According to Osho, preoccupation is prejudice, pride, and the past: arriving in the present already loaded with beliefs and interpretations. It dulls the mind, borrows its seeing, and filters reality through conditioning, so you miss what is. Drop all preoccupations to be fresh and unoccupied—an empty, alert awareness through which meditation, satori, and the living presence of God are realized.
Being preoccupied means your head is so full of old ideas that you can’t see or hear what’s really happening now.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
What is preoccupation?
PREOCCUPATION IS PREJUDICE, preoccupation is pride, preoccupation is past. Preoccupation means you come loaded in the moment, you don't see the case that is there. You look through coloured eyes. For example, if you are hearing me here, and you are hearing through a curtain -- you have your beliefs, you have your ideas, you have your conditionings, your teachers, your parents, your society, your religion, your church are all standing there -- and you hear me through that clamour, then you are preoccupied and you will not be able to hear me. You will not be able to hear what is being said, you will hear something else. You will create your own thing through your interpretation. You will miss me. A preoccupied mind is a dull mind. A preoccupied mind is a borrowed mind. Unoccupied, mind is fresh, intelligent, radiant. Hence, one of the bases of all meditations…
Osho, what insights allow us to drop the past and not repress it?
And that happens to individuals, that happens to countries, to societies, to nations too. For example, a young country like America thinks of the future; its golden age is yet to come. A country like India, very ancient, old, thinks of the past; its golden age has passed. In the days of Rama it has been; it is already a gone thing. It is simply an indication that the country is very very old and cannot conceive any future. In the future is death. But to be a child is to miss; and to be old is to miss. The meditator is exactly in the middle: he has something of eternal youth in him. You will be surprised to know that in the East we have never depicted any enlightened person old; we have always depicted them young. You have not seen any picture of Buddha as old, or Mahavira,…
Osho, I either drown in memories of the past or in imaginations of the future. The present, for me, is just an empty word. What should I do?
This is not your condition alone; it is everyone’s. This is the very nature of the mind. The mind is either in the past or in the future; it cannot be in the present. Hence, for the mind, the word “present” is an empty word. Just inquire a little: whenever you are thinking, you either think of the past—what has happened, what is gone—or you think of what is going to happen. But how can you think about what is? It simply is. Where is the scope for thinking? What is, is. What difference will your thinking make? And if you think, you will miss—because thinking creates an interference. You ask, “What should I do?” Become a mirror. As long as the mind remains, you will keep swaying between past and future. The mind is like a clock’s pendulum—swinging from one end to the other, never resting in the middle.…
Now, a blind man can become a philosopher about light. He can think much about light. He can go on making great systems of thought about light. He can imagine, and he has much more freedom to imagine than the person who has eyes, because the person who has eyes knows what light is; he cannot imagine something contrary to reality. The blind man can imagine in every direction, in every possible way. He can be very imaginative and he can be very logical; he can make a systematic, logical philosophy about light out of his blindness, but it will be about light. And beware of the word 'about'. Unless somebody sees light, all that he is saying is nonsense. The mystics have always said that philosophy is nonsense because it is thinking. It is like a thirsty man thinking about water.
Osho, this ego of mine from lifetimes is perhaps the greatest obstacle between you and me. This very ego does not let me bow at your feet, does not let me be effaced. Lord, have compassion on me and erase me; in this very life, absorb me into yourself and make me one.
Put your whole effort into meditation. I am standing with you! And the divine stands with you. The whole existence is with you. Whenever one sets out toward meditation, the whole existence, in bliss, extends help—for someone lost is coming home; someone far away is returning; a seed is sprouting, shooting, leafing. The sky gives it shade, the sun warmth, the clouds water. The earth gives it life. The whole existence becomes a helper. Yes—if you move against existence, then you are alone. The journey of ego is a solitary journey. In the journey of meditation, the whole existence is your ally. But do not leave it all to existence; you must labor. Existence will support. And what you have done so far is auspicious, in the right direction. Your steps are falling in the right direction. Look back and remember your face of five or seven years ago, saint!…