Astrall
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During meditation, my mind continues to race at five hundred miles per hour. I never experience stillness, and if it does happen, it's very brief, like flashes of light. Am I wasting my time?
Your mind is moving incredibly slowly. Five hundred miles per hour, and you call that speed? You're moving at a snail's pace. The mind moves so fast that no speed can contain it. It's faster than light. Light travels at 186,000 miles per second; the mind is even faster. But don't worry about it – that's the beauty of the mind, its great virtue. Instead of treating the mind negatively, instead of fighting it, befriend it.
You say, "During meditation, my mind continues to race at five hundred miles per hour" – so what? Let it race even faster. And you be the observer. Watch how quickly, how incredibly fast, the mind moves. Enjoy it! Enjoy the play of the mind.
In Sanskrit, there's a special term for this: chidvilas – the play of consciousness. Enjoy it! – this play of the mind, which rushes to the stars, moves with incredible speed here and there, jumps all over the place. What's wrong with that? Let it be a beautiful dance. Accept it.
It seems you're trying to stop the mind; you won't succeed. No one can stop the mind! Yes, one day the mind will stop, but no one can force it to. The mind stops, but not through your effort. The mind stops through your understanding.
Just observe and try to see what's happening, why your mind is rushing. It's rushing for a reason. Try to understand why your mind is rushing, where it's rushing to – perhaps you're ambitious. If the mind is thinking about money, try to understand that. The mind isn't the main thing. You dream of money, of winning the lottery, and then you start planning how to spend the money, what to buy, what not to buy. Or: the mind dreams of you becoming president or prime minister, and you start thinking about what you'll do, how you'll run the country, or even the whole world. Just observe the mind! – observe what the mind is striving for.
Deep inside you, there's probably a seed. You won't be able to stop the mind until that seed disappears. The mind follows the instructions of your innermost seed. If someone is thinking about sex, it means there's suppressed sexuality hidden within them. Observe where the mind is going. Look deeper within yourself, find where the seeds are hidden.
Here's a story I heard.
A parish priest was very worried.
"Listen," he said to the servant, "someone stole my bicycle."
"And where did you ride it, holy father?" the servant asked politely.
"Only to the parishioners to perform services."
The servant suggested that the holy father reduce the entire Sunday service to the Ten Commandments.
"When we get to the commandment 'Thou shalt not steal,' we'll look carefully at the faces of the parishioners and recognize the thief by his expression."
Sunday arrived; at the end of the sermon, the holy father began to talk about the commandments, but soon he strayed from the main point, jumped to something completely different, and finished it haphazardly.
"Sir," said the servant, "I thought you were..."
"I know, Giles, I know. But the thing is, when I got to the commandment 'Thou shalt not commit adultery,' I suddenly remembered where I left my bicycle."
See, he remembered where he left his bicycle. The mind is racing for a reason.
The mind needs understanding, awareness. Don't try to stop it. If you try to stop it, first, you won't succeed; second, even if you do succeed – let's say you put in years of relentless effort – even if you succeed, then you'll become dull. And no satori will happen.
First: you won't succeed; and that's good. If you did succeed, it would be a great misfortune – you would become dull, you would lose your intelligence. It's because of this speed that intelligence exists, it's because of the speed that the sword of thinking, logic, and reason is constantly sharpened. Please don't try to stop it. I'm not in favor of dullards; I'm not here to help anyone become a fool.
For the sake of religion, many have become dull, turned into idiots – trying to stop the mind without understanding why it's moving so fast... first of all: why? The mind cannot move without a reason. Without delving into these reasons, without penetrating the deep layers of the subconscious, they simply try to stop it. They can do it, but they will have to pay a price, and that price will be the loss of intelligence.
Travel around India, you'll meet thousands of sannyasins and mahatmas; look into their eyes – yes, they are good, kind people, but dull. If you look into their eyes, you won't find intelligence there, not even a glimmer. They are not creative people; they haven't created anything. They just sit. They lead a miserable existence; they are not living people. They haven't helped the world in any way. They haven't written a single painting, composed a single poem, or a single song, because to compose a poem, you need intelligence, you need certain qualities of the mind.
I don't advise you to stop the mind; on the contrary, I advise you to understand it.
With understanding comes a miracle. It consists of the fact that at the same time as understanding, as you grasp the reasons and look deeply into them, these reasons disappear, and the mind slows down. But intelligence doesn't disappear, because no violence is being done to it.
What do you do if you don't eliminate the causes through understanding? For example: you're driving a car, and while continuing to press the gas pedal, you press the brake pedal. That way, you'll ruin the entire mechanism of the car. There's a good chance you'll have an accident. You can't do that at the same time. If you press the brake, release the gas pedal; don't press it. If you press the gas pedal, don't press the brake. Don't do it at the same time, or you'll ruin the whole mechanism; you're doing two incompatible things.
You carry ambition within you – and you try to stop the mind? Ambition creates speed, and you increase the speed and at the same time brake the mind. You'll destroy the fragile mechanism of the mind, because the mind is a very fragile thing, the most fragile of all. Don't treat the mind recklessly.
There's no need to stop it.
Osho
Your mind is moving incredibly slowly. Five hundred miles per hour, and you call that speed? You're moving at a snail's pace. The mind moves so fast that no speed can contain it. It's faster than light. Light travels at 186,000 miles per second; the mind is even faster. But don't worry about it – that's the beauty of the mind, its great virtue. Instead of treating the mind negatively, instead of fighting it, befriend it.
You say, "During meditation, my mind continues to race at five hundred miles per hour" – so what? Let it race even faster. And you be the observer. Watch how quickly, how incredibly fast, the mind moves. Enjoy it! Enjoy the play of the mind.
In Sanskrit, there's a special term for this: chidvilas – the play of consciousness. Enjoy it! – this play of the mind, which rushes to the stars, moves with incredible speed here and there, jumps all over the place. What's wrong with that? Let it be a beautiful dance. Accept it.
It seems you're trying to stop the mind; you won't succeed. No one can stop the mind! Yes, one day the mind will stop, but no one can force it to. The mind stops, but not through your effort. The mind stops through your understanding.
Just observe and try to see what's happening, why your mind is rushing. It's rushing for a reason. Try to understand why your mind is rushing, where it's rushing to – perhaps you're ambitious. If the mind is thinking about money, try to understand that. The mind isn't the main thing. You dream of money, of winning the lottery, and then you start planning how to spend the money, what to buy, what not to buy. Or: the mind dreams of you becoming president or prime minister, and you start thinking about what you'll do, how you'll run the country, or even the whole world. Just observe the mind! – observe what the mind is striving for.
Deep inside you, there's probably a seed. You won't be able to stop the mind until that seed disappears. The mind follows the instructions of your innermost seed. If someone is thinking about sex, it means there's suppressed sexuality hidden within them. Observe where the mind is going. Look deeper within yourself, find where the seeds are hidden.
Here's a story I heard.
A parish priest was very worried.
"Listen," he said to the servant, "someone stole my bicycle."
"And where did you ride it, holy father?" the servant asked politely.
"Only to the parishioners to perform services."
The servant suggested that the holy father reduce the entire Sunday service to the Ten Commandments.
"When we get to the commandment 'Thou shalt not steal,' we'll look carefully at the faces of the parishioners and recognize the thief by his expression."
Sunday arrived; at the end of the sermon, the holy father began to talk about the commandments, but soon he strayed from the main point, jumped to something completely different, and finished it haphazardly.
"Sir," said the servant, "I thought you were..."
"I know, Giles, I know. But the thing is, when I got to the commandment 'Thou shalt not commit adultery,' I suddenly remembered where I left my bicycle."
See, he remembered where he left his bicycle. The mind is racing for a reason.
The mind needs understanding, awareness. Don't try to stop it. If you try to stop it, first, you won't succeed; second, even if you do succeed – let's say you put in years of relentless effort – even if you succeed, then you'll become dull. And no satori will happen.
First: you won't succeed; and that's good. If you did succeed, it would be a great misfortune – you would become dull, you would lose your intelligence. It's because of this speed that intelligence exists, it's because of the speed that the sword of thinking, logic, and reason is constantly sharpened. Please don't try to stop it. I'm not in favor of dullards; I'm not here to help anyone become a fool.
For the sake of religion, many have become dull, turned into idiots – trying to stop the mind without understanding why it's moving so fast... first of all: why? The mind cannot move without a reason. Without delving into these reasons, without penetrating the deep layers of the subconscious, they simply try to stop it. They can do it, but they will have to pay a price, and that price will be the loss of intelligence.
Travel around India, you'll meet thousands of sannyasins and mahatmas; look into their eyes – yes, they are good, kind people, but dull. If you look into their eyes, you won't find intelligence there, not even a glimmer. They are not creative people; they haven't created anything. They just sit. They lead a miserable existence; they are not living people. They haven't helped the world in any way. They haven't written a single painting, composed a single poem, or a single song, because to compose a poem, you need intelligence, you need certain qualities of the mind.
I don't advise you to stop the mind; on the contrary, I advise you to understand it.
With understanding comes a miracle. It consists of the fact that at the same time as understanding, as you grasp the reasons and look deeply into them, these reasons disappear, and the mind slows down. But intelligence doesn't disappear, because no violence is being done to it.
What do you do if you don't eliminate the causes through understanding? For example: you're driving a car, and while continuing to press the gas pedal, you press the brake pedal. That way, you'll ruin the entire mechanism of the car. There's a good chance you'll have an accident. You can't do that at the same time. If you press the brake, release the gas pedal; don't press it. If you press the gas pedal, don't press the brake. Don't do it at the same time, or you'll ruin the whole mechanism; you're doing two incompatible things.
You carry ambition within you – and you try to stop the mind? Ambition creates speed, and you increase the speed and at the same time brake the mind. You'll destroy the fragile mechanism of the mind, because the mind is a very fragile thing, the most fragile of all. Don't treat the mind recklessly.
There's no need to stop it.
Osho