How can I reconcile doing nothing with undertaking yogas and practices in meditation?

Osho, you always say that meditation is doing nothing, just being, and that surrender is the door. Yet you also tell us to undertake many yogas and practices. My trouble is that doing nothing and living with an attitude of surrender seems to increase tamas, and doing practices seems to risk sharpening the ego. In such a situation, what is the path?

Yesterday a young man came to me. He said, “Total surrender to you. Whatever you say, I will do.” I asked him, “What are you doing now?” He said, “I study pharmacy, but I have failed.” I told him, “Go, finish your pharmacy.” He said, “That I simply cannot do. I can never pass it.” Just a moment earlier he had been saying, “Whatever you say, I will do.” Pharmacy? “That I simply cannot do. I can never pass it.” Yet he keeps saying he will do whatever I say. We cannot even see the state of our own mind. Pharmacy cannot be completed, and there is an intention to complete God! He is fleeing from pharmacy and seeking refuge in God. And one who does not have the courage to complete a small task—what else will he complete? So I told him, “First finish pharmacy, then renounce it.” A…

Osho, so far I have listened to many of your discourses and gone through many books, especially those on sadhana—I liked them very much. And in the meditation camp, the directions you gave at the beginning were also to the effect that the mind’s sankalpa–vikalpa should not arise—that there be a resolve in the mind to be the master of inaction, the master of the void, something like that. Now, the practice taught here involves a great deal of action, so it seems to me there may be some contradiction...

It may seem so; there is no contradiction. In fact, we cannot help breaking things into two parts. We look at things by splitting them into two opposing halves. We say: this is darkness, and that is light. But in life, darkness and light are not two things. In life they are the gradations of one and the same thing—degrees of one thing, not two. Yes, degrees of the same thing. What we call light is the dense degree of that very thing; what we call darkness is its rarefied degree. Darkness and light are not two hostile opposites. In the same way, action and nonaction are not enemies. Travel from either side and you arrive at the same place, because deep down the two are one. So when I say nonaction—the path of nonaction—if one can drop all action and become inactive, and drop all thought and become thought-free,…

Osho, on the one hand you inspire seekers to practice meditation, and on the other hand you say that all meditative practices are a Gorakh-dhanda. This puts the seeker in a dilemma. How should he decide what is right for him?

“Gorakh-dhanda” is a very significant word—it is connected to Gorakhnath. Whenever someone gets overly entangled in techniques and rituals, we say, “Don’t get into Gorakh-dhanda.” Gorakh discovered the greatest number of methods of meditation. After Patanjali, Gorakh’s name is unforgettable. He found great experiments in meditation. Certainly, through the experiments of meditation people have arrived; but meditation is for those for whom understanding alone is not sufficient—it is a complement; whatever deficiency remains in understanding, meditation completes. No one knows the soul through meditation; but through meditation you become so quiet that in that quietness becoming a witness becomes easy. When you know, you will know only through Ashtavakra’s path. Consider: someone is afflicted with fever, lying ill, delirious, and he says, “How can I attain samadhi?” What will we do? Will we give him some method of samadhi? We will say, first let the fever be cured. He may…

Osho, should I practice meditation or devotion? I’ve been thinking about this for years. And since I can’t decide anything, even if I want to begin, how should I begin?

That is why, in my Buddhafield, meditation is happening and devotion is happening. Lovers are dancing in ecstasy, and meditators are sitting in silence. Both are flowing together. This has never happened before. Those who gathered around Buddha meditated; those who gathered around Meera were devoted. For the first time on this earth, Sufi ecstasy and Sufi dance are here, the joy of the devotees is overflowing, and alongside that, Vipassana, zazen, and deep, deep meditative processes are also here. I am giving you both opportunities. You are the master—taste both. Then the decision will happen by itself. But you are sitting outside. You neither meditate nor sing bhajans; you sit afar as a spectator, pondering: “What should I do? What should I not do?” Could it be that there is a great laziness in the mind, a great inertia? Two lazy men were lying under a tree—Satyapriya sent me…

Letters keep coming to me. One letter I received asked: Ashtavakra says, “Do nothing,” and yet you make us meditate so much. If nothing is to be done, what is the need of meditation, dancing, jumping?

Do not cling. Do not hide behind doctrines. Throw them away; they are worth two pennies. Choose truth. And truth is chosen only by experience. Experience alone is the basis—argument cannot prove; only experience proves. Experience is self-proving. “The ignorant, desiring to be peaceful, does not attain peace. The steadfast, knowing the essence with certainty, is always of peaceful mind.” Na śāntiṁ labhate mūḍho yataḥ śamitum icchati. Peace is not attained by the desire for peace—because desire is the very cause of disturbance. How can there be a desire for desirelessness? It is contradictory. People come and say, I want to be peaceful. I say: As long as you want to be anything, you cannot be peaceful. The wanting itself is unrest. Today you were restless for money and market; suppose you drop that—you will be restless for peace. The race continues—first for wealth and status, now for peace. Will…