Thinking cannot be stopped. Not that it does not stop, but it cannot be stopped. It stops of its own accord. This distinction has to be understood, otherwise you can go mad chasing your mind. The very effort to stop will create more anxiety, it will create conflict, it will make you split. You will be in a constant turmoil within. This is not going to help.
And even if you succeed in stopping it forcibly for a few moments, it is not an achievement at all because those few moments will be almost dead, they will not be alive. You may feel a sort of stillness, but not silence, because a forced stillness is not silence. Underneath it, deep in the unconscious, the repressed mind goes on working.
So, there is no way to stop the mind. But the mind stops — that is certain. It stops of its own accord.
So what to do? Your question is relevant. Watch. Don’t try to stop. There is no need to do any action against the mind. In the first place, who will do it? It will be mind fighting mind itself. You will divide your mind into two; one that is trying to boss over, the top-dog, trying to kill the other part of itself, which is absurd. It is a foolish game. It can drive you crazy. Don’t try to stop the mind or the thinking. Just watch it, allow it. Allow it total freedom. Let it run as fast as it wants. You don’t try in any way to control it. You just be a witness. It is beautiful!
Mind is one of the most beautiful mechanisms. Science has not yet been able to create anything parallel to mind. Mind still remains the masterpiece — so complicated, so tremendously powerful, with so many potentialities. Watch it! Enjoy it!
And don’t watch like an enemy, because if you look at the mind like an enemy, you cannot watch. You are already prejudiced; you are already against. You have already decided that something is wrong with the mind, you have already concluded. And whenever you look at somebody as an enemy you never look deep, you never look into the eyes. You avoid!
Watching the mind means: look at it with deep love, with deep respect, reverence. It is God’s gift to you! Nothing is wrong in mind itself. Nothing is wrong in thinking itself. It is a beautiful process as other processes are. Clouds moving in the sky are beautiful, why not thoughts moving into the inner sky? Flowers coming to the trees are beautiful, why not thoughts flowering into your being. The river running to the ocean is beautiful, why not this stream of thoughts running somewhere to an unknown destiny? Is it not beautiful?
Look with deep reverence. Don’t be a fighter be a lover. Watch! The subtle nuances of the mind; the sudden turns, the beautiful turns; the sudden jumps and leaps; the games that mind goes on playing; the dreams that it weaves, the imagination, the memory; the thousand and one projections that it creates. Watch! Standing there, aloof, distant, not involved, by and by you will start feeling.
The deeper your watchfulness becomes, the deeper your awareness becomes, and gaps start arising, intervals. One thought goes and another has not come, and there is a gap. One cloud has passed, another is coming and there is a gap.
In those gaps, for the first time you will have glimpses of no-mind, you will have the taste of no-mind.
Abridged from A Sudden Clash of Thunder by Osho
Osho is known for his revolutionary contribution to the science of inner transformation, with an approach to meditation that acknowledges the accelerated pace of contemporary life.