According to Osho, contemplating concepts has no real value—there is nothing to contemplate and no one to do it. Truth arrives when the mind dissolves into a sky-like silence; it cannot be captured in words. Choose meditation, not mental pondering. Drop seriousness; let laughter unburden you, so the thinker falls away and inexpressible ecstasy reveals itself.
Thinking about ideas won’t bring truth; relax, laugh, and sit silently so thinking drops and you can feel it directly.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, what do you say about meditation according to the three states of consciousness?
Contemplation is just the process of thinking, refining your thoughts; and the more you practise this refinement, the finer they become. And it is a joy in itself. It is a joy far superior to anything like food, sex, clothes; it is a finer joy. When you come across a new phenomenon which for millions of years people have passed by and nobody has detected and which you are the first to detect, a tremendous joy arises in you. Contemplation is of the intellect. Meditation is of intuition. Meditation has no subject matter. It is pure subjectivity. Meditation is not thinking about something. It is not thinking at all. But one thing has to be remembered: it does not mean falling asleep. That's what happens; if you are not thinking then the mind says, "What are you doing? Go to sleep." Mind is at ease with thinking or with sleep,…
Osho, is it possible that the no-mind evolves quite naturally out of the mind without struggle and anguish, without exploding, hammering, cutting and such wild acts? Is the very idea of no-mind, which seems to be in the mind and yet transcending the mind, a seedlike form of the no-mind? Is it helpful to meditate along these lines of mind-transcending concepts like eternity, nirvana, death? My mind seems to explode when I do. It feels like I am pushing over my limit and I get afraid of becoming schizophrenic.
And again let me repeat, the no-mind is not born out of your struggle; out of your struggle only comes the mind. The no-mind comes without any struggle. The rock gives you the struggle. It does not want to move. It has remained in that spot for centuries, for millennia -- who are you to remove it? "And about what spring are you talking? There is none. I have been here for centuries and I know -- there is none. Forget all about it!" But you want to remove the rock. The rock is heavy, the rock is rooted in the earth. It has remained there for so long. It has attachments; it does not want to go. And it knows nothing of the spring. But you will have to remove this rock. Unless this rock is removed, the spring will not flow. You ask: "without exploding, hammering, cutting and…
Osho: You cannot be open through effort. If you are thinking this, then you have not understood it. Thinking means non-understanding. The person who thinks is a man of non-understanding. A person who knows doesn't think. (much laughter) It is not a question of thinking. He sees, he is aware, but not in thinking. Thoughts are not opening, thoughts are closing; they close your mind. The more you are in a thinking mood, the more you are closed and isolated from the whole. If you are not thinking, if you just are, if you are in a state of being, then something comes. That is not thinking, that is the realization. That is not thinking, you have not thought it. And the more you have thought about it, the less is the possibility for its coming. The known must go for the unknown to come.
He would not like to know the truth through others, he would like to experience it himself -- because unless you drink the water your thirst is not going to be quenched. Buddha may have drunk the whole Ganges -- that is not going to make any difference to you. Just a glass of water will do for you but you have to drink it. But people are so foolish that they go on worshipping Buddha and Krishna and Christ, and hoping that their thirst will be quenched they go on worshipping scriptures -- Dhammapada, Koran, Bible. It is like a thirsty man worshipping a book of chemistry which explain that water is H2O. You can go on worshipping the book; you will remain thirsty. You are simply proving yourself silly and nothing else. Or you can go on repeating the mantra "H2O, H2O, H2O...
Question: BELOVED OSHO, GIVE ME SOME SUTRAS TO MEDITATE ON. Devageet... Devageet is a dental doctor, but lately he is turning into a philosopher! Just today he has sent a telegram to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, saying "Drop the idea of saving the world through transcendental meditation. I have a better suggestion...." His suggestion is `transdental medication'! And I think that if the world can be saved by yogic hopping, then there seems to be no problem why it cannot be saved by transdental medication. He is asking for some sutras to meditate on, but sutras are serious, and meditation does not need any sutra. Meditation is a state where absolute emptiness exists, not even a sutra; there is not any possibility of any object. A philosopher never meditates, a philosopher contemplates. So I can give sutras for contemplation, but not for meditation because that will be absolutely wrong.