In this short book Osho analyses the function of the human mind in connection with meditation.
The Mind Book Summary
Note: This summary is made up of my notes, thoughts and highlights of important passages while reading the book. I keep updating the summary when I revisit it, and occasionally may edit it to reduce summary length. Don’t be surprised if it has changed between visits. The author’s words are in normal font, while my interpretations are in italics.
Mind and Meditation
When I say, “meditation is witnessing,” it is the beginning of meditation.
When I say, “meditation is no-mind,” it is the completion of the pilgrimage.
Witnessing is the beginning, and no-mind is the fulfillment.
Sowing the seeds is of course very easy; it is in your hands. But bringing forth the flowers is beyond you.
Mind is only a medium for when you want to communicate with others.
- But when you are alone, there is no need of the mind. So whenever you want to use it, you can use it.
- When the mind remains silent for hours, it becomes fresh, young, more creative, more sensitive, rejuvenated through rest.
- Creativity is one of the greatest blissful experiences.
The man of no-mind keeps the mind in rest, full of energy, immensely sensitive, ready to jump into action the moment it is ordered.
- The words of the people who have experienced no-mind, start having a magic of their own. When they use their mind, it has a charisma, it has a magnetic force.
- The man of meditation – or in other words, the man of no-mind – changes even his prose into poetry.
Meditation surely leads to no-mind, just as every river moves towards the ocean without any maps, without any guides. Every river, without exception, finally reaches to the ocean.
Every meditation, without exception, finally reaches to the state of no-mind.
No-Mind – A Thought-less State
No-mind is a simple word, but it exactly means enlightenment, liberation, freedom from all bondage, the experience of deathlessness and immortality.
If you can transform one moment into a thought-less state, you are learning the secret.
Don’t be impatient. Existence needs immense patience. The ultimate mysteries are opened only to those who have immense patience.
Once a man is in a state of no-mind, nothing can distract him from his being.
- There is no power bigger than the power of no-mind.
- No harm can be done to such a person.
- No attachment, no greed, no jealousy, no anger…nothing can arise in him.
- No-mind is an absolutely pure sky without any clouds.
There is an intrinsic law: thoughts don’t have their own life.
- They are parasites; they live on your identifying with them.
- When you say, “I am angry,” you are pouring life energy into anger, because you are getting identified with anger.
The whole process of witnessing and watching is “non-identification.”
- In other words you are no longer identifying with your thoughts.
- You are simply standing aloof and away – indifferent, as if they might be anybody’s thoughts.
If thoughts are too close to you, you cannot watch.
Watching destroys this oneness and creates a separation.
- The more you watch, the bigger is the distance.
- The bigger the distance, the less energy your thoughts are getting from you. And they don’t have any other source of energy. Soon they start dying, disappearing.
- In these disappearing moments you will have the first glimpses of no-mind.
A few moments of thoughtlessness is not a simple attainment; it is a great achievement, because in their whole lives people do not know even a single moment when there is no thought.
No-mind does not mean that you cannot use the mind; it simply means that the mind cannot use you.
No-mind does not mean that the mind is destroyed. No-mind simply means that the mind is put aside.
- You can bring it into action any moment you need to communicate with the world.
- It will be your servant. Right now it is your master.
No-mind simply means that the mind has been put in its right place.
- As a servant it is a great instrument.
- As a master it is very unfortunate, it is dangerous, it will destroy your whole life.
Dreaming
Dreams are nothing but thoughts in the form of pictures, because the unconscious mind does not know alphabetical languages.
- The unconscious is very primitive; it is just like a small child.
- Television has brought humanity back to a primitive stage – because people are again looking at pictures.
- There are things that cannot be reproduced in pictures. Great literature can be only partially reproduced in pictures.
The greater the literature, the less the possibility of putting it into pictures.
The danger is that people will slowly start forgetting language and its beauty and magic, and they will again become primitives, watching the television.
Method of Meditation
If you move on any path – any methodology – and it brings joy to you, more sensitivity, more watchfulness, and gives a feeling of immense well-being, this is the only criterion that you are going on the right path.
If you become more miserable, more angry, more of an egoist, more greedy, more lustful, those are the indications you are moving on a wrong path.
Individual Mind and Universal Mind
Once this mind is non-functioning, you become part of the mind of the cosmos, the universal mind.
When you are part of the universal mind your individual mind functions as a beautiful servant.
It has recognized the master, and it brings news from the universal mind to those who are still chained by the individual mind.
This is the dignity of the individual – that he is not a replica, not a repetition, not a carbon copy.
Intelligence
A more intelligent humanity will not follow superstitions, will not follow what is right in one place but may not be right in another place.
Humanity should remain a beautiful garden with all kinds of flowers. Even the wild flowers should be protected. They all make life richer, more beautiful, more adventurous.
Intelligence demands that you respond to the situation in which you are.
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