OSHO on Mind

MIND

People come to me and they ask, “How to attain a peaceful mind?” I say to them, “There exists nothing like that: peaceful mind. Never heard of it.”

Mind is never peaceful; no-mind is peace. Mind itself can never be peaceful, silent. The very nature of the mind is to be tense, to be in confusion. Mind can never be clear, it cannot have clarity, because mind is by nature confusion, cloudiness. Clarity is possible without mind, peace is possible without mind; silence is possible without mind, so never try to attain a silent mind. If you do, from the very beginning you are moving in an impossible dimension.

 

Osho, Tantra: The Supreme Understanding, Talk #2 

 

 

 

 

Remember always that whatsoever is happening around you is rooted in the mind. Mind is always the cause. It is the projector, and outside there are only screens – you project yourself. If you feel it is ugly then change the mind. If you feel whatsoever comes from the mind is hellish and nightmarish, then drop the mind. Work with the mind, don’t work with the screen; don’t go on painting it and changing it. Work with the mind.

 

But there is one problem, because you think you are the mind. So how can you drop it? So you feel you can drop everything, change everything, repaint, redecorate, rearrange, but how can you drop yourself. That is the root of all trouble.

 

You are not the mind, you are beyond mind. You have become identified, that’s true, but you are not the mind.

 

And this is the purpose of meditation: to give you small glimpses that you are not the mind. If even for a few moments the mind stops, you are still there! On the contrary, you are more, overflowing with being. When the mind stops it is as if a drainage which was continuously draining you has stopped. Suddenly you are overflowing with energy. You feel more!

 

If even for a single moment you become aware that the mind is not there but “I am,” you have reached a deep core of truth. Then it will be easy to drop the mind. You are not the mind, otherwise how can you drop yourself? The identification has to be dropped first, then the mind can be dropped.

Osho, The Book of Nothing: Hsin Hsin Ming, Talk #5 

 

 

 

 

When all identity with the mind is dropped, when you are a watcher on the hills and the mind is left deep down in the darkness of the valleys, when you are on the sunlit peaks, just a pure witness, seeing, watching, but not getting identified with anything – good or bad, sinner or saint, this or that – in that witnessing all questions dissolve. The mind melts, evaporates. You are left as a pure being, just a pure existence – a breathing, a beating of the heart, utterly in the moment, no past, no future, hence no present either.

Osho, The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol. 1, Talk #6

 

 

 

 

Mind is illusory – that which is not but appears to be, and appears so much that you think that you are the mind. Mind is maya, mind is just a dream, mind is just a projection…a soap bubble – nothing in it, but it appears like a soap bubble floating on a river. The sun is just rising, the rays penetrate the bubble; a rainbow is created and nothing is there in it. When you touch the bubble it is broken and everything disappears – the rainbow, the beauty – nothing is left. Only emptiness becomes one with the infinite emptiness. Just a wall was there, a bubble wall. Your mind is just a bubble wall – inside, your emptiness; outside, my emptiness. It is just a bubble: prick it, and the mind disappears.

Osho, A Bird on the Wing, Talk #2 

 

 

 

 

You say, “Why are you so against the mind?” I am not against the mind; I am simply stating the fact – what the mind is. If you see what the mind is, you will drop it. When I say, “Drop the mind,” I am not against the mind. I am simply making it clear to you what the mind is, what it has done to you, how it has become a bondage.

 

It is not a question of using it or abusing it. The mind itself is the problem, not its use or abuse. And remember, you cannot use the mind till you know how to be without the mind. Only people who know how to be without the mind, are capable of using the mind, otherwise the mind uses them. It is the mind that is using you, but mind is very clever, it goes on deceiving you. It goes on saying, “You are using me.”

 

It is the mind that is using you. You are being used; the mind has become the master of you, you are a slave, but the mind is very clever, it goes on buttressing you. It says, “I am just an instrument, you are the master.” But watch, look into the mechanism of the mind, how it goes on using you. You think you are using it. You can use it only when you know that you are separate from it; otherwise how will you use it? You are identified with it.

Osho, The Book of Wisdom, Talk #2

 

 

 

 

Osho,

Are mind and consciousness separate things? Or is the silent mind, or the concentrated mind, what is called “consciousness”?

 

It depends, it depends on your definition. But to me, mind is that part which has been given to you. It is not yours. Mind means the borrowed, mind means the cultivated, mind means that with which the society has penetrated you. It is not you.

 

Consciousness is your nature; mind is just the circumference created by the society around you, the culture, your education.

 

Mind means the conditioning. So, you can have a Hindu mind, you cannot have a Hindu consciousness. You can have a Christian mind, you can’t have a Christian consciousness. Consciousness is one: it is not divisible. Minds are many. Societies are many, cultures, religions are many and each culture, each society, creates a different mind. Mind is a social by-product. And unless this mind dissolves, you cannot go within; you cannot know what is really your nature, what is authentically your existence, your consciousness.

 

To struggle for meditation is to struggle against the mind. Mind is never meditative and mind is never silent, so to say “a silent mind” is meaningless, absurd. It is just like saying “a healthy disease.” It makes no sense. How can there be a disease that is healthy? Disease is disease, and health is the absence of disease.

 

There is nothing like a silent mind. When there is silence, there is no mind. When there is mind, there is no silence. Mind, as such, is the disturbance, the dis-ease. Meditation is the state of no-mind – not of a silent mind, not of a healthy mind, not of a concentrated mind, no. Meditation is the state of no-mind: no society within you, no conditioning within you – just you, with your pure consciousness.

 

Osho, The New Alchemy: To Turn You On, Talk #27