According to Osho, chitta vritti nirodha is not suppressing the mind’s movements but allowing them to cease through lucid, total awareness. Nirodha means that by seeing a vritti—like anger—completely, its poisonous nature is realized and it naturally subsides. Repression (virodha) only buries seeds that grow. Understanding is the alchemy: deep, present seeing dissolves modifications into stillness.
It means you don’t push thoughts and feelings away; you watch them so clearly that they calm down on their own.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, in this verse people have given many meanings to “chitta vritti nirodha.” What meaning do you give it? Please clarify this as well.
But our whole setup is reversed. We begin repression in small children: “Don’t be angry. Suppress anger; anger is very bad.” The child sees the father angry, the mother angry—everything going on as usual. The father lectures, “Don’t be angry; anger is bad.” If the child doesn’t obey, the father gets angry on the spot! The child sees, “What fun! What a game!” Children are acute observers. Their capacity to observe is still pure. They see very clearly the sheer dishonesty. The father says, “Don’t be angry,” and if we get angry, he himself gets angry! We enforce repression. The child never gets to know what anger is; he only gets to know “Anger is bad,” and he experiences only tepid, lukewarm spurts—bursts in between. Recognition never happens with lukewarm anger. You will never understand from dipping your hand in tepid water that hot water burns; once you put your…
That's the golden secret, the innermost secret of sannyas. We don't know how to turn the mind off, it always remains on. From birth to death it continues to work. Of course, if you work so much with the mind it becomes mediocre, it becomes stupid. It never has any moment for rest, it cannot rejuvenate. The body can sleep in the night, but the mind still goes on working. In the day it thinks , in the night it dreams. It is the same process; the work continues. Meditation means learning the art of turning the mind off. It is almost like a switch. You can turn the light on and you can turn the light off. Once you know how, it is simple; if you don't know how, it is very difficult.
Osho, please explain how, in meditation practice, the dissolution and sublimation of violent tendencies—that is, dissolution and sublimation—take place?
Mahavira was standing near a village and some people came and beat him severely. Someone drove iron pegs into his ears. He stood watching. Later someone asked him, “You said nothing at all? You could at least have said, ‘Why are you beating me without cause?’” Mahavira said: “They were not beating me without cause. There must surely have been some cause in their minds to beat. Perhaps the cause was not related to me, but there was a cause within them. And I thought it would be better if they beat me; if they beat someone else, they would not return without receiving a return blow. Let their violence undergo nirjara. Better than me they would find it hard to find anyone.” Mahavira behaved like a pillow with those people. In meditation the nirjara of all suppressed surges takes place—whether of violence, of anger, of sex, or of greed—meditation…
Osho: To think is the nature of the mind. And if you don't think then there is no mind. A state of no-mind comes, then you know. That is nature, this too is nature; that is not against this nature which creates ignorance, creates unknowing, creates conflict. We have not known the total mind, we have known only the mind which thinks. If you transcend it then you know the total mind -- which knows. Thinking is one thing, knowing is quite another. QUESTION: THE NATURE OF THE MIND IS TO THINK, AND THEN IT CEASES TO THINK. WHAT DO YOU DO IN ORDER TO CAUSE IT NOT TO THINK? DOES IT NATURALLY NOT THINK? Osho: If you become aware of your thinking process, then the process by and by is dissolved.
Nischalatwam pradakshinam "stillness is pradakshina, the movement around that for worship."
Accept your anger. It is there: accept it and be aware of it. These are two things: acceptance and awareness. And you can be aware only if you accept totally. If you do not accept me, you cannot look at my face. If you do not accept me, you will try to avoid me in subtle ways. Even if I am present in the room, you will look in some other direction, you will think of something else. If you do not accept me, if you reject me, your whole mind will try to avoid me. If you reject anger, you cannot be aware. You cannot encounter it face to face. And when anger is encountered face to face, it dissolves. When sex is encountered face to face, the energy is released into a different dimension. Encounter your mind and accept it. The negative teachings, the condemnatory teachings, teachings which…