Meditation is life

It is my understanding that man can live only in meditation – otherwise there is no life. Meditation is life. Not to be in meditation is not to live. Then you only pretend that you are living; then your life is just a mask. It has no authenticity in it, it has no depth; it is just the surface, the facade.

So first, I don’t believe that man should live more meditatively. Second, I have no ‘shoulds’ and ‘should nots’. Never bring those words in where I am concerned. I don’t give you any ‘should’, because all ‘shoulds’ bring guilt. If I say that you should do this, I am creating guilt in you. If you cannot do it, there will be guilt. You will feel that you have missed something; you will become more miserable. And the ‘should’ means future. I am not concerned with the future at all. Look at the lilies in the field. They think not of the morrow, hence they are beautiful. Listen to the birds in the trees. They don’t think of the morrow, hence they are fantastic, gorgeous. Each moment is so joyful.

I don’t give you any ‘should’. ‘Should’ means the future, ‘should’ means you have to do something tomorrow, or the next moment. ‘Should’ cannot be related to the present, ‘should’ brings the future in. My whole concern is with the present – this moment. I don’t give you any dreams. ‘Shoulds’ are all utopian. They say, ‘If you do this, then this will happen.’ They are conditions. And I say to you that God is unconditionally given to you. It is a gift. There is no way to earn God, there is no way to become worthy of having God – God is not a possession. God is a gift, and an unconditional gift. It is available to each and every one, there is no ‘should’ to be fulfilled.

So even meditation is not a ‘should’.

And thirdly, how can you do meditation? It is not a question of doing. You can be in meditation but you cannot do it. It is like love. You can be in love, but you cannot do it. Have you ever tried doing love? Then you go on doing something else, and there is no flow, there is no glow, there is no joy. It becomes a duty. You go into empty gestures, impotent movements, but there is no soul in it. You cannot do love. Love is a state, not an act. So is meditation.

Meditation is a state of silence; meditation is a state of no desire; meditation is a state of no past, no future; meditation is a state when you are not doing anything, just cherishing your being. You are just happy that you are, happy that you are breathing, simply happy for no reason at all. In those moments there is meditation.

I cannot say to you that meditation is a ‘should’, that you should do it. I can only explain to you what meditation is. If you understand me, you will be in meditation. There is no ‘should’ to it. If you don’t understand me, you will not be in meditation. But then too you need not feel guilty. Guilt comes when you do something and you fail. Now meditation can become the sure way to create guilt. If you DO it, you will fail! That’s how people are guilty.

They try to make love and it doesn’t happen – they feel guilty. They start thinking, ‘I am unloving, I’m trying my hardest and it is not happening.’ Naturally they think that something is wrong with them. Nothing is wrong. The only thing wrong is that you are trying to do something which cannot be tried. You are trying to do something which can only be spontaneous – it comes when it comes. At the most the only thing you can do is not resist it – when it comes, don’t resist it. When it comes, keep your doors open, that’s all. But that is not much of a doing, it is more of a non-doing. You can allow meditation to happen or you can resist meditation and not allow it to happen. ‘Should’ cannot be made out of it.

I don’t give you any commandment; I am not a commander. All commanders are dangerous people; they have destroyed humanity. All commandments have corrupted man because they have created guilt. A ‘should’ is a goal.

I am simply sharing my understanding with you. I am in no way concerned with improving upon you. I am not trying to fix you. If you want to be fixed you should go to a psychiatrist, a psychoanalyst, a therapist. They are the people who fix you.

But the very idea of fixing a person is insulting. It means you have been taken as a thing. Yes, a car can be fixed in the garage, and when your bathroom is leaking a plumber can fix it – but man is not a thing. You cannot fix man.

First the priest used to do it, now the psychotherapist is doing it. The priest has failed. The psychoanalyst is failing, not because something is wrong with the priest or something is wrong with the psychoanalyst, no. The whole effort is wrong. You cannot fix anybody. Man is freedom. The idea of fixing him reduces him to a thing, kills his spirit. I don’t give you any ‘should’ and I don’t want to fix you. In fact, I am not interested in your spiritual growth at all.

What I am interested in is sharing that which has happened to me. It is not that I have done it, it has happened to me. And because it has happened to me, how can I give a ‘should’ to you? It happens. I can only make you alert about how it happens. It has nothing to do with you or with your doing. You have to be receptive. Understanding makes you receptive, understanding makes you more relaxed, understanding brings you to a kind of let-go. And in that space, meditation simply is.

Meditation is a state when you are not trying for anything, not even for meditation. Meditation is a state of non-striving, utter relaxation. There is no goal, nowhere to go, nothing to be done. The sheer joy of being is what meditation is. How can you do it? By doing it you will destroy it.

So I cannot give you a ‘should’.

You ask: You believe that man should live more meditatively. No. All that I want to say to you is that meditation is your birthright. It is there waiting for you to relax a little bit – so that it can sing a song, so that it can become a dance. The flower is there but you are so worried about other things that you can’t see it. It has already happened. It happened the moment you were born, it happened the moment you became alive. The moment you entered into existence, meditation bloomed in you. […]

Deep in you, meditation is already the case. So whenever it happens that your day-to-day turmoil is a little bit less…. Maybe you are watching a sunset, and watching the sunset your constant chattering mind has become quiet, the beauty of the sunset has made it quiet. You are in a kind of awe – the wonder, the mystery, the beautiful sun setting, the night descending, the birds moving back to their nests, the whole earth getting ready to rest, the whole climate of rest. The day is gone, the turmoil of the day is gone, and your mind feels quiet. The bird on the lower branch sits for a moment unmoving. Suddenly there are not two birds any more, there is only one bird. And suddenly you feel great joy arising in you.

You think that the joy is because of the beautiful sunset. That’s where you are wrong. The beautiful sunset may have functioned as a situation but it is not because of that. The joy is coming from within. The sun may have helped, but it is not the source. It may have been helpful in creating the situation, but it is not the cause. The joy is coming from you. It is arising in you. It was there; the surface mind had only to settle in a quiet space. And the joy started arising.

Or looking at the moon; or sometimes listening to music – Beethoven or Mozart; or sometimes playing a flute; or sometimes doing nothing, just sitting on the grass, basking in the sun; or sometimes walking in the rain and the water goes on splashing on you and everything is cool and wet and the smell of the earth and the music of the falling rain – suddenly the joy is there, the benediction is there. It does not come from the outside, it comes from your innermost core. That’s what I call meditation.

Once you have started to understand this, you will be falling more and more into that meditative state. It is not something to do, it is something to understand.

Osho, Sufis: The People of the Path, Vol 2, Ch 12, Q 2 (excerpt)

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