According to Osho, the very question is misguided: gaps always exist as the silent space between words, thoughts, and moments; without them, thinking could not occur. These gaps are your real nature, the ever-present emptiness behind passing thoughts. Stop speculating, sit silently, slow down, and directly experience this background silence; tasting it dissolves the mind's grip.
There’s always a quiet space inside you between thoughts; if you sit still and notice it, you’ll feel calm and free.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Beloved Osho, what if there are not any gaps?
Look within, it has never been so and you cannot be an exception. All seekers who have gone within have gone through the gaps. The gaps are there, but you have not looked and hence the question has an 'if'. Please don't ask 'if' questions. I am not talking about theories, I am talking about facts. It is as if somebody says: What if there is no heart within? But the if is just speculative. Close your eyes and you will hear the heartbeat. If you are to ask the question, the heart is bound to be there. If you are there to raise this question, the gaps are bound to be there. Without gaps, thinking cannot exist. Between two words the gap is a necessity; otherwise the two words will not be separate, they will overlap. Between two sentences there is a gap -- necessarily so, otherwise there will…
What is meditation?
A consciousness that is focused only on words is non-meditative and a consciousness that is focused only on gaps is meditative. Whenever you become aware of the gaps, the words will be lost. If you observe carefully, you will not find words; you will only find a gap. You can feel the difference between two words, but you cannot feel the difference between two gaps. Words are always plural and the gap is always singular: "the" gap. They merge and become one. Meditation is a focusing on the gap. Then, the whole gestalt changes. Another thing is to be understood. If you are looking at the gestalt picture and your concentration is focused on the old lady, you cannot see the other picture. But if you continue to concentrate on the old lady -- if you go on focusing on her, if you become totally attentive to her -- a…
When wolves were discovered in the village near master shoju's temple, shoju entered the graveyard nightly for one week and sat in zazen. This put a stop to the wolves' prowling.
OVERJOYED, THE VILLAGERS ASKED HIM TO DESCRIBE THE SECRET RITES HE HAD PERFORMED. 'I DIDN'T HAVE TO RESORT TO SUCH THINGS,' HE SAID, 'NOR COULD I HAVE DONE SO. WHILE I WAS IN ZAZEN A NUMBER OF WOLVES GATHERED ROUND ME, LICKING THE TIP OF MY NOSE, AND SNIFFING MY WINDPIPE, BUT BECAUSE I REMAINED IN THE RIGHT STATE OF MIND, I WASN'T BITTEN. AS I KEEP PREACHING TO YOU, THE PROPER STATE OF MIND WILL MAKE IT POSSIBLE FOR YOU TO BE FREE IN LIFE AND DEATH, INVULNERABLE TO FIRE AND WATER. EVEN WOLVES ARE POWERLESS AGAINST IT. I SIMPLY PRACTICE WHAT I PREACH.' You cannot see both together. They are contradictory. They cannot be seen together. When you see the figure, the background disappears; when you see the background, the figure disappears. Mind has a limited capacity to know -- it cannot know the contradictory. That s why…
Emptiness here, emptiness there, but the infinite universe stands always before your eyes. Infinitely large and infinitely small; no difference, for definitions have vanished and no boundaries are seen. So too with being and non-being. Don't waste time in doubts and arguments that have nothing to do with this.
ONE THING, ALL THINGS: MOVE AMONG AND INTERMINGLE, WITHOUT DISTINCTION. TO LIVE IN THIS REALIZATION IS TO BE WITHOUT ANXIETY ABOUT NON-PERFECTION. TO LIVE IN THIS FAITH IS THE ROAD TO NON-DUALITY, BECAUSE THE NON-DUAL IS ONE WITH THE TRUSTING MIND. WORDS! THE WAY IS BEYOND LANGUAGE, FOR IN IT THERE IS That's why in the world of religion you see the most egoistic people possible, because they are trying to be perfect about everything. They insist on perfection. They cannot be relaxed, they will always be tense. And always something will be wrong and they have to put it right -- and they will always remain in anxiety. Go to the madhouses, and you will find there ninety percent perfectionists. A man of understanding remains relaxed. That doesn't mean that he doesn't care. No, he cares but he knows the limitations. He cares, but he knows that he is…
Osho, when you sit silently, that silence doesn’t come within our grasp. But when you begin to speak, a glimpse of silence appears between two sentences, between two words. Yet in becoming so absorbed in understanding the meaning of your speech, that silence keeps slipping away. So please explain: when we listen, how should we listen to you?
It will be so—naturally. When I sit utterly silent, you are not able to sit silent; inside you the stream of thoughts flows, an undercurrent keeps moving—you start talking to yourself. The habit of inner talking has become so deep, so carved in stone, that not even for a moment do you find rest within. If I sit completely silent, you will simply forget me. Your inner stream becomes active, your old habit seizes you, you get absorbed in inner conversation. It’s a monologue—you speak alone, yet you do speak. Then even my silence is hard for you to see, because we can only see that which has its opposite as a background. A psychologist once did an experiment at a university. On a large black blackboard he drew a tiny white dot and asked the students, “What do you see?” Not one of them saw the big blackboard; all…