what is meditation :

And the mind can only be silent when it understands the nature of its own movement, as thought and feeling. To understand that thought and feeling there must be no condemnation in observing that thought and feeling. So meditation can take place when you are sitting in a bus, or walking in the woods full of light and shadows, or listening to the singing of birds, or looking at the face of your wife or husband. Meditation isn’t something apart. It’s the understanding of the totality of life in which every form of fragmentation of life has ceased. And also that is to contemplate life, not from your particular idiosyncrasy, tendency, or inclination, but to contemplate the whole movement of life. And you cannot contemplate or meditate if there is no silence. When one has totally denied the psychological world which man has created for himself, and the psychological structure of society of which we are: the greed, the envy, the violence, the jealousies, the hatreds, then when you totally deny, you have space and silence. And it’s only such a mind that can see what is the immeasurable. Such a mind is a light to itself. 

OSHO OSHO International Foundation presents Osho: Meditation 

 Meditation Is a Very Simple Phenomenon When you are not doing anything at all — bodily, mentally, on no level — when all activity has ceased and you simply are, just being, that’s what meditation is. You cannot do it, you cannot practice it; you have only to understand it. And whenever you can find time for just being and drop all doing — thinking is also doing, concentration is also doing, contemplation is also doing — if, even for a single moment, you are not doing anything and you are just at your center, utterly relaxed, that is meditation. And once you have got the knack of it you can remain in that state as long as you want. You can remain in that state, finally, twenty-four hours. Once you have become aware of the way, of how being can remain undisturbed, then slowly you can start doing things — keeping alert that being is not stirred. That is the second part of meditation. First, learning how just to be and then learning little actions: cleaning the floor, taking a shower, but keeping yourself centered. Then you can do complicated things.

 For example, I am speaking to you but my meditation is not disturbed. I can go on speaking, but at my very center there is not even a ripple. It is just silent, utterly silent. So meditation is not against action, it is not that you have to escape from life. 

It simply teaches you a new way of life, where you become the center of a cyclone. Your life goes on, it goes on really more intensely — with more joy, with more clarity, more vision, more creativity — yet you are aloof, just a watcher on the hills simply seeing all that is happening around you. You are not the doer, you are the watcher. That’s the whole secret of meditation, that you become the watcher. Doing continues on its own level, there is no problem… chopping wood, drawing water from the well. You can do all small and big things. Only one thing is not allowed and that is: your centering should not be lost. That awareness, that watchfulness should remain absolutely unclouded, undisturbed. Meditation is a very simple phenomenon. For more information, 

visit: www.osho.com Source: ‘From Misery to Enlightenment #2’ Copyright © Osho International Foundation, Switzerland. OSHO ® is a registered TM.