According to Osho, when no difference remains between them—passive and active meditation—your inner void stays unbroken through all activities. Emptiness learned in stillness flows into walking, eating, speaking, waking and sleeping. This unbroken continuity is active meditation: a stable, 24-hour awareness where doing happens, yet consciousness remains empty, effortless, and blissful.
It means the quiet emptiness you feel while sitting still stays with you even while you move, talk, and work.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
...and then no difference remains between them?
It is not a matter of doing it for twenty-four hours. Even if you can enter perfect thoughtlessness for ten minutes, then gradually you will find that while doing all your work—there is no need to be lying down—the inner void will remain established even as you do, talk, speak. To begin with, carve out a little time—half an hour, even fifteen minutes out of the twenty-four hours. In those fifteen minutes, first of all drop every activity and go into the void. And once the experience of the void happens even once, then you can remain in the void even amidst activities. You do not have to lie there for twenty-four hours. Half an hour you should lie down—in the beginning. This is because if we are very busy with work, at the outset it will be difficult to drop thoughts. Dropping thought itself is difficult; and if you…
So to me, meditation has two steps: first, the active, which is not really meditation at all, and second, the completely nonactive, the passive awareness that is really meditation. Awareness is always passive, and the moment you become active you lose your awareness. It is possible to be active and aware only when awareness has come to such a point that now there is no need of meditation to achieve it, or to know it, or to feel it. When meditation has become useless, you simply throw meditation. Now you are aware. Only then can you be both aware and active, otherwise not. As long as meditation is still needed, you will not be able to be aware during activity. But when even meditation is not needed.... If you have become meditation, you will no longer need it.
One more question—a friend has asked. That too is related to this. That too should be understood. Osho, what is the difference between doing meditation and being in meditation—to be in meditation and to do meditation?
It makes no difference. Keep the arithmetic of seven. Add it up in total. Don’t count one by one that four in the morning, three in the evening—or three in the morning, four in the evening. Seven! And I have given the seven bananas. If you get tangled in the counting, you might go away disappointed. So I have said this at the end: I have given the seven bananas. What I had to say, I have said. Now let us sit for the night meditation. Spread out a little. We will not talk. Quietly, those who need to go may go; those who wish to meditate may sit. Do not talk. Friends who need to leave should go quietly, and those who wish to sit should sit quietly. Those who want to lie down may lie down. Yes—those who are still standing, either sit or go; no one should…
Suppose your passive form to be an empty room with walls of skin -- empty.
GRACIOUS ONE, PLAY. THE UNIVERSE IS AN EMPTY SHELL WHEREIN YOUR MIND FROLICS INFINITELY. SWEET HEARTED ONE, MEDITATE ON KNOWING AND NOT-KNOWING, EXISTING AND NOT-EXISTING. THEN LEAVE BOTH ASIDE THAT YOU MAY BE. ENTER SPACE, SUPPORTLESS, ETERNAL, STILL. In siddhasana, the gravitational pull is at its minimum. The body is inactive and passive, closed inside, it has become a world unto itself. Nothing is moving out, nothing is coming in .Eyes are closed, hands are locked, feet are locked -- energy moves in a circle. And whenever energy moves in a circle, it creates an inner rhythm, an inner music. The more you hear that music, the more you feel relaxed. SUPPOSE YOUR PASSIVE FORM TO BE AN EMPTY ROOM -- just like an empty room -- WITH WALLS OF SKIN -- EMPTY. Go on dropping into that emptiness. A moment will come sometime when you feel everything has disappeared;…
When the deep meaning of things is not understood the mind's essential peace is disturbed to no avail.
THE WAY IS PERFECT LIKE VAST SPACE WHERE NOTHING IS LACKING AND NOTHING IS IN EXCESS. INDEED, IT IS DUE TO OUR CHOOSING TO ACCEPT OR REJECT THAT WE DO NOT SEE THE TRUE NATURE OF THINGS. LIVE NEITHER IN THE ENTANGLEMENTS OF OUTER THINGS, NOR IN INNER FEELINGS OF EMPTINESS. BE SERENE WITHOUT STRIVING ACTIVITY IN THE ONENESS OF THINGS AND SUCH ERRONEOUS VIEWS WILL DISAPPEAR BY THEMSELVES. WHEN YOU TRY TO STOP ACTIVITY TO ACHIEVE PASSIVITY YOUR VERY EFFORT FILLS YOU WITH ACTIVITY. AS LONG AS YOU REMAIN IN ONE EXTREME OR THE OTHER YOU WILL NEVER KNOW ONENESS. THOSE WHO DO NOT LIVE IN THE SINGLE WAY FAIL IN BOTH ACTIVITY AND PASSIVITY, ASSERTION AND DENIAL. Logic will say something absolutely different. Logic will say, "Practice rest the whole day, so in the night you can rest beautifully." Mulla Nasruddin went to his doctor. Coughing, he entered.…