How can I find clarity and silence in my meditation practice?

As you move into meditation this feeling starts becoming stronger every day. That does not mean that you start neglecting the body, on the contrary, you start caring about the body more carefully because it is a beautiful house, a gift of god. You have to keep it clean and beautiful and young and vital, energetic, alive, because you have to live in it for many many years. There is no need to make it ugly, poor, starved. Make it a palace, make it a marble palace, make it a temple, but remember "I am not it," so when it dies you are not dying. The body is born, the body dies; you are never born and you never die. And the method of meditation is very simple: just watching. Three things have to be watched. The first is the body and its actions.

Osho, then I think many things will clear up on their own.

Yes, they will clear up on their own; there’s not much to it. Take this common notion that one must be silent in meditation—there is no need for such a notion. We are silence already, and whatever is happening is happening outside us. Thoughts are happening too; they are happening outside us. We do not have to become silent; we are silence already. Whatever is moving is moving outside us. By mistake we made it one with ourselves; there the error occurred. When you sit in meditation, thought is moving. We made the mistake of taking up an identity, an identification: “This thought is me, it is mine.” That was the error. This is a thought, and I am I. And this thought is circling around me—like a fan whirring, like a fly buzzing… this thought is circling. This is this, and I am I; what have I to do…

A certain wall surrounds everybody, a subtle, very invisible wall, so you are not even aware that the wall is there. It is a very transparent wall. You can see through it and it hangs around you. So you can move and you can think that you are free but you are not free. You are not imprisoned in a prison made of stones and bricks, you are imprisoned in a prison made of thoughts, concepts, theologies, philosophies. It is a very invisible thing and one has to get rid of it. When the whole sky is yours with all its stars, then the whole existence is yours. That's exactly the teaching of all the masters -- Jesus, Buddha, Zarathustra. There is no difference, there cannot be. If truth is one, how can the teachings of those who have awakened to truth be different?

Beloved Osho, yesterday you told us very clearly that we need to follow the master's word to the letter. But we cannot consult you on every detail. How can we choose the right path when the mind is always looking for the easy way?

Remember, passivity can become sleep. That's why I emphasize the word alertness -- because you can be passive and you go to sleep. Sleep is not meditation. One quality of sleep is there, one quality, that of passivity, and one quality of waking is there, that of alertness. Relaxed as if you are asleep, alert as you are awake. One thing is taken from sleep -- unconsciousness. That should not be there, because meditation cannot be unconscious, and one thing is taken from your waking state -- occupiedness; because if you are occupied then the mind is working, you are enclosed in thoughts. While you are awake there are two things: alertness and occupiedness. While you are asleep there are two things: passivity and unconsciousness. One thing from awakeness, one thing from sleep: passivity and alertness -- they make meditation. If you take the two other ingredients, occupation and unconsciousness,…

just being silent -- watching, waiting, seeing the more you become a seer, the less a thinker the closer you are to the truth, to the light the moment your seeing is absolute you have arrived home meditation is an inward journey on the outside there are challenges there are adventures but they are nothing compared to the inner challenges and inner adventures there are enemies on the outside but the inner enemies are far bigger only one thing is different, and that is that the inner enemies are our own creation so the moment we decide to destroy them in that very moment they can be destroyed they are our make-believe mind, ego, greed, anger, jealousy, possessiveness all these enemies are there but we have been feeding them, nourishing them we can chop off their heads in a single blow a whole army can be uprooted in a single…