Osho – Meditation is not achieved through effort, it is achieved through surrender. All the effort that is made, is made to make surrender possible. Once surrender becomes possible then you are ready to receive the gift.
Effort is needed, but not for meditation; effort is needed only to prepare you to receive the gift. Meditation always comes as a gift; hence it is never food for the ego, it cannot be because it is not your achievement at all. On the contrary, it happens only when the ego has been totally surrendered. You cannot say ‘I have found it,’ you can only say, ‘God has found me.’ You cannot say, you cannot brag ‘This is my achievement, my realisation,’ because it happens when you are not, hence how can it be your realisation and your achievement? It is god’s grace.
But it is a very complex phenomenon. There are two kinds of misunderstandings about meditation. One is that no effort is needed. Then why make any effort? Whenever it is going to happen it will happen — what can we do about it? That is a misunderstanding. You can do something, not to achieve meditation but to prepare yourself to be receptive.
Till now my feeling is same. I do not want to do anything in the name of meditation. I feel it has to happen. Basically I am very lazy. I do not want to do anything. let the happens what ever has to happen. Even I am so lazy i don't care about enlightenment. sometime i have felt some glimpses of mediation and i know meditation can not done it happen. But still when it happens before that i have to wait, i have to do some preparation. I know feeling is beautiful Some time I prepare have some good moments. But I am not regular two reason i feel lazy and other thing is i don't feel intense desire to prepare for mediation.
The other misunderstanding is that because effort is needed to prepare, then effort is essential, and you achieve meditation through your effort. So: go on making effort. If you are not achieving it, that means your effort is still not enough, so make more effort, put more intensity into it, put more energy into it, get more involved. Both are misunderstandings.
Effort is needed but not for meditation. Effort is needed only up to a point. It has nothing to do with meditation, but it is very essential too, because unless you are ready you will miss the gift. The gift is arriving every moment, it is showering on everybody, but people are missing it because they don’t have any space to absorb it, they don’t have any place to allow it entry into their being. It is all full of rubbish, all full of junk.
This has to become one of the most important understandings, that effort is needed, yet meditation is a gift. it is needed for surrender and surrender is needed for meditation. So there is no direct connection with the effort, but a very indirect connection is there.
So avoid both pitfalls and just be in the middle. It is a razor’s edge: if you fall here, you fall into a lake, if you fall on the other side you fall into a well. You have to keep yourself like a tightrope walker; avoiding both pitfalls, avoiding both extremes, maintaining a balance between effort and no-effort. Once that balance is there, meditation comes like a spring and you become full of flowers. Your life has all the splendour and all the joy that existence can give to you — it is infinite.
A sannyasin has to transcend all hardness. He has to become soft, vulnerable, open. We are had because we have been told that life is a struggle. We are hard because we are prepared to fight for sheer survival. But that is not the way to find god. Maybe that is the way to find money, power, prestige, but that is not the way to find god. We cannot conquer god, we have to be conquered by him, we have to allow him to conquer us. In fact, to be defeated by god is to be victorious. In that very defeat is victory.
The sannyasin is just the opposite of a soldier. The soldier has to be hard, aggressive, violent, ambitious, and the sannyasin has to be soft, receptive, non-ambitious so that god can conquer him. And god is always ready: he goes on waiting patiently for us to get ready.
Source – Osho Book “The Imprisoned Splendor”
http://www.oshoteachings.com/osho-meditation-is-not-achieved-through-effort-it-is-achieved-through-surrender/
Effort is needed, but not for meditation; effort is needed only to prepare you to receive the gift. Meditation always comes as a gift; hence it is never food for the ego, it cannot be because it is not your achievement at all. On the contrary, it happens only when the ego has been totally surrendered. You cannot say ‘I have found it,’ you can only say, ‘God has found me.’ You cannot say, you cannot brag ‘This is my achievement, my realisation,’ because it happens when you are not, hence how can it be your realisation and your achievement? It is god’s grace.
But it is a very complex phenomenon. There are two kinds of misunderstandings about meditation. One is that no effort is needed. Then why make any effort? Whenever it is going to happen it will happen — what can we do about it? That is a misunderstanding. You can do something, not to achieve meditation but to prepare yourself to be receptive.
Till now my feeling is same. I do not want to do anything in the name of meditation. I feel it has to happen. Basically I am very lazy. I do not want to do anything. let the happens what ever has to happen. Even I am so lazy i don't care about enlightenment. sometime i have felt some glimpses of mediation and i know meditation can not done it happen. But still when it happens before that i have to wait, i have to do some preparation. I know feeling is beautiful Some time I prepare have some good moments. But I am not regular two reason i feel lazy and other thing is i don't feel intense desire to prepare for mediation.
The other misunderstanding is that because effort is needed to prepare, then effort is essential, and you achieve meditation through your effort. So: go on making effort. If you are not achieving it, that means your effort is still not enough, so make more effort, put more intensity into it, put more energy into it, get more involved. Both are misunderstandings.
Effort is needed but not for meditation. Effort is needed only up to a point. It has nothing to do with meditation, but it is very essential too, because unless you are ready you will miss the gift. The gift is arriving every moment, it is showering on everybody, but people are missing it because they don’t have any space to absorb it, they don’t have any place to allow it entry into their being. It is all full of rubbish, all full of junk.This has to become one of the most important understandings, that effort is needed, yet meditation is a gift. it is needed for surrender and surrender is needed for meditation. So there is no direct connection with the effort, but a very indirect connection is there.
So avoid both pitfalls and just be in the middle. It is a razor’s edge: if you fall here, you fall into a lake, if you fall on the other side you fall into a well. You have to keep yourself like a tightrope walker; avoiding both pitfalls, avoiding both extremes, maintaining a balance between effort and no-effort. Once that balance is there, meditation comes like a spring and you become full of flowers. Your life has all the splendour and all the joy that existence can give to you — it is infinite.
A sannyasin has to transcend all hardness. He has to become soft, vulnerable, open. We are had because we have been told that life is a struggle. We are hard because we are prepared to fight for sheer survival. But that is not the way to find god. Maybe that is the way to find money, power, prestige, but that is not the way to find god. We cannot conquer god, we have to be conquered by him, we have to allow him to conquer us. In fact, to be defeated by god is to be victorious. In that very defeat is victory.
The sannyasin is just the opposite of a soldier. The soldier has to be hard, aggressive, violent, ambitious, and the sannyasin has to be soft, receptive, non-ambitious so that god can conquer him. And god is always ready: he goes on waiting patiently for us to get ready.
Source – Osho Book “The Imprisoned Splendor”
http://www.oshoteachings.com/osho-meditation-is-not-achieved-through-effort-it-is-achieved-through-surrender/
