Osho – When the inner sky becomes one with the outer sky, when the inner emptiness merges with the outer emptiness, everything becomes desireless and actionless. Desires cannot arise without a thought: thought is disturbance of mind. Remember, a thought arises only because one wants to do something.

People come to me and tell me they are unable to be free of thoughts. You will not be free of thought; you have a desire to do something. And when you want to do something, how can you be free of thought? That desire to do something, that very plan is thought. Even if you wish to be free of thoughts you won’t be, because there will be thoughts engaged in planning it.

People tell me that they sit and try hard to become thoughtless. But this planning to be thoughtless by itself is an opportunity for thinking. So the mind goes on thinking, “How to become thoughtless? Up to now you have not become thoughtless. Will it ever be possible for you to be thoughtless? When?”

Remember, as long as there is any desire — for heaven, for self-realization, for meeting God — thoughts will continue. Thoughts are not at fault. All that is meant by thought is that whatever you desire, your mind thinks about how to achieve it. As long as there is anything left to be achieved, thoughts will continue. The day you are willing to accept the fact that, “I don’t want to achieve anything, not even desirelessness,” suddenly you will find that the thoughts have started to disappear; they are not needed anymore.

When everything within becomes a void, when there are no plans, when nothing remains to be achieved and there remains nowhere to go, when all running about becomes meaningless and the consciousness settles down on the side of the road… dropping all concern for the goal, the goal has been attained.

Source – from Osho Book “Finger Pointing to the Moon”

Osho – In Zen, and only in Zen, something of great import has happened. That is, they don’t make any distinction between ordinary life and religious life; rather, they have bridged them both. And they have used very ordinary skills as UPAYA, as methods for meditation. That is something of tremendous import. Because if you don’t use ordinary life as a method to meditation, your meditation is bound to become something of an escape.

In India it has happened, and India has suffered badly. The misery that you see all around, the poverty, the horrible ugliness of it, is because India always thought religious life to be separate from ordinary life. So people who became interested in God, they renounced the world. People who became interested in God, they closed their eyes, sat in the caves in the Himalayas, and tried to forget that the world existed. They tried to create the idea that the world is simply an illusion, Allusory, a MAYA, a dream. Of course, life suffered much because of it. All the greatest minds of this country became escapists, and the country was left to the mediocres. No science could evolve; no technology could evolve.

But in Japan, Zen has done something very beautiful. That’s why Japan is the only country where East and West are meeting: Eastern meditation and Western reason are in a deep synthesis in Japan. Zen has created the whole situation there. In India you could not conceive that swordsmanship could become an UPAYA, a method for meditation, but in Japan they have done it. And I see that they have brought something very new to religious consciousness.

Anything can be converted into a meditation because the whole thing is awareness. And of course, in swordsmanship more awareness is needed than anywhere else because life will be at stake every moment. When fighting with a sword you have to be constantly alert — a single moment’s unconsciousness and you will be gone. In fact, a real swordsman does not function out of his mind, he cannot function out of his mind — because mind takes time. It thinks, calculates. And when you are fighting with a sword, where is time? There is no time. If you miss a single fragment of a second in thinking, the other will not miss the opportunity: the other’s sword will penetrate into your heart or cut off your head.

So thinking is not possible. One has to function out of no-mind, one has to simply function, because the danger is so much that you cannot afford the luxury of thinking. Thinking needs an easy chair. You just relax in the easy chair and you go off on mind trips.
But when you are fighting and life is at stake and the swords are shining in the sun and at any moment a slight unawareness and the other will not lose the opportunity, you will be gone forever, there is no space for thought to appear, one has to function out of no-thought. That’s what meditation is all about.

If you can function out of no-thought, if you can function out of no-mind, if you can function as a total organic unity, not out of the head, if you can function out of your guts…. It can happen to you. You are walking one night and suddenly a snake crosses the path. What do you do? Do you sit there and think about it? No, suddenly you jump out of the way.

In fact you don’t decide to jump, you don’t think in a logical syllogism that: here is a snake; and wherever there is a snake there is danger; therefore, ergo, I should jump. That is not the way! You simply jump! The action is total. The action is not corrupted by thinking, it comes out of your very core of being, not out of the head. Of course, when you have jumped out of the danger you can sit under a tree and think about the whole thing — that’s another matter! Then you can afford the luxury.

The house catches fire. What do you do? Do you think whether to go out or not to go out — to be or not to be? Do you consult a scripture about whether it is right to do it? Do you sit silently and meditate upon it? You simply get out of the house. And you will not be worried about manners and etiquette — you will jump out of the window.

Just two nights ago a girl entered here at three o’clock in the night and started screaming in the garden. Asheesh jumped out of his bed, ran — and only then he realized that he was naked. Then he came back. That was an act out of no-mind, without any thought. He simply jumped out of the bed. Thought came later on. Thought followed, lagged behind. He was ahead of thought. Of course, it caught hold of him so he missed an opportunity. It would have become a satori — but he came back and put on his gown. Missed!

Swordsmanship became one of the UPAYAS, one of the basic methodologies. Because the very thing is so dangerous that it doesn’t allow thinking. It can lead you towards a different type of functioning, a different type of reality, a separate reality. You know of only one way to function: to think first and then to function. In swordsmanship, a different-type of existence becomes open to you: you function first and then you think. Thinking is no longer primary, and this is the beauty.. when thinking is not primary, you cannot err.

You have heard the proverb: it is human to err. Yes, it is true. It is human to err because the human mind is prone to err. But when you function out of no-mind you are no longer human, you are Divine and then there is no possibility of erring. Because the total never errs, only the part; only the part goes astray.

God never errs, he cannot err. He is the Whole. When you start functioning out of nothingness, with no syllogism, with no thinking, with no conclusions — your conclusions are limited, they depend on your experience, and you can err — when you put aside all your conclusions, you are putting aside all limitations also. Then you function out of your unlimited being, and it never errs.

It is said that sometimes it has happened in Japan that two Zen people will fight who have both attained to satori through swordsmanship. They cannot be defeated. Nobody can be victorious because they both never err. Before the other attacks, the first has already made preparations to receive it. Before the other’s sword moves to cut off his head, he is already prepared to defend the attack. And the same happens with his attack. Two Zen people who have attained to satori can go on fighting for years, but it is impossible — they cannot err. Nobody can be defeated and nobody can be victorious.

Source – from Osho Book “Ancient Music in the Pines’

Question – ANYTHING I SEE HAPPENING IN MYSELF IS FALSE, ILLUSORY, AND A MIND TRIP, RIGHT? AND MY RECOGNITION OF THE MIND TRIP IS A MIND TRIP TOO?

Osho – RIGHT.
As far as thoughts go, everything is a mind trip. When thoughts cease and you see without any thoughts crowding in your mind, when you see clearly with no smoke of the thoughts surrounding you, when your look is simple, innocent, uncorrupted by thoughts, then it is not a mind trip.

Only meditation is not a mind trip; everything else is a mind trip. Or, love is not a mind trip; everything else is a mind trip. If love or meditation has happened to you, you will know what I am indicating towards. In a deep moment of love, thinking stops. The moment is so intriguing, the moment is so tremendously powerful, the moment is so intensely alive, that thinking stops. You are simply in awe, a great wonder surrounds you.

Or in deep meditation, when the moment of silence has come and you are absolutely silent, still — no flickering, no wavering, no trembling, the flame of your consciousness is straight — then thinking stops. Then you are outside the grip of the mind. Otherwise, everything is a mind trip.

Remember it: one has to go beyond the mind because the mind is SAMSAR, the mind is the world. It is because of your thinking that you are missing the truth. Once thinking is stopped you are face to face with the reality. It is the continuous screen of thinking that is distorting reality. It is as if you are looking in a lake full of ripples. It is a full moon night, and the lake is reflecting the beautiful moon — but it is full of ripples. You cannot gather it together; the moon goes on splitting into a thousand fragments. The whole lake seems to be spread over by the moon, silvery, many fragments of the moon all around. Then the wind stops, the ripples disappear: those fragments start falling into one moon. The silver that was spread all over the lake becomes more concentrated in one place. When the lake is completely without ripples, the moon is reflected perfectly.

When the mind is with thoughts, the lake is with ripples; when the mind is without thoughts, the lake is without ripples. God is reflected perfectly when there is no ripple in you. Forget all about God — the only thing to be done is how to become ripple-less, how to become thoughtless, how to drop this constant obsession with thinking.

It can be dropped — it is because of your cooperation that it continues. It is your energy that you go on giving to it that keeps it alive. It is just like a man on a bicycle: he goes on pedaling — it is his energy that keeps the cycle going on. Once he stops pedaling, the cycle may go a little further because of the past momentum, but then it has to stop.

Don’t give energy to your thoughts. Become a witness — indifferent, aloof, distant. Just see the thoughts, and don’t be in any way involved in them. Note the fact: the thoughts are there; but don’t choose this way or that, don’t be for or against, don’t be pro or con. Just be a watcher. Let the mind-traffic move, just stand by the side and look at it, unaffected by it, as if it has nothing to do with you.

Sometimes try it: go on the busiest street where the traffic rush is too much. Stand by the side of the road and see the traffic — so many people going hither and thither, and cars and bicycles and trucks and buses. You just stand by the side and look, and do the same inside: close your eyes and see — the mind is a traffic of thoughts, thoughts rushing here and there. You watch, you just be a watcher. By and by, you will see that the traffic is becoming less and less. By and by, you will see that the road is empty, nobody is passing. In those rare moments, first glimpses of SAMADHI will enter in you.

There are three stages of SAMADHI. First, when you achieve glimpses through gaps — one thought comes, then it has gone and another has not come for the time being. There may even be a gap for a few seconds; in that interval reality penetrates you — the moon becomes one. The reflection is there only for a single moment, but you will see the first glimpse.

This is what in Zen they call SATORI. By and by, the gaps will become bigger, and when the gaps become bigger and you can see reality more clearly, that vision of reality changes you. Then you cannot be the same because your vision becomes your reality also. Whatsoever you are seeing affects your being. Your vision, by and by, is absorbed, digested. That is the second stage of samadhi.

And then comes the last stage: when suddenly the whole traffic disappears, as if you were fast asleep and dreaming and somebody has shaken you and awakened you, and the whole traffic of dreaming has stopped. In that third stage you become one with reality, because there is nothing to divide. The fence that was dividing you has disappeared.

The wall is no more there. The wall is made of the bricks of thoughts, desires, feelings, emotions; once it disappears — it is a China wall, very ancient, and every strong — but once it disappears, there is no fence between you and God. When for the first time the third stage happens, that is where the Upanishads announced, “AHAM BRAHAMASMI” — I am God, I am the Brahma. It is where the Sufi mystic, Mansur, declares, “ANA’L HAQ” — I am the truth. It is there when Jesus declares, “I and my God are one, I and my Father are one.”

Source – from Osho Book “The Beloved, Vol 2″