What is the nature of the mind as a collection of past experiences and memories?

Osho, you have often described mind as a collection of past experiences and memories which are all dead. Even its apparent vitality is not its own; it is supplied from the source of the being. Last night you said that mind was the only thing which one can offer to god. But is it worth offering?

Even an Indra is not without desires. Deities may be living m heaven, but they are with desires. So with Buddha and Mahavir, human dignity was raised to its ultimate. If you can become desireless then everything will worship you, because the desireless consciousness is one with That. That contentless mind is not only worth offering: the Divine needs it, the Divine waits for it. When a child returns Enlightened, the father is enriched, the home is enriched. Really, when a child returns Enlightened, when the father sees his child Enlightened, the father cannot be the same. So when a Buddha flowers, the whole universe flowers with him. He shows the potentiality, the peak possibility. Now you may not attain it, but you may rest assured that you can attain it. The whole universe becomes confident with a Buddha happening. The whole universe becomes a promise, a certainty. The same…

Beloved Osho, you said that to live moment to moment one must throw away one's dead past and memories. Does it mean that all the memories have to be dissolved and destroyed to transcend the mind? But one needs a strong mind and an intense and sufficient accumulation of memories to function in this world.

The atom bomb is not such a great danger as these secrets are because the very soul of man can be enslaved through them. If Jesus is born now in Soviet Russia or communist China, they will not crucify him; first they will try to destroy his memory. They cannot be successful with Jesus but they can be successful with you. They cannot succeed with Jesus because he is already unidentified with the memory. If you destroy the memory nothing is really lost because he lives in his consciousness, not in his memories. You don't really have any consciousness separate from the memories, so if your memory is destroyed your consciousness is destroyed. You don't know how to function without the memories. So for the new generation, the coming world, meditation is a must because only that can protect you from political dictatorship -- nothing else. They will not put…

Osho, regarding the mind—as you say it continues from lifetime to lifetime and remains the same—does any subtle memory remain after a person dies?

Yes, the mind remains the same, and after a person dies all the memory remains with them. But layers settle over it. Imagine we don’t clean this room for seven years: today dust will come, and it will keep coming every day for seven years. After seven years, when we return, the top layer will be today’s, and below it the earlier layers will be pressed down. The seven-year-old layer will still be there, but buried very deep. It’s possible the top layer won’t even know that seven years of dust lie underneath. So the mind is traveling, and the journey is progressive. Every day you add something to it. Yesterday gets buried under today; then today will be buried under tomorrow. The previous birth gets buried under this birth, and the one before that under two births, and so on—down into what psychologists call the unconscious. Sometimes it happens…

Beloved Osho, is there any difference between the state of no-mind and being present?

Just leave the mind aside ... But we are against the body, we are very condemnatory of the body, not knowing at all that this condemnation of the body is breaking the bridge to your being. A man of authentic spirituality is deeply in love with his body, because he knows body shares many things with being. Mind shares nothing, either with body or with being. It is an absolute stranger that has been forcibly put into you by the culture, the religion, the society. They are using the mind to enslave you. And because you are in the mind you continuously go on asking about things of which you have no experience. You don't know what no-mind is, except a word. You don't know what presence of being is, except that you have heard about it. Just words won't do. Move away from the mind ... And when I…

Nirvitarka samadhi is attained when the memory is purified, and the mind is able to see the true nature of things without obstruction. The explanations given for the samadhis of savitarka and nirvitarka, also explain the higher states of samadhi, but in these higher states of savichara and nirvichara samadhis, the objects of meditation are more subtle

THE PROVINCE OF SAMADHI THAT IS CONNECTED WITH THESE FINER OBJECTS EXTENDS UP TO THE FORMLESS STAGE OF THE SUBTLE ENERGIES. But those who have worked in the inner world know that there are phenomena which are uncaused. Not only that, that they know this, they know that the whole existence is uncaused. It is a different, totally different world from the scientific mind. Whatsoever you see, even before you have seen it, the interpretation has entered. Continuously I watch people; I am talking to them -- if it fits, even they have not said anything, they have given me an inner nod, "Yes." They are saying, "Right." If it doesn't fit with their attitudes, they have not said anything, the "no" is written on their face. Deep down they have started saying, "No, it is not true." Just the other night I was talking with a friend. He has…