What should I do to manage my unruly mind?

Question: Second question: Osho, what should I do? My mind is a great rascal! Saint! You are speaking just like the old saints: “My mind is a great rascal!” Don’t abuse the mind. Learn to use it. The mind is a precious instrument—there is nothing more wondrous. It is God’s supreme gift to you. With this very mind, if you choose, you can get entangled in the world; with this very mind, if you choose, you can disentangle yourself. With this mind you can descend the steps to hell; with this mind heaven can be yours. Don’t call it a rascal. The mind does not mislead you—you want to wander, and the mind becomes your companion. The mind is your servant, your attendant. If you steal, the mind proposes ways to steal; if you sing a hymn, the mind starts composing hymns.

Beloved master, I want to throw this ugly mind out of my system. How to do it?

Narayano, nothing has to be thrown out of your system; everything has to be transformed and absorbed. The mind is not ugly; your USE of the mind is ugly. Change your use. Mind is not ugly -- you are unconscious. The chariot is beautiful, it is a golden chariot, but the charioteer is drunk and fast asleep; and he calls the chariot names, condemns the chariot. When he finds himself in a ditch he beats the horses, he condemns the chariot, he condemns the chariot-maker, and he never thinks that it is not the fault of the chariot, not the fault of the horses, not the fault of the chariot-maker. It is his fault -- he was drunk, he was fast asleep. If the chariot has fallen into a ditch it is natural, the whole responsibility is yours. It is not a question of destroying the mind or throwing the…

Beloved Osho, in the mind, in the process of thinking, there is so much energy. How can we use that energy in a creative and constructive way?

He sat in his worshipping place, but the monkeys were inside. He closed his eyes, they were sitting all around him. He said, "I have never thought that monkeys are so interested in me. Why are you bothering me? A few are inside the mind, and if I close my mind, a few are sitting all around me. They push me from this side and from that side, and giggling! I am a silent man, and this is not gentlemanly behavior." And again the wife looked into his worshipping place and she said, "With whom are you talking?" He said, "My God, now I have to explain something which I do not understand myself. Just don't you disturb me tonight. Tomorrow morning I will go and I will see that old man." The whole night he took showers many times, rubbed the soap as much as he could to clean…

Osho, for a few days my heart settles into meditation; then for a few days worship and bhajans flow. But I cannot concentrate anywhere. I am troubled by this state. Kindly guide and train me.

About three years later he was found in Paris learning painting. Reduced to a beggar’s state. His friends rushed there. “What have you done? You had everything—everything was fine.” He said, “That was the obstacle—everything was fine. But there was no exhilaration. Nowhere any surge. Everything ran fine, and I ran it fine—but no stream of rasa was flowing. “All my life I longed to be a painter. I never wanted to be a broker. That success was accidental. Now I am happy. I have nothing. I paint; if paintings sell, I manage food and clothes. I have not even a roof of my own. I live in a friend’s room. But I am not going back. I am happy.” And the friends saw that the man was filled with a strange energy, a strange aura. His body had thinned, but there was a light. He said, “Tell my wife…

As the fletcher whittles and makes straight his arrows, so the master directs his straying thoughts.

LIKE A FISH OUT OF WATER, STRANDED ON THE SHORE, THOUGHTS THRASH AND QUIVER. FOR HOW CAN THEY SHAKE OFF DESIRE? THEY TREMBLE, THEY ARE UNSTEADY, THEY WANDER AT THEIR WILL. IT IS GOOD TO CONTROL THEM. AND TO MASTER THEM BRINGS HAPPINESS. BUT HOW SUBTLE THEY ARE, HOW ELUSIVE! THE TASK IS TO QUIETEN THEM, AND BY RULING THEM TO FIND HAPPINESS. WITH SINGLEMINDEDNESS THE MASTER QUELLS HIS THOUGHTS. Ram was only wearing one single cloth, he had just wrapped a blanket around himself. He threw the blanket -- rather than answering he created a situation. That's how great mystics work. He threw the blanket, he was utterly naked, and he ran away. All the people ran with him! Not only those who were surrounding him but others also who were standing here and there or who had come for a morning walk, and people who were sitting on…