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Osho on Encouraging People
in Meditation
Question: Beloved Osho,
What is the Best way to Encourage People in Meditation?
Osho: The first thing: for
a patient to go to the doctor, you must make him realize
that he is sick; otherwise there is no need to go to the
doctor. So the people you want to encourage into
meditation: first you have to make them aware that they
are frustrated, perhaps for so long that they have
forgotten that they are sad. They cannot remember when
they laughed from their very hearts. They have become
robots -- they do things because they have to be done
but there is no joy in doing them.
They are living an accidental life. Their birth is
accidental, their marriage is accidental, their children
are accidental, their job is accidental. Their life has
no sense of intrinsic growth and direction. That's why
they cannot feel like rejoicing. So first you have to
make them aware where they are -- and almost everybody
is in the same situation. Death is coming close -- you
cannot even rely on your being here tomorrow.
And your life is an absolute desert -- it has not found
any oasis, it has not felt any meaning, any significance
-- and death may destroy all possibilities in the
future. So first you have to make them aware of their
meaningless, accidental, frustrated life. They know it,
but they try to suppress their knowing in many ways,
because to know it continuously is a torture. So they go
to the movies to forget it.
They go to parties, they go to picnics, they drink
alcoholic beverages; they do everything -- just to
somehow not remember the reality of their life, their
hollowness, futility. This is the most important part --
to remind them. And once a person remembers all this,
then to lead him towards meditation is a very simple
thing, because meditation is the only answer to all the
questions of man. It may be frustration, it may be
depression, it may be sadness, it may be
meaninglessness, it may be anguish: The problems may be
many but the answer is one.
Meditation is the answer. And the simplest method of
meditation is just a way of
witnessing. There are one
hundred and twelve methods of
meditation, but witnessing
is an essential part of all one hundred and twelve
methods. So as far as I am concerned, witnessing is the
only method. Those one hundred and twelve are different
applications of witnessing. The essential core, the
spirit of
meditation is to learn how to witness.
You are seeing a tree: You are there, the tree is there,
but can't you find one thing more? -- that you are
seeing the tree, that there is a witness in you which is
seeing you seeing the tree. The world is not divided
only into the object and the subject. There is also
something beyond both, and that beyond is meditation. So
in every act... and I don't want people to sit for one
hour or half an hour in the morning or in the evening.
That kind of meditation is not going to help, because if
you meditate for one hour, then for twenty-three hours
you will be doing just the opposite of it.
Meditation can be victorious: witnessing is such a
method that it can spread over twenty-four hours of your
day.
Eating, don't get identified with the eater. The food is
there, the eater is there, and you are here, watching.
Walking, let the body walk but you simply watch. Slowly,
the knack comes. It is a knack, and once you can watch
small things.... This crow, crowing... you are
listening. These are two -- object and subject. But
can't you see a witness who is seeing both? -- The crow,
the listener, and still there is someone who is watching
both.
It is such a simple phenomenon. Then you can move into
deeper layers: you can watch your thoughts; you can
watch your emotions, your moods. There is no need to
say, "I am sad." The fact is that you are a witness that
a cloud of sadness is passing over you. There is anger
-- you can simply be a witness. There is no need to say,
"I am angry." You are never angry -- there is no way for
you to be angry -- you are always a witness. The anger
comes and goes; you are just a mirror.
Things come, get reflected, move -- and the mirror
remains empty and clean, unscratched by the reflections.
Witnessing is finding your inside mirror. And once you
have found it, miracles start happening. When you are
simply witnessing the thoughts, thoughts disappear. Then
there is suddenly a tremendous silence you have never
known. When you are watching the moods -- anger,
sadness, happiness -- they suddenly disappear and an
even greater silence is experienced.
And when there is nothing to watch -- then the
revolution. Then the witnessing energy turns upon itself
because there is nothing to prevent it; there is no
object left. The word "object" is beautiful. It simply
means that which prevents you, objects you. When there
is no object to your witnessing, it simply comes around
back to yourself -- to the source. And this is the point
where one becomes enlightened. Meditation is only a
path: the end is always
buddhahood, enlightenment. And
to know this moment is to know all.
Then there is no misery, no frustration, no
meaninglessness; then life is no longer an accident. It
becomes part of this cosmic whole -- an essential part.
And a tremendous bliss arises that this whole existence
needs you. Man's greatest need is to be needed. If
somebody needs you, you feel gratified. But if the whole
existence needs you, then there is no limit to your
bliss. And this existence needs even a small blade of
grass as much as the biggest star.
There is no question of inequality. Nobody can
substitute for you. If you are not there, then existence
will be something less and will remain always something
less -- it will never be full. That feeling -- that this
whole immense existence is in need of you -- takes all
miseries away from you. For the first time, you have
come home.
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