Can a chain-smoker become meditative?

Beloved Osho, can a chain-smoker become meditative? I have smoked for twenty-five years, and I feel that in smoking I stop going deeply into meditation.. Still, I can't stop smoking. Can you tell me something about it?

They have always laughed but they have always come back and said, "It helps, and the number of cigarettes next day is less and it goes on becoming less." Perhaps it will take a few weeks, then the cigarettes will disappear. And once they have disappeared without your stopping them.... Your stopping is repression, and anything repressed will try to come up again with greater force, with vengeance. Never stop anything. Find the basic cause of it and try to work out some substitute which is not harmful. So the basic cause disappears -- the cigarette is only a symptom. So the first thing is, stop stopping it. The second thing is, get a good bottle, and don't be embarrassed. If you are embarrassed then use your own thumb. Your own thumb will not be that great, but it will help. And I have never seen anybody failing who has…

Osho, I cannot drop the habit of chain-smoking. I have tried hard but I have failed always. Is it a sin to smoke?

Gurucharan, DON'T MAKE A MOUNTAIN OUT OF A MOLEHILL! Religious people are very skillful in doing that. Now, what are you really doing when you are smoking? Just taking some smoke inside your lungs and letting it out. It is a kind of PRANAYAMA -- filthy, dirty, but still a PRANAYAMA! You are doing yoga, in a stupid way. It is not sin. It may be foolish but it is not a sin, certainly. There is only one sin and that is unawareness, and only one virtue and that is awareness. Do whatsoever you are doing, but remain a witness to it, and immediately the quality of your doing is transformed. I will not tell you not to smoke; that you have tried. You must have been told by many so-called saints not to smoke: "Because if you smoke you will fall into hell." God is not so stupid as…

Question: BELOVED MASTER, I WANT TO GIVE UP SMOKING. WHAT DO YOU SAY ABOUT IT? For example, it may be that your mother's breast was taken away from you earlier than you wanted and it is just a substitute. To many people I have suggested -- and it has been of help to smokers -- I say, "If you really want to stop smoking, then start sucking your thumb." They say, "But that will look very stupid!" That is true... smoking looks as if you are doing something great! You are doing the same thing, in fact a little more harmful. Just sucking on your thumb is not harmful at all, but smoking IS harmful. But because everybody is smoking and it is an accepted thing and it seems to be a very grown-up thing....

My suggestion is: forget about fighting with your smoking -- you start sucking the thumb (she giggles a little self-consciously). And don't be worried -- it is beautiful, it is just beautiful. There is nothing wrong in it, because it is not harmful. Start sucking the thumb, an(i once you start sucking the thumb, smoking will disappear. When smoking disappears, we are on the right track. Then for a few months go on sucking the thumb so this long habit of so many years -- smoking -- drops. For six or nine months suck the thumb, and don't be ashamed of it -- because there is nothing wrong with it. Smoking basically is somehow concerned either with the sucking of the thumb or with inadequate breast-feeding.

There were two men of great renown as teachers of the right path. Ibn halim relates that he went first to see one of them, whose name was pir ardeshir of qazwin.

HE SAID TO PIR ARDESHIR, "WILL YOU ADVISE ME AS TO WHAT TO DO AND WHAT NOT TO DO?" THE PIR SAID, "YES, BUT I WILL GIVE YOU SUCH INSTRUCTIONS AS YOU WILL FIND VERY HARD TO CARRY OUT, SINCE THEY WILL GO AGAINST YOUR PREFERENCES, EVEN IF THESE PREFERENCES ARE SOMETIMES FOR HARDSHIP." IBN HALIM SPENT SOME MONTHS WITH PIR ARDESHIR, AND FOUND THAT THE TEACHING WAS INDEED HARD FOR HIM. ALTHOUGH PIR ARDESHIR'S FORMER DISCIPLES WERE NOW FAMED THROUGHOUT THE WORLD AS ENLIGHTENED TEACHERS, HE COULD NOT STAND THE CHANGES, THE UNCERTAINTIES AND THE DISCIPLINES PLACED UPON HIM. AT LENGTH HE APPLIED TO THE PIR FOR PERMISSION TO LEAVE, AND TRAVEL TO THE TEKKIA OF THE SECOND TEACHER, MURSHID AMALI. HE ASKED THE MURSHID, "WOULD YOU PLACE UPON ME BURDENS WHICH I MIGHT FIND NEXT TO INTOLERABLE?" AMALI REPLIED, "I WOULD NOT PLACE UPON YOU SUCH BURDENS." IBN…