What is the purpose of meditation?

A friend has asked: What is the purpose of meditation?

The purpose of meditation is that your life should no longer remain a tale of sorrow, but become a fountain of joy. Within you—within each one—there is such capacity and such infinite sources that if they all are revealed, flowers and fragrance will spread all around your life. The veena will begin to play around you. Then there will be no need to seek forgetfulness. For friends who truly feel drawn to meditation and wish to understand something about it, there is a separate meeting at night. There are four or six more questions regarding meditation; I will speak about them in the night session. Because by understanding meditation nothing happens; by doing meditation something happens. Come at nine-thirty at night and do the meditation, go within and search for that treasure which is hidden within you. The day your hand touches that treasure, from that day you no longer…

Osho, what is the goal of meditation?

Even Ananda, Buddha's closest disciple, asked one day when they were walking through a forest. It was autumn and leaves were falling from the trees and the whole forest was full of dry leaves and the wind was blowing those dry leaves about and there was a great sound of dry leaves moving here and there. They were passing through the forest and Ananda asked Buddha, "Bhagwan, one question persists. I have been repressing it, but I cannot repress it anymore. And today we are alone; the other followers have been left behind so nobody will know that I have asked you. I don't want to ask it before others. My question is: Are you telling us all that you have discovered or are you still hiding something? -- because what you are telling us does not clarify your bliss, your peace. It seems you are hiding something. " And…

Osho, what is the first experience of samadhi like?

You will know only when it happens. It cannot be said; at most a few hints can be given. It is as if, in the dark, a lamp is suddenly lit. Or as if a dying patient, right at the edge of death, suddenly finds a medicine that works; life’s wave, life’s thrill spreads again—so it is. As if a corpse becomes alive—such is the first experience of samadhi. It is the taste of nectar. The experience of the ultimate music. But it will be only when it happens; and only then will you understand. You will not understand by my saying it. It is as with love. How can anyone explain it? To someone who has never loved, never known love, no matter how many explanations you offer—he will hear it all and still ask, “I haven’t understood; please explain a little more.” It is like explaining light to…

What is meditation?

MEDITATION is A STATE OF NO-MIND Meditation is a state of pure consciousness with no content. Ordinarily, your consciousness is too much full of rubbish, just like a mirror covered with dust. The mind is a constant traffic: thoughts are moving, desires are moving, memories are moving, ambitions are moving -- it is a constant traffic! day in, day out. Even when you are asleep the mind is functioning, it is dreaming. It is still thinking; it is still in worries and anxieties. It is preparing for the next day; an underground preparation is going on. This is the state of no meditation -- just the opposite is meditation. When there is no traffic and thinking has ceased, no thought moves, no desire stirs, you are utterly silent -- that silence is meditation. And in that silence truth is known, and never otherwise. Meditation is a state of no-mind. And…

Meditation brings perfection. In fact the only way perfection comes to one is through meditation. Without meditation something always remains missing. We may have wealth, power, prestige and all that the world can offer, but deep down there is always some emptiness, some meaninglessness. One goes on feeling that life must be something more than this -- and life certainly is more. That gap inside, that yawning gap inside can be filled only through meditation; nothing else can fill it. People try to fill it with every kind of thing but it cannot be filled by anything from the outside. It is basically inner, hence nothing from the outside can fill it. Something has to grow inside, only then can it be fulfilled. And when that inner gap is full, overflowing, one experiences perfection for the first time.