Rajneesh Quotes

It is not a question of sitting silently, it is not a question of chanting a mantra. It is a question of understanding the subtle workings of the mind. As you understand those workings of the mind a great awareness arises in you, which is not of the mind. That awareness arises in your being, in your soul, in your consciousness.

Drop dreaming and you are there where you have really been always, but you were never aware. All meditation techniques are just antidream efforts, just dream-negating devices.

When your consciousness has become ripe in true zazen-pure like clear water, like a serene mountain lake, not moved by any wind-then anything may serve as a medium for realization.

Just by being aware, thoughts start disappearing. There is no need to fight. Your awareness is enough to destroy them. And when the mind is empty, the temple is ready. And inside the temple the only god worth placing is silence. So those three words you have to remember: relaxation, thoughtlessness, silence. And if these three words are no more words to you but become experiences, your life will be transformed.

Mind is the absence of meditation. The moment meditation arises in you, mind is found nowhere.

Whenever you step out of the noise of thinking, that is meditation, and a different state of consciousness arises.

The more you establish quiet time and mediation as part of your daily discipline, the more you go through the rotation into mirror (dream) worlds.

There are three stages: Thoughtless being. Thought. Return to thoughtless being.

When, by meditation, we withdraw restless thoughts from the lake of the mind, we behold our soul, a perfect reflection of Spirit.

If you use your mind to study reality, you won't understand either your mind or reality. If you study reality without using your mind, you'll understand both. . . . The mind and the world are opposites, and vision arises where they meet. When your mind doesn't stir inside, the world doesn't arise outside. When the world and the mind are both transparent, this is true vision. And such understanding is true understanding.

Instead of being lost in your thinking, when you awaken you recognize yourself as the awareness behind it. Thinking then ceases to be a self-serving autonomous activity that takes possession of you and runs your life.

Rather than being your thoughts and emotions, be the awareness behind them.

The science of meditation: it brings you to the present, it brings you to this moment. The past is a thought; it disappears when thoughts disappear. The future is also a thought; it disappears when you drop thinking. When you are in a state of no-thought - there is no past, no future, there is only the present - in that state of no-thought you are ONE, in tune with God. And suddenly the flood is there: you are flooded with light, with love, with grace. You are no more a man, you are divine. You have surpassed humanity. Humanity is in a state of deep sleep.

If we are in silence - in absolute silence with no thoughts - for 10 minutes, it's only a thought that tells us we were silent for 10 minutes. Our only proof is a thought.

Zen is consciousness unstructured by particular form or particular system, a trans-cultural, trans-religious, transformed consciousness.

We live in this thought web; we identify things and put them away and distance ourselves from them. But to be completely present? That is source, that is art, that is spirituality. And meditation is a way to defy fear and experience that source.

But being quiet and meditating on sound is something completely different and will be discovered very soon by a lot of people who feel that the visual world doesn't reach their soul anymore.

Meditation is not to avoid society; it is to look deep to have the kind of insight you need to take action. To think that it is just to sit down and enjoy the calm and peace, is wrong.

Meditation is the dissolution of thoughts in Eternal awareness or Pure consciousness without objectification, knowing without thinking, merging finitude in infinity.

Yoga is the settling of the mind into silence. When the mind has settled, we are established in our essential nature, which is unbounded Consciousness. Our essential nature is usually overshadowed by the activity of the mind.

Enlightenment is always there. Small enlightenment will bring great enlightenment. If you breathe in and are aware that you are alive - that you can touch the miracle of being alive - then that is a kind of enlightenment.

Meditation is such a more substantial reality than what we normally take to be reality.

Meditation is to get insight, to get understanding and compassion, and when you have them, you are compelled to act.