Why is it difficult to live a meditative life without physical guidance?

Beloved Osho, meditation is the key. Why is it so difficult to live a meditative life without your physical presence?

It is difficult because you have not yet been able to find your own source of meditation. Being in my presence you need not meditate. Just being in my presence, a silence descends on you. Your heart has a different rhythm, your being feels a tremendous contentment. But this is just a reflection. You should not be deceived by the reflection. Enjoy the reflection, let it penetrate as deeply in you as possible. But this is only an example, that if it can happen in my presence, why cannot it happen in my absence? -- because it is happening in you. I may be functioning as a catalytic agent, but the source is within you; you just have to start trying it. For example, you are in my presence and you feel meditation comes so easily; in fact you need not think about it, it is there. Just try sitting…

Beloved Osho, sitting in your presence, meditation is really at its best. If asked why, I would say that it is because your blissful presence is contagious and somehow motivates me to be as total as possible. Beloved Osho, would you please explain again how it is possible to be in such a nice meditation when not being in your presence?

My presence has to be only a lesson. Once you have learned the art of opening, the art of being silent, it does not matter whether I am present or not. If you have really learned it, it will happen anywhere. It may be a little difficult in the beginning, but soon you will get the knack of it. It is almost like swimming. The teacher who teaches swimming just gives you courage and trust, and is there so that nothing goes wrong. Just in three or four days' time, one hour each day, you start swimming. And the moment you start swimming you are surprised -- why didn't you start it from the very beginning? There is nothing to it. It's just that in the beginning you were not moving your arms artfully, it was haphazard. Just in three or four days you have learned to move your arms…

Beloved Osho, yesterday you told us very clearly that we need to follow the master's word to the letter. But we cannot consult you on every detail. How can we choose the right path when the mind is always looking for the easy way?

Remember, passivity can become sleep. That's why I emphasize the word alertness -- because you can be passive and you go to sleep. Sleep is not meditation. One quality of sleep is there, one quality, that of passivity, and one quality of waking is there, that of alertness. Relaxed as if you are asleep, alert as you are awake. One thing is taken from sleep -- unconsciousness. That should not be there, because meditation cannot be unconscious, and one thing is taken from your waking state -- occupiedness; because if you are occupied then the mind is working, you are enclosed in thoughts. While you are awake there are two things: alertness and occupiedness. While you are asleep there are two things: passivity and unconsciousness. One thing from awakeness, one thing from sleep: passivity and alertness -- they make meditation. If you take the two other ingredients, occupation and unconsciousness,…

Beloved Osho, in all the years with you I felt meditations simply `happened' to me. Then in the last time when I was away from you I felt this was not me, but your grace overflowing towards me. For the first time I saw that I needed to give meditation a priority in my life or it would not happen. Now, melting in your presence again, everything I could ever desire is here. Osho, what happens to the disciple when one is without the master?

There are only two possibilities when the disciple is not with the master. One is that he goes back to the zero where he had been before he met the master. The second is, seeing that if without the master things that were happening in his presence are not happening, it simply means that his presence has not become an intrinsic part of your being. The master need not be outside you. In fact, he is always inside you, and if you can remember it -- "The master is inside me".... And the master is not asking much, just a small place, a small bedroom with an attached bathroom. Once you start feeling yourself as carrying the master within yourself, everything that was happening in the presence of the master not only continues but grows a thousandfold. Because it was the master outside, there was a distance. Now there is…

Beloved Osho, sitting with you in discourse and hearing you talk about enlightenment and silence, I feel immensely blessed, sometimes almost touching this space of coming home, and silence comes to my mind. But as soon as you leave through the door and the music stops, immediately the chattering inside starts again. For me it is much more difficult to become silent when I am meditating alone, but so easy in your presence. Is this natural in the relationship between a master and a disciple?

Deva Anuragini, it is very natural. Being in the presence of a master, silence happens on its own accord. Just as in the deep Himalayas, where the snow is eternal and the silence almost ancient... just sitting there under a tree, you start feeling, falling in tune with the immensity that surrounds you. To be in the presence of the master is even more deep-going. Because what is the meaning of being in the presence of the master? It is being with someone you love, someone you trust; someone with whom you are ready to go into the unknown. Being in this climate, you forget your trivial matters; and forgetting comes easy, not by your effort. The master is silent and silence is contagious. His heart slowly slowly brings you also into a synchronicity. You start beating with his heart, in the same rhythm. This is a beautiful experience in…