Meditation, needs no technique at all. But techniques are needed to remove the obstacles in the way of meditation. So it has to be understood very clearly: meditation itself needs no techniques, it is a simple understanding, an alertness, an awareness. Neither alertness is a technique, nor awareness is a technique.

But on the way to being alert, there are so many obstacles. For centuries man has been gathering those obstacles, they need to be removed. Meditation itself cannot remove them, certain techniques are needed to remove them. So the work of the techniques is just to prepare the ground, is just to prepare the way, the passage. The techniques in themselves are not meditation. If you stop at the technique, you have missed the point.

J. Krishnamurti was insisting his whole life that there is no technique for meditation. And the total result was not that millions of people attained to meditation; the total result was that millions of people became convinced that no technique is needed for meditation. But they forgot all about what they were going to do with the obstructions, the hindrances. So they remained intellectually convinced that no technique is needed. I have met many followers of J. Krishnamurti, very intimate ones, and I have asked them, “No technique is needed, I agree absolutely. But has meditation happened to you or to anyone else who has been listening to J. Krishnamurti?”

Although what he is saying is essentially true, he is saying only the positive side of the experience. There is a negative side also. And for that negative side all kinds of techniques are needed, are absolutely needed, because unless the ground is well prepared, and all the weeds and wild roots are taken away from the ground, you cannot grow roses and other beautiful flowers.

Is it possible to meditate without any technique?

It is not only possible, it is the only possibility. No technique is needed at all, as far as meditation is concerned. But what are you going to do with your mind? Your mind will create a thousand and one difficulties. Those techniques are needed to remove the mind from the way, to create a space in which the mind becomes quiet, silent, almost absent. Then meditation happens on its own accord. It is not a question of technique. You don’t have to do anything.

Meditation is something natural, something that is already hidden inside you and is trying to find its way to reach to the open sky, to the sun, to the air. But mind is surrounding it from all sides; all doors are closed, all windows are closed. The techniques are needed to open the windows, to open the doors. And immediately the whole sky is available to you, with all its stars, with all its beauty, with all its sunsets, with all its sunrises.

Meditation is simply awareness without any effort, an effortless alertness; it does not need any technique. But your mind is so full of thoughts, so full of dreams, so much of the past, so much of the future, it is not herenow, and awareness has to be herenow..

“These are extra strong pills, Mr. Cohen,” the doctor advised him. “Take one on Monday, skip Tuesday, one Wednesday, skip Thursday, and so on. I will come round next week to see you.”

When the doctor calls, he is met by a weeping Mrs. Cohen. “He’s dead,” she tells him.

“What!” said the doctor in surprise. “There was very little wrong with him. The pills should have cleared it up.”

“It was not the pills,” wailed Mrs. Cohen. “It was the skipping.”

Osho: The Rebel

www.osho.com