The mind is the only problem. Hence, philosophy comes up with many solutions, many conclusions, but no conclusion is conclusive. Immediately, many more problems pop up. Not one single question has been solved by philosophical endeavour, but still, philosophy goes on and on moving farther and farther into the desert. It cannot reach the ocean; it is going basically astray. That’s where religion differs.? Religiousness means not trying to solve particular problems, but looking at the root of all problems and cutting the root. That is what we call meditation: meditation is cutting the root. It solves nothing. It simply helps you to get rid of the mind, the problem-creator.
The Answer
Once you know that you are not the mind, the great transcendence has happened. Suddenly, all problems become insignificant; slowly they evaporate. You are left with a profound peace. This peace is the answer of all answers.
This is the miracle of religion, or the miracle of meditation to be more specific: that without solving a single problem, it solves all problems in a single blow. It is a sudden leap, a quantum leap.
The moment you think, you create it; and once you have it, you start looking for solutions. And who will look for solutions, and where? The mind will look for the solutions — and in the mind! Do you see the absurdness of it all? It is like pulling yourself up by your shoestrings; it is not possible. ]
Yes, mind will fabricate many solutions, but they will only be superficial. The basic question will remain untouched and many more will arise, and it is a process — ad infinitum.
This period of transition is the most difficult period for every meditator — he starts falling apart. If you go to a psychologist he will say, ‘This is a breakdown.’ It is not a breakdown; it is a breakthrough, but psychology still has no idea of the breakthrough. Hence, psychology is groping in the dark because it is still unaware of the fact that a man can go beyond mind…. The word ‘psychology’ is beautiful: it comes from ‘psyche’, and psyche means ‘the soul’. But no psychologist agrees with the idea of soul.
They are all either believers in the body or believers in the mind, which are not really separate things. ‘Mind-body’ is one phenomenon.
The body is the outer expression of mind and the mind is inner expression of the same phenomenon — just in two different dimensions.
A Breakthrough
Unless one goes beyond both, one never knows anything about the breakthrough. And man is falling apart all over the world because of this idea that man is nothing but body or nothing but mind, or at the most, both. A breakthrough is possible if there is more space available inside you so that you can put the mind aside and still be.
When the skin of all the past, all memories, is dropped, there are moments, when you are nowhere. You are neither the old nor new; you are just passing through the birth canal. It is painful too, because the old identity is disappearing and the new has not yet arrived.
Those nine months are nine months for people who are outside the womb; for the foetus it is almost infinity because he is not aware of time; he cannot be aware of time.
You become aware of time only when there are events happening. But nothing is happening in the womb, all is quiet. The child cannot feel that this is only nine months; it is infinity, it is a timeless state. And floating in the mother’s womb in a warm liquid is immensely pleasant.
The whole search for godliness is basically the search for the mother’s womb. And the meditator really enters into the womb of existence.
-Osho