Activity

Meditation is not against action. It simply teaches you a new way of life; you become the centre of the cyclone.

Your life, full of action and reaction, is akin to a never-ending cyclone. Within the chaos of this cyclone – your daily living, your responsibilities, your desires and fears – you may feel tossed about with little control, much like leaves caught in a storm. In such turbulence, finding your centre, your core of stillness and peace, might seem like an impossible task.

Meditation is the technique, the science, the art of finding that centre. As you meditate, you come to realise that while the cyclone rages on, there is a space, a point, deep within you that remains unaffected, unshaken. This is your true essence. It is not that meditation seeks to remove you from the cyclone of life – action is necessary and beautiful – but rather, meditation enables you to find your unmovable centre in the midst of it all.

When Osho says meditation is not against action, he is pointing out that meditation does not render you inactive. Instead, it infuses your actions with a quality of calmness and centeredness. You learn to act from a place of inner silence, so that the cyclone’s chaos does not throw you. Your actions become more fluid, more in tune with the moment, and far less reactive.

Meditation teaches you a new way of life because, once you know your centre, your entire approach to life changes. You become like a masterful dancer, moving gracefully with – but never getting swept away by – the powerful winds of joy, sorrow, success, and failure.

From this centred state, you can engage with life more fully, with a deep sense of peace and equanimity. You are in the world, fully participating, yet not lost in it. And this is the art of living meditatively. It is the transformation of the chaos into a dance, the transcending of the mind into a space where the cyclone exists but you are utterly still and serene at the centre.

Your actions then gain a quality of meditativeness, and your life becomes a moving meditation. The tumultuous reality remains, but your perception and interaction with it is transformed. This is what Osho invites you to experience through the gateway of meditation.