Osho – Have you observed? — sometimes it happens you have forgotten the name of someone. And you know that you know. And you say, “It is just on the tip of my tongue.” And still, you cannot recall it. Try hard. The more you try, the more it will be frustrating. The more you try hard, the more you will be in a weird situation. You know it — it is right on the tip of the tongue — and it is not coming. One feels at a loss; one cannot think what is happening.
Then you try, and try, and try, and it doesn’t come. You are fed up with the whole effort. You go out of the house; you start digging in the garden, and suddenly it is there. It bubbles up to the surface.
What happened? Try to understand the mechanism. It was there, but the very effort made you tense. And a tense mind is a narrow mind, the tenser the narrower. The mind became so narrow and so tense, so one-pointed that the name could not pass through it. Your mind became like a needle’s eye, and the camel could not pass through it. You knew it was there, but the very effort narrowed you, because effort means concentration.
Remember, I don’t teach concentration; I teach meditation. And the difference is this: concentration is a narrowing of the mind. And I tell you, that even a camel can pass through the eye of a needle, but one who is concentrating cannot pass through the gates of God — because the mind becomes narrower and narrower. That is the whole meaning of concentration. Meditation is not concentration. Meditation is simple awareness — widening of the mind, widening of consciousness — expansion, not narrowing.
Meditation is all-inclusive. You listen to me… if you are listening to me, and at the same time the crowing of the crows is not reaching your consciousness, it is concentration. Then you may remember what I am saying, but you will never understand — because a narrow mind cannot understand much. But while I’m speaking and the crow is crowing and the birds are singing — and you are not narrowed; you are flowing in all directions, aware of all — in this moment, your consciousness is open to every possibility that is happening. Then I am talking and the crow is crowing and there is no conflict, because the conflict arises only when you are concentrating.
There is no conflict. In the same moment, simultaneously, all is happening. Each moment is multi-dimensional. If you are simply aware, you listen to me and you listen to the crow also. And you are not disturbed. Only people who concentrate are disturbed and distracted. A man who meditates is never distracted, because nothing can distract him. He’s not narrowing his mind; he’s not excluding anything — he’s all-including. He’s simply here and now. And whatsoever happens — if God feels like crowing through the crow perfectly good. And if he thinks of singing a song through a bird — perfectly beautiful. Then everything is accepted; then the total is allowed.
When you are trying to remember a name or a word, the more you try, the less possibility there is of succeeding — because the mind is becoming narrower and narrower and narrower. Then you drop the whole effort; you relax in your chair and start smoking — and suddenly it is there. The mind is narrow no more; the tension is gone — effort is no more there; you have become effortless. Then you have become meditative.
Meditation is effortless awareness; concentration is a narrowing of the mind with much effort. I teach meditation; I teach expansion of consciousness, an ability to flow in all directions simultaneously. Open up all the doors of your being. Why be narrow? Let the sky enter from all the doors; let the light come from all the windows; let the breeze blow from all the directions. Why be narrow? Accept -total, meditative. Then one day, suddenly, you are surprised: surrender has happened. You were not trying to do it, and it has happened. It has always been so. You cannot surrender. One day when you are in a relaxed mood….
Remember, when you are in a relaxed mood, you are not. You are, only when you are in a tense mood. When you are relaxed you are part of the whole; you are not. Then boundaries are blurred; then the whole and the part are no more separate. They meet, they merge… surrender happens.
Source – from Osho Book “Come Follow To You, Vol3”
