Should I keep waiting for my mind to clear despite constant distractions?

Osho, I have been listening to you for years. I have been with you a long time. From time to time I have heard many different statements from you, even mutually contradictory ones, yet no question has ever arisen in my mind about them. And in spite of them you have always remained one and indivisible in my vision and in my heart. Kindly shed some light on this.

You can be with me in two ways: through thought and intellect, or through the heart and feeling. If you are with me through the intellect and thought, there will be great difficulty. Day after day you will find contradictory statements. Every day you will have to sort them out, and still you will not succeed. The intellect never really resolves anything. Even where things are simple, the intellect tangles them up. And my words are very tangled. Even where everything is clear, the intellect creates problems. And I speak of paths filled with mist. Even if there were only one path, the intellect would find contradictions; here there are countless paths—contradictions upon contradictions. There is hardly a statement I have not refuted a thousand times. So if you are with me through the intellect, only two things are possible: either you will go mad and drop the intellect, or…

For the last twelve years I have been waiting for the waters of my mind to clear, but the carts of situations and surroundings keep passing through them constantly. This will go on throughout life. Should I still keep waiting?

Waiting is important, necessary, but not enough. Together with awaiting one should know how to sit at the bank of the stream of the mind. If we sit in the current of the river and wait, there will be no results. Our very being in the river will bring up the dirt. The art of standing aside from the river is meditation. Awaiting is a necessary part of meditation but it, in itself, is not meditation. He who cannot wait cannot meditate; but he who thinks awaiting is meditation is also wrong. Meditation is the art of sitting on the bank. The mind has its own stream of thoughts. No matter how hard you try to watch it with patient awaiting, you shall never be able to step out of the mind. Nor will the stream of the mind clear. Your very presence pollutes the mind. Step out of the…

Question: Third question: Osho, how can one control thoughts? What is the need for control? To become a controller is the ego itself. Thoughts are not yours; why do you want to be their master? Thoughts come and go. They pause in you for a moment and depart. You are an inn; thoughts are guests. You are the host. What is the need to grab your guests by the throat and control them? It is in the very effort to control that people go mad. You will never become the master of thought. Yes, a certain mastery does arise—but it is not mastery over thought. It arises from knowing this truth: what have I to do with thought? They come—they go. It’s a crowd passing on the road.

Then when thoughts arise, should we remove them? How will you remove them? This is exactly the difficulty we—and everyone in the world—face: we understand “being without thought,” but we take it to mean “remove the thoughts.” How will you remove them? It’s not about removing; it’s about being aware. When a thought comes, look at it; remain only the witness to it. Let it come—drop the very urge to remove. Even removing is getting entangled. Neither remove, nor do anything...

There is an episode from Buddha’s life—I think I mentioned it last time. He was passing through a forest with his monk Ananda. They stopped under a tree. He felt thirsty and told Ananda, Go and bring some water from nearby. Ananda said, I know this path; a little mountain stream is a furlong or two ahead—shall I fetch water from there? Or shall I go back three miles to the river we crossed and bring it from there? Buddha said, Bring it from the stream. He went to the stream, but just before he arrived, five or seven bullock carts had forded it. The water had turned muddy and was full of debris. Fallen leaves were crushed and spread on the surface. It was a small stream. Thinking the water unfit to drink, he returned. He said to Buddha, That water isn’t drinkable; I’ll go back to the river…

Osho said that there was no need to try to still the mind, to stop the thoughts. He said that just as the traffic goes by and one remains on the sidewalk, unaffected, just a watcher, so one should simply witness the thoughts as they went by. We are not our thoughts, and recognising that we are the witness is enough. The very acceptance of the thoughts makes one more relaxed. The relaxation helps to create a distance, to separate oneself. To evaluate a thought as good or bad means that you are attached to your thoughts -- so one should not put labels on them.] ... put yourself aside, sit under a tree, and just watch the traffic. Soon, one day, the traffic disappears and the road is empty. Suddenly there is an interval and in that interval is meditation. But that interval cannot be created or cultivated.