Osho Quotes on Meditative Space

Osho Quotes on Meditative Space

1. If possible, have a separate room for meditation, and use it exclusively for meditation. Don t use that room for any other purpose. It may be a small room, but keep it under lock and key. If any members of your family want to join you, allow them on the condition that they meditate with you and not do anything else. It is different if a separate room is not available, but a separate room for meditation will have many advantages. If it is used exclusively for meditation, it will be charged with meditative energy. And when you will enter it you will find that it is not an ordinary space. We radiate our energy all the time all around us; we send out rays of our mental energy all around us. And the space around us, even inside a room, absorbs this energy. That is the reason why a few places re main holy for thousands of years. If a man like Mahavira, Buddha or Krishna sits in a particular place, it takes on his extraordinary vibe, his unearthly impact, which can last for thousands of years. From such a place one’s entry into the other world, the spiritual world, becomes much easier.
2. Whenever you sit to meditate, take a bath, make a special room for your meditation. Don’t do anything in that room so that it remains vibrating with your meditativeness. Burn incense, bring roses and flowers, sit silently. Close your eyes, watch your thoughts and you will immediately go into deep silence; thoughts will disappear.
3. Create meditative energy, Create a meditative space within you.
4. I have not come across a single man in my life who has not had enlightened moments. You yourself don’t believe that you can be enlightened, so you don’t even take note of them. Some day walking on the beach and the sun is beautiful and the breeze is salty… and a moment comes, a door opens. Suddenly you start seeing things as you have never seen them. You are utterly lost in the moment; there is no past and no future. You have forgotten who you are, you have forgotten what you want to become, you simply ARE — in tune with the ocean and the wind and the sun. This is enlightenment — although I know you are not capable of living in it, because you have not created a meditative space inside you. So it comes and goes. If you have created a meditative space inside you, that meditative space will be able to contain it. That’s what meditation is all about: the capacity to contain enlightenment. Enlightenment comes to everybody — but you have so many holes in your being, it flows out, it simply leaks out.
5. If possible, have a separate room for meditation, and use it exclusively for meditation. Don t use that room for any other purpose. It may be a small room, but keep it under lock and key. If any members of your family want to join you, allow them on the condition that they meditate with you and not do anything else. It is different if a separate room is not available, but a separate room for meditation will have many advantages. If it is used exclusively for meditation, it will be charged with meditative energy. And when you will enter it you will find that it is not an ordinary space. We radiate our energy all the time all around us; we send out rays of our mental energy all around us. And the space around us, even inside a room, absorbs this energy. That is the reason why a few places re main holy for thousands of years. If a man like Mahavira, Buddha or Krishna sits in a particular place, it takes on his extraordinary vibe, his unearthly impact, which can last for thousands of years. From such a place one’s entry into the other world, the spiritual world, becomes much easier. Every well to do person — and I have a single criterion to judge a well to do person and it is that he has a temple in his house, otherwise he is a pauper — should have a temple in a part of his house. At least one room in every house should be reserved and used as a temple, as a door to the other world. Don’t use that room for anything else. Enter it in silence and use it only for meditation. The other members of the family will by and by begin to be interested in meditation, because then changes that it will make for you will begin to show.
6. Please, become more meditative. When you are silent, utterly silent and quiet, contented, fulfilled, just herenow and no thought moves in your mind, the mind functions no more and you are transported into an unbounded space, contentless, thoughtless, but fully alert, you will know what is real in you. And whatsoever is real in you is real in Jesus, is real in me — because it is real. Real is real. It makes no differences between me and you, Jesus and Buddha. Reality is one.
7. A person should be capable of living on the circumference and at the center easily. He should be able to move from the marketplace to the meditative space and from the meditative space to the marketplace — with no problem, playfully, easily, spontaneously.
8. People think they need a greater mind to understand. I want you to see it clearly: you need no mind if you want to understand. You need only a meditative silent space.
9. Your mind always reminds me of his guestroom — so much rubbish, junk, so much furniture that there is no space even for yourself. The life of meditation is: to create room in you, to create space in you. Throw out all the nonsense that others have given to you. You will be aware of yourself only when the mind is utterly empty. On the one hand, it will become empty; on the other hand, it will become full of you, your pure being. Growth needs space. Your consciousness is starving. Give it a sky to fly in — and it is in your hands, because whatever you have in your mind, you have collected it. Now you don’t know how to get rid of it. Meditation is only a technique for getting rid of it. The greatest day in your life is when deep silence overwhelms you.
10. Be more meditative. Whenever you have any opportunity, any space, any time, just allow things to happen around you. Look deeply, attentively, but don’t be active — because activity means thinking. Sitting quietly, allowing things to happen, you will become silent.
11. Marx says, ‘First the society has to change, then the new consciousness will be born.’ I say, ‘First the new consciousness has to come, then the society will change.’ Consciousness is more valuable. A meditative consciousness has to be released into the world. And you cannot do anything other than become meditative. If you yourself move into that space more and more, you will be creating a kind of energy around you which will help others to become more meditative. When you sit by the side of a meditative person, something in you starts changing immediately.
12. Energy that comes out of meditative silence is creative. There is not a single instance of it destroying anything, it has only created: it has created a beautiful space within; it has created beautiful art, music, sculpture, poetry, painting, outside.
13. Love never thinks of the other as a means; love knows how to respect. Love never reduces the other to a possessed thing. Love knows how to help the other to be free; love brings freedom. Love is missing. It is bound to be so because unless one becomes meditative one cannot bring the explosion of love and light that I am talking about. Meditation creates the space inside. And only in that space and in that certain climate does the seed of love start growing. Meditation is like the spring for the love to bloom. Without meditation it is lust; with meditation the same energy becomes love. And once you are full of love you are full of light too. That light makes you able to see God.
14. Make love only when you are ready to be in a meditative space. And create a meditative atmosphere while you are making love. You should treat the place as sacred. Creating life… what can be more sacred? Do it as beautifully, as aesthetically, as joyously as possible. There should be no hurry. And if the two lovers meet in such an atmosphere outside, and such a silent space within, they will attract a soul, the highest available. You give birth to a child according to your state of love.
15. The child’s life begins from the moment the soul enters into the womb. If it has come into a meditative space, it is possible to have a child without conditioning him. In fact, a child who is born out of meditation cannot be conditioned; he will rebel against it. Only mediocre people can be conditioned.
16. You just have to know your innermost center and from there everything becomes spontaneous. Your love, your joy, your dance, your song — everything arises on its own, and then it has a beauty. Totally different… when a poetry arises out of this silent space, it is not your composition. Ancient poets have not signed their names, ancient sculptors have not signed their names on their statues. Even people who made immensely beautiful things like the Taj Mahal have not left their name. Nobody knows who was the architect. But it must have arisen just like a poetry. It is poetry in marble. Music has arisen, but it is a totally different kind — not the kind that you compose. On the contrary, it composes you. Once a man has tasted the meditative space within him, everything that he touches becomes gold; everything that happens around him has a grace and a beauty and a splendor and a majesty. It is a miracle.
17. Objective art means something that helps you to become centered, that helps you to become healthy and whole. Watching the Taj Mahal in the full moon, you will fall into a very meditative space. Looking at the statue of Buddha, just sitting silently with the statue of the Buddha, something in you will become silent, something in you will become still, something in you will become buddhalike. It is objective art, it has tremendous significance.
18. Certain music can create great sexuality in you. Certain other music can create great serenity in you. Sounds go and hit your particular centres. Modern music hits only the sex centre. It almost creates a sexual delirium, a sexual hysteria; it is hysterical. Classical music goes higher. There are people like Beethoven who reach to the highest peak. Just listening to Beethoven is enough to create a meditative space inside and outside. The eastern music goes very deep. It is absolutely non-sexual, it never stirs the lower instincts. It gives you wings.
19. All your art and all your creativity seem to be a poor substitute to the woman. I have been asked many times why women are not great poets, great musicians, great painters, great sculptors. The reason is that because they can give birth to life, they don’t feel any need to create anything else. Only on one point, in one place, man and woman meet, and that I call the space of meditation — where man and woman are really equal, because both can give birth to themselves. They can be reborn; both can be pregnant with enlightenment. Except in the space of meditation, man and woman are two different species. They meet only in deep meditation. And unless the whole of humanity is meditative, men and women will go on fighting with each other. Their love is always going up and down — there are moments of beauty, and there are moments of ugliness; there are moments of joy, and there are moments of misery. But in meditation — if two meditators share their energies — love is a constant phenomenon, it does not change. It has the quality of eternity; it becomes divine. The meeting of love and meditation is the greatest experience in life. To have love without meditation is to live in a very troubled, anxiety-ridden state — in anguish, angst, always in a turmoil. There are moments of silence, but that silence is nothing but cold war — preparation for another war, that’s all. Obviously, to prepare for another war, for a few days, for a few moments, you have to be silent.
20. If you are really a sannyasin then whatsoever you do will be a help towards your goal, your samadhi. If you are playing music, you will play with the idea that it will be part of your meditation. If you are dancing, you will dance to create a more meditative space around you. If you are talking to somebody, you will talk only about things which are going to help; you will not be distracted by rubbish. You will simply say, ‘This is not for me. I am not interested in it.’ You will read only those books which are going to help. You will not waste your time in reading stupid novels. You will not go to any movie and you will not listen to any radio programme. Your life will become more and more directed, channellised. You have one purpose, and that purpose is continuously there — like a thread running in everything you are doing. Only then is there a possibility, only then do you become worthy enough. You deserve God’s descending into you. When it is seen that your total effort is directed towards God, that your whole life has become worship, it is IHSAN. It is what Buddhists called SHEELA, virtue.
21. There are things which are immediately killed, the moment you possess them. In your experience there is only one thing that is immediately killed if you possess it — that is love. Satori is even more so. When you attain to a silent space, a meditative experience inside, don’t possess it! This is the vow. Don’t say, “This is mine.” Don’t become egoistic about it, don’t start bragging. Don’t start walking in a special way, don’t start looking at people, thinking, “These poor people, they have not attained yet.” Don’t start pretending that you are a Buddha. If you have attained to satori, become more humble, feel more grateful. And share it and shower it on others. Don’t hold it — it is not a treasure to guard, it is a treasure to be shared. And the more you share, the more will be coming to you. The more you hoard it, you will be surprised one day, to find your fists are empty. It is like love. You fall in love, love is there dancing — it is almost tangible, you can touch it. Immediately you start grabbing, you start possessing. And you have killed it! You may not become aware right now, but sooner or later you will see you have killed it. Love is a bird on the wing — don’t encage it. Samadhi is more so — you cannot catch hold of it. Enjoy it.
22. Buddha says: Shower your meditation, otherwise you have missed. Now, this is a very new teaching — Patanjali has not said so — this is a very new insight. Buddha says: If you attain to meditative states, shower it immediately. If you don’t shower it, then you have not attained to the space that you think you have attained. Then you are in a deception, you are tn an illusion — because a meditative state is, by its very nature, sharing. If you cannot share, then you must be in a deception somewhere. Then the state is pseudo, then the space is not real. A real meditative space, by its very nature, wants to be shared. If your meditation does not become compassion, then somewhere, something has gone wrong.
23. I teach you not to react to the past. They wasted their life on one extreme, now you should not waste your life reacting to them on another extreme. I show you the way which is exactly in the middle: no past, no future, no reaction, but a meditative space. And once a man has tasted a meditative state, then there is no problem for him. He knows the secret key, he knows the alchemy of transformation. He can go on moving deeper and deeper into the present — it is infinite.
24. Understanding what meditation is, is inviting the master in. Mind is a servant. The moment the master comes in with all its silence, with all its joy, suddenly the mind falls into absolute silence. Once you have achieved a meditative space, enlightenment is only a question of time. You cannot force it. You have to be just a waiting, an intense waiting, with a great longing — almost like thirst, hunger, not a word …. It is like the experience of people who have sometimes got lost in a desert.
25. Mind is capable of creating all kinds of illusions, hallucinations. But mind is not capable of creating the illusion of meditation, for the simple reason that meditation is an absence of mind. All other illusions and hallucinations need mind to be present; they are mind projections. Only meditation is beyond the capacity of mind. Because it is beyond the mind, mind has no experience of meditation; it cannot delude you. If you are feeling meditative, silent, thoughtless, innocent, a pure space, you can trust that you have entered the temple of meditation.
26. If you go and see Khajuraho, don’t miss the FACES of the lovers — they have the real message. Those faces are so blissful, so calm, so meditative, that you will not find such faces sculpted anywhere else. Such great ecstasy! Even the stone has bloomed in those faces; those faces have transformed the stone into roseflowers, into lotuses. Seeing those faces you will be able to see that these lovers are no more part of time and space; they have gone beyond. The figures are sexually active, but they are not obsessed with sex — neither for nor against. Both are obsessions — for and against simply means things are no longer natural. When things are natural, you are neither for nor against.
27. When you don’t feel like going into deep relationship, if you force yourself to, it will be ugly; it won’t make any sense. If you don’t force and still go with people because of what they feel, then they will feel rejected. There is no need! If you are not feeling in that space, just be with yourself more and more, meditate more. These are the two things — meditation and love — and they are like day and night; each is followed by the other. In the night you go to sleep, you don’t bother about work, you don’t think about how to do more work. In the day you work and you don’t bother about sleep. When you are in a meditative space be alone and enjoy your aloneness. And when you are in a loving space enjoy relationship. And don’t try to mess things up, otherwise you will be in difficulty and others will be in difficulty.
28. Why in the bathtub? You are relaxed, and relaxation is the basis of meditation. You relax — when you relax, all tensions are dropped. Hot water, and the silence of the bathroom, and your aloneness…. And now in the West, bathrooms are being made so beautiful they are almost like temples. A few people have even started making their sitting-room in the bathroom. It is so beautiful — one can relax, one can meditate. In that meditative mood, things happen.
29. Try to understand the mechanism of the mind. The mind can only live either out of the past or out of the future. The mind feeds on that which is not, the mind lives through that which is not — the past is no more, the future is not yet, both are non-existential. And the mind feeds on the non-existential. Hence those who have come to see their mind say that the mind is non-existential. Because it lives on the non-existent it cannot be existent itself. It is a shadow; it is not reality. One has to stop rushing and running. That’s what meditation is all about: stopping the mind herenow, bringing it to the present. And you will be surprised — the moment you bring it to the present it melts and disappears. It is as if you take a candle into your dark room and darkness disappears. The darkness cannot face the candle. If the candle is not there, the darkness is there — bring the light in and the darkness is no more there. The darkness was only the absence of light; it was an absence. It had no existence of its own, it was shadowy, non-existential.
30. Meditation is a door to immortality. Without meditation we live in the world of death; with meditation we enter into the real world of life. Without meditation what we call life is nothing but sitting in a waiting room waiting for your train to come, or standing in a queue which every moment becomes smaller and smaller, as people go on disappearing into death.