Meditation is not concentration

Meditations can be wrong. For example, any meditation that leads you deep into concentration is wrong. You will become more and more closed rather than becoming open. If you narrow down your consciousness, concentrate on something, and you exclude the whole of existence and become one-pointed, it will create more and more tension in you. Hence the word ‘attention.’ It means ‘at-tension.’ Concentration, the very sound of the word, gives you a feeling of tenseness. § Concentration has its uses but it is not meditation. In scientific work—in scientific research, in the science lab—you need concentration. You have to concentrate on one problem and exclude everything else—so much so that you almost become unmindful of the remaining world. Only the problem that you are concentrating upon is your world. That’s why scientists become absent-minded. People who concentrate too much always become absent-minded because they don’t know how to remain open to the whole world. I was reading an anecdote. “I have brought a frog,” said a scientist, a professor of zoology, beaming at his class, “fresh from the pond, in order that we might study its outer appearance
and later dissect it.” He carefully unwrapped the package he carried and inside was a neatly prepared ham sandwich. The good professor looked at it with astonishment. “Odd!” he said, “I distinctly remember having eaten my lunch.”
That goes on happening to scientists. They become one-pointed and their whole mind becomes narrow. Of course, a narrow mind has its use: it becomes more penetrating, it becomes like a sharp needle; it hits exactly the right point, but it misses the great life that surrounds it. A buddha is not a man of concentration; he is a man of awareness. He has not been trying to narrow down his consciousness; on the contrary, he has been trying to drop all barriers so that he becomes totally available to existence. Watch…existence is simultaneous. I am speaking here and the traffic noise is simultaneous. The train, the birds, the wind blowing through the trees—in this moment the whole of existence converges. You listening to me, I speaking to you, and millions of things going on—it is tremendously rich. Concentration makes you one-pointed at a very great cost: ninety-nine percent of life is discarded. If you are solving a mathematical problem you cannot listen to the birds—they will be a distraction. Children playing around, dogs barking in the street—they will be a distraction. Because of concentration, people have tried to escape from life—to go to the Himalayas, to go to a cave, to remain isolated, so that they can concentrate on God. But God is not an object, God is this wholeness of existence, this moment; God is the totality. That’s why science will never be able to know God. The very method of science is concentration and because of that method, science can never know God. So what to do? Repeating a mantra, doing Transcendental Meditation, is not going to help. Transcendental Meditation has become very important in America because of the objective approach, because of the scientific mind—it is the only meditation on which scientific work can be done. It is exactly concentration and not meditation, so it is comprehensible for the scientific mind. In the universities, in the science laboratories, in psychological research work, much is being done about TM, because it is not meditation. It is concentration, a method of concentration. It falls under the same category as scientific concentration; there is a link between the two. But it has nothing to do with meditation. Meditation is so vast, so tremendously infinite, that no scientific research is possible. Only if a man becomes compassion will it show whether he has achieved or not. Alpha waves won’t be of much help because they are still of the mind and meditation is not of the mind, it is something beyond. So, let me tell you a few basic things. One, meditation is not concentration but relaxation—one simply relaxes into oneself. The more you relax, the more to feel yourself open, vulnerable, the less you are rigid. You are more flexible, and suddenly existence starts penetrating you. You are no longer like a rock, you have openings. Relaxation means allowing yourself to fall into a state where you are not doing anything, because if you are doing something, tension will continue. It is a state of non-doing: you simply relax and you enjoy the feeling of relaxation. Relax into yourself, just close your eyes, and listen to all that is happening all around. No need to feel anything as a distraction. The moment you feel it is a distraction, you are denying the godliness of existence. This moment godliness has come to you as a bird—don’t deny it. It has knocked at your door as a bird. The next moment it has come as a dog barking, or as a child crying and weeping, or as a madman laughing. Don’t deny; don’t reject—accept, because if you deny you will become tense. All denials create tension—accept. If you want to relax, acceptance is the way. Accept whatsoeveris happening all around; let it become an organic whole. It is—you may know it or you may not know it—everything is interrelated. These birds, these trees, this sky, this sun, this earth, you, me, all are related. It is an organic unity. If the sun disappears, the trees will disappear; if the trees disappear, the birds will disappear; if the birds and trees disappear, you cannot be here, you will disappear. It is an ecology. Everything is deeply related with each other. So don’t deny anything, because the moment you deny, you are denying something in you. If you deny these singing birds then something in you is denied. If you relax, you accept; acceptance of existence is the only way to relax. If small things disturb you then it is your attitude that is disturbing you. Sit silently; listen to all that is happening all around, and relax. Accept, relax, and suddenly you will feel immense energy arising in you. And when I say watch, don’t try to watch; otherwise you will become tense again, and you will start concentrating. Simply relax, remain relaxed, loose, and look…because what else can you do? You are there, nothing to be done, everything accepted, nothing to be denied, rejected. No struggle, no fight, no conflict. You simply watch. Remember, simply watch.