Excerpt 4. Meditation Is a Knack

What Is Meditation?

Excerpt 4. Meditation Is a Knack

It is the simplest art in the world, to be silent. It is not a doing, it is a non-doing. How can it be difficult?

I am showing you the way of enlightenment through laziness! Nothing has to be done to attain it, because it is your nature. You have already got it. You are just so busy with outer business that you cannot see your own nature.

Deep within you is exactly the same as outside you: the beauty, the silence, the ecstasy, the blissfulness. But please, sometimes to be kind to yourself: just sit down and don't do anything, either physically or mentally.

Relax, not in an American way... because I have seen so many American books titled How to Relax. The very title says that the man knows nothing about relaxation. There is no "how".

Yes , it is okay – "How to repair a Car"; you will have to do something. But there is no doing as such, as far as relaxation is concerned. Just don't do anything. I know you will find it a little difficult in the beginning. That is not because relaxation is difficult, it is because you have become addicted to doing something. The addiction will take a little time to disappear.

Just be, and watch. Being is not doing, and watching is also not doing. You sit silently doing nothing, witnessing whatsoever is happening. Thoughts will be moving in your mind; your body may be feeling some tension somewhere, you may have a migraine. Just be a witness. Don't be identified with it. Watch, be a watcher on the hills, and everything else is happening in the valley. It is a knack, not an art.

Meditation is not a science, it is not an art, it is a knack - just that way. All that you need is a little patience.

The old habits will continue; the thoughts will go on rushing. And your mind is always in a rush hour, the traffic is always jammed. Your body is not accustomed to sitting silently – you will be tossing and turning. Nothing to be worried about. Just watch that the body is tossing and turning, and that the mind is whirling, is full of thoughts - consistent, inconsistent, useless - fantasies, dreams. You remain in the center, just watching.

All the religions of the world have taught people to do something; stop the process of thought, force the body into a still posture. That's what yoga is - a long practice of forcing the body to be still. But a forced body is not still. And all the prayers, concentrations, contemplations of all the religions do the same with the mind: they force it, they don't allow the thoughts to move. Yes, you have the capacity to do it. And if you persist you may be able to stop the thought process. But this is not the real thing, it is absolutely fake.

When stillness comes on its own, when silence descends without your effort, when you watch thoughts and a moment comes when thoughts start disappearing and silence starts happening that is beautiful. The thoughts stop of their own accord if you don't identify, if you remain a witness and you don't say, "This is my thought."

You don't say, 'This is bad, this is good.' 'This should be there...' and 'This should not be there...' Then you are not a watcher; you have prejudices, you have certain attitudes. A watcher has no prejudice, he has no judgment. He simply sees like a mirror.

When you bring something in front of a mirror it reflects, simply reflects. There is no judgment that the man is ugly, that the man is beautiful, that, "Aha! What a good nose you have got." The mirror has nothing to say. Its nature is to mirror; it mirrors. This is what I call meditation: you simply mirror everything within or without.

And I guarantee you... I can guarantee because it has happened to me and to many of my people; just watching patiently - maybe a few days will pass, maybe a few months, maybe a few years. There is no way of saying because each individual has a different collection.

You must have seen people collecting antiques, postal stamps. Everybody has a different collection: the quantity may be different, hence the time it takes will be different - but go on remaining witness as much as you can. And this meditation needs no special time. You can wash the floor and remain silently watching yourself washing the floor.

I can move my hand unconsciously, without watching, or I can move it with full awareness. And there is qualitative difference. When you move it unconsciously it is mechanical. When you move it with consciousness there is grace. Even in the hand, which is part of your body, you will feel silence, coolness – what to say about the mind?

With your watching and watching, slowly the rush of thoughts starts getting less and less. Moments of silence start appearing; a thought comes, and then there is silence before another appears. These gaps will give you the first glimpse of meditation and the first joy that you are arriving home.

Excerpted from 'From the False to the Truth' by Osho