Osho

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 The mind seems very restless

but it can easily settle.

The key to this transcendence is witnessing.

One has to be a witness,

an observer of the mind.

One has to watch it,

just watch it.

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You have only to be silent.

To be silent is everything.

Silence does not mean absence of speech, it means

absence of thoughts.

When the mind quietens down it becomes linked to

the infinite.

Don't do anything, just sit and watch the flow of

thoughts, just watch.

This just watching dissolves thought by itself.

The awakening of witnessing brings freedom from the

modifications of the mind.

With thoughts finished, consciousness is.

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First, the mind is never sick nor is it ever healthy: the mind itself IS sickness. It is never quiet and so it is meaningless to say that it is restless: restlessness is the mind. The mind can never become mad because only one who is not mad can become a lunatic: the mind itself is madness.

The mind will always remain unsteady, because unsteadiness is its nature. If a wave does not move, it will cease to be a wave. It is called a wave because it is moving, because it remains in motion. What would a silent wave be? The existence of the wave is in its motion, in its restlessness.

Never hope for your mind to be quiet; it does not know how to be at peace. As long as the mind is there, there is certain to be restlessness. When the mind is no more, what remains is peace. The absence of mind is peace -- to be in no-mind is peace.

The mind will always be shaky, will always remain indecisive. If you wait for a decision by the mind -- if you think, "I shall do this when the mind decides" -- you will never be able to do anything. To remain in indecision is the way of the mind. It will always remain divided, broken into parts. Some parts will be for something and other parts will be against it. Within the mind there is always a civil war, there is always an internal conflict, there is always a duel going on.

What is this duality? It is important to understand its roots.

In you there are three things, three factors. One is your body. Your body is a fact; it has a material existence. And then there is the flow of consciousness within you. That is your atma, your soul. That is also a fact. Between these two is the mind. The mind is not a fact; it is a false thing.

It is a little bit body and a little bit soul -- it is a situation created between the two. It cannot be total, it is always divided, always with one side or the other. And so it remains partly with the body and partly with the soul. It is created by the union of these two, and so it can never be totally with the body.

The desire to be a saint, to be a holy person, is hidden in everyone; it is even hidden in the mind of the greatest sinner. Whenever you are going to do something terrible -- even though you may have been doing it for lives -- the mind will caution you not to. It will say, "Don't do this. It is bad." If the mind were only body, then nothing would be bad. At the body's level nothing is good or bad; neither holy act nor sin can exist. In the case of the enlightened man both disappear, and for the ignorant man neither exists. For the ignorant man, there is no possibility of the existence of good or bad, and the enlightened man has reached a place where both of these are left far behind.

When you are at prayer or at worship the mind will ask, "Why are you wasting your time?" When you are going to steal something, when you are going to commit a theft, the mind will ask, "Why are you committing a sin?" When you are preparing to give something away in charity the mind will ask, "Why are you throwing your money away unnecessarily?" Then you are in a great fix trying to figure out what the mind wants.

The mind is like a bridge joining the two banks -- the bank of the body and the bank of the soul. Half of the mind is on either side, and so there will always be a problem. If you follow the mind you will always be unsteady. Whatsoever you do, bad or good, the mind will repent it. Then you will fall into great difficulty and confusion; then you will be at a loss to know what to do. Ko

When you are in good spirits you lean to one side, and when those good spirits have left you, you lean to the other. In between the two you are torn to pieces, just as a rock is reduced to dust between the stones of a gristmill