Meditation is Understanding

You will have to understand one of the most fundamental things about meditation - that no technique leads to meditation. The old so-called techniques and the new scientific bio-feedback techniques are the same as far as meditation is concerned.

Meditation is not a byproduct of any technique. Meditation happens beyond mind. No technique can go beyond mind.

But there is going to be a great misunderstanding in scientific circles and it has a certain basis.

The basis of all misunderstanding is: When the being of a person is in a state of meditation, it creates certain waves in the mind. These waves can be created from the outside by technical means. But those waves will not create meditation - this is the misunderstanding.

Meditation creates those waves; it is the mind reflecting the inner world.

You cannot see what is happening inside. But you can see what is happening in the mind. Now there are sensitive instruments... we can judge what kind of waves are there when a person is asleep, what kind of waves are there when a person is dreaming, what kind of waves are there when a person is in meditation.

But by creating the waves, you cannot create the situation - because those waves are only symptoms, indicators. It is perfectly good, you can study them. But remember that there is no shortcut to meditation, and no mechanical device can be of any help. In fact, meditation needs no technique - scientific or otherwise.

It is not a question of sitting silently, it is not a question of chanting a mantra. It is a question of understanding the subtle workings of the mind. As you understand those workings of the mind a great awareness arises in you which is not of the mind. That awareness arises in your being, in your soul, in your consciousness.

Mind is only a mechanism, but when that awareness arises it is bound to create a certain energy pattern around it. That energy pattern is noted by the mind. Mind is a very subtle mechanism.

And you are studying from the outside, so at the most you can study the mind. Seeing that whenever a person is silent, serene, peaceful, a certain wave pattern always, inevitably appears in the mind, the scientific thinking will say: if we can create this wave pattern in the mind, through some bio-feedback technology, then the being inside will reach the heights of awareness.

It is not a question of cause and effect.

These waves in the mind are not the cause of meditation; they are on the contrary, the effect. But from the effect you cannot move towards the cause. It is possible that by bio-feedback you can create certain patterns in the mind and they will give a feeling of peace, silence and serenity to the person. Because the person himself does not know what meditation is and has no way of comparing, he may be misled into believing that this is meditation - but it is not. Because the moment the bio-feedback mechanism stops, the waves disappear and the silence and the peace and the serenity disappear.

And you may go on practicing with those scientific instruments for years: it will not change your character, it will not change your morality, it will not change your individuality. You will remain the same.

Meditation transforms. It takes you to higher levels of consciousness and changes your whole lifestyle. It changes your reactions into responses to such an extent that it is unbelievable that the person who would have reacted in the same situation in anger is now acting in deep compassion, with love - in the same situation.

Meditation is a state of being, arrived at through understanding. It needs intelligence, it does not need techniques.

Excerpts from Osho's book
"What is Meditation?"