Lots of times when I'm meditating, I get scientific information more advanced than what we have here [at the Meditation Resort ]. I see things like UFOs and new sources of power, and many things like this that come through all the time. I'd like to turn this into useful information that we could use here on earth.

     The first thing: meditation has nothing to do with any information, and that is all just your imagination.
     Meditation has nothing to do with these things. You can enjoy them – these are ego-trips and very cunning trips – nobody can prevent you; nobody can prove anything against them. You can go on believing in them but finally they lead to madness, nowhere else. These things are pathological, neurotic; I am absolutely against them.
     The mind is a great dreamer; it can dream about anything, and down through the ages it has been dreaming. The unconscious is a great reservoir: once you are in the mood to receive, then the unconscious starts releasing dreams – but they are not meditations!

     Meditation is a state of mind where there is no thought, no vision, no experience, no feeling. Meditation is a state of mind where no content, no object exists. You don't hear any information, you don't receive any information. Meditation is an absolute silence. Stars are not speaking. The whole world has fallen into silence; the whole world has stopped. In that stopping is meditation.
     But because of your ideas you think that the meditations here are not that advanced. Now this is just an ego-trip. If you want to enjoy it, you are free to, but I am not a part in it at all. And don't think these things that you are taught here are not advanced! In fact meditation is neither advanced nor not advanced.

     Meditation has only one taste.
     It has no categories, it has no divisions, no steps; it is a jump.
     A jump into no-mind is what I call meditation.

     These things are just a help: dancing, singing...are just to help. Of course they look mundane – dancing, singing.... One thinks, "How can these be very far advanced meditations?"
    They are just devices so that you can throw your body and mind into some act in a total way; then you stop, and silence becomes more possible.
     The real meditation starts only when the activity has stopped.
     For example, in the morning meditation, breathing is not meditation, just a preparation. Catharting is not meditation; it is again another preparation. The mantra "Hoo" is not meditation. It is again a deeper preparation for it.

     Meditation starts when you stop and you fall silent and become frozen. In those few seconds there is a possibility that you may have a little glimpse, a little breeze of meditation. But once it starts coming then you can drop these methods; they are not a must. Once you have known that this space exists, once you have gone into it many times and come back and you have become acquainted with the path that leads to it, then there is no point. You throw the guide, you throw the guidebook, you throw all maps! You know the path: you close your eyes and you slip into it, and whenever you want you can slip into it; then nothing is essential.
     But in the beginning when you don't know this, the map and the guide, music and dance and everything, is helpful; these are just arbitrary helps.
     So don't think that these are meditations.
     The map is not the real country, and nor are these real meditations. The map is just an indication. Once you have known the path then you can travel it all alone. Then there is no need for anybody and then there is no need to do anything. because meditation is not an act. You cannot do it...it is nothing to do!

OshoThe Further Shore

...Back for more articles