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OSHO,
WHAT IS THE BEST WAY TO ENCOURAGE PEOPLE IN MEDITATION?
The first thing: for a patient to go to the doctor, you must make him realize that he is sick; otherwise there is no need to go to the doctor.
So the people you want to encourage into meditation: first you have to make them aware that they are frustrated, perhaps for so long that they have forgotten that they are sad. They cannot remember when they laughed from their very hearts. They have become robots -- they do things because they have to be done but there is no joy in doing them.
They are living an accidental life. Their birth is accidental, their marriage is accidental, their children are accidental, their job is accidental. Their life has no sense of intrinsic growth and direction. That's why they cannot feel like rejoicing.
So first you have to make them aware where they are -- and almost everybody is in the same situation. Death is coming close -- you cannot even rely on your being here tomorrow. And your life is an absolute desert -- it has not found any oasis, it has not felt any meaning, any significance -- and death may destroy all possibilities in the future.
So first you have to make them aware of their meaningless, accidental, frustrated life. They know it, but they try to suppress their knowing in many ways, because to know it continuously is a torture. So they go to the movies to forget it. They go to parties, they go to picnics, they drink alcoholic beverages; they do everything -- just to somehow not remember the reality of their life, their hollowness, futility.
This is the most important part -- to remind them. And once a person remembers all this, then to lead him towards meditation is a very simple thing, because meditation is the only answer to all the questions of man. It may be frustration, it may be depression, it may be sadness, it may be meaninglessness, it may be anguish: The problems may be many but the answer is one.
Meditation is the answer.
And the simplest method of meditation is just a way of witnessing. There are one hundred and twelve methods of meditation, but witnessing is an essential part of all one
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