Osho,
You have told us that the mind becomes more and more quiet if we meditate regularly. Last year, when I was living in Europe outside of a commune, thoughts became stronger and stronger during my meditations until I began to dread sitting.
Now that I am with you again, this problem has gone away. But I wondered: How can one be a sannyasin for ten years, meditating every day, and have a mind which becomes more and more noisy?

“The question you have asked has many implications. First, one has to understand that your mind is very ancient – twelve years are nothing compared to the mind’s history; it is the history of the whole universe from the very beginning.

“It has been working so long, so efficiently that scientists say they have not yet been able to create a computer which can compete with human mind. And human mind is placed in a small space, in your skull; their computers are placed in big rooms. One scientist has calculated that it would need almost a one square mile space for a computer comparable to the human mind.

Human mind is a miracle.

Sitting with me, you are sitting with a greater miracle. You are sitting with no-mind.

“Naturally, silence becomes easier; meditation comes on its own, just like a cool breeze. When you are left alone, your mind is all that you have. Unless your meditation goes to such depths that you have something more valuable than the mind, this problem will continue to happen.

“With me you can have a glimpse, just for a moment. And that glimpse creates the longing to have that moment stretched to eternity. It is so peaceful, so cool, so calm, who would not like it?

“But as you go back into the world, there are just computers walking all around; you have to communicate with computers. One physiologist has defined man’s body as nothing but a mechanism to facilitate the mind’s functioning.

You think you are carrying the mind. The physiologist is saying just the opposite: it is the mind that is carrying you; your whole body is functioning just for the mind’s sake.

“So the moment you go into the world – this is not part of the world; we have been trying to create small islands where mind as a computer is no longer required. But in the world you will need the mind. And the problem will continue until you have something more than mind. Just having a glimpse of silence is not enough.

“You need a centering, you need a realization, you need exactly enlightenment – only then can you remain in the world, without your mind functioning unless you want to use it.

Mind is a tremendously valuable mechanism, one of the greatest miracles in biology, in the evolution of man.  

“Mind is simply unbelievable, the way it works…because you don’t know anything about it, although it is your mind. You don’t know how it accumulates millions of memories.

“The scientists have calculated that a single man’s mind can contain all the libraries of the world. He can memorize everything that has been ever written, down the ages. That is the capacity; you may use it, you may not use it….

“Scientists say that man’s body has the capacity at least – that is the minimum – to live three hundred years. But why does man not live so long? Perhaps man does not know how to live; perhaps man does not know how to use his body, how to use his mind.

You have to understand two things very clearly: first, mind is a great miracle.

“Existence has not been able to create anything higher than your mind. Its function is so complex that it baffles the greatest scientists. It manages your whole body, and it is such a complex system. Who manages that a certain part of your blood should go to the brain? Who manages that only a certain amount of oxygen should reach to the brain? Who manages what part of your food should become bones, should become blood, should become skin? Who manages that part of your skin should become nails and part of your skin should become eyes and part of your skin should become ears?

“Certainly you are not managing it, and I don’t see any other manager around. So first you have to be grateful to the mind. That is a first step to go beyond mind, not as an enemy but as a friend. Listening to me continually saying that you have to go beyond mind, you can fall into a misunderstanding. I have tremendous respect for mind. We are obliged so much by the mind, there is no way to return our gratitude.

So the first thing is: meditation is not against mind, it is beyond mind. And beyond is not equivalent to against.

“That misunderstanding spreads the more people talk about meditation, particularly people who don’t understand meditation – those who have read about it, those who have heard about it, those who know the techniques…and techniques are simple; they are available in many scriptures, you can read them. And now there are books on how to do anything – car mechanics, electric engineering, anything – you ask, and the bookseller is ready to give you a book about how to do it.

“My people in Europe have been thinking to make a book with a cassette. The book will give all the background of the meditation and the cassette will give all the instructions, so you need not go anywhere. Just sitting in your room with your tape recorder and you have a master! Gautam Buddha is no longer needed….

“A master will never become irrelevant for a simple reason: who will teach you to love the mind and yet go beyond it? to love your body, to respect your body? to have gratitude towards your mind, its tremendous, miraculous functioning? That will make a great friendship, a bridge between you and the mind.

“With this friendship deepening, whenever you are meditating, the mind will not disturb because your meditation is not against it. It is in fact its own fulfillment, it is its own ultimate flowering. Going beyond it is not an antagonistic attitude, but a friendly evolution.

“So this should be the background of all meditators: not to be a fighter. If you fight you may be able to make the mind quiet for some time, but it is not your victory. The mind will come back, you will need it. You cannot live without it; you cannot exist in the world without it.

And if you can create a friendly relationship with the mind, a loving bridge, rather than being a hindrance to meditation it starts becoming a help.

“It protects your silence because that silence is also its own treasure, it is not just yours. It becomes a soil in which the roses of meditation will blossom, and the soil will be as happy as the roses. When the roses will be dancing in the sun, in the rain, in the wind, the soil will also rejoice.

“My approach is totally different from the approach that has been taken up to now. For thousands of years, all the religions have been teaching something against body, against mind….

Begin with love of the body, which is your outermost part. Start loving your mind – and if you love your mind you will decorate it, just the way you decorate your body.

“You keep it clean, you keep it fresh; you don’t want your body to smell horrible to people, you want your body to be loved and respected by others. Your presence should not be simply tolerated but welcomed.

You have to decorate your mind with poetry, with music, with art, with great literature. Your trouble is, your mind is filled only with trivia.

“Such third-rate things go on through your mind that you cannot love it. You think of nothing which is great. Make it more in tune with the greatest poets; make it in tune with people like Fyodor Dostoevsky, Leo Tolstoy, Anton Chekhov, Turgenev, Rabindranath, Kahlil Gibran, Mikhail Naimy; make it filled with the greatest heights that mind has reached.

“Then you will not be unfriendly to the mind. Then you will rejoice in the mind; even if mind is there in your silence, it will have a poetry and a music of its own, and to transcend such a refined mind is very easy. It is a friendly step towards higher peaks:

Poetry turning into mysticism, great literature turning into great insights into existence, music turning into silence.

“And as these things start turning into higher peaks, beyond mind, you will be discovering new worlds, new universes which we don’t even have a name for. We can say blissfulness, ecstasy, enlightenment, but no word really describes it. It is simply outside the power of language to reduce it into explanations, into theories, into philosophies. It is simply beyond…but mind rejoices in its transcendence.

“That’s what my unique contribution is to you. With absolute humbleness I want to tell you that I am far ahead of even Gautam Buddha, for the simple reason that he is still fighting with the mind.

I have loved my mind, and through love I have transcended it.

“It is a totally new beginning. Naturally I have to be condemned; my people will be condemned. Many will come to me but will not be able to walk along with me even for a few steps, because soon they will find that their prejudices are preventing them from going with me.

“Their prejudices are ancient, and naturally – I can understand – they cannot think that anybody can go beyond Gautam Buddha, just as the contemporaries of Gautam Buddha could not believe that he has gone beyond the Vedas and beyond the seers of the Upanishads, just as contemporaries of Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu could not believe that they have gone far beyond Confucius.

“And if just out of humbleness I don’t say the truth, I will be committing a crime against truth. I don’t care about such humbleness; I want exactly what is the case to be explained to you.

My approach towards meditation is absolutely new, absolutely fresh, because it depends on love – not on fight, not on war.

“Mahavira I have left twenty-five centuries behind. His name was not Mahavira – mahavira means ‘the great warrior’. His name was Vardhaman, but people changed his name because he was a great warrior. A warrior against whom? – against his body, against his mind. And I don’t think that anybody who is against his body and against his mind is capable of reaching the beyond.

Only love is the path.

Make your mind as beautiful as possible. Decorate it with flowers.

“I am really very sad when I see that people don’t know The Book of Mirdad, that they have never looked into the absurd stories of Chuang Tzu, that they have never bothered to understand the absolutely irrational stories of Zen.

“I cannot conceive of how you can live beautifully if you don’t know Dostoevsky’s books…Brothers Karamazov to me is more important than any Bible. It has such great insights, that The Bible should not be counted at all, even for comparison. But The Bible will be read – and who is going to bother about Brothers Karamazov, in which Dostoevsky has poured his whole soul? or Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, or Fathers and Sons by Turgenev, or Offering of Songs by Rabindranath? And these are only a few names; there are thousands who have reached the finest flowering of mind.

First let your mind be decorated. Only beyond this perfumed garden of the mind will you be able to go silently, without any fight; mind will be a help, not a hindrance.

“I have not found it to be a hindrance; hence I can say with absolute authority: it is not a hindrance. You just don’t know how to use it.

“It is beautiful that when you come here you feel meditative. At least these few gaps, these few days, will slowly start becoming stronger, deeper. One day you will be gone and these moments will be with you even in the marketplace, and that will be a day of great rejoicing.

“But it takes time. I have to say to people that it can happen instantly. Not that it is untrue – it can happen instantly, but where to find the genius who can understand it instantly?

“When I say it can happen instantly, people simply think, ‘This is impossible for us.’ If I say to them it can happen in a few lives’ time, they feel, ‘That seems to be perfect,’ because that gives them the time to do all their stupid things meanwhile. It is a question of a few lives, so what is the hurry? First take care of your boyfriend, your girlfriend; first go to see all kinds of ruins in Rome, in Greece, in India; first do every foolish thing that is expected of you by the whole crowd. And as far as enlightenment is concerned it is not going to happen now, it will take many lives, so what is the hurry? You can go on postponing.

That’s why people love all these religions which talk about many lives – not because they understand the significance of it, but because they want to use that as an excuse.

“It can happen this very moment, but it will not happen.

The reason is not in its nature; the reason is you. It will not happen because you don’t want it to happen right now.

“Just think for a moment: if I were going to make you enlightened this very moment, you would start thinking, ‘But I have not asked my husband. What about my children? I have to get my daughter married. And I have just met my girlfriend, my god! and this is going to happen just now? he cannot wait? – just let me finish my honeymoon.’ Thousands of thoughts will arise in your mind: ‘My god, I have started a new business, invested everything in it. If he had told me before, I would not have got involved in all this mess.’ Everybody, without exception….”

END

Excerpted and abridged from Osho, The Great Pilgrimage: From Here to Here, Talk #13 – Human Mind Is a Miracle