Meditation cannot be a fragmented thing, it should be a continuous effort. Every moment one has to be alert, aware and meditative. But the mind has played a trick: you meditate in the morning and then you put it aside; or you pray in the temple and then forget it.
Then you come back to the world, completely unmeditative, unconscious, as if walking in a hypnotic sleep. This fragmented effort won't do much. How can you meditate for one hour when you have been nonmeditative for twenty-three hours of the day? It is impossible. Suddenly to become meditative for one hour is not possible. You can simply deceive yourself.
Consciousness is a continuum; it is like a river, flowing constantly. If you are meditative the whole day, every moment of it… and only when you are meditative the whole day the flowering will come to you. Nothing will come before.
Society exists as a hypnotic state, and the crowd is a hypnotizing factor.
You are born, but when you are born you are neither a Hindu nor a Parsee, because consciousness cannot belong to any sect. Consciousness belongs to the whole, it cannot be sectarian.
A child simply is, innocent of all nonsense of Hindus, Buddhists, Jainas. A child is a pure mirror. But immediately society starts working on the child — a mould has to be given. A child is born as a freedom, but immediately society starts killing his freedom. A mould has to be given, a pattern.
If you are born in a Hindu family your parents will start teaching you that you are a Hindu. Now they are creating a hypnotic state. Nobody is a Hindu — but this child is innocent, he can be befooled. This child is simple. He will believe the parents, that he is a Hindu — not only a Hindu, but a brahmin, not only a brahmin, but a deshastha brahmin.
Sects within sects, just like Chinese boxes — boxes within boxes. And the more he becomes narrowed, the more he becomes a prisoner. The box goes on getting smaller and smaller.
He was just like the sky when he was born. Then he became a Hindu, a smaller box; then he became a brahmin — a smaller box; then he became a Deshastha — an even smaller box.
This goes on and on. Society goes on forcing him into smaller boxes, and then he will have to live as a Deshastha brahmin. His whole life he will be with this box. He will carry this box around him. This box is a grave. He must come out of these boxes; only then will he know what real consciousness is.
Then society gives concepts; then society gives prejudices and systems and religions. And then he will never be able to look directly, always society will be there to interpret. You are not aware when you say something is good. Are you there, looking? Is this your feeling, that something is good, or just an interpretation of the society? Something is bad: have you looked into it and come to the conclusion that something is bad, or has society simply taught you that this is bad?
Look! A Hindu looking at cow dung thinks that this is the purest thing possible in the world. Nobody in the world will think of cow dung as the purest thing in the world — cow dung is dung, excreta — but a Hindu thinks of cow dung as the purest thing in the world.
He will eat it happily. He eats it! Nobody in the world can believe how Hindus can be befooled in this, but they are befooled. When the Hindu child is initiated, panchamrita is given to him — a particular combination of five things. In these five things cow dung is one, and the urine of the cow is another. It is difficult — nobody can believe that this is right. But they have their own prejudices. Put down all prejudices and look directly.
But no society allows you to look directly. It always comes in and interprets, and you are befooled by it. This monk in the morning used to call, "Don't be fooled by others." And he would reply, "Yes sir — yes sir, I will not be befooled by others."
This has to be constantly remembered, because the others are all around and they are befooling you in such subtle manners. And now the others have more power than ever. Through advertisement, through radio, through newspapers, through television, the others are manipulating you.
Go deeper and deeper into meditation so you can go higher and higher in compassion. The deeper the roots of a tree reach the higher the peak. You can see the tree, you cannot see the roots, but they are always in proportion. If the tree is reaching to the sky the roots must be reaching to the very end of the earth. The proportion is the same.
As deep as your meditation is, the same depth will be achieved in compassion.
So compassion is the criterion. If you think you are meditative and there is no compassion, then you are deceiving yourself. Compassion must happen, because that is the flowering of the tree. Meditation is just a means towards compassion; compassion is the goal.
OSHO