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MEDITATIONS

From the World of OSHO

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INDEX

Active Meditations

Dynamic

Kundalini

Nataraj

Nadabrahma

Gourishankar

Mandala

Whirling

No Dimensions

Other Meditaions

The Art of Listening

Gibberish & Let-Go!

Breathing in Love

Meditations for Busy People

Two Passive Techniques

Annexures

FAQs

Vigyan Bhairav Techeqniques

Miscellanies Articles

"First become conscious of your consciousness. And in that very becoming, in that very silence - when you are only conscious of your consciousness and not of any other content - no thought, no desire, no dream - you are just conscious of your being conscious, the mirror is reflecting itself and nothing else... in that moment, something IMMENSELY miraculous happens. You become aware of the divine, you become aware of the essential core of your being."

OSHO-

The Guest, Chapter # 15

"All techniques can be helpful but they are not exactly meditation, they are just a groping in the dark. Suddenly one day, doing something, you will become a witness. Doing a meditation like the dynamic, or KUNDALINI or whirling, suddenly one day the meditation will go on but you will not be identified. You will sit silently behind, you will watch it - that day meditation has happened; that day technique is no more a hindrance, no more a help. You can enjoy it if you like, like an exercise, it gives a certain vitality, but there is no need now - the real meditation has happened. Meditation is witnessing. To meditate means to become a witness. Meditation is not a technique at all. This will be very confusing to you because I go on giving you techniques. In the ultimate sense meditation is not a technique; meditation is an understanding, awareness. But you need techniques because that final understanding is very far away from you; deep hidden in you, but still very far away from you. Right this moment you can attain it, but you will not attain it, because your moment goes on, your mind goes on. THIS very moment it is possible and yet impossible. Techniques will bridge the gap, they are just to bridge the gap.

So in the beginning techniques are meditations; in the end you will laugh, techniques are not meditation. Meditation is a totally different quality of being, it has nothing to do with anything. But it will happen only in the end; don't think it has happened in the beginning, otherwise the gap will not be bridged."

OSHO-

Come Follow To You Vol.3,

Chapter # 8

Meditation means pure awareness, a mirror like quality of consciousness. Being utterly present in the here and now, fully aware, unclouded by the dust of thoughts, emotions, desires, past or future; just being! Meditation is the state of pure witnessing consciousness to which different mystics have refered to as 'Drashta', 'Sakshi' or 'Bodh' - our true self.

There are hundereds of methods/techniques to finallly reach this state of pure awareness. Most of the meditation techniques given by different mystics around the world are in fact just preparations for meditation, many doorways to be in this pure witnessing consciousness. We must understand that these 'techniques' are important but they are not meditation itself.

Meditation is beyond techniques, beyond doing; it is a state of relaxed awareness. However, once we have experienced the state of meditation, any action that arises out of this state of pure awareness becomes meditative. This sort of action is called 'effortless effort' by the Zen masters or 'Karma Yoga' by eastern mystics.

Meditation may be divided in two parts for a better understanding 'Dhyan' and 'Samadhi'. Dhyan is the beginning and a doorway to Samadhi. Dhyan is awareness, Samadhi is the merger with the divine.

Dhyan is the journey of duality, the flowering of Samadhi is non duality - oneness with the divine. Dhyan is the path of witnessing, experiencing that our true self is separate from the body, mind, heart; witnessing the object and the subject as separate - dispelling all darkness. Samadhi begins with subjective awareness and culminates in realization of our divine self, the all permeating godliness - within and without.

This is the state in which the 'Rishis' in the east declared 'Aham Brahmasmi', the state in which sufi mystic Mansur declared 'Ana'l Haq', the state in which Jesus says, 'I and my Father are one'. This state is called 'Sambodhi', enlightenment, divine realization - the home coming.

And yet, this is just the beginning...

"In fact there are one hundred and twelve methods of meditation; I have gone through all those methods - and not intellectually. It took me years to go through each method and to find out its very essence, and after going through one hundred and twelve methods I was amazed that the essence is witnessing. The methods' non-essentials are different, but the center of each method is witnessing. Hence I can say to you, there is only one meditation in the whole world and that is the art of witnessing. It will do everything - the whole transformation of your being. It will open the doors of satyam, shivam, sundram: the truth, the godliness and the beauty of it all."

OSHO-

Satyam Shivam Sundaram,

Chapter # 22

1. Active Meditations

1. Dynamic Meditation

Dynamic Meditation lasts one hour and is in five stages. It can be done alone, and will be even more powerful if it is done with others. It is an individual experience so you should remain oblivious of others around you and keep your eyes closed throughout, preferably using a blindfold. It is best to have an empty stomach and wear loose, comfortable clothing.

“This is a meditation in which you have to be continuously alert, conscious, aware, whatsoever you do. Remain a witness. Don’t get lost. While you are breathing you can forget. You can become one with the breathing so much that you can forget the witness. But then you miss the point.

“Breathe as fast as possible, as deep as possible; bring your total energy to it but still remain a witness. Observe what is happening as if you are just a spectator, as if the whole thing is happening to somebody else, as if the whole thing is happening in the body and the consciousness is just centered and looking.

“This witnessing has to be carried in all the three steps. And when everything stops, and in the fourth step you have become completely inactive, frozen, then this alertness will come to its peak.” Osho

First Stage: 10 minutes

Breathe chaotically through the nose, concentrating always on exhalation. The body will take care of the inhalation. The breath should move deeply into the lungs. Be as fast as you can in your breathing, making sure the breathing stays deep. Do this as fast and as hard as you possibly can – and then a little harder, until you literally become the breathing. Use your natural body movements to help you to build up your energy. Feel it building up, but don’t let go during the first stage.

Second Stage: 10 minutes

Explode! Express everything that needs to be thrown out. Go totally mad. Scream, shout, cry, jump, shake, dance, sing, laugh; throw yourself around. Hold nothing back; keep your whole body moving. A little acting often helps to get you started. Never allow your mind to interfere with what is happening. Be total, be whole hearted.

Third Stage: 10 minutes

With raised arms, jump up and down shouting the mantra, “Hoo! Hoo! Hoo!” as deeply as possible. Each time you land, on the flats of your feet, let the sound hammer deep into the sex center. Give all you have; exhaust yourself totally.

Fourth Stage: 15 minutes

Stop! Freeze wherever you are, in whatever position you find yourself. Don’t arrange the body in any way. A cough, a movement – anything will dissipate the energy flow and the effort will be lost. Be a witness to everything that is happening to you.

Fifth Stage: 15 minutes

Celebrate through dance, expressing your gratitude towards the whole. Carry your happiness with you throughout the day.

If where you meditate prevents you from making a noise, you can do this silent alternative: Rather than throwing out the sounds, let the catharsis in the second stage take place entirely through bodily movements. In the third stage, the sound “Hoo” can be hammered silently inside.

1. Active Meditations

2. Kundalini Meditation

This meditation lasts for one hour and has four stages, three with music, and the last without.

Kundalini acts like an energetic shower, softly shaking you free of your day and leaving you refreshed and mellow.

First Stage: 15 minutes

Be loose and let your whole body shake, feeling the energies moving up from your feet. Let go everywhere and become the shaking. Your eyes may be open or closed.

“Allow the shaking; don’t do it. Stand silently, feel it coming and when your body starts trembling, help it but don’t do it. Enjoy it, feel blissful about it, allow it, receive it, welcome it, but don’t will it. “If you force it will become an exercise, a bodily, physical exercise. Then the shaking will be there but just on the surface; it will not penetrate you. You will remain solid, stone-like, rock-like within. You will remain the manipulator, the doer, and the body will just be following. The body is not the question – you are the question. “When I say shake, I mean your solidity, your rock-like being should shake to the very foundations so that it becomes liquid, fluid, melts, flows. And when the rock-like being becomes liquid, your body will follow. Then there is no shake, only shaking. Then nobody is doing it; it is simply happening. Then the doer is not.” Osho

Second Stage: 15 minutes

Dance, any way you feel, letting the whole body move as it wishes. Again, your eyes can be open or closed

Third Stage: 15 minutes

Close your eyes and be still, sitting or standing, observing, witnessing, whatever is happening inside and out

Fourth Stage: 15 minutes

Keeping your eyes closed, lie down and be still.

1. Active Meditations

3. Nataraj Meditation

This is a 65 minute dancing meditation in three stages, with specifically created music.

Disappearing in the dance, then relaxing into silence and stillness, is the route inside for this method.

“Forget the dancer, the center of the ego; become the dance. That is the meditation. Dance so deeply that you forget completely that ‘you’ are dancing and begin to feel that you are the dance. The division must disappear; then it becomes a meditation.

If the division is there, then it is an exercise: good, healthy, but it cannot be said to be spiritual. It is just a simple dance. Dance is good in itself – as far as it goes it is good. After it, you will feel fresh, young. But it is not meditation yet. The dancer must go, until only the dance remains…. Don’t stand aside, don’t be an observer. Participate!

And be playful. Remember the word playful always – with me it is very basic.” Osho

First Stage: 40 minute

With eyes closed, dance as if possessed. Let your unconscious take over completely. Do not control your movements or witness what is happening. Just be totally in the dance.

Second Stage: 20 minutes

Keeping your eyes closed, lie down immediately. Be silent and still.

Third Stage: 5 minute

Dance in celebration and enjoy.

1. Active Meditations

4. Nadabrahma Meditation

Nadabrahma meditation lasts for one hour and has three stages. It is a sitting method, in which humming and hand movements create an inner balance, a harmony between mind and body. Suitable for any time of the day, have an empty stomach and remain inactive for at least fifteen minutes afterwards.

“So in Nadabrahma, remember this: let the body and mind be totally together, but remember that you have to become a witness. Get out of them, easily, slowly, from the back door, with no fight, with no struggle. They are drinking - you get out, and watch from the outside....” Osho

First Stage: 30 minutes

Sit in a relaxed position with eyes closed. With lips together, start humming, loud enough so that if you are doing it with others, you can be heard by them. This will create a vibration in your body. You can visualize a hollow tube or vessel filled only with the vibrations of the humming. A point will come when the humming continues by itself and you become the listener. There is no special breathing, and you can alter the pitch, and move your body smoothly and slowly, if you feel to.

Second Stage: 15 minutes

This stage is divided into two segments, of seven and a half minutes each. For the first part, move the hands, palms upwards, in an outward, circular motion. Starting at the navel, both hands move forward and then divide to make two large circles mirroring each other left and right. The movement should be so slow that at times there will appear to be no movement at all. Feel that you are giving energy outwards to the universe. After seven and a half minutes, the music will change and you turn your hands palm downwards, and start moving them in the opposite direction. Now the hands will come together towards the navel and divide outwards towards the side of the body. Feel that you are taking energy in. As in the first stage, don’t inhibit any soft, slow movements of the rest of your body

Third Stage: 15 minute

Sit absolutely quiet and still.

1. Active Meditations

5. Gourishankar Meditation

This technique, for the nighttime, consists of four stages of fifteen minutes each. The first two stages are preparation for the spontaneous Latihan of the third stage. If the breathing is done correctly in the first stage, the carbon dioxide formed in the bloodstream will make you feel as high as Gourishankar (Mt. Everest).

First Stage: 15 minutes

Sit with closed eyes. Inhale deeply through the nose, filling the lungs. Hold the breath for as long as possible; then exhale gently through the mouth, and keep the lungs empty for as long as possible. Continue this breathing cycle throughout this stage.

Second Stage: 15 minutes

Return to normal breathing and with a gentle gaze look at a candle flame or a flashing blue light. Keep your body still.

Third Stage: 15 minute

With closed eyes, stand up and let your body be loose and receptive. Allow your body to move gently in whichever way it wants. Don't do the moving, just allow it to happen gently and gracefully.

Fourth Stage: 15 minute

Lie down with closed eyes, silent and still.

1. Active Meditations

6. Mandala Meditation

This is another powerful technique that creates a circle of energy, resulting in a natural centering. There are four stages of 15 minutes each.

First Stage: 15 minutes

With open eyes run on the spot, starting slowly and gradually, getting faster and faster. Bring your knees up as high as possible. Breathing deeply and evenly will move the energy within. Forget the mind and forget the body. Keep going.

Second Stage: 15 minutes

Sit with your eyes closed and mouth open and loose. Gently rotate your body from the belly, like a reed blowing in the wind. Feel the wind blowing you from side to side, back and forth, around and around. This will bring your awakened energies to the navel center.

Third Stage: 15 minute

Lie on your back, open your eyes and with the head still, rotate them in a clockwise direction. Sweep them fully around in the sockets as if you are following the second hand of a vast clock, but as fast as possible. It is important that the mouth remains open and the jaw relaxed, with the breath soft and even. This will bring centering energies to the third eye.

Fourth Stage: 15 minute

Close your eyes and be still.

1. Active Meditations

7. Whirling Meditation

"Sufi whirling is one of the most ancient techniques, one of the most forceful. It is so deep that even a single experience can make you totally different. Whirl with open eyes, just like small children go on twirling, as if your inner being has become a center and your whole body has become a wheel, moving, a potter’s wheel, moving. You are in the center, but the whole body is moving."

First Stage: 45 minutes

Keep your eyes open and feel the center point of your body. Lift your arms to shoulder height, with the right hand palm up and the left hand low, palm down. Start turning around your own axis. Let your body be soft. Start slowly and after 15 minutes gradually go faster and faster. You become a whirlpool of energy – the periphery a storm of movement but the witness at the center silent and still.

Second Stage: 15 minutes

Let your body fall to the ground when the music stops. (it may already have happened before.) Roll onto your stomach immediately so that your navel is in contact with the earth. Feel your body blending into the earth. Keep your eyes closed and remain passive and silent.

1. Active Meditations

8. No Dimensions Meditation

This is a powerful method for centering one's energy in the hara - the area just below the navel. It is based on a Sufi technique of movements for awareness and integration of the body. Because it is a Sufi meditation, it is free and non-serious. In fact it is so non-serious that you can even smile while you are doing it.

This one-hour meditation has three stages. During the first two stages the eyes are open but not focused on anything. During the third stage the eyes are closed.

The music, created especially for this meditation, begins slowly and gradually becomes faster and faster as an uplifting force.

First stage: SUFI MOVEMENTS 30 minutes

A continuous dance in a set of six movements. With your eyes open, begin by standing in one place and placing the left hand on the heart and the right hand on the hara. Stand still for a few moments just listening to the music to get centered. This stage of the meditation starts slowly and builds up in intensity.

If you are doing this with others you may get out of synchronicity with the others and think you have made a mistake. When that happens, just stop, see where the other people are, and then get back into the same rhythm and timing as everyone else.

When the bell rings, start the sequence as described below. The movements always come from the center, or hara, using the music to keep the correct rhythm. The hips and eyes face the direction of the hand movement. Use graceful movements in a continuous flow. Loud "Shoo" sounds are made from the throat in synchronicity with the sounds from the recording.
Repeat this six-movement sequence continuously for 30 minutes.

The sequence:

1) Touch the backs of the hands together pointing downward on the hara. Breathing in through the nose, bring the hands up to the heart and fill them with love. Breathing out make the sound "Shoo" from the throat and send love out to the world. At the same time move the right arm (with fingers extended, palm downward) and right foot straight forward, and move the left hand back down to the hara. Return to the original position with both hands on the hara.

2) Repeat this movement with the left arm and foot. Return to the original position with both hands on the hara.

3) Repeat this movement with the right arm and foot, turning sideways 14 to the right. Return to the original position with both hands on the hara.

4) Repeat this movement with the left arm and foot, turning sideways to the left. Return to the original position with both hands on the hara.

5) Repeat this movement with the right arm and foot, turning directly behind from the right side. Return to the original position with both hands on the hara.

6) Repeat this movement with the left arm and foot, turning directly behind from the left side. Return to the original position with both hands on the hara.

This stage is over when the music comes to a stop. The second stage begins with new music.

Second stage: WHIRLING 15 minutes

Begin by placing the right toe over the left toe. Fold your arms across your chest and embrace yourself. Feel love for yourself. When the music starts bow down to existence for bringing you here for this meditation. When the tempo changes, begin whirling either to the left or to the right, whichever feels best for you.

If you whirl to the right put the right foot and the right arm to the right and the left arm in the opposite direction. As you start to whirl you can change your hands to any position which feels good to you. If you have not whirled before then go very very slowly at first and once your mind and body get acclimated to the movements the body will naturally go faster. Do not force yourself to go too fast too soon. If you do get dizzy or it feels like it is too much for you, it is okay to stop and stand or to sit down. To end the whirling, slow down and fold the arms over the chest and heart

Third stage: SILENCE 15 minutes

Lie down on the belly with your eyes closed. Leave your legs open and not crossed to allow all the energy you have gathered to flow through you. There is nothing to do except to just be with yourself. If it is uncomfortable to lie on your belly, lie on your back. A gong will indicate the end of the meditation

2. The Art of Listening 15

1. The Art of Listening

The art of meditation

Is the art of listening

With your total being

"If one can learn how to listen rightly, one has learned the deepest secret of meditation."

The essential function of the Osho talks is to provide an easily accessible way of learning this art of listening. An opportunity to experience, "silence with no effort," the key to bringing sharpened awareness to your daily life.

Whether you want to listen quietly at home, or while commuting to work, or sitting in the park, never has meditation been more simple, or more widely available to anyone anywhere.

Once you have selected an Osho talk, make yourself comfortable, relax and, in your own time, allow your eyes to close.

Sample: How Does a Man of Zen Take his Tea? (8 mins)

Choose your own Listening Meditation from the Audiobook Catalog, including some free samples where Osho is describing the purpose of these talks and explains the art of listening.

The purpose of these talks:

“The way I talk is a little strange. No speaker in the world talks like me. Technically it is wrong; it takes almost double the time! But those speakers have a different purpose – my purpose is absolutely different from theirs. They speak because they are prepared for it; they are simply repeating something that they have rehearsed. Secondly, they are speaking to impose a certain ideology, a certain idea on you. Thirdly, to them speaking is an art; they go on refining it.

As far as I am concerned, I am not what they call a speaker or an orator. It is not an art to me or a technique; technically I go on becoming worse every day! But our purposes are totally different. I don´t want to impress you in order to manipulate you. I don´t speak for any goal to be achieved through convincing you. I don´t speak to convert you into a Christian, into a Hindu or a Mohammedan, into a theist or an atheist. These are not my concerns.

My speaking is really one of my devices for meditation. Speaking has never been used this way: I speak not to give you a message, but to stop your mind functioning.

I speak nothing prepared. I don´t know myself what is going to be the next word; hence I never make any mistake. One makes a mistake if one is prepared. I never forget anything, because one forgets if one has been remembering it. So I speak with a freedom that perhaps nobody has ever spoken with.

I am not concerned whether I am consistent, because that is not the purpose. A man who wants to convince you and manipulate you through his speaking has to be consistent, has to be logical, has to be rational, to overpower your reason. He wants to dominate through words.

My purpose is so unique: I am using words just to create silent gaps. The words are not important so I can say anything contradictory, anything absurd, anything unrelated, because my purpose is just to create gaps. The words are secondary; the silences between those words are primary. This is simply a device to give you a glimpse of meditation. And once you know that it is possible for you, you have traveled far in the direction of your own being.

Most of the people in the world don´t think that it is possible for mind to be silent. Because they don´t think it is possible, they don´t try.

How to give people a taste of meditation was my basic reason to speak, so I can go on speaking eternally; it does not matter what I am saying. All that matters is that I give you a few chances to be silent, which you find difficult on your own in the beginning.

I cannot force you to be silent, but I can create a device in which spontaneously you are bound to be silent. I am speaking, and in the middle of a sentence, when you were expecting another word to follow, nothing follows but a silent gap. Your mind was looking to listen, and waiting for something to follow, and does not want to miss it – naturally it becomes silent. What can the poor mind do? If it was well known at what points I will be silent, if it was declared to you that on such and such points I will be silent, then you could manage to think; you would not be silent. Then you know: ‘This is the point where he is going to be silent; now I can have a little chit-chat with myself.’ But because it comes absolutely suddenly.... I don´t know myself why at certain points I stop.

Anything like this, in any orator in the world, will be condemned, because an orator stopping again and again means he is not well prepared, he has not done the homework. It means that his memory is not reliable, that he cannot find, sometimes, what word to use. But because it is not oratory, I am not concerned about the people who will be condemning me – I am concerned with you.

It is not only here, but far away...anywhere in the world where people will be listening to the video or to the audio, they will come to the same silence. My success is not to convince you, my success is to give you a real taste so that you can become confident that meditation is not a fiction, that the state of no-mind is not just a philosophical idea, that it is a reality; that you are capable of it, and that it does not need any special qualifications.

With me, to be silent is easier because of one other reason. I am silent; even while I am speaking I am silent. My innermost being is not involved at all. What I am saying to you is not a disturbance or a burden or a tension to me; I am as relaxed as one can be. Speaking or not speaking does not make any difference to me.

Naturally, this kind of state is infectious.

Because I cannot go on speaking the whole day to keep you in meditative moments, I want you to become responsible. Accepting that you are capable of being silent will help you when you are meditating alone. Knowing your capacity...and one comes to know one´s capacity only when one experiences it. There is no other way.

Don´t make me wholly responsible for your silence, because that will create a difficulty for you. Alone, what are you going to do? Then it becomes a kind of addiction, and I don´t want you to be addicted to me. I don´t want to be a drug to you.

I want you to be independent and confident that you can attain these precious moments on your own.

If you can attain them with me, there is no reason why you cannot attain them without me, because I am not the cause. You have to understand what is happening: listening to me, you put your mind aside.

Listening to the ocean, or listening to the thundering of the clouds, or listening to the rain falling heavily, just put your ego aside, because there is no need... The ocean is not going to attack you, the rain is not going to attack you, the trees are not going to attack you – there is no need of any defense. To be vulnerable to life as such, to existence as such, you will be getting these moments continuously. Soon it will become your very life.

Wherever you are – at home, at work, or on the way between the two

– you can use the presence of any sound, any noise, as an opportunity to move inside to a space of inner silence and stillness.”

Osho: The Invitation, #14

2. The Art of Listening 15

2. Gibberish and Let-Go

“Gibberish is to get rid of the active mind, silence to get rid of the inactive mind and let-go is to enter into the transcendental." Osho

First Stage: Gibberish

While sitting, close your eyes and begin to say nonsense sounds – any sounds or words, so long as they make no sense. Just speak any language that you don't know!

Allow yourself to express whatever needs to be expressed within you. Throw everything out. The mind

thinks, always, in terms of words. Gibberish helps to break up this pattern of continual verbalization. Without suppressing your thoughts, you can throw them out. Let your body likewise be expressive.

Second Stage: Moving In

After some minutes of Gibberish, there is a drumbeat, at which point the Gibberish stops. Osho’s voice then guides the listener into a space of deep silence, stillness and relaxation, saying, for example, “Be silent, close your eyes...no movement of the body –

feel frozen. Go inwards, deeper and deeper, just like an arrow. Penetrate all the layers and hit the center of your existence.”

Third Stage: Let-Go

Another drumbeat and, without arranging yourself, just allow yourself to fall down "like a bag of rice," so you

are lying, utterly still and relaxed, on your back as you are guided even more deeply into a silent stillness.

Fourth Stage: Coming Back

At the final drumbeat, Osho’s voice guides you back to a sitting position, with the reminder to carry the glimpse of silent awareness one may have had into everyday activities.

If you go to the Downloadable Osho Audiobooks page and follow the links to the Catalog page and select "Order Spoken: From Recent" you will find all the talks from "Live Zen" to "The Zen Manifesto: Freedom from Yourself" have guided Gibbersish and Let Go Meditations at the end.

“Remember, the first step of the meditation is Gibberish. Gibberish simply means throwing out your craziness, which is already there in the mind, piled up for centuries. As you throw it out you will find yourself becoming light, becoming more alive, just within two minutes.

You will be surprised that when Nivedano [the drummer] gives his second beat, to enter into silence, you enter into silence as deeply as you have never done before. Just those two minutes have cleaned the way. In fact in those two minutes, if you put your total energy ... the more you put into it, the deeper will be the following silence.

Any child can do Gibberish, it doesn´t need any training. From the very first moment you are almost trained. Gibberish needs no training, nor does laughter need any training. If you can do Gibberish you are cleansing your mind of all kinds of dust that goes on gathering. And as the mind becomes silent...there is nowhere to go other than inwards. All roads are forgotten; there remains a single one-way traffic.

Just for a day or two you may hesitate to go that much inside. Who knows whether you will be able to come back or not? It is a playful, joyful exercise. There is nothing to be worried about, you can go as deep as you want… not knowing Chinese but speaking Chinese, not knowing what they are saying but saying it very emphatically, not bothering at all who is listening.... Nobody is listening, so you can say anything you want, you are not going to offend anybody. There is nobody other than you.

That will make you saner than you have ever been, because you throw so much garbage that you were holding. Do you think your gibberish is coming from the sky? You are carrying all that garbage, throw it! Just do it totally, enthusiastically. Don´t be bothered whether it is Arabic or Hebrew or Chinese; you are allowed to speak any language that you don´t know. Just avoid the language that you do know, because the language that you do know will not bring your nonsense out, it will be very grammatical. Meaning is not at all the requirement. Just for two minutes give an opportunity to your existence to be meaningless. And you will be immensely shocked to know that just within two minutes you become so light, so ready to enter into silence.”

Osho: The Miracle, #2

2. The Art of Listening 15

3. Breathing in Love

Love is always new. It never becomes old because it is non-accumulative, non-hoarding.

It knows no past; it is always fresh, as fresh as the dewdrops. It lives moment to moment, it is atomic. It has no continuity, it knows no tradition. Each moment it dies and each moment it is born again. It is like breath: you breathe in, you breathe out; again you breathe in and you breathe out. You don’t hoard it inside.

If you hoard the breath you will die because it will become stale, it will become dead. It will lose that vitality, the quality of life. So is the case with love — it is breathing; each moment it renews itself. So whenever one gets stuck in love and stops breathing, life loses all significance. And that’s what is happening to people: the mind is so dominant that it even influences the heart and makes even the heart possessive! The heart knows no possessiveness but the mind contaminates it, poisons it.

So remember that: be in love with existence! And let love be like breathing. Breathe in, breathe out, but let it be love coming in, going out. By and by with each breath you have to create that magic of love. Make it a meditation: when you breathe out, just feel that you are pouring your love into existence; when you breathe in, existence is pouring its love into you. And soon you will see that the quality of your breath is changing, then it starts becoming something totally different to what you have ever known before. That’s why in India we call it ‘prana’, life, not just breathing, it is not just oxygen. Something else is there, the very life itself.

Osho: The Open Door, #13

2. The Art of Listening 15

3. MEDITATIONS FOR BUSY PEOPLE

1. Being Telegraphic

Speak only the essential

-- as if you are giving a telegram, so you have to go

on choosing just ten words.

Just watch people talking, and you will be amazed: everywhere there is misunderstanding.

You are saying one thing, something else is understood.

The world would be a more silent and peaceful place if people were only saying five percent of what they are saying now — although that five percent will cover absolutely everything that is essential.

Your telegram means more than your long letter, condensed. Be telegraphic and you will be surprised that in the whole day there

are very few times when you have to speak.

Osho: The Golden Future, #7

2. Celebrating Suffering

When I say enjoy it I don’t mean become a masochist; I don’t mean create suffering for yourself and enjoy it. I don’t mean: go on, fall down

from a cliff, have fractures and then enjoy it. No.

I am not saying be a masochist; I am simply saying suffering is there, you need not seek for it. Enough suffering is there already, you need no go in search. Suffering is already there; life by its very nature creates suffering. Illness is there, death is there, the body is there; by their very nature suffering is created. See it, look at it with a very dispassionate eye. Look at it — what it is, what is happening. Don’t

escape.

Immediately the mind says, “Escape from here, don’t look at it.” But if

you escape then you cannot be blissful.

When: Next time you fall ill and the doctor suggests to remain in bed.

The Method: Close your eyes and rest on the bed and just look at the illness. Watch it, what it is. Don’t try to analyze it, don’t go into theories, just watch it, what it is. The whole body tired, feverish —

watch it.

Suddenly, you will feel that you are surrounded by fever but there is a very cool point within you; the fever cannot touch it, cannot influence it. The whole body may be burning but that cool point cannot be

touched.

So when you are lying on your bed, feverish, on fire, the whole body burning, just watch it. Watching, you will recede towards the source. Watching, not doing anything.... What can you do? The fever is there, you have to pass through it; it is no use unnecessarily fighting with it. You are resting, and if you fight with the fever you will become more

feverish, that’s all. So watch it. Watching fever, you become cool; watching more, you become cooler.

Just watching, you reach to a peak, such a cool peak, even the Himalayas will feel jealous; even their peaks are not so cool. This is the Gourishankar, the Everest within. And when you feel that the fever has disappeared.... It has never really been there; it has only been in the

body, very, very far away.

Infinite space exists between you and your body — infinite space, I say. An unbridgeable gap exists between you and your body. And all suffering exists on the periphery. Hindus say it is a dream because the distance is so vast, unbridgeable. It is just like a dream happening somewhere else — not happening to you — in some other world, on

some other planet.

When you watch suffering suddenly you are not the sufferer, and you start enjoying. Through suffering you become aware of the opposite pole, the blissful inner being. So when I say enjoy, I am saying: Watch. Return to the source, get centered. Then, suddenly, there is no agony;

only ecstasy exists.

Those who are on the periphery exist in agony. For them, no ecstasy. For those who have come to their center no agony exists. For them,

only ecstasy.

When I say break the cup it is breaking the periphery. And when I say be totally empty it is coming back to the original source, because through emptiness we are born, and into emptiness we return.

Emptiness is the word, really, which is better to use than God, because with God we start feeling there is some person. So Buddha never used “God” he always used sunyata — emptiness, nothingness. In the center you are a nonbeing, nothingness, just a vast space, eternally cool, silent, blissful. So when I say enjoy I mean watch, and you will enjoy.

When I say enjoy, I mean don’t escape.

Osho: A Bird on the Wing

2. The Art of Listening 15

3. Two Passive Techniques

FOUR LEVELS OF RELAXING: In a situation where you can’t do active techniques? Here are two simple but effective passive methods. And remember, you will find many more in the regularly rotated “Meditation of the Week” and “Meditation For Busy People.”

1. Watching the Breath Breath-watching is a method that can be done anywhere, at any time, even if you have only a few minutes available. You can simply watch the rise and fall of your chest or belly as the breath comes in and goes out, or try this version….

Step 1: Watch the In Breath

Close your eyes and start watching your breath. First, the inhalation, from where it enters your nostrils, right down into your lungs.

Step 2: Watch the Gap That Follows At the end of the inhalation there is gap, before the exhalation starts. It is of immense value. Watch that gap.

Step 3: Watch the Out Breath

Now watch the exhalation.

Step 4: Watch the Gap That Follows At the end of the exhalation there is a second gap: watch that gap. Do these four steps for two to three times – just watching the breathing cycle, not changing it in anyway, just watching the natural rhythm.

Step 5: Counting In Breaths

Now start counting: Inhalation – count 1 (don’t count the exhalation), inhalation – 2, and so on, up to 10. Then count from 10 back to 1. Sometimes you may forget to watch the breath or you may count beyond 10. Then start again, at 1.

“These two things have to be remembered: watching, and particularly the gaps at the top and the bottom. The experience of that gap is you, your innermost core, your being. And second: go on counting, but not more than up to 10; and come back again to 1; and only count the inhalation.

These things help awareness. You have to be aware, otherwise you will start counting the exhalation, or you will go over 10.

If you enjoy this meditation, continue it. It is of immense value.” Osho.

2. Four Levels of Relaxing

This particular method is useful for those time when you are sick because it helps build a loving connection, to create a rapport between yourself and your bodymind. Then you can take an active part in your own healing process.

Step 1: The Body

“Remember as many times as possible to look into the body and see whether you are carrying some tension in the body somewhere – the neck, the head or the legs…. Relax it consciously. Just go to that part of the body, and persuade that part, say to it lovingly ‘Relax!’

You will be surprised that if you approach any part of your body, it listens, it follows you – it is your body! With closed eyes, go inside the body from the toe to the head, searching for any place where there is a tension. And then talk to that part as you talk to a friend; let there be a dialogue between you and your body. Tell it to relax, and tell it, ‘There is nothing to fear. Don´t be afraid. I am here to take care; you can relax.’ Slowly slowly, you will learn the knack of it. Then the body becomes relaxed.”

Step 2: The Mind

“Then take another step, a little deeper; tell the mind to relax. And if the body listens, the mind also listens. But you cannot start with the mind, you have to start from the beginning. You cannot start from the middle. Many people start with the mind and they fail; they fail because they start from a wrong place. Everything should be done in the right order.

If you become capable of relaxing the body voluntarily, then you will be able to help your mind relax voluntarily. The mind is a more complex phenomenon. Once you have become confident that the body listens to you, you will have a new trust in yourself. Now even the mind can listen to you. It will take a little longer with the mind, but it happens.”

Step 3: The Heart

“When the mind is relaxed, then start relaxing your heart, the world of your feelings, emotions, which is even more complex, more subtle. But now you will be moving with trust, with great trust in yourself. Now you will know it is possible. If it is possible with the body and possible with the mind, it is possible with the heart too.”

Step 4: Being

“Then only, when you have gone through these three steps, can you take the fourth. Now you can go to the innermost core of your being, which is beyond body, mind and heart: the very center of your existence.

You will be able to relax it, too, and that relaxation certainly brings the greatest joy possible, the ultimate in ecstasy and acceptance. You will be full of bliss and rejoicing. Your life will have the quality of dance to it.”

Osho: The Dhammapada: the Way of the Buddha Vol. 1,# 8

3. Annexures

1. Frequently Asked Questions

What is meditation?

Meditation is a simple process of watching your own mind.

Not fighting with the mind Not trying to control it either Just remaining there, a choiceless witness.

Whatsoever passes you simply take note of it

With no prejudice for or against. You don't call it names

That this should not come to my mind

That this is an ugly thought and This is a very beautiful and virtuous thought.

You should not judge You should remain non- judgmental

Because the moment you judge, you lose meditation.

You become identified. Either you become a friend or you become a foe.

You create relationships. Meditation means

Remaining unrelated with your

thought process

Utterly unrelated, cool, calm Watching whatsoever is passing. And then a miracle happens: Slowly slowly one becomes aware

That less and less thoughts are passing.

The more alert you are, the less thoughts pass

The less alert you are, the more thoughts pass.

It is as if traffic depends on your awareness.

When you are perfectly aware Even for a single moment, all thinking stops.

Immediately, there is a sudden stop

And the road is empty, there is no traffic.

That moment is meditation.

Slowly slowly those moments come more and more

Those empty spaces come again and again

And stay longer.

And you become capable of moving easily

Into those empty spaces with no effort.

So whenever you want you can move

Into those empty spaces with no effort.

They are refreshing, rejuvenating And they make you aware of who you are.

Freed from the mind you are freed

From all ideas about yourself. Now you can see who you are without any prejudice.

And to know oneself

Is to know all that is worth knowing.

And to miss self-knowledge is to miss all.

A man may know everything in the world

But if he does not know himself He is utterly ignorant

He is just a walking Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Freedom without awareness is only an empty idea.

It contains nothing.

One cannot be really free without being aware

Because your unconscious goes on dominating you

Your unconscious goes on pulling your strings.

You may think, you may believe that you are free

But you are not free, you are just a victim

Of natural forces, blind forces.

So there are two types of people. The majority

Follows the tradition, the society, the state.

The orthodox people, the conventional

The conformists ― they follow the crowd

They are not free.

And then there are a few rebellious spirits

Drop-outs, bohemians, artists Painters, musicians, poets; They think they are living in freedom

But they only think. Just by rebellion

Against the tradition you don't become free.

You are still under the rule of natural instincts.

You are possessed by lust, by greed, by ambitions.

And you are not a master of these things

You are a slave. Hence I say Freedom is only possible through

awareness.

Unless one transforms ones unconsciousness

Into consciousness there is no freedom.

And that is where only very few people

Have succeeded ― a Jesus, a Lao Tzu

A Zarathustra, a Buddha Just a few people

Who can be counted on one's fingers.

They have really lived in freedom Because they lived out of awareness.

That has to be the work for every seeker:

To create more and more awareness.

Then freedom comes of its own accord.

Freedom is the fragrance of the flower of awareness.

Osho: Eighty Four Thousand Poems, Chapter 5

Will meditation help me to be happy?

Many people come to me and they say they are unhappy, and they want me to give them some meditation. I say: First, the basic thing is to understand why you are unhappy. And if you don't remove those basic causes of your unhappiness, I can give you a meditation but that is not going to help very much ― because the basic causes remain there.

The man may have been a good, beautiful dancer, and he is sitting in an office, piling up files. There is no possibility for dance. The

man may have enjoyed dancing under the stars, but he is simply going on accumulating a bank- balance. And he says he is unhappy: Give me some meditation.... I can give him! ― but what is that meditation going to do? what is it supposed to do? He will remain the same man: accumulating money, competitive in the market. The meditation may help in this way: it may make him a little more relaxed to do this nonsense even better.

That's what TM is doing to many people in the West ― and that is the appeal of transcendental meditation, because Maharishi Mahesh Yogi goes on saying, "It will make you more efficient in your work, it will make you more successful. If you are a salesman, you will become a more successful salesman. It will give you efficiency." And American people are almost crazy about efficiency. You can lose everything just for being efficient. Hence, the appeal.

Yes, it can help you. It can relax you a little ― it is a tranquillizer. By constantly repeating a mantra, by continuously repeating a certain word, it changes your brain chemistry. It is a tranquillizer, a sound- tranquillizer. It helps you to lessen your stress so tomorrow in the marketplace you can be more efficient, more capable to compete ― but it doesn't change you. It is not a transformation.

You can repeat a mantra, you can do a certain meditation; it can help you a little bit here and there ― but it can only help you

to remain whatsoever you are.

Hence, my appeal is only for those who are really daring, dare-devils who are ready to change their very pattern of life, who are ready to stake everything ― because in fact you don't have anything to put at the stake: only your unhappiness, your misery. But people cling even to that.

What else do you have to put at stake? Just the misery. The only pleasure that you have is talking about it. Look at people talking about their misery: how happy they become! They pay for it: they go to psychoanalysts to talk about their misery ― they pay for it! Somebody listens attentively; they are very happy. People go on talking about their misery again and again and again. They even exaggerate, they decorate, they make it look bigger. They make it look bigger than life-size. Why? You have nothing to put at stake. But people cling to the known, to the familiar. The misery is all that they have known ― that is their life. Nothing to lose, but so afraid to lose anything.

With me, happiness comes first, joy comes first. A celebrating attitude comes first. A life- affirming philosophy comes first. Enjoy! If you cannot enjoy your work, change it. Don't wait, because all the time that you are waiting you are waiting for Godot. Godot is never going to come. One simply waits ― and wastes one's life. For whom, for what are you waiting? If you see the point, that you are miserable

in a certain pattern of life, then all the old traditions say: You are wrong. I would like to say: The pattern is wrong. Try to understand the difference of emphasis.

You are not wrong! Just your pattern, the way you have learned to live is wrong. The motivations that you have learned and accepted as yours are not yours ― they don't fulfill your destiny. They go against your grain, they go against your element....

Remember it: nobody else can decide for you. All their commandments, all their orders, all their moralities, are just to kill you. You have to decide for yourself. You have to take your life in your own hands.

Otherwise, life goes on knocking at your door and you are never there; you are always somewhere else.

If you were going to be a dancer, life comes from that door because life thinks you must be a dancer by now. It knocks there but you are not there ― you are a banker. And how is life expected to know that you would become a banker? The divine comes to you the way it wanted you to be; it knows only that address – but you are never found there, you are somewhere else, hiding behind somebody else's mask, in somebody else's garb, under somebody else's name.

The divine can find you only in one way, only in one way can it find you, and that is your inner

flowering: as it wanted you to be. Unless you find your spontaneity, unless you find your element, you cannot be happy.

And if you cannot be happy, you cannot be meditative.

Why did this idea – that meditation brings happiness – arise in people's minds? In fact, wherever they found a happy person they always found a meditative mind. They become associated. Whenever they found the beautiful, meditative milieu surrounding a man, they always found he was tremendously happy ― vibrant with bliss, radiant. They became associated. They thought: Happiness comes when you are meditative.

It was just the other way round: meditation comes when you are happy. But to be happy is difficult and to learn meditation is easy. To be happy means a drastic change in your way of life, an abrupt change ― because there is no time to lose. A sudden change, a sudden clash of thunder...a discontinuity.

That's what I mean by sannyas: a discontinuity with the past. A sudden clash of thunder, and you die to the old and you start afresh, from ABC. You are born again. You again start your life as you would have done if there had been no enforced pattern by your parents, by your society, by the state; as you would have done, must have done, if there had been nobody to distract you. But you were distracted. You have to drop all those patterns that have been forced on you, and you

have to find your own inner flame.

Osho: A Sudden Clash of Thunder, Chapter 7

What will meditation do to solve my problems?

Problems are all around you. So even if you somehow get finished with one problem, another problem arises. And you cannot prevent problems arising.

Problems will continue to arise till you come to a deep understanding of witnessing.

That is the only golden key, discovered by centuries of inward search in the East: that there is no need to solve any problem.

You simply observe it, and the very observation is enough; the problem evaporates.

If you are clear, if you can see, your life problems dissolve. Let me remind you about using the word dissolve. I am not saying you find the answers, solutions to your problems, no. And I am only talking about life problems.

This is the most important thing to understand about life problems: they are created by your unclarity of vision. So it is not that first you see them clearly, then you find the solution and then you try to apply the solution. No, the process is not that long; the process is very simple and short. The moment you can see your life problem clearly, it dissolves.

It is not that you have now found an answer that you will apply, and someday you will succeed in destroying the problem. The problem existed in your unclarity

of vision. You were its creator. Remember again, I am talking about life problems. I am not saying that if your car is broken down you just sit silently and see clearly what the problem is: the problem is clear, now do something! It is not a question of you simply sitting under a tree and meditating and just once in a while opening your eyes and seeing whether the problem is solved or not.

This is not a life problem, it is a mechanical problem. If your tire is punctured you will have to change the wheel. Sitting won't do; you just get up and change the wheel. It has nothing to do with your mind and your clarity; it has something to do with the road. What can your clarity do with the road? Otherwise, three thousand meditators here cannot mend one road? Just meditation would have been enough!

But the question is only about life problems. For example, you are feeling jealous, angry; you are feeling a kind of meaninglessness. You are dragging yourself somehow; you don't feel that life is juicy anymore. These are life- problems and they arise out of your unclarity of mind. Because unclarity is the source of their arising, clarity becomes their dissolution. If you are clear, if you can see clearly, the problem will disappear.

You have not to do anything other than that. Just seeing, just watching its whole process: how the problem arises, how it takes possession of you, how you

become completely clouded by it, blinded by it; and how you start acting madly, for which you repent later on…. You realize later on that it was sheer insanity, that "I did it in spite of myself. I never wanted to do it, still I did it. And even when I was doing it I knew that I didn't want to do it." But it was as if you were possessed....

Osho: From Misery to

Enlightenment

Osho: The Rebellious Spirit, #6

Is meditation for me?

 Serious people...

 Spiritual people...

 New Age people...

 True believers...

 Skeptical people...

 People who know nothing...

 Philosophical people...

 Businessmen...

 Young people...

 Older people...

 People with a sense of humor...

 Hopeful people...

Is Meditation for Serious People?

Meditation has to be a joyous activity, it has to be a song. One has not to do it as a duty, one has to enjoy it as fun, as play. If you do meditation as a duty you will miss the whole point. Then it cannot happen to you. It can happen only in a very light mood, in a very non-serious mood. Seriousness is heavy, and anything heavy drags you downwards. You have to be as light as a small child playing on the beach, collecting seashells, colored stones, running here and there, almost part of the wind and the sea and the sand and the sun. When that lightness is there you have wings, you can fly upwards. And meditation means an upward movement of your energies..

Osho: The Imprisoned Splendor,

Chapter 14 (Diary)

I don't want you to be serious. I am so against seriousness – it is a spiritual sickness. Laughter is spiritual health, and laughter is very unburdening. While you laugh, you can put your mind aside very easily. For a man who cannot laugh the doors of the buddha are closed. To me, laughter is one of the greatest values. No religion has ever thought about it. Religions have always been insisting on seriousness, and because of their insistence the whole world is psychologically sick.

Osho: The Language of Existence, Chapter 5

Is Meditation for Spiritual People?

What I am doing here is very simple, very ordinary, nothing spiritual in it, nothing sacred. I am not trying to make you holy persons, I am simply trying to make you sane, intelligent, ordinary people who can live their lives joyously, dancingly, celebratingly.

Osho: Zen: The Special Transmission, Chapter 1

Is meditation just for people who know a lot about "new age" philosophy?

The new age movement is just a fashion which will disappear very soon, as all your other movements have disappeared.

Now you don't see hippies.... It is a very great phenomenon that so many hippies suddenly disappeared. What happened to their revolution? It was a revolutionary movement; it was dropping out of the society. Why have they dropped back into the society? All these movements are very short-lived. They have beautiful names ― that does not matter ― but they don't have a radical philosophy to change human beings. The new age movement has nothing unique which can transform individuals. It is a fashion; soon it will die ― just a passing phase. I am not part of any movement. What I am doing is something eternal. It has been going on since the first man appeared on the earth, and it will continue to the last man. It is not a movement, it is the very core of evolution. So you are right that you don't count me as part of the new age movement. I am not. I am part of the eternal evolution of man. The search for truth is neither new nor old. The search for your own being has nothing to do with time. It is non-temporal. I may be gone, but what I am doing is going to continue. Somebody else will be doing it. I was not here and somebody else was doing it.

Nobody is a founder in it, nobody is a leader in it. It is such a vast phenomenon that many enlightened people have appeared, helped and disappeared. But their help has brought humanity a little higher, made humanity a little better, a little more human. They have left the world a little more beautiful than they had found it.

Osho: Socrates Poisoned Again

After 25 Centuries, Chapter 11

Do you have to believe in some kind of religion or philosophy before you can meditate?

Belief is the enemy of trust. Trust life! Don't believe beliefs – avoid them! Avoid beliefs: Hindu, Christian.... Seek on your own. You may come to find the same truth. You will, because the truth is one. Once you have found it you can say yes, The Bible is true– but not before. Once you have found it you can say yes, the Vedas are true – but not before. Unless you have experienced it, unless you become a witness to it personally, all vedas and all bibles are useless. They will burden you, they will not make you more free....

The search is difficult because the truth is unknown. The search is difficult because the truth is not only unknown, it is unknowable. The search is difficult because the seeker has to risk his whole life for it.

If you are following scriptures you are following named rivers. If you are following a certain religion, a sect, a church, then you have a map – and there cannot be any map for the truth. There cannot be any map because truth is private and not public. Maps become public; they are needed so that others can also follow. On the map, superhighways are shown, not small footpaths; and religion is a footpath, not a superhighway. You cannot reach existence as a Christian or a Hindu. You reach as you, authentically you, and you cannot follow anybody's path.

Osho: The Search, Chapter

Do you have to believe in some kind of religion or philosophy before you can meditate?

Belief is the enemy of trust. Trust life! Don't believe beliefs – avoid them! Avoid beliefs: Hindu, Christian.... Seek on your own. You may come to find the same truth. You will, because the truth is one. Once you have found it you can say yes, The Bible is true – but not before. Once you have found it you can say yes, the Vedas are true – but not before. Unless you have experienced it, unless you become a witness to it personally, all vedas and all bibles are useless. They will burden you, they will not make you more free....

The search is difficult because the truth is unknown. The search is difficult because the truth is not only unknown, it is unknowable. The search is difficult because the seeker has to risk his whole life for it.

If you are following scriptures you are following named rivers. If you are following a certain religion, a sect, a church, then you have a map – and there cannot be any map for the truth. There cannot be any map because truth is private and not public. Maps become public; they are needed so that others can also follow. On the map, superhighways are shown, not small footpaths; and religion is a footpath, not a superhighway.

You cannot reach existence as a Christian or a Hindu. You reach as you, authentically you, and you cannot follow anybody's path.

Osho: The Search, Chapter 1

Can a skeptical person be a meditator?

The skeptical mind is one of the most beautiful things in the world. It has been condemned by the religions because they were not capable of answering skeptical questions; they wanted only believers. And the skeptical mind is just the opposite of the believer.

I am all in favor of the skeptical mind. Do not believe anything unless you have experienced it. Do not believe anything -- go on questioning, however long it takes. Truth is not cheap. It is not available to the believer; it is available only to the skeptical.

Just remember one thing: don't be skeptical halfheartedly. Be a total skeptic. When I say be a total skeptic, I mean that your skeptical ideas should also be put to the same test as anybody else's beliefs. Skepticism, when it is total, burns itself out because you have to question and doubt your skepticism too. You cannot leave your skepticism without doubt; otherwise that is the standpoint of the believer.

If you can doubt the skeptic in you, then the mystic is not far away. What is a mystic? ― one who knows no answer, one who has asked every possible question and found that no question is answerable. Finding this, he has dropped questioning. Not that he has found the answer ― he has simply found one thing, that there is no answer anywhere.

Life is a mystery, not a question. Not a puzzle to be solved, not a question to be answered but a mystery to be lived, a mystery to be loved, a mystery to be danced.

A totally skeptical mind is bound to finally become a mystic; hence, my doors are open for all. I accept the skeptic because I know how to turn him into a mystic. I invite the theist because I know how to destroy his theism. I invite the atheist because I know how to take away his atheism. My doors prevent nobody, because I am not giving you any belief. I am giving you only a methodology, a meditation to discover for yourself what in reality is the case.

I have found that there is no answer. All questions are futile, and all answers are more futile. Questions have been asked by foolish people, and great philosophies have arisen because of their questions. These philosophies are created by the cunning and the shrewd. But if you want to have a rapport with reality, you have to be neither a fool nor shrewd. You have to be innocent.

So whatever you bring ― skepticism, atheism, theism, communism, fascism, any type of nonsense you can bring here ― my medicine is the same.

It does not matter what kind of nonsense is filled in your head when you come here. I will chop your head without any distinction. Who is sitting on your head does not matter ― my concern is chopping! I am just a woodcutter.

Osho: Beyond Enlightenment,

Chapter 17

Is meditation for people who know nothing?

The ignorant person can remember that he is ignorant – he has nothing to lose. But the learned, he cannot recognize that he is ignorant. He has much to lose. The knowledgeable person is the real fool. The ignorant person is innocent; he knows that he knows not, and because he knows that he knows not, because he is ignorant, he is just on the threshold of wisdom.

Because he knows he knows not, he can inquire, and his inquiry will be pure, unprejudiced. He will inquire without any conclusions. He will inquire without being a Christian or a Hindu. He will simply inquire as an inquirer. His inquiry will not come out of ready-made answers, his inquiry will come out of his own heart.

His inquiry will not be a by- product of knowledge, his inquiry will be existential. He inquires because it is a question of life and death to him. He inquires because he really wants to know. He knows that he knows not – that's why he inquires. His

inquiry has a beauty of its own. He is not a fool, he is simply ignorant. The real fool is one who thinks he knows, without knowing at all.

Osho: The Dhammapada: The

Way of the Buddha, Vol 2,

Chapter 7

Can a philosophical person be a meditator?

The old definition of a philosopher is that he is blind, in a dark night, in a dark house where there is no light, and he is searching for a black cat that is not there. But this is not all: he finds her and he writes great treatises, theses, creates systems and, proves logically the existence of the black cat. Beware of the mind: it is blind. It has never known anything but it is a great pretender. It pretends to know everything.

Socrates has categorized humanity in two classes. One class he calls the knowledgeably ignorant: the people who think they know and who are basically ignorant. That is the work of the mind. And the second category he calls the ignorant knowers: the people who think, "We don't know." In their humbleness, in their innocence, descends knowing.

So there are pretenders of knowledge – that is the function of the mind – and there are humble people who say, "We don't know." In their innocence there is knowledge. And that is the work of meditation and awareness....

Osho: From Medication to

Meditation

Can a businessman be a meditator?

One has to do something in life. Somebody is a carpenter and somebody is a king, and somebody is a businessman and somebody is a warrior. These are ways of livelihood, these are ways of getting bread and butter, a shelter. They can't change your inner being. Whether you are a warrior or a businessman does not make any difference: one has chosen one way to earn his livelihood, the other has chosen something else.

Meditation is life, not livelihood. It has nothing to do with what you do; it has everything to do with what you are. Yes, business should not enter into your being, that is true. If your being also has become businesslike, then it is difficult to meditate and impossible to be a sannyasin...because if your being has become businesslike, then you have become too calculative. And a calculative person is a cowardly person: he thinks too much, he cannot take any jumps. And meditation is a jump: from the head to the heart, and ultimately from the heart to the being. You will be going deeper and deeper, where calculations will have to be left behind, where all logic becomes irrelevant. You cannot carry your cleverness there.

In fact, cleverness is not true intelligence either; cleverness is a poor substitute for intelligence. People who are not intelligent learn how to be clever. People who are intelligent need not be clever; they are innocent, they need not be cunning. They function out of a state of not- knowing. If you are a businessman, that's okay. If Jesus can become a meditator and a sannyasin, and ultimately a christ, a buddha... and he was the son of a carpenter, helping his father, bringing wood, cutting wood. If a carpenter's son can become a buddha, why not you?

Osho: The Dhammapada: The

Way of the Buddha, Vol 6,

Chapter 4

Is meditation also useful for younger people?

Youth is the best time for inner transformation because youth is the most flexible time. Children are more flexible than young people, but they are not so understanding. They need a little experience. Youth is exactly the middle; you are no longer a child, no longer ignorant of life and its ways and not yet settled as an old man. You are in a state of transition, and the state of transition is the best time that you can jump out of the wheel of life and death. Youth is the most significant time to take any jump, because the jump needs courage, it needs energy, it needs risk, it needs daring.

Osho: The Dhammapada: The

Way of the Buddha, Vol. 8,

Chapter 5

The real virtue arises out of meditation, the pseudo virtue is cultivated. The pseudo virtue is

part of character, the real virtue is part of consciousness. All societies live on pseudo virtue because it is easier to impose on children; it is difficult to make them meditators. That's what people have thought up to now. It is not true: children can be taught to be meditative, and more easily than older people.

But for centuries the idea has persisted that they are children -

- how can they meditate? Of course they cannot sit still like an old man, but there is no need to sit like an old man. Meditations can be devised especially for them: they can dance and jump and jog and run, and yet meditation can happen. Their meditation has to be very active, it cannot be inactive.

If children are introduced to meditation from the very beginning they will have a totally different kind of virtue. Then you need not tell them what is right and what is wrong; they will know it on their own.

And that's my effort here: to help you to know on your own what is right and what is wrong, I never say what is right and what is wrong, I have no commandments, no shoulds, no should-nots. I simply want you to be able to see, to be clear like a mirror so that you can reflect reality.

Any action out of that clarity is virtuous.

Osho: The Imprisoned Splendor,

Chapter 5

Can older people also meditate?

... and in fact everybody is in need of meditation. Everybody is starved of it. Particularly as one grows older in life, more and more is the necessity felt. Of course people have completely forgotten the language of it.

They cannot even form the right question about what is missing. They simply feel that something is missing; they don't know what. They are bewildered by it. They may have everything. One may have arrived in worldly ways, succeeded, but by the time that one reaches the age of

forty-two, one starts feeling that something is missing.

Forty-two is just like the age of fourteen. At the age of fourteen you start feeling that something is missing. The sexual partner is missing; the man or the woman is missing. Suddenly you feel that you are alone, incomplete. You need somebody to complement and complete you. A great desire arises to move into love.

Exactly the same happens at the age of forty-two. Again one has matured ― deeper than the maturity that comes at fourteen. That was physical maturity; one was ready to make love physically. Forty-two is the age when one is psychologically mature, and is ready to make love psychologically.

That's what meditation is all about. Because in the West people have completely forgotten

― and Christianity has never talked about meditation, but at the most about prayer, which is a very diluted form, which doesn't work much ― when people become older, when they come to the middle of their life, suddenly they feel a haunting, that something is missing; what is it? They cannot even pinpoint it. They cannot put their finger on it: 'This is what is missing.'

People start drifting at the age of forty-two. They think this wife is not fulfilling because they know only one experience. At the age of fourteen there was a haunting of sexuality. Maybe again this wife is not satisfying, this man is not satisfying. So they swap wives, swap husbands, make group sex. There is only one language, and that is of sex. Or they start thinking that they need more money, a bigger house, bigger cars, because that is the whole logic they have been living by and they cannot find any satisfaction through it. They go on and on and on until they simply fall down dead and die.

But meditation is as natural an urge as sex. It has its own time.

Osho: The Passion for the

Impossible, Chapter 18

As one becomes older the shadow of the death starts falling on you; that's what is creating the fear. But as far as a sannyasin is concerned, there is no death.

If you are feeling afraid of death and the dangers ahead, that only means you are not going deeper into your meditation, that meditation has been to you just a fashion. Now it is time, that you

should sincerely and authentically enter into meditation, because that is the only space which can free you from all fears of death, old age, sickness.

It makes you aware that you are not the body and you are not the mind, and you are not only this life, you are eternal life. Death has happened many times and you are still alive, and death will happen many times and you will be still alive.

Meditation's ultimate conclusion is, live the moment to its totality, intensively, joyously, because there is nothing to be feared ― because even death is a fiction.

There is no need for any security, for any safety. Live moment to moment, trusting the whole existence as the birds are trusting it, as the trees are trusting it. Don't separate yourself from existence, become part of it and existence will take care of you. It is already taking care of you.

Osho: The New Dawn, Chapter

26

Even at the time of death, sexual repression is such that people go on thinking about it. And that is the reason why they enter again into another womb ― that is, another sexual body.

I am not teaching sex. I am

teaching you not to repress it so that you can transform it, not to repress it so that you can get free of it. Anything repressed will remain with you in your unconscious as a bondage. Don't repress anything, and you will feel a tremendous freedom.

Experience everything, and you will start becoming more and more mature, you will not have to wait until the age of ninety. My own experience with my sannyasins is that just as a man becomes sexually mature at the age of fourteen, if he lives his sexual life without any guilt, without any idea of sin but simply as a natural phenomenon, by the age of forty-two he will have gone beyond it.

Every seven years there comes a change. Just as fourteen is the time when you become ripe for sexual experience, able to produce children, at the age of forty-two you start a new phase of your life. At fourteen you were entering into the world of living. At forty-two you are entering into the world of death. Just as at fourteen life needed reproduction, at forty-two life needs not sexuality but meditation.

And if you have lived your sex, you have had enough time to see that it is a child's game. There is no question of repressing it, it simply drops of its own accord, the way it came on its own accord. You did not produce it; it was not your creation at the age of fourteen. In the same way as the breeze came at the age of fourteen, the breeze passes you

by at the age of forty-two. That is the time when something more significant, something more valuable, has to be experienced. You have loved, you have seen the reality of the world, experienced all kinds of relationships ― now is the time to know yourself, to be yourself, because death will be coming soon. Before death you have to be ready to meet it. The last story....

A king dreamed in the night that a big, very ferocious shadow was standing in front of him. He asked, "Who are you and what is the purpose of your coming into my dream?" The shadow said, "I am your death, and I am coming tomorrow evening at sunset.

Remember, at the time of sunset meet me at the right place."

And before he could ask, "Where is the right place?" ― not that he was going to be at the right place, he wanted to know so that he could avoid the right place ― the shadow disappeared, and out of fear the dream was broken.

It was the middle of the night. Immediately he asked all the wise men, astrologers, palmists, prophets, to gather because they had to decipher the meaning of the dream. They discussed, and as are the ways of the so-called knowledgeable, they couldn't agree. They were all talking, discussing, everybody had his own explanation ― and the king was more and more confused.

The king's old servant was watching all this, and the sun was rising; half the night had

passed. He whispered to the king, "Sir, these people are never going to come to any conclusion. All they know is fighting, quarreling, arguing. You don't have time for that, the sun has already risen, and how long will it take for it to set? There is not much time. My suggestion is, let them discuss. You take your fastest horse and escape far away from this capital and this palace."

The advice appeared to be very relevant. The king picked the best horse he had, and by the evening he had moved hundreds of miles away from the palace.

To rest for the night, he entered into a mango grove. He stroked the horse and said to the horse, "You really proved your mettle. I had no idea that you could run so fast. You risked everything, as if you understood my problem that death is close and you have to risk all your energy. I am thankful to you."

At that very time the sun was setting, and suddenly he became aware of a hand on his shoulder. He looked back. The old shadow that he had seen in the dream was standing there and said, "I have also to thank your horse, because without him I was worried how you were going to manage to reach the right place at the right time. But you managed. The whole credit goes to your horse."

Whether death is a few hours away, or a few days or few years, it makes no difference. Just as one prepares for life, one

has to prepare for death too. And the preparation for death I call religiousness.

The art of religiousness is the art of preparing for death and dying in such a way that nothing dies ― only the body is left behind and you move into eternity.

Osho: The Sword and the Lotus,

Chapter 4

Is meditation for people who have a sense of humor?

My whole effort here is to keep you as non-serious as possible, for the simple reason that meditation, all kinds of meditation, can make you too serious and that seriousness will create a spiritual disease and nothing else.

Unless a meditation brings you more laughter, more joy, more playfulness, avoid it. It is not for you.

Osho: The Great Pilgrimage:

From Here to Here, Chapter 7

Meditate playfully, don't meditate seriously. When you go into the meditation hall, leave your serious faces where you leave your shoes. Let meditation be fun. 'Fun' is a very religious word; 'seriousness' is very irreligious. If you want to attain to the original mind, you will have to live a very non-serious, though sincere life; you will have to transform your work into play; you will have to transform all your duties into love. 'Duty' is a dirty word; of course, a four- letter word.

Osho: Yoga: The Alpha and

the Omega, Vol. 10, Chapter 3

The secret of the joke is that it brings you to a point where you are expecting, expecting, expecting that this is going to happen; then it never happens. And what happens is so sudden... and because you were expecting something you were coming to a tension, and then suddenly something else happens, and the tension has come to such a climax that it explodes. You are all laughter. It is a tremendous release, it is great meditation. If you can laugh totally, it will give you a moment of no-time, no-mind.

Mind lives logically with expectations, laughter is something that comes from the beyond. Mind is always guessing what is going to happen, groping. And something happens which is absolutely contrary to its expectations: it simply stops for a moment.

And that is the moment when the mind stops, when laughter comes from your belly, a belly laugh. Your whole body goes into a spasm, it is orgasmic.

A good laugh is tremendously meditative.

Osho:The Book of Wisdom,

Chapter 28

Even just sitting in your room, close the doors and have one hour of simple laughter.

Laugh at yourself. But learn to laugh.

Seriousness is a sin, and it is a disease.

Laughter has tremendous beauty, a lightness. It will bring lightness to you, and it will give you wings to fly.

And life is so full of opportunities. You just need the sensitivity. And create chances for other people to laugh. Laughter should be one of the most valued, cherished qualities of human beings ― because only man can laugh, no animals are capable of it.

Because it is human, it must be of the highest order. To repress it is to destroy a human quality.

Osho:Beyond Enlightenment,

Chapter 27

Try to understand: only man, ONLY man, can laugh ― no other animal. It is possible only at the stage of man that laughter happens. If you come across a donkey laughing, you will go mad. Or a horse laughing ― then you will not be able to sleep again. Animals don't laugh. They don't have that much intelligence. For laughter, intelligence is needed ― the greater the intelligence, the deeper the laughter.

The laughter is a symbol that you are really human. If you cannot laugh, then you are below human. If you can laugh, you have become human. Laughter is a sure indication of humanity.

Aristotle says man is a rational animal. I don't believe it, because I have watched man and I don't see any rationality in him. My definition is: man is a laughing animal.

Laughter means you can become aware of the ridiculousness of things.

Osho:The Discipline of

Transcendence, Vol. 3, Chapter

10

In fact, laughter Is one of the greatest spiritual qualities. In deep laughter the ego disappears Just as in deep dance the ego disappears. When you really have a belly laugh You are no more there, only laughter is happening You are not there as an observer You are totally immersed in it. And that gives you a taste of meditation.

Osho:Eighty Four Thousand

Poems, Chapter 14

Is meditation for people who hope?

Hope is not the right thing. Live in the present so deeply, so completely, that nothing is left. Then there will be no projection. You will move very smoothly into the tomorrow without carrying any load from today. And when there is no yesterday haunting you, then there is no tomorrow. When the past is not hanging around you, there is no future.

Hope is an illness, a disease of the mind. It is hope that is not allowing you to live. Hope is not the friend, remember; it is the foe. It is because of hope that you go on postponing. But you will remain the same tomorrow also, and tomorrow also you will hope for some future. And this

way it can go on for eternity, and you can go on missing. Stop postponing. And who knows what the future is going to reveal to you? There is no way to know about it. It is an opening; all alternatives are open. What is really going to happen, nobody can predict. People have tried.

That's why people go to astrologers, to I Ching , and to other sorts of things. I Ching goes on fascinating people, astrologers go on influencing people. Astrology still seems to be a great force. Why? ? because people are missing and they are hoping for the future. They want some clue to know what is going to happen so they can arrange it that way.

These things will persist, even if scientifically it is proved that it is all nonsense. They will persist because it is not a question of science, it is a question of human hope. Unless hope is dropped, I Ching cannot be dropped. Unless hope is dropped, astrology cannot be dropped. It will have great power over man's mind because hope is gripping you.

You would like to know little clues about the future so you can move more confidently, you can project more confidently, and you can postpone many more things. If you know something about tomorrow, I think you will not live today. You will say, "What is the need? Tomorrow we will live." Even without knowing anything about tomorrow you are doing that. And tomorrow never comes... and when it comes, it is always today. And you don't know how to live today.

So you are in a great trap. Drop that whole structure. Hope is the bondage of man.

Osho: The Beloved , Vol. 2,

Chapter 8

When and how often do I need to meditate?

Even if you have to give up a meal, do it...but do not give up meditation. The more regular you are, the greater depth you will attain. Meditation is such a delicate thing that it takes months to grow but just a day or two to wither away. A delicate thing needs much regularity, continuity. Meditation is the highest; everything else is secondary.

You will not miss much by missing a day’s sleep. One can do without sleeping for five to seven days. It is okay if you miss a meal; man can survive without food for three months. You can go without drinking water for a day; you will not die.

But usually, people give much more importance to such petty things and think that for a day or two they can do without the things that are really significant. But let it be remembered that nothing will go wrong if you do not fulfil the petty things of your routine. You will not gain anything by doing them; nor will you be a loser by not doing them.

But meditation is of the highest, and through it the divine is attained. If you do not meditate, you will not know what you were to gain and what you have missed; you will really not know what you have lost.

The greatest misfortune that can befall people is that they never come to know what they have

missed. Apart from missing, people never come to know what they were to gain, they never become aware of it.

So always devote energy to meditation.

Osho: Won’t You Join the Dance?

Is it possible to meditate without any technique?

The question you have asked is certainly of great importance because meditation, as such, needs no technique at all. But techniques are needed to remove the obstacles in the way of meditation. So it has to be understood very clearly: meditation itself needs no techniques, it is a simple understanding, an alertness, an awareness. Neither alertness is a technique nor is awareness a technique. But on the way to being alert, there are so many obstacles. For centuries man has been gathering those obstacles

— they need to be removed. Meditation itself cannot remove them, certain techniques are needed to remove them.

So the work of the techniques is just to prepare the ground, is just to prepare the way, the passage. The techniques in themselves are not meditation. If you stop at the technique, you have missed the point. J. Krishnamurti was insisting his whole life that there is no technique for meditation. And the total result was not that millions of people attained to meditation;

the total result was that millions of people became convinced that no technique is needed for meditation. But they forgot all about what they were going to do with the obstructions, the hindrances. So they remained intellectually convinced that no technique is needed.

I have met many followers of J. Krishnamurti, very intimate ones, and I have said to them, "No technique is needed ― I agree absolutely. But has meditation happened to you or to anyone else who has been listening to J. Krishnamurti?" Although what he is saying is essentially true, he is saying only the positive side of the experience. There is a negative side also. And for that negative side all kinds of techniques are needed ― are absolutely needed ― because unless the ground is well prepared, and all the weeds and wild roots are taken away from the ground, you cannot grow roses and other beautiful flowers. Roses are in no way concerned with those roots, with the wild plants that you have removed.

But the removal of those weeds was absolutely necessary for the ground to be in a right situation where roses can blossom.

You are asking, "Is it possible to meditate without any technique?" It is not only possible, it is the only possibility. No technique is needed at all ― as far as meditation is concerned. But what are you going to do with your mind? Your mind will create a thousand and one difficulties.

Those techniques are needed to remove the mind from the way,

to create a space in which the mind becomes quiet, silent, almost absent. Then meditation happens on its own accord.

It is not a question of technique. You don't have to do anything.

Meditation is something natural, something that is already hidden inside you and is trying to find its way to reach to the open sky, to the sun, to the air. But the mind is surrounding it from all sides; all doors are closed, all windows are closed. The techniques are needed to open the windows, to open the doors. And immediately the whole sky is available to you, with all its stars, with all its beauty, with all its sunsets, with all its sunrises. Just a small window was preventing you...just a small piece of straw can go into your eye and it will prevent you from seeing the vast sky because you cannot open your eyes. It is absolutely illogical that just a small piece of straw or sand can prevent you from seeing the great stars, the infinite sky. But in fact they can, they do.

Techniques are needed to remove those straws, those pieces of sand, from your eyes.

Meditation is your nature, is your very potential. It is another name of alertness.

The young father, taking his baby for a walk in the pram in the park, seemed quite unperturbed by the wails emerging from the pram. "Easy now, Albert," he said quietly. "Keep calm, there's a good fellow."

Another howl rang out. "Now, now, Albert," murmured the

father, "keep your temper." A young mother, passing by,

remarked, "I must congratulate you. You certainly know how to speak to babies." Then, patting the baby on the head, she cooed, "What is bothering you, Albert?" "No, no," interrupted the father. "His name is Johnnie; I am Albert."

He was simply trying to keep himself alert: "Albert, don't lose your temper." He does not want to forget; otherwise he would like to throw this baby into the lake!

Meditation is simply awareness without any effort, an effortless alertness; it does not need any technique. But your mind is so full of thoughts, so full of dreams, so much of the past, so much of the future ― it is not here now, and awareness has to be here now. The techniques are needed to help you to cut your roots from the past, to cut your dreams from the future, and to keep you in this moment as if only this moment exists. Then there is no need of any technique.

Hymie Goldberg was visiting his friend, Mr. Cohen, who was dying. "Do us a favor," said Hymie Goldberg, "when you go to heaven could you find a way of letting me know whether they play baseball up there?"

Mr. Cohen said he would certainly try to contact his old friend if at all possible. Only a few days after Mr. Cohen died, Hymie Goldberg had a phone call. "Hello, Hymie," said Mr.

Cohen, "it is your old friend here."

"Cohen? Is it really you?" asked

Hymie. "Sure," answered his friend. "I have some good news and some bad news. First, there sure is baseball in heaven. And the bad news is that you are pitching next Sunday."

Life is a complicated affair. There is good news, and there is bad news. The good news is that there is no need of any technique; but the bad news is, without any technique you are not going to get it.

Osho: The Rebel, Chapter 24

What is the role of therapy in meditation?

Buddha never needed any psychotherapy for his sannyasins; those people were innocent. But in these twenty- five centuries, people have lost their innocence, they have become too knowledgeable.

People have lost their contact with existence. They have become uprooted.

I am the first person who uses therapy but whose interest is not therapy but meditation...just as it was with Chuang Tzu or Gautam Buddha. They never used therapy because there was no need. People were simply ready, and you could bring the rosebushes without clearing the ground. The ground was already clear. In these twenty-five centuries man has become so burdened with rubbish, so many wild weeds have grown in his being that I am using therapy just to clean the ground, take

away the wild weeds, the roots, so the difference between the ancient man and the modern man is destroyed.

The modern man has to be made as innocent as the ancient man, as simple, as natural. He has lost all these great qualities. The therapist has to help him ― but his work is only a preparation. It is not the end. The end part is going to be the meditation.

Osho: The Great Pilgrimage:

From Here to Here, Chapter 27

What is the relationship between consciousness and energy?

Modern physics has discovered one of the greatest things ever discovered, and that is: matter is energy. That is the greatest contribution of Albert Einstein to humanity: e is equal to mc squared, matter is energy.

Matter only appears; otherwise there is no such thing as matter. Nothing is solid. Even the solid rock is a pulsating energy, even the solid rock is as much energy as the roaring ocean. The waves that are arising in the solid rock cannot be seen because they are very subtle, but the rock is waving, pulsating, breathing; it is alive.

Friedrich Nietzsche has declared that God is dead. God is not dead

― on the contrary, what has happened is that matter is dead. Matter has been found not to exist at all. This insight into matter brings modern physics very close to mysticism, very close. For the first time the

scientist and the mystic are coming very close, almost holding hands.

Eddington, one of the greatest scientists of this age, has said, "We used to think that matter is a thing; now it is no more so.

Matter is more like a thought than like a thing."

Existence is energy. Science has discovered that the observed is energy, the object is energy.

Down through the ages, at least for five thousand years, it has been known that the other polarity ― the subject, the observer, consciousness ― is energy.

Your body is energy, your mind is energy, your soul is energy. Then what is the difference between these three? The difference is only of a different rhythm, different wavelengths, that's all. The body is gross ― energy functioning in a gross way, in a visible way.

Mind is a little more subtle, but still not too subtle, because you can close your eyes and you can see the thoughts moving; they can be seen. They are not as visible as your body; your body is visible to everybody else, it is publicly visible. Your thoughts are privately visible. Nobody else can see your thoughts; only you can see them ― or people who have worked very deeply into seeing thoughts. But ordinarily they are not visible to others.

And the third, the ultimate layer inside you, is that of consciousness. It is not even

visible to you. It cannot be reduced to an object, it remains the subject.

If all these three energies function in harmony, you are healthy and whole. If these energies don't function in harmony and accord you are ill, unhealthy; you are no more whole. And to be whole is to be holy.

The effort that we are making here is to help you so that your body, your mind, your consciousness, can all dance in one rhythm, in a togetherness, in a deep harmony ― not in conflict at all, but in cooperation. The moment your body, mind and consciousness function together, you have become the trinity, and in that experience is the divine.

Your question is significant. You ask, "Please say something about the relationship of consciousness and energy."

There is no relationship of consciousness and energy.

Consciousness is energy, the purest energy. The mind is not so pure; the body is still less pure. The body is much too mixed, and the mind is also not totally pure. Consciousness is totally pure energy. But you can know this consciousness only if you make a cosmos out of the three, and not a chaos.

People are living in chaos. Their bodies say one thing, their bodies want to go in one direction; their minds are completely oblivious of the body

― because for centuries you have been taught that you are not the body. For centuries you have been told that the body is your enemy, that you have to fight with it, that you have to destroy it, that the body is sin.

Because of all these ideas ― silly and stupid they are, harmful and poisonous they are, but they have been taught for so long that they have become part of your collective mind, they are there ― you don't experience your body in a rhythmic dance with yourself.

Hence my insistence on dancing and music, because it is only in dance that you will feel that your body, your mind and you are functioning together. And the joy is infinite when all these function together; the richness is great.

Consciousness is the highest form of energy. And when all these three energies function together, the fourth arrives. The fourth is always present when these three function together.

When these three function in an organic unity, the fourth is always there; the fourth is nothing but that organic unity. In the East, we have called that fourth simply the fourth ― turiya; we have not given it any name. The three have names, the fourth is nameless. To know the fourth is to know the divine. Let us say it in this way: the divine is when you are an organic orgasmic unity. The divine is not when you are a chaos, a disunity, a conflict. When you are a house divided against yourself there is no divinity.

When you are tremendously happy with yourself, happy as you are, blissful as you are, grateful as you are, and all your energies are dancing together, when you are an orchestra of all your energies, the divine is. That feeling of total unity is what the divine is. The divine is not a person somewhere, The divine is the experience of the three falling in such unity that the fourth arises. And the fourth is more than the sum total of the parts.

If you dissect a painting, you will find the canvas and the colors, but the painting is not simply the sum total of the canvas and the colors; it is something more.

That "something more" is expressed through the painting, the color, the canvas, the artist, but that "something more" is the beauty. Dissect the rose flower, and you will find all the chemicals and things it is constituted of, but the beauty will disappear. It was not just the sum total of the parts, it was more.

The whole is more than the sum total of the parts. It expresses itself through the parts but it is more. To understand that it is more is to understand the divine. The divine is that more, that plus. It is not a question of theology; it cannot be decided by logical argumentation. You have to feel beauty, you have to feel music, you have to feel dance.

And ultimately you have to feel the dance in your body, mind and, soul. You have to learn how to play on these three energies so that they all become an

orchestra. Then the divine is ― not that you see it; there is nothing to be seen. The divine is the ultimate seer, it is witnessing.

Learn to melt your body, mind, soul. Find ways in which you can function as a unity.

Osho: The Book of Wisdom,

Chapter 23

How to know when to change methods?

Always remember, whatsoever you enjoy can go deep in you; only that can go deep in you. Enjoying it simply means it fits with you. The rhythm of it falls in tune with you: there is a subtle harmony between you and the method.

Once you enjoy a method then don’t become greedy; go into that method as much as you can. You can do it once at least or if possible, twice a day. The more you do it, the more you will enjoy it. Only drop a method when the joy has disappeared; then its work is finished. Search for another method. No method can lead you to the very end.

On the journey you will have to change trains many times. A certain method takes you to a certain state. Beyond that it is of no more use, it is spent.

So two things have to be remembered: when you are enjoying a method go into it as deeply as possible but never become addicted to it, because one day you will have to drop it

too. If you become too much addicted to it then it is like a drug; you cannot leave it. You no more enjoy it -- it is not giving you anything -- but it has become a habit. Then one can continue it, but one is moving in circles; it cannot lead beyond that.

So let joy be the criterion. If joy is there, continue, to the last bit of joy go on. It has to be squeezed totally. No juice should be left behind...not even a single drop. And then be capable of dropping it. Choose some other method that again brings the joy. Many times a person has to change. It varies with different people but it is very rare that one method will do the whole journey.

Osho: Only Losers Can Win in

This Game

All the methods that I have given to you are such that you will not need to drop them. Just use them to perfection, and the moment they are perfect they will drop on their own – just like ripe fruit falling from the tree.

And when a method disappears on its own, it has a beauty; then your watchfulness is unscratched. Just continue till the method disappears of its own accord, and you are left simply a watcher on the hill.

Osho: Transmission of the Lamp,

Chapter 29

What is the purpose of the Osho talks?

The basic purpose of the Osho talks is to provide an opportunity for the listener to experience meditation. And listening is very different from just "hearing."

In this way, these talks are unique. They are basically an experiment, and the listeners are the experimenters.

Just as the Active Meditations are a bridge to help restless modern people enjoy a taste of meditation, so too, talking is used as a way of solving the oldest dilemma in the history of meditation – how to experience silence with no effort.

Meditation is often taught as something you "do" for a certain length of time a day...Osho has something to say about that too. At which point....

And the final point – the path that never ends, the reality that goes on growing.

There are so many, very different kinds of techniques. Do they have some common meeting ground There are one hundred and twelve methods of meditation, but witnessing is an essential part of all one hundred and twelve methods. So as far as I am concerned, witnessing is the only method. Those one hundred and twelve are different applications of witnessing.

The essential core, the spirit of meditation is to learn how to witness. You are seeing a tree: You are there, the tree is there, but can’t you find one thing

more? – that you are seeing the tree, that there is a witness in you which is seeing you seeing the tree. The world is not divided only into the object and the subject. There is also something beyond both, and that beyond is meditation.

So in every act...and I don’t want people to sit for one hour or half an hour in the morning or in the evening. That kind of meditation is not going to help, because if you meditate for one hour, then for twenty-three hours you will be doing just the opposite of it.

Meditation can be victorious: witnessing is such a method that it can spread over twenty-four hours of your day.

Eating, don’t get identified with the eater. The food is there, the eater is there, and you are here, watching. Walking, let the body walk but you simply watch.

Slowly, the knack comes. It is a knack, and once you can watch small things.... A crow crowing...you are listening.

These are two – the object and the subject – but can’t you see a witness who is seeing both? The crow, the listener, and still there is someone who is watching both. It is such a simple phenomenon. Then you can move into deeper layers: you can watch your thoughts; you can watch your emotions, your moods.

There is no need to say, "I am sad." The fact is that you are a witness that a cloud of sadness is passing over you. There is anger

– you can simply be a witness. There is no need to say, "I am

angry." You are never angry, there is no way for you to be angry; you are always a witness. The anger comes and goes; you are just a mirror. Things come, get reflected, move – and the mirror remains empty and clean, unscratched by the reflections.

Witnessing is finding your inside mirror. Once you have found it, miracles start happening. When you are simply witnessing the thoughts, thoughts disappear.

Then there is suddenly a tremendous silence you have never known. When you are watching the moods – anger, sadness, happiness – they suddenly disappear and an even greater silence is experienced.

When there is nothing to watch – then the revolution. Then the witnessing energy turns upon itself because there is nothing to prevent it; there is no object left. The word object is beautiful. It simply means that which prevents you, objects you. When there is no object to your witnessing, it simply comes around back to yourself – to the source. This is the point where one becomes enlightened.

Meditation is only a path: the end is always buddhahood, enlightenment. To know this moment is to know all. Then there is no misery, no frustration, no meaninglessness; then life is no longer an accident. It becomes part of this cosmic whole – an essential part, and a tremendous bliss arises that this whole existence needs you.

Osho: Light on the Path, Ch: 1

Is it always necessary to close my eyes while meditating?

Editorial Comment

Most, but not all, techniques and all stages of a particular technique, tend to require that you have your eyes closed.

Some, on the other hand, specifically require you to have open eyes; still others leave the option to you.

Below is the Osho understanding about how closing the eyes facilitates going inside.

There is no naturally given way to go inwards, but it is not needed. If enough consciousness is gathered in, it will create its own way, just as water creates its own way – no map, no guidelines, just enough quantity and the water will start flowing towards an unknown sea. It has never heard about, knows nothing about, where it is going.

The same is true about consciousness. Enough consciousness gathered inside immediately makes a way upon which nobody has ever trodden, and starts moving inwards.

Outward senses are closed; that’s what I mean when I say in your meditations to close your eyes, to leave the body completely behind...because all the senses are joined to the body. Just be a watcher of the mind, so the mind cannot take your energy outside. With body and mind both closed, energy gathers upon itself spontaneously and, at a certain point, it starts

moving inwards. You don’t have to do anything except to close all the doors that lead you away from yourself.

It is one of the simplest things because you don’t have to do it. But just because of its simplicity, its obviousness, it has become difficult, the most difficult thing, because nobody can teach you; nobody can indicate to you where to move, how to move.

The master can only create a situation in which the spontaneous movement of the energy will happen.

That’s what I call meditation. It is not your doing. You have to stop doing everything. It is your non-doing. The moment when you are not doing, all your energy that was involved in doing a thousand and one things is released. It gathers to a point where it starts flowing inwards, and the innermost center is not far away.

Osho: The Miracle, Chapter 9

Is meditation anything to do with religion? I have dissolved any religious connotation – a Hindu can remain a Hindu and still meditate – to make meditation available to all without any condition, whether he is Hindu, Jew, Christian…. Anybody can participate.

The beauty is that if somebody meditates, sooner or later his Hinduism will disappear. It cannot remain with meditation. So why bother about Hinduism

when we have a secret which will automatically disperse all darkness in their minds?

I want meditation to become almost universal. It can become universal only if it is not attached to any religion, to any politics, to any ideology – and it is not. It is a simple method. Even an atheist can do it; there is no problem.

We don’t ask him to believe in God, we don’t ask him to believe in anything. We simply say to him, "Here is a method you can try. Hypothetically, if you find something, good. If you don’t, drop it." And anybody who has tried meditation has never come back empty-handed.

Osho: Press Conference

At what point can catharsis be dropped? It drops itself when it is finished. You need not drop it. By and by you will feel there is no energy in it. By and by you will feel that you are doing catharsis but they are empty gestures, the energy is not there. In fact, you are pretending to do it, acting it; it is not happening. Whenever you feel that it is not happening and you have to force it, it has already dropped. You just have to listen to your heart.

When you are angry, how do you know when the anger has disappeared? When you are sexual, how do you know that the sexuality has gone? Because the energy from the thought is no longer there. The thought may remain but the energy is no longer there; it is an empty thing. You were angry a few minutes before: now, your face may be still a little angry but deep down you know now there is no anger; the energy has moved.

The same will happen in catharsis. You are doing catharsis; it is an energy phenomenon. Many emotions are suppressed: they are uncoiling, they are coming up, bubbling up. Then there is much energy. You are screaming – there is energy – and after the screaming you feel relieved, as if a burden has disappeared. You feel weightless; you feel more at ease, calmed down, slowed down. But if there is no suppressed emotion, then you can do the gesture but after the gesture you will feel tired because you were unnecessarily wasting the energy. There was no suppressed emotion. Nothing was coming up and you were unnecessarily jumping and screaming; you will feel tired.

If the catharsis is true, you will feel rejuvenated after it; if the catharsis is false, you will feel tired. If the catharsis was true you will feel very, very alive after it, younger than before, as if a few years have disappeared. You were thirty; now you are twenty- eight or twenty-five. A load has disappeared; you are younger, livelier, fresher. But if you are just making the gesture, you will feel tired. You were thirty; you will feel thirty-five…old.

You have to watch. Nobody else can tell what is happening within you. You have to be a watcher. Continuously watch what is happening. Don’t go on pretending…because catharsis is not the goal; it is just a means. One day it has to drop. Don’t go on carrying it. It is just like a boat, a ferry boat: you cross the stream and then you forget about it; you don’t carry it on your head.

Remember, catharsis can become your obsession. You can go on doing it, and then it can become a rut, a pattern. It is not to be made a pattern. At what point can catharsis be dropped? It drops itself. You simply remain alert and watch it. And when it wants to drop, don’t cling to it; let it be dropped.

Osho: Yoga: The Alpha and

Omega, Vol 5, Chapter 10

What about any aches or pains I might feel during or after meditating?

Editorial Comment If you have some concerns about your physical health, for example if you know you have back problems or a heart condition, check with your physician before trying the active methods. Once you begin the methods, if an ache or pain persists after three days, it is advisable to see a doctor.

This is the Osho response to one questioner about pain on doing one of the active techniques:

Go on doing it – you will get over it. The reasons [for the pain] are obvious. There are two reasons.

First, it is a vigorous exercise and your body has to get attuned to it. So for three or four days you will feel that the whole body is aching. With any new exercise it will happen. But after four days you will get over it and your body will feel stronger than ever.

But this is not very basic. The basic thing goes deeper, and the basic thing is what modern psychologists have come to know. Your body is not simply physical. In your body, in your muscles, in the structure of your body many other things have entered through suppressions. If you suppress anger, the poison goes into the body. It goes into the muscles, it goes into the blood. If you suppress anything, it is not only a mental thing, it is also physical…because you are not really divided. You are not body and mind; you are bodymind – psychosomatic. You are both together. So whatsoever is done with your body reaches the mind and whatsoever is done with the mind reaches the body, as body and mind are two ends of the same entity.

When an animal gets angry, he gets angry. He has no morality about it, no teaching about it. He simply gets angry and the anger is released. When you get angry, you get angry in a way similar to any animal. But then there is society, morality, etiquette, and thousands of other things. You have to push the anger down.

You have to show that you are not angry; you have to smile – a painted smile! You have to create a smile, and you push the anger down. What is happening to the

body? The body was ready to fight – either to fight or to fly, to escape from the danger, either to face it or escape from it. The body was ready to do something: anger is just a readiness to do something. The body was going to be violent, aggressive.

If you could be violent and aggressive, then the energy would be released. But you cannot be – it is not convenient, so you push it down. Then what will happen to all those muscles which were ready to be aggressive? They will become crippled. The energy pushes them to be aggressive, and you push them backwards not to be aggressive. There will be a conflict. In your muscles, in your blood, in your body tissues, there will be conflict. They are ready to express something and you are pushing them not to express.

You are suppressing them. Then your body becomes crippled.

This happens with every emotion and this goes on day after day for years. Then your body becomes crippled all over. All the nerves become crippled. They are not flowing, they are not liquid, they are not alive. They have become dead, they have become poisoned and they have all become entangled. They are not natural. So when you start meditating, all these poisons will be released. And wherever the body has become stagnant, it will have to melt, it will become liquid again. This is a great effort. After forty years of living in a wrong way, then suddenly meditating….

The whole body is in an upheaval. You will feel aching all over the body. But this aching is good and you have to welcome it. Allow the body to become a flow again. Again it will become graceful and childlike; again you will gain the aliveness. But before that aliveness comes to you the dead parts have to be straightened and this is going to be a little painful.

Psychologists say that we have created an armor around the body and that armor is the problem. If you are allowed total expression when you get angry, what will you do? When you get angry, you start crushing your teeth together. You want to do something with your nails and with your hands, because that’s how your animal heritage will have it. You want to do something with your hands, to destroy something. If you don’t do anything your fingers will become crippled; they will lose the grace, the beauty. They will not be alive limbs. And the poison is there, so when you shake hands with someone, really there is no touch, no life, because your hands are dead.

Your body has to release many poisons. You have become toxic, and you will have pain because those poisons have settled down. Now I am creating a chaos again. This meditation is to create chaos within you so that you can be rearranged so that a new arrangement becomes possible.

You must be destroyed as you are; only then can the new be born. As you are you have gone totally wrong. You have to be

destroyed and only then can something new be created. There will be pain, but this pain is worthwhile.

So go on doing the meditation and allow the body to have pain. Allow the body not to resist; allow the body to move into this agony. This agony comes from your past but it will go. If you are ready it will go. And when it goes, then for the first time you will have a body. Right now you have only an imprisonment, a capsule…dead. You are encapsulated; you do not have an agile, alive body. Even animals have more beautiful, more alive bodies than you.

We have done much violence to our bodies. So in this chaotic meditation I am forcing your bodies to be alive again. Many blocks will be broken; many settled things will become unsettled again and many systems will become liquid again. There will be pain, but welcome it. It is a blessing and you will overcome it. Continue! There is no need to think what to do. You simply continue the meditation. I have seen hundreds and hundreds of people passing through the same process.

Within a few days the pain is gone. And when the pain is gone, you will have a subtle joy around your body.

You cannot have it right now because the pain is there. You may know it or you may not know it but the pain is there all over your body. You have simply become unconscious about it because it has always been with

you. Whatsoever is always there, you become unconscious about. Through meditation you will become conscious and then the mind will say, "Don’t do this; the whole body is aching." Do not listen to the mind. Simply go on doing it.

Within a certain period the pain will be thrown out. And when the pain is thrown out, when your body has again become receptive and there is no block, no poisons around it, you will always have a subtle feeling of joy wrapped around you. Whatsoever you are doing or not doing, you will always feel a subtle vibration of joy around your body.

Osho: The Supreme Doctrine,

Chapter 5

Anything else I should know about meditating?

Editorial Comment

Boredom, Bliss and the Blues

Once negativities have been allowed expression it is easier to watch when they do resurface from time to time. You’ve let off the pressure, so they won’t have as great a hold on you. Boredom is another feeling that commonly occurs. Just recognize it as a symptom of the mind and yet another passing mood to be watched, without becoming involved in it, without acting on it.

We’d all like to be able to be detached from our pain, our hurt, and our boredom, but not from the good times, the lovely

experiences. However, the secret to learning the art of detached observation is to start practicing with positive feelings. Once you’ve mastered that, it is easier not to be dragged down by the negative. Remember, all experiences are of the mind – and the way lies far beyond the confines of the tiny mind.

Not Pushing...

The old habits of the mind can make themselves felt even when you are meditating. For example, you might start competing with yourself – urging yourself to go beyond your limits, even if your body is in pain. [Of course the mind can also try and sabotage your intention to meditate by telling you that you have reached your limit before you’ve barely begun!]

…Yet Going For It

If there is a key word to guarantee success in your meditative practice it’s totality or wholeheartedness. So for example, when you are dancing in Osho Nataraj Meditation, really dance – not just going through the movements with your mind engaged in something completely different, such as what you are going to do later, or ruminating over a conversation you had yesterday. Be present, on every level of your being.

Follow the instructions of the method given, but then gauge for yourself, by tuning into your body and staying in contact with yourself, how much to exert yourself. There is a fine line

between totality and over- zealousness to the point of causing yourself physical harm. By and by your level of awareness and sensitivity will be heightened, and will act as reliable barometers. At the same time the habit of your interfering mind will begin to loosen its hold on you.

This is an Osho introduction to meditation as a way of life rather than a method only approach::

My only work is to give you a clear-cut idea how you can become more conscious; I call it meditation – working, walking, sitting.

I don’t believe in what others call meditation, that ten or twenty minutes you do it and then just be your ordinary self for twenty- four hours and again for twenty minutes meditate. This is stupid. It is like saying to a person that every day in the morning breathe for twenty minutes and then forget all about it, because you have to do many other things.

Then the next morning you can breathe twenty minutes again. To me, meditation is exactly like breathing. So whatsoever you are doing and wherever you are, do it more consciously.

For example, I can raise this hand without any consciousness, just unconsciously, out of habit. But you can raise your hand with full awareness, and you can see the difference between the two. The act is the same: one is mechanical, the other is full of consciousness, and the quality is tremendously different. Try it,

because it is a question of taste and experience. Walking, just try for a few minutes to walk consciously. Each step be alert, and you will be surprised that the quality of your walk is totally different; it is relaxed. There is no tension and there is a subtle joy that is arising out of your relaxed walking. The more you become aware of this joy, the more you would like to be awake.

Eating, eat with awareness. People are simply throwing food into their mouths, not even chewing it, just swallowing it.

People who are suffering from obesity, fatness, cannot resist eating more and more. No doctor is going to help them, unless they become aware while they are eating, if they become aware. A few things happen as a by-product of awareness. Their eating will be slowed down. They will start chewing, because unless you chew your food you are putting an unnecessary burden on your whole system.

Your stomach has no teeth. One has to chew each bite exactly forty-two times; then anything that you are eating becomes liquid.

A man of awareness only drinks, because before he swallows he has changed the solid food into liquid. And the strange thing is that when you chew forty-two times you enjoy the taste so much. One bite of an unconscious man gives forty-two times more taste to the conscious man. It is simple arithmetic: the unconscious man will have to eat forty-two bites

just to have the same taste, and then he becomes fat and is still unsatisfied. Still he feels to eat more. The man of awareness eats only as much as his body needs. He immediately feels that now there is no need; the hunger is gone, he is content…doing anything.

My meditation is a totally different kind of approach. It has to be spread all over your twenty-four hours. Even falling asleep, remain alert how sleep is descending on you, so slowly, so silently, but you can hear the steps. The darkness is growing, you are relaxing – you can feel the muscles, the body, the tense parts which are preventing sleep

– and soon you will see the whole body has relaxed and sleep has come. But slowly, slowly a great revolution happens. Sleep comes to you, but something deep inside you goes on remaining awake, even in sleep.

The situation is: you are asleep even when you think you are awake, and I am awake even when you think I’m asleep.

Unless a man becomes aware in his sleep he is not aware, not awake; that is the criterion.

There are so many by-products that you can judge by. Dreams disappear, because dreams need you to be completely unconscious; they come from the unconscious mind. But if you are conscious they cannot come.

Sigmund Freud would have been immensely enriched if he had come to a man like me who has no dreams. He would have been

puzzled also and he would have had to change his whole idea of psychoanalysis. But he only came across people who were asleep. He himself was asleep – he had no idea of any spiritual awakening; otherwise he would certainly have realized that there is a space when man is conscious, just conscious, and there are no dreams at all.

If dreams disappear in the night, the second thing will happen to you: thoughts will disappear in the daytime. That does not mean you will become incapable of thinking; that simply means you will not just go on thinking mechanically, unnecessarily. You will be capable of thinking if you want to think, otherwise you will be silent. And a man who can remain silent for hours is gathering energy so whenever he wants to think his thinking has some strength, some power, some tremendous energy.

Ordinary people’s thinking is just impotent, their thoughts are just vagrant…clouds floating in their mind.

A man of meditation will find that dreams disappear, and then sleep is incomparable beauty.

Then sleep becomes spiritual; to transform sleep into spirituality is religion. Then your whole day becomes a day of silence. You will talk but something deep down in you will remain a silent witness. So you will not say things which will unnecessarily create trouble for you and trouble for others. You will say only that which is absolutely needed. You will say only the truth; otherwise you will be

capable enough to say, "I do not know." You will not believe in anything. Either you will know it or you will not know it.

Belief is a deception: you don’t know, yet you pretend as if you know. All these people in temples, in churches, in synagogues, what are they doing? To whom are they praying? They don’t know God. Their priest does not know God. They don’t know that any prayer has ever been heard by anybody. They don’t know that any prayer has ever been answered by anybody. Still, they are praying to a god….

Religion is a very simple phenomenon. Theology has nothing to with religion. It makes things unnecessarily complex.

Religion is a simple awareness of whatever you are doing, wherever you are. And when this awareness surrounds you always like a luminous aura, you become aware for the first time of the universe – its beauties, its music, its eternal song. And to me, that is the religious experience. In religious experience you don’t encounter a god. There is nobody there, just this pure existence. But it is all alive – these flowers, these birds on the wing, these stars – everything is alive, but because you are asleep you cannot experience the aliveness that surrounds you.

And we are not islands. No man is an island. We are part of this whole living, infinite continent. Those flowers are part of us just as we are part of them. Those

faraway stars are within us as we are within the universe. That experience of unity, of at- onement, is liberation.

So my teaching is very simple: meditation is the key, becoming totally aware is the result. Experiencing oneness with the whole is the reward.

This is my trinity: meditation, awareness, oneness.

Osho: Last Testament, Vol 2,

Chapter 7

Is meditation a belief?

A belief simply means you don't know ― still you believe. My effort here is that you never believe unless you know. When you know, there is no question of believing, you know it. I destroy all belief systems and I do not give you any substitute. Hence, it is not easy to understand me.

Osho: The Last Testament, Vol.

1, Chapter 4

Beliefs are like colored glasses: they will make the whole existence of the same color as your glasses. It will not be the true color of existence; it will be imparted by your glasses. You have to put aside all your glasses. You have to contact reality directly, immediately.

There should be no idea between you and existence, no a priori conclusion.

A real seeker has to be in the state that Dionysus calls agnosia

― a state of- not-knowing. Socrates said at the very end of his life, "I know only one thing, that I know nothing." This is the state of a true seeker.

In the East we call this state meditation: no belief, no thought, no desire, no prejudice, no conditioning ― in fact, no mind at all. A state of no-mind is meditation. When you can look without any mind interfering, distorting, interpreting, then you see the truth. The truth is already all around; just you have to put your mind aside.

The seeker has to fulfill only one basic thing: he has to drop his mind. The moment the mind is dropped, a great silence arises ― because the mind carries your whole past; all the memories of the past go on hankering for your attention, they go on crowding upon you, they don't leave any space within you.

And the mind also means future. Out of the past you start fantasizing about the future. It is a projection out of the past. You have lived a certain life in the past: there have been a few moments of joy and many many dark nights. You would not like to have those dark nights; you would have your future to be full of those joyous moments. So you sort out from your past: you choose few things and you project them in the future, and you choose a few other things and you try to avoid them in the future. Your future is only nothing but a refined past ― a little bit modified here and there, but it is still the past because that's all that you know.

And one thing very significant to be remembered: those few moments of joy that you had in the past were basically part of those long dark nights, so if you choose those moments those dark nights will come automatically; you cannot avoid them. The silver linings in the dark clouds cannot be chosen separately from the dark clouds. In the dark night you see the sky full of stars; in the day those stars disappear. Do you think they evaporate? They are still there, but the context is missing. They need darkness; only then you can see them. In the night, you will be able to see them again. Darker the night, the more shining are the stars.

In life everything is intertwined with each other. Your pleasures are intertwined with your pains, your ecstasies mixed inevitably, inseparably with your agonies. So your whole idea of the future is sheer nonsense. You cannot manage it, nobody has ever been able to manage it, because you are trying to do something which cannot be done in the very nature of things. It will be simply a repetition of your past.

Whatsoever you desire is not going to make any difference. It will be again and again a repetition of your past, the same past, maybe a little bit different, but not because of your expectations ― a little bit different because life goes on changing, people go on changing, existence goes on changing. So there will be few differences but not basic differences, only in the non-essential parts. Essentially it will be the same tragedy. Dropping the mind means dropping the past, and with it of course the future disappears.

Dropping the mind means you are suddenly awakened into the present, and the present is the only reality there is. Past is non- existential, so is future. Past is no more, future is not yet, only the present is. It is always now

― only the now exists. And the meditator starts merging and melting with the now.

Osho: I Am That, Chapter 11

What is the wisdom of the heart?

Common sense carries fragments of knowledge. It knows that the people who are compassionate, people of heart, have a certain wisdom which is not knowledge, a certain insight, a certain intuitiveness which cannot be taught. They can see things, feel things. They are sensitive to things which are not available to the mind. So people start thinking that there are possibilities of the heart having wisdom.

But they don't know that the heart is your emptiness. And out of your emptiness a clarity, a transparency arises which can see things which you cannot intellectually infer. This is wisdom.

To make it complete, it has to be said, "the wisdom of the empty heart." The heart, as the physiologist knows it, is just a

blood-pumping system. Out of your heartbeats no wisdom can arise. Have you ever felt any wisdom arising from your heartbeats? Has any doctor ever heard some wisdom while checking your heartbeats through his stethoscope? This heart is not the one we mean when we are talking about the emptiness of the heart. Actually, we are talking about throwing away all the contents of the mind. Then, the no-mind itself becomes your heart. It is not a physiological thing. It is your no- mind ― no prejudice, no knowledge, no content. Just purity, simple silence, and the no-mind can be called the empty heart. It is only a question of expression. What you want to choose, you can choose: the wisdom of the empty heart, or the wisdom of no-mind ― they are equivalent.

When you are in deep meditation, you feel a great serenity, a joy that is unknown to you, a watchfulness that is a new guest. Soon this watchfulness will become the host. The day the watchfulness becomes the host, it remains twenty-four hours with you. And out of this watchfulness, whatever you do has a wisdom in it. Whatever you do shows a clarity, a purity, a spontaneity, a grace.

Osho: The Buddha: The

Emptiness of the Heart, Chapter

2

What is conditioning? And what has it do with meditation?

Religions have been conditioning you, politicians have been conditioning you: you are a conditioned mechanism. Only through meditation is there a possibility to uncondition the mind. Only a meditator goes beyond conditioning. Why?

Because every conditioning works through thoughts. If you feel you are a Hindu, what is it?

― a cluster of thoughts given to you when you were not even aware of what was being given to you. A cluster of thoughts and you are a Christian, a Catholic, a Protestant. Only in meditation thoughts dissolve ― all thoughts. You become thought-less. In that thought-less state of mind there is no conditioning: you are no longer a Hindu, nor a Christian, nor a Communist, nor a Fascist. You are no longer anybody ― you are simply yourself. For the first time all conditioning has been dropped. You are out of the prison.

Only meditation can uncondition you. No social revolution will help, because the revolutionaries will again condition you in their way. In 1917 Russia went through a revolution. Before it, it was one of the most orthodox Christian countries. The Russian Church was one of the most orthodox ― more orthodox than the Vatican ― but [hen, suddenly, Russians changed everything. Churches were closed ― they were converted into schools, Communist Party offices, hospitals ― religious

teaching was banned, and they started conditioning people for Communism. Within ten years everybody was an atheist. Just in ten years! By the year 1927 the whole of religion disappeared from Russia; they conditioned anew.

But to me it is the same: whether you condition a man as a Catholic, Christian. or you condition a man as a Communist, it makes no difference to me, because the whole question is of conditioning. You condition, you don't give him freedom ― what difference does it make whether you live in a Christian hell or a Hindu hell, or you live in a Christian slavery or a Hindu slavery? What difference does it make? There is no difference. If you live in a Hindu prison, hmm?...just the label. Then someday there comes revolution: they tear away the label; they put "Communist Prison." Then you are happy and rejoicing that you are free ― in the same prison! Only the words change.

First you were taught there is a God, he created the world; now you are taught there is no God and nobody has created the world; but both things are being taught to you.

And religion cannot be taught. All that can be taught will be politics. That's why I say religion itself has been the greatest politics in the past. And there is no possibility of any social revolution, because all revolutions will again condition you.

There is only one possibility: that

is individual flowering of no- mind. You attain to thoughtlessness. then nobody can condition you, then all conditionings drop. Then, for the first time, you are free. Then the whole space is yours: without any limitations, without any walls, in life you move, you live, you love, you rejoice, you delight.

Osho: Yoga: The Alpha and the

Omega, Vol. 5, #10

There has never been any consciousness which has not been programmed. In the very upbringing comes the programming. Even if the child is brought up not by you but by wolves in the wild, the wolves will program the child.

There have been cases... Just a few years ago a child twelve years old was found who had been brought up by the wolves in the forest in north India. He could not stand even on his two feet. He ran like a wolf; even the best runner could not manage to keep pace with him. He had been programmed by the wolves.

The problem is, you have to bring the child up, and somebody has to take care, and whoever is going to take care is going to, knowingly or unknowingly, condition the mind of the child. It is not a question that you have to program consciously. But how the child will learn the language... it is a program.

That's why every language is called the mother tongue,

because the child never finds the father speaking in the presence of the mother. Naturally he is conditioned by the mother.

There is no possibility of anybody being brought up unprogrammed.

And you are asking, "Are there any techniques to de-condition our brain?" There are techniques to de-condition, but that is re- programming. You can call it de- conditioning, but in fact, what are you doing? You are putting B in place of A. The only possibility is meditation; that's why meditation should not be called a technique. It is simply relaxing into your own inner world, alone

― without a guide, without scriptures ― and becoming so silent that not a single ripple of thought remains. That's the only way of canceling all programming.

Meditation is the only way ― not the technique ― in which you can find your self-nature, your Buddha-nature in its purity, in its virginity, untouched by anybody. But there are people who are trying to de-program; in fact they are simply re-programming.

Osho: Hari Om Tat Sat, Chapter

30

Is meditation just another program or conditioning?

Changing from one belief to another belief is changing the conditioning, but you remain conditioned. I am saying you have to remain without any belief system, and you yourself enquire

into reality ― and whatever you find is your own truth.

There is no need to believe in it because once you know it, the question of belief does not arise. You believe only in things which you do not know. When you know them, you know: belief is irrelevant.

So I am not giving you another set of beliefs, another set of values: I am giving you a certain technique so that you can destroy all conditioning. That technique itself is not a conditioning. It cannot be, because you are not required to believe in it; you are required to experience it, and unless your experience supports it, there is no need to give it any credibility.

Not that you have to believe in living totally because I am saying so. I am saying that I am living totally, and this is the only way that I have found to live. You can also try. I am not saying to believe in living in totality; there is no need of any belief. Either live or don't live. But if you decide to taste, to explore, you are going with a clean mind, with no belief, just to see what it is, and if it happens to be a joy, a rejoicing, a celebration, then it is up to you to continue it or to discontinue it.

All conditionings are based on belief. And my whole effort is that experience should be the only criterion, not belief. All beliefs are lies.

Even my truth is not your truth: Only your truth can be your truth. So there is no question of conditioning. But whoever has asked the question is simply thinking intellectually, not trying it. And logically he can convince himself: this is a new set of values, again it is a conditioning. So what are you going to do? ― whatever you will do will be a new set of values; if you don't do anything, that will be a new set of values, so you cannot get out of conditioning.

Your question is less a question than a statement. You are saying there is no way of getting out of conditioning, so why bother?

Remain with the old because the new will also be a conditioning. The old is at least well known, a well-trodden path ― our forefathers' inheritance, ancient truths. Millions have believed in it

― why change it? You are simply trying to find a shelter in logical jargon.

Look again at your question and you will be able to see that meditation is not a conditioning. It is unconditioning, because it is not going to give you any thought, any thinking, any ideology. It is simply cleaning everything and making you utterly empty. How can it be a conditioning?

Awareness cannot be conditioning. It is your own. You have brought it with your birth. Nobody can give it to you; you have simply to throw away all the rubbish that is clinging to it. My effort is to give you your own individuality. I don't want

anything to be added to you. You are born perfect; the society is keeping you imperfect. I want you just to be aware of your perfection, of your beauty, of your joy, of all the blessings that are possible to you which the society is hindering by conditioning your mind.

I am not giving you any conditioning. If it was possible to make people more aware by conditioning, things would have been very simple. If it was possible to make people blissful, just by conditioning, things would have been so simple. You have been made to believe in utter lies

― God, prophets, saviors, incarnations ― but nobody could condition you for blissfulness, for spontaneity, for totality, because these are qualities which you already have; they just have to be discovered.

Things that are conditioned are qualities that you don't have, but the society can manage by constant repetition to fill your mind with thoughts, and slowly slowly you start believing in them, because people are afraid of emptiness and these thoughts give you a feeling of fullness.

But the miracle is that if you are courageous enough to be empty, you will be filled with all your natural qualities, which are tremendously beautiful and have the ultimate character of being eternal. Once found, they are never lost.

Osho: The Path of the Mystic,

Chapter 37

I don’t understand what is meant by "mind" and "no- mind."

Your mind is constantly projecting ― projecting itself. Your mind is constantly interfering with reality, giving it a color, shape and form which is not its own. Your mind never allows you to see that which is; it allows you to see only that which it wants to see.

Just twenty years ago, scientists used to think that our eyes, ears, nose and our other senses, and the mind, were nothing but openings to reality, bridges to reality. But within twenty years

― the last twenty years ― the whole understanding has changed. Now they say our senses and the mind are not really openings to reality but guards against it. Only two percent of reality ever gets through these guards into you; ninety-eight percent of reality is kept outside. And the two percent that reaches you and your being is no longer the same; it has to pass through so many barriers, it has to conform to so many mind things, that by the time it reaches you it is no longer itself.

Meditation means putting the mind aside so that it no longer interferes with reality and you can see things as they are. Why does the mind interfere at all? ― because the mind is created by society. It is society's agent within you; it is not in your service, remember! It is your mind but it is not in your service; it is in a conspiracy against you.

It has been conditioned by society; society has implanted many things in it. It is your mind, but it no longer functions as a servant to you; it functions as a servant to society.

If you are a Christian then it functions as an agent of the Christian church, if you are a Hindu then your mind is Hindu, if you are a Buddhist your mind is Buddhist. And reality is neither Christian nor Hindu nor Buddhist; reality is simply as it is. And you have to put these minds aside: the communist mind, the fascist mind, the Catholic mind, the Protestant mind....

There are three thousand religions on the earth ― big religions and small religions and very small sects and sects within sects ― three thousand in all. So there exist three thousand minds, types of mind ― and reality is one, and God is one, and truth is one! Meditation means: put the mind aside and watch. The first step ― love yourself ― will help you tremendously. By loving yourself you will have destroyed much that society has implanted within you. You will have become freer from the society and its conditioning.

And the second step is: watch ― just watch. Buddha does not say what has to be watched ― everything! Walking, watch your walking. Eating, watch your eating. Taking a shower, watch the water, the cold water falling on you, the touch of the water, the coldness, the shiver that goes through your spine ― watch

everything, today, tomorrow, always.

A moment finally comes when you can watch even your sleep. That is the ultimate in watching. The body goes to sleep and there is still a watcher awake, silently watching the body fast asleep.

That is the ultimate in watching. Right now just the opposite is the case: your body is awake but you are asleep. Then you will be awake and your body will be asleep. The body needs rest but your consciousness needs no sleep. Your consciousness is consciousness; it is alertness, that is its very nature.

Osho: The Dhammapada: The

Way of the Buddha, Vol. 5,

Chapter 5

Are mind and consciousness two separate things or is the silent mind what is called consciousness?

It depends. It depends on your definition. But to me, mind is that part which has been given to you. It is not yours. Mind means the borrowed, mind means the cultivated, mind means that which the society has penetrated into you. It is not you.

Consciousness is your nature; mind is just the circumference created by the society around you, the culture, your education.

Mind means the conditioning. You can have a Hindu mind, but you cannot have a Hindu consciousness. You can have a Christian mind, but you can't have a Christian consciousness. Consciousness is one; it is not

divisible. Minds are many because societies are many; cultures, religions are many. Each culture, each society, creates a different mind. Mind is a social by-product. And unless this mind dissolves, you cannot go within; you cannot know what is really your nature, what is authentically your existence, your consciousness.

The effort to move into meditation is a struggle against the mind. Mind is never meditative, it is never silent, so to say 'a silent mind' is meaningless, absurd. It is just like saying 'a healthy disease'. It makes no sense. How can there be a disease that is healthy?

Disease is disease, and health is the absence of disease.

There is nothing like a silent mind. When silence is there, there is no mind. When mind is there, there is no silence. Mind, as such, is the disturbance, the disease. Meditation is the state of no-mind. Not of a silent mind, not of a healthy mind, not of a concentrated mind, no.

Meditation is the state of no- mind: no society within you, no conditioning within you. Just you, with your pure consciousness.

In Zen they say: Find out your original face. The face that you are using is not original; it is cultivated. It is not your face; it is just a facade, just a device.

You have many faces, each moment you change your face. You go on changing it. The changing has become so automatic by now that you don't even observe it, you don't notice

it.

When you meet your servant you have a different face from when you meet your boss. If your servant is sitting on your left side and your boss is sitting on your right, you have two faces. The left face is for the servant and the right face is for the boss. You are two persons simultaneously. How can you have the same face for your servant? Your one eye has a certain quality, a certain look. Your other eye has a different quality, a different look. It is meant for the boss and the other one is meant for the servant. This has become so automatic, so mechanical, so robot like that you go on changing your faces, you have multi-faces, and not a single one is the original.

In Zen they say: Find out your original face, the face you had before you were born, or the face you will have when you are dead. What is that original face? That original face is your consciousness. All your other faces come from your mind.

Remember well that you don't have one mind; you have multi- minds. Forget the concept that everyone has one mind. You don't have, you have many minds: a crowd, a multiplicity; you are poly-psychic. In the morning you have one mind, in the afternoon a different mind and in the evening still a different mind. Every single moment you have a different mind.

Mind is a flux: river like, flowing, changing. Consciousness is eternal, one. It is not different in the morning and different in the evening. It is not different when you are born and different when you die. It is one and the same, eternal. Mind is a flux. A child has a childish mind, an old man has an old mind; but a child or an old man have the same consciousness, which is neither childish nor old. It cannot be.

Mind moves in time and consciousness lives in timelessness. They are not one. But we are identified with the mind. We go on saying, insisting, "My mind. I think this way. This is my thought. This is my ideology." Because of this identification with the mind, you miss that which you really are.

Dissolve these links with the mind. Remember that your minds are not your own. They have been given to you by others: your parents, your society, your university. They have been given to you. Throw them away. Remain with the simple consciousness that you are ― pure consciousness, innocent. This is how one moves from the mind to meditation.

This is how one moves away from society, from the without to the within. This is how one moves from the man-made world, the maya, to the universal truth, the existence.

Osho: The New Alchemy: To

Turn You On, Chapter 10

Does the mind have to be thrown out?

Nothing has to be thrown out of your system; everything has to be transformed and absorbed. The mind is not ugly; your use of the mind is ugly. Change your use. Mind is not ugly ― you are unconscious. The chariot is beautiful, it is a golden chariot, but the charioteer is drunk and fast asleep; and he calls the chariot names, condemns the chariot. When he finds himself in a ditch he beats the horses, he condemns the chariot, he condemns the chariot-maker, and he never thinks that it is not the fault of the chariot, not the fault of the horses, not the fault of the chariot-maker. It is his fault ― he was drunk, he was fast asleep. If the chariot has fallen into a ditch it is natural, the whole responsibility is yours.

It is not a question of destroying the mind or throwing the mind out. Mind is a beautiful mechanism, the most beautiful mechanism in existence, but you have become a servant to the mind. You are the master and the master is functioning as a servant; the mind is a servant and you have made the servant the master.

I have heard an ancient story: A king was very happy with one of his servants. He was so devoted, so totally devoted to

the king; he was always ready to sacrifice his life for the king. The king was immensely happy, and many times he has saved the king, risking his own life. He was the king's bodyguard.

One day the king was feeling so happy with the man, he said, "If you desire anything, if you have any desire, just tell me and I will fulfill it. You have done so much for me that I can never show my gratitude, I can never repay you, but today I would like to fulfill any of your wishes whatsoever it is."

The servant said, "You have already given me too much. I am so blessed just by being always with you ― I don't need anything."

But the king insisted. The more the servant said, "There is no need," the more the king insisted. Finally the servant said, "Then it's okay. You make me the king for twenty-four hours and you be the guard."

The king was a little apprehensive, afraid, but he was a man of his word and he had to fulfill the desire. So for twenty- four hours he became the guard and the guard became the king. And do you know what the guard did? The first thing that he did, he ordered the king to be killed, sentenced to death!

The king said, "What are you doing?"

He said, "You keep quiet! You are simply the guard and nothing more. It is my wish and now I am the king!"

The king was killed, and the servant became the king forever. Servants have their own devious ways to become masters.

The mind is one of the most beautiful, the most complex, the most evolved mechanisms. It has served you well, it serves you well. Because of its services you have repeated the same story in your life, everybody has repeated the same story: you have made the mind the master and now the master treats you just like a servant. This is the problem, not that the mind has to be thrown out.

And that's what meditation is all about: the art of moving away from the mind, being above the mind, becoming transcendental to the mind, knowing that "I am not the mind." That does not mean that you have to throw out the mind. Knowing that "I am not the mind" makes you again the master. You can use the mind.

Right now, mind is not within your hands. You are not a good charioteer.

Osho: The Dhammapada: The

Way of the Buddha, Vol. 6,

Chapter 10

Mind has not to be rejected at all; if you reject it, it will remain. Rejection means repression.

Anything rejected never leaves you; it simply moves from the conscious to the unconscious, from the lighted part of your being to the dark layers where you cannot face it. You become oblivious of it, but it is there, more alive than ever. It is better to face the enemy than to keep the enemy at your back; that is far more dangerous.

And I have not told you to reject the mind. Mind is a beautiful mechanism, one of the miracles of existence. We have not been able yet to make anything comparable to human mind.

Even the most sophisticated computers are nothing compared to it. A single human mind can contain all the libraries of the world; its capacities are almost unbounded. But it is a machine, it is not you. To get identified with it is wrong, to make it your master is wrong, to be guided by it is wrong. But to be the master and the guide is perfectly right. The mind as a servant is of tremendous value, so don't reject it. To reject it will impoverish you, it will not enrich you.

I am not against the mind; I am in favor of transcending it. And if you reject you cannot transcend. Use it as a stepping-stone. It all depends on you: you can make it a hindrance if you start thinking that the mind has to be rejected, denied, destroyed; or you can make it a stepping-stone if you accept it, if you try to understand it. In the very effort of understanding it, transcendence happens. You go beyond it, you become a witness.

Osho: The Dhammapada: The

Way of the Buddha, Vol. 9,

Chapter 6

Isn’t the mind the source of our sanity?

The mind can try to be sane. But it will be very superficial sanity, just skin-deep, or perhaps not even that much; a little scratch

and the insane will come out. Real sanity consists only in going beyond the mind and entering into a state of meditation.

Thoughts can never become sane. Only a thoughtless silence brings you to the world of sanity.

And when silence deepens inside you and goes on opening doors upon doors of your heart till you have reached your very being, don't stop, because the mind is very old and your meditation will be a very new experience. The old has weight, the old can pull you back again and again. The new experience of meditation and intelligence has to be given time to grow roots, has to be given time to start influencing your actions and your behavior. You should not leave the effort to create your meditation, your silence, your peace and its depth till you are absolutely certain that your mind is under your control and you are not under the control of the mind. That is the criterion of a sane man: the mind is his servant. For the insane man, the mind is his master.

Osho: The Golden Future,

Chapter 34

What do we do with our thoughts?

Your thoughts have to understand one thing: that you are not interested in them. The moment you have made this point you have attained a tremendous victory. Just watch. Don't say anything to the thoughts. Don't judge. Don't condemn. Don't tell them to

move. Let them do whatsoever they are doing, any gymnastics let them do; you simply watch, enjoy. It is just a beautiful film. And you will be surprised: just watching, a moment comes when thoughts are not there, there is nothing to watch.

This is the door I have been calling nothingness, emptiness. From this door enters your real being, the master.

And that master is absolutely positive; in its hands everything turns into gold. If Albert Einstein had been a meditator, the same mind would have produced atomic energy not to destroy Hiroshima and Nagasaki but to help the whole of humanity to raise its standard of living.

Without meditation the mind is negative, it is bound to be in the service of death. With meditation the master is there, and the master is absolute positiveness. In its hands the same mind, the same energy, becomes creative, constructive, life affirmative.

So you cannot do anything directly with the mind. You will have to take a little roundabout way; first you have to bring the master in. The master is missing, and for centuries the servant has been thinking he is the master.

Just let the master come in, and the servant immediately understands. Just the presence of the master and the servant falls at the feet of the master and waits for any order, for anything the master wants to be done ― he is ready.

The mind is a tremendously powerful instrument. No computer is as powerful as man's mind ― cannot be, because it is made by man's mind. Nothing can be, because they are all made by man's mind. A single man's mind has such immense capacity: in a small skull, such a small brain can contain all the information contained in all the libraries of the earth, and that information is not a small amount.

Just one library, the British library, has so many books that if we put those books in a line side by side they will go three times around the earth. And a bigger library exists in Moscow, a similar library exists in Harvard; and there are similar libraries in all the big universities of the world. But a single human mind can contain all the information contained in all these libraries.

Scientists are agreed that we may not be able to make a computer comparable to the human mind which can be put in such a small space.

But the result of this immense gift to man has not been beneficial ― because the master is absent and the servant is running the show. The result is wars, violence, murders, rape.

Man is living in a nightmare, and the only way out is to bring the master in. It is there, you just have to get hold of it. And watchfulness is the key: just watch the mind. The moment there are no thoughts, immediately you will be able to see yourself ― not as mind, but as something beyond, something transcendental to mind.

And once you are attuned with the transcendental then the mind is in your hands. It can be immensely creative. It can make this very earth paradise. There is no need for any paradise to be searched for above in the clouds, just as there is no need to search for any hell ― because hell we have created already. We are living in it.

Osho: The Osho Upanishad,

Chapter 4

Is there a time to use the mind?

Against the society, use the mind. Mind is a perfect means to keep you independent, to keep you alert. It is a good fighter, but it is not a lover. So when there is need to fight, when there is need to stand up for your liberty, use the mind; heart will not be of any use. Heart knows no way to fight.

But the context is totally different, and I call that man conscious who can use his capacities in their right context and does not get mixed up. Eyes are for seeing ― you cannot hear from them. And ears are for hearing ― you cannot see from them. So use them whenever the need is there, and don't let them come in each other's way.

Mind is a beautiful instrument. It has to be sharpened, but remember its limitations. It should remain a servant to the heart. The moment it becomes the master, the heart simply

dies. In slavery, the heart cannot exist.

So there is no contradiction in what I have said ― just two different contexts. And your consciousness is different from both, so a conscious person can use his heart when needed, can use his mind when needed, can put both to silence when he wants to be absolutely in a state of nirvana, where neither the mind is needed nor the heart.

When he wants simply to be himself, both are not needed.

If you are the master of your instruments, there is no problem. If you have a flute and I ask you, "Can you stop playing on it for a few moments ― I want to talk to you," and you say, "I cannot do it; the flute won't stop," what will be thought about you? You are insane. The flute won't stop? So you are not playing the flute, the flute is playing you. When you want to stop the mind, just say, "Stop" ― it has to stop. If it moves even a little bit, that means something has to be done urgently. This is dangerous: the servant is trying to be the master. The servant should be the servant, and the master should be the master. And beyond both is your being which is neither servant nor master... which simply is. That "isness" is the goal of all meditations.

Osho: The Path of the

Mystic, Chapter 37

What is the meaning of "identification?"

All that I say is: to watch is right; not to watch is wrong. I make it absolutely simplified: Be watchful.

It is none of your business ― if greed is passing by, let it pass; if anger is passing by, let it pass.

Who are you to interfere? Why are you so much identified with your mind? Why do you start thinking, "I am greedy... I am angry"? There is only a thought of anger passing by. Let it pass; you just watch.

There is an ancient story.... A man who has gone out of his town comes back and finds that his house is on fire. It was one of the most beautiful houses in the town, and the man loved the house. Many people were ready to give double price for the house, but he had never agreed for any price, and now it is just burning before his eyes. And thousands of people have gathered, but nothing can be done.

The fire has spread so far that even if you try to put it out, nothing will be saved. So he becomes very sad. His son comes running, and whispers something in his ear: "Don't be worried. I sold it yesterday, and at a very good price ― three times.... The offer was so good I could not wait for you. Forgive me."

But the father said, "Good, if you have sold it for three times more than the original price of the house." Then the father is also a watcher, with other watchers.

Just a moment before he was not a watcher, he was identified. It is the same house, the same fire, everything is the same ― but now he is not concerned. He is enjoying it just as everybody else is enjoying.

Then the second son comes running, and he says to the father, "What are you doing? You are smiling ― and the house is on fire?"

The father said, "Don't you know, your brother has sold it."

He said, "He had talked about selling it, but nothing has been settled yet, and the man is not going to purchase it now." Again, everything changes. Tears which had disappeared, have come back to the father's eyes, his smile is no more there, his heart is beating fast. But the watcher is gone. He is again identified.

And then the third son comes, and he says, "That man is a man of his word. I have just come from him. He said, 'It doesn't matter whether the house is burned or not, it is mine. And I am going to pay the price that I have settled for. Neither you knew, nor I knew that the house would catch on fire.'" Again the father is a watcher. The identity is no more there. Actually nothing is changing; just the idea that "I am the owner, I am identified somehow with the house," makes the whole difference. The next moment he feels, "I am not identified.

Somebody else has purchased it, I have nothing to do with it; let the house burn."

This simple methodology of watching the mind, that you have nothing to do with it.... Most of its thoughts are not

yours but from your parents, your teachers, your friends, the books, the movies, the television, the newspapers. Just count how many thoughts are your own, and you will be surprised that not a single thought is your own. All are from other sources, all are borrowed― either dumped by others on you, or foolishly dumped by yourself upon yourself, but nothing is yours.

The mind is there, functioning like a computer; literally it is a bio-computer. You will not get identified with a computer. If the computer gets hot, you won't get hot. If the computer gets angry and starts giving signals in four letter words, you will not be worried. You will see what is wrong, where something is wrong. But you remain detached.

Just a small knack... I cannot even call it a method because that makes it heavy; I call it a knack. Just by doing it, one day suddenly you are able to do it. Many times you will fail; it's nothing to be worried about... no loss, it is natural. But just doing it, one day it happens.

Once it has happened, once you have even for a single moment become the watcher, you know now how to become the watcher― the watcher on the hills, far away. And the whole mind is there deep down in the dark valley, and you are not to do anything about it. The most strange thing about the mind is, if you become a watcher it starts disappearing. Just like the light disperses darkness, watchfulness disperses the mind, its thoughts, its whole paraphernalia.

So meditation is simply watchfulness, awareness. And that reveals ― it is nothing to do with inventing. It invents nothing; it simply discovers that which is there.

And what is there? You enter and you find infinite emptiness, so tremendously beautiful, so silent, so full of light, so fragrant, that you have entered into “the kingdom of God.” In my words, you have entered into godliness.

And once you have been in this space, you come out and you are a totally new person, a new man. Now you have your original face. All masks have disappeared. You will live in the same world, but not in the same way. You will be among the same people but not with the same attitude, and the same approach. You will live like a lotus in water: in the water, but absolutely untouched by water.

Osho: From Unconsciousness to

Consciousness, Chapter 20

What has meditation to do with wisdom?

Wisdom is a by-product of meditation. It does not come in any other way. It does not come through accumulating information. It comes only through the transformation that meditation brings to you. And meditation means a state of no- mind, a consciousness without content.

That's the goal of sannyas. We have to become more and more aware of thoughts, desires, imagination, memory, because this is the secret, that if you watch your mind, slowly slowly it evaporates ― just by watching. One day it happens that there is no mind; you are left absolutely alone, in solitude. There is nothing surrounding you, infinite nothingness.

You are fully aware, absolutely aware, but there is nothing to be aware of. You are pure light, but the light is not falling on any object; there is no object left.

That is meditation or a state of no-mind. And wisdom is a by- product of it.

Osho: Finger Pointing to the

Moon, Chapter 4 (Diary)

Are there any “ten commandments” for meditators?

Ten non-commandments: The first: freedom.

The second: uniqueness of

individuality. The third: love.

The fourth: meditation.

The fifth: non-seriousness.

The sixth: playfulness.

The seventh: creativity.

The eighth: sensitivity.

The ninth: gratefulness.

Tenth: a feeling of the mysterious.

These ten non-commandments constitute my basic attitude towards reality, towards man's freedom from all kinds of spiritual slavery.

Osho: Beyond Enlightenment,

Chapter 23

Sitting silently...

"Sitting silently,

doing nothing,

the spring comes

and the grass grows by itself."

Question: We are constantly drilled with the aphorism, "Don't just stand there – do something! Yet, Buddha would say, "Don't just do something – stand there!" The unconscious man reacts, while the wise man watches. But what about spontaneity? Is spontaneity compatible with watching?

Buddha certainly says: Don't just do something – stand there! But that is only the beginning of the pilgrimage, not the end. When you have learned how to stand, when you have learned how to be utterly silent, unmoving, undisturbed, when you know how to just sit...sitting silently, doing nothing, the spring comes and the grass grows by itself. But the grass grows, remember!

Action does not disappear: the grass grows by itself. The buddha does not become inactive; great action happens through him, although there is no doer anymore. The doer disappears, the doing continues. And when there is no doer, the doing is spontaneous; it cannot be otherwise. It is the doer that does not allow spontaneity.

The doer means the ego, the ego means the past.

When you act, you are always acting through the past, you are acting out of experience that you

have accumulated, you are acting out of the conclusions that you have arrived at in the past. How can you be spontaneous?

The past dominates, and because of the past you cannot even see the present. Your eyes are so full of the past, the smoke of the past is so much, that seeing is impossible. You cannot see! You are almost completely blind – blind because of the smoke, blind because of the past conclusions, blind because of knowledge.

The knowledgeable man is the most blind man in the world. Because he functions out of his knowledge, he does not see what the case is. He simply goes on functioning mechanically. He has learned something; it has become a ready-made mechanism in him...he acts out of it.

There is a famous story:

There were two temples in Japan, both enemies to each other, as temples have always been down the ages. The priests were so antagonistic that they had stopped even looking at each other. If they came across each other on the road, they would not look at each other. If they came across each other on the road they stopped talking; for centuries those two temples and their priests had not talked.

But both the priests had two small boys – to serve them, just for running errands. Both the priests were afraid that boys, after all, will be boys, and they might start becoming friends to

each other.

The one priest said to his boy, "Remember, the other temple is our enemy. Never talk to the boy of the other temple! They are dangerous people – avoid them as one avoids a disease, as one avoids the plague. Avoid them!"

The boy was always interested, because he used to get tired of listening to great sermons – he could not understand them.

Strange scriptures were read, he could not understand the language. Great, ultimate problems were discussed. There was nobody to play with, nobody even to talk with. And when he was told, "Don't talk to the boy of the other temple," great temptation arose in him.

That's how temptation arises. That day he could not avoid talking to the other boy. When he saw him on the road he asked him, "Where are you going?"The other boy was a little philosophical; listening to great philosophy he had become philosophical. He said, "Going?

There is nobody who comes and goes! It is happening – wherever the wind takes me...." He had heard the master say many times that that's how a buddha lives, like a dead leaf: wherever the wind takes it, it goes. So the boy said, "I am not! There is no doer. So how can I go? What nonsense are you talking? I am a dead leaf. Wherever the wind takes me...."

The other boy was struck dumb. He could not even answer. He could not find anything to say.

He was really embarrassed, ashamed, and felt also, "My master was right not to talk with these people – these are dangerous people! What kind of talk is this? I had asked a simple question: 'Where are you going?' In fact I already knew where he was going, because we were both going to purchase vegetables in the market. A simple answer would have done."

He went back, told his master, "I am sorry, excuse me. You had prohibited me, I didn't listen to you. In fact, because of your prohibition I was tempted. This is the first time I have talked to those dangerous people. I just asked a simple question. 'Where are you going?' and he started saying strange things: 'There is no going, no coming. Who comes? Who goes? I am utter emptiness,' he was saying, 'just a dead leaf in the wind. And wherever the wind takes me....'"

The master said, "I told you before! Now, tomorrow stand in the same place and when he comes ask him again, 'Where are you going?' And when he says these things, you simply say, 'That's true. Yes, you are a dead leaf, so am I. But when the wind is not blowing, where are you going? Then where can you go?' Just say that, and that will embarrass him – and he has to be embarrassed, he has to be defeated. We have been constantly quarreling, and those people have not been able to defeat us in any debate. So tomorrow it has to be done!"

Early the boy got up, prepared

his answer, repeated it many times before he went. Then he stood in the place where the boy used to cross the road, repeated again and again, prepared himself, and then he saw the boy coming. He said, "Okay, now!"

The boy came. He asked, "Where are you going?" And he was hoping that now the opportunity would come....

Again crestfallen, now really ashamed that he was simply stupid: "And this boy certainly knows some strange things – now he says, 'Wherever the legs take me....'"

He went back to the master. The master said, "I have told you not to talk with those people – they are dangerous! This is our centuries-long experience. But now something has to be done. So tomorrow you ask again, 'Where are you going?' and when he says, 'Wherever my legs take me,' tell him, 'If you had no legs, then...?' He has to be silenced one way or other!"

So the next day he asked again, "Where are you going?" and waited. And the boy said, "I am going to the market to fetch vegetables."

Man ordinarily functions out of the past, and life goes on changing.

Life has no obligation to fit with your conclusions. That's why life is very confusing – confusing to the knowledgeable person. He has all ready-made answers: The

Bhagavadgita, the Bible, the Vedas. He has everything crammed, he knows all the answers. But life never raises the same question again; hence the knowledgeable person always falls short.

Buddha certainly says: Know how to sit silently. That does not mean that he says: Go on sitting silently forever. He is not saying you have to become inactive; on the contrary, it is only out of silence that action arises. If you are not silent, if you don't know how to sit silently, or stand silently in deep meditation, whatsoever you go on doing is reaction, not action. You react.

Somebody insults you, pushes a button, and you react. You are angry, you jump on him – and you call it action? It is not action, mind you, it is reaction. He is the manipulator and you are the manipulated. He has pushed a button and you have functioned like a machine.

Just like you push a button and the light goes on, and you push the button and the light goes off

– that's what people are doing to you: they put you on, they put you off.

Somebody comes and praises you and puffs up your ego, and you feel so great; and then somebody comes and punctures you, and you are simply flat on the ground. You are not your own master: anybody can insult you and make you sad, angry, irritated, annoyed, violent, mad. And anybody can praise you and make you feel at the heights, can

make you feel that you are the greatest – that Alexander the Great was nothing compared to you.

And you act according to others' manipulations. This is not real action.

Buddha was passing through a village and the people came and they insulted him. And they used all the insulting words that they could use – all the four-letter words that they knew. Buddha stood there, listened silently, very attentively, and then said, "Thank you for coming to me, but I am in a hurry. I have to reach the next village, people will be waiting for me there. I cannot devote more time to you today, but tomorrow coming back I will have more time. You can gather again, and tomorrow if something is left which you wanted to say and have not been able to say, you can say it to me. But today, excuse me."

Those people could not believe their ears, their eyes: this man has remained utterly unaffected, undistracted. One of them asked, "Have you not heard us? We have been abusing you like anything, and you have not even answered!"

Buddha said, "If you wanted an answer then you have come too late. You should have come ten years ago, then I would have answered you. But for these ten years I have stopped being manipulated by others. I am no longer a slave, I am my own master. I act according to myself, not according to anybody

else. I act according to my inner need. You cannot force me to do anything. It's perfectly good:you wanted to abuse me, you abused me! Feel fulfilled. You have done your work perfectly well. But as far as I am concerned, I don't take your insults, and unless I take them, they are meaningless."

When somebody insults you, you have to become a receiver, you have to accept what he says; only then can you react. But if you don't accept, if you simply remain detached, if you keep the distance, if you remain cool, what can he do?

Buddha said, "Somebody can throw a burning torch into the river. It will remain alight till it reaches the river. The moment it falls into the river, all fire is gone

– the river cools it. I have become a river. You throw abuses at me. They are fire when you throw them, but the moment they reach me, in my coolness, their fire is lost. They no longer hurt. You throw thorns – falling in my silence they become flowers. I act out of my own intrinsic nature."

This is spontaneity. The man of awareness, understanding, acts. The man who is unaware, unconscious, mechanical, robotlike, reacts.

You ask me, "The unconscious man reacts while the wise man watches." It is not that he simply watches – watching is one aspect of his being. He does not act without watching. But don't misunderstand the Buddha.

The buddhas have always been misunderstood.

You are not the first to misunderstand. This whole country has been misunderstanding the Buddha; hence the whole country has become inactive. Thinking that all the great masters say: Sit silently, the country has become lazy, lousy; the country has lost energy, vitality, life. It has become utterly dull, unintelligent, because intelligence becomes sharpened only when you act.

And when you act moment to moment out of your awareness and watchfulness, great intelligence arises. You start shining, glowing, you become luminous. But it happens through two things: watching, and action out of that watching. If watching becomes inaction, you are committing suicide. Watching should lead you into action, a new kind of action; a new quality is brought to action.

You watch, you are utterly quiet and silent. You see what the situation is, and out of that seeing you respond. The man of awareness responds, he is responsible – literally! He is responsive, he does not react.

His action is born out of his awareness, not out of your manipulation; that is the difference. Hence, there is no question of there being any incompatibility between watching and spontaneity. Watching is the beginning of spontaneity; spontaneity is the fulfillment of

watching.

The real man of understanding acts – acts tremendously, acts totally, but he acts in the moment, out of his consciousness.

He is like a mirror. The ordinary man, the unconscious man, is not like a mirror, he is like a photoplate.

What is the difference between a mirror and a photographic plate? A photographic plate, once exposed, becomes useless. It receives the impression, becomes impressed by it – it carries the picture. But remember, the picture is not reality – the reality goes on growing.

You can go into the garden and you can take a picture of a rosebush. Tomorrow the picture will be the same, the day after tomorrow the picture will also be the same. Go again and see the rosebush: it is no longer the same. The roses have gone, or new roses have arrived. A thousand and one things have happened.

It is said that once a realist philosopher went to see the famous painter, Picasso. The philosopher believed in realism and he had come to criticize Picasso because Picasso's paintings are abstract, they are not realistic. They don't depict reality as it is. On the contrary, they are symbolic, have a totally different dimension – they are symbolistic.The realist said, "I don't like your paintings. A

painting should be real! If you paint my wife, then your painting should look like my wife." And he took out a picture of his wife and said, "Look at this picture! The painting should be like this."Picasso looked at the picture and said, "This is your wife?"He said, "Yes, this is my wife!" Picasso said, "I am surprised! She is very small and flat."

The picture cannot be the wife! Another story is told:

A beautiful woman came to

Picasso and said, "Just the other day I saw your self-portrait in a friend's home. It was so beautiful, I was so influenced, almost hypnotized, that I hugged the picture and kissed it."Picasso said, "Really! And then what did the picture do to you? Did the picture kiss you back?"The woman said, "Are you mad?! The picture did not kiss me back."Picasso said, "Then it was not me."

A picture is a dead thing. The camera, the photoplate, catches only a static phenomenon. And life is never static, it goes on changing. Your mind functions like a camera, it goes on collecting pictures – it is an album. And then out of those pictures you go on reacting.

Hence, you are never true to life, because whatsoever you do is wrong; whatsoever you do, I say, is wrong. It never fits.

A woman was showing the family album to her child, and they came across a picture of a beautiful man: long hair, beard,

very young, very alive.The boy asked, "Mummy, who is this man?"And the woman said, "Can't you recognize him? He is your daddy!"The boy looked puzzled and said, "If he is my daddy, then who is that bald man who lives with us?"

A picture is static. It remains as it is, it never changes. The unconscious mind functions like a camera, it functions like a photographic plate. The watchful mind, the meditative mind, functions like a mirror. It catches no impression; it remains utterly empty, always empty.

So whatsoever comes in front of the mirror, it is reflected. If you are standing before the mirror, it reflects you. If you are gone, don't say that the mirror betrays you. The mirror is simply a mirror. When you are gone, it no longer reflects you; it has no obligation to reflect you anymore. Now somebody else is facing it – it reflects somebody else. If nobody is there, it reflects nothing. It is always true to life.

The photographic plate is never true to life. Even if your photo is taken right now, by the time the photographer has taken it out of the camera, you are no longer the same! Much water has already gone down the Ganges. You have grown, changed, you have become older. Maybe only one minute has passed, but one minute can be a great thing – you may be dead! Just one minute before you were alive; after one minute, you may be dead. The picture will never die.

But in the mirror, if you are alive, you are alive; if you are dead, you are dead. Buddha says: Learn sitting silently – become a mirror. Silence makes a mirror out of your consciousness, and then you function moment to moment. You reflect life. You don't carry an album within your head. Then your eyes are clear and innocent, you have clarity, you have vision, and you are never untrue to life. This is authentic living.

Osho: The Dhammapada: The

Way of the Buddha, Vol 2,

Chapter 10

Is meditation for people who hope? Hope is not the right thing. Live in the present so deeply, so completely, that nothing is left. Then there will be no projection. You will move very smoothly into the tomorrow without carrying any load from today. And when there is no yesterday haunting you, then there is no tomorrow. When the past is not hanging around you, there is no future.

Hope is an illness, a disease of the mind. It is hope that is not allowing you to live. Hope is not the friend, remember; it is the foe. It is because of hope that you go on postponing. But you will remain the same tomorrow also, and tomorrow also you will hope for some future. And this way it can go on for eternity, and you can go on missing. Stop postponing. And who knows what the future is going to reveal to you? There is no way to know about it. It is an opening; all alternatives are open. What is

really going to happen, nobody can predict. People have tried.

That's why people go to astrologers, to I Ching , and to other sorts of things. I Ching goes on fascinating people, astrologers go on influencing people. Astrology still seems to be a great force. Why? ? because people are missing and they are hoping for the future. They want some clue to know what is going to happen so they can arrange it that way.

These things will persist, even if scientifically it is proved that it is all nonsense. They will persist because it is not a question of science, it is a question of human hope. Unless hope is dropped, I Ching cannot be dropped. Unless hope is dropped, astrology cannot be dropped. It will have great power over man's mind because hope is gripping you.

You would like to know little clues about the future so you can move more confidently, you can project more confidently, and you can postpone many more things. If you know something about tomorrow, I think you will not live today. You will say, "What is the need? Tomorrow we will live." Even without knowing anything about tomorrow you are doing that. And tomorrow never comes... and when it comes, it is always today. And you don't know how to live today.

So you are in a great trap. Drop that whole structure. Hope is the bondage of man.

Osho: The Beloved , Vol. 2,

Chapter 8

What are these different “paths,” like Yoga, Tantra, Devotion and so on

All the methods that lead man to realization are, essentially, awareness. Their non-essential components may be different.

I have spoken on yoga, on tantra, on Hassidism, on Tao, on Zen, on all possible methods that humanity has tried. I wanted you to be aware of all the ways through which man has been searching to reach the truth that liberates ― but each method is essentially awareness.

That's why now I am emphasizing only awareness.

So whatever you are doing, whatever method you are practicing, it makes no difference. Those are different names given by different people in different ages, but they were all practicing awareness.

In essence, it is only awareness that leads you to the ultimate goal.

There are not many paths. There are many names for one path, and that one path is awareness.

Osho: The Osho Upanishad,

Chapter 13

Is it good to start with a sitting meditation or an active meditation?

You can go into meditation just by sitting, but then be just sitting; do not do anything else. If you can be just sitting, it becomes meditation. Be

completely in the sitting; nonmovement should be your only movement. In fact, the word Zen comes from the word zazen, which means, just sitting, doing nothing. If you can just sit, doing nothing with your body and nothing with your mind, it becomes meditation; but it is difficult.

You can sit very easily when you are doing something else but the moment you are just sitting and doing nothing, it becomes a problem. Every fiber of the body begins to move inside; every vein, every muscle, begins to move. You will begin to feel a subtle trembling; you will be aware of many points in the body of which you have never been aware before. And the more you try to just sit, the more movement you will feel inside you. So sitting can be used only if you have done other things first.

You can just walk, that is easier. You can just dance, that is even easier. And after you have been doing other things that are easier, then you can sit. Sitting in a buddha posture is the last thing to do really; it should never be done in the beginning. Only after you have begun to feel identified totally with movement can you begin to feel totally identified with nonmovement.

So I never tell people to begin with just sitting. Begin from where beginning is easy, otherwise you will begin to feel many things unnecessarily ― things that are not there.

If you begin with sitting, you will feel much disturbance inside. The

more you try to just sit, the more disturbance will be felt; you will become aware only of your insane mind and nothing else. It will create depression, you will feel frustrated. You will not feel blissful; rather, you will begin to feel that you are insane. And sometimes you may really go insane.

If you make a sincere effort to "just sit," you may really go insane. Only because people do not really try sincerely does insanity not happen more often. With a sitting posture you begin to know so much madness inside you that if you are sincere and continue it, you may really go insane. It has happened before, so many times; so I never suggest anything that can create frustration, depression, sadness ― anything that will allow you to be too aware of your insanity.

You may not be ready to be aware of all the insanity that is inside you; you must be allowed to get to know certain things gradually. Knowledge is not always good; it must unfold itself slowly as your capacity to absorb it grows.

I begin with your insanity, not with a sitting posture; I allow your insanity. If you dance madly, the opposite happens within you. With a mad dance, you begin to be aware of a silent point within you; with sitting silently, you begin to be aware of madness. The opposite is always the point of awareness. With your dancing madly, chaotically, with crying, with chaotic breathing, I allow your madness. Then you begin to be aware of a subtle point, a deep point inside you that is silent and still, in contrast to the madness on the periphery. You will feel very blissful; at your center there is an inner silence. But if you are just sitting, then the inner one is the mad one; you are silent on the outside, but inside you are mad.

If you begin with something active ― something positive, alive, moving ― it will be better; then you will begin to feel an inner stillness growing. The more it grows, the more it will be possible for you to use a sitting posture or a lying posture ― the more silent meditation will be possible. But by then things will be different, totally different.

A meditation technique that begins with movement, action, helps you in other ways, also. It becomes a catharsis. When you are just sitting, you are frustrated; your mind wants to move and you are just sitting.

Every muscle turns, every nerve turns. You are trying to force something upon yourself that is not natural for you; then you have divided yourself into the one who is forcing and the one who is being forced. And really, the part that is being forced and suppressed is the more authentic part; it is a more major part of your mind than the part that is suppressing, and the major part is bound to win.

That which you are suppressing is really to be thrown, not suppressed. It has become an accumulation within you because you have been constantly

suppressing it. The whole upbringing, the civilization, the education, is suppressive. You have been suppressing much that could have been thrown very easily with a different education, with a more conscious education, with a more aware parenthood. With a better awareness of the inner mechanism of the mind, the culture could have allowed you to throw many things.

For example, when a child is angry we tell him, "Do not be angry." He begins to suppress anger. By and by, what was a momentary happening becomes permanent. Now he will not act angry, but he will remain angry. We have accumulated so much anger from what were just momentary things; no one can be angry continuously unless anger has been suppressed.

Anger is a momentary thing that comes and goes: if it is expressed, then you are no longer angry. So with me, I would allow the child to be angry more authentically. Be angry, but be deep in it; do not suppress it.

Of course, there will be problems. If we say, "Be angry," then you are going to be angry with someone. But a child can be molded; he can be given a pillow and told, "Be angry with the pillow. Be violent with the pillow." From the very beginning, a child can be brought up in a way in which the anger is just deviated. Some object can be given to him: he can go on throwing the object until his anger goes. Within minutes, within seconds, he will have dissipated his anger and there will be no accumulation of it.

You have accumulated anger, sex, violence, greed, everything! Now this accumulation is a madness within you. It is there, inside you. If you begin with any suppressive meditation ― for example, with just sitting ― you are suppressing all of this, you are not allowing it to be released. So I begin with a catharsis. First, let the suppressions be thrown into the air; and when you can throw your anger into the air, you have become mature.

If I cannot be loving alone, if I can be loving only with someone I love, then, really, I am not mature yet. Then I am depending on someone even to be loving; someone must be there, then I can be loving. Then that loving can only be a very superficial thing; it is not my nature. If I am alone in the room I am not loving at all, so the loving quality has not gone deep; it has not become a part of my being.

You become more and more mature when you are less and less dependent. If you can be angry alone, you are more mature. You do not need any object to be angry. So I make a catharsis in the beginning a must. You must throw everything into the sky, into the open space, without being conscious of any object.

Be angry without the person with whom you would like to be angry. Weep without finding any cause; laugh, just laugh, without

anything to laugh at. Then you can just throw the whole accumulated thing ― you can just throw it. And once you know the way, you are unburdened of the whole past.

Within moments you can be unburdened of the whole life ― of lives even. If you are ready to throw everything, if you can allow your madness to come out, within moments there is a deep cleansing. Now you are cleansed: fresh, innocent ― you are a child again. Now, in your innocence, sitting meditation can be done ― just sitting, or just lying or anything ― because now there is no mad one inside to disturb the sitting.

Cleansing must be the first thing ― a catharsis ― otherwise, with breathing exercises, with just sitting, with practicing asanas, yogic postures, you are just suppressing something. And a very strange thing happens: when you have allowed everything to be thrown out, sitting will just happen, asanas will just happen ― it will be spontaneous.

You may not have known anything about yoga asanas but you begin to do them. Now these postures are authentic, real.

They bring much transformation inside your body because now the body itself is doing them, you are not forcing them. For example, when someone has thrown many things out, he may begin to try to stand on his head. He may have never learned to do shirshasan, the headstand, but now his whole body is trying to

do it. This is a very inner thing now; it comes from his inner body wisdom, not from his mind's intellectual, cerebral information. If his body insists, "Go and stand on your head!" and he allows it, he will feel very refreshed, very changed by it.

You may do any posture, but I allow these postures only when they come by themselves.

Someone can sit down and be silent in siddhasan or in any other posture, but this siddhasan is something quite different; the quality differs. He is trying to be silent in sitting ― but this is a happening, there is no suppression, there is no effort; it is just how your body feels. Your total being feels to sit. In this sitting there is no divided mind, no suppression. This sitting becomes a flowering.

You must have seen statues of Buddha sitting on a flower, a lotus flower. The lotus is just symbolic; it is symbolic of what is happening inside Buddha. When "just sitting" happens from the inside, you feel just like the opening of a flower. Nothing is being suppressed from the outside; rather, there is a growth, an opening from the inside; something inside opens and flowers. You can imitate Buddha's posture, but you cannot imitate the flower. You can sit completely buddhalike ― even more buddhalike than Buddha ― but the inside flowering will not be there. It cannot be imitated.

You can use tricks. You can use breathing rhythms that can force you to be still, to suppress your mind. Breath can be used very suppressively because with every rhythm of breath a particular mood arises in your mind. Not that other moods disappear; they just go into hiding.

You can force anything on yourself. If you want to be angry, just breathe the rhythm that happens in anger. Actors do it, when they want to express anger they change their breathing rhythm; the breathing rhythm must become the same as when there is anger. By making the rhythm fast they begin to feel anger, the anger part of the mind comes up.

So breathing rhythm can be used to suppress the mind, to suppress anything in the mind.

But it is not good, it is not a flowering. The other way is better; when your mind changes and then, as a consequence, your breath changes; the change comes first from the mind.

So I use breathing rhythm as a sign. A person who remains at ease with himself constantly remains in the same breathing rhythm; it never changes because of the mind. It will change because of the body ― if you are running it will change ― but it never changes because of the mind.

So tantra has used many, many breathing rhythms as secret keys. They even allow sexual intercourse as a meditation, but they allow it only when your breathing rhythm remains constant in intercourse, otherwise not. If the mind is involved, then the breathing rhythm cannot remain the same, and if the breathing rhythm remains the same, the mind is not involved at all. If the mind is not involved even in such a deep biological thing as sexual intercourse, then the mind will not be involved in anything else.

But you can force. You can sit and force a particular rhythm on your body, you can create a fallacious buddhalike posture, but you will just be dead. You will become dull, stupid. It has happened to so many monks, so many sadhus; they just become stupid. Their eyes have no light of intelligence; their faces are just idiotic, with no inner light, no inner flame. Because they are so afraid of any inner movement, they have suppressed everything ― including intelligence. Intelligence is a movement, one of the most subtle movements, so if all inner movement is suppressed, intelligence will be affected.

Awareness is not a static thing. Awareness, too, is movement ― a dynamic flow. So if you start from the outside, if you force yourself to sit like a statue, you are killing much. First be concerned with catharsis, with cleaning out your mind, throwing everything out, so that you become empty and vacant ― just a passage for something from the beyond to enter. Then sitting becomes helpful, silence becomes helpful, but not before.

To me, silence in itself is not something worthwhile. You can create a silence that is a dead silence. Silence must be alive,

dynamic. If you "create" silence, you will become more stupid, more dull, more dead; but this is easier in a way, and so many people are doing it now. The whole culture is so suppressive that it is easier to suppress yourself still more. Then you do not have to take any risks, then you do not have to take a jump.

People come to me and say, "Tell us a meditation technique that we can practice silently." Why this fear? Everyone has a madhouse inside and still they say, "Tell us a technique that we can do silently." With a silent technique you can only become more and more mad ― silently ― and nothing else.

The doors of your madhouse must be opened! Don't be afraid of what others will say. A person who is concerned about what others think can never go inward. He will be too busy worrying about what others are saying, what they are thinking.

If you just sit silently, closing your eyes, everything will be okay; your wife or your husband will say that you have become a very good person. Everyone wants you to be dead; even mothers want their children to be dead ― obedient, silent. The whole society wants you to be dead. So-called good men are really dead men.

So don't be concerned with what others think, don't be concerned about the image that others may have of you. Begin with catharsis and then something good can flower within you. It will have a

different quality, a different beauty, altogether different; it will be authentic.

When silence comes to you, when it descends on you, it is not a false thing. You have not been cultivating it; it comes to you; it happens to you. You begin to feel it growing inside you just like a mother begins to feel a child growing. A deep silence is growing inside you; you become pregnant with it. Only then is there transformation; otherwise it is just self-deception. And one can deceive oneself for lives and lives ― the capacity to do so is infinite.

Osho: Meditation: The Art of

Ecstasy, Chapter 4

What is vipassana?

Vipassana is such a simple thing that even a small child can do it. In fact, the smallest child can do it better than you, because he is not yet filled with the garbage of the mind; he is still clean and innocent….

Vipassana can be done in three ways ― you can choose which one suits you the best. The first is: Awareness of your actions, your body, your mind, your heart. Walking, you should walk with awareness. Moving your hand, you should move with awareness, knowing perfectly that you are moving the hand. You can move it without any consciousness, like a mechanical thing. You are on a morning walk; you can go on walking without being aware of your feet. Be alert of the movements of

your body. While eating, be alert of the movements that are needed for eating. Taking a shower, be alert of the coolness that is coming to you, the water falling on you and the tremendous joy of it.... Just be alert. It should not go on happening in an unconscious state.

And the same about your mind: whatever thought passes on the screen of your mind, just be a watcher. Whatever emotion passes on the screen of your heart, just remain a witness ― don't get involved, don't get identified, don't evaluate what is good, what is bad; that is not part of your meditation. Your meditation has to be choiceless awareness.

You will be able one day even to see very subtle moods: how sadness settles in you just like the night is slowly, slowly settling around the world, how suddenly a small thing makes you joyous.

Just be a witness. Don't think, "I am sad." Just know, "There is sadness around me, there is joy around me. I am confronting a certain emotion or a certain mood." But you are always far away: a watcher on the hills, and everything else is going on in the valley. This is one of the ways vipassana can be done.

And for a woman, my feeling is that it is the easiest, because a woman is more alert of her body than a man. It is just her nature. She is more conscious of how she looks, she is more conscious of how she moves, she is more

conscious of how she sits; she is always conscious of being graceful. And it is not only a conditioning; it is something natural and biological.

Mothers who have experienced having at least two or three children, start feeling after a certain time whether they are carrying a boy or girl in their womb. The boy starts playing football; he starts kicking here and there, he starts making himself felt ― he announces that he is here. The girl remains silent and relaxed; she does not play football, she does not kick, she does not announce. She remains as quiet as possible, as relaxed as possible.

So it is not a question of conditioning, because even in the womb you can see the difference between the boy and the girl.

The boy is hectic; he cannot sit in one place. He is all over the place. He wants to do everything, he wants to know everything.

The girl behaves in a totally different way….

The second form is breathing, becoming aware of breathing. As the breath goes in, your belly starts rising up, and as the breath goes out, your belly starts settling down again. So the second method is to be aware of the belly, its rising and falling.

Just the very awareness of the belly rising and falling ... And the belly is very close to the life sources because the child is joined with the mother's life through the navel. Behind the navel is his life's source. So when the belly rises up, it is really the life energy, the spring of life that

is rising up and falling down with each breath. That too is not difficult, and perhaps may be even easier, because it is a single technique.

In the first, you have to be aware of the body, you have to be aware of the mind, you have to be aware of your emotions, moods. So it has three steps.

The second sort has a single step: just the belly, moving up and down. And the result is the same. As you become more aware of the belly, the mind becomes silent, the heart becomes silent, the moods disappear.

And the third is to be aware of the breath at the entrance, when the breath goes in through your nostrils. Feel it at that extreme

― the other polarity from the belly ― feel it from the nose. The breath going in gives a certain coolness to your nostrils. Then the breath going out ... breath going in, breath going out....

That too is possible. It is easier for men than for women. The woman is more aware of the belly. Most men don't even breathe as deep as the belly.

Their chest rises up and falls down, because a wrong kind of athletics prevails over the world. Certainly it gives a more beautiful form to the body if your chest is high and your belly is almost non-existent.

Man has chosen to breathe only up to the chest, so the chest becomes bigger and bigger and the belly shrinks down. That appears to him to be more athletic. Around the world,

except in Japan, all athletes and teachers of athletes emphasize breathing by filling your lungs, expanding your chest, and pulling the belly in. The ideal is the lion whose chest is big and whose belly is very small. So be like a lion; that has become the rule of athletic gymnasts and the people who have been working with the body.

Japan is the only exception, where they don't care that the chest should be broad and the belly should be pulled in. It needs a certain discipline to pull the belly in; it is not natural.

Japan has chosen the natural way; hence you will be surprised to see a Japanese statue of Buddha. That is the way you can immediately discriminate whether the statue is Indian or Japanese. The Indian statues of Gautam Buddha have a very athletic body: the belly is very small and the chest is very broad. But the Japanese Buddha is totally different; his chest is almost silent, because he breathes from the belly, but his belly is bigger. It doesn't look very good because the idea prevalent in the world is the other way round, and it is so old. But breathing from the belly is more natural, more relaxed.

In the night it happens when you sleep: you don't breathe from the chest, you breathe from the belly. That's why the night is such a relaxed experience. After your sleep, in the morning you feel so fresh, so young, because the whole night you were breathing naturally...you were in Japan!

These are the two points: if you are afraid that breathing from the belly and being attentive to its rising and falling will destroy your athletic form...men may be more interested in that athletic form. Then for them it is easier to watch near the nostrils where the breath enters. Watch, and when the breath goes out, watch.

These are the three forms. Any one will do. And if you want to do two forms together, you can do two forms together; then the effort will become more intense. If you want to do all three forms together, you can do all three forms together. Then the process will be quicker. But it all depends on you, whatever feels easy.

Remember: easy is right.

As meditation becomes settled, mind silent, the ego will disappear. You will be there, but there will be no feeling of "I." Then the doors are open. Just wait with a loving longing, with a welcome in the heart for that great moment, the greatest moment in anybody's life ― enlightenment.

It comes ... it certainly comes. It has never delayed for a single moment. Once you are in the right tuning, it suddenly explodes in you, transforms you. The old man is dead and the new man has arrived.

Big Chief Sitting Bull had been constipated for many moons. So he sent his favorite squaw to the medicine man for help. The medicine man gave the squaw three pills and told her to give

them to the chief, and then report back to him the next morning.

The next morning the squaw came back with the message, "Big chief no shit." So the medicine man told her to double the dose.

The next day, she came back with the message, "Big Chief no shit." So again he told her to double the dose.

Again she came back with the same message. This went on for a week, and finally the medicine man told the squaw to give Sitting Bull the whole box.

The next morning, she came back with a very sad expression. "What is wrong, my child?" asked the medicine man. The little squaw looked at him with tears in her eyes and said, "Big Shit, no chief!"

One day it will happen to you, and that will be a great moment. That's what I am calling the right moment.

Osho: The New Dawn , Chapter

16

Meditation or therapy ― sex, love, and death?

Working with people, three fears continuously come up in them. It is the fear of going crazy, the fear of letting go in sexual orgasm, and the fear of dying. Can you please comment on this?

It is really very significant an existential question. In these three fears humanity has lived for thousands of years. They are not personal, they are collective.

They come from the collective unconscious.

The fear of going crazy is in everyone, for the simple reason, because their intelligence has not been allowed to develop.

Intelligence is dangerous to the vested interest. So for thousands of years they have been cutting the very roots of intelligence.

In Japan they have a certain tree, which is thought to be a great art, but it is simply murder. The trees are four hundred, five hundred years old and six inches high. Generations of gardeners have taken care of them. The technique is the trees are put in a pot without any bottom. So they go on cutting their roots.

They don't allow their roots to go into the earth. And when you don't allow the roots to go deeper, the tree simply grows old, it never grows up. It is a strange phenomenon to see that tree. It looks ancient, but it has only grown old, old, old, but it has never grown up. It has never blossomed, it has never given any fruits.

And that is exactly the situation of man. His roots are cut. Man lives almost uprooted. He has to be made uprooted, so that he can become dependent on the society, on the culture, on the religion, on the state, on the parents, on everybody. He has to depend. He himself has no roots. The moment he becomes aware that he has no roots, he feels he is going crazy, he is going insane. He is losing every support, he is falling into a dark ditch... because the knowledge is

borrowed, it is not his own. The respectability is borrowed. He himself has no respect for his own being. His whole personality is borrowed from some source ― the university, the church, the state. He himself has nothing of his own.

Just think of a man who lives in a grand palace with everything conceivable for his luxuries. And one day suddenly you make him aware that the palace does not belong to him, neither this luxuries belong to him. They belong to somebody else who is coming and you will be thrown out. He will go crazy.

So in deep therapy you will come across this point and the person has to face it and allow it. Go crazy. Allow in the therapy the situation that the person can go crazy. Ones he goes crazy, he will drop the fear. Now he knows what craziness is. The fear is always of the unknown. Let him go crazy and he will soon calm down, because there is no real base to his fear. It is a fear projected by the society.

The parents say if you don't follow us, if you disobey, you will be condemned. The Jewish God says in Talmud "I am a very jealous God, very angry God.

Remember that I am not nice, I am not your uncle." And all the religions have been doing it.

So just go off the way, which is followed by, the mob and they will declare you crazy. So everybody goes on clinging to the crowd, remaining part of a religion, a church, a party, a

nation, a race. He's afraid to be alone, and that's what you are doing when you bring him to his own depths. All that crowd, all those connections, disappear.

He's left alone and there is nobody else on whom he has always depended.

He has not of his own intelligence ― that is the problem. Unless he starts growing his own intelligence, he will always remain afraid of being crazy. Not only that, the society can make him crazy any moment. If the society wants to make him crazy, if that is in their favor, they will make him crazy.

In Soviet Union it happens almost everyday. I am taking the example of Soviet Union because they do it more scientifically, methodologically. It happens everywhere all over the world, but their methods are very primitive. For example, in India if a person behaves in a way, which is not approved, he is made an outcast. He cannot get any support from anyone in the town. People will not even speak to him. His own family will close the doors upon his face. The man is bound to go crazy. You are driving him crazy.

But in Soviet Russia they do it more methodologically and they have done it to such people who were Nobel prize winners, who had intelligence, but an intelligence, which was always under control, under the obedience of the state. And just a single disobedience... because they got the Nobel prize, and Russian government did not want

them to have it, because it comes from a capitalist world, and to the government of Russia it seems like a bribery. This is how they purchase people, and these are the people who have all the secrets of science. They don't want to be world known, they don't want to be in contact with other scientists, they don't allow them to accept Nobel prize. But if the person insists, then the result is he is put into a hospital.

He goes on saying that, "I am perfectly healthy; why I am being put in the hospital?" They say, "Because the doctors feel you are going to be sick. The early symptoms are there, you may not be aware." And they go on injecting the person, he knows nothing of, and within fifteen days he is mad. They have made him through their chemicals mad. And when he is perfectly mad, then they produce him in the court that this man is insane, that he should be removed from his job, and that he should be sent into a mental asylum. And then nobody ever hears what happened to those people.

This is doing it scientifically. But every society has been doing it, and the fear has entered into to very deep realms of unconsciousness. And the work of therapy is to make the person free of that fear. If he is free of that fear, he is free of society, free of culture, free of religion, free of God, heaven, hell, and all nonsense. All that nonsense is significant because of this fear, and to make that nonsense significant the fear has been

created. It is the ugliest crime one can think of. It is being done to every child around the world every moment, and the people who are doing have no bad intentions. They think they are doing something for the best of the child. They have been conditioned by their parents.

They are transferring the same conditioning to their children. But basically the whole humanity stands on the verge of madness. In deep therapy the fear grips suddenly, because the person is losing all the props, supports; the crowd is disappearing farther and farther away; he is being left alone. And suddenly there is darkness and there is fear. He has never been trained, disciplined for being alone and that is the function of meditation. No therapy is complete without meditation, because only meditation can give him his lost roots, his strength of being an individual. There is nothing to fear. But the conditioning is that you have to be afraid on each moment, each step.

The whole humanity lives in a paranoia. This humanity could have lived in paradise; it is living in hell. So help the person to understand that this is nothing to be worried, there is nothing to be afraid. It is a created fear. Every child is born fearless. He can play with the snakes with no fear. He has no idea of fear or death or anything. Meditation brings the person back to his childhood. He is reborn.

So help the person to understand why the fear is. Make it clear that it is a phony phenomenon, imposed upon him. So there is no need to be worried: in this situation you can go crazy. Don't be afraid. Enjoy for the first time you have got a situation in which you can be crazy and yet not condemned, loved, respected.

And the group has to respect the person, love the person ― he needs it, and he will cool down. And he will come out of the fear with a great freedom, with great stamina, strength, integrity.

The second fear is of sexual orgasm. That too is created by religions. All religions are existing because they have turned man against his own energies. Sex is man's whole energy, his life energy, and religious prophets and messiahs, messengers of God, they all are doing the same work in different words, different languages, but their work is the same... to make man an enemy of himself.

And the basic strategy is ― because sex is the most powerful energy in you ― sex should be condemned, a guilt should be created. Then arises a problem for the individual. His nature is sensuous, sexual, and his mind is full of garbage against it. He is in a split. Neither he can drop the mind, because dropping the mind means dropping the society, the religion, the prophet, Jesus Christ, and God, everything. He's not capable to do that unless he has become an individual and is able to be alone without any fear.

So man is afraid of sex as far as his mind is concerned, but his biology has nothing to do with the mind. The biology has not received any information from the mind. There is no communication. The biology has its own way of functioning, so the biology will draw him towards sex and his mind will be standing there continuously condemning him. So he makes love, but in a hurry. That hurry has a very psychological reason. The hurry is he is doing something wrong.

He is doing something against God, against religion. He is feeling guilty and he cannot manage not to do it, so the only compromise is: do it, but be quick. That avoids the orgasm.

Now there are implications upon implications. A man who has not known orgasm feels unfulfilled, frustrated, angry, because he had never been in a state which nature provides freely, where he could have relaxed totally and become one with the existence, at least for few moments.

Because of his hurry he cannot manage the orgasm. Sex has become equivalent to ejaculation. That is not true as far as nature is concerned.

Ejaculation is only a part, which you can manage without orgasm. You can reproduce children, so biology is not worried about your orgasm. Your biology is satisfied if you reproduce children, and they can be reproduced only by ejaculation, there is no need for orgasm.

Orgasm is a tremendous gift of nature. Man is deprived and because he is so quick in making love that the woman is deprived.

The woman needs time to warm up. Her whole body is erotic, and unless her whole body is throbbing with joy, she will not be able to experience orgasm. For that there is no time.

So for millions of years women have been completely denied their birthright. That's why they have become so bitchy, so continuously nagging, always ready to fight. There is no possibility of having a conversation with a woman. You are living with a woman for years, but there is not a single conversation that you can recall when you both were sitting together talking about great things of life. No. All that you will remember will be fighting, throwing things, being nasty, but the woman is not responsible for it. She's being deprived of her whole possibility of blissfulness. Then she becomes negative. And this has given chance to the priests. All the churches and the temples are filled up with women because they are the losers, more than men. Because the more man's orgasm is local; his whole body is not erotic. So his whole body does not suffer any damage if there is no orgasmic experience, but the woman's whole body suffers.

But it is good business for religions. Unless people are psychologically suffering, they will not come to the churches. They will not listen to all kinds of idiotic theologies. And because they are suffering, they want some consolation, they want some hope, at least after death. In life they know there is no

hope; it is finished. And this gives a chance to religions to show to men and women both that sex is absolutely futile. It has no meaning, no significance. You are unnecessarily losing your energy, wasting your energy, and their argument seems to be correct because you have never experienced anything.

So by preventing the orgasmic experience religions have made men and women slaves. Now the same slavery functions for other vested interests. The latest priest is the psychoanalyst. Now he's exploiting the same thing. And I was amazed to know that almost all new priests, particularly Christians, study psychology in their theological colleges.

Psychology, psychoanalysis have become their necessary part of education. Now what psychology has to do with Bible? What psychoanalysis has to do with Jesus Christ? They are being trained in psychology and psychoanalysis, because it is clear that the old priest is disappearing, losing his grip over people. The priest has to be made up-to-date, so he can function not only as a religious priest, but also as a psychoanalyst, psychologist.

Naturally the psychologist cannot compete with him. He has something more: religion.

But this whole thing has happened through a simple device of condemning sex. So when in your groups you find people fearing of orgasm, help them to understand that orgasm is going to make you more sane, more intelligent, less angry, less

violent, more loving. Orgasm is going to give you your roots, which have been taken away from you. So don't be worried. And mixed will be the fear in orgasm that one may go crazy. If in orgasm one goes crazy, help him to go crazy. Only then he will be able to have it in its totality. But the orgasm relaxes every fiber of your mind, your heart, your body.

It is immensely important for meditation that a person has the experience of orgasm. Then you can make him understand what meditation is. It is an orgasmic experience with the whole existence. If the orgasm can be so beautiful and so beneficial, so healthy with a single human being, meditation is getting into oneness with the whole that surrounds you, from the smallest blade of grass to the biggest star, millions of years away.

This... once he experiences.... The question is always the first experience. Once he knows it, that that craziness was not craziness, but a kind of explosion of joy, and that cools down and leaves him behind, healthier, more whole, more intelligent, then the fear of orgasm is disappeared. And with it he is finished with the religion, with the psychoanalysis and all kinds of nonsense for which he is paying so tremendously. And the third fear you say is of death.

The first is of being alone. Much of the fear of death will be destroyed by the first experience of being alone and having no fear. The remaining much of the fear of death will be immediately

destroyed by the experience of orgasm, because in the orgasm the person disappears. The ego is no more. There is an experiencing, but the experiencer is no more.

These first two steps will help to solve the third step very easily. And with each step you have to go on deepening his meditativeness. Any therapy without meditation cannot help much. It is just super fear, touching here and there, and soon the man will be same again. A real transformation has never happened without meditation, and these are beautiful situations as far as meditation is concerned.

So use the first to make him alone. Use the second to give him courage and tell him to drop all thoughts, just go crazily orgasmic. Don't bother what happens. We are here to take care of you. With these two steps the third will be very easy. That is the easiest. It looks the biggest fear of man. It is not true. You don't know death; how can you be afraid of it? You have always seen other people dying. You have never seen yourself dying. Who knows, you are maybe the exception, because there is no proof that you are going to die. Those who have died have given proof that they were mortals.

When I was in the university and learning logic from my professor, in every logic book, in every university around the world, the same Aristotelian syllogism is being taught. Man is mortal.

Socrates is a man. Therefore Socrates is mortal. And when I was taught that syllogism for the first time, I stood up and I said, "Wait. I may be the exception.

Up to now I have been the exception. Why not tomorrow? About Socrates I accept the syllogism is true because he is dead, but what about me? What about you? What about all these people who are living? They have not died yet."

Experiencing death ― people dying in disgust, in misery, in suffering, in all kinds of pain, old age ― that gives you the fear of death. Because nobody has known the death of an enlightened man, how beautifully he dies, how joyously he dies.

The moment of his death is of tremendous luminosity, silence, as if joy is radiating from every pore of his being. Those who are near him, those who have been fortunate to be near him, will be simply surprised that death is far more glorious than life has ever been.

But this kind of death happens only to people who have lived totally, without fear, who have lived orgasmically, without bothering about idiots what they are saying. They know nothing about it, and they go on saying about it.

The fear of death will be the simplest out of the three. You have to solve the first two, and then you tell the person that death is not the end of life. If you meditate deeply and reach to your innermost center you will suddenly find an eternal life

current. The bodies... there have been many. There have been many forms to your being, but you are just the same. But it has to be not just a belief ― it has to be made their experience.

So remember one thing: your therapy groups should not be ordinary therapy ― just somehow whitewashing and giving a man a feeling that he has learned something, he has experienced something and after a week or two he is the same.

There is not a single person in the whole world who is totally psychoanalyzed. And there are thousands of psychoanalysts doing psychoanalysis, and not a single case they have been able to complete yet, for the simple reason because they have nothing to do with meditation. And without meditation you can go on painting on the surface, but the inner reality remains the same.

My therapists have to introduce meditation as the very center of therapy, and everything else should revolve around it. Then we have made therapy something really valuable. Then it is not only the need those who are sick or of those who are somehow mentally unbalanced, or of those who feel fears, jealousies, violence. This is a negative part of therapy.

Our therapies should be that we give the person his individuality back. We give him his childhood and innocence back. That we give him integrity, crystallization, so that he never fears death. And once the fear of death disappears all other fears are very small, they will follow it, they will simply disappear.

And we have to teach people how to live totally and wholly, against the teachings of all the religions. They teach renounce. I teach rejoice.

Osho: The Last Testament, Vol.

2, Chapter 16 (Available on

audiotape only)

What is meant by “the head?” And what is “the way of the heart?”

The first thing to be understood is that there is no way, either of head or of heart. Every way leads you away, away from the truth that you are.

It would have been so easy if there were a truth somewhere. Howsoever difficult the way, people would have reached. The more difficult, the more far away the truth was, the more challenging to the ego. If man's ego challenges him to reach the highest peak in the Himalayas, Everest, where nothing is to be found; if man's ego gives him incentive to waste billions of dollars to reach the moon, risking lives.... But man has reached the moon. And the first man who walked on the moon must have looked silly to himself― there was nothing for which so much endeavor, technology, preparation was needed. Remember, the ego wants challenges. It lives through challenge. Why have so few people been able to have a glimpse of the truth? ― because it is not a challenge; it is not there, it is here within you. It does not need any way, you are already it.

But the question has one other implication too: Will it ever be possible for the head and heart to be married, or are they going to remain forever divorced? It all depends on you, because both are mechanisms. You are neither the head nor the heart. You can move through the head, you can move through the heart. Of course you will reach different places because the directions of the head and the heart are diametrically opposite.

The head will go round and round thinking, brooding, philosophizing; it knows only words, logic, argument. But it is very infertile; you cannot get anything out of the head as far as truth is concerned, because truth needs no logic, no argument, no philosophical research. Truth is so simple; the head makes it so complex. Down the centuries philosophers have been seeking and searching for the truth through the head. None of them has found anything, but they have created great systems of thought. I have looked into all those systems: there is no conclusion.

The heart is also a mechanism ― different from the head. You can call the head the logical instrument; you can call the heart the emotional instrument. Out of the head all the philosophies, all the theologies are created; out of the heart,

come all kinds of devotion, prayer, sentimentality. But the heart also goes round and round in emotions.

The word "emotion" is good. Watch...it consists of motion, movement. So the heart moves, but the heart is blind. It moves fast, quick, because there is no reason to wait. It does not have to think, so it jumps into anything. But truth is not to be found by any emotionality.

Emotion is as much a barrier as logic. The logic is the male in you, and the heart is the female in you. But truth has nothing to do with male and female. Truth is your consciousness. You can watch the head thinking, you can watch the heart throbbing with emotion. They can be in a certain relationship....

Ordinarily, the society has arranged that the head should be the master and the heart should be the servant, because society is the creation of man's mind, psychology, and the heart is feminine. Just as man has kept the woman a slave, the head has kept the heart a slave.

We can reverse the situation: the heart can become the master, the head can become the servant. If we have to choose between the two, if we are forced to choose between the two, then it is better that the heart becomes the master and the head becomes the servant.

There are things which the heart is incapable of. Exactly the same is true about the head. The head cannot love, it cannot feel, it is insensitive. The heart cannot be rational, reasonable. For the whole past they have been in conflict. That conflict only represents the conflict and struggle between men and women.

If you are talking to your wife, you must know it is impossible to talk, it is impossible to argue, it is impossible to come to a fair decision, because the woman functions through the heart. She jumps from one thing to another without bothering whether there is any relationship between the two. She cannot argue, but she can cry. She cannot be rational, but she can scream. She cannot be cooperative in coming to a conclusion. The heart cannot understand the language of the head.

The difference is not much as far as physiology is concerned, the heart and the head are just a few inches apart from each other.

But as far as their existential qualities are concerned, they are poles apart.

My way has been described as that of the heart, but it is not true. The heart will give you all kinds of imaginings, hallucinations, illusions, sweet dreams ― but it cannot give you the truth. The truth is behind both; it is in your consciousness, which is neither head nor heart. Just because the consciousness is separate from both, it can use both in harmony. The head is dangerous in certain fields, because it has eyes but it has no legs ― it is crippled.

The heart can function in certain dimensions. It has no eyes but it has legs; it is blind but it can move tremendously, with great speed ― of course, not knowing where it is going. It is not just a coincidence that in all the languages of the world love is called blind. It is not love that is blind, it is the heart that has no eyes. As your meditation becomes deeper, as your identification with the head and the heart starts falling, you find yourself becoming a triangle. And your reality is in the third force in you: the consciousness.

Consciousness can manage very easily, because the heart and the head both belong to it.

You know the story of a blind beggar and a crippled beggar.... They both lived outside the village in the forest. Of course, they were competitors to each other, enemies ― begging is a business. But one day the forest was on fire. The cripple had no way to escape, because he could not move on his own. He had eyes to see which way they could get out of the fire, but what use is that if you don't have legs?

The blind man had legs, could move fast and get out of the fire, but how was he going to find the place where the fire had not reached yet?

Both were going to die in the forest, burned alive. It was such an emergency that they forgot their competition. In such emergencies only a Jew can remain a businessman, and certainly those two beggars were not Jews. In fact, to be a beggar and a Jew is a contradiction in terms.

They immediately dropped their antagonism ― that was the only way to survive. The blind man took the cripple on his shoulders, they found the way out of the fire. One was seeing, and the other was moving accordingly.

Something like this has to happen within you ― of course, in reverse order. The head has the eyes, the heart has the guts to move into anything. You have to make a synthesis between the two. And the synthesis, I have to emphasize, should be that the heart remains the master, and the head becomes the servant.

You have as a servant a great asset ― your reasoning. You cannot be befooled, you cannot be cheated and exploited. The heart has all feminine qualities: love, beauty, grace. The head is barbarous. The heart is far more civilized, far more innocent.

A conscious man uses his head as a servant, and his heart as the master ― just the opposite of the story I told you.

And this is so simple for the man of consciousness to do. Once you are unidentified with head or heart, and you are simply a witness of both, you can see which qualities should be higher, which qualities should be the goal. And the head as a servant can bring those qualities, but it needs to be commanded and ordered. Right now, and for centuries, just the opposite has been happening: the servant has become the master. And the master is so polite, such a

gentleman, that he has not fought back, he has accepted the slavery voluntarily. The madness on the earth is the result.

We have to change the very alchemy of man. We have to rearrange the whole inside of man.

And the most basic revolution in man will come when the heart decides the values. It cannot decide for war, it cannot go for nuclear weapons; it cannot be death-oriented. The heart is life's juice. Once the head is in the service of the heart, it has to do what the heart decides. And the head is immensely capable of doing anything, just right guidance is needed; otherwise, it is going to go berserk, it is going to be mad. For the head there are no values. For the head there is no meaning in anything. For the head there is no love, no beauty, no grace ― only reasoning.

But this miracle is possible only by disidentifying yourself from both. Watch the thoughts, because in your watching them, they disappear. Then watch your emotions, sentimentalities; by your watching, they also disappear. Then your heart is as innocent as that of a child, and your head is as great a genius as Albert Einstein, Bertrand Russell, Aristotle.

But the trouble is far bigger than you can conceive. It is a male- dominated society; man has been creating all the rules of the game, the woman has just been following. And the conditioning

has gone so deep, because it has been going on for millions of years.

If in the individual the revolution happens and the heart is re- enthroned, given its right place as the master, and the head given the right place as a great servant, this will affect your whole social structure. You can see it happening in my commune.

The woman is the master; she is not longer mistress, and the man is no longer master. People go on asking me why, for all significant posts, I have chosen women? For the simple reason that the woman will not create the third world war. It has been a historical fact that each war is created by the man, but the woman suffers most. Strange ― the man is the criminal and the consequence happens to the woman! The woman loses her husband, the woman loses her children. The woman loses her dignity, because whenever a country is invaded, the soldiers are so much repressed ― just like the monks.... Sexually they had no opportunity while the war was going on. When the opportunity arises ― they invade a city and conquer it ― their first attack is on the woman.

And the war has nothing to do with the woman, she is simply outside of the game ― it is a male game, just like boxing ― but she has to be raped. Those soldiers are hankering not to be victorious for their nation's glory

― that is a faraway thing ― they are hankering to get the women

of the enemies as quickly as possible. I am putting women in all significant, powerful positions. It is symbolic. Man has a tremendous capacity to do things, but he should not be the guide anymore. He is hung up in his head. He can also become the master if he puts his heart above his head. That's why I said that all of my sannyasins are women― even those who biologically, physiologically, are men. The moment they become sannyasins they have accepted a new structure, they have put something above their head ― their heart.

This is what I mean: that even men around me start learning feminine qualities. And feminine qualities are the only qualities worth having.

So there is a possibility, but the possibility has a basic condition to be fulfilled: you become more conscious, a witness, a watcher of all that goes on inside you.

The watcher becomes immediately free from identification. Because he can see the emotions, it is an absolute certainty that "I am not the emotions." He can see the thoughts; the simple conclusion is, "I am not my thought process." "Then who am I?" ― a pure watcher, a witness. And you reach to the ultimate possibility of intelligence in you: You become a conscious man.

Amongst the whole world sleeping, you become awake, and once you are awake there is no problem. Your very awakening will start shifting things to their right places. The head has to be dethroned, and the heart has to be crowned again. This change amongst many people will bring a new society, a New Man in the world. It will change so many things, you cannot conceive.

Science will have a totally different flavor. It will not serve death anymore, it will not make weapons that are going to kill the whole of life on the earth. It will make life richer, discover energies which can make man more fulfilled, which can make man live in comfort, in luxury, because the values will have completely changed. It will still be mind functioning, but under the direction of the heart.

My way is the way of meditation. I have to use language, unfortunately, that's why I say my way is the way of meditation: Neither of head nor of heart, but of a growing consciousness, which is above both mind and heart.

This is the key to open the doors for a New Man to arrive on the earth.

Osho: From the False to the

Truth , Chapter 31

Do I need to make an effort to be aware ?

It is not a question of making efforts to be aware. If you make efforts to be aware, you will create tensions inside yourself ― all efforts bring tensions. If you try to be aware, you are fighting with yourself; there is no need to fight. Awareness is not a by- product of effort: awareness is a

fragrance of let-go: awareness is a flowering of surrender, of relaxation.

Just sit silently in a relaxed state, doing nothing... and awareness will start happening. Not that you have to pull it up from somewhere, not that you have to bring it from somewhere. It will shower on you from nowhere. It will well up from within your own sources. You just be silent, sitting.

But I understand, Asker, your problem. It is very difficult to sit silently; thoughts go on coming. So let them come! Don't fight with thoughts and you will not need any energy. Just let them come ― what can you do? Clouds come and clouds go; let the thoughts come and let them go whenever they want to go. Don't be on guard, and don't be in a certain attitude that thoughts should come or. should not come― don't be judgmental. Let them come, and let them go whenever they want. You be utterly empty. Thoughts will pass, they will come and go, and slowly, slowly you will see that you remain unaffected by their coming and going. And when you are unaffected by their coming and going, they start disappearing, they evaporate... Not by your effort, but by your cool, calm emptiness, your relaxed state.

And don't say that relaxation will need great energy. How can relaxation need great energy?

Relaxation simply means you are not doing anything.

Sitting silently,

Doing nothing, The spring comes

And the grass grows by itself....

Let this mantra sink into your heart. This is the very essence of meditation!... Sitting silently...doing nothing...the spring comes...and the grass grows by itself.... Everything happens! You are not to be a doer.

Don't make awareness your goal, otherwise you have missed my point. I have simply defined. I have said: awareness is virtue, unawareness is sin.

Osho: Philosophia Perennis, Vol.

2, Chapter 4

What is the connection between inner and outer beauty?

The outer beauty comes from a different source than the inner. The outer beauty comes from your father and mother: their bodies create your body. But the inner beauty comes from your own growth of consciousness that you are carrying from many lives.

In your individuality both are joined, the physical heritage from your father and mother and the spiritual heritage of your own past lives, its consciousness, its bliss, its joy.

So it is not absolutely necessary that the outer will be a reflection of the inner, nor will vice versa be true, that the inner will correspond with the outer.

But sometimes it happens that your inner beauty is so much, your inner light is so much that it starts radiating from your outer body. Your outer body may not be beautiful, but the light that comes from your sources, your innermost sources of eternal life, will make even a body which is not beautiful in the ordinary sense appear beautiful, radiant. But vice versa it is never true.

Your outer beauty is only skin- deep. It cannot affect your inner beauty. On the contrary the outer beauty becomes a hindrance in search of the inner: you become too identified with the outer. Who is going to look for the inner sources? Most often it happens that the people who are outwardly very beautiful, are inwardly very ugly. Their outer beauty becomes a cover-up to hide themselves behind, and it is experienced by millions of people every day. You fall in love with a woman or a man, because you can see only the outer. And just within a few days you start discovering his inner state; it doesn't correspond to his outer beauty. On the contrary it is very ugly.

For example, Alexander the Great had a very beautiful body but he killed millions of people, just to fulfill his ego that he is the world conqueror. He met one man, Diogenes, when he was on his way to India, who lived naked, the only man in Greece who did, unique in a way. His beauty was tremendous, not just the outer, but the inner radiance was so much and so dazzling that even Alexander had to stop his armies when he was close by

in a forest near a river. He stopped the armies and went to see Diogenes alone; alone, because he did not want anybody to know that there exists a man who is far more beautiful than Alexander himself.

It was early morning and Diogenes was taking a sunbath, naked on the riverbank.

Alexander could not believe that a beggar ... He had nothing, no possessions -- even Buddha used to have a begging bowl, but that too Diogenes had thrown away. He was absolutely without any possessions, exactly as he was born, naked.

Alexander could not believe his eyes. He had never seen such a beautiful personality and he could see that this beauty was not just on the outer side.

Something infiltrated from the inner; a subtle radiation, a subtle aura surrounded him. All around him there was a fragrance, a silence.

If the inner becomes beautiful -- which is in your hands -- the outer will have to mold itself according to the inner. The outer is not essential, it will have to reflect the inner in some way.

But the converse is not true at all. You can have plastic surgery, you can have a beautiful face, beautiful eyes, a beautiful nose; you can change your skin; you can change your shape. That is not going to change your being. Inside you will still remain greedy, full of lust, violence, anger, rage, jealousy, with a tremendous will to power. All

these things the plastic surgeon can do nothing about.

For that you will need a different kind of surgery. It is happening here: you are on the table. As you become more and more meditative, peaceful, a deep at- onement with existence happens. You fall into the rhythm of the universe. The universe also has its own heartbeat. Your heartbeat, once it starts in rhythm with the universal heartbeat, will have transformed your being from that ugly stage of animality, into authentic humanity.

And even the human is not the end. You can go on searching deeper and there is a place where you transcend humanity and something of the divine enters in you. Once the divine is there, it is almost like a light in a dark house. The windows will start showing the light; even the cracks in the wall or the roof or the doors will start showing the inner light.

The inner is tremendously powerful, the outer is very weak. The inner is eternal, the outer is very temporary. How many years do you remain young? And as youth fades away you start feeling that you are becoming ugly, unless your inner being is also growing with your age. Then even in your old age you will have a beauty that the youth may feel jealous of.

Remember, from the inner the change to the outer happens, but I am not making it inevitable.

Most often it happens, but sometimes the outer is in such a rotten state that even the inner radiation cannot change it.

There have been cases on record: one very great mystic of India -- I have spoken on him for almost half a year continuously. His name was Ashtavakra. And what he has written is tremendously important; each sentence has so many dimensions to be explored, but the man himself was in a very difficult situation.

Ashtavakra -- the name was given to him, because he was almost like a camel. In eight places he was distorted in the body -- one leg was longer, one arm was shorter, his back was bent -- in eight places he was distorted. That's how he was born, with a crippled, distorted body. But even in a crippled and distorted body the soul is as beautiful as in the most beautiful body.

He became enlightened, but his body was too rigid to change with his inner change. His eyes started showing something of the beauty, but the whole body was in such a mess.

The story is that the emperor of India in those days was Janak and he was very much interested in philosophical discussions. Each year he used to call a big conference of all the scholars, philosophers, theologians or whoever wanted to participate. It was a championship competition. One very famous philosopher, Yagnavalkya came a little late.

The conference had started and he saw standing outside one

thousand beautiful cows. Their horns were covered with gold and diamonds. This was going to be the prize for the champion. It was a hot day and the cows were perspiring.

He told his disciples, "You take these cows. As far as winning the competition is concerned, I am certain. Why should the cows suffer here? You take them to our place." They had their own place in the forest.

Even Janak could not prevent him, because he knew that he had been the champion continuously for five years, and he would be the champion this time, because there was nobody else who could defeat him. It is not right to take the reward before you have won, but his victory was so certain to everybody that nobody objected. And his disciples took away all the cows.

While Yagnavalkya was discussing, a very unknown scholar was also present in the conference. Ashtavakra was this unknown philosopher's son. His mother was waiting for her husband to come home. It was getting late and the meal was getting cold. So she sent Ashtavakra to bring his father home, because he could not win the competition. Why should he unnecessarily waste his time? He was a poor scholar and there were great scholars there.

Ashtavakra went. There were at least one thousand people in the conference, the highly cultured and sophisticated scholars of the country.

As Ashtavakra entered, looking at his distorted body they all started laughing. But Ashtavakra was a man of tremendous integrity. As they started laughing, he laughed even louder. Because of his loud laugh they stopped. They could not believe that he was laughing.

Janak asked him, "I can understand why they are laughing -- because of your body; but I cannot understand why you are laughing. And you stopped all their laughing with your laughter." A single man stopped one thousand people's laughter.

Ashtavakra said to Janak, "I thought this conference was for scholars and philosophers, but these are all shoemakers. They can understand only the skin.

They cannot see the inner, they can only see the outer."

There was a great silence. What he was saying had a great truth in it. Janak dissolved the conference and said, "Now I would like to inquire of Ashtavakra only. He has defeated you all just by his laughter and his statement that, `You can't see the inner, you can only see the outer; you are all shoemakers.' Shoemakers work with the skin of different animals. I dissolve the conference and, Yagnavalka, return those one thousand cows, because you also laughed. And when Ashtavakra laughed, you also stopped!"

It was a very strange situation; it had never happened before. And then began the long inquiry of Janak, the emperor. He asked questions and Ashtavakra answered them. Each answer in itself carried so much meaning and significance.

Because his body was in such a bad shape he could not get identified with it. Sometimes blessings come in such disguise. He could not go out, because wherever he went people would laugh, "Look at that man! Have you seen anything uglier than this?"

So most of the time he was in the house, meditating, figuring out, "Who am I? Certainly I am not this body, because I can be aware of this body, I can observe this body from within. Certainly that awareness has to be different from the body."

Because of his crippled body he experienced enlightenment. The only barrier is identification with the body. But he could not identify, the body was so ugly. He never looked in a mirror; it would have been such a shock.

But Yagnavalkya had to return those one thousand cows to Ashtavakra's house. He was young and he defeated one thousand old philosophers in the ancient scriptures.

It is one of the strangest things in this country that on every book written by any prominent mystic there have been hundreds of commentaries, but nobody has commented before me on Ashtavakra. And he must be at least five thousand years old. For five thousand years nobody has bothered to look into his statements, which are so significant.

But his inner enlightenment, his inner understanding could not change his outer appearance.

And yet for those who are going deeper into themselves, the outer does not matter. They would have seen even in Ashtavakra tremendous beauty, but it would not have been of the outer circumference, but of the center.

Most often the inner change changes the outer, if the outer is not too rigid. But the outer never changes the inner.

You need to have eyes, going deep into people's beings, which is possible only if you are going inwards yourself. The deeper you go into yourself the deeper you can look into other people's beings. And then a totally new world opens its doors.

Flanagan is on his deathbed and Father Murphy has come to give him the last rites. "Open your eyes," says the priest. "We have got to save your immortal soul." Flanagan opens one eye, closes it and tries to doze off. He is having such a nice snooze. "Come on now!" says Father Murphy. "If you don't want to confess, at least answer me this: do you renounce the devil and all his works?"

"Well, I don't know," says Flanagan, opening one eye again. "At a time like this it doesn't seem very smart to upset anyone."

The inner comes out, you cannot hide it much. Now he is being very calculating. At the time of death, unnecessarily annoying anybody ... and who knows where you are going? It is better to keep silent.

A wealthy widower and his beautiful daughter are on a sea cruise. By chance the girl falls overboard, and Rubin Fingelbaum, aged seventy, splashes in afterwards and rescues her. After the two are brought on board the ship, the widower throws his arms around Rubin.

"You saved my daughter's life," he cries. "I'm a rich man -- I will give you anything! Ask for whatever you want!"

"Just answer me one question," replies Rubin. "Who pushed me?" What is inside is bound to come outside. How can you hide it?

An old black preacher had used the letters B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. after his name for many years without ever having had anyone from his congregation ask what they meant. Finally a nosey old woman questions him about it. "Well, sister," he answers. "You know what B.S. stands for, don't you?"

"I sure do," says the lady indignantly. "Bull shit!"

"Right," says the preacher. "And M.S. just means more of the same, and Ph.D. means piled high and deep."

That's the inner side of most people: bull shit, B.S.; M.S., more of the same; and Ph.D., piled high and deep.

No plastic surgeon can change it. But you are capable of changing it yourself. It is within your hands. Nobody can do anything about your inner being except you. You are the master of your inner world. And as the inner world becomes silent, naturally your eyes become deeper, with an oceanic depth. As your inner being becomes cloudless your face also becomes cloudless, just an open sky. As your inner being comes to discover the source of your life, the flame of your life, something of that flame starts radiating from every pore of your body.

This is the rule. Ashtavakra is an exception. Exceptions don't make the rule, they only prove the rule. But it has never happened vice versa before, and I don't think it can ever happen.

We are all trying to be beautiful on the outside: all kinds of make-up, all kinds of things are going on to make your outer beautiful.

I Have Heard...

A man was catching flies. Finally after two or three hours' effort he caught four flies. He told his wife, "I have caught four flies: two are male, two are female." The wife said, "My God, how did you figure out who is male and who is female?"

He said, "Easy! Two were sitting for almost two hours on the mirror and two were for two hours reading the newspaper!"

We are so much identified with the periphery of our being that we have forgotten that the periphery does not exist in itself. There must be a center inside.

And the search for the center is the only religious search -- not for God, not for heaven, not for any rewards for your virtues, not to avoid hell and punishment.

There is only one authentic religious search and that is to know your innermost being. It is the being of the whole universe. By entering your innermost temple you have entered the real temple. All other temples are false, man-manufactured; all other gods in those temples are false, they are man- manufactured.

Only one thing is not man- manufactured and that is your innermost dignity, your innermost grace. That grace starts flooding your outer being too. And that grace transforms not only the inner, but gives a new look to your outer being: an innocence, a serenity, a depth, a peace, a love, and these are all flowers blossoming around you. Then even your periphery becomes so beautiful, so musical, such a dance of rejoicing. But you should start from the inner.

Osho: Sat Chit Anand,, Chapter

27

3. Annexures

2. VIGYAN BHAIRAV TANTRA TECHNIQUES

(from the 'Book of Secrets' by Osho)

Following are the 112 techniques given by Lord Shiva to Devi as answers to her questions.

1. Radiant one, this experience may dawn between two breaths. After breath comes in (down) and just before turning up (out) - the beneficence.

2. As breath turns from down to up, and again as breath curves from up to down - through both these turns, realize.

3. Or, whenever in-breath and out-breath fuse, at this instant touch the energy-less, energy- filled center.

4. Or, when breath is all out (up) and stopped of itself, or all in (down) and stopped - in such universal pause, one's small self vanishes. This is difficult only for the impure.

5. Attention between eyebrows, let mind be before thought. Let form fill with breath essence to the top of the head and there shower as light.

6. When in worldly activity, keep attention between two breaths, and so practicing, in a few days be born anew.

7. With intangible breath in center of forehead, as this reaches heart at the moment of sleep, have direction over dreams and over death itself.

8. With utmost devotion, center on the two junctions of breath and know the knower.

9. Lie down as dead. Enraged in wrath, stay so. Or stare without moving an eyelash. Or suck something and become the sucking.

10. While being caressed, sweet princess, enter the caress as everlasting life.

11. Stop the doors of the senses when feeling the creeping of an ant. Then.

12. When on a bed or a seat, let yourself become weightless, beyond mind.

13. Or, imagine the five-colored circles of the peacock tail to be your five senses in illimitable space. Now let their beauty melt within. Similarly, at any point in space or on a wall - until the point dissolves. Then your wish for another comes true.

14. Place your whole attention in the nerve, delicate as the lotus

thread, in the center of your spinal column. In such be transformed.

15. Closing the seven openings of the head with your hands, a space between your eyes becomes all inclusive.

16. Blessed one, as senses are absorbed in the heart, reach the center of the lotus.

17. Unminding mind, keep in the middle - until.

18. Look lovingly at some object. Do not go to another object. Here in the middle of the object - the blessing.

19. Without support for feet or hands, sit only on the buttocks. Suddenly, the centering.

20. In a moving vehicle, by rhythmically swaying, experience. Or in a still vehicle, by letting yourself swing in slowing invisible circles.

21. Pierce some part of your nectar-filled form with a pin, and gently enter the piercing and attain to the inner purity.

22. Let attention be at a place where you are seeing some past happening, and even your form, having lost its present characteristics, is transformed.

23. Feel an object before you. Feel the absence of all other objects but this one. Then, leaving aside the object-feeling and the absence-feeling, realize.

24. When a mood against someone or for someone arises,

do not place it on the person in question, but remain centered.

25. Just as you have the impulse to do something, stop.

26. When some desire comes, consider it. Then, suddenly, quit it.

27. Roam about until exhausted and then, dropping to the ground, in this dropping be whole.

28. Suppose you are gradually being deprived of strength or of knowledge. At the instant of deprivation, transcend.

29. Devotion frees.

30. Eyes closed, see your inner being in detail. Thus see your true nature.

31. Look upon a bowl without seeing the sides or the material. In a few moments become aware.

32. See as if for the first time a beauteous person or an ordinary object.

33. Simply by looking into the blue sky beyond clouds, the serenity.

34. Listen while the ultimate mystical teaching is imparted. Eyes still, without blinking, at once become absolutely free.

35. At the edge of a deep well look steadily into its depths until

- the wondrousness.

36. Look upon some object, then slowly withdraw your sight from

it, then slowly withdraw your thought from it. Then.

37. Devi, imagine the sanskrit letters in these honey-filled foci of awareness, first as letters, then more subtly as sounds, then as most subtle feeling. Then, leaving them aside, be free.

38. Bathe in the center of sound, as in the continuous sound of a waterfall. Or, by putting the fingers in the ears, hear the sound of sounds.

39. Intone a sound, as aum, slowly. As sound enters soundfulness, so do you.

40. In the beginning and gradual refinement of the sound of any letter, awake.

41. While listening to stringed instruments, hear their composite central sound; thus omnipresence.

42. Intone a sound audibly, then less and less audibly as feeling deepens into this silent harmony.

43. With mouth slightly open, keep mind in the middle of the tongue. Or, as breath comes silently in, feel the sound "hh".

44. Center on the sound "aum" without any "a" or "m".

45. Silently intone a word ending in "ah." then in the "hh," effortlessly, the spontaneity.

46. Stopping ears by pressing and the rectum by contracting, enter the sound.

47. Enter the sound of your name and, through this sound, all sounds.

48. At the start of sexual union keep attentive on the fire in the beginning, and so continuing, avoid the embers in the end.

49. When in such embrace your senses are shaken as leaves, enter this shaking.

50. Even remembering union, without the embrace, transformation.

51. On joyously seeing a long absent friend, permeate this joy.

52. When eating or drinking, become the taste of food or drink, and be filled.

53. Oh lotus-eyed one, sweet of touch, when singing, seeing, tasting, be aware you are and discover the ever-living.

54. Wherever satisfaction is found, in whatever act, actualize this.

55. At the point of sleep, when the sleep has not yet come and the external wakefulness vanishes, at this point being is revealed.

56. Illusions deceive, colors circumscribe, even divisibles are indivisible.

57. In moods of extreme desire, be undisturbed.

58. This so-called universe appears as a juggling, a picture show. To be happy, look upon it so.

59. Oh beloved, put attention neither on pleasure nor on pain, but between these.

60. Objects and desires exist in me as in others. So accepting, let them be transformed.

61. As waves come with water and flames with fire, so the universal waves with us.

62. Wherever your mind is wandering, internally or externally, at this very place, this.

63. When vividly aware through some particular sense, keep in the awareness.

64. At the start of sneezing, during fright, in anxiety, above a chasm, flying in battle, in extreme curiosity, at the beginning of hunger, at the end of hunger, be uninterruptedly aware.

65. The purity of other teachings is an impurity to us. In reality, know nothing as pure or impure.

66. Be the unsame same to friend as to stranger, in honor and dishonor.

67. Here is the sphere of change, change, change. Through change consume change.

68. As a hen mothers her chicks, mother particular knowings, particular doings, in reality.

69. Since, in truth, bondage and freedom are relative, these words are only for those terrified with the universe. This universe is a reflection of minds. As you

see many suns in water from one sun, so see bondage and liberation.

70. Consider your essence as light rays from center to center up the vertebrae, and so rises "livingness" in you.

71. Or in the spaces between, feel this as lightning.

72. Feel the cosmos as a translucent ever-living presence.

73. In summer when you see the entire sky endlessly clear enter such clarity. Shakti,

74. See all space as if already absorbed in your own head in the brilliance.

75. Waking, sleeping, dreaming, know you as light.

76. In rain during a black night enter that blackness as the form of forms.

77. When a moonless rainy night is not present, close eyes and find blackness before you. Opening eyes, see blackness. So faults disappear forever.

78. Wherever your attention alights, at this very point, experience.

79. Focus on fire rising through your form from the toes up until the body burns to ashes but not you.

80. Meditate on the make-believe world as burning to ashes and become being above humans.

81. As subjectively, letters flow into words and words into sentences, and as, objectively, circles flow into worlds and worlds into principles, find at last these converging in our being.

82. Feel: my thought, i-ness, internal organs - me.

83. Before desire and before knowing, how can i say i am? Consider. Dissolve in the beauty.

84. Toss attachment for body aside, realizing i am everywhere. One who is everywhere is joyous.

85. Thinking no thing will limited- self unlimit.

86. Suppose you contemplate something, beyond perception, beyond grasping, beyond not being. - you.

87. I am existing. This is mine. This is this. Oh beloved, even in such know illimitably.

88. Each thing is perceived through knowing. The self shines in space through knowing. Perceive one being as knower and known.

89. Beloved, at this moment let, mind, knowing, breath, form, be included.

90. Touching eyeballs as a feather, lightness between them opens into heart and there permeates the cosmos.

91. Kind devi, enter etheric presence pervading far above and below your form.

92. Put mindstuff in such inexpressible fineness above, below and in your heart.

93. Consider any area of your present form as limitlessly spacious.

94. Feel your substance, bones, flesh, blood, saturated with the cosmic essence.

95. Feel the fine qualities of creativity permeating your breasts' and assuming delicate configurations.

96. Abide in some place endlessly spacious, clear of trees, hills, habitations. Thence comes the end of mind pressures.

97. Consider the plenum to be your own body of bliss.

98. In any position gradually pervade an area between the armpits into great peace.

99. Feel yourself as pervading all directions, far, near.

100. The appreciation of objects and subjects is the same for an enlightened as for an unenlightened person. The former has one greatness: he remains in the subjective mood, not lost in things.

101. Believe omniscient, omnipotent, pervading.

102. Image spirit simultaneously within and around you until the entire universe spiritualizes.

103. With your entire consciousness in the very start of desire, of knowing, know.

104. O shakti, each particular perception is limited, disappearing in omnipotence.

105. In truth forms are inseparate. Inseparate are omnipresent being and your own form. Realize each as made of this consciousness.

106. Feel the consciousness of each person as your own consciousness. So, leaving aside concern for self, become each being.

107. This consciousness exists as each being, and nothing else exists.

108. This consciousness is the spirit of guidance of each one. Be this one.

109. Suppose your passive form to be an empty room with walls of skin - empty.

110. Gracious one, play. The universe is an empty shell wherein your mind frolics infinitely.

111. Sweet hearted one, meditate on knowing and not- knowing, existing and not- existing. Then leave both aside that you may be.

112. Enter space, supportless, eternal, still.

Professionals using OSHO Meditaions

The Watcher on the Stage

An experiment to bring meditation into the theater

By Nayano

"Early in 1998 I was asked to conduct an experimental course in teaching Osho Active Meditations to drama students."

This was at the invitation of the director of the Amsterdam Theatre Academy, Jooph Huysman.

An Osho meditator for the past 20 years, I have for the last 8 of those years run workshops in meditation in and around Amsterdam. The opportunity to work with the Theater Academy was of particular interest to me as I had studied drama 22 years ago.

Jooph explained that he wanted to teach the students "distant acting." In this approach the actor is disciplined in playing a role and not feeling identified or emotionally involved at all. Jooph added that in some of the students' lessons, like Aikido and T'ai chi, a lot of emotions and painful memories from the past had been coming up for them, and he did not want that.

Apparently, when the school had been under different directorship, students had had classes in which to work with their emotions, but it had taken the form of therapy -- something that the current director wanted to avoid. He was concerned that what I would be offering might be something like that, and would evoke even more emotions. In addition, since Jooph told me that he had been in a Buddhist monastery himself for five years, from what he said I concluded that he understood meditation to be a means by which to control emotions.

"I knew -- through my training as a drama student those many years ago -- that emotions certainly need to be acknowledged."

I'd recognized a need to be active and to be able to express myself, to have an acceptable way of releasing the anger I knew was inside me. But I was given to understand then that this was not the place to let my anger out; nor I was offered an alternative way to deal with my feelings. It seemed to me I was only going to be able to cultivate a fake personality, while the deepest longing in me was to be able to be myself. t was largely because of this situation that I had chosen to leave the theater academy. What drew me to the Osho meditative methods is the understanding on which they are based, namely the validation of our emotional life, but not as an area that needs to be "therapized." Rather, that when we accept and totally experience or go through whatever feelings or thoughts might be provoked -- instead of

"sitting on them," repressing them -- we gain a sense of dis- identification from them, or "distance." Once repressed energies are released, a natural sense of peace and calm follows.

An added benefit is that these methods activate the being on all levels, promoting general flexibility, strength and relaxation. This later point took care of Jooph's wanting to provide students with a physical workout as part of their curriculum.

Once he saw the rationale behind emotional release through the meditations I was offering, we agreed to proceed with my course proposal. We held an initial 1 hour "test" lesson to which eight students were invited, men and women, in their twenties. Jooph said they were his most critical students, the ones who would be relentless in their feedback!

I presented the "Stop Dance!" meditation, combined with "Gibberish." For the first segment, I let the students dance to three totally different types of music. Twice I suggested they dance with closed eyes and once with eyes open. This simple strategy provokes different feelings, and thus different ways of dancing. In between I asked them to stop and watch inside what might be happening - any thoughts or feelings...to simply be aware of them.

After the last dance I suggested they begin "Gibberish" -- a kind of verbal release in which nonsense words are made, noises, sounds, sentences without any meaning.

Since there was only one hour -- for the explanation, doing the methods and the evaluation -- we did a shortened form of the meditation techniques. Even so, it had a strong effect on the students: they said they felt very serene, relaxed, and more "in their heart." Some felt many different emotions during the dance, partly because of the different sorts of music, and also during the gibberish--feelings ranging from joy to sadness to anger. One woman cried and felt very touched, because she could say "yes" to her sadness. Some felt emotional afterwards, sadness and fear.

They were being observed -- as I was -- by the director of the school, so this created some self-consciousness. I did mention this fact at the beginning, so they could include it in their meditation. For some this was still inhibiting -- for others, not at all. All of the students loved the meditation very much.

"The students' feedback and the director's enthusiasm were encouraging, so it was agreed that I would undertake to teach four different groups of students, almost half of the entire school."

Three of those groups were from the first year, the fourth from the second and third year together. As the course progressed and the word spread, students from other classes who felt they needed something

like this also, began to drop in.

The course comprised ten lessons of 1 hour and 15 minutes to 1 hour and 30 minutes. In the first lesson the students were introduced to the Stop Dance meditation. This was followed by Osho Kundalini, Osho No- mind, and the Laughter meditation. In the fifth session a technique to help with dis-identification of feelings was used: the Russian mystic, George Gurdjieff's, "Way of the Sly Man."

Subsequently, students tried Osho Dynamic Meditation, Mandala, No- dimensions, Devavani, the Sufi "Prayer" method and Ramana Maharshi's, "Who am I?" technique.

I suggested that between the lessons the students keep a diary in which to record their insights related to their meditation practice. I also gave them homework in the form of specific meditative devices, e.g. to watch their breath whenever they caught themselves in different emotions, or to stop suddenly in the middle of some action. At the time of writing, the courses with two groups have been concluded, with the other two to finish shortly.

"In spite of their initial skepticism, the majority of students responded very positively to the meditations’

The following is the evaluation of the groups who have completed the course. Several students reported that they felt deeply relaxed each time they did the meditations. Other specific comments included:

"I see emotions come and go, they are not me. So I do not have to be afraid that I will remain stuck in one, because they come and go. With several meditations I could see it was impossible for my mind to be prepared and so I had to trust my first impulse. This is very important for me also with acting."

" I learned from the meditations that it is very important to indicate my boundaries to other people, and to respect my own authority, longings and rights."

"I felt especially great after the laughter meditation, the feeling of loving myself, like a baby."

"I love the structure of the meditations, from a physical effort towards a mental relaxation. One goes a bit further than one thinks the body can handle. This stops the endless, worrying mind. After the effort, when I sit, the mind is empty."

"It is a pity that there is not more time to go to the roots of certain feelings or thinking patterns. So much comes up. It is a pity that you open the bottle, but you cannot continue drinking it."

"What I find very good is letting the thoughts go or pass, especially in the Gibberish meditation." "Through the Dynamic and Mandala methods I now know that I have much more energy then I thought."

"The Mandala was great! - I love to challenge my limits. The Dynamic did a lot: I had to cry, it was very strong. For the whole weekend I felt it. But it has certainly taken off the pressure."

"I have come to know myself better. All the meditations were great, even though beforehand I felt a bit skeptical about it."

"I always felt open during the lessons and I accepted what was given. If I could not apply it immediately or if 'nothing' was happening I did not reject it, but left it open. I often came out of the meditations very calm and peaceful, even when I had to cry after Dynamic. It was kind of funny. I thought 'Ah, well,' then after five minutes it was over and I thought: 'Alright, that was that.'"

"I felt very good that we were never pushed to feel something, it was not forced."

"I have experienced many things that were totally new for me. Already with the Kundalini I felt it touched me. I had to cry so much! First I stopped it, and then it came out, after all. I did not know what happened, but it felt great."

"What I learned was that through not giving attention to negative thoughts, the way opens to lots and lots of energy. I could go on and on."

"Dynamic was horrible, but it was the first meditation which did something to me. I touched on so much anger during it, and also afterwards. Usually I am very good at repressing, but suddenly that did not work anymore. With the Mandala I tapped into a seemingly endless source of energy."

"I felt so relaxed after all this activity. Maybe it is because you do not have time to think."

"At first I was skeptical, but I always felt so relaxed afterwards and light. Usually there was a little time where I felt some anger or some irritation at the beginning of the meditation and then it went into peace, joy and relaxation. This was the strongest with the Gibberish."

"The Dynamic and Mandala, besides making me aware of an immense tension in my muscles afterwards, made me realize that I have much more energy then I use. Now when I am running I keep this in my memory and can go much further than I used to. I also go into a kind of trance with these meditations and I love that."

"Even though we had only ten lessons, I feel it has made me more at ease and peaceful. I recognize my emotions much better, especially because during the meditations we never had to go into stories or reasons why these emotions are there."

"Most meditation lessons ended for me with the same experience: relaxed and quiet."

"The meditation that impressed me most was the Dynamic. The thoughts were absorbed in the action; during the dance I disappeared in the music and movements."

"I do not know what the meditations mean for me. I feel nothing has happened. You said that maybe I expect too much and then do not see what is happening.... I have been more aware of my breathing since these lessons."

Many wrote that when they saw "Active meditation" on the program, their response was that meditation was something airy-fairy or for those poor souls who needed to purify themselves! After a few lessons already they all felt very different, realizing that it was helping them very much. Some of them regret that the course is over now.

My own response to my experience was that the course fitted well with the theater school. Through the meditative approach they found a way to both experience whatever feelings were evoked and to move beyond those feelings into a deeper level of being. I am currently working on a 4-year proposal for the drama academy.

HEALTH AND MEDITATION

Meditation and Brain Rot

By: Amrito MD

RECENT RESEARCH HAS NOW ESTABLISHED that thinking too much can rot the brain. What they have yet to discover is that meditation is the key to the "off" button.

The Economist puts it perfectly: "Just as hard labor leaves marks on the hands, hard thinking leaves marks on the brain."

And medical research has known for some time that the brain is a malleable organ: the brains of sportsmen look different from computer users.

In the 1960's, research at University of California at Berkeley showed that rats brought up in a stimulating environment had denser, more complex brains than those in boring environments. Even old rats put in a more interesting cage show the same changes in their brains, with more synaptic connections between the cells supporting the old adage of "use it or lose it."

Not only do the brain cells increase, but the blood supply which brings the needed energy sources increase too. So, not only do "young interested rats develop 20-25 more synapses per nerve cell than do their bored contemporaries," but also they have "80% more capillaries" to supply the energy-bearing blood.

Recent research by William Greenough and his colleagues at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign subjected three sets of rats -

-"acrobats," "jocks," and "couch potatoes" to different environments-- with the acrobats challenged by tasks that required coordination, the jocks just challenged physically, and the couch potatoes not challenged at all. The acrobats showed dramatic changes to the parts of the brain involved with coordination.

But what about overdoing it? It is also known that thinking too much can kill brain cells. It appears that chemicals excreted by thinking cells may not be cleared away quickly enough and may poison and kill the brain cells.

When Ruben Gur at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia asked men he was studying to relax, they could not -- their brains kept banging away at whatever they had been doing before without their being aware of it. Essentially this means, like all non-meditators, they were unaware of their thinking.

By contrast, women shifted to thinking about something completely different, using a different part of their brain. This difference, he believes, may explain his other main finding, which is that men's brains rot a lot faster than women's. Despite their big head start, by the age of 45, with their attention span and memory failing, the front of the men's brains which is responsible for "complex thinking" has shrunk to same size as "the frontal lobes of women of the same age." Alzheimer Lite all round for the boys.

So, not surprisingly, the brain works very much like the rest of our biological system. Rest between periods of exertion -- is the natural way of functioning. Lack of rest will cause over-training in athletes and reduce their function...the same is obviously true of the brain. And there is an intriguing relationship between awareness of breath and the fatigue that precedes heart attacks in stressed patients, over-training in athletes, and the chronic fatigue syndrome in others.... And while at least the athletes muscles rest while he or she sleeps, our multimedia brains do not. They switch over to a picture show called dreams, which in stressed, tense people can be quite a horror show.

Similarly it is not surprising that other investigators are increasingly recognizing a connection between alertness and function on the one hand, and relaxation on the other.

The key to reducing brain loss with age is the ability to relax the brain -

- which means allowing the mind to stop and rest. The first essential step is to become aware of our thoughts. This is the knack of meditation. Then you can experience a real surprise. Thoughts are very shy. The moment you become aware of them, they begin to dissolve, leaving behind, "the peace that passeth all understanding."

PERSONAL EXPERIENCES

Driving Madness Up the Wall

By Dr. Wilfried Nelles

Driving Madness Up the Wall To the modern mind, hyped up by CNN, cellular phones and cyberspace, the idea of sitting in silent meditation as Buddha's disciples did 2500 years ago seems a remote possibility. Recognizing this, Osho has created active meditations. A former sociology professor describes how Dynamic Meditation revitalizes modern man -- and 20th century society.

It is seven o'clock. My son leaves for school, and I change out of my pajamas into gym shorts and a T-shirt. More is not needed, soon I will feel warm enough. For I am about to meditate -- meditate dynamically, that is. Dynamic is a very curious meditation, particularly if seen from the outside. Is has little to do with images of bald-shaven monks sitting for hours on cold stone floors, even less with the chanting of sacred mantras, or contemplations on holy matters. Its time is the early morning, and its message is simple: wake up! because that is easier said than done, as it meets with so much resistance within ourselves, it employs massive, energetic, and strenuous means to shake us awake. We live in fortunate-unfortunate times. Everything has gone topsy- turvy.

We no longer know why we live, what we are living for, what we are doing, whether we really want what we want. We have lost our bearings and are rapidly losing our ultimate dreams. Some of us are conscious of it, many sense it more or less, but the majority don't want to know anything about it. We throw ourselves into work, pleasure, all sort of activities, or turn to alcohol or drugs to avoid the obvious.

Counselors are in greater demand than ever, the more traditional one like astrologers, card reader or soothsayers as well as the modern variation you can dial during a TV show or consult in a book. They tell you how to eat, how to walk, what to wear where and when, in which direction to have your head while you sleep, how to get rich, how to get or stay healthy, and , last but not least, how to love.

But the more good counsel we get, the more knowledge we collect about "how to", the more we feel lost, the more we feel left behind. Our so-called modern enlightened consciousness is, it seems, a very unhappy consciousness. The more developed a civilization is, the more neurotic, the more psychologically ill, the more addicted, the more suicidal are its members. After all the great social visions of our age have popped like soap bubbles -- the latest being the breakdown of socialism -- life seems to have fizzled down to something we simply must get through, or, to use a phrase coined by Max Weber "to bear like a man". Which is OK if you are on the side of the fence where the fleshpots are full. But the flesh in the pots is getting putrid, even

affluence doesn't hold what it once promised -- and deep down we all know it, however much we are dying to have it.

We love our dreams and it hurts when they are broken. But that's how it is and we have no say in it. All we can do is repress the pain, close our eyes and hearts in order to avoid it. But one day it catches up with us, when some unforeseen event- an illness, an accident, a war, a natural catastrophe, a human encounter, even our own end -- rips a gap in our personal preoccupations and we ask ourselves in anguish: "Was that it? Was that really it?" Every time a dream is destroyed, is reveals as just a dream and shattered to pieces, we are on the point of awakening.

But the question is: Do we want to wake up? Do we really want to be disillusioned? Or do we prefer to hold on to our illusions until the bitter end? Basically, we have no alternative. Anybody who just pauses a moment and takes an unblinkered look at the state of the world, sees this huge nightmare for what it really is, knows that that this nightmare will explode sooner rather than later -- and all our private little dreams will explode along with it.

Do we, do you, do I want to wake up? While the tape with the music that accompanies Dynamic Meditation is being rewound on my tape deck, I mechanically do my preparations: I pull a foam rubber mattress in place so that I won't hurt myself in case I feel like throwing a fit, and I blow my nose as thoroughly as I can. For the nose must be free, otherwise nothing is possible. Then I start the tape.: a loud gong resounds, and already the drums start. I stand there -- feet firmly on the ground, but otherwise as loose as possible,' and breathe as fast and deep and chaotically as possible, through the nose. The mouth is closed firmly, and so are the eyes. That's anyway what the instructions say.

Today I feel better than during the last few days, but the breathing doesn't come particularly fast, let alone deep. My nostrils are blown wide open, but hardly any air seems to come in.

The left nostril is -- like it always is in the first few minutes -- almost shut, and the right one also feels pretty narrow. True, I usually take it easy at first, allowing myself approximately one minute warming-up time before really getting into the huffing and puffing, but this time I feel more low than loose. But didn't I feel particularly fit just now? Ah, that's it! I am feeling well enough, and precisely because of it I'm afraid that this small amount of well-being might get disturbed if I really get going; I would like to cling to it a little longer and not enter into the shit right away.

Often enough we don't want to really wake up. Yes, we want to get rid off the bad dreams, the nightmares, but the beautiful ones? Many of us

-- are hankering after the good old times. We complain about the present and seek solutions that were long ago obsolete. Specters from

the Nazi past raise their ugly heads here and there, skinheads with a skull as an emblem. True, their ideas are stupid and dull, but what alternative has our society to offer them? Caviar instead of Big Macs, champagne instead of Coke, career instead of sex 'n drugs 'n rock 'n roll? And on top of that a few arid (and phony) sermons on the glories of reason?

Reason has become a dead tree without fruits, a tree that says: "Sorry, no fruits anymore, you have to understand, you have to live with that." If we were prepared to really look, we would see in these drifting youngsters the mirrors of our own lack of perspective and vision. And the same goes for the dead junkies, for the battered babies, for the sexually abused children, for the sick relationships, for those infinitely sad dead-end sidings called "old people's homes", for those dehumanized life-prolonging and dying wards in our health-repair garages, for all those alcohol wrecks, cancer heart failure and AIDS patients.

Whoever has the guts to speak the truth can only have something like this to say: "Those of you who believe in fortifying sand castles, who want more out of life than just another kick from food or sex, but also more than just defying adversity, more than just a `reasonable` acquiescence with what cannot be changed... if you want life, all of it, then you will have to create it yourselves, find your answers from your own inner selves without any chart. There are no other goals than those. That's why you are here. You are unique. You yourself are the goal, the answer, the meaning. Yes, you." There is little more to be said about this. In Europe, the legacy of the 19th century is defunct, finished for good, even if occasionally nationalism still rises from its grave.

The final sellout and fall of communism is much more than just the collapse of a certain social system or empire. It is also the death of Marxism as a religion, and that has far wider implications. "The children of Marx and Coca-Cola"- as a famous French cin*aste of the sixties, Jean-Luc Godard, summed up the student rebels of the time -- are dying out. Now there is only Coca-Cola left. That is the revolution, or perhaps even more: a spiritual landslide, comparable to Galileo's discoveries putting an end to the Middle Ages, and with it all the certainty of a universally shared cosmology, a common Weltanschauung. For what went down the drain along with Marxism is the last of the great Western attempts to find a common answer to the burning question about the meaning of life.

We now know: there is none. Unless you accept it's Coca Cola- for that's the bottom line of what society has to offer. Or unless you accept it's in yourself. But who are you? That's the only question the remains: Who am I? Here I am getting up early in the morning and breathing like crazy through my nose. Is that a way to find the answer? Really, it

looks more like losing your marbles than finding your senses. But is it really less sensible than say, for argument's sake, what the philosopher Immanuel Kant was doing? He spent all his life in his Ksnigsberg ivory tower, torturing his brain and churning out long-winded sentences nobody can understand, replacing the Ten Commandments with Kantian Imperative intended to guide man in his moral action. But, in fact, it didn't change him one iota. Or is it less sensible than what Marx was doing when he was planning the salvation of man in the Reading Room of the British Museum?

These tinkers may have done the most sensible and best thing possible in their time, but now it is high time to have a good look at ourselves -- in person, not in theory. After all, it is the sum total of all of us that's creating our history. And for that no books are needed. In books, all we can find are other people's thoughts. rehashing the thoughts of yet other people. What is needed is a mirror that helps us look within ourselves. And Dynamic Meditation is just such a mirror. And that's why I stand here, huffing and puffing like an express train.

When I note my halfheartedness, I change to a higher gear. My nose is still damned narrow, but I know this will change soon. Within minutes I have reached a speed that leaves my thoughts painting behind. That is one of the purposes of the exercise: the mind is blown away- fear nothing, it will come back! All I hear now is a staccato of massive outbreaths, driven on by frenzied drums. I realize that even more is possible (more is always possible), and breathe even more deeply. I think nothing, there is only breathing -- deeper, faster, madder. It's totally far out. When a pang of pain shoots up somewhere. I just take note of it, and then I am back with the breathing. From a certain speed limit, a certain speed limit, a certain intensity on, I a simply in it, and it is fun to go for the maximum. The drums build up to a climax. Then the gong -- end of phase one.

The first phase of Dynamic Meditation is the awakening to a new life. "Wake up, man!" it seems to be shouting at us. "Come out of your ancient sleep, step out of the maze of your dreams, be they sweet or nightmarish. Stop letting yourself be trapped by these dreams, drop your limitations and live! Breathe! Breathe and live! Open yourself for the Breath of Life, take in as much of it as you can possibly take! Stop philosophizing about life, stop losing yourself in the dreams of others, stop dreaming of Day x when you will really start living! Do it yourself, do it now! LIVE." Breath is life. The first and the lest breath are the two extremes between which our human existence moves. God, it is said, put his breath into Adam fashioned of clay, making him come to life.

The Hindu word for breath, prana, is synonymous with life energy. A breath therapist can decode the way I live from the way I breathe.

Each of us has our own breath patterns, each has subconscious tricks of how to avoid certain experiences that may be threatening to the

unconscious, by simply changing the breathing rhythm. That's why ancient schools like yoga as well as modern psychotherapies use breath as a path to bring harmony back to body and soul, or to bring to light, and heal, traumatic experiences hidden deep in the unconscious. But this is not bringing harmony -- this is chaos! Deep, fast breathing dissolves the cemented patterns of our psyche, makes everything move and tingle, and charges the body with oxygen and life energy, blowing apart our psychosomatic structure, the order that was created by the circumstances of our birth and our background conditioning.

We are coming closer to life in is original wildness, unpredictability, power. The onward march of rock music since the sixties is a sign of the human soul's need for the chaotic side of life, for expansions, for unfettered movement. It was expressed in frenetic solos on the guitar and drums. Every artist know this, and every child. For children that are granted a certain freedom, every day is new. That's why they have a different sense of time. Life is more intense, open for discoveries and surprises. That's what Jesus must have had in mind when he said: "Unless you become like children...." -- no molds, no pattern, simply vulnerable, curious and innocent. But we don't only have patterns, we are patterns. We have become so much one with them, that we are not even aware of the fact, we don't even notice them. We lost our innocence long ago, and we want to find it again. And we will to find it again if we want to enjoy, to really celebrate life and not go dragging on alone.

So my choice with this meditation is either to breathe as if all hell were let loose, or forget about ever coming alive again. The fear of what it means to come alive again is in every one of us, and it is understandable. We have no idea what's going to happen if our carefully maintained inner and outer mechanisms break down. Maybe there is an inner order, what Heraclitus called "the hidden harmony." But who knows- maybe not. Yes we may have an inkling, but we don't know. That's where a Master, an Awakened One, play such a central role in the spiritual search. In him-if he is not a pretender-this inner harmony, this being in tune with the innermost heartbeat of existence, has taken shape. In him we can feel it, in him it gets a voice and a face. In him, transcendence is not just an abstract term, but a palpable reality.

We can also be mistaken, of course, but on the spiritual path there is no security, no guarantee anymore. The traditional meditation techniques created some 2,500 years ago aim at a gradual pacification of the mind over decades of patient practice, as in Japanese Zen or Tibetan Buddhism. Both traditions have become very popular in the West over the last few years. By contrast, Osho Dynamic meditation is more of a shock therapy. All meditation techniques are tricks, attempts to put the mind to sleep without consciousness falling asleep with it- to allow a glimpse of no-mind, the dimension beyond the mind.

Whether or not a technique works is a question of who uses it. But the people for whom the ancient techniques were developed are no more. We live in a totally different world today. Dynamic Meditation is a method for modern man as he is -neurotic, speed, confused. It helps to bring all the mess of the modern mind to a boil so that it can evaporate. Whit these methods, tanks to the ingenuity and genius of Osho who invented them, a new path to meditation has been hewn through the jungle of today's mind, thicker and more tangled than ever before in the evolution of man.