite comes out of it. If you want to be silent, what will you do? – because silence is just like sleep. You cannot force it. You can allow it to happen, it is a let-go, but there is no way to work it out. What will you do if you want to be silent? If you do anything you will be less silent than ever.

If you want to be quiet, what will you do? – because quietness means non-doing. You simply float, you simply relax! And when I say simply relax, I mean simply. No method is to be used for relaxation, because method means again you are doing something. […]

If something is to be done, howsoever difficult, you can find the know-how, how to do it. You can learn the technique; there are experts, you can be trained. But in Zen nobody can be trained. In God there are no experts and no authorities – cannot be, because it is not a question of know-how, it is a question of relaxing into your being, not doing. The greatest thing will happen to you only when you are not there. And if you are doing something you are bound to be there.

Sleep comes when you are not there. Enlightenment also follows the same rule – it comes when you are not there. But when you are doing, how will you be absent at the same time? If you are doing something you will be there. Action feeds the ego. When you are not doing anything, the ego cannot be fed. It simply disappears, it dies, it is not there. And when the ego is not there, the light descends.

So whatsoever you are doing willfully will be the barrier. In my meditations here, do them, but not willfully. Don’t force them; rather, let them happen. Float in them, abandon yourself in them. Be absorbed, but not willfully. Don’t manipulate, because when you manipulate you are divided, you become two: the manipulator and the manipulated. Once you are two, heaven and hell are created immediately; then there is vast distance between you and the truth. Don’t manipulate, allow things to happen.

If you are doing the kundalini meditation, allow the shaking – don’t do it! Stand silently, feel it coming, and when your body starts a little trembling, help it, but don’t do it! Enjoy it, feel blissful about it, allow it, receive it, welcome it, but don’t will it.

If you force, it will become an exercise, a bodily physical exercise. Then the shaking will be there, but just on the surface. It will not penetrate you. You will remain solid, stonelike, rocklike within. You will remain the manipulator, the door, and the body will only be following. The body is not the question, you are the question.

When I say shake, I mean your solidity, your rocklike being should shake to the very foundations, so it becomes liquid, fluid, melts, flows. And when the rocklike being becomes liquid your body will follow. Then there is no shaker, only shaking; then nobody is doing it, it is simply happening. Then the doer is not.

Enjoy it, but don’t will it. And remember, whenever you will a thing you cannot enjoy it. They are reverse, opposites; they never meet. If you will a thing you cannot enjoy it, if you enjoy it, you cannot will it.

For example, you can will your love. You can do it according to the manuals, but then you will not enjoy it. If you enjoy it you will have to throw all manuals, all Kinseys and Masters and Johnsons – you have to throw them all. You have to forget completely about all that you have learned about love. In the beginning you will be at a loss, because there are no guidelines, no maps. How to start?

Just wait . . . and let your inner energy move and follow that energy wherever it leads. It may take a little time, but when love comes it overtakes you. You are no more there. Love is there but there is no lover. Love happens as an energy, but it has no ego within it. Then it is tremendous, then it is a great release. And then love becomes an ecstasy, and you know something that has been known to those who have come to the divine. You know a fragment of it, a drop of the ocean. You know a ray – and then the taste comes to you.

Meditation, God, enlightenment, nirvana, they all came into being through love, because through love a glimpse was achieved. And when the glimpse was there, daring souls went on an adventure to find the source from where this glimpse comes. Through love, God has been discovered. That’s why Jesus goes on saying . . . whenever somebody asks, “What is God?” he says, “God is love,” because through love the first glimpse comes.

But the process is the same: you cannot will love. If you will, the whole beauty is lost, the whole thing becomes mechanical. You go through the whole ritual, but nothing happens. There is no ecstasy – it is something to be done and be finished. It never reaches to your center, it never shakes your foundations, it never becomes an inner dance. It is not a throbbing of your being; it is just an act on the periphery.

Remember, love cannot be willed, and neither can meditation.

-Osho

From Hsin Hsin Ming: The Book of Nothing, Discourse #2

Copyright © OSHO International Foundation

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