What is meditation? (Osho)

The human mind is effort oriented, action oriented; obsessed with activity, because the more active you are, the more your ego can be fulfilled, the more you can say "I."

All activity is basically food for your egoistic personality.

Meditation is not an effort; it is not an activity. Rather, it is a deep surrender.

Rather, it is to be in non-activity. Basically, just to be is meditation...not doing anything, not desiring anything, not hankering to go somewhere, just being here and now.

To be simply here and now – that's what I call meditation.

But it is very difficult to conceive; even to contemplate it is difficult because the mind cannot conceive anything that is not an effort. The very language of the mind, the very framework, the very structure is based on effort...to do something, to achieve something, to go somewhere.

The mind is very serious, and meditation is absolutely non–serious. 

When I say this you may be bewildered because people go on talking about meditation seriously, and meditation is not a serious thing, it is just like a play...non-serious, sincere but non-serious It is not something like work...more like a play. Play is not an activity – even when active, it is not an activity. Play is just pleasure. The activity is not going anywhere, it is not motivated; rather, it is just overflowing energy. But it is difficult because we are in activity so much and we have been in activity so much that activity has become a deep-rooted obsession. Even while asleep we are active, even thinking to relax, we are active. We can even make relaxation an activity; we can make an effort to relax. This is absurd. But because of the habit, the robot-like habits of the mind....

The mind cannot conceive how to be non-active, so what to do?

Only non-activity only leads you to your inner center. 
So I have devised a new means, and the means is to be active to such an extreme that activity simply ceases because of its being so extreme...to be active so madly that the mind that is hankering to be active is thrown out, out of your system Only then, in a deep catharsis, can you fall down to inactivity and can have a glimpse of the world that is not of activity.

Once you know it you can move into it without any method; once you have the feeling of – how to be just here and now without doing anything – you can move in in any moment; or you can remain in it anywhere. Ultimately you can be active outwardly and inwardly, deeply inactive. 
But in the beginning you will have do a very paradoxical thing, and the paradox is this: you have to be active, madly active, violently active, so that everything is released, your obsession is released.

The mind is a great dreamer; it can dream about anything, and down through the ages it has been dreaming. The unconscious is a great reservoir: once you are in the mood to receive, then the unconscious starts releasing dreams – but they are not meditations!

Meditation is a state of mind where there is no thought, no vision, no experience, no feeling. Meditation is a state of mind where no content, no object exists. You don't hear any information, you don't receive any information. Meditation is an absolute silence. Stars are not speaking. The whole world has fallen into silence; the whole world has stopped. In that stopping is meditation.

But because of your ideas you think that the meditations here are not that advanced. Now this is just an ego-trip. If you want to enjoy it, you are free to, but I am not a part in it at all. And don't think these things that you are taught here are not advanced! In fact meditation is neither advanced nor not advanced.

Meditation has only one taste.
     It has no categories, it has no divisions, no steps; it is a jump.
     A jump into no-mind is what I call meditation. 

These things are just a help: dancing, singing...are just to help. Of course they look mundane – dancing, singing.... One thinks, "How can these be very far advanced meditations?"
They are just devices so that you can throw your body and mind into some act in a total way; then you stop, and silence becomes more possible.     The real meditation starts only when the activity has stopped.

For example, in the morning meditation, breathing is not meditation, just a preparation. Catharting is not meditation; it is again another preparation. The mantra "Hoo" is not meditation. It is again a deeper preparation for it.

Meditation starts when you stop and you fall silent and become frozen. In those few seconds there is a possibility that you may have a little glimpse, a little breeze of meditation. But once it starts coming then you can drop these methods; they are not a must. Once you have known that this space exists, once you have gone into it many times and come back and you have become acquainted with the path that leads to it, then there is no point. You throw the guide, you throw the guidebook, you throw all maps! You know the path: you close your eyes and you slip into it, and whenever you want you can slip into it; then nothing is essential.

But in the beginning when you don't know this, the map and the guide, music and dance and everything, is helpful; these are just arbitrary helps.

So don't think that these are meditations.
The map is not the real country, and nor are these real meditations. The map is just an indication. Once you have known the path then you can travel it all alone. Then there is no need for anybody and then there is no need to do anything. because meditation is not an act. You cannot do it...it is nothing to do!