How to maintain detachment while deepening meditation?

With deepening meditation, one becomes more and more sensitive to objects, events and persons. But due to this heightened sensitivity one feels a sort of deep intimacy with everything, and this usually becomes a cause of subtle attachments. How to be sensitive and yet detached?

Let me tell you a story. Buddha was staying in a village. A woman came to him, weeping and crying and screaming. Her child, her only child, had suddenly died. Because Buddha was in the village, people said, "Don't weep. Go to this man. People say he is infinite compassion. If he wills it, the child can revive. So don't weep. Go to this Buddha." The woman came with the dead child, crying, weeping, and the whole village followed her -- the whole village was affected. Buddha's disciples were also affected; they started praying in their minds that Buddha would have compassion. He must bless the child so that he will be revived, resurrected. Many disciples of Buddha started weeping. The scene was so touching, deeply moving. Everybody was still. Buddha remained silent. He looked at the dead child, then he looked at the weeping, crying mother and he said…

Mind is always imitative. Mind is a monkey, literally a monkey. It is curious, very curious about everthing, but it has no perseverance, no patience. It goes on jumping from one branch to another branch. It never sticks to anything; it never digs any well really deep but goes on scratching the ground here and there. That is not the way to dig a well. One has to be totally involved, one has to put all one's energies to the work. Mind cannot do that; only the heart is capable of doing it. It is the heart that gets involved and committed. Mind is always a Judas, it can never become a Christ. Judas was the most knowledgeable disciple of Jesus. All the other apostles were illiterate; he was the most cultured. And it is natural, not accidental, that he betrayed Jesus.

Osho, meditation increases sensitivity. But as sensitivity grows, living seems to become more difficult—because the mind’s reactions become sharp and intense, and it feels as if one’s whole life is at stake at every small turn. In such a state, how can one find and hold the point of balance?

Certainly: as meditation deepens, sensitivity will also deepen. And with heightened sensitivity, problems grow too. Sensitivity means you will experience everything—every event—in its full velocity, with full intensity. If someone insults you, the way that hurt reverberates inside a meditator will not be the same for a non-meditator. If a thorn pricks, the meditator’s awareness of that sting will be much clearer than that of the non-meditator—because the non-meditator lives in a kind of stupor, a haze of unawareness. The duller the awareness, the less the pain is consciously felt. Perhaps that is exactly why we reduce our awareness—so we can feel less pain. Ask a psychologist and he will say: every child learns early how to numb their awareness. All children are born sensitive. Then they begin to kill their sensitivity—because living with raw sensitivity is very difficult. A certain blunting of feeling becomes “necessary.” That is why, at…

Osho, what is attachment? Why do we become so attached to things, ideas and persons? And is there freedom from attachment?

“So do one thing,” she told the courtesan. “I will pay you whatever you ask. Go to him at midnight. He meditates at midnight—has done so for thirty years. I want to know whether meditation has happened or not before I die. His hut door is only latched; no one ever goes there. Open it and go in. Whatever he says, notice every word and tell me. Go and embrace him—then come back and report. Before I die, I want to be sure that my service was not in vain.” The courtesan went. She opened the door. The monk was startled. He opened his eyes—he had been sitting in meditation—and shouted, “You wicked woman! Why are you here? Get out! What need have you to come at midnight?” But his tongue faltered; his body trembled. The woman had taken her money; she went right in. He cried, “Stay back! Why…

How can I know if detachment or indifference is growing within?

It is not difficult to know. How do you know when you have a headache and how do you know when you don't have a headache? It is simply clear. When you are growing in detachment you will become healthier, happier; your life will become a life of joy. That is the criterion of all that is good. Joy is the criterion. If you are growing in joy, you are growing, and you are getting towards home. With indifference there is no possibility that joy can grow. In fact, if you have any joy, that will disappear. Happiness is health, and, to me, religion is basically hedonistic. Hedonism is the very essence of religion. To be happy is all. So remember, if things are going right, and you are moving in the right direction, each moment will bring more joy -- as if you are going towards a beautiful garden.…