Feeling pushback to meditate just means change is coming; keep gently cleaning your inner room, forget chasing “God,” and as you grow, what God means shows up by itself.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
I feel so much resistance against meditation and I don't have this desire for god that you speak about. Is this the right place for me?
The man looked, he came closer to the window and he said, 'Those clothes are not dirty. Your window glass is covered with dust.' They opened the windows and it was so. Those clothes were not dirty. Life is tremendously beautiful. It is Divine. When we say 'Life is God' we simply say that life is so tremendously beautiful that one feels a reverence for it. That's all. Life is so tremendously beautiful that one feels like worshipping it. That's all we mean when we say 'Life is God.' When we say 'Life is God' we only mean, 'Don't see that life is ordinary. It is extraordinary. There is tremendous potentiality. Just open your eyes.' I have never seen a person who is not interested in God -- although he may not know it -- because I have never seen a person who is not interested in happiness. If you…Read the full discourse →
Osho, I am frightened of meditation. Please explain what the reasons might be. And how can I be free of this fear?
Fear of meditation is natural—it will be there. Because meditation means: to lose yourself, to dissolve. Meditation means: to be effaced. Your entire familiar ground will vanish. You will move in an unfamiliar realm. The world of your thoughts—which has been your home for ages, for lifetimes—will be left behind. Suddenly you will be homeless. The shade of thoughts will be removed, the roof torn away. You will descend into the void, you will be submerged in no-mind—there is danger in it. It is like taking a tiny canoe into the ocean. The far shore is not visible and you have to leave this shore. Naturally there will be fear. The waves are high, and you carry no map. You have no firm assurance that someone has reached the other bank, because no one returns. Meditation is a very deep journey. So fear will arise. Fear is natural; nothing unnatural…Read the full discourse →
Beloved Osho, for years I have been a "groupie" searching for ways to understand myself. I have been in such misery that almost nothing asked of me was too much if it held a chance of alleviating my distress. Now you offer meditation as a means for leaving my misery behind, and all I do is resist. The thought of being still and quiet doesn't excite me. In fact it scares me, and I end up even more anxious. I don't understand this. Could you please explain this resistance to meditation?
In India if you take a bath once a year you alone will be enough to stink up the whole neighborhood -- so much perspiration, so much dust. And those lamas are still using many clothes, layer upon layer, I think seven layers at least. And they suffer from the heat, but the mind... they feel something is wrong, but the mind has gone so deep. For centuries they have lived that way. I told them, "If you want to talk to me you have to be at least ten feet away. Don't come near me because I am allergic to any kind of smell -- it may be Buddhist, it does not matter." In India it is very usual to take two baths, one in the morning, one in the evening. And those who have time, people like me... I used to take three -- one in the morning,…Read the full discourse →
I realized in yesterday's discourse that I am resisting the word `god'. My thoughts go back to an event which happened several years ago when I was caring for a very ill man in the hospital -- he was dying. He had asked me to get a priest for him as he was afraid. On arrival of the priest, the ill man said, "god damn you," directly to the priest. And the priest walked away, and said to me, "he isn't worth it." I told the priest, "this man is very ill and the words he uses, he know not." the priest still refused to help him. Since that day I have not gone into a church. I know god is within me.
So if you incident had helped you to become aware of priest, it was good. But somehow your association went wrong. Don't go to a church, there is no need; God is everywhere. Don't go to a priest, there is no need; God is available to you -- directly, immediately. But if you have a resistance to the word `god' itself, that will become a barrier. That will prohibit you; that won't allow you to flow towards the infinite. and there is no reason -- because God has not done anything. The priest turned away, but do you know that God turned away? God has never turned away from anybody. In fact, because the priest turned away, God may have looked and cared for the dying man more -- because there was no other help. When a man is helpless, God simply starts flowing towards him. In tremendous helplessness you…Read the full discourse →
No effort is required to be born. No effort is required to die. No effort is required to fall in love why is such effort required to know god (through meditation) when this seems to be the most natural thing? Is god trying to test us in some way?
First thing: no effort is required in meditation either. Meditation also comes on its own accord. Through effort it never comes. To whom has meditation happened through effort? It will be almost like making an effort to love somebody. How can you make any effort to love somebody? The more effort you make, the more the love will be false, pseudo, just a pretension. Love has to arise naturally. So arises meditation. But all meditators are not spontaneously in it -- and neither are all lovers spontaneously in it. In fact, psychologists say -- a tremendous discovery -- that if love is not talked about, ninety-nine percent of people will never know anything about it. If love is not talked about, if poets don't go on praising it, and if traditional literature is not available about love, ninety-nine percent of people will never be aware that anything like love exists.…Read the full discourse →