Osho on Witnessing

Any effort made by the mind cannot take you beyond the mind. This is a very fundamental rule to remember. The so-called transcendental meditation is just an example. There are many of the same kind prevalent all over the East, but they don’t bring enlightenment. They don’t bring awakened consciousness and that is the only criterion to decide whether they are right or not. A tree is known by its fruits, and a technique is known by what it achieves.

Transcendental meditation is representative of all the meditations which mind has suggested to you; it is a cunning way to take you astray. Mind remains safe, not only safe, but becomes stronger. All these techniques are of concentration. You concentrate on some word, holy word — the name of God, or any mantra — and you repeat it as fast as you can, just inside your mind. The faster you can do it the better; the speed helps two things. The mantra or the name of God — even your own name will do; it has nothing to do with God — any meaningless word will do because the technique depends on something else. It depends on fast repetition, so fast that there are no gaps left in between. Because there are no gaps, thoughts cannot arise; thoughts need a little space.

This is one thing: that you go on repeating a word faster and faster, and as you go on doing it for years, you really become an expert. So one thing it does is that it does not give a chance for any idea to enter into your mind. The second, more fundamental thing it does is that it creates tremendous boredom. Obviously, anything continuously repeated is going to create boredom, and boredom is the basis of auto-hypnosis. When you become bored, you start falling into a sleep, which is not exactly sleep because it is deliberately created; hence it has a different name — hypnosis. Hypnosis means sleep, with a difference, that it is deliberate. Sleep comes naturally — on its own, spontaneously. Hypnosis is deliberate sleep — you create a situation in which it is bound to happen. This deliberate sleep is immensely healthy, and even ten or fifteen minutes in a hypnotic state gives you a good relaxation which hours of ordinary sleep cannot give. And when you come out of it, you will feel very fresh.

I absolutely agree that if you are doing it only for this purpose — relaxation, a freshness comes, but it never takes you beyond the mind. How can it take you beyond the mind, because mind itself is repeating? By repetition, it does not need to think; repetition itself becomes a substitute for thoughts. And by repetition it falls into a deep sleep — dreamless sleep, which gives you immense freshness, rejuvenation. Naturally, you can be deceived that this is meditation — you can go on doing it your whole life. It is healthy, it is good, it is nourishing, but it is not meditation.

Meditation starts by being separate from the mind, by being a witness. That is the only way of separating yourself from anything. If you are looking at the light, naturally one thing is certain, you are not the light, you are the one who is looking at it. If you are watching the flowers, one thing is certain, you are not the flower, you are the watcher.

Watching is the key of meditation: Watch your mind. Don’t do anything – no repetition of mantra, no repetition of the name of God – just watch whatever the mind is doing. Don’t disturb it, don’t prevent it, don’t repress it; don’t do anything at all on your part. You just be a watcher, and the miracle of watching is Meditation. As you watch, slowly, slowly mind becomes empty of thoughts; but you are not falling asleep, you are becoming more alert, more aware. As the mind becomes completely empty, your whole energy becomes a flame of awakening.

This flame is the result of meditation. So you can say meditation is another name of watching, witnessing, observing — without any judgment, without any evaluation. Just by watching, you immediately get out of the mind.

The watcher is never part of the mind and as the watcher becomes more and more rooted and strong, the distance between the watcher and the mind goes on becoming longer and longer. Soon the mind is so far away that you can hardly feel that it exists… just an echo in faraway valleys. And ultimately, even those echoes disappear. This disappearance of the mind is without your effort, without your using any force against the mind — just letting it die its own death.

Once mind is absolutely silent, absolutely gone, you cannot find it anywhere. You become for the first time aware of yourself because the same energy that was involved in the mind, finding no mind, turns upon itself. Remember: energy is a constant movement. We say things are objects, and perhaps you have never thought why we call things objects. They are objects because they hinder your energy, your consciousness. They object; they are obstacles. But when there is no object, all thoughts, emotions, moods, everything, has disappeared. You are in utter silence, in nothingness – rather in no-thingness; the whole energy starts turning upon itself. This returning energy to the source brings immense delight.

Just the other day, I quoted William Blake, “energy is delight.” That man, although he is not a mystic, must have found some glimpse of meditation. When meditation comes back to its own source, it explodes in immense delight. This delight in its ultimate state is enlightenment.

Source:

Listen to complete discourse at mentioned below link.

Discourse series: The Invitation Chapter #21

Chapter title: To know oneself and to be oneself

31 August 1987 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

References:

Osho has spoken on ‘meditation, witnessing, energy, consciousnesses, enlightenment’ in many of His discourses. More on the subject can be referred to in the following books/discourses:

1. Beyond Enlightenment
2. The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 1, 3, 6
3. From Death to Deathlessness
4. From Misery to Enlightenment
5. From Unconciousness to Consciousness
6. From the False to the Truth
7. The Hidden Harmony
8. Hsin Hsin Ming: The Book of Nothing
9. The Invitation
10. The Rebel
11. Sufis: The People of the Path, Vol 2