Center

Beloved master, you are the center of the cyclone. When I am near you I feel fine. But when I am a little away from you I am again in the strong whorls of the cyclone -- the great movement of emotions and feelings. How can I get to the center of my own cyclone?

Just be a witness of all those emotions, thoughts, which you call the cyclone. Just be a witness, and that point of witnessing is the center of the cyclone. This is the simplest method to realize oneself.

Beloved Osho, in days past, sufis had to whirl in order to become aware of their unmoving center. In this rapidly changing world, can the modern man simply stand still and achieve exactly the same effect?

No, it won't do, because you cannot stand still. You don't know how to be still. It is not just a matter of standing. The world is moving, but that movement is invisible. The earth is moving, but you don't feel its movement because you are also moving with it. The earth is making a double movement: first, on its own axis -- it is moving round and round; and second, it is going around the sun. So a double movement is there, but you are not aware of either. You can stand still, but the earth goes on moving and you are moving with it. In twenty-four hours it makes one round of itself, and in three hundred and sixty-five days it makes another round of the sun. You will be moving. You cannot stand still. There is no place where you can stand still. Everything is movement. Stillness…

Osho, to abide in oneself beyond the knower, knowledge, and the known—can one live in that state for an entire lifetime? Just as a lake is sometimes calm, sometimes playful, and sometimes stormy, does the self-realized one remain unaffected by worldly circumstances in the same way? Osho, dispel my ignorance!

Spring means harmony between season and mood. Meditation means harmony between you and the whole. You become harmonious. Whatever is, is perfectly okay—accepted. Nowhere any refusal, nowhere any opposition. Whatever is happening is auspicious. That is trust; that is meditation. Such meditation naturally takes you into an altogether new experience. Storms will rise; they will not stop because you meditate. Diseases will not stop coming to the body because you meditate. They will come. A thorn will sometimes pierce the foot. Raman had cancer; so did Ramakrishna—great storms came! Ramakrishna got cancer of the throat; he could neither eat nor drink. Vivekananda said to him, “What is not in your power! Why don’t you pray to the Lord at least to allow food and water to pass? We suffer watching you writhe.” Ramakrishna said, “Ah, it never even occurred to me to pray. How could it occur—to one whose prayer…

These are three concentric circles around the center. Of course the heart is closer to being, so it is better to be in the heart than to be in the mind. The mind is closer than the body; it is better to be in the mind than in the body. But the ultimate goal is to be just your being -- no action, no thought, no feeling, just pure witnessing. And then the satori happens and one becomes full of light, full of truth. Then to live is a blessing. Before it, it is just a drag; after it, it is a dance. (Really, meditation is a journey, Osho told Bhavan, from your head to your heart to your being.) Meditation is not-knowing, it is not like knowledge, It is far closer to feeling. It is not like logic, it is far more like love.