Is meditation impossible without the preparatory disciplines of body, thought, and feeling purification?

Osho, about the preparatory disciplines of practice I mentioned—purification of the body, of thought, and of feeling—without them, is meditation impossible?

No; even without them meditation is possible, but for very few. Even without them meditation is possible, but for very few. If one enters meditation with a perfect resolve, then without purifying any of these one can enter meditation; and the very moment one enters, all these will be purified. But if that is not possible—if mustering such resolve is not easy; it is very difficult to gather such resolve—then gradually these will have to be purified. Their purification will not give you meditation; their purification will give intensity to your resolve. The energy that is wasted in their impurity will be saved, that energy will turn into resolve, and entry into meditation will happen. They are supportive, not indispensable. So for those who do not find it possible to enter meditation directly, they are indispensable; otherwise their entry will not happen. But they are not indispensable in themselves, because…

Meditation brings perfection. In fact the only way perfection comes to one is through meditation. Without meditation something always remains missing. We may have wealth, power, prestige and all that the world can offer, but deep down there is always some emptiness, some meaninglessness. One goes on feeling that life must be something more than this -- and life certainly is more. That gap inside, that yawning gap inside can be filled only through meditation; nothing else can fill it. People try to fill it with every kind of thing but it cannot be filled by anything from the outside. It is basically inner, hence nothing from the outside can fill it. Something has to grow inside, only then can it be fulfilled. And when that inner gap is full, overflowing, one experiences perfection for the first time.

Let me say a thing or two about meditation, and then we will enter it. First: apart from the lack of your own resolve, there is no other obstacle in meditation. If you truly want to go into meditation, no power in the world can prevent you. So if you find yourself obstructed, know that the flaw is in your resolve. Perhaps you do not really want to go in. This will sound strange, because anyone who says, “I want to meditate but I can’t,” assumes he does want it. But there are very deep inner reasons because of which we do not notice that, in fact, we do not want it. For example, anyone who says, “I want to go into meditation,” should first understand clearly: is he ready to drop both pleasure and pain? Everyone is ready to drop pain.

They have undisturbed space, resting in a comfortable posture, clean and pure, with the neck, head, and body in one line; held erect, in a mental attitude of sannyas, having controlled all the senses, saluting one's own teacher, guru, devotedly, meditate within the lotus of the heart; the untainted, the pure, the clear and the transparent, the griefless principle of devotion.

For example, I would like to tell you: Many cultures, in different ages, different religions, different thinkings, have considered the body center to be in different places. For example, as far as this contemporary world is concerned, more or less everyone thinks that he is somewhere in the head -- not in the legs, not in the hands, not in the belly. If someone insists and asks you, "Where are you? Point it out!" Then you will begin to feel something in the head; you are in the head. But ask a Japanese and he will say that he is in the belly, not in the head -- because the whole of Japanese culture has always thought that the spirit lives in the belly. So if you think with your head, the Japanese think with their belly -- they say, "We think with our belly." They say, "The belly must…

As you move into meditation this feeling starts becoming stronger every day. That does not mean that you start neglecting the body, on the contrary, you start caring about the body more carefully because it is a beautiful house, a gift of god. You have to keep it clean and beautiful and young and vital, energetic, alive, because you have to live in it for many many years. There is no need to make it ugly, poor, starved. Make it a palace, make it a marble palace, make it a temple, but remember "I am not it," so when it dies you are not dying. The body is born, the body dies; you are never born and you never die. And the method of meditation is very simple: just watching. Three things have to be watched. The first is the body and its actions.