Meditation

An ex-colleague of mine posted the following on his Facebook account:

From Osho:
'There are only two types of people in the world: those who try to stuff their inner emptiness, and those very rare precious beings who try to see the inner emptiness. Those who try to stuff it remain empty, frustrated. They go on collecting garbage; their whole life is futile and fruitless. Only the other kind, the very precious people who try to look into their inner emptiness without any desire to stuff it, become meditators.
'Meditation is looking into your emptiness, welcoming it, enjoying it, being one with it, with no desire to fill it –there is no need, because it is already full. It looks empty because you don't have the right way of seeing it. You see it through the mind; that is the wrong way. If you put the mind aside and look into your emptiness, it has tremendous beauty, it is divine, it is overflowing with joy. Nothing else is needed.' (Osho, The Book Of Wisdom, Osho International, 2009)

To which my reaction was:

Then there are people who split society into 'good' and 'bad' according to random attributes. Coincidentally enough they always seem to place themselves firmly within the 'good' bracket.

I hate such behaviour (although I have no doubt that I succumb to it at times). It splits the world into 'them' and 'us', 'good' and 'bad', 'right' and 'wrong', when the truth almost always lies somewhere in between. Take the snippet above; I have no problem with the writer claiming that meditation is good; where he crosses the line is in implying that people who do not meditate are somehow lesser beings.

We can all play the game:

From David:
'There are only two types of people in the world: those who spend their lives indoors, and those very rare precious beings who experience the countryside. Those who remain indoors remain empty, frustrated. They go on collecting garbage; their whole life is futile and fruitless. Only the other kind, the very precious people who go and walk in the countryside become better people.
'Walking is about filling your emptiness with grand vistas and the sensation of the sun, wind and rain on your face. The mere act of walking fills your soul. Do not see the countryside through your eyes; that is the wrong way. Put your sight to one side and pause to experience the countryside, breathe it in; it has tremendous beauty, it is divine, it is overflowing with joy. Nothing else is needed.' (David Cotton, The Book Of Bull**it, Discjirm, 2011)

Okay that is a bad example, but I think you can see what I mean.