Is Meditation for Serious People?


Meditation has to be a joyous activity, it has to be a song. One has not to do it as a duty, one has to enjoy it as fun, as play. If you do meditation as a duty you will miss the whole point. Then it cannot happen to you. It can happen only in a very light mood, in a very non-serious mood. Seriousness is heavy, and anything heavy drags you downwards. You have to be as light as a small child playing on the beach, collecting seashells, colored stones, running here and there, almost part of the wind and the sea and the sand and the sun. When that lightness is there you have wings, you can fly upwards. And meditation means an upward movement of your energies..
Osho: The Imprisoned Splendor, Chapter 14 (Diary)I don't want you to be serious. I am so against seriousness – it is a spiritual sickness. Laughter is spiritual health, and laughter is very unburdening. While you laugh, you can put your mind aside very easily. For a man who cannot laugh the doors of the buddha are closed. To me, laughter is one of the greatest values. No religion has ever thought about it. Religions have always been insisting on seriousness, and because of their insistence the whole world is psychologically sick.
Osho: The Language of Existence, Chapter 5


Is Meditation for Spiritual People?

What I am doing here is very simple, very ordinary, nothing spiritual in it, nothing sacred. I am not trying to make you holy persons, I am simply trying to make you sane, intelligent, ordinary people who can live their lives joyously, dancingly, celebratingly.
Osho: Zen: The Special Transmission, Chapter 1


Is meditation just for people who know a lot about "new age" philosophy?


The new age movement is just a fashion which will disappear very soon, as all your other movements have disappeared. Now you don't see hippies.... It is a very great phenomenon that so many hippies suddenly disappeared. What happened to their revolution? It was a revolutionary movement; it was dropping out of the society. Why have they dropped back into the society? All these movements are very short-lived. They have beautiful names ― that does not matter ― but they don't have a radical philosophy to change human beings. The new age movement has nothing unique which can transform individuals. It is a fashion; soon it will die ― just a passing phase. I am not part of any movement. What I am doing is something eternal. It has been going on since the first man appeared on the earth, and it will continue to the last man. It is not a movement, it is the very core of evolution. So you are right that you don't count me as part of the new age movement. I am not. I am part of the eternal evolution of man. The search for truth is neither new nor old. The search for your own being has nothing to do with time. It is non-temporal. I may be gone, but what I am doing is going to continue. Somebody else will be doing it. I was not here and somebody else was doing it. Nobody is a founder in it, nobody is a leader in it. It is such a vast phenomenon that many enlightened people have appeared, helped and disappeared. But their help has brought humanity a little higher, made humanity a little better, a little more human. They have left the world a little more beautiful than they had found it.
Osho: Socrates Poisoned Again After 25 Centuries, Chapter 11


Do you have to believe in some kind of religion or philosophy before you can meditate?

Belief is the enemy of trust. Trust life! Don't believe beliefs – avoid them! Avoid beliefs: Hindu, Christian.... Seek on your own. You may come to find the same truth. You will, because the truth is one. Once you have found it you can say yes, The Bible is true – but not before. Once you have found it you can say yes, the Vedas are true – but not before. Unless you have experienced it, unless you become a witness to it personally, all vedas and all bibles are useless. They will burden you, they will not make you more free....The search is difficult because the truth is unknown. The search is difficult because the truth is not only unknown, it is unknowable. The search is difficult because the seeker has to risk his whole life for it.If you are following scriptures you are following named rivers. If you are following a certain religion, a sect, a church, then you have a map – and there cannot be any map for the truth. There cannot be any map because truth is private and not public. Maps become public; they are needed so that others can also follow. On the map, superhighways are shown, not small footpaths; and religion is a footpath, not a superhighway. You cannot reach existence as a Christian or a Hindu. You reach as you, authentically you, and you cannot follow anybody's path.
Osho: The Search, Chapter 1


Can a skeptical person be a meditator?


The skeptical mind is one of the most beautiful things in the world. It has been condemned by the religions because they were not capable of answering skeptical questions; they wanted only believers. And the skeptical mind is just the opposite of the believer.I am all in favor of the skeptical mind. Do not believe anything unless you have experienced it. Do not believe anything -- go on questioning, however long it takes. Truth is not cheap. It is not available to the believer; it is available only to the skeptical. Just remember one thing: don't be skeptical halfheartedly. Be a total skeptic. When I say be a total skeptic, I mean that your skeptical ideas should also be put to the same test as anybody else's beliefs. Skepticism, when it is total, burns itself out because you have to question and doubt your skepticism too. You cannot leave your skepticism without doubt; otherwise that is the standpoint of the believer. If you can doubt the skeptic in you, then the mystic is not far away. What is a mystic? ― one who knows no answer, one who has asked every possible question and found that no question is answerable. Finding this, he has dropped questioning. Not that he has found the answer ― he has simply found one thing, that there is no answer anywhere. Life is a mystery, not a question. Not a puzzle to be solved, not a question to be answered but a mystery to be lived, a mystery to be loved, a mystery to be danced. A totally skeptical mind is bound to finally become a mystic; hence, my doors are open for all. I accept the skeptic because I know how to turn him into a mystic. I invite the theist because I know how to destroy his theism. I invite the atheist because I know how to take away his atheism. My doors prevent nobody, because I am not giving you any belief. I am giving you only a methodology, a meditation to discover for yourself what in reality is the case. I have found that there is no answer. All questions are futile, and all answers are more futile. Questions have been asked by foolish people, and great philosophies have arisen because of their questions. These philosophies are created by the cunning and the shrewd. But if you want to have a rapport with reality, you have to be neither a fool nor shrewd. You have to be innocent. So whatever you bring ― skepticism, atheism, theism, communism, fascism, any type of nonsense you can bring here ― my medicine is the same. It does not matter what kind of nonsense is filled in your head when you come here. I will chop your head without any distinction. Who is sitting on your head does not matter ― my concern is chopping! I am just a woodcutter.
Osho: Beyond Enlightenment, Chapter 17


Is meditation for people who know nothing?


The ignorant person can remember that he is ignorant – he has nothing to lose. But the learned, he cannot recognize that he is ignorant. He has much to lose. The knowledgeable person is the real fool. The ignorant person is innocent; he knows that he knows not, and because he knows that he knows not, because he is ignorant, he is just on the threshold of wisdom.Because he knows he knows not, he can inquire, and his inquiry will be pure, unprejudiced. He will inquire without any conclusions. He will inquire without being a Christian or a Hindu. He will simply inquire as an inquirer. His inquiry will not come out of ready-made answers, his inquiry will come out of his own heart. His inquiry will not be a by-product of knowledge, his inquiry will be existential. He inquires because it is a question of life and death to him. He inquires because he really wants to know. He knows that he knows not – that's why he inquires. His inquiry has a beauty of its own. He is not a fool, he is simply ignorant. The real fool is one who thinks he knows, without knowing at all.
Osho: The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 2, Chapter 7


Can a philosophical person be a meditator?


The old definition of a philosopher is that he is blind, in a dark night, in a dark house where there is no light, and he is searching for a black cat that is not there. But this is not all: he finds her and he writes great treatises, theses, creates systems and, proves logically the existence of the black cat.Beware of the mind: it is blind. It has never known anything but it is a great pretender. It pretends to know everything. Socrates has categorized humanity in two classes. One class he calls the knowledgeably ignorant: the people who think they know and who are basically ignorant. That is the work of the mind. And the second category he calls the ignorant knowers: the people who think, "We don't know." In their humbleness, in their innocence, descends knowing.So there are pretenders of knowledge – that is the function of the mind – and there are humble people who say, "We don't know." In their innocence there is knowledge. And that is the work of meditation and awareness....
Osho: From Medication to Meditation


Can a businessman be a meditator?


One has to do something in life. Somebody is a carpenter and somebody is a king, and somebody is a businessman and somebody is a warrior. These are ways of livelihood, these are ways of getting bread and butter, a shelter. They can't change your inner being. Whether you are a warrior or a businessman does not make any difference: one has chosen one way to earn his livelihood, the other has chosen something else. Meditation is life, not livelihood. It has nothing to do with what you do; it has everything to do with what you are. Yes, business should not enter into your being, that is true. If your being also has become businesslike, then it is difficult to meditate and impossible to be a sannyasin...because if your being has become businesslike, then you have become too calculative. And a calculative person is a cowardly person: he thinks too much, he cannot take any jumps. And meditation is a jump: from the head to the heart, and ultimately from the heart to the being. You will be going deeper and deeper, where calculations will have to be left behind, where all logic becomes irrelevant. You cannot carry your cleverness there.In fact, cleverness is not true intelligence either; cleverness is a poor substitute for intelligence. People who are not intelligent learn how to be clever. People who are intelligent need not be clever; they are innocent, they need not be cunning. They function out of a state of not-knowing. If you are a businessman, that's okay. If Jesus can become a meditator and a sannyasin, and ultimately a christ, a buddha... and he was the son of a carpenter, helping his father, bringing wood, cutting wood. If a carpenter's son can become a buddha, why not you?
Osho: The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 6, Chapter 4


Is meditation also useful for younger people?


Youth is the best time for inner transformation because youth is the most flexible time. Children are more flexible than young people, but they are not so understanding. They need a little experience. Youth is exactly the middle; you are no longer a child, no longer ignorant of life and its ways and not yet settled as an old man. You are in a state of transition, and the state of transition is the best time that you can jump out of the wheel of life and death. Youth is the most significant time to take any jump, because the jump needs courage, it needs energy, it needs risk, it needs daring.
Osho: The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol. 8, Chapter 5The real virtue arises out of meditation, the pseudo virtue is cultivated. The pseudo virtue is part of character, the real virtue is part of consciousness. All societies live on pseudo virtue because it is easier to impose on children; it is difficult to make them meditators. That's what people have thought up to now. It is not true: children can be taught to be meditative, and more easily than older people.But for centuries the idea has persisted that they are children -- how can they meditate? Of course they cannot sit still like an old man, but there is no need to sit like an old man. Meditations can be devised especially for them: they can dance and jump and jog and run, and yet meditation can happen. Their meditation has to be very active, it cannot be inactive. If children are introduced to meditation from the very beginning they will have a totally different kind of virtue. Then you need not tell them what is right and what is wrong; they will know it on their own. And that's my effort here: to help you to know on your own what is right and what is wrong, I never say what is right and what is wrong, I have no commandments, no shoulds, no should-nots. I simply want you to be able to see, to be clear like a mirror so that you can reflect reality. Any action out of that clarity is virtuous.
Osho: The Imprisoned Splendor, Chapter 5


Can older people also meditate?


... and in fact everybody is in need of meditation. Everybody is starved of it. Particularly as one grows older in life, more and more is the necessity felt. Of course people have completely forgotten the language of it. They cannot even form the right question about what is missing. They simply feel that something is missing; they don't know what. They are bewildered by it. They may have everything. One may have arrived in worldly ways, succeeded, but by the time that one reaches the age of forty-two, one starts feeling that something is missing. Forty-two is just like the age of fourteen. At the age of fourteen you start feeling that something is missing. The sexual partner is missing; the man or the woman is missing. Suddenly you feel that you are alone, incomplete. You need somebody to complement and complete you. A great desire arises to move into love. Exactly the same happens at the age of forty-two. Again one has matured ― deeper than the maturity that comes at fourteen. That was physical maturity; one was ready to make love physically. Forty-two is the age when one is psychologically mature, and is ready to make love psychologically. That's what meditation is all about. Because in the West people have completely forgotten ― and Christianity has never talked about meditation, but at the most about prayer, which is a very diluted form, which doesn't work much ― when people become older, when they come to the middle of their life, suddenly they feel a haunting, that something is missing; what is it? They cannot even pinpoint it. They cannot put their finger on it: 'This is what is missing.'People start drifting at the age of forty-two. They think this wife is not fulfilling because they know only one experience. At the age of fourteen there was a haunting of sexuality. Maybe again this wife is not satisfying, this man is not satisfying. So they swap wives, swap husbands, make group sex. There is only one language, and that is of sex. Or they start thinking that they need more money, a bigger house, bigger cars, because that is the whole logic they have been living by and they cannot find any satisfaction through it. They go on and on and on until they simply fall down dead and die. But meditation is as natural an urge as sex. It has its own time.
Osho: The Passion for the Impossible, Chapter 18As one becomes older the shadow of the death starts falling on you; that's what is creating the fear. But as far as a sannyasin is concerned, there is no death. If you are feeling afraid of death and the dangers ahead, that only means you are not going deeper into your meditation, that meditation has been to you just a fashion. Now it is time, that you should sincerely and authentically enter into meditation, because that is the only space which can free you from all fears of death, old age, sickness. It makes you aware that you are not the body and you are not the mind, and you are not only this life, you are eternal life. Death has happened many times and you are still alive, and death will happen many times and you will be still alive. Meditation's ultimate conclusion is, live the moment to its totality, intensively, joyously, because there is nothing to be feared ― because even death is a fiction. There is no need for any security, for any safety. Live moment to moment, trusting the whole existence as the birds are trusting it, as the trees are trusting it. Don't separate yourself from existence, become part of it and existence will take care of you. It is already taking care of you.
Osho: The New Dawn, Chapter 26Even at the time of death, sexual repression is such that people go on thinking about it. And that is the reason why they enter again into another womb ― that is, another sexual body. I am not teaching sex. I am teaching you not to repress it so that you can transform it, not to repress it so that you can get free of it. Anything repressed will remain with you in your unconscious as a bondage. Don't repress anything, and you will feel a tremendous freedom. Experience everything, and you will start becoming more and more mature, you will not have to wait until the age of ninety. My own experience with my sannyasins is that just as a man becomes sexually mature at the age of fourteen, if he lives his sexual life without any guilt, without any idea of sin but simply as a natural phenomenon, by the age of forty-two he will have gone beyond it. Every seven years there comes a change. Just as fourteen is the time when you become ripe for sexual experience, able to produce children, at the age of forty-two you start a new phase of your life. At fourteen you were entering into the world of living. At forty-two you are entering into the world of death. Just as at fourteen life needed reproduction, at forty-two life needs not sexuality but meditation. And if you have lived your sex, you have had enough time to see that it is a child's game. There is no question of repressing it, it simply drops of its own accord, the way it came on its own accord. You did not produce it; it was not your creation at the age of fourteen. In the same way as the breeze came at the age of fourteen, the breeze passes you by at the age of forty-two. That is the time when something more significant, something more valuable, has to be experienced. You have loved, you have seen the reality of the world, experienced all kinds of relationships ― now is the time to know yourself, to be yourself, because death will be coming soon. Before death you have to be ready to meet it. The last story.... A king dreamed in the night that a big, very ferocious shadow was standing in front of him. He asked, "Who are you and what is the purpose of your coming into my dream?" The shadow said, "I am your death, and I am coming tomorrow evening at sunset. Remember, at the time of sunset meet me at the right place." And before he could ask, "Where is the right place?" ― not that he was going to be at the right place, he wanted to know so that he could avoid the right place ― the shadow disappeared, and out of fear the dream was broken. It was the middle of the night. Immediately he asked all the wise men, astrologers, palmists, prophets, to gather because they had to decipher the meaning of the dream. They discussed, and as are the ways of the so-called knowledgeable, they couldn't agree. They were all talking, discussing, everybody had his own explanation ― and the king was more and more confused. The king's old servant was watching all this, and the sun was rising; half the night had passed. He whispered to the king, "Sir, these people are never going to come to any conclusion. All they know is fighting, quarreling, arguing. You don't have time for that, the sun has already risen, and how long will it take for it to set? There is not much time. My suggestion is, let them discuss. You take your fastest horse and escape far away from this capital and this palace." The advice appeared to be very relevant. The king picked the best horse he had, and by the evening he had moved hundreds of miles away from the palace. To rest for the night, he entered into a mango grove. He stroked the horse and said to the horse, "You really proved your mettle. I had no idea that you could run so fast. You risked everything, as if you understood my problem that death is close and you have to risk all your energy. I am thankful to you." At that very time the sun was setting, and suddenly he became aware of a hand on his shoulder. He looked back. The old shadow that he had seen in the dream was standing there and said, "I have also to thank your horse, because without him I was worried how you were going to manage to reach the right place at the right time. But you managed. The whole credit goes to your horse." Whether death is a few hours away, or a few days or few years, it makes no difference. Just as one prepares for life, one has to prepare for death too. And the preparation for death I call religiousness. The art of religiousness is the art of preparing for death and dying in such a way that nothing dies ― only the body is left behind and you move into eternity.
Osho: The Sword and the Lotus, Chapter 4


Is meditation for people who have a sense of humor?


My whole effort here is to keep you as non-serious as possible, for the simple reason that meditation, all kinds of meditation, can make you too serious and that seriousness will create a spiritual disease and nothing else. Unless a meditation brings you more laughter, more joy, more playfulness, avoid it. It is not for you.
Osho: The Great Pilgrimage: From Here to Here, Chapter 7Meditate playfully, don't meditate seriously. When you go into the meditation hall, leave your serious faces where you leave your shoes. Let meditation be fun. 'Fun' is a very religious word; 'seriousness' is very irreligious. If you want to attain to the original mind, you will have to live a very non-serious, though sincere life; you will have to transform your work into play; you will have to transform all your duties into love. 'Duty' is a dirty word; of course, a four-letter word.
Osho: Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, Vol. 10, Chapter 3The secret of the joke is that it brings you to a point where you are expecting, expecting, expecting that this is going to happen; then it never happens. And what happens is so sudden... and because you were expecting something you were coming to a tension, and then suddenly something else happens, and the tension has come to such a climax that it explodes. You are all laughter. It is a tremendous release, it is great meditation. If you can laugh totally, it will give you a moment of no-time, no-mind. Mind lives logically with expectations, laughter is something that comes from the beyond. Mind is always guessing what is going to happen, groping. And something happens which is absolutely contrary to its expectations: it simply stops for a moment. And that is the moment when the mind stops, when laughter comes from your belly, a belly laugh. Your whole body goes into a spasm, it is orgasmic. A good laugh is tremendously meditative.
Osho:The Book of Wisdom, Chapter 28Even just sitting in your room, close the doors and have one hour of simple laughter. Laugh at yourself. But learn to laugh. Seriousness is a sin, and it is a disease. Laughter has tremendous beauty, a lightness. It will bring lightness to you, and it will give you wings to fly. And life is so full of opportunities. You just need the sensitivity. And create chances for other people to laugh. Laughter should be one of the most valued, cherished qualities of human beings ― because only man can laugh, no animals are capable of it. Because it is human, it must be of the highest order. To repress it is to destroy a human quality.
Osho:Beyond Enlightenment, Chapter 27Try to understand: only man, ONLY man, can laugh ― no other animal. It is possible only at the stage of man that laughter happens. If you come across a donkey laughing, you will go mad. Or a horse laughing ― then you will not be able to sleep again. Animals don't laugh. They don't have that much intelligence. For laughter, intelligence is needed ― the greater the intelligence, the deeper the laughter. The laughter is a symbol that you are really human. If you cannot laugh, then you are below human. If you can laugh, you have become human. Laughter is a sure indication of humanity. Aristotle says man is a rational animal. I don't believe it, because I have watched man and I don't see any rationality in him. My definition is: man is a laughing animal. Laughter means you can become aware of the ridiculousness of things.
Osho:The Discipline of Transcendence, Vol. 3, Chapter 10In fact, laughterIs one of the greatest spiritual qualities. In deep laughter the ego disappearsJust as in deep dance the ego disappears. When you really have a belly laughYou are no more there, only laughter is happeningYou are not there as an observerYou are totally immersed in it. And that gives you a taste of meditation.
Osho:Eighty Four Thousand Poems, Chapter 14


Is meditation for people who hope?

Hope is not the right thing. Live in the present so deeply, so completely, that nothing is left. Then there will be no projection. You will move very smoothly into the tomorrow without carrying any load from today. And when there is no yesterday haunting you, then there is no tomorrow. When the past is not hanging around you, there is no future. Hope is an illness, a disease of the mind. It is hope that is not allowing you to live. Hope is not the friend, remember; it is the foe. It is because of hope that you go on postponing. But you will remain the same tomorrow also, and tomorrow also you will hope for some future. And this way it can go on for eternity, and you can go on missing. Stop postponing. And who knows what the future is going to reveal to you? There is no way to know about it. It is an opening; all alternatives are open. What is really going to happen, nobody can predict. People have tried. That's why people go to astrologers, to I Ching , and to other sorts of things. I Ching goes on fascinating people, astrologers go on influencing people. Astrology still seems to be a great force. Why? ? because people are missing and they are hoping for the future. They want some clue to know what is going to happen so they can arrange it that way. These things will persist, even if scientifically it is proved that it is all nonsense. They will persist because it is not a question of science, it is a question of human hope. Unless hope is dropped, I Ching cannot be dropped. Unless hope is dropped, astrology cannot be dropped. It will have great power over man's mind because hope is gripping you. You would like to know little clues about the future so you can move more confidently, you can project more confidently, and you can postpone many more things. If you know something about tomorrow, I think you will not live today. You will say, "What is the need? Tomorrow we will live." Even without knowing anything about tomorrow you are doing that. And tomorrow never comes... and when it comes, it is always today. And you don't know how to live today. So you are in a great trap. Drop that whole structure. Hope is the bondage of man.
Osho: The Beloved , Vol. 2, Chapter 8