Question – We are to stand and let the waters settle on their own, why all the active meditations?

Osho – If you can sit, there is no need for meditations. In Japan, for meditation they have the word “zazen”. It means just sitting, doing nothing. If you can sit, not doing anything, this is the ultimate in meditations. There is no need for any other thing.

But can you sit? There is the crux of the whole problem. Can you sit? Can you just sit doing nothing? If that is possible — just sit, do nothing — everything settles by itself, everything simply flows by itself. You are not needed to do anything. But the problem is — can you sit?

It happened on a small hillock near a village, a man was standing. Just it was morning and the sun has arisen, and three persons had gone just for a morning walk and they looked at the man. And, as minds go, they started talking about what this man was doing there.

One man suggested that he must be there looking for his cow. “Sometimes his cow gets lost. Then he goes to the hilltop and looks for it. From there you can look on all sides.”

The other man said, “But he is not looking on all sides. He is simply standing, so that cannot be the cause. I feel he must have come for a morning walk with a friend, and the friend has been left behind, so he’s waiting for him.” The third one said, “This is not right. Because if you are waiting for someone, sometimes you look back. He’s not looking back at all.”

The third said “I think he is meditating. And look at his robes; he is a sannyasin. He must be meditating.” Their discussion become so hot that they said, “Now we will have to go to the hilltop and ask this man himself, ‘What are you doing here?’ ”

They walked miles to reach to the hilltop. The first man asked, “What are you doing here? I think you have lost your cow and you are looking for it.” The man opened his eyes and he said, “No.” The second man stepped forward and asked, “Then I must be right. Are you waiting for somebody who has been left behind?” He said, “No.” Then the third was happy. He said “Then I was absolutely right. Are you meditating?” The man said, “No.” All the three were at a loss, and they all three said, “What are you saying? You say ‘no’ to everything. Then what are you doing?” The man said, “I am just standing here doing nothing.”

If it is possible, this is the ultimate in meditation. If it is not possible, then you will have to use techniques because through techniques only this will become possible. Through techniques, one day you will realize the whole absurdity. All techniques of meditation are just like pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps. Meditation is absurd but one has to realize it. It is a great realization. When one realizes that his meditation is absurd, then it simply drops.

There is Maharishi Mahesh Yogi: technique-oriented, as if technique is all. And there is Krishnamurti, absolutely against techniques. And here I am — for techniques, and against also. A technique leads you to a point where you can drop it. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi is dangerous. He will start many people on the path, but they will never reach the goal because the path is thought to be so important. He will start millions of people on technique, and then the technique becomes so important, and there is no way how to drop it. Then there is Krishnamurti-harmless, but useless also. He can never harm anybody. Because how can he harm? — he never starts anybody on the path; he talks about the goal, and you are very, very far away from the goal. You will fall in the trap of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Krishnamurti may appeal to you intellectually, but will not be of any help. He cannot harm. He’s the most harmless man in the world.

And then I am here. I give you a path just to take it away. I give you a technique — not a technique, many techniques — like toys to play with. And I wait for a moment when you will say to all the techniques, “swaha, go to the fire!”

Source – Osho Book “Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, Vol 3″

Osho – Rumi does not mean anything, it is a name of a place; because he came from Rum he was called Rumi. His message is love, and he belongs to the highest categories of the Buddhas. He was the man who inverted a new method of meditation, whirling.

There have been hundreds of devices; Rumi has also contributed one special device. He became enlightened not by sitting silently like a Buddha, he became enlightened by dancing. And his dance is a special and of dance. You turn round and round, as if you are just a wheel moving faster and faster; you are both the axle and the wheel. Small children enjoy it very much. Almost all over the world parents have to stop their children from doing it because they are afraid they may get dizzy, but they don’t know that the children are enjoying something very special.

When a small child goes on whirling he loses the sense of being a body, he starts hovering above his body, he can see his own body turning — and that is the miracle of the method. But we are stopped by our parents very early.

Jalaluddin introduced that method. He himself became enlightened by thirty-six hours of continuous whirling; day in, day out he went on and on. He was riding on a cloud, he could not stop till he fell down. But when he opened his eyes and got up he was a totally new man, the old was gone. People had gathered to watch him, thousands of people — he was a well-known mystic. What had happened to him? dad he gone crazy or something. And he had told his disciples that he should not be disturbed.

For thirty-six hours he danced and danced. The dancer disappeared in the dance, there was only dance and no dancer — the ego died. And he could see his own body from the higher plane dancing somewhere on the earth. He became a watcher on the hill, the body was in the deep dark valley. And that’s how he introduced the method to his disciples. His message was love and dance. Love the whole existence so you can dance, and dance to abandon so that you can love.

Source – Osho Book “I Am Not As Thunk As You Drink I Am”

Question – I have seen many Women having strong Catharsis in Meditation, But never Men. Why? Don’t they need it?

Osho – They need it more than any woman. But they have been conditioned not to weep, not to cry; from the very childhood a boy is taught not to be sissy, not to be like a girl. If he cries they say: Stop! You are a man; a boy never cries, this is only for girls.

Men have been taught and conditioned not to cry, not to weep. They have become stones. And remember, if a person cannot weep heartily, he cannot laugh either. And God makes no difference between woman and man, he has given the same tear glands to both. If there was going to be a distinction — that man is not to cry — there would have been no tear glands in his eyes, or there would have been less than with women. But they are exactly the same. So nature has not made it that way. It is human society creating an ego that man has to be haughty and proud.

This is male chauvinism. A woman can cry — she is such a low being, no need to worry about her, she can weep. Weaklings. Man is powerful. But in a way it has been good for women — they are more natural than man. That’s why they are more beautiful than man; more relaxed than man.

Have you observed the data? More men commit suicide than women. You may have just the opposite notion, because more women talk about committing suicide — but they never commit it: they go on talking. Even if they take sleeping pills they always take them in such a quantity that they never die. Men commit suicide more than women — have to commit, life becomes such a burden.

Crying and weeping is a natural way, a safety valve, to allow accumulated emotions — sadness, to be thrown out of the system: it is a deep cleansing. Every man and every woman should learn how to cry perfectly. And how to enjoy it! It is such an unburdening and refreshing process; not only do your eyes become fresh when tears have flowed, your whole being becomes pure, simple, innocent. You attain again to a virginity that belonged once to you, but is lost, you again become uncorrupted.

After a good crying and weeping you feel bathed, the very soul has taken a shower. You are again ready and younger. Women look younger than men, healthier than men. All over the world women fall ill less than men, live longer than men — five years longer. If a man is going to live seventy-five years, the woman on an average is going to live eighty. That’s why if you go into the West you will find many old women, but not so many old men. They get ready every day, they allow, they are not so egoistic.

Women go less mad than men because they have their daily quota of madness, they never go wholesale mad. Women almost every day, once in a while, they go mad — but just for a few minutes; it is beautiful, nothing is wrong in it: they scream and jump and throw a plate — it is not costly either, but man goes on accumulating madness. He cannot cry, he cannot throw a plate — that is not manly. He has to be always on guard, then the madness goes on accumulating within his heart — one day it explodes.

More men are in madhouses. And if you look at the society, men are interested in politics, not women. Sometimes a few women are interested, but they must have male hormones in their body. Some scientific research is needed.

And the women who are interested in politics, and reach to the top, have never been very womanly, they have never loved their husbands, their children;never; they have been more politics-oriented, ego-oriented.

And of course when a woman goes into politics she will force all men out of it. It is natural, because when she goes, she really goes mad into it. A man may have some manners, but she has none. Because a man has been forced to cultivate manners; even if he fights he fights in a mannerly way, he follows certain rules — but a woman is wild; when she fights she follows no rules, she simply fights. That’s why whenever you are arguing with a woman you will always be defeated, because she follows no rules of the game, there is no logic in it; she jumps from one point to another with no visible link!

Men have created all the wars because man is madder. After every ten years a great world war is needed. It relaxes. When man can kill others, only then he feels a little release.

Unless man is allowed to weep and cry and be natural, and every child is taught to cry and weep, and is told: That is beautiful; when you feel hurt — cry! when you feel bad, let tears come out of your eyes… You may not believe me, because the thing may seem to be too far-fetched but I tell you that if men can start crying and weeping as women do, wars will be less in the world, madness will be less in the world, suicides will be less in the world, accidents on the road will be less in the world.

Fifty per cent of car accidents are because a man was angry. He couldn’t scream so he screamed through the accelerator. He went beyond the speed limit, he went mad with the car, and he enjoyed the exhilaration that comes with this speed.

Women drivers are not good drivers, but they never cause so many accidents I have been collecting data. Women drivers are not good drivers because they are not good mechanical minds, they are not technological; but if a woman driver knows driving she is always safe to travel with. I myself have Laxmi as my driver; always safe, because she will never transcend the limit.

Man has been wrongly conditioned, that is why catharsis becomes difficult. But catharsis is very very necessary. If you cannot move into deep catharsis you cannot move into meditation. Before you take wings into the sky you have to unburden yourself That is the whole point of catharsis.

Source – Osho Book “Tao : The Pathless Path, Vol 4″

[A sannyasin, returning to the west, says she fears that the anger which was provoked in the primal group here will surface again with her family particularly her mother – or in self-destructive ways. Osho checks her energy.]

Osho – Mm mm – it is there and very much. You have just touched the tip of it, mm ? The whole iceberg is there and you are very much afraid of it. The fear is not allowing you to express it; the fear is sitting on top of it. And fear is bad – anger is good. If one has to choose between fear and anger, then anger has to be chosen, because anger is hot energy, anger is life energy; fear is death, fear helps you to shrink.

Anger is in the service of life, anger has some survival value, great value. So start choosing anger instead of fear…. But this is how it happens in the childhood: parents force fear to repress anger. They create much fear in the child – that the child will be punished, that the mother will die, the mother will leave the child, or something wrong will happen if the child does not listen to the mother or to the father – so rather than being angry, the child becomes afraid.

Anger is positive energy, fear is negative energy. Something can be done with anger because it is hot and alive; it can be transformed in many ways. Nothing can be done with fear. Fear creates
sadness, fear creates lethargy, fear creates inactivity, and fear makes a person almost imprisoned. So three things you have to do….

One, if it is possible back home that you can go running, that will help tremendously. If it is possible, start running – there is nothing better than running – a three, four mile run. By and by, slowly increase it to three, four miles, but really go into it like a meditation. Go alone early in the morning, then you will be more free with the elements – the air, the sun, the atmosphere, the trees, the birds. Don’t be competitive in running. If you run with somebody, our minds are so poisoned by competition, that naturally you start competing.

If you run with somebody, you want to defeat them – unconsciously, you want to come first. The poison has gone very deep, and when running becomes competitive it is no more meditation; it is a sport, not a meditation. So running has to be noncompetitive – one thing …. The second thing: running has to be without any self-criticism – that you should improve it, that you should run more, that you can do better. That is nonsense! You are not competing with anybody, you are simply enjoying the thrill of it. So do it with no self-criticism – just for fun!

If we can do at least one thing in every day for one hour without any judgement, that is meditation. Just out of fun! And we have been so badly conditioned against fun; everything has to be turned into a utility. People will ask ’Why are you running? You are not fat, so why? You are not interested in reducing your weight, so why? You are not going to compete, then why?’

We have been trained to be always seeking some utility, and all that is beautiful happens only when we are not utilitarians – when we are doing something just for the very joy of it, the sheer joy. And running goes very deep. That is why I am suggesting it. There is fear; below the fear there is anger and below the anger, there is love, and below all these things something has to be found, so start working below all these layers.

Running is one of the deepest layers of humanity because man has been a runner for millennia. Just for a few hundred years man has stopped running. He was a hunter – running was one of the basic things to know. Still in southern africa, hunters exist; there are tribes which are just hunting tribes.

They have such beautiful bodies, such long necks, that even animals will feel a little jealous. They are runners: they can run for twenty, thirty, forty miles without any gap. They have to run with the animals. Sometimes they are hunting the animals and sometimes the animals are hunting them, and each time they have to run, and run fast; it is a question of life and death.

So the deepest layer in humanity is that of hunting. Our brain cells have an in-built capacity to run. Swimming is not so deep – it is a learned thing – but this running is really deep. So sometimes it happens that a runner can achieve more meditative energy than a meditator! In meditation the possibility is ten percent, in running the possibility is eighty percent.

In a better world, running will become one of the most important meditations, because when you are running fast, breathing deeply, by and by, after the first mile you don’t have any separation between you and the body. That division of mind and body disappears, you become psychosomatic: you are one, one unity.

After the first mile when you are running and the breathing has taken hold of you and is really going deep – it has to go deep, exhaling, inhaling, both are the deepest possible – your whole blood is being purified, the air is passing through you – the sun rays are passing through, you are again part of nature, you are again an animal, not a civilised human being – which is a dead thing …. When you are an animal again, suddenly worries disappear. A person cannot run and worry together – that has not been possible. Many people have tried….

I, myself, was running fifteen miles a day for almost ten years. After the first mile you are turned on. No LSD can do that! You are simply no more part of humanity; you are part of the universe. And it is such a certain thing that after two, three months, you can depend on it; every day it will happen! It is just a question of three months.

Once the running reaches to your deepest core and your hunter which is there – you still carry it in the neurons of the brain; it just has to be tapped again, made alive, invoked – becomes alive again, once it is invoked, it will give you tremendous joy. And with that joy, fear will disappear; with that joy, anger will disappear and love will start flowing. One thing – if it is possible; this is the best meditation that I can prescribe for you.

If it is not possible, then jogging – just jog in the room; that is a substitute. But if the first is not possible then the second. If you feel that even the second is not possible, then put a pillow in front of you and be angry. [See ’Hammer on the Rock’ for a full description of the anger meditation.] This pillow meditation then has to be done twice a day – twenty minutes in the morning, twenty in the evening – but if you can run then nothing else is needed. One hour running….

Source: from Osho Book “This is It”

[A sannyasin asks: I’m a runner and when I run each day I get a feeling very much like when I’m doing dynamic meditation... Can I use it as a meditation?]

Osho – Yes, use it as much as you can. If you can run then there is no need for any other meditation – it is enough! … Any action in which you can be total becomes meditation, and running is so beautiful that you can be totally lost in it. And you are in contact with all the elements – the sun, the air, the earth, the sky; you are in contact with existence.

When you are running your breathing naturally goes very deep and it starts massaging the hara centre… which is in fact the centre from where meditative energy is released. It is just below the navel, two inches below the navel. When breathing goes deep it massages that centre, makes it alive. And when you are running, you are throwing all carbon dioxide out of your lungs. Carbon dioxide makes people dull, dead, frozen, blocked.

Carbon dioxide is good for trees and very bad for man. We are in mutual agreement with the trees: they inhale carbon dioxide and exhale oxygen; we inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide. That’s why as there are becoming less and less trees on the earth, man is becoming less and less alive, because the partner is dying. That’s the whole meaning of ecology: we are together! You breathe out, the tree breathes in; the tree breathes out, you breathe in. The tree purifies you through oxygen, you nourish the tree through carbon dioxide.

When you are running, the whole carbon dioxide is thrown out and your lungs are full of oxygen. When they are full of oxygen they purify the blood, they purify the whole system. That’s what purity is; it has nothing to do with morality. Purity has something to do with biology, it is a biological concept. When your blood is pure and is not hampered by poisons and used garbage – it is red and alive, full of joy and each drop of blood is dancing in you – you are in the right mood to catch meditation. Then there is no need to do it – it happens!

Running against the wind is a perfect situation. It is a dance of the elements. And while running you cannot think: if you are thinking, then you are not running rightly. When you are running totally, thinking stops. You become too earth-bound, the head no more functions. The body is in such an activity that there is no energy left for the head to go on and on; the thinking stops.

And in those moments of non-thinking, your existence is pure, you simply are, you don’t know who. You don’t know if you are Indian, German, English, Christian, Mohammedan – you don’t know who you are. All is forgotten, you are unburdened of the head… you are again an animal! In that moment – when you are again an animal – there is a possibility to contact god.

This is my message – that before a man can contact god he will have to become an animal, never before it… because man is a false entity, not authentic at all. Before we can rise high and reach the ultimate we will have to become authentic, as authentic as animals. Through running that authenticity happens…. It is perfectly good, and now it will be coming more and more because now you know what meditation is.

And both these things will help each other: in meditation you will again and again come to those moments which come in running, and in running you will come again and again to those moments which come in meditation. By and by both methods will become one. Then there will be no need to do them separately: you can run and meditate, you can meditate and run.

Sometimes try one technique…. Just lying down on the bed, imagine that you are running. Just imagine the whole scene: the trees and the wind and the sun and the whole beach and the salty air. Imagine everything, visualise it, make it as colourful as possible. Remember any morning that you liked the most – when you were running on some beach or in some forest. Let it fill you completely… even the smell of the trees, the pine trees, or the smell of the beach.

Anything that you have liked very much, let it be there as if it is almost real; then start running in imagination – you will find that your breathing is changing. Go on running… and you can do this for miles. There is no end to it, you can do it for hours. And you will be surprised that even doing this on the bed, you will attain to those moments again when suddenly the meditation is there. So if some day you cannot run for some reason – you are ill, or the situation does not allow, or the city is not worth running in, you cannot run – you can do this and you will attain to the same moments.

Source: from Osho Book “This is It”

[A sannyasin expresses concern about being a sannyasin in the West. She works in a personnel at a university. Osho says that is good work, and love is needed more than expertise.... ]

Osho – The therapist, the counsellor, has to love the patients so deeply, so totally, that in his love something starts in the patient. Under that impact of love he also can see the problems in their true perspective.

Problems are not really problems: the only problem is that people have become blind. They live with the problems for years and they can’t see it. Expertise can help you to dissect the problem, to analyse the problem, to go to its roots, to its causes, implications, and you can make the person intellectually understand, but that is not going to help really. It may make the person a little more adjusted but nothing much else. The problem will start asserting itself from somewhere else. It will find some new way to surface, in a new name it will continue, because the man has not really attained to insight.

If you attain to insight then solving one problem is solving all problems, because then you always have that insight with you: you can focus that insight on any problem and it starts disappearing. By becoming a sannyasin you naturally become more loving. My sannyas is sannyas into love, initiation into love… and with love you can see the problem of the other person.

So don’t sit there like an inhuman expert: come closer, more personally to the person, because his problems are your problems – they are everybody’s problems, they are human problems. There is not a single problem which cannot be your problem, and you cannot have any problem which cannot be anybody else’s problem… we share.

So don’t let the patient feel that it is his problem and he has come to a computer, an expert. Let him feel he has come to a human being – as frail, as limited, as prone to mistakes as he himself. Then an understanding arises, the person starts opening, and in the light of your love and care, he can start seeing something which he was not able to see before.

Help people to attain a loving insight into their lives, help people to love themselves, and problems will start disappearing: They have been taught to hate themselves, they have been taught condemnation and nothing else, hence so many problems. Help them to accept themselves, help them not to be perfectionists. That’s how millions of problems arise….

The perfectionistic mind is a neurotic mind. The perfectionist hankers for the impossible, so he always falls short. He cannot reach the goal, he is frustrated; then he starts thinking that something is wrong. He asks the impossible – it cannot happen by its very nature. Then he feels he has some defects. He loses self-confidence, and then small problems look like big problems; he cannot tackle them, he becomes nervous. He starts avoiding the problems, he goes on putting them aside. He hopes time will do something, and it never does anything.

The problems put aside become bigger and bigger; as time passes they become more bigger and more rooted. Perhaps if they were tackled in the very beginning they would not have been such a great nuisance. Later on they become very very difficult because they go deep into the blood; they start poisoning the whole system.

So bring people to love and accept themselves and tell them whatsoever they are is perfect… it is absolutely blissful the way they are! Once this feeling arises in a person – that he is absolutely okay – ninety-nine percent of problems have disappeared, and only one problem remains, and that problem nobody can dissolve. That problem is something which is existential – that is the problem of ’Who am I?’ For that problem the person has to go into the deepest core of his being. Help people to meditate, talk about meditation, help them to become more aware of dynamic methods of meditation.

America has become alert about the passive methods of meditation. They cannot help much because america basically is an active country. Passive methods cannot help america – they may give a little solace, consolation, but finally they will prove to be like tranquillisers, nothing more. Only very very active and creative methods can be helpful. And tensions have not to be dissolved; tensions have to be transformed.

If a person simply dissolves tensions he will become uncreative. That’s what happens through ’TM’ and other methods. They talk about it being very creative – it is just nonsense: it cannot be creative! Take away tension, then who bothers about creativity? The person becomes relaxed, but with relaxation he becomes detached too; with relaxation he starts looking at life as useless, meaningless. Tensions have to be transformed, tensions have to be used in a creative way so that they don’t destroy you – rather they create something.

India has suffered very much from these methods, in-active methods of meditation. The whole poverty of this country is because of these methods. For thousands of years we have been just drowning in ourselves, not thinking of anything else – not thinking of the society, not thinking of better roads, not thinking of better housing, not thinking of better food, not thinking of better hygiene – nothing! If a person can just close his eyes and be silent, we think enough is achieved.

Yes, this person will not go mad, that is certain, but just not going mad is not enough. It is not a qualification that you are not mad, that you sleep well, that you are not very tense. Good, but nothing to brag about. Something creative should be born out of your silence. So my emphasis is basically on active methods. Silence should come but through activity, creativity – through painting, dance, music… it should remain continuously joined with action so it does not annihilate action; on the contrary it enhances it.

So help people – your work is beautiful! Wherever people come in contact with people it is a beautiful work. When people work only with tools, mechanical tools, it is not very happy work because if you work too long with machines you become… you tend to become a machine. If you work with people you remain alive.

Source: from Osho Book”This Is It”

[A sannyasin says that during a group she began to speak in a language she knew nothing about. She has a fever afterwards. Since the group it has been happening many times to her. Osho tells her to go into it while he checks her energy.]

Osho - You have stumbled upon a beautiful method of meditation. It has been used in a few christian communities in the past! It is of immense good. We were using it here too; we have changed it just now (the devavani meditation). But it is of immense help; don’t think anything wrong about it. Just start doing it every day at least for one hour.

Close your door, sit in the middle of the room – exactly in the middle. It will be good if you are naked; be naked or have very loose clothes so the whole body is free, no constriction – an then start it. And enjoy it… Let it become almost orgasmic. You will have an orgasm through it. Your whole body will start moving, gestures will come, postures will come, and your body will have deep sexual orgasm through it. But don’t be afraid at all; you will be immensely benefited.

Go on talking and really get animated; don’t be just lukewarm. Become passionate about it, talk in passion. And this gibberish will become your greatest meditation. But when it happens on its own everybody thinks that something is wrong – that some spirit is there or some evil thing has happened. Has some evil possessed them or what? – because it is so… Yes, you are right! You say ’cuckoo’; it is so cuckoo but it is so beautiful!

If you were not here and it had happened anywhere else they would have thought you had gone insane. But it is one of the most ancient methods. You must have heard about it. Yes, you have heard about it; it is not a question of belief! My feeling is that in your past life you must have practised it so it has suddenly bubbled up. Here the atmosphere is of meditation, the vibe is of meditation, and it happens to many people that whatsoever they have been doing in their past life comes back to consciousness. The milieu helps it to come back. You must have practised it and you must have practised it very deeply.

Just get passionate about it and happy about it and let it be a celebration… and do it every day. Do it for three weeks and then report to me. Those three weeks will change you utterly. Mm?something great is going to happen through it!… Don’t worry! Even if it comes in the group allow it. And you have my approval that you are not cuckoo, mm? Good!

Source: from Osho Book “The No Book (No Buddha, No Teaching, No Discipline”

[A sannyasin says: I was doing buddhist meditation for two years.... I kept falling asleep!]

Osho – Mm, that’s possible in a buddhist meditation… very possible. That’s why zen masters have to keep a staff continuously to hit the disciples, because they are always dozing. The whole method is so silent, so relaxing, that the natural possibility is to fall into sleep. Whenever we relax, whenever we are silent, we fall asleep, so with relaxation there is a deep association with sleep.

That’s what we have been doing for our whole life – and the buddhist meditation depends on relaxation. So once you relax, the mind gets the hint that now you are ready to sleep, because that is the only way it has come to know sleep. It has no other way, no other experience. It cannot figure it out – if you are relaxed, why aren’t you going to sleep?

[Osho said it is a oonditioning – just like the conditioned response of Pavlov’s dogs who were trained to respond to the ring of a bell by the subsequent reward of meat. After a time the meat could be withheld, but the dogs would still continue to salivate at the sound of the bell.]
To fall asleep, relaxation is a must, but relaxation is not necessarily a step towards sleep. It can become a step towards meditation too. But then a great change of your past associations is needed, otherwise you will fall asleep. But it is good that you tried. With my meditations it will never happen because they are so active. They create a turmoil in your energy, a chaos; you cannot fall asleep. And for the modern mind, that seems to be the best possibility.

In the old days when Buddha was here and when he invented his meditations, people were absolutely relaxed. In India in those days – all over the world in those days – people were sleeping almost twelve hours because there was no electricity, no kerosene, no light or anything.

Even now in indian villages, that is the case. Thousands of villages have no light, so the sunset is the end of the day. Then what to do? You gossip a little or sing a little, or dance a little and then go to sleep. By the time it is eight, the whole village is fast asleep – and there is no point in getting up too early.

So people have been sleeping deeply. When a person has slept absolutely, then even if relaxation happens, sleep will not come, because the sleep need is fulfilled. And people were working hard. They were working the whole day as they still do in the East. Technology had not yet replaced their work. So when you work hard and you sleep well, your need is to completely relaxed, sit silently, relaxation will come, sleep will not follow, and your energy will start moving in a new direction.

Relaxation is a step towards both sleep and samadhi. After relaxation there is a bifurcation. Either you go into sleep or you go into samadhi; these are the two possibilities. It is very difficult for the modern mind to feel relaxed in the first place. But if you feel relaxed, the second problem is not to fall asleep. People are not sleeping as much as they should, as much as the body needs biologically, and they are not working hard either. Without hard work, sleep is impossible.

You have to do hard work, then the body creates the need to relax. So people are not working – hard work has disappeared – and they are not sleeping well. So whenever they start meditating – any meditation like a buddhist meditation – they start falling asleep. Hence my insistence on active and dynamic methods. Once you start tasting – once that opening has started functioning and a few glimpses of satori have come to you through active methods – then you can again start buddhist methods, and they will be tremendously meaningful. So do a few groups here – and simply do what I say. It is easier that way!

Source: from Osho Book “The Passion for the Impossible”

[A sannyasin says: I have so many problems with my mind in every meditation – I can’t stop it!]

Osho – I understand. Start doing one thing: every day, for one hour in the morning and one hour in the afternoon, sit and say whatsoever comes in the mind, loudly, mm? so that not only do you think it, you hear it. Whatsoever it is – if nonsense comes, let it: you are not to edit it and you are not to make it beautiful because it is not meant to be a performance; it has to be that which is inside. If a few words come – and they will – if the sentence is not even complete and the words stop, then stop; don’t complete it.

Then if something else comes, say that. But whatsoever comes, just watch it, articulate it, say it… whatsoever it is! You have that garbage in the mind, it has to be thrown. You don’t throw it so it goes on revolving inside. Nothing is a problem; you are creating a problem.

People go on keeping that garbage, they don’t throw it. It is as if you are accumulating garbage in your house and you don’t throw it outside so it stinks and when it becomes too much you are disturbed. Wherever you move it is always there and everywhere you come across it. It has to be thrown! The mind creates a certain garbage just as the body does – it is part of life. You eat something: a part of it is digested – becomes your blood, your bones, your flesh, your marrow – but ninety percent of it is just rubbish that has to be thrown out.

If you don’t throw it you will accumulate it in your stomach and then you will be creating poison for your body. That’s what happens when somebody is too constipated, he starts creating toxins in the body; then the poison will circulate in the blood.

The same food that was going to be nourishment will become a deathly poison… the same food! So one has to go on throwing it out. The mind functions in exactly the same way on a subtle plane. You hear somebody talk, you are hearing me talk, you read a book, you are in the market, you listen to people, you see a movie, you listen to the radio, you read the newspaper, all this is going in. Part of it will be digested – a very small part of it is worth digesting; the remaining – what will you do with it? It will go on revolving.

That’s why you know that the content is not important: the content is not important. When somebody is constipated it is not that he is holding gold in his stomach – it is just rubbish, excreta. And that’s what goes on moving in the mind: excreta.

One has to understand the process: just as you cleanse your body, you cleanse your intestines, just as everyday you throw the excreta out of the body and that keeps you healthy, in the same way mind needs to be cleansed every day. So this will help you – one hour in the morning, one hour in the afternoon.

First many thoughts will come, mm? After a few days you will see thoughts are not coming but only fragmentary words… not even thoughts but just words. Then by and by you will start feeling that even words are no more coming but sounds – gibberish. When gibberish starts coming, come back; then you have touched the right level.

Now thoughts are not coming, words are not coming, gibberish is coming. That means that much is cleaned and then meditation will be easy. This you have to continue at least for six months – this will be your meditation – and you will be completely freed.

Question – DO YOU RECOMMEND ANY PARTICULAR DISCIPLINE BESIDES DYNAMIC MEDITATION?
Osho - Even to move into an undisciplined life you have to follow some discipline. But you must remain the master; it must not become a slavery. The real thing, the end, is always to be spontaneous As we are, we are really conditioned not to be free. Our whole upbringing, our culture, our civilization, our religion, our parents – they have all conditioned our minds not to be flee, because a free mind is a dangerous mind.

Your freedom is really a deception. You are tethered to a pole It allows you a little freedom – you can move and say that you are free – but you are still tethered to the pole, so you can only move in a circle. This is man’s state of mind. To jump from this state directly into the spontaneous is very difficult.

Sometimes it happens, but you need much courage. You require the mind of a gambler, of one who can stake everything for the unknown. Then only you can take a jump. You can jump immediately from rules to no rules, from your deadened life to the electricity of living, but then you need very deep courage, the courage to lose yourself. But that is rare. When it exists, no discipline is needed, but since it is not ordinarily possible, you have to do something before you
are able to take a jump.

You can jump in stages. Then the jump is not so big and you are not afraid of it. At a certain point, one has to take a jump into the unknown, but before that, certain preliminary steps are helpful. Once you reach a certain point the jump can happen, but before that there are degrees.

It is just like when you are heating water. At a certain point, at a certain degree, it evaporates. But whether that hundred degree point has come or not, heating is helpful. Of course, you can come back even from ninety-nine degrees. You have to reach a certain point before the jump can happen. That point differs with each individual. It is not like water: that at a hundred degrees it just evaporates. It is going to be different for each person. It is uncertain.

If you could be certain that one particular point was going to be the point from which every individual could take the jump, then mind would be just a machine. But it is not, so the jumping point differs with individuals. For one person it may come on the first step, and for someone else it may come on the hundredth. And for someone else, even the first step may not be needed.

Each individual has to grope in the dark, but a certain direction can be given. I cannot tell you how many steps you have to take, but I can show you the direction. Discipline should not be the end, effort should not be the end. The effortless, the undisciplined, the totally free, must be the end. You should never be a slave to any discipline or you will never come to that certain point from which a jump can happen.

Even in a disciplined way of life you can be free. Really, the discipline should be your choice, not something imposed on you. Then you remain the master. Any moment you can drop the discipline. And with me, there is no condemnation when you drop it. If you drop it, it is okay. You are free to do it or not to do it; you remain the master. Then discipline is not a discipline. It is just a question of your choice.

Source: from Osho Book “The Eternal Quest”

DEVAVANI is the Divine Voice which moves and speaks through themediator, who becomes an empty vessel, a channel. This meditationis a Latihan of the tongue. It relaxes the conscious mind so deeplythat, when done last thing at night, is sure to be followed by aprofound sleep. There are four stages of 15 minutes each. Keep youreyes closed throughout.

First Stage: 15 minutesSit quietly, preferably with gentle music playing.

Second Stage: 15 minutesStart making nonsense sounds, for example ‘la … la … la’, andcontinue until unfamiliar word-like sounds arise. These sounds needto come from the unfamiliar part of the brain used as a child, beforewords were learned. Allow a gentle conversational intonation; do notcry or shout, laugh or scream.

Third Stage: 15 minutesStand up and continue to speak, allowing your body to move softly inharmony with the sounds. If your body is relaxed the subtle energieswill create a Latihan outside your control.

Fourth Stage: 15 minutesLie down, be silent and still.The only thing to be remembered is that those sounds or wordsshould not be of any language that you know. If you know English,German, and Italian, then they should not be Italian, German, orEnglish. Any other language that you don’t know is allowed –Tibetan, Chinese, Japanese! But if you know Japanese then it is notallowed – then Italian is wonderful!

Speak any language that youdon’t know. You will be in a difficulty for a few seconds only for thefirst day, because how do you speak a language you don’t know? It can be spoken, and once it starts, any sounds, nonsense words just toput the conscious off and allow the unconscious to speak, willhappen.

When the unconscious speaks, the unconscious knows nolanguage. It is a very, very old method. It comes from the oldtestament. In those days it was called glossolalia. A few churches inAmerica still use it. They call it ‘talking in tongues’. And it is awonderful method, one of the most deep and penetrating into theunconscious.Don’t make it feverish, let it be a deep deep comforting energy,nourishing, sing-song. Enjoy, sway, if you feel like dancing, dance.But everything has to be very graceful, that you have to remember. Ithas not to become cathartic.

Note: Osho Devavani Meditation Music Free Download