Mind is a Projector

Mind is a projector. You sit in a movie house and you see a thousand and one things passing on the screen, and the screen is empty; nothing is really passing except shadows. You go on looking at the screen and there is every possibility that you may not even think of the projector behind you which is projecting all those shadows, pictures. You can start fighting with those shadows but that is not the way to stop them. The way is to look back, to turn a one hundred eighty degree turn and go and stop the projector. Once the projector is stopped, the screen is empty.

Suddenly there is nothing, or, only the whiteness of the screen is left. Only the eternal is there and the changing has disappeared. There are many people who become interested in meditation, but in a wrong way. They start fighting with the mind, they start struggling and wrestling with the mind. Then they are not ever going to be victorious. Then they are fighting a losing battle. One has to find the projector hidden in the unconscious: becoming, desiring. The constant desire to be somebody, to be someone, to be somewhere else then where and what you are.

How to stop the projector? BE HERE NOW. Don't try in any way to become somebody else; accept that which you are. Drop all ideas of improvement. Drop all ideas of bettering yourself. Drop all ideas of achieving something; there is nothing to be achieved. Empty-handed we come, empty-handed we go, and in the meanwhile, empty-handed we remain. The losers will become winners, and the winners will become losers. Those who are empty will be fulfilled, and those who are trying to fulfill themselves will remain empty. This is the paradox.

-- Osho