Quotes on Mind Part1
1. The mind is not your reality; it is a false interpretation. You are not the mind, you have never been a mind, you can never be the mind. That is your problem- you have become identified with something which is not. You are like a beggar who believes that he has a kingdom. He is so worried about the kingdom -- how to manage it, how to govern it, how to prevent anarchy. There is no kingdom, but he is worried. Osho
2. The mind is just like a crowd; thoughts are the individuals. And because thoughts are there continuously you think the process is substantial. Drop each individual thought and finally nothing is left. There is no mind as such, only thinking. Osho
3. Between two thoughts try to be alert; look into the interval, the space in between. You will see no mind; that is your nature. For thoughts come and go -- they are accidental -- but that inner space always remains. Clouds gather and go, disappear -- they are accidental -- but the sky remains. You are the sky. Osho
1. And this mind goes on continuing. This mind will go on continuing, unless you become aware. And this is a miracle: that the moment you become aware the continuity is broken. Now you will be, but not of the past. Now you will be of the moment -- fresh, young, new. Now each moment you will die, and you will be reborn.
2. First know that desire is just running and reaching nowhere. Then stand still, and know what is. Everything is open. Only we are closed in our desires. The whole existence is open. All doors are open, but we are running with such a speed that we cannot see. And the more we become frustrated, the more we increase the speed, because the mind says, "You are not running fast enough. That is why you are not reaching." The mind will not say, "Because you are running, you will not reach."
How can it say that? It is illogical. The mind says, "Because you are not running fast enough, that is why you are not reaching. So run faster. Those who are running faster, they are reaching." And ask those who are running faster. Their minds are saying the same thing: "Run faster still. Those who are really running, they are reaching."
3. The seeker has to fulfill only one basic thing: he has to drop his mind. The moment the mind is dropped, a great silence arises -- because the mind carries your whole past; all the memories of the past go on hankering for your attention, they go on crowding upon you, they don't leave any space within you. And the mind also means future. Out of the past you start fantasizing about the future. It is a projection out of the past.
You have lived a certain life in the past: there have been a few moments of joy and many many dark nights. You would not like to have those dark nights; you would have your future to be full of those joyous moments. So you sort out from your past: you choose few things and you project them in the future, and you choose a few other things and you try to avoid them in the future. Your future is only nothing but a refined past -- a little bit modified here and there, but it is still the past because that's all that you know.
4. When the human mind becomes anxious, it creates questions and then supplies the answers. The questions are meaningless, hence the answers are more so. But because we fabricate questions, we cannot be at ease unless we find the answers. Therefore, we go on finding answers and creating questions. If you see this whole nonsense of asking questions and answering them, you may find that you are carrying on a monologue with yourself. Even if you are asking and I am answering, it is the human mind asking and the human mind answering. It is just a hide-and-seek of the same mind. It makes no difference who is asking and who is answering.
The human mind questions, and the human mind answers, and we have created such a great mess of answers and questions, but not a single question has been answered. The questions remain where they were always. If you can see this whole procession of questions and answers, this meaningless, fruitless effort leading nowhere -- if you become aware of this whole nonsense as if in a flash of lightning -- then you can laugh at the absurdity of the human mind. And the moment there is laughter, you transcend the human mind completely. Then there is no question, and then there is no answer. Then you love. There is no purpose, and there is no cause. Then living itself is enough.
5. Whatever you have desired -- fulfilled, unfulfilled, it makes no difference -- the moment the desire has come into your mind, into your heart, you have created ripples, waves. They will go on. This wheel, this sansar, is constituted of all the desires that have existed and all the desires that are in existence. This is such a great force, of all the dead and of all the living, that you cannot stand still. They will push you, you have to run.
It is just like in a crowd. When the whole crowd is running you cannot stand still. You are just pushed to run.
You are safe if you are running; if you are not running you will be killed. It is not that your energy is needed to run. If you do not make any effort, the crowd will push you. This is the wheel -- the wheel of desires. You must have seen the Tibetan picture of the wheel. It is beautifully depicted -- the whole wheel of desires.
To step out of the wheel is sannyas. You just come out of the crowd. You just step down. You just sit by the side of the road, you say goodbye. Only then do you know the phenomenon of what is the wheel. Only then do you know that some persons are running in a circle, they will pass you so many times -- then you know that this is a wheel.
6. This mind is a prison. It cannot find any freedom anywhere. It must die before freedom comes to you. But we have taken the mind as us, we are identified with it. This death of mind never happens to us, it never occurs to us.
Mind is something other than "me." But we go on being identified with the mind. How then can you come out of the past if you have become identified with the past? The one who has forgotten that he is a prisoner is the most imprisoned, because there is no possibility of his freedom then. But even that prisoner may become aware. An even greater prisoner is the one who has become one with the imprisonment, one with the prison, who has become identified. The walls of the prison are his body. The whole arrangement of the imprisonment is his mind.
Be aware, be conscious of your mind. And you can be, because you are something different. The dream can be broken, because you are not the dream. The dream is occurring to you, but you are not the dream. You can shatter this imprisonment and come out, because you are not the imprisonment. But there is such a long association with the body and the mind. And understand this well: that the body is new, each birth is new. Each beginning is new, but the mind is old. It is continuing from your past births.
7. Wherever you go, your mind is a step ahead of you. It is not only that it follows you like a shadow, it is always one step ahead of you, it has reached before you. But you are never aware of it because it is so transparent. Whenever you are entering a temple, your mind has entered before you. When you are going to a friend, when you are embracing him, your mind has embraced before. And this you can know, your mind is always rehearsing.
That stepping ahead is always rehearsing. Before you speak, it is always rehearsing what to speak. Before you act, it is always rehearsing what to act. Before you do anything or do not do anything, it is rehearsing. The rehearsal means that the mind is preparing itself before you, it is always one step ahead. And that is a constant, transparent barrier between you and everything else that you will come across, that you will encounter.
Quotes on Mind Part3
1. Mind is so vast, you can always choose a few fragments which will be satisfying to a particular philosophy, to a particular psychology, to a particular therapy.
2. Examination is the first step: becoming alert to what passes through your mind. And there is constant traffic -- so many thoughts, so many desires, so many dreams are passing by. You have to be watchful; you have to examine each and everything that passes through the mind. Not a single thought should pass unawares, because that means you were asleep. Become more and more observant.
3. First examine what is constantly there in your mind, what is being repeated again and again. You don't have many thoughts. If you examine minutely you will see that you have only a few thoughts repeated again and again -- maybe in new forms, new colors, new garments, new masks, but you have only a very few thoughts.
4. Don't exhibit. A natural tendency of the mind is to exhibit. And when you have something special.
5. Wherever you go, your mind will go with you. Your knowledge will go with you, your prejudices will go with you, your scriptures will go with you. Your idea that you are a Hindu or a Mohammedan will go with you. So what are you renouncing?
6. Mind is simply a combination of all the thoughts, of all the clouds. Mind has no independent nature of its own. When all the thoughts are gone and the sky is clean and clear, you will see that everything that you have paid so much attention to is nothing but emptiness. Your thoughts were all empty. They contained nothing, they were void. Whatever you thought they contained was your own energy. You have withdrawn your energy -- just the empty shell of the thought falls down. You have withdrawn your identity and immediately the thought is no longer alive. It was your identity that was giving it life force. And strangely enough, you thought that your thoughts were very strong and it was difficult to get rid of them! You were making them strong, you were cultivating them. Just by forcing them, you were getting into a fix.
7. These people who have escaped from the world, do you think they are thinking about anything else? They are thinking more of the world than you are, because you don't have to think -- it is there! These poor fellows have to think thousands of things which are not there. Mind always desires that which is not there. That which is with you, mind simply accepts; there is no need to think about it.
8. He is saying that every meditator comes to this point: he has known a small space of thoughtlessness, so the natural conclusion seems to be that if he can stop the thought process, then he will have that open sky again. But with what are you going to stop the thought process? Even this idea of stopping the thought process is of the mind. So your mind becomes split in two: the stopper and the stopped.
9. Just watch the body, the mind. They are not you, you are the watcher. And the watcher is another name for the buddha.
10. Your mind is very wavering, wobbly. A koan concentrates all your energies. A koan has not to be done in a lukewarm way, that is dangerous. It has to be done with totality, so you can exhaust the mind quickly -- as quickly as possible.
11. The koan can do a miracle, although it is just a device. The question is with what urgency, with what totality, you make your whole mind concerned only with the koan, twenty-four hours. It is not something that you do for one hour and forget about it.
12. So the first thing the koan does is to make you completely straightforward, pointing to a single goal, like an arrow. If this is done, soon your mind will be tired. But if you are saving some energy, your mind will always rejuvenate itself. The saved energy will never allow you to be so tired and so exhausted that you simply drop the koan, you simply say, "I am fed up; I am finished. This is stupid -- there cannot be any sound with one hand clapping!" At that exhausted moment, mind stops -- tired, utterly fed up. With the mind stopping, even for a single moment, in the blink of an eye you are on the other shore.
13. The parents, the teachers, the neighbors, the friends -- all are continuously giving a shape to your life, a style to your life. If you look into your mind you will find many voices together: your father is speaking, your grandfather is speaking, your mother, your brother, your teachers, your professors. But one thing you will not find there is your voice. Your voice has been completely repressed by other voices. Layer upon layer, you have lost track even of your own voice, of your own self, of your own face. So many masks...
14. Mind is what you have. No-mind is the search of meditation. And from no-mind blossom flowers of unselfishness, of love, of compassion, of sharing.
15.
Quotes on Mind Part4
1. Mind is vacillation. The discipline of a meditator is to become so watchful of the mind, so alert to the mind and its stupidities -- its hesitations, its tremblings, its vacillations -- to become so watchful that you are cut off. That is the whole purpose of watching: watching cuts you off. Watch anything in the mind, and you are cut off. Watching is a sword. If a thought is moving in your mind, just watch it -- and suddenly you will see the thought is there, you are here, and there is no bridge left. Don't watch, and you become identified with the thought, you become it; watch, and you are not it. Mind possesses you because you have forgotten how to watch. Learn it.
Just looking at a roseflower, watch it; or at the stars, or the people passing on the road, sit by the side and watch. And then slowly slowly close your eyes and see the inner traffic moving -- thousands of thoughts, desires, dreams, passing by. It is always rush hour there. Just watch as somebody watches a river flowing by, sitting on the bank. Just watch -- and watching, you will become aware that you are not it.
2. Mind is being identified with it. No-mind is being disidentified with it. Don't be a mind, because in fact you are not a mind. Then who are you? You are consciousness. You are that watchfulness, you are witnessing, you are that pure observation, that mirrorlike quality that reflects everything but never becomes identified with anything.
Remember, I am not saying that you are conscious. I am saying you are consciousness: that is your true identity. The day one knows, "I am consciousness," one has come to know the ultimate, because the moment you know, "I am consciousness," you also know all is consciousness, on different planes. The rock is conscious in its own way, and the tree is conscious in its own way, and the animals and the people. Everybody is conscious in his own way, and consciousness is a multifaceted diamond. The day you know, "I am consciousness," you have known the universal truth, you have come to the goal.
3. By meditation Atisha never means concentration, remember. Concentration and meditation are polar opposites. Concentration narrows down your mind; it is focusing on one point. It includes only something and excludes everything else. Meditation is all-inclusive, it excludes nothing. It is not a narrowing down of the mind, it is an expansion of consciousness. Concentration is of the mind, meditation is of consciousness. Concentration is mind, meditation is no-mind. Concentration is a tension: you will be tired of it sooner or later. You cannot concentrate for a long time, it is effort. But one can be meditative twenty-four hours, because it is relaxation.
4. Mind means past. Mind has no idea of the present, cannot have any idea of the present. Mind only means that which has been lived, known, experienced -- the accumulated past. It cannot have any contact with the present; it will have that contact only when the present is no more present and has become past. And life moves ahead. We live in the present and we move in the future, and mind never lives in the present and always clings to the past. This is the dichotomy, the greatest calamity. This is the knot that has to be cut.
5. Your mind will vacillate. Mind is vacillation, mind is either/or, mind is always in that space of "to be or not to be." If you really want to grow, mature, if you really want to know what this life is all about, don't vacillate. Commit, involve! Involve yourself with life, get committed to life, don't remain a spectator. Don't go on thinking whether to do or not -- "Should I do this or that?" You can go on vacillating your whole life, and the more you vacillate, the more trained you become in vacillation. Life is for those who know how to commit -- how to say yes to something, how to say no to something decisively, categorically. Once you have categorically said yes or no to something, then you can take a jump, then you can dive deep into the ocean.
6. The mind is a robot. The robot has its utility; this is the way the mind functions. You learn something; when you learn it, in the beginning you are aware. For example, if you learn swimming you are very alert, because life is in danger. Or if you learn to drive a car you are very alert. You have to be alert. You have to be careful about many things -- the steering wheel, the road, the people passing by, the accelerator, the brake, the clutch. You have to be aware of everything. There are so many things to remember, and you are nervous, and it is dangerous to commit a mistake. It is so dangerous, that's why you have to keep aware. But the moment you have learned driving, this awareness will not be needed. Then the robot part of your mind will take it over. Osho
7. And the mind is skillful; it is a very beautiful machine, it functions well. In fact all our science, together with all our so-called progress in knowledge, has not yet been able to create something so sophisticated as the human mind. The greatest computers in existence are still rudimentary compared to the mind.
The mind is simply a miracle.
8. Mind loves the nonessential; it is always hungry for gossip. Something utterly useless, and it listens so attentively.
9. Ego is the state of utter unawareness. The mind has taken possession of your whole being; it has spread like a cancer all over you, nothing is left out. The ego is the cancer of the inner, the cancer of the soul.
And the only remedy, the only remedy I say, is meditation. Then you start reclaiming a few territories from the mind. And the process is difficult but exhilarating, the process is difficult but enchanting, the process is difficult but challenging, thrilling. It will bring a new joy into your life. When you reclaim territory back from the robot you will be surprised that you are becoming a totally new person, that your being is renewed, that this is a new birth.
10. My approach is totally different. I don't say be afraid -- that is the strategy of the priest, that is his trade secret. I say there is nothing to fear, because God is in you. There is nothing to fear. Live life fearlessly, live each moment as intensely as possible. Intensity has to be remembered. And if you don't live any moment intensely, then what happens? Your mind hankers for repetition.
You love a woman, your mind hankers for repetition. Why? Why do you hanker for the same experience again and again? You eat certain food, you enjoy it, now you hanker for the same food again and again. Why? The reason is that whatsoever you do, you never do it totally. Hence something remains discontented in you. If you do it totally, there will be no hankering for repetition and you will be searching for the new, exploring the unknown. You will not move in a vicious circle, your life will become a growth. Ordinarily people only go on moving in circles. They appear to move, but they only appear to.
11. The mind is not separate from your body, it is the inner part of the body. You are separate from the body and the mind, both. You are an entity, transcendental, you are a witness to the mind and the body, both. But your mind and your body are both one and the same energy. The body is visible mind, the mind is invisible body. The body is the exterior mind, and the mind is the interior body.
12. The mind and the body both are sexual. The body has come out of sex, and the mind is always hankering for objects, hence it is sexual. But both can be purified through creativity. My message, my key, my golden key to transform your energies, is creativity. Be more and more creative, and slowly slowly you will see a transformation happening of its own accord. Your mind will disappear, your body will have a totally different feel to it, and constantly you will remain aware that you are separate, that you are a pure witness.
And that pure witness is pure desire and nothing else. I am not against desire. I am all for desire, but I am not for desires with objects. Let objects disappear, and then you will have a desire like a flame without any smoke. It brings great liberation.
13. The mind is very traditional, conventional, conformist, orthodox. The mind is never revolutionary; it is against all change.
14. That's why there is a great attraction to move into dangerous situations. People climb Everest. It is a deep meditation, although they may or may not understand this. Mountaineering is of great importance. Climbing mountains is dangerous -- the more dangerous it is, the more beautiful. You will have glimpses, great glimpses of egolessness. Whenever danger is very close, the mind stops. Mind can think only when you are not in danger; it has nothing to say in danger. Danger makes you spontaneous, and in that spontaneity you suddenly know that you are not the ego.
15. Concentration is not awareness, and the person of concentration will never show compassion. Compassion is not a consequence of concentration. Concentration means the focusing of the mind, the narrowing of the mind on only one point. The concentrated mind becomes a very powerful mind -- but remember it is mind, and very powerful, hence more dangerous than ever. Concentration is the method of science.
Awareness is totally different; it is not focusing, it is unfocused alertness. For example, right now you are listening to me. You can hear in a concentrated way, you can be focused on me; then you will miss the birds and their songs, then you will miss this noise on the road. Then you are not aware, then your mind has become very narrow. Awareness is not the narrowing of the mind but the disappearance of the mind. The narrowing of the mind makes the mind more of a mind.
16. Awareness means to listen to me unfocused -- alert of course, not fallen asleep, but alert to these birds, their chirping, alert to the wind that passes through the trees, alert to everything that is happening. Concentration excludes much, includes little. Awareness excludes nothing, includes all. Awareness is a state of no-mind. You are, yet you are not focused.
17. The mind creates so many temptations -- so alluring they are, so magnetic is their power -- that unless you are in the power-field of someone whose magnetism is far more powerful than any other kind of temptation, it is impossible to reach. That is the meaning of disciplehood.
18. Slowly slowly, learn the ways of living in mystery. Mind continuously hankers to demystify everything; there is a deep urge in the mind to demystify. Why? -- because it can control only when something is demystified. Mystery starts controlling it, hence mind escapes from mysteries. Mind wants explanations, because once something is explained it can be manipulated; once something is no more a secret, then the mind is the master. In the presence of a secret the mind feels simply impotent. The greater the secret, the more the impotence of the mind.
19. Past and future are two aspects of the same coin. The name of the coin is mind.
20. If you try to watch your own mind you will find a Jew hidden there. Whenever you calculate and whenever you start living mathematically, whenever your life becomes just a business, just a logic; whenever you lose love, whenever you lose the quality to share, to risk, to gamble; whenever you lose the quality of giving wholeheartedly for the sheer joy of giving, beware of the Jew within.
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