According to Osho, thoughtlessness is the inner silence that arises when your whole life-energy gathers in a single, total moment—nothing held back, nothing partial. Like scattered sunrays focused into fire, the mind’s dispersed thoughts converge and disappear, revealing intensity, clarity, and a revelatory presence. When everything is truly at stake, thinking stops and being awakens.
It’s when you’re so completely present that your mind goes quiet, like all your attention becoming one bright beam.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
So does some power arise in no-thought?
No-thought is absolute power. When a problem is faced and caught, it breaks—and in its breaking nothing needs to be done. It is as automatic as when a cat sees a mouse and the mouse is gone. So let our whole focus slowly gather onto one thing, our entire personality into a single act. At that time, any act done at an intense speed is beneficial—and if it is of the body, so much the better. Walk fast; do not walk slowly, because if you walk slowly you cannot carry the focus. Walk so swiftly that the whole personality is transformed into walking. Only walking is happening. And now bring the entire focus to this walking. Do not think, “I am walking”; rather, what is this act of walking that is happening? Let the mind remain only on this. In a little while you will find—Jayantibhai is not here—only one…
Osho, I too have begun to feel that it is not valuable.
If you decide to do social service—uplift the “Harijan,” redistribute land, do this and that—and you think self-realization will result, you are mistaken. Self-realization will not come from that. You may become a good and popular person; you will taste a subtle pleasure of ego—and nothing more. You will enjoy the pleasure of being “a servant,” but you will not taste the joy of service. The pleasure of the role of “servant” is one thing; the joy of service is entirely another. But if you enter religious practice, which is utterly personal, then a day will come when that sadhana will transform your life into service. Now life is self-interest; then life will be service. In self-ignorance, life is self-centered; whatever you do, some form of self-interest is present. In self-knowledge, life is service; whatever you do, self-interest cannot remain. For me, religion is fundamental; its result will surely come.…
Osho, when the mind becomes completely thoughtless, then what will it think about? To think, one still needs something to think about, at least as a problem, isn’t it?
If you understand rightly, thoughtlessness does not see problems; it sees solutions. Thought sees problems and then has to think up solutions. The solution is self-fabricated; the problem is outside. For a mind full of thought, the problem is outside and the solution is concocted within. For a thought-free consciousness the problem is not seen at all; only the solution is seen. Therefore there is no need to think. If you like, you can call this right thinking. This, in truth, is what thinking should be: where seeing happens—where there is no problem, only the solution. Understand it like this: when first the problem is seen and then you have to make a solution, that is thought. But if, the very moment the problem is seen, the solution appears—no gap at all between problem and solution, not even a moment left over for cogitation—then know it is thoughtlessness. Therefore, do…
I don't understand—what is the difference?
Yes, there is a difference. You can be without thoughts; that is not the same as thoughtlessness. Being without thoughts can happen once in a while. The whole reason for that kind of thought-free state is simply this: a kind of numbness sets in—of the brain. Understand this difference. You are sitting, not walking; another person is also sitting, not walking. But he is paralyzed—he too is not walking. Both are seated. Yet I would say he is not really “sitting”; he is being made to sit. You are sitting. He is only paralyzed. Though both people’s legs look the same—he is sitting, you are sitting—no one could tell by looking who is truly sitting. You are sitting because you could also get up and walk. He cannot walk at all; so what is the point of calling it “sitting”? Do you get what I mean? I wouldn’t even say…
Osho, is there any practical process for being in the realm of existence beyond thoughts, in the void?
The way to thin them out is non-cooperation. Right now we are their makers—that is, we are the ones maintaining them. When we sit idle, some thought or other is running, because without our cooperation they cannot run. Withdraw your cooperation from whatever thoughts are running, and do nothing else; regard just this as samayik, as meditation. If all thoughts dissolve, you will feel no ego and no person within. You will know only being—only being will be known, in which the distinction “I am an individual” or “I am the whole” will not be felt. Only pure being will remain—pure existence. In truth, because of the thoughts accumulated upon that pure existence, we appear to be a person. This sense that I am “A,” you are “B,” you are “C”—the A, B, C we have pasted on—is our thought-power. We commonly say, “I will become liberated”—this is not quite…