Introduction to Meditation
Question:
For me the most beautiful meditation is to sit in a corner and watch the children playing around the Ashram. But I'm in trouble: is this a meditation at all?Osho:
Watching is meditation. What you
watch is irrelevant. You can watch the trees, you can watch the river, you can
watch the clouds, you can watch children playing around. Watching is meditation.
What you watch is not the point; the object is not the point. The quality of
observation, the quality of being aware and alert - that's what meditation is.
So perfectly good! Children are beautiful - pure energy dancing around, pure
energy running around. Delight in it and watch it. I don't see why you are
feeling yourself in trouble. The mind goes on creating trouble. Whatsoever you
do, the mind goes on creating trouble.
Now the mind says: Is this meditation at all?
Remember one thing: meditation means awareness. Whatsoever you do with awareness
is meditation. Action is not the question, but the quality that you bring to
your action. Walking can be a meditation if you walk alertly. Sitting can be a
meditation if you sit alertly. Listening to the birds can be a meditation if you
listen with awareness. Just listening to the inner noise of your mind can be a
meditation if you remain alert and watchful. The whole point is: one should not
move in sleep. Then whatsoever you do is meditation - and don't be worried about
it!
The mind constantly creates some anxiety. Many times people come to me. They say
they are feeling very good, very high - but is this real? Now the mind is
creating a new trouble: Is this real? The mind has never asked this before. When
you have a headache, do you ask: Is this real? You trust in misery too much. A
headache is necessarily real, but if you go high and you feel a peak of bliss,
the mind starts creating a subtle anxiety: Is this real? You may be in a
delusion, hallucination, imagination. You may be seeing a dream. Or if you
cannot find anything else, then: Osho must have hypnotized you. You must be in
hypnosis.
You cannot believe that you can be blissful, that you can be happy. Because of
this tendency of the mind, the mind clings to the miserable. Mind is always
seeking and searching for hell, because it can exist only in misery; in bliss it
disappears. Only in misery does it have throbbing life; only in misery does its
business go well. Whenever you are happy it is not needed; when you are
blissful, who needs mind? - you have already gone beyond it. The mind feels left
behind, neglected, it starts nagging you. It says: Where are you going? Are you
hypnotized? What illusions are you seeing? These are all dreams!
Because of this tendency, millions of people have come to a meditative point
some time or other in their life but they miss the door. The door comes but they
cannot believe in it. Meditation is as natural a phenomenon as love. It happens
to everybody! It is part of your being, but you cannot believe in it. Even if it
happens, you somehow overlook it. Or even if you feel that something is
happening, you cannot say to others that something is happening because you are
afraid others will think that you have gone mad. Your own mind goes on saying
that this is not possible; this is too good to be true. So you forget about it.
Remember again: in your childhood, or later on when you were young, there must
have been a few moments. It is impossible that those moments were not there;
they have been there in everybody's life. Just try to recollect again and you
will remember there have been moments when something was opening, but you closed
it, afraid.
Sometimes, sitting on a silent night, looking at the stars - and something was
going to happen and you shrank; apprehensive, frightened, you started doing
something else. It was too good to be true. You missed an opportunity.
Sometimes, in deep love, just sitting by the side of your beloved, something
started happening; you were moving in some unknown direction. You became scared,
you pulled yourself back to earth.
Sometimes, for no reason at all, just swimming in the river, or running around
in the hot sun, or just relaxing on the beach and listening to the wild roar of
the ocean, something started happening inside you, some inner alchemical change,
as if your body was creating LSD. Something inside... and you were moving in a
totally unknown dimension - as if you had wings and you could fly. You became
afraid, you started clinging to the earth.
It has happened many times when people come to be initiated into sannyas.
Sometimes, if I see very perceptive people, very receptive, and I touch their
head, immediately they become scared. Just a few days ago the daughter of Ashok
Kumar, one of the very famous film actors, took sannyas. The moment I touched
her head she started crying, "Stop, Osho! Stop! Stop!" And her whole body was
shaking. She started clinging to the earth. A door was very, very close.
Something tremendously valuable could have happened, but she became afraid.
Many times in each person's life, such moments come; but those moments are not
aggressive, they cannot force anything against you. If you are ready you can
move, drift into them, slip into them, float with them, to the farthest end of
existence. If you are afraid you cling to your shore, and you miss the boat. The
boat cannot wait for you.
So don't be disturbed by the mind. Watching children playing around is a
beautiful meditation - because watching is meditation. But remember, don't think
about it. If children are dancing, running around, playing, shrieking, jumping,
jogging, don't start thinking - just watch. Watch without any thought. Be aware,
but don't think. Remain alert - just seeing, a pure seeing, a clarity, but don't
start thinking about it; otherwise you have already moved away. Watching
children, you can remember your own child back home. Then you have missed, then
you are not watching these children. Some memories are floating in your mind. A
film starts moving; then you are in a daydream. Simply watch!