What happens when I meditate versus when I don't meditate?

Osho, yesterday you said that when anger is watched consciously, it dissolves. But why is it that when sexual desire arises, even in awareness its intensity persists? Why is it so?

There is no entanglement in the breath. If you try to practice on anger… Anger is not happening every moment; it happens sometimes. And when it happens, it happens with such intensity that you are already going deep into it; so much is at stake in those moments that you may think, “We will look into awareness later; first let’s settle this now.” Lust is very deep, because existence has made it so deep; life depends on it. If lust were so easy that you decided and were freed, perhaps you would not even have been born—because many before you would have become free, and the possibility of your being would have been almost nil. But your parents, and their parents, did not become free; therefore you are. You too will not get free so easily, because your children are also to be—they are waiting: “Do not run away midway.”…

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…

In 1969 followers of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi invited Osho to talk to them. This was the first occasion on which Osho addressed a western audience, and the first time he talked publicly at length in English. The discourse has been published in OTI January 1 & 16, 1991; and February 1, 1991. Osho: Really, there can be no method as far as meditation is concerned. Meditation is not a method. Through technique, through method, you cannot go beyond mind. When you leave all methods, all techniques, you transcend mind. So meditation itself is not a method. Truth cannot be achieved through method. Method is our own invention. We, who are ignorant, have achieved knowledge through methods constructed, created, projected, in our ignorance. Through method you can achieve a sort of self-hypnosis, a sort of auto-hypnosis. Any method, whatsoever it's name, can only give you an illusory kind of peace.

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…

Osho, if I speak for myself, the deep experiences of meditation happened before I had even heard the names of Krishnamurti or you. This self-experience happened without practicing any method. Therefore when Krishnamurti says, “Do not practice any method; it happens naturally,” that feels natural to me. After all, Krishnamurti does emphasize continuous awareness and learning from life without a center, as a result of which meditation can happen. If I am not mistaken, you do not agree with this tenet of Krishnamurti. This surprises me. I hope to understand your viewpoint.

That night all ambition dropped. That night there was no feeling, no thought, no future. He slept. He lay under a banyan; it was a full-moon night. In that moonlight, the emaciated body, utterly thin—he must have looked unearthly, like a ghost! A woman had vowed that on a full-moon night, if she became pregnant, she would offer sweet rice pudding to that banyan deity. She had become pregnant; the full moon had come; so Sujata came with a platter of kheer and sweets, delicious food, to offer to the banyan on the bank of the Niranjana. In the moonlight she saw—as if the banyan deity had himself appeared! She was overwhelmed, touched his feet, and said, “O deity of the banyan! I had never imagined you would appear! But I am blessed—accept my offering.” On any other day Buddha would not have eaten at night—night eating was a sin.…