Osho Quotes on Transcendental Meditation of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

Osho Quotes on Transcendental Meditation of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

1. If you cannot fall asleep in the night, if you suffer from sleeplessness, then methods like Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s Transcendental Meditation are perfectly good. That method has nothing to do with meditation; it is neither meditation nor transcendental. It is simply a non-medicinal tranquilizer. It is good as far as it can bring sleep and without any drug — I appreciate it — but it has nothing to do with meditation.
2. Repeating a mantra, doing transcendental meditation, is not going to help. Transcendental meditation has become very important in America because of the objective approach, because of the scientific mind. Now it is the only meditation on which scientific work can be done. It is exactly concentration and not meditation, so it is comprehensible for the scientific mind. In the universities, in the science laboratories, in psychological research work, much is being done about TM, because it is not meditation. It is concentration, a method of concentration; it falls under the same category as scientific concentration; there is a link between the two. But it has nothing to do with meditation. Meditation is so vast, so tremendously infinite, that no scientific research is possible. Only compassion will show whether the man has achieved or not. Alpha waves won’t be of much help because they are still of the mind and meditation is not of the mind — it is something beyond.
3. Many chanters of mantras fall asleep — hence the use of Transcendental Meditation for people who suffer from sleeplessness, hence its appeal in America. Insomnia has become a normal thing. The more insomnia is there, the more will be the appeal of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, because people need some tranquilizers. A mantra is a prefect tranquilizer, but that is not its real use. There is nothing wrong in it — if it gives you good sleep, good, but that is not its real use.
4. Just the other day I was looking at an advertisement of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s Transcendental Meditation. It promises everything: a good job, proficiency in your work, health, mental health, physical health, longevity; everything that a man can desire, it promises. It is a long list. Economic, spiritual, social, physical, psychological — all these benefits — just for sitting for twenty minutes and repeating something stupid. Coca-cola, coca-cola — or something like that. So simple! That’s why it is said that you should not tell your mantra to anybody — otherwise they will laugh! It has to be kept private. If you say to somebody that I repeat coca-cola, coca-cola, they will think you have gone mad. So a mantra has to be kept absolutely private. You will keep it private anyway because it will look so absurd to tell it to anybody. Just twenty minutes repeating any nonsense word and you get so many benefits? It appeals to the mediocre mind immediately. This Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s meditation is neither meditation nor transcendental; it is simply an effort to exploit the gullible, to exploit the people who are searching and seeking for everything, searching for a panacea, searching for a remedy.
5. Just the other day I was looking at an advertisement of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s Transcendental Meditation. It promises everything: a good job, proficiency in your work, health, mental health, physical health, longevity; everything that a man can desire, it promises. It is a long list. Economic, spiritual, social, physical, psychological — all these benefits — just for sitting for twenty minutes and repeating something stupid. Coca-cola, coca-cola — or something like that. So simple! That’s why it is said that you should not tell your mantra to anybody — otherwise they will laugh! It has to be kept private. If you say to somebody that I repeat coca-cola, coca-cola, they will think you have gone mad. So a mantra has to be kept absolutely private. You will keep it private anyway because it will look so absurd to tell it to anybody. Just twenty minutes repeating any nonsense word and you get so many benefits? It appeals to the mediocre mind immediately. This Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s meditation is neither meditation nor transcendental; it is simply an effort to exploit the gullible, to exploit the people who are searching and seeking for everything, searching for a panacea, searching for a remedy.
6. Your so-called saints go on singing lullabies; they help you to sleep better. And you will be surprised that the so-called mantras are nothing but a way to fall deeply asleep. That’s what Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s Transcendental Meditation is. If you repeat ANY word… it does not matter what word you repeat — Rama, Rama, or Krishna, Krishna, or Christ, Christ, or Coca-Cola, Coca-Cola — anything will do. If you go on repeating a certain word continuously it will help you to fall deep asleep, because the mind becomes bored with it. When the mind becomes bored it starts feeling dull, sleepy. When the mind becomes bored there is only one escape from the boredom — to fall asleep. Mothers have known it for centuries. Transcendental meditation has been used by all the mothers all over the world. Whenever the child is not going to sleep they start repeating a single line, a lullaby. Anything will do; just go on repeating the same again and again and the child starts falling asleep.
7. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s Transcendental Meditation — which is neither transcendental nor meditation — has become so significant in America. America is the country which suffers most from sleeplessness, the only country which can sleep only through tranquilizers, sleeping pills — and even those are no longer working — the only country which has become so restless that sleep has become almost impossible. New methods are needed, more subtle methods are needed. But to fall asleep is not meditation, it is consolation. It will give you a little rest and tomorrow you will find yourself a little more fresh. It is good — I am not against it. It is a nonmedicinal tranquilizer. If you use tranquilizers you can use transcendental meditation — far better. At least you are not stuffing yourself with chemicals which may have any side effect. It will not harm you, but it is not meditation at all — because meditation means sharpening of intelligence. Meditation means becoming more alert, more bright, more brilliant, becoming more luminous, becoming more wise.
8. If a person goes on chanting a certain mantra — what you have come to know as Transcendental Meditation — it is a drug, psychologically produced. If you repeat a certain word again and again and again it goes on hitting your psychic sources and the continuous repetition creates a state of unconsciousness. It becomes like a lullaby; you start falling into deep sleep. It is soothing, it is restful, but it is not meditation. It is just the opposite of meditation; it is a psychological drug.
9. Be lonely, suffer loneliness. It is difficult, meditation is difficult. People come to me and they ask, ‘Yes, we are ready to sit, but give us a mantra so that we can chant a mantra.’ What are they asking? They are saying that they don’t want to be alone, they don’t want to face their loneliness. They will chant a mantra — the mantra will become their companion. They will say, ‘Ram, Ram, Ram’ — now they are not alone. Now this sound of ‘Ram’ continuously repeated will become their companion. They are missing the whole point. Transcendental meditation, TM, is not meditation at all, because meditation simply means to be alone, not doing anything — not even chanting a mantra. Because this is a trick of the mind. That’s what the mind has always been doing. When you sit alone, have you watched how many fantasies reveal themselves to you?… endless fantasies, daydreams. Whenever you are alone, you start daydreaming. Whenever you don’t have anything to do and you feel bored, immediately you escape into daydreams.
10. People are afraid of love. They only pretend, they only go on playing games in the name of love. They are afraid of meditation; even in the name of meditation, at the most, they go on doing new ways of thinking. That’s what Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s Transcendental Meditation is — it is neither meditation nor transcendental. It is simply chanting a mantra, and chanting a mantra is nothing but a process of thought, concentrated thought. It is again a new device, a device not to meditate. People are repeating Christian prayers, Mohammedan prayers, Hindu prayers, all ways to avoid meditation. These are not meditations, remember. Mind is so cunning that in-the name of meditation it has created many pseudo-phenomena
11. Practise what Buddha says. At least for one hour you become a non-doer. At least for one hour, deep in the night, sit alone. Don’t do anything — not even chanting a mantra, not even transcendental meditation. Don’t do anything. Just sit, lie down, look at the stars. That too should not be hard. Look very softly. Don’t focus; remain unfocussed like an unfocussed photograph — hazy, blurred, not knowing where the boundaries are. Just remain silent in the darkness. If thoughts come let them come. Don’t fight with them either. They will come and they will go — you just be a watcher. It is none of your business whether they come or they go. Who are you? They come without invitation, they go without pushing. They come and go, it is a constant traffic. You just sit by the side of the road and watch. When I say watch, don’t misinterpret me. Don’t make watching an effort. Otherwise people become very stiff and they start watching in a very stiff and tense way. Again they have started doing. What I am saying, or what Buddha is saying is — be in an attitude of not doing, be lazy. Just be lazy, and see what happens. You will be amazed. Some day — just sitting, just sitting, not doing anything — some day, from some unknown source, a lightning, a benediction. Some day, in some moment, suddenly you are transfigured. Suddenly you see a quiet descending upon you. It is almost physical.