Why is meditation emphasized over reading spiritual texts or listening to sages?

A friend has asked, Osho, why should we be religious when neither the beginning nor the end is known, and there is no trace of God or soul? The enlightened ones speak of truth—if that truth is real, why can’t they make everyone experience it?

No one is telling you to be religious—at least Lao Tzu would not. The so-called religious people have created so much disturbance that it is better you do not become one of them. Lao Tzu does not say, “Be religious.” He simply says: be what you are. You may ask, why should I be what I am? Because that is the only thing you can be. There is no way to be anything else. Yes, you can try to be something else—and in that trying your life can be wasted. You may then say, why not waste life? No one can stop you. And precisely for this reason even the enlightened ones are defeated and cannot give you the knowledge of truth—because you say, why should we know the truth? What can the enlightened do? They can speak. They can try to awaken in you the thirst for the joy…

Osho, is it possible to grasp the poignant meaning of an enlightened one’s words without having attained meditation? Is there a deep relationship between essential knowing and the state of meditation? Kindly shed light on this.

Seeing a singer sing, you remember your own throat: a voice, after all, I have too. Seeing a dancer dance, you remember your feet: I have feet too—if I wish, I can also dance. Seeing a painter paint, you remember: if I wish, I too can paint. In just the same way, seeing a Buddha, you remember: if I wish, I too can attain Buddhahood. This very wishing—this is not the whole understanding—this is the beginning of thirst. A kind of light spreads. However it may be, every time passes by, The gist remains, but the heap scatters. In sorrow burns the heat of the Vaishakh sun, In such a season even the ocean recedes. All day long we journey through darkness, Come evening, a kind of light spreads. Every continuity breaks, friends, Sometimes such a moment passes. Some hope flashes forth as a ray, For a little while every…

If you continue meditation, by and by it cleans you every day of the past, and prepares you for the future. It gives you a deep rootedness in the present... it is therapeutic. [An actor said he was now trying to work differently, presenting ideas from his unconscious spontaneously to the audience. He said he tended to be self-conscious and asked for Osho's help.] Much can be done... much can be done. But before you can do anything for others, you have to do it for yourself, otherwise you cannot be spontaneous. Spontaneity is possible only when you have attained to a certain inner flow of energies, otherwise you can be spontaneous but it will not be impressive; it will not be a performance. Two things have to be looked to when you are doing it for people.

All that we do here is to help you to put the mind aside. All the meditations are nothing but devices to put the mind aside. And once you have got even just a glimpse of your inner light, then things become very easy. Then you know that the light is inside. And then to put the mind aside is not difficult because now you know there is no risk -- it is worth putting it aside. Only in the beginning is it difficult because you only know the mind. You have been identified with it, you think you are the mind so to put it aside feels very dangerous. It feels like committing suicide, because it is you! But you are not it. It is just a deep-rooted misconception, a wrong calculation. You are simply making a mathematical mistake. Two plus two are four, and you are putting five.

What is meditation?

Ordinarily, when we are conscious of anything, the thing becomes the other. If we are identified with something, then it is not the other, but then we are not conscious -- as in anger, in sex. We become one only when we are unconscious. Sex has so much appeal because in sex you become one for a moment. But in that moment, you are unconscious. You seek the unconsciousness because you seek the oneness. But the more you seek it, the more conscious you become. Then you will not feel the bliss of sex, because the bliss was coming from the unconsciousness. You could become unconscious in a moment of passion. Your consciousness dropped. For a single moment you were in the abyss -- but unconscious. But the more you seek it, the more it is lost. Finally a moment comes when you are in sex and the moment of…