According to Osho, learning to live with meditation’s emptiness means not trying to fill it—drop all waiting, hoping, and desire. What seems empty is the fading of ego; when truly empty, the divine already present reveals itself—emptiness and the unknown are one. Meditation is simply tuning to what is; nothing is achieved, only uncovered. Trust, be still, and you’ll discover emptiness as ecstatic fullness—your innermost nature.
Stop trying to fix the emptiness; relax without wanting, and you’ll find it’s actually your peaceful, complete self.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
In meditation, when the `I' drops temporarily and an emptiness is created within, after it a frustration is felt when that emptiness is not filled by the entry of the unknown. How can one learn to live with that emptiness?
Once you have known the inner treasure, once you have come in contact with your deepest core, then you can move in activity, then you can do whatsoever you like, then you can live an ordinary worldly life, but the emptiness will remain with you. You cannot forget it. It will go on inside. The music of it will be heard. Whatsoever you are doing, the doing will be only on the periphery; inside you will remain empty. And if you can remain empty inside, doing only on the periphery, whatsoever you do becomes divine, whatsoever you do takes on the quality of the divine because now it is not coming from you. Now it is coming directly from the original emptiness, the original nothingness. If then you speak, those words are not yours. That's what Mohammed means when he says, `This Koran is not said by me. It has…
Live the emptiness... because whatsoever you do can never be greater than you. Whatsoever the mind is going to do is going to be part of the mind. Mm? It is going to be a game. Once you start feeling empty there is no need to do anything on your own. Let emptiness be lived, and things start happening. Not that you do them -- they happen. Emptiness is hard in the beginning, because one starts feeling a little depressed, sad, with nothing to do. For the whole life we have been occupied with this and that, improving ourselves, reaching for, achieving, some goal... excitement, misery, failure, success -- but one is occupied. Then suddenly one feels emptiness settling -- nothing to do, nowhere to go, nowhere to hide; no ambition that can give one excitement and can create fever.
For example, it brings you the experience that not the body, so clearly, so solidly, so categorically, that even if the whole world denies it, it cannot make any difference: you know from your innermost core you are not the body. It brings you the experience that you are not the mind either. And the moment you know you are neither the body nor the mind, suddenly a door opens. You have never been born and you are never going to die because only that which is born can die. The body was born, the mind was born -- they will die -- but you were before your birth and you will be after your death. Once this reality is revealed to you all fears and all miseries disappear. You become part of eternity. Only one thing remains and that is pure consciousness. And pure consciousness is nothing but godliness.
And that is where people become awakened: awakened to the truth of existence, awakened to the truth of their own being. That's where one becomes a Buddha. The Buddha simply means the one who is no more asleep, who is no more dreaming, who is fully awake. [A sannyasin, leaving, says: I'm still afraid of the emptiness, Osho. I fill it with food and drinks.] Simply accept it. It is nothing wrong -- it is the door to the ultimate. But the door has to be empty otherwise how will you enter? You cannot enter through a wall From far away the door looks empty and dark, and you are unnecessarily frightened. Come closer to it, accept it Emptiness is not emptiness but the beginning of fullness, but you have to take a plunge into it, and you can take the plunge only when you accept.
Osho, I am becoming empty; what should I do now?
Well, now nothing can be done! You’re a little late. Had you spoken a little earlier, something might have been done. Once you begin to become empty, nothing needs to be done—nor can anything be done. Because emptiness is the door to the Whole. Only when you are empty can the Divine enter you. You are filled with yourself—that is the obstacle. But emptiness feels frightening. Your question is meaningful, apt. Whenever emptiness approaches, the life-breath trembles; fear surrounds you. Emptiness seems like death—more than death. The wise have called it the great death, because in ordinary death only the body dies; in emptiness, you die. In emptiness, the very sense of “I” melts; no “I-ness” remains. You ask, “I am becoming empty; what should I do?” There is nothing to do. Let emptiness come; welcome it; honor it; hang festoons at the door; celebrate. For emptiness alone is good…