Finding Time to Meditate

“Dear Osho,

I'm a lawyer. I don't know how to meditate and I'm busy all the time. Could you please suggest me what to do?

This is important to understand, because all the meditation teachers in the world say you have to set aside time for meditation. Muslims have to meditate five times a day. Five times they must close their shops, their businesses, if they are really Muslims. But this is absolutely impractical. If a man is driving a train or traveling in an airplane and he has to stop five times, this is not going to be meditation, this is going to be a massacre!
My approach to meditation is totally different. I don't tell you that you have to have a separate time for meditation. Meditation should be just like breathing. You don't have a separate time for it, so in the morning you breathe and then you go to your work and forget about breathing. You go on doing your thing and you go on breathing.
Meditation must be something that runs like an undercurrent (*) through all the activities of your day. I am going to suggest you a simple meditation. It doesn't matter what you're doing – it could be digging a hole in the ground, planting new rose bushes in your garden, working in your shop or pleading a case in court. Whatever you are doing, do it with full awareness, do it with full attention.
I'll tell you what it means. Once Buddha was passing through Shrivasti with his dearest disciple, Ananda. A fly came and landed on his forehead. Just like we would, he simply waved his hand and the fly was gone. Then he stopped and took her hand very carefully and conscientiously. The fly was no longer there, but he waved his hand with great grace. Ananda could not understand what was happening. He said, 'The fly was there a few moments ago but it is gone. Now, what are you doing?'
And Buddha said, 'That time I did it wrong, I did it without conscience. I continued talking to you and mechanically I raised my hand, not being aware of what I was doing. Now I'm doing it the way I should have done it the first time, to remind myself that it shouldn't happen again.'

Any action done with awareness becomes meditation. At first it will be difficult, you will forget several times. But don't get discouraged. Even if in twenty-four hours you manage to be conscious for twenty-four seconds, that is more than enough, because the secret is the same. If you can get it for a second, you'll have already known the key, you'll have found the way. So it's just a matter of time. Gradually there will be larger spaces in which you will be aware. The action continues; and it doesn't just go on, it becomes better than it was before, because now you are doing it very consciously. The quality of what you do changes because you are aware, you are fully present, your intensity changes, your insight, your understanding and your actions begin to have a grace of their own.

Meditation should spread little by little throughout your life. Even when you go to sleep, when you lie in your bed, have a few minutes for yourself when you go to sleep. In these few minutes, be aware – of the silence, the darkness, the relaxed body. Stay alert as sleep begins to creep up on you, to the point where you are completely overwhelmed by sleep. And you will be surprised that if you remain alert until the last moment when sleep takes over, in the morning the first thought will again be about awareness. Whatever is the last thought before you go to sleep, it is always the first thought in the morning when you wake up, because it continues like an undercurrent throughout your sleep.
You can't find the time, nobody can. The day is very full. But six or eight hours at night can be turned into meditation. Even a Buddha will be jealous of you. Even he cannot meditate eight hours. It's simply a smart effort to transform your sleep. When taking a bath, why not do it with conscience? Why do it mechanically? Doing like a robot, because you do it every day, ends up becoming mechanical. Do everything not mechanically and by and by meditation will not be a matter that needs to take time apart. It will become spread throughout your day, twenty-four hours. Only then will you be on the right path.
People who meditate for ten minutes in the morning are not achieving much. Because it's ten minutes of meditation and twenty-four hours against meditation – who do you think will win? You have to weigh twenty-four hours of meditation against twenty-four hours of ordinary life. Then there will be absolute guarantee that success will be yours.”

OSHO - The Last Testament