Meditation Does Not Need Time

Modern man in this age of speed, hurry, activity, and tensions, feels completely exhausted after a day's work. In this situation, it becomes difficult for him to have inner silence and stillness.


The situation appears to be so. It is not. Rather, the situation is quite vice versa. You are not exhausted because of industrialised age and work and tensions; you are exhausted because you have lost contact with your inner stillness . Work is not the problem; you are the problem. Neither is age the problem.


Don't go on thinking that modern man is more burdened with work. He is less burdened. A primitive man is more burdened. Mechanisation will help save time. But because you have time but no stillness, because you now have time and no use for it, that creates problems. A primitive man is less in problems, not because he is silent and still but because he has no time - no time to create troubles for himself. You have more time and you don't know what to do.


This time can be used for an inner journey. And if man cannot use it for that inwardness, he is done for. Then there is no hope because now more and more time will be saved. Soon the whole world will be under automatic mechanisation. You will have time, and you will not know what to do, and for the first time in history man will have achieved the utopia always longed for. Then he will be at a loss as to what to do with it.


You have even lost sleep. That was the natural method to go in, then you are fresh in the morning, recharged, revitalised. But now we have even lost sleep, and we have lost sleep because of mechanical revolution. Now your bodies are not forced to work; because of less work you are less exhausted, and because of less exertion you cannot sleep.


A villager still sleeps deeply because his body is so exhausted. In the morning you are more exhausted than in the evening, and then the whole day begins again. You feel again exhausted. We are living an exhausted life. It is not that we are exhausted just in the evening; in the morning we are also exhausted. What has happened?


Man needs continuous contact with the inner source. Don't ask me how an exhausted man can meditate. It is like asking me how a diseased man, an ill man, can take medicine. He needs it, and only he needs it. You are exhausted; meditation will be a medicine to you...


So every day is not a fixed thing. A buddha can use it in such a way that it becomes a life. It is not how much it is; ultimately it depends how much you put into it. You are a creator. We create our time, we create our space, we create our milieu, through living. So, whatever your position in life and whatever your work and whatever your worldly situation, don't make it an excuse. You can meditate all the same. And meditation doesn't need time; it needs a deep understanding.


Authored by: Osho
Abridged from The Ultimate Alchemy/OSHO International Foundation/www.osho.com