How should one practice the meditation of staring into a mirror?

Beloved Osho, you mentioned the meditation of staring for one hour into the mirror. Is it good to look with a soft, unfocused gaze, rather than to stare? Also, is it better to look into either the left or the right eye, or at both? On another occasion, you suggested that couples could look into each other's eyes. My questions for the first meditation also apply to this method. Would you please comment?

It is best to look in the mirror, not in the eyes of your lover -- because in the eyes of your lover you can get identified. With the mirror, there is no such possibility. Staring is not good -- it will be tiring and tense. So, a soft gaze... and not in one eye but in both eyes... a very soft gaze, without any tension, just looking for no reason at all. In staring you may stop blinking, but in soft gaze you can continue blinking; there is no harm. Remain as relaxed as possible.

Beloved Osho, I love to look into your eyes while in your presence. You have suggested a way to look in the mirror for meditation. Is there a way I can look at you for meditation?

There is no harm in looking at me, but the meditation on your own eyes in the mirror has certain effects which will not be the same as looking at me. Looking at me you may feel peaceful, silent, in a kind of beatitude; but that is not the purpose of the meditation. The purpose of that meditation is totally different. You can do both. There is no need to make them alternatives. Nobody is preventing you from looking at me. But don't try to avoid that meditation, because that meditation will give you great insight into your own ego, your own mind. It will help your watchfulness. So don't avoid that. You can do anything else that you want to do. But every meditation has its own consequences.

This is possible through two things: either love or meditation. To you I suggest love. Let love be your mirror. For a few people meditation becomes the mirror -- it depends on the types. For you, definitely it is going to be love. So love more. Become so loving that it becomes your twenty-four-hour-a-day climate and you will find your original face. The original face is always of the king of kings -- that is another name for god. (To Sarit):Love is not something static, it is dynamic. It is not a thing, it is a process, it is a movement. Because we go on trying to behave as if it is something static we destroy it. We want to cling to it, want it not to change, to remain the same forever and forever.

One part of your mind goes on doing things and another part of your mind goes on condemning it. Then you are in such a state where nothing can happen, only confusion. So just watch and look at the reasons, and don't support those reasons. Once the ego is dropped you can drop the mala any moment; then there is no problem. And dropping the mala is not difficult at all, it is so easy. Dropping the ego is the problem... and one should take that challenge because only that will make you more alive, more joyous. Dropping the ego, your fear of death, your constant worry about death will also disappear, because it is only the ego that dies. When there is no ego, who bothers? Whether I continue or not does not matter.

Osho, Mahavira meditated with nasagra drishti—gazing at the tip of the nose. Is that itself the posture of meditation?

If someone lives with eyes completely open to the outer world, like Charvaka, he will say there is nothing within, soul and such are false notions: eat, drink, be merry. This is the experience of fully open eyes—that everything is outside: eat, drink, enjoy. There is nothing within; go within and you die—there is nothing there. There is nothing like a soul. If one lives by the experience of fully open eyes, only sensory pleasures remain; the soul dissolves. Then the world is true and the soul is false. And Mahavira says: the world is true and the soul is true. The world is not false, nor is the soul false. Mahavira says these are two ways of seeing. If someone experiences with closed eyes, the self will seem true and the world false. Another view is: someone never sits in meditation with closed eyes and lives only in the…