Can we silence the mind?
It’s very common to hear people say that, in meditation, we must quieten or silence the mind and search within for answers.
Yet according to Osho, many people don’t understand 'silence', nor do they understand the difference between 'mind' and 'consciousness' and that’s one of the main reasons people in the west have a problem understanding what meditation is, and also have a problem meditating.
Osho says: “It depends on your definition. But to me, mind is that part which has been given to you. It is not yours. Mind means the borrowed, mind means the cultivated, mind means that which the society has penetrated into you. It is not you. Consciousness is your nature; mind is just the circumference created by the society around you, the culture, your education….”
“Each culture, each society, creates a different mind. Mind is a social by-product. And unless this mind dissolves, you cannot go within; you cannot know what is really your nature, what is authentically your existence, your consciousness.”
“Mind is a flux: river like, flowing, changing. Consciousness is eternal, one. It is not different in the morning and different in the evening. It is not different when you are born and different when you die. It is one and the same, eternal. Mind is a flux. A child has a childish mind, an old man has an old mind; but a child or an old man have the same consciousness, which is neither childish nor old. It cannot be."
“Mind moves in time and consciousness lives in timelessness. They are not one. But we are identified with the mind. We go on saying, insisting, ‘My mind. I think this way. This is my thought. This is my ideology.’ Because of this identification with the mind, you miss that which you really are.”
Meditation means...
becoming detached from the mind
becoming a witness of the mind
looking at the mind as separate from you
that's what actually it is
you can see thoughts passing by
you can see desires passing by
you can see the whole traffic that goes on in the mind
the memories, the fantasies, the past, the future
all kinds of things are passing
you can just stand by the side of the road
and you can see the whole traffic—you are not it
you are the watcher, you are the witness
and the witness is beyond
the seer is never the seen
the observer is never the observed
this very experience is transcendence
and once you know that you are not the mind one is at ease with existence
in a deep let-go a tremendous relaxation
that relaxation is the ultimate goal of 'sannyas' (renouncing/letting go)
to know it is to know all - to miss it is to miss all
