Be indifferent to the mind

‘Beloved Osho,

You have said much lately about inner silence and emptiness. After two years as your disciple, much of the time, particularly during the meditations, my mind seems more than ever to be out of control and working like a computer gone mad. I try to witness to the whole absurdity, but the monster goes on and on!’

Osho: “Let the monster go on and on – don’t you be worried. The very worry is the problem, not the monster. The whole world is going on and on: rivers go on flowing, clouds to on moving in the sky, birds go on chattering in the trees.

Just why are you so against only the mind? Let it also go on and on – you be unconcerned.

Witnessing is not an effort. When you are unconcerned the witness arises. Be indifferent to the mind; in the climate of indifference the witness arises. The very idea that you have to stop it is wrong. You are not required to do anything. If you do anything it won’t help – it will help the trouble, not you.

That’s why when you meditate you feel the mind going more mad; when you don’t meditate it is not so mad. When you are meditating you are too concerned with the mind, trying your hardest to make it still. Who are you? And why should you be worried about the mind? What is wrong with it? Allow the thoughts, let them move like clouds.

When you are indifferent, suddenly you are watching. With nothing left to do, what will you do? You can only watch, you can only witness – and in witnessing mind stops. Not that you can stop it. Nobody has ever been able to stop the mind, because the stopper is also part of the mind. The idea of meditation is part of the mind too – the idea that if you become silent you will attain to the ultimate is also of the mind. So don’t be stupid! The mind cannot silence the mind. Who is asking this question, you or the mind?

You are not aware of yourself at all; it’s the mind playing tricks. The only thing that can be done, and which is possible, is to be indifferent and let the mind go. When you are indifferent suddenly a distance arises between you and the mind.

You still listen to it because it is knocking continuously at your doors, but now you are indifferent. Now, inside, you are not worried whether it goes on or stops, you don’t choose. You say to the mind, “if you want to go, you go on; if you want to stop, you can stop. It is none of my concern”. This unconcern is needed. In this climate of unconcern and indifference the witness arises. And suddenly you see that the mind never belonged to you; it is a computer, it is a mechanism. You are absolutely separate from it.

Drop all efforts to still it and just remain passive, looking at whatsoever is going on. Don’t give direction to the mind; don’t say, “Be like this”. Don’t be a guide to the mind and don’t be a controller. The whole existence is going on, nothing disturbs you – why only this mind, a small computer, a small mechanism?

Enjoy it if you can. If you cannot, then be indifferent. And then suddenly one day you find that something which was fast asleep within you is awakening; a new energy is coming up in you – a distance from the mind. And then by and by the mind goes on – far away, far away, far away. Then still it goes on chattering but you know that somewhere far away, near a star it is chattering; you cannot even make sense out of it, what it is saying. And this distance goes on and on and on, and one day suddenly you cannot find where the mind has gone.

This silence is qualitatively different from a silence that you can practise. The real silence comes spontaneously, it is not something to be practiced. If you practice it you can create a false silence. The mind is so tricky, it can give you a false notion of silence – and that too will belong to the mind. So don’t try hard to still it. Rather, stand aside, by the side of the road, and let the traffic pass. Just watch it, just look at it with eyes of unconcern, indifference, and the thing that you have been desiring will happen – but not through desire. Because desire will not allow you to be indifferent. Buddha has used a word

Osho, Absolute Tao