What happens when I make work my meditation?

Osho, you say that if there is awareness, then how are the two to be brought into harmony?

That is precisely the practice of active meditation: awareness. Awareness is the very means of going into emptiness in relation to all actions, to the movements of the mind as well. For example, if you lie there for half an hour—what will you do? In that half hour, whatever thoughts are moving in your mind, you are to be simply aware of them. Simply a witness—what else will you do? Just become a witness. Keep silently watching; let them move. But obstacles arise in our seeing. We become absorbed. We fail to remain a witness. We don’t even notice when we have become one with those very thoughts. That sense of awareness fades; a kind of stupor, a moorchha, comes in. A thought comes, a memory arises, and we stop being the watcher. We become part of that thought and of its flow. That is moorchha. And the opposite is…

Osho, for a few days my heart settles into meditation; then for a few days worship and bhajans flow. But I cannot concentrate anywhere. I am troubled by this state. Kindly guide and train me.

About three years later he was found in Paris learning painting. Reduced to a beggar’s state. His friends rushed there. “What have you done? You had everything—everything was fine.” He said, “That was the obstacle—everything was fine. But there was no exhilaration. Nowhere any surge. Everything ran fine, and I ran it fine—but no stream of rasa was flowing. “All my life I longed to be a painter. I never wanted to be a broker. That success was accidental. Now I am happy. I have nothing. I paint; if paintings sell, I manage food and clothes. I have not even a roof of my own. I live in a friend’s room. But I am not going back. I am happy.” And the friends saw that the man was filled with a strange energy, a strange aura. His body had thinned, but there was a light. He said, “Tell my wife…

A:* No. No obligation on anyone's part -- neither on my part nor on sannyasins part. I am available out of my own joy. I am not obliging anybody. Nobody even give me a simple thank you, no need. I am so full, that I would like to share. In fact, that's what I mean by availability. The opening of a flower, and the fragrance spreads. It is not obliging anybody. Anybody who is available and close to the flower, is sensitive enough, will be able to get something out of it. So it is not a commandment, that you have to follow me, that you have to receive what I give, that you have to accept it. There is no question of any commandment, no order. I am not a leader. I am simply a human being who has blossomed to full humanity, of which everyone has the potential.

Question: A PEBBLE FALLING INTO WATER RIPPLES THE FAR SHORE. A SPARK FANNED BY THE BREEZE STARTS A FOREST FIRE. A MASTER'S PRESENCE SPREADS AWARENESS TO THE FAR CORNERS OF THE EARTH. OSHO, WHAT IS YOUR WORK? Work, or action, is part of willing, it is part of will. Will is struggle: you are in conflict with existence. You want to do something; naturally you are tense, naturally you are afraid whether you are going to make it or not. And out of a hundred, ninety-nine chances are that you are not going to make it, because whenever you are in a state of will you fall apart from the whole. Then you are nourishing a private goal, then you are not part of the cosmos; you are trying to do something on your own. In that struggle, in that conflict, you are going to be a loser.

Osho, what is meditation?

The monk said, "You are even more stupid than the first man. My cow? A Buddhist monk possesses nothing. And why should I look for somebody else's cow? I don't possess any cow." The man looked really embarrassed, what to do? The third man thought, "Now, the only possibility is what I have said." He said, "I can see that you are meditating." The monk said, "Nonsense! Meditation is not some activity. One does not meditate, one is meditation. To tell you the truth so that all you fellows don't get confused, I am simply doing nothing. Standing here, doing nothing -- is it objectionable?" They said, "No, it is not objectionable, it just does not make sense to us -- standing here, doing nothing." "But," he said, "this is what meditation is: Sitting and doing nothing -- not with your body, not with your mind. Once you start doing…