According to Osho, inner silence is hard today not because life is fast, but because we’ve lost contact with our inner stillness. Mechanization gives surplus time, which, without inwardness, breeds restlessness, insomnia, and chronic exhaustion. We ‘kill time’ with distractions instead of using it to turn within. Meditation restores contact with the inner source, revitalizing life beyond work’s pace.
The problem isn’t a busy world—it’s that we ignore our inner quiet and waste free time, so we feel tired and noisy inside.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Nischalatwam pradakshinam "stillness is pradakshina, the movement around that for worship."
Accept your anger. It is there: accept it and be aware of it. These are two things: acceptance and awareness. And you can be aware only if you accept totally. If you do not accept me, you cannot look at my face. If you do not accept me, you will try to avoid me in subtle ways. Even if I am present in the room, you will look in some other direction, you will think of something else. If you do not accept me, if you reject me, your whole mind will try to avoid me. If you reject anger, you cannot be aware. You cannot encounter it face to face. And when anger is encountered face to face, it dissolves. When sex is encountered face to face, the energy is released into a different dimension. Encounter your mind and accept it. The negative teachings, the condemnatory teachings, teachings which…
Hear then the wisdom of the wise: "go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. "as far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story."
Be exactly in the middle. Without compromising, avoid unnecessary quarrels. BE ON GOOD TERMS WITH ALL PERSONS, AS FAR AS POSSIBLE without selling your soul, without compromising on any ground, without surrendering at all. But there are many things which can be avoided. In fact, ninety-nine percent of the problems which create fighting, argument, can be avoided. The child asks you, "Daddy, can I go out and play?" and the immediate response of almost all daddies is "No!" Now the quarrel starts. And all children know how great your patience is. They will tramp their feet in front of you, they will go into a tantrum, they will cry, they will start throwing their toys, tearing their books. And then finally you will say, "Go OUT and play!" This you could have done before, you could have said yes, because there was nothing wrong. But somehow our whole upbringing is…
Peace of mind can be gained by withdrawal from the world, by stilling the vortices of the mind. But how much inner peace is appropriate in a world that contains attica, vietnam, johannesburg, biafra, pakistan and sub-sahara africa?
Withdrawal is escapist. Withdrawal can give you a kind of death, but not peace. Peace is very alive. Peace is more alive than war -- because war is in the service of death, peace is in the service of life. Peace is very alive, vibrant, young, dancing.... Withdrawal? -- that is the oldest way escapists have chosen. It is cheap. It gives a kind of peace -- remember, I say 'a kind of peace' -- the same kind as you see in a graveyard. You can go to a Catholic monastery -- there is a kind of peace, the same that exists in the graveyard. You can go to the Jaina monks and you will see a kind of peace -- the same that exists in a graveyard. These people are dead! They have renounced life. The day you renounce life you renounce responsibility, you renounce all kinds of commitments.…
for example, i would like an alive insane man more than a dead corpse it may be the corpse of a saint but the insane man is at least alive and life has possibilities the insane can become sane but that corpse of the saint cannot come back to life silence has to be alive, vibrating pulsating, dancing, singing it has to be the experience of inner music then one has to move in a totally different way repression is not the way to attain to true silence, alive silence a silence full of music and song and dance understanding is the way never repress anger: understand it never repress greed: understand it repression should not be a word in the vocabulary of a sannyasin understanding should be substituted because through understanding one transcends the moment you have understood your anger you are no more angry the energy of the…
Osho, last night you explained inner stillness through the dimension of inner silence. Please explain inner stillness from some other dimension.
Jesus says that we are just dead -- not alive! One day, he was passing by a fisherman just as the morning sun was going to rise. The fisherman had thrown his net into the lake, and Jesus put his hand on the fisherman's shoulder and said, "Are you going to destroy your whole life just catching fish? I can show you something better to catch. I can make you a fisherman of life." The fisherman looked at Jesus as if some magnet was working on him. Then he threw away his net and followed Jesus. When they were just going out of the village, someone came running and told the fisherman, "Your father is dead. He has just died, so come home. Where are you going?" The fisherman asked permission. He said to Jesus, "Allow me to go home. Soon I will come back. I have to bury my…