Meditation is rest, absolute rest, a full stop to all activity - physical, mental, emotional. When you are in such a deep rest that nothing stirs in you, when all action as such ceases, as if you are fast asleep yet awake, you come to know who you are. Suddenly the window opens. It cannot be opened by effort, because effort creates tension, and tension is the cause of our whole misery. Hence this is something very fundamental to be understood that meditation is not effort.
One has to be very playful about meditation, one has to learn to enjoy it as fun. One has not to be serious about it - be serious and you miss. One has to go into it very joyously. And one has to keep aware that it is falling into deeper and deeper rest. It is not concentration, just the contrary, it is relaxation. When you are utterly relaxed, for the first time you start feeling your reality; you come face to face with your being. When you are engaged in activity you are so occupied that you cannot see yourself. Activity creates much smoke around you, it raises much dust around you; hence all activity has to be dropped, at least for a few hours per day.
That is only so in the beginning. When you have learnt the art of being at rest you can be both active and restful together, because then you know that rest is something so inner that it cannot be disturbed by anything outer. The activity goes on at the circumference and at the center you remain restful. So it is only for beginning that activity has to be dropped for a few hours. When one has learned the art then there is no question : for twenty-four hours a day one can be meditative and one can continue all the activities of ordinary life.
But remember, the key word is rest, relaxation. Never go against rest and relaxation. Arrange your life in such a way, drop all futile activity, because ninety per cent is futile; it is just for killing time and remaining occupied. Do only the essential and devote your energies more and more to the inner journey. Then that miracle happens when you can remain at rest and in action together, simultaneously. That is the meeting of the sacred and the mundane, the meeting of this world and that, the meeting of materialism and spiritualism.
Osho - excerpts from the book What is Meditation?
