Osho – My whole effort here is to teach you consciousness, not concentration

Question – Since I have been here, I have lost my ability to concentrate. It is hard for me to utter a logical sentence. And I have become very forgetful. I feel myself as a stupid child. Is that the way to me intelligence you talk about?

Osho – The ability to concentrate is not something to feel blessed about. It is a frozen state of mind, a very narrow state of mind. Useful, of course, useful — for others. Useful in scientific inquiry, useful in business, useful in the market, useful in politics — but absolutely useless for yourself. If you become too attuned with concentration you will become very, very tense. Concentration is a tense state of mind; you will never be relaxed. Concentration is like a torch, focused, and consciousness is like a lamp, unfocused.

My whole effort here is to teach you consciousness, not concentration. And this is the point to be remembered: if you become conscious, any moment you want to concentrate on a particular problem, you can. It is not a problem. But if you become too focused with concentration the vice versa is not true: you cannot relax. A relaxed mind can always concentrate. easily, there is no trouble about it. But a focused mind becomes obsessed. narrow. It is not easy for it to relax and leave the tension. It remains tense.

If you meditate. first concentration will disappear and you will be feeling a little at a loss. But if you go on, by and by you will attain to an unfocused state of light — that’s what meditation is. Once meditation is attained. concentration is child’s play — whenever you need to, you can concentrate. There will be no problem about it and it will be easy and without any tension.

Right now, you are being used by society. Society wants efficient people. It is not worried about your soul, it is worried about your productivity. I am not worried about your productivity: man has already too much, more than he can enjoy — there is no need to go on producing more. Now there is more need to play around more and there is more need to be more conscious. Science has developed enough. Now, whatsoever science is doing is almost futile. Now, going to the moon is simply useless. But tremendous energy is wasted. Why? Because scientists are now obsessed — they have to do something. They have learned a trick of concentration and they have to do something. They have to produce, they have to go on producing something — they cannot relax. They will go to the moon, they will go to Mars, and they will persuade people that whatsoever they are doing is tremendously important. It is absolutely useless. But this happens.

Once you become trained in a certain thing, you go on in that line, blind, unless a cul de sac comes and you cannot go on anymore. But life is infinite. There comes no cul de sac. You can go on and on and on. And now scientific activity has almost become ridiculous.

Religious activity is totally different. It is not worried about being more efficient; the whole point is how to be more joyful, how to be more celebrating. So if you 90 with me, by and by, concentration will relax. And in the beginning you will feel afraid because you will see your skill disappearing, your efficiency disappearing. You will feel you are losing something that you have gained with so much effort. In the beginning it will happen. The ice is melting and becoming water. The ice was solid, something concentrated; now it is water — loose, relaxed, flowing in all directions. But anytime you need ice, the water can be turned into ice again. There is no problem — just a little more cooling is needed.

This is my own experience. Whatsoever I say, I say from my own experience — the same has happened to me. First, concentration disappeared; but now I can concentrate on anything. There is no problem. But I don’t remain in concentration; I can concentrate and relax — whenever the need arises. Just as whenever the need arises, you walk; you don’t sit on the chair and go on moving your Legs. There are a few people who go on moving because they cannot sit relaxed — you will call this man restless!

Legs in perfect order are needed so that whenever you need to, you can walk, you can run. But when there Is no need, you can relax, and the legs will no longer be functioning. But your concentration has become almost as focused as if you are continuously preparing for an Olympic! Runners in an Olympic cannot relax. They have to run a particular amount every morning and evening; they are continuously on the go. If they relax for a few days they will lose their skill. But I call all Olympics political, ambitious, foolish. There is no need.

Competition is foolish. There is no need. If you enjoy running — perfectly good. Run. and enjoy. But why compete? What is the point of competition? Competition brings illness, unhealthiness; competition brings jealousy, and a thousand and one diseases. Meditation will allow you to concentrate whenever the need arises, but if there is no need you will remain relaxed, flowing in all directions like water.

IT IS HARD FOR ME TO UTTER A LOGICAL SENTENCE.
Feel blissful, blessed. What is the point of uttering logical sentences! Utter nonsense; make sounds, gibberish, like birds… Like trees! (At this moment a nearby tree decided, with the help of a passing breeze, to illustrate Osho’s words by shaking its branches and causing hundreds of leaves to fall with loud rustling sounds to the ground.) Look! This way! Is this logical? The tree is enjoying. Delighting. Simply shedding away the past. Delight. Sing. Utter sounds. Forget all logic! And by and by you will become more alive. Less logical of course that is the price one has to pay — but you become dead if you become more logical and you become more alive if you become less logical.

Life is the goal, not logic. What are you going to do with logic? If you are hungry, logic is not going to feed you; if you need love, logic is not going to hug you; if you are thirsty, logic will tell you that water is H20! It is not going to give you water, real water. No. It simply functions in formulas, maxims. Look at life, and by and by you will understand that life has its own very logical logic. Be attuned to it and that will become the door for your ecstasy, samadhi, nirvana.

AND I HAVE BECOME VERY FORGETFUL.
Perfectly good! If you can forget, you will be able to remember more. Forgetfulness is a great capacity — it simply means getting the past dusted off. There is no need to remember everything that happens because almost ninety-nine per cent of it is trivia. What do you go on remembering? Just think… what do you go on remembering? Write it down and just look at it. It is trivia. What goes on in your mind? You will not be able to show it to your intimate friend because he will think you are mad. This goes on in your mind?

It is good. Forget. Forgetfulness is a great capacity because it will allow you to remember. It is part of remembrance. The useless has to be forgotten so that the useful is remembered — and the useful is very, very small, the useless i5 too much. In twenty-four hours, millions of bits of information are collected by the mind. If you collect them and remember them all, you will be mad.

I have heard about a man. He was once presented to the Governor-General in India because he was a man of rare memory. He knew only one language, Rajasthani-Hindi. He was a poor man, uneducated, but if you told him anything in any language, he would never forget it. But he would repeat it like a parrot, not knowing what it meant.

To the Governor-General’s palace he was called, and the Governor-General was surprised to hear about his capacity. Thirty other persons were called, and in thirty languages they uttered a few sentences. It was arranged in the following manner: the man would go to the first person, and the first person would say the first word of his sentence. Then he would go to another person and he would say the first word of his sentence, in another language. Then he will go to the third. In this way he would go to thirty people. Then he would come back to the first who would now say his second word. This was repeated — many rounds, many hours it took. And then he repeated all the sentences separately. The Governor-General was simply puzzled. He could not believe it.  But this man went mad.

This much memory is dangerous. This type of person is almost always idiotic. Too much memory is not a good sign; it simply says that you have a very mechanical mind. It is not a sign of intelligence. Hence you hear so many stories of absent-mindedness about great scientists, philosophers. They are people of great memory, and great intelligence has nothing to do with great memory. Memory is mechanical, intelligence is non-mechanical — they are totally different.

So don’t be worried. It is good. The memory is relaxing, many things will disappear, space will be created in you. And in that space you will be able to become more brilliant, more intelligent, more understanding. Intelligence means understanding; memory means a quality, a mechanical quality of repetition. Parrots have good memories. Don’t be worried about your memory. In the beginning it happens: you have accumulated much rubbish and when you meditate that rubbish starts disappearing, falling away.

AND I FEEL MYSELF A STUPID CHILD.
That is the way, the way to the kingdom of God. Lao Tzu says, ‘Be like an idiot in this world so that you can understand the illogical ways of Tao.’ Jesus says, ‘Be like a child — because only those who are like children will be able to enter into the kingdom of God.’ Don’t be worried about those things; the non-essential is dropping away. Feel happy and grateful. Once the rubbish has dropped, the real will arise; non-essential gone, the essential will arise. This is the way to reach to one’s own source.

But many times you will get scared because you are losing your grip on what you have valued up till now. But I can tell you only one thing: I have traveled the same path and have passed through the same phases. They are phases — they come and go. And your consciousness will become more and more purified, virgin — pure, uncorrupted. That uncorrupted consciousness is God.