MEDITATION INSIGHTS FROM MASTERS

1. Choiceless Awareness: If you become acquainted with death through love and meditation, by and by you will see that life and death are two aspects of the same coin. Then you are not worried. Then you don't choose. Then you live a life of choiceless awareness. Then all is the same. If you choose life you have chosen death. If you avoid death you will avoid life - so there is no point in choosing, and there is no point in avoiding.  Osho 

1. Occupation gives,to the mind a feeling of activity, of being alive. That is why the mind stores up, or renounces; it sustains itself with occupation. The mind must be busy with something. What it is busy with is of little importance; the important thing is that it be occupied, and the better occupations have social significance. To be occupied with something is the nature of the mind, and its activity springs from this. Jiddu Krishnamurti
    
2. Witnessing: Just one quality of the Buddha has to be remembered. He consists only of one quality, witnessing. This small word witnessing contains the whole of spirituality. Witness that you are not the body. Witness that you are not the mind. Witness that you are only a witness. As the witnessing deepens, you start becoming drunk with the divine. That is what is called ecstasy. Osho
    
3. Meditation is not the pursuit of pleasure and the search for happiness. Meditation, on the contrary, is a state of mind in which there is no concept or formula, and therefore total freedom. It is only to such a mind that this bliss comes unsought and uninvited. Once it is there, though you may live in the world with all its noise, pleasure and brutality, they will not touch that mind. Once it is there, conflict has ceased. But the ending of conflict is not necessarily the total freedom. Meditation is a movement of the mind in this freedom. In this explosion of bliss the eyes are made innocent, and love is then benediction.  Jiddu Krishnamurti
    
4. Awareness is Meditation: Remember one thing: meditation means awareness. Whatsoever you do with awareness is meditation. Action is not the question, but the quality that you bring to your action. Walking can be a meditation if you walk alertly. Sitting can be a meditation if you sit alertly. Listening to the birds can be a meditation if you listen with awareness. Just listening to the inner noise of your mind can be a meditation if you remain alert and watchful. The whole point is: one should not move in sleep. Then whatsoever you do is meditation.  Osho
    
5. All such thoughts are due to latent tendencies (purva samskaras). They appear only to the individual consciousness (jiva) which has forgotten its real nature and become externalised. Whenever particular things are perceived, the enquiry “Who is it that sees them”? should be made; they will then disappear at once. Ramana Maharshi
    
6. Everything is based on mind, is led by mind, is fashioned by mind. If you speak and act with a polluted mind, suffering will follow you, as the wheels of the oxcart follow the footsteps of the ox. Everything is based on mind, is led by mind, is fashioned by mind. If you speak and act with a pure mind, happiness will follow you, as a shadow clings to a form. - The Dhammapada
    
7. Is there a new experience in meditation? The desire for experience, the higher experience which is beyond and above the daily or the commonplace, is what keeps the well-spring empty. The craving for more experience, for visions, for higher perception, for some realization or other, makes the mind look outward, which is no different from its dependence on environment and people. The curious part of meditation is that an event is not made into an experience. It is there, like a new star in the heavens, without memory taking it over and holding it, without the habitual process of recognition and response in terms of like and dislike. Our search is always outgoing; the mind seeking any experience is outgoing. Inward-going is not a search at all; it is perceiving. Response is always repetitive, for it comes always from the same bank of memory. Jiddu Krishnamurti
    
8. The mind will subside only by means of the enquiry `Who am I?' The thought 'Who am I?', destroying all other thoughts, will itself finally be destroyed like the stick used for stirring the funeral pyre. If other thoughts rise one should, without attempting to complete them, enquire `To whom did they rise?' What does it matter however many thoughts rise? Ramana Maharshi
    
9. You are the witness, to whom things happen but who remains a witness. Witnessing is the art of nonidentification, and nonidentification is all. Nonidentification is all there is to meditation. It is the whole meditation. Osho
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11. Imagine, that you have only a few minutes, maybe an hour left to live; somehow you have discovered exactly when you will die. What would you do with this precious hour of your stay on Earth? Would you be able to complete all your things in this last hour, do you have a conscious idea about how to do it?
    And letting go your last breath would you feel satisfaction from knowing that you have done everything possible in this life to fulfill that you are constantly present, always vibrating, always waiting, like the son is waiting for the father-sailor? In the manifested world everything has its beginning and its end. In the Real World everything is always present and one beautiful day you will be allowed to forget everything and leave the world “forever”.   Gurdjieff
     
12. As Radha advanced toward Krishna, she could smell more and more of the sweet fragrance of His body. The nearer you approach to God, the more you feel His love. As the river approaches the ocean it increasingly feels the flow of the tides.   Sri Ramakrishna
     
13. Meditation involves concentration, which if one observes it, is a way of exclusion; that is, concentration implies forcing thought in one particular direction and excluding everything else; that is generally what is meant by concentration. You focus and direct the mind upon something and that concentration builds a wall, erects a barrier which prevents any other thought from entering, and in doing that there is a dualistic process at work, a division, a contradiction, which is fairly obvious if you look at it.
    
    So meditation is something other than concentration and control of thought although, of course, concentration is necessary. Meditation involves attention, which is not concentration, although concentration is included in attention. To attend - that means to give your whole mind, your heart and your body passionately to something and in that attention, if you observe very carefully, there is neither the thinker nor the thought, neither the observer nor the observed, but only a state of attention; and to attend so completely, so freely, there must be freedom. Jiddu Krishnamurti
     
14. Just one quality of the Buddha has to be remembered. He consists only of one quality, witnessing. This small word witnessing contains the whole of spirituality. Witness that you are not the body. Witness that you are not the mind. Witness that you are only a witness. As the witnessing deepens, you start becoming drunk with the divine. That is what is called ecstasy.  Osho
     
15. "One doesn't really need to study the different scriptures. If one has no discrimination, one doesn't achieve anything through mere scholarship, even though one studies all the six systems of philosophy. Call on God, crying to Him secretly in solitude. He will give all that you need."   Sri Ramakrishna
     
16. Remember one thing: meditation means awareness. Whatsoever you do with awareness is meditation. Action is not the question, but the quality that you bring to your action. Walking can be a meditation if you walk alertly. Sitting can be a meditation if you sit alertly. Listening to the birds can be a meditation if you listen with awareness. Just listening to the inner noise of your mind can be a meditation if you remain alert and watchful. The whole point is: one should not move in sleep. Then whatsoever you do is meditation.  Osho
     
17. Meditation is really very simple. We complicate it. We weave a web of ideas round it what it is and what it is not. But it is none of these things. Because it is so very simple it escapes us, because our minds are so complicated, so time-worn and time-based. And this mind dictates the activity of the heart, and then the trouble begins. Jiddu Krishnamurti
     
18. Meditation, witnessing, silently sitting and looking at the mind, will be of much help. Not forcing, simply sitting and looking. Not doing much, just watching as one watches birds flying in the sky. Just Lying down on the ground and watching, nothing to do, indifferent. Not your concern really, where they are going; they are going on their own. Osho
     
19. Meditation is a journey without movement. In the external world you have to move in order to go ahead, in meditation you don’t move, yet you attain. First thing you should learn is how to be still physically. Take one month for stilling the body. You will find that you are able to easily arrest the twitching, tremors, and jerks, of your body. When the body is still, you will find great joy and confidence. Learn to enjoy that stillness. No matter what joys you have experienced so far, the highest of all joys is stillness. Swami Rama 
20.  Meditation can either be a twenty-four-hour affair or it cannot be at all. It is like breathing: you cannot breathe for one hour and then put it aside for twenty-three hours, otherwise you will be dead. You have to go on breathing. Even while you are asleep you have to go on breathing. Even in a deep coma you have to go on breathing. Meditation is the breath of your soul. Just as breathing is the life of the body, meditation is the life of the soul.  Osho
     
21. Meditation is not the mere control of body and thought, nor is it a system of breathing-in and breathing-out. The body must be still, healthy and without strain; sensitivity of feeling must be sharpened and sustained; and the mind with all its chattering, disturbances and gropings must come to an end.  Jiddu Krishnamurti
     
22. The true hero is he who can discipline his mind by devotional exercises while living in the world. A strong man can look in any direction while carrying a heavy burden on his head. Similarly, the perfect man can keep his gaze constantly fixed on God while carrying the burden of worldly duties  Sri Ramakrishna
     
23. Meditation is to be aware of the activities of the mind - the mind as the mediator, how the mind divides itself as the mediator and the meditation, how the mind divides itself as the thinker and the thought, the thinker dominating thought, controlling thought, shaping thought. Jiddu Krishnamurti
     
24. Purify the spectacles of your mind and you will see that the world is God.  Sri Ramakrishna
     
25. The attempt to destroy the ego or the mind through sedans other than atma-vichara is just like the thief pretending to be a policeman to catch the thief, that is, himself. Atma-vichara alone can reveal the truth that neither the ego nor the mind really exists, and enable one to realize the pure, undifferentiated being of the Self or the absolute. Having realized the Self, nothing remains to be known, because it is perfect bliss, it is the all. Ramana Maharshi
     
26. So the first thing is to accept life as it is. Accepting it, desires disappear; accepting it as it is, tensions disappear, discontent disappears; accepting it as it is, one starts feeling very joyful and for noeason at all. When joy has a reason, it is not going to last long. When joy is without any reason, it is going to be there forever.  Osho.
     
27. So meditation means not only the emptying of consciousness of its content, and that happens only when you observe your consciousness and its content without the observer - please see this. Right? Can you look at something, whatever it is, your wife, your husband, your girl, your boy, or the mountains, without the observer. The observer is the past. And as long as there is the observer, he will inevitably translate everything he observes in terms of the past, and therefore he is the maker of time. And he divides the observed, and the observer. And therefore in that there is conflict. When there is an observation without the observer, there is no conflict, there is no past, only the fact, and you have the energy to go beyond it. Do it and you will find out!  Jiddu Krishnamurti
     
28. Only the quest `Who am I?' is necessary. What remains all through deep sleep and waking is the same. But in waking there is unhappiness and the effort to remove it. Asked who wakes up from sleep you say `I'. Now you are told to hold fast to this `I'. Ramana Maharshi
     
29. Go deep into meditation. And by meditation I mean awareness, watchfulness, witnessing. It is only through meditation that the inner light begins. Otherwise man lives in darkness. Meditation enkindles something that is latent in all of us, but needs to be provoked. We are looking outwards. Our backs are at our inner source; hence it is being neglected, ignored. and to ignore one's inner being is the only ignorance. To know it is the only knowledge. All other knowledge is worthless. It may help you in the world but it can't help you in eternity. Osho
30. Let the boat stay on the water: there is no harm. But let not water get into the boat, lest the boat sink. Similarly, there is no harm if the devotee lives in the world, provided he lets not worldliness enter his mind.  Sri Ramakrishna
     
31. When you meditate in solitude, it must be solitude. You must be completely alone, not following a system, a method, repeating words, or pursuing a thought, or shaping a thought according to your desire. This solitude comes when the mind is freed from thought. When there are influences of desire or of the things that the mind is pursuing, either in the future or in the past, there is no solitude. Only in the immensity of the present this aloneness comes.  Jiddu Krishnamurti
     
32. Meditation has only one meaning, and that is going beyond the mind and becoming a witness. In your witnessing is the miracle -- the whole mystery of life. Osho
     
33. Rain water never stands on high ground, but runs down to the lowest level. So also the mercy of God remains in the hearts of the lowly, but drains off from those of the vain and the proud. The ego that asserts, 'I am the servant of God' is the characteristic of the true devotee. It is the ego of Vidya (Knowledge), and is called the 'ripe' ego. Sri Ramakrishna
     
34. Meditation has no goal; it has no desire to attain anything. The dropping of the achieving mind is what meditation is all about. The understanding of desire and the understanding of the constant ambition for goals for achievement, for ambition brings you to a point, a point of tremendous awareness, when you can see clearly that all goals are false, that you need not go anywhere, that you need not attain anything to be blissful, that to be blissful is your nature. You are missing it because you are running here and there, and in that running, in that hustle and bustle, you go on forgetting yourself..
    
    Stop running here and there and discover yourself. The discovery of yourself is not a goal. How can it be a goal? A goal needs a distance between you and itself The discovery of yourself is not a goal because you are already it! All that is needed is that you stop running here and there, you sit silently, you relax, you rest. Let the mind become calm and cool. When the mind is no longer running towards the past and towards the future, when all running has disappeared, when there is no mind as such, when you are simply there doing nothing just being, this is meditation.
    
    Suddenly you know who you are. Suddenly you are overflooded with bliss overwhelmed by light, by eternity. And then your life becomes a natural phenomenon. Then you need not wear smiles – a smile becomes natural. Then you need not pretend to be happy. Meditation is not something that you can enforce, that you can practice; it is something very mysterious, tremendously vast. It comes only when your heart opens its doors to understand everything with no prejudice, with no a priori conclusions.   Osho 
     
35. We identify the `I' with a body, we regard the Self as having a body, and as having limits, and hence all our trouble. All that we have to do is to give up identifying the Self with the body, with forms and limits, and then we shall know ourselves as the Self that we always are. Ramana Maharshi
     
36. A mind that sees very clearly does not choose, there is only action - the lack of clarity comes into being when there is division between the `observer' and the observed. Jiddu Krishnamurti
     
37. The thought `l am this body of flesh and blood' is the one thread on which are strung the various other thoughts. Therefore, if we turn inwards enquiring `Where is this I?' all thoughts (including the `I'-thought) will come to an end and Self-knowledge will then spontaneously shine forth. Ramana Maharshi
     
38. Meditation is not contemplation either because it is not thinking at all -- consistent, inconsistent, crazy, sane. It is not thinking at all; it is witnessing. It is just sitting silently deep within yourself, looking at whatsoever is happening inside and outside both. Outside there is traffic noise, inside there is also traffic noise -- the traffic in the head. So many thoughts -- trucks and buses of thoughts and trains and airplanes of thoughts, rushing in every direction. But you are simply sitting aloof, unconcerned, watching everything with no evaluation. Osho