Meditation Gift, part 1

Excerpt from Meditation: The First and Last Freedom, by Osho.  This piece of writing has been influencing my daily meditation and on-going meditative state throughout the day.  Posting this exquisite piece by Osho is my holiday gift to you.  Part 2 will be posted 12/21  Part 3 will be posted 12/22, and Part 4 will be posted 12/23

You see a flower and you verbalize it; you see a man crossing the street and you verbalize it.  The mind can translate every existential thing in to a word.  These words create a barrier.  These words become an imprisonment.  This constant flow toward the transformation of things into words, of existence into words, is the barrier.  It is an obstacle to a meditative mind.

So the first requirement toward a meditative growth is to be aware of your constant verbalizing, and to be able to stop it.  Just see things; do not verbalize. Be aware of their presence, but do not change them into words.

Let things be without language; let persons be without language; let situations be without language.  It is not impossible; this is natural and possible.  It is the situation as it now exists that is artificial.  It is a created situation, but we have become so habituated to it, it has become so mechanical, that we are not even aware of the transformation, of the translation of experience into words.

The sunrise is there.  You are never aware of the gap between seeing it and verbalizing. You see the sun, you feel it, and immediately you verbalize it.  The gap between seeing and verbalizing is lost; it is never felt.  In that interval, in that gap, one must become aware.  One must be aware of the fact that the sunrise is not a word.  It is a fact, a presence, a situation.

Meditation means living without words.  Sometimes it happens spontaneously.  When you are in love with someone it happens.  If you are really in love, then presence is felt–not language.  Whenever two lovers are intimate with one another they become silent.  It is not that there is nothing to express; on the contrary, there is an overwhelming amount to be expressed. But words are never there; they cannot be.  They come only when love has gone.

If two lovers are never silent, if they are always talking, it is an indication that love has died.  Now they are filing the gap with words.  When love is alive, words are not there, because the very existence of love is so overwhelming, so penetrating, that the barrier of language and words is crossed.  And ordinarily, it is only crossed in love.

Meditation is the culmination of love; love not for a single person, but love for the total existence.  To me, mediation is a living relationship with the total existence that surrounds you.  If you can be in love with any situation, then you are in meditation….