Are analysis and synthesis both mind processes that ultimately do not help much?

Beloved master, is it true that analysis and synthesis are both mind processes, and in the end neither can help very much?

Yes, both are mind processes, analysis and synthesis both. What can help is witnessing -- witnessing the mind and its activities. And witnessing is the real miracle. The more you witness, the less thoughts are there in the mind -- in exact proportion. If your witnessing is only ten percent, then there are ninety percent thoughts. If your witnessing is ninety percent, there are only ten percent thoughts. If your witnessing is one hundred percent, then there is no mind, there are no thoughts at all. So Sigmund Freud, who talks about psychoanalysis, and Assagioli, who talks about psychosynthesis, are in the same boat. They are both talking about mind; neither of them is talking of going beyond mind. Witnessing simply takes you beyond mind. And to be beyond mind is the whole of religion, the true religion. I call it pure religiousness.

Osho, I practice self-analysis, “introspection,” to awaken the witnessing. Is this right as a first step? Kindly explain.

That is why you see: the wife is happily sitting, listening to the radio, knitting her sweater; the moment the horn honks downstairs—husband has arrived—she lies down: “I have a headache.” Don’t think she’s faking; it really happens. I’m not saying she is deceiving—this has become her habit. The husband’s horn is enough to trigger a headache. Association has formed. Don’t think I say she’s cheating. Perhaps in the beginning she faked it; now that is long past—now it’s a habit. As the husband comes, the headache rises—because only when she has a headache does the husband put his hand on her head. Otherwise, who puts his hand on his wife’s head! Someone might put a hand on another’s wife; who puts a hand on his own! Only when the wife is troubled does the husband show a little sympathy. Love is gone; now only sympathy keeps things moving. The…

Question: BELOVED OSHO, LAST NIGHT I READ THIS QUOTE FROM KRISHNAMURTI: "ANALYSIS CANNOT LEAD TO UNDERSTANDING OR INSIGHT -- OBSERVATION AND NOT ANALYSIS!" THE FIRST YEARS RUNNING GROUPS HERE IN POONA, IT WAS MAINLY PROBLEM-ORIENTED. IT FELT LIKE A BIG CLEANUP. IN RANCHO RAJNEESH SOMEHOW I KNEW THERAPY WAS REALLY FINISHED, YET I DID NOT KNOW HOW TO BRING MEDITATION INTO THE GROUP ROOM. I WAS STILL FOCUSING ON THE DARK SIDE AND TOO SCARED TO REALLY MOVE INTO THE UNKNOWN. BEING HERE NOW, FOR THE FIRST TIME I GET A GLIMPSE THAT THROUGH MEDITATION, OBSERVING, AND SIMPLIFYING, EVERYTHING THAT IS IN THE WAY SLOWLY DISSOLVES BY ALLOWING THE LIGHTNESS TO SHINE WITHIN. AND WITHOUT DOING ANYTHING, SUDDENLY THE CLICK HAPPENS. EVERYTHING IS LIGHT AND PLAYFUL, AND WITH IT COMES AN INCREDIBLE FEELING OF PRECIOUSNESS AND GRATITUDE THAT WE CAN ALL BE HERE WITH YOU AT THIS TIME.

[A sannyasin says: My mind is doing a beautiful job of driving me crazy! But I feel that mostly I'm witnessing, rather than doing anything about it.] Just be a witness. Don't do anything about it, because anything that you do can never be very deep. It can be at the most a temporary arrangement. All that man can do is going to be on the surface. So if a problem arises and you do something, temporarily it is solved, but the same problem will arise again in some other way. If there is an indecision, you can patch it up by doing something, but somewhere else the division will bubble up. And this goes on and on. Problems change but the problem goes on and on. The basic thing is that the problem should dissolve, and that only happens when you simply don't do anything.

Osho, last night you said that the mind cannot do two things together -- that is, thinking and witnessing. It seems then that witnessing is a mental faculty and an act of the mind. Is it so? Please explain. Is there anything like partial witnessing and total witnessing?

WITNESSING is not a mental activity; thinking is a mental activity. Rather, it would be better to say that thinking is mind. When the mind is not, when the mind is absent, when the mind has disappeared, only then do you have witnessing. It is something behind the mind. Zen Buddhism uses mind in two ways: the ordinary mind means thinking; then Mind with a capital "M" means the Mind behind thinking. Consciousness is behind the mind; consciousness comes through the mind. If mind is in a state of thinking, it becomes opaque, non-transparent, just like a clouded sky -- you cannot see the sky. When the clouds are not, you can see the sky. When thinking is not there, then you can feel the witnessing. It is the pure sky behind. So when I said that you cannot do two things, I meant either you can think or you…