That Area is Meditation – Osho

Maneesha, Ryusui is pointing to a very fundamental question which Gautam Buddha raised for the first time in human history.

The question is, is enlightenment something to be achieved, desired, longed for? If so, then there must be practices, disciplines, rituals, and the whole paraphernalia. And millions of people have gone astray in search of enlightenment. Buddha is the first human being who has said that everything is absolutely arbitrary because you need not go anywhere. Enlightenment is your very nature.

It is consciousness that you are built with; this house, this body is not you. And this mind also is not you. And there is not much problem to stand aside and watch the mind and its functioning, to stand aside and watch the gestures of the body. This watcher is your reality, your truth. It is already here, so don’t go in search somewhere else. Whenever, wherever you find it, you will always find it here and now. Now is the time and here is the space. If you can be now here, you are a Gautam Buddha.

I have heard a small story about a man who was a great atheist. The whole day he was arguing against religion, against all kinds of superstitions. He had written in his sitting room in big letters: God is nowhere.

Then a small child was born to him.

One day the small child was looking at the writing. He was just learning to write, learning the alphabet, so he could not manage to read God is nowhere; on the contrary, he read: God is nowhere – nowhere can be divided into two.

The father heard it and was amazed. He had never thought about it, that ‘nowhere’ consists of ‘now’ and ‘here’.

The small child changed the man’s whole approach; he started thinking about now and here. And he was puzzled . . . because he has never been now; his mind has been wandering in the past or in the future, but never now, never in the present.

Meditation means no mind – no past, no future, no present . . . just eternity, a pure mirror which reflects the whole and is not scratched by anything. Just as the sky is not scratched by the clouds moving, or the sun rising, or the full-moon night, the sky remains unscratched.

The father had defeated many philosophers, but this small child changed his whole life because he started to be here, and to be now, and he found a new area opening within himself.

That area is meditation.

Meditation means no mind – no past, no future, no present . . . just eternity, a pure mirror which reflects the whole and is not scratched by anything. Just as the sky is not scratched by the clouds moving, or the sun rising, or the full-moon night, the sky remains unscratched.

You have heard the Zen haiku about the shadows of the bamboos . . . sweeping the temple steps, but they don’t make any noise.

The moon in the sky is reflected in the smallest pond but it does not disturb the pond. It does not create even a single ripple. And the miracle is, neither does the pond want the moon to reflect nor does the moon want to be reflected. But existence manages spontaneously a beautiful phenomenon – a single moon being reflected all over the earth.

In rivers, in oceans, in ponds, in lakes, in streams . . . even in a single dewdrop on a lotus leaf, the full moon is reflected as fully as in the biggest ocean.

But everything is happening so silently on its own accord.

In existence there is no effort, there is no intention. Everything is very relaxed and at ease.

Gautam Buddha was the first man to say that anybody who is searching for himself is a fool. The very search is preventing you from finding. Don’t search! Don’t go anywhere, just sit down and close your eyes and be within. Forget all about past and future, forget the body and the mind – you are the host. This is only a house, a temporary caravanserai; by the morning you will have to go on. The caravan continues from one serai to another serai, so don’t get attached to the caravanserai where you happen to be right now, in this moment.

Detached, aloof, just watching . . . and the mind disappears.

Mind is your attachment with the body and through the body with the world and all its greed, anger, love, hate, jealousy. The whole world is a projection of your mind, in which you live in suffering and misery – or once in a while a little joy, a little pleasure, but very superficial, not even skin deep. But behind all this scene is hiding your buddha, your awareness, your pure consciousness – unclouded, unscratched, from eternity to eternity.

To realize this is the greatest experience in the world.

But all the religions have been driving people astray, searching for gods which don’t exist, praying before gods they have never met. No prayer has been responded to, but all the religions are combined in a conspiracy to take you away from yourself. These are the ways . . . God is far away; self-realization is going to be through arduous practices, disciplines. Everybody cannot afford it. Nobody has that much time, nobody has that much capacity for self-torture. Nobody is so much a masochist that he can become a saint.

Naturally, the ultimate outcome is the present-day humanity: everybody has lost his way to himself. And it is a single step – just turning in. It is not a finding, it is not a discovery, it is not an invention. It is simply a remembrance.

You can forget it, you can remember it. These are the only two things you can do about your nature, about your intrinsic consciousness.

But between the two there is not much difference; the difference between sleep and waking is the only difference. And one who is awake today was asleep yesterday; one who is asleep today may become awake tomorrow, so it is only a question of timing. It is only a question of your decision, when to recognize. As far as buddhahood is concerned, it is waiting there since eternity to eternity. Whether you recognize it or not, it does not matter.

If you recognize it, all your actions will change. Your world view will change. Mind will not be any more a master to you but will be a very good and very efficient servant, a good bio-computer. But first the master has to be recognized, then the mind and the body function according to the wisdom of the master.

-Osho

From Turning In, Discourse #1

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