Meditation Is Playful

“Meditation is not anything of the mind, it is something beyond the mind. And the first step is to be playful about it. If you are playful about it mind cannot destroy your meditation. Otherwise it will turn it into another ego trip; it will make you very serious. You will start thinking, ‘I am a great meditator. I am holier than other people, and the whole world is just worldly – I am religious, I am virtuous.’ 

“That’s what has happened to thousands of so-called saints, moralists, puritans: they are just playing ego games, subtle ego games.

“Hence I want to cut the very root of it from the very beginning. Be playful about it. It is a song to be sung, a dance to be danced. Take it as fun and you will be surprised: if you can be playful about meditation, meditation will grow in leaps and bounds. But you are not hankering for any goal; you are just enjoying sitting silently, just enjoying the very act of sitting silently, just enjoying the very act of sitting silently – not that you are longing for some yogic powers, siddhis, miracles. All that is nonsense, the same old nonsense, the same old game, played with new words, on a new plane….

“Life as such has to be taken as cosmic joke – and then suddenly you relax because there is nothing to be tense about. And in that very relaxation something starts changing in you – a radical change, a transformation – and the small things of life starts having new meaning, new significance. Then nothing is small, everything starts taking on a new flavor, a new aura; one starts feeling a kind of godliness everywhere. One does not become a Christian, does not become a Hindu, does not become a Mohammedan; one simply becomes a lover of life. One learns only one thing, how to rejoice in life.

“But rejoicing in life is the way towards god. Dance your way to god, laugh your way to god, sing your way to god!”

Osho, The Golden Wind
(This title is no longer available at Osho’s request)