How should I begin practicing meditation or devotion?

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…

Meditation will look easy to you but will not go very deep. You may like to choose meditation, because you will feel a little more in control with meditation. With love, with devotion, you will be moving into something which you cannot manipulate; rather, you are completely gone as far as your control centre is concerned. You are at the mercy of some unknown energy. So people are afraid of devotion, but more people can reach through devotion than through meditation, because the heart is a purer medium and is uncorrupted by society. The mind is very much corrupted by society, very much trained, cultivated, conditioned. The mind is cluttered with too many opinions, philosophies, doctrines, theories. The mind is a complete madhouse. The heart has remained uncorrupted, virgin, because the society does not worry about it.

Osho, to cross the ocean of becoming and dissolve into the Supreme Self, which should one rely on—insensate devotion, foolish devotion, or blind devotion?

So drop this worry—whether insensate devotion, foolish devotion, blind devotion, or deranged devotion. Drop it; devotion is enough. And in devotion all these labels will take care of themselves. Become a devotee once, and “blind” you will automatically be—meaning: the whole world will call you blind. You will not become blind; rather, you will gain eyes. You will begin to see what ordinary eyes cannot see. The invisible will become visible; the imperceptible will come within perception. That which no one has ever touched will be felt as touch. But the world will call you blind. The world will not be able to accept it—because the world is blind, and the blind call you blind. H. G. Wells has a story: somewhere in Mexico there is a valley where children go blind within three months of birth. The story is based on fact. The climate, the food—something there ruins the…

It is asked: “I have neither faith nor devotion; then why do I keep coming to you again and again?”

When someone says to a person, “I love you completely,” I ask, why add “completely”? Is love not enough? Is there any such thing as incomplete love?—There is. That is why adding “completely” to love is dangerous: it clearly means it is not there; you are only putting on a show. And lest someone suspect otherwise, you keep repeating: “completely, completely; firm belief.” That poem is just like that: “Practice is never fruitless—holding this belief I sit.” There is a desire within that practice should not be fruitless. Lest it be fruitless, you are deceiving yourself: “No, no; it never is.” Is practice ever fruitless? Never! But the fear is there, deep inside. The world may win; my defeat— so be it, may Your victory be forever. My greatest victory is that my rhythm sounds to Your flute. Having erased the line of “mine” and “Yours,” I have taken sannyas…

Osho, Narhari, how am I to do your devotion? My mind is so restless!

Within you too, the one who is raising waves is he. You too are his wave. The waves that arise in you are his waves. So if you have the heart of a devotee, do not worry. He considered you worthy of waves—thank him for that. He gave you life; he gave you rasa; he gave you a thousand dimensions of being. He gave you love, color and song. Accept! And the moment you accept, you will find the sting gone—the thorn no longer pricks. The devotee says: We are seized on the basis of what the angels have written—needlessly. Was there any human to testify for us? The devotee says to God: do not trust what your angels have reported about us—the accounting of our sins and merits. Do not trust it. ‘Was there any human present at the time of that deposition?’ If you must ask, ask human…