Not that watching the breath is the point, the point is learning how to watch. Go to the river and watch the river. Sit in the marketplace and watch people passing by. Watch anything, just remember that you are a watcher. Don’t become judgmental, don’t be a judge. Once you start judging you have forgotten that you are a watcher, you have become involved, you have taken sides, you have chosen: “I am in favor of this thought and I am against that thought.” Once you choose, you become identified. Watchfulness is the method of destroying all identification.

Hence Gurdjieff called his process the process of nonidentification. It is the same, his word is different.

Don’t identify yourself with anything, and slowly, slowly one learns the ultimate art of watchfulness. That’s what meditation is all about. Through meditation one discovers one’s own light. That light you can call your soul, your self, your godliness – whatsoever word you choose – or you can remain just silent because it has no name. It is a nameless experience, tremendously beautiful, ecstatic, utterly silent, but it gives you the taste of eternity, of timelessness, of something beyond death.

The second question:

Osho,
Will surrender happen only when I am ready to die for you?

Veet Marc, I am not telling you to die for me. I am telling you just the opposite: to live for me. The surrender will happen only when you start living for me. I am not a worshipper of death, I am a worshipper of life. I am not here to teach you some kind of martyrhood. Enough of it! For thousands of years stupid people have been sacrificed by the cunning ones. Somebody was dying for Christianity, somebody was dying for Mohammedanism, somebody was dying for Hinduism. Everybody was dying – as if death were the goal – and nobody was being taught how to live.

Live for godliness, because godliness is life. And, of course godliness is also death, but death is beautiful only when it comes out of a fulfilled life, when it is an ultimate flowering of life. When death is a sacrifice it is ugly. Then you are dying for some cause, for some purpose, for some vested interest. Then some cunning politician, some cunning priest is using you as a means to his own ends. Of course he makes promises to you, otherwise how are you going to sacrifice your life? He promises you everything – after death. Now nobody knows what happens after death so it is very easy to promise something after death:

I promise you everything before death, not after death. That is the way of the cunning people – promising you something after death. You sacrifice now and the rewards will be given after your death. Now nobody knows what happens after death. Mohammedans say if you die in a jihad, in a religious war, you may be a sinner but you will directly go to heaven because you are dying for religion. The same is the attitude of the Christians and the same is the attitude of all the religions.