According to Osho, concentration is the mind’s effort to narrow attention to a single point by excluding everything else. It is useful for problem‑solving and skill, but it breeds tension and contraction. In contrast to meditation’s relaxed, choiceless awareness, concentration is willful, goal‑oriented focusing. It sharpens the tool of mind, yet cannot reveal the spaciousness of being.
Concentration is squeezing your attention onto one thing by trying hard, while meditation is open, easy noticing.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
[NOTE: This is an unedited tape transcript of an unpublished darshan diary, which has been scanned and cleaned up. It is for reference purposes only.] [Osho spoke about the difference between meditation and concentration. In the past the two have been thought to be synonymous, and they are not.] Not only are they not synonymous, they are absolutely opposite dimensions. They never meet anywhere, they never cross each other's path -- different worlds altogether. Concentration is something within the mind and meditation is something beyond the mind. Concentration has its own utility. If you are working on a scientific project then concentration is needed; then you have to focus all your mind-energy on a single point.
The official, riko, once asked nansen to explain to him the old problem of the goose in the bottle. "if a man puts a gosling into a bottle," said riko, "and feeds him until he is full grown, how can the man get the goose out without killing it or breaking the bottle?" nansen gave a great clap with his hands and shouted, "riko!" "yes, master," said the official with a start. "see," said nansen, "the goose is out!"
To carry fantasies about the future is a problem. A passport is not such a burden. To think about tomorrow and to go and book a ticket is not a problem. These are factual things, ordinary, practical things. But to think that tomorrow you will be happy, not today, that tomorrow you will love, not today, that tomorrow you will sing, not today, is dangerous -- because tomorrow never comes. Again when it comes, it will be today, and your old habit will say, "Tomorrow I will be happy." Tomorrow again and again, you will be happy, and you will never be happy. What I am saying is psychological future has to be dropped. The ordinary future is okay, it is not a problem at all. The fifth layer consists of conditionings. You have been conditioned -- Hindu, Mohammedan, Jaina, Buddhist, English, German, Indian -- these layers are there. Start…
Osho, yesterday you spoke of the great value of concentration, yet in your meditation experiments you emphasize witnessing rather than concentration. What is the reason?
Concentration is a method to attain power. Witnessing is a method to attain peace. From power, peace does not necessarily follow; from peace, power inevitably follows. Those who are in search of power will have a taste for concentration. When the sun’s rays are converged, fire is created; when the mind’s scattered thoughts are gathered, power is born. Try a little and you will understand. Whenever the mind becomes unified, your life-energy begins to flow in one direction. The narrower the channel, the more powerful the current. The more scattered the thoughts, the more your energy runs down many pathways; then only a paltry power remains in your hands. Whatever thought you become concentrated upon quickly turns into reality; a thought toward which the mind wavers has little chance of becoming real. Even the worldly person seeks concentration. If the worldly person attains success anywhere, it is because of concentration.…
Beloved Osho, how are one-pointedness, concentration and meditation related to each other?
Prem Dinesh, one-pointedness, concentration and meditation are not related to each other at all. This is one of the confusions prevalent all over the world. One-pointedness is another name for concentration, but meditation is just the opposite of concentration. But in most of the books, in most of the dictionaries, and by the so-called teachers, they are used as if they are synonymous. Concentration simply means one-pointedness. It is something of the mind. Mind can be a chaos, a crowd. Mind can be many voices, many directions. Mind can be a crossroads. Ordinarily, that's what mind is, a crowd. But if the mind is a chaos, you cannot think rationally, you cannot think scientifically. To think rationally and scientifically, you have to be concentrated on the object of your study. Whatever the object is, the one thing necessary is that you are pouring your whole mental energy onto that object.…
Osho, what is meditation?
But he was no ordinary man either -- otherwise they would have forced him -- he was the king of Varanasi. He said to the doctors, "But don't be worried" -- and the best doctors available in India were there; one expert from England was there. They all consulted: nobody was ready to do this operation, but the operation had to be done, otherwise any moment the appendix could kill the man. The state was serious, and both the alternatives seemed to be serious: if you left him without the operation he might die; if you did the operation without making him unconscious -- which had never been done, there was no precedent.... But the king said, "You don't understand me. There has never been any precedent because you have never operated on a man like the man you are going to operate upon. Just give me my religious book,…