Are the deaths of meditation and love different, and are their processes different as well?

Osho, are the deaths of meditation and of love different? Are their processes different as well?

Death is one and the same—whether through meditation or through love. But the processes, the paths, the methods that lead to that death are different. Through meditation, the same thing happens: you disappear. Through love, the same thing happens: you disappear. The dissolving happens in both cases, but the ways are very different. In the first stages of meditation, you do not vanish. At that stage, what is false in you is burned away and what is true is preserved. The inauspicious is removed; the auspicious is kept. Impurity is burned; purity is protected. Thus on the path of knowledge or meditation one begins to be purified. One does not disappear; one becomes refined, yet one remains. In the final leap, the refinement reaches a point where even purity appears impure. Where mere being appears impure, there, in the last jump, the meditator snuffs himself out. The devotee snuffs himself…

Osho, you have said there are two opposite paths: meditation and love—intelligence or feeling. So tell us, what is the difference between the practice of meditation and the practice of love? Is a meditator not loving before samadhi?

These paths are opposite; where they lead is one. You can arrive from either side. Erase one of the pair, and the other will vanish by itself. Which one you choose to erase depends on your personal inclination. It is the art of erasing one of a pair. The other will vanish because it was the inevitable counterpart. If from existence we remove light itself, darkness will also be gone. It sounds difficult only because in your house, if you blow out a lamp, darkness doesn’t disappear—it increases. But you haven’t removed light from existence. If light were eradicated from existence, darkness would vanish. If darkness were erased, light would vanish. If we remove death from the world, life will disappear that very day. We think the opposite: that death destroys life. You do not know; they are two parts of one thing. Without death there can be no life;…

Osho, please explain the interrelationship of meditation, samadhi, and love. When do the three become one?

I say to you as well: Life is a veena. But you must tune your own veena. Do not imitate others. They must tune theirs. There are many kinds of veenas. Every person has a veena of his own and a hidden music of his own. Svadharme nidhanam shreyah. If you die while playing your own veena, you will attain the great life. If you die carrying others’ veenas—no matter how beautiful a music they produce—you will come empty and go empty. There will be no treasure in your hands. You will have wasted your life. And the greatest danger in this world is that you may fall under someone else’s influence. You are all too ready to be influenced because tuning your own veena is a hard task. Borrowing another’s veena is easy. Seeking for yourself, practicing swadhyaya, is full of risk—mistakes can happen. Borrowing knowledge from another is…

He says: If you are logically blind, if you are blind in the eyes of logic and intellect, only then will you have eyes of the heart to see. But he does not mention that -- he says: Just be blind. That means, just be in love, and love is the only way to know God. [Premrito... The difference between love and meditation is very delicate... ] Not apparently visible, and as the ways come closer and closer to God, the difference is less and less. At the ultimate peak of experience when God explodes in you, all the differences disappear, but in the beginning they are all subtle differences. On the path of meditation one has to learn how to be alone, and on the path of love one has to learn how to share and how to be together.

Osho, yesterday Dariya Sahib’s aphorisms were paeans to awareness. By changing just one word—replacing “lover” with “meditator”—those aphorisms could quite easily be called the sutras of Jineshwar Mahavira. Is devotion really so combative? And is that the only difference between devotion and meditation?

On the path of religion, whichever method you choose, courage is indispensable. Without courage there is no religion. Whether it is devotion or meditation, there is no path for the weak and the timid. The timid cannot muster the courage for meditation, because meditation means the effort to become complete. Meditation means the endeavor to realize oneself. Meditation means an unprecedented resolve. Courage is needed; struggle is needed. On the path of love, just as much courage is needed. Let no one think, “Why should courage be needed on the path of love or devotion?” In fact, perhaps a little more courage is required, because devotion is surrender. Devotion is dissolution. Meditation says: Become yourself. Devotion says: Efface yourself. Efface yourself utterly. To disappear demands even greater courage. The meditator still keeps a little hope that “I will remain.” The devotee cannot even keep that much hope. The meditator too…