Meditation Is Rest

“When I say, “Drop the ego, drop the mind,” I don’t mean that you cannot use the mind any more. In fact, when you don’t cling to the mind you can use it in a far better, far more efficient way, because the energy that was involved in clinging becomes available. And when you are not continuously in the mind, twenty-four hours a day in the mind, the mind also gets a little time to rest.

“Do you know? – even metals need rest, even metals get tired. So what to say about this subtle mechanism in the world. In such a small skull you are carrying such a complicated bio-computer that no computer made by man is yet capable of competing with it. The scientists say a single man’s brain can contain all the libraries of the world and yet there will space enough to contain more.

“And you are continuously using it – uselessly, unnecessarily! You have forgotten how to put it off. For seventy, eighty years it remains on, working, working tired. That’s why people lose intelligence: for the simple reason that they are so tired. If the mind can have little rest, if you can leave the mind alone for a few hours every day, if once in a while you can give the mind a holiday, it will be rejuvenated; it will come out more intelligent, more efficient, more skillful.

“So I am not saying that you are not to use your mind, but don’t be used by the mind. Right now the mind is the master and you are only a slave.

“Meditation makes you a master and the mind becomes a slave. And remember: the mind as a master is dangerous because, after all, it is a machine; but the mind as a slave is tremendously significant, useful. A machine should function as a machine, not as a master. Our priorities are all upside down – your consciousness should be the master.

“So whenever you want to use it, in the East or in the West – of course you will need it in the marketplace – use it! But when you don’t need it, when you are resting at home by the side of your swimming pool or in the garden, there is no need. Put it aside. Forget all about it! Then just be.”

Osho, Ah, This!, Talk #2

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