Do not DO meditation, Float - Osho

Osho,

What is the difference between doing meditation, and being in meditation?

It is the same difference I am already explaining to you. If a person is doing meditation, he is trying to make a confused mind peaceful. What will he do? He will attempt to make his mind quiet. When an individual is being in meditation, he is not trying to quiet down his mind; instead he is slipping away from it.

If it is sunny outside, you may see a man trying to open his umbrella - and umbrellas can be opened outside in the sun; one may stand under its shade, or any other shade. But such umbrellas can never be opened within the mind. The only kind of umbrella there can be in the mind is of thoughts - but they make no difference. It is as if a man were to stand in the sun with his eyes closed, thinking that an umbrella is over his head and that he is not feeling hot now. But he is bound to feel hot. This man is trying to cool down the sun. He is trying to do meditation. Now there is another man. When it is sunny outside, he merely gets up, walks inside the house and relaxes. He is making no effort to cool down the sun, he is merely moving away from the sun.

Doing meditation means making an effort, an effort to change the mind. And to be in meditation means not making any effort to change the mind but instead moving within without a sound.

You must take into account the distinction between the two. If you make an effort to meditate, meditation will never happen. If you try to make a conscious effort, if you sit down, strain your muscles, force yourself, become determined to calm your mind no matter what, it won’t work - because, after all, who will be doing all this? Who will be showing determination? Who else but you?
As it is, you are already confused, restless. Now you try to calm yourself down - that means you will be adding one more headache. You are sitting uptight, ready, disregarding everything. The more stiff you become, the further you get into difficulty, the more you go on becoming tense. This is not the way. I ask you to meditate because meditation is relaxation. You have not to do anything, just be relaxed.

Make sure you understand. Let me explain it a little further through one small principle. Keep it in mind finally. A man is swimming in the river. He says he wants to reach the other side. The current of the river is strong, and he flaps his arms and legs trying to swim across. He is getting tired, worn out, broken, but he keeps on swimming. This man is making an effort to swim. To swim is an effort for him. Doing meditation is an effort too. Then there is another man. Instead of swimming he just keeps floating. He has let himself go in the river. He does not throw his arms and legs about; he is simply lying in the river. The river is flowing and, along with the river, so is he. He is not swimming at all, he is just floating. An effort is not required to float; floating is merely no-effort.
The meditation I am talking about is like floating, it’s not like swimming. Watch a man swimming and then watch a leaf floating in the river. The delight and the joy of the floating leaf is simply out of this world. There is no trouble, no hindrance, no quarrel, no bother for the leaf. The leaf is very smart. And what is its smartness? The smartness of the leaf is that it has made the river its boat and is now riding on it. The leaf is ready and willing to go wherever the river takes it. The leaf has broken all the strength of the river. The river can do it no harm because the leaf is not fighting against the river. The leaf doesn’t want to create any resistance, it’s just floating.

So the leaf is in complete accord. Why is that so? It is because now it is not trying to fall in accord with the river; it is simply floating, that’s all. Wherever the river wants to take it, so be it. So keep the floating leaf in mind. Can you float like this in the river? There should not be even a thought of swimming, not even the feeling of it; there should be no mind at all.

Have you ever observed that a living man can drown in a river whereas a dead man floats on the surface? Have you ever wondered what this is about? A living man drowns, but never a dead man. He comes to the surface right away. What’s the difference? The dead body enters into a state of no-effort. The dead body does nothing; it cannot even if it wished to. The body comes to the surface and floats. A living man can drown because a living man makes an effort to stay alive. Attempting to do that, he gets tired - and as he gets tired he drowns. His fighting drowns him, not the river. The river can’t drown the dead man because he doesn’t put up any fight. Since he doesn’t fight, losing his strength is out of the question. The river can do no harm to him. So he floats in the river.

The meditation I am talking about is like floating, not like swimming. You just have to float. When I say relax your body, I mean you should let the body float. Now one does not maintain any hold over the body; now one does not tether oneself to the shore of the body - you let it go, you float. When I say to let go of the breath as well, then do not cling to the shore of breathing. Then leave that too, then float with it also. Then where will one go? If you let go of the body you will move within; if you hold on to the body you will come out.

How can one enter the river if he holds on to the shore? He can only be back on the shore. If one leaves the shore, he will go straight into the river. So a stream of life, a stream of divine consciousness is flowing within us, but we are grabbing on to the shore, on to the shore of the body.
Let go of it. Let go of breathing too. Let go of thoughts as well. Now all the shores are left behind. Where will you go now? Now you will begin to float in that stream which flows within. One who allows himself to float in that stream reaches the ocean.

The stream within is like a river, and one who starts floating in it reaches the ocean. Meditation is a kind of floating. One who learns how to float reaches the divine. Do not swim. One who swims will go astray. One who swims will, at the most, leave this shore and reach the other. What else will he do? What more can a swimmer do? He will go from one shore to the other. This shore brings you out of the river, and so does the other shore. A poor man, after a great deal of swimming, may become a rich man at most - what more? After swimming a great deal, a man occupying a small chair may sit on a high chair in Delhi - what more will happen?

This shore takes you out of the river, the same as that shore does. The shore of Dwarka is as outside the river as the shore of Delhi is - it makes no difference. A swimmer can only reach the shore. But what about the one who is floating? No shore can prevent a floater, because he has let himself go in the stream. The stream will carry him. It is sure to carry him and bring him to the ocean.
The very goal is to reach the ocean - the river becomes the ocean and the individual consciousness becomes the divine. When a drop is lost in the vast ocean, the absolute meaning of life, the supreme bliss of life, the paramount beauty of life is attained.

The ultimate thing is: the art of dying is the art of floating. One who is prepared to die never swims. He says, “Take me where you will. I am ready!”


Osho, And Now And Here, Ch. 7