How do I discover the next appropriate step when my mind controls and blocks my feelings?

If my mind still controls and blocks my feelings, how do I discover what is the next appropriate step for me to take?

Life brings a situation. Those situations are always new. Life is immensely creative; it never repeats. Even if you feel it is a repetition, it is not. There are vital differences, subtle differences... may not be available to you on the surface, but have you seen two mornings exactly the same? Have you ever come across two roseflowers exactly the same? Have you come across two human beings exactly the same? What to say about human beings? -- you cannot find two pebbles exactly the same. You can search the whole earth.... Life is always fresh. That is the MEANING of being alive -- life is always moving into new spaces. And your mind is always old; it knows nothing of the new. It knows only of the past. It knows only of that which has happened. It accumulates experiences. 'Experience' means it has happened. And remember: life is never…

Beloved Osho, life is so exciting when I am open to each moment and not asking where it is going to take me next. The problems disappear and nothing can harm me. The moment my mind comes in saying, "watch out!" the fear arises and life looks dangerous, and I take only calculated steps. How can I remain with the relaxed, joyful, and trusting experience?

Indradhanu, mind is a coward. Those who listen to it become utterly cowardly. Mind is not an adventurer, it is very cautious. It takes every step with long thinking and calculation until it is certain that there is no risk, till it has seen others taking the step and there has been no danger; hence, listening to the mind is the most disturbing phenomenon in your growth. Everything is going good with you, but immediately the mind comes in and says, "Watch out!" Once and for all say to the mind, "Shut up! I am watching in; why should I watch out?" Because you listen to it, "Fear arises and life looks dangerous, and I take only calculated steps." You stop living. Mind is a mechanism, dead. Do you know that the mind can be taken out of your skull and kept separately? Only oxygen and necessary nourishment has to…

[Osho spoke first to a woman, a mother of a sannyasin, saying that her leaving was premature because she had just started to move in from the periphery and things would have started happening. She asked wasn't it possible for things to happen anywhere, if they were going to happen at all, but Osho said for the first glimpse one needs a suitable situation, and after that 'you have a thread in your hands. Then the journey may be long, and the goal far away, but you live in the certainty that it is going to happen, that it is happening.' He pointed out that even after all this time it had not happened to her.... ] As I feel it, you were just coming in a little. But it happens... the mind is very defensive.

Beloved Osho, I find myself in conflict between a part of myself that tries to be clear and intelligent with others and a part that is emotional, unpredictable, very unclear and somehow unconscious, but perhaps more real. I tell myself just to be authentic and then I get really confused. Meditation takes away the immediate tension but I have found no way to get to the root of the problem. Am I just not wanting to see something very obvious?

Be spontaneous, don't decide about the future. Then there is no frustration, no failure, no feeling that you have missed. All these feelings are born because you are deciding about something which is not in your hands. The future is not in your hands. The old saying is, man proposes and God disposes. There is no God to dispose. In the very act of proposing you have disposed yourself; the very act of proposing means you are trying to make the unknown certain, you are trying to make the living flow of life a frozen pond. If you live choicelessly and if you live spontaneously, moment to moment, responding to every situation that arises in front of you, your growth will be in leaps and bounds, and you will never for a single moment feel frustration. Each moment will bring greater joy and greater fulfillment. Instead of feeling despair you…

Osho, you have spoken of the four steps of meditation; please explain the full meaning of all four.

First, understand this clearly: three are only steps, not meditation; meditation is the fourth. The gateway is the fourth; the first three are only steps. Steps are not the door; they lead to the door. The fourth alone is the door—rest, pause, emptiness, surrender, dying, dissolving—that is the door. And the three steps lead you to that door. The fundamental basis of those three steps is one: if you want to enter rest, it becomes very easy after going into total tension. Just as a person who labors all day can sleep at night. The more the labor, the deeper the sleep. Someone may ask, “But labor and sleep are opposites; how can labor lead to sleep? The one who has worked all day should not be able to sleep!” And the one who has lazed on the bed all day should sleep! But the one who stayed in bed…