What happened to the Indian psyche's relationship with meditation?

Osho, in this land meditation rose to the heights of Gauri Shankar. Unmatched beings like Shiva, Patanjali, Mahavira, Buddha, and Gorakh took form. Even so, why did the attraction toward meditation keep declining?

The conch had no legs, yet he still clasped it as if catching its feet, put his head on it, and said, “In any way—get me to the mahatma.” It said, “We’ll get you to two.” This is the limit. “To four.” The same babble. In two or four days the conch drove the man mad. The conch would nag him: “Ask for something!” The man would look around, afraid to say a word: “If I speak, this wretch will trap me again; then it’ll keep hounding me—‘Will you take thirty-two? Sixty-four?’” There was never any giving. Such is the relationship between meditation and the ego. The ego is the great conch. However much you get, you want more. The number keeps increasing. The race quickens. And man never reaches a place where he can say, “The goal is here.” The goal remains a mirage—always at a distance. Much journeying;…

Why is the west becoming more and more interested in meditation? And also, why is the east losing interest in its own spiritual treasures?

After a time, penniless but still submissive to the decrees from one high, he landed in the county poorhouse. One day the overseer sent him out to plow a potato field. A thunderstrom came up but was passing over when, without warning, a bolt of lightning descended from the sky. It melted the plowshare, stripped most of his clothing from him, singed off his beard, branded his naked back with the initials of a neighbouring cowman, and hurled him through a barbed wire fence. When he recovered consciousness he got slowly to his knees, clasped his hands and raised his eyes towards heaven. Then, for the first time, he asserted himself: "Lord," he said, "this is getting to be plumb ridiculous!" This is the situation of the East: "This is getting to be plumb ridiculous!" But the East goes on thanking God, goes on feeling grateful. There is nothing to…

Osho, in one discourse you said that India is declining in its spiritual values. Please tell us whether any ray of hope is visible ahead?

Love! Do not be in opposition to the naturalness of life; do not deny life. Embrace life, with a great yes. For through that embrace one day you will be able to embrace God too. God is hidden here—in these trees, in these people, in these hills, in these mountains. Learn to love this existence. Your so-called religion teaches you to hate existence—teaches you to hate the nature outside and the nature within you. Love nature, for nature is God’s veil. Love nature, and you will be able to lift the veil. There is certainly a ray of hope. The ray of hope is never destroyed. However dark the new-moon night becomes, the morning will come. Morning is bound to come. However long the night of new moon, and however deeply this country has sunk into wrong notions, still there are some who are thinking, reflecting, meditating. It is precisely…

Osho, you say you want to show india "love," yet most indians who come here, when faced with love, see it only as lust. What should be done about it?

The most important thing in the Indian mind is sex. Hence every day so many rapes happen, and no woman is safe walking on a street. How many sannyasins have written to me, particularly women sannyasins, saying, "Is it not our right to walk alone under the stars in the sky? Are we not human beings? Don't we have such a simple human right?" But in India it is impossible. Just the other day a young woman sannyasin was attacked by four Indians. Of course she screamed, and some sannyasins reached in time; otherwise they were going to rape her -- they had torn her dress apart. And this is not just one accident, it has been happening every once in a while for almost six years. The Indian mind is so sexually repressed that it cannot love, it can only lust. And once the lust is there you start…

Osho, you said that the Hindu genius was once supremely intelligent and succeeded in touching the ultimate heights of religion. As a result there came into being devas, dvijas, gurus and gnanis; the Upanishads, the Gita, the Dhammapada and the Jina-vani. Then what is the reason that the same people have fallen into the great abyss of decline for a thousand years, with no sign of rising?

The West too produces, once in a while, an Einstein—knower of the outer. But even that does not solve anything. The masses remain full of tension and anxiety. Is it not possible to accept the outer and the inner together? Both are; your acceptance or rejection makes no difference—only you get into trouble. Take breathing: it goes out and it comes in. If you insist, “I will only draw it in; I will not let it go out,” you will die. Another insists, “I will not let it go in; I will hold it out here”—he too will die. The East died; the West died—because both embraced only half. I call courageous the one who accepts both together, who says, “I will keep both pans of the scale in balance.” The East has lost; the West has lost. And the danger is: when you lose one thing, a craving arises…