INHALE SLOWLY AND DEEPLY-Relaxation Energy technique

INHALE SLOWLY AND DEEPLY……….
The whole body will be relaxed, and you will feel a glow as if some aura, some light, is surrounding you. You are full of energy, but the energy is like a reservoir; full of energy but with no ripples……

“ [A sannyasin who had been celibate for several months on Osho's suggestion, said she had been feeling very sexual lately and did not know what she should do about it.]

Just do one thing whenever it happens again. Sit straight -- on a chair or on the floor -- with the spine straight, but loose and not tense.

Inhale slowly and deeply. Don’t be in a hurry; very slowly go on inhaling. The belly comes up first; you go on inhaling. The chest comes up next, and then finally you can feel that the air is filled up to the neck. Then for a moment or two just keep the breath in, for as long as you can without straining, then exhale. Exhale also very slowly but in the reverse order. When the belly is being emptied, pull it in so that all the air goes out.

This has to be done just seven times. Then sit silently and start repeating, 'aum, aum, aum.' While repeating aum, keep your concentration on the third eye spot between the two eyebrows. Forget about the breathing, and go on repeating in a very drowsy way, aum, aum, aum like a mother sings a lullaby so the child goes to sleep. The mouth should be closed, so much so that the tongue is touching the roof; and your while concentration is on the third eye.

Do this just for two or three minutes and you will feel that the whole head is relaxing. When it starts relaxing you will immediately feel inside a tightness dropping, a tension disappearing. Then bring your concentration down to the throat; go on repeating aum, but with your concentration on the throat. Then you will see that your shoulders, your throat and your face are relaxing and that the tension is falling away like a burden dropping; you are becoming weightless.

Then drop deeper, bringing your concentration to the navel and continuing the aum. You are going deeper and deeper and deeper.... Then finally you come to the sex centre. This will take at the most ten minutes, fifteen minutes, so go slowly, there is no hurry.

When you have reached the sex centre the whole body will be relaxed, and you will feel a glow as if some aura, some light, is surrounding you. You are full of energy, but the energy is like a reservoir; full of energy but with no ripples. Then you can sit in that state as much as you like; the meditation is over -- now you are simply enjoying. Stop the aum and simply sit. If you feel like Iying you can lie down, but if you move that position the state will sooner disappear, so sit a little and enjoy it.

This brings what scientists call the alpha wave in the mind. It has a certain rhythm -- ten cycles per second which is also the rhythm of the magnetic field of the earth. When you are also in the same rhythm, you become part of the magnetic field of the earth. This is what relaxation is.

Sometimes it can happen without any effort. It happens while making love, doing meditation; sometimes while dancing or singing and sometimes for no reason at all. But whenever your rhythm coincides with the magnetic field of the earth, you feel very very happy and glowing, just beautiful. Just to be, is a benediction.

So whether one achieves it through sex or meditation or dancing, through listening to music or watching beautiful scenery or looking at the stars, is irrelevant. The whole point is that when your body becomes too tense -- for any reason at all -- just do it and it will give you total relaxation.

When our rhythm and the rhythm of the earth are different, the tension arises. A child is not sexual because his rhythm is still the same as that of the earth. But when he grows he will go far away from being natural, will become part of the society and will start becoming tense and worried. Anguish and then sex will arise. The more tense a society, the more sexual it becomes.

That is why the West has become so sexual. Because there are so many tensions, they have to be released, and there seems no other way to release them. But there are a thousand and one ways. So you just try this, mm?”

OSHO
Hammer on the Rock
Chapter 15 - None (30 December 1975 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium)

SANYASIN-The sannyasin is one who lives life like an actor.

ON THE DAY OF THE FIRST INITIATIONS, OSHO EXPLAINS:
( September 26th to October 5th, 1970, Osho holds a Meditation Camp in Manali, in the Himalayas. On September 26th He initiates His first group of disciples, now called neo-sannyasins.)

To me, the sannyasin is one who lives life like an actor. If someone wants to blossom in sannyas living in the thick of the world, he should cease to be a doer and become an actor, become a witness. 

He should live in the thick of life, play his role, and at the same time be a witness to it, but in no way should he be deeply involved in his role, be attached to it. 

He should cross the river in a way that his feet remain untouched by the water. It is, however, difficult to cross a river without letting the water touch your feet, but it is quite possible to live in the world without getting involved in it, without being tied to it………

“ For me, sannyas has no limitations, no inhibitions, no rules and regulations.

For me, sannyas does not accept any imposition, any regimentation, any discipline. For me, sannyas is the flowering of man's ultimate freedom, rooted in his intelligence, his wisdom.

I call him a sannyasin who has the courage to live in utter freedom, and who accepts no bondage, no organization, no discipline whatsoever.

This freedom, however, does not mean license; it does not mean that a sannyasin becomes licentious. The truth is that it is always a man in bondage, a slave, who turns licentious. One who is independent and free can never be licentious; there is no way for him to be so.
That is how I am going to separate the sannyas of the future from the sannyas of the past. And I think that the institution of sannyas, as it has been up to now, is on its deathbed; it is as good as dead. It has no future whatsoever. 

But sannyas in its essence, has to be preserved. It is such a precious attainment of mankind that we cannot afford to lose it. Sannyas is that rarest of flowers that blooms once in a great while. But it is likely that it will wither away for want of proper caring. And it will certainly die if it remains tied to its old patterns.

Therefore, sannyas has to be invested with a new meaning, a new concept. Sannyas has to live; it is the most profound, the most precious treasure that mankind has. But how to save it, preserve it, is the question.

I would like to share with you my vision on this score.

Firstly, it is a long time that sannyas has remained isolated from the world, and consequently it has been doubly harmed. 

A sannyasin living completely cut off from the world, living in utter isolation from the world, becomes poor, and his poverty is very deep and subtle, because the wealth of all our life's experiences lies in the world, not outside. 

All our experiences of pain and pleasure, attachment and detachment, hate and love, enmity and friendship, war and peace, come from the world itself. So when a man breaks away from the world, he becomes a hothouse plant, he ceases to be a flower that blooms under the sun and the open sky. By now, sannyas has become a hothouse plant. And such a sannyas cannot live any longer.

Sannyas cannot be grown in hothouses. To grow and blossom, the plant of sannyas needs an open sky. It needs the light of day and the darkness of night; it needs rains, winds and storms. It needs everything there is between the earth and the sky. A sannyasin needs to go through the whole gamut of challenges and dangers. By isolating him from the world we have harmed the sannyasin enormously, because his inner richness has diminished so much.

It is amusing that those who are ordinarily called good people don't have that richness of life their opposites have; they lack the richness of experience. For this reason, novelists think it is difficult to write a story around the life of a good person, that his life is flat and almost eventless. 

Curiously enough, a bad person makes a good story; he is a must for a story, even for history. What more can we say of a good man than this, that he has been good from the cradle to the grave?

Isolating him from the world, we deprive the sannyasin of experience; he remains very poor in experience. Of course, isolation gives him a sort of security, but it makes him poor and lackluster.

I want to unite the sannyasin with the world. I want sannyasins who work on farms and in factories, in offices and shops right in the marketplace. I don't want sannyasins who escape from the world; I don't want them to be renegades from life. I want them to live as sannyasins in the very thick of the world, to live with the crowd amid its din and bustle. Sannyas will have verve and vitality if the sannyasin remains a sannyasin in the very thick of the world.

In the past, if a woman wanted to be a sannyasin, she had to leave her husband, her children, her family; she had to run away from the life of the world. If a man wanted to take sannyas he had to leave his wife, his children, his family, his whole world, and escape to a monastery or a cave in the mountains.

For me, such a sannyas has no meaning whatsoever. I hold that after taking sannyas, a man or woman should not run away from the world, but should remain where he or she is and let sannyas flower right there.

You can ask how someone will manage his sannyas living in the world. What will he do as a husband, as a father, as a shopkeeper, as a master, as a servant? As a sannyasin how will he manage his thousand and one relationships in the world?—because life is a web of relationships. 

In the past he just ran away from the world, where he was called upon to shoulder any number of responsibilities, and this escape made everything so easy and convenient for him. Sitting in a cave or a monastery, he had no responsibilities. no worries; he led a secluded and shrunken life.

What kind of a sannyas will it be which is not required to renounce anything? Will sannyas without renunciation mean anything?

Recently an actor came to visit me. He is a new entrant into the film world. He asked for my autograph with a message for him. So I wrote in his book: "Act as if it is real life and live as if it is acting."

To me, the sannyasin is one who lives life like an actor. If someone wants to blossom in sannyas living in the thick of the world, he should cease to be a doer and become an actor, become a witness. 

He should live in the thick of life, play his role, and at the same time be a witness to it, but in no way should he be deeply involved in his role, be attached to it. 

He should cross the river in a way that his feet remain untouched by the water. It is, however, difficult to cross a river without letting the water touch your feet, but it is quite possible to live in the world without getting involved in it, without being tied to it.

In this connection it is necessary to understand what play acting is. The miracle is that the more your life becomes play acting, the more orderly, natural and carefree it becomes. 

If a woman, as a mother, learns a small truth, that although the child she is bringing up has been borne by her, yet he does not belong to her alone, that she has been no more than a passage for him to come into this world, that he really belongs to that unknown source from which he came, which will sustain him through his life and to which he will return in the end, then that mother will cease to be a doer; she will really become a play actor and a witness.

Conduct an experiment sometime. Decide that for twenty four hours you are going to do everything as acting. If someone insults you, you will not really be angry, you will only act as if you are angry, And likewise, if someone praises you, you will not really be flattered, you will only act as though you are flattered. 

An experiment like this, just for twenty-four hours, will bring astonishing results for you; it will open new doors to life and living for you. 

You will then realize to your surprise that you have gone through any amount of unnecessary pain and misery in life by being a doer; they could have easily been avoided if you had been an actor instead. 

When you go to bed after this experiment in play acting, you will have a deep sleep such as you have never known. Once you cease to be a doer, all your tensions and anxieties will disappear. Your miseries will just evaporate, because all your miseries and agonies come from your being a doer in life.

I want to take sannyas to every hamlet and every home. Only then can sannyas survive. We need millions of sannyasins; just a handful won't do. And millions can take sannyas only if sannyas is positive and life affirmative. 

We cannot have many sannyasins if you cut sannyas off from the world. Who will feed them? Who will provide them with clothes and shelter? Sannyas of the old kind, which was a haven for idlers and recluses, cannot produce the millions of sannyasins that we need. Those days are gone when society bore the brunt of a vast army of recluses. 

Moreover, sannyasins of the old kind have to be dependent on society, and as a result they became extremely poor physically and spiritually. 

Consequently, they cannot be as effective and influential as they should be. Sannyas on a massive scale is not possible if we cling to its old ways.

I have yet another kind of sannyas in my vision which I would like to share with you. It is the vision of short-term sannyas.

I don't want a person to take a vow of lifelong sannyas. In fact, any kind of vow or commitment for the future is dangerous, because we are not the masters of the future. 

It is utterly wrong to think we are. We have to allow the future to take its course, and we should be ready to accept whatever it brings to us. One who has become a witness cannot decide for the future; only a doer does so. 

One who thinks that he is a doer can vow that he will remain a sannyasin for his whole life, but a real witness will say, "I don't know what tomorrow is going to be. I will accept it as it comes and be a witness to it too. I cannot decide for tomorrow."

In the past, sannyas was much handicapped by the concept of lifelong sannyas: once a sannyasin, always a sannyasin. We closed the gate of society forever once one entered sannyas. 

Maybe a person takes sannyas in a particular state of mind, and after some time, when he finds himself in a different state of mind, wants to return to the world—but he cannot do so because the house of sannyas has only an entrance, it has no exit at all. You can enter sannyas, but once in it you cannot leave. And this single rule has turned sannyas into a prison. Even heaven will turn into hell if there is no exit.

You can say that sannyas has no hard and fast rule like this. That is true, but the fact that society looks down upon one who leaves sannyas is a stronger prohibition than any rule. We have an ingenious device to prevent a sannyasin from going back to the world again. When someone takes sannyas we make a big event of it, give him a farewell with great fanfare, with a band and flowers and eulogies. The poor sannyasin does not know that this is a clever way to say goodbye to him forever. He is not aware that if ever he returns to society he will be received by the same people with sticks instead of flowers.

This is a very dangerous convention. Because of it, any number of people are prevented from participating in the great bliss that sannyas can bring them. It becomes too difficult for them to make a decision for lifelong sannyas, which is indeed a very hard decision. Besides, we don't have the right to commit ourselves to anything for our whole lives.

In my vision, short-term sannyas is the right way. You can leave it any time you like, because it is you who take it. It is your decision, no one else can decide for you. Sannyas is entirely a personal, individual choice, others don't matter in any way. I am free to take sannyas today and leave it tomorrow, provided I don't expect any reward for it from others in the form of their praise and acclamation.

We have made sannyas a very serious affair, and that is why only serious people—who are really sick people—take to it. It is now necessary to turn sannyas into a non-serious thing, a play. It should be entirely for your joy that you enter sannyas for a while and then leave it or remain in it forever. Others should have no say in the matter. If the vision of short-term sannyas becomes prevalent, if people are allowed to enter sannyas even for a few months from time to time, millions of people can enjoy this blessing. It will really be a great thing….

It would be a great experience if someone takes sannyas for a month or two every year and then returns to his householder's world. This experience will enrich his life in a great way; it will go with him for the rest of his life. And if a person, in his sixty or seventy years' life, takes short-term sannyas—say twenty times—he will not need to be a sannyasin again; he will be a sannyasin as he is. Therefore I think that every man and woman should have the opportunity of sannyas in his or her life.

There are going to be three categories of sannyasins. One of them will consist of those who will take short-term sannyas, say tor two or three months. They will meditate and go through some kind of spiritual discipline at some secluded place and then return to their old lives.

The second category will be of those who will take sannyas, but remain wherever they are. They will continue to be in their occupations as before, but they will now be actors and not doers, and they will also be witnesses to life and living.

And the third category will consist of sannyasins who will go deep into the bliss and ecstasy of sannyas that the question of their return to their old world will not arise. They will bear no such responsibilities as will make it necessary for them to be tied to their families; nobody will depend on them and no one will be hurt by their withdrawal from society. The last category of sannyasins will live in meditation and carry the message of meditation to those who are thirsty for it.

It seems to me that never before was the world in such dire need of meditation as it is today. And if we fail to make a large portion of mankind deeply involved in meditation, there is little hope for man's survival on this earth any longer; he will simply disappear from the earth. 

There is already so much neurosis and insanity in the world, there is so much political madness all around, that the hope for mankind remaining alive grows dimmer and dimmer with the passing of each day. And the sands of time are running out fast. So it is urgent for millions of men and women all over the world to become meditative in the short time that we have; otherwise man, with all his civilization, is going to perish. Even if he survives physically, all that is good and great in him will perish.

Therefore a very large band of young men and young women who have yet no responsibilities on their shoulders is needed. And we will include in this band those old people who have laid down their responsibilities and are free. This band of young and old together will first learn meditation, and then they will carry the torch of meditation to every nook and corner of the earth.

The meditation that I teach is so simple, so scientific, that if a hundred people take to it, seventy of them are going to make it. There is no condition that you are qualified to do it; that you do it is all that is needed. 

Besides, you are not required to owe allegiance to any religion, any scripture, or to have faith and belief as a pre-condition to meditation. As you are right now, you can join it and do it and go deeply into it. It is such a simple and scientific technique that you are not required to have faith in it. All that is required of you is that you take it as a hypothetical experiment, as you do a scientific experiment, to see how it works. And I assure you it works; you will make it.

I feel that meditation can he spread throughout the world as a chain-reaction. If a person decides to learn meditation himself and then, within a week of his learning it, initiates another person into it, we will cover the whole earth with meditation within ten years. No greater effort is needed. 

Then all the lofty things of life that man is heir to, but has lost, call be restored to him in ten years. And then there is no reason why Krishna should not play his flute amongst us once again, why Christ should not come again and again, why Buddha should not get enlightened under the bo-tree over and over again. Not that the same old Krishna or Buddha will he born again, but that in us we have the potentialities of that meditation which can flower into a Krishna, a Buddha, a Christ over and over again.

In the matter of food, he should take care that his food is fresh, light and health giving. He should avoid unnecessary violence in eating; he should not eat anything that is obtained by killing and maiming living beings. In brief, health should be your prime consideration in the selection of food.

Another important thing in respect to food is to learn and develop a sense of taste in eating. And it depends more on the art of eating than on the food itself. On the basis of such broad hints about food one should draw up his menu in accord with his own individuality.

Others can't give you a discipline; it is just absurd. In fact, everybody is the architect of his own destiny. 

Being initiated into sannyas means that a man chooses to be his own master, that he will make his own decisions, that it is his right to conduct himself in his own way. 

You can say that a sannyasin is liable to err if he makes his own decisions. Let him err; he will suffer for his mistakes. Why should you worry about it? If he does things rightly he will be happy, and if he does them wrongly he will suffer. It is wrong to take undue interest in what others do and how they do it. It is really immoral to interfere in another's life. Who are you to come in his way? One should come in another's way only if his mistakes begin to harm others; otherwise, he should not be interfered with. He can make mistakes and learn from his mistakes.

A sannyasin is one who lives with discrimination, with wisdom, who is always investigating what it is that brings happiness and what it is that causes pain, and who, through his own experiences, learns what is good for him. He is on a journey to his bliss; you need not worry about him.

Later in 1985 Osho commented:
My effort here is not to create disciples—that is just the preface—but to create masters, as many masters as possible. 

The world needs immensely, urgently, many people of awareness, of love, of freedom, of sincerity. Only these people can create a certain spiritual atmosphere that can prevent this world from being destroyed by the suicidal forces—which are very powerful, but not more powerful than love. 

If you have a Master things are simple. He can hold your hand when you are losing all track of your being. He can become your support. If you love your Master that love will be the last link. Every link disappears but that link remains. It disappears only when you have attained your own perspective, your own clarity. It is just like an umbilical cord. The child lives through the mother in the womb for nine months and if you cut the umbilical cord he will die He lives through it. That is the only link.

In exactly the same way, if you love the Master, a subtle silver cord arises between you and the Master—a very invisible phenomenon to others but very visible to the disciple. He can almost touch it. You become joined together with your Master from your navel. The Master is your mother, the Master is your womb. And this umbilical cord, this invisible silver cord, remains nursing you until you are ready and the pregnancy is ripe, until you are ready to be reborn and you can breathe on your own.

The Master is a must. If you can find one you are fortunate. Then he will interpret to you and the darkness will look like light, the illness will look like a new well-being; the curse he will transform into a blessing. In fact, it is a blessing but you interpret it as a curse. He is not doing anything, he is simply showing you what the case is. 

Old scriptures say that the master or the guru—the outer guru—can be helpful only in finding the inner guru. That is all. Once the outer guru has helped you to find the inner guru, the function of the outer guru is no more.

You cannot reach to the truth through a master; you can reach only to the inner master through a master—and then this inner master will lead you to the truth. 

The outer master is just a representative, a substitute. He has his inner guide and he can feel your inner guide also, because they both exist on the same wavelength—they both exist in the same tuning and the same dimension. If I have found my inner guide, I can look into you and feel your inner guide. And if I am really a guide to you, all my guidance will be to lead you to your inner guide.

Once you are in contact with the inner guide, I am no longer needed. Now you can move alone. So all that a guru can do is to push you down from your head to your navel, from your reasoning to your intuitive force, from your argumentative mind to your trusting guide. 

And it is not like this only with human beings, it is so with animals, with birds, with trees, with everything. The inner guide exists, and many new phenomena have been discovered which are mysteries. 

A great deal of research has been conducted in the fields of telepathy and clairvoyance, and they have yielded good results. Without the help of any technical aids, I can communicate with a person who is thousands of miles away from here, which means that astral communication, communication without the help of any physical instruments is possible. “

OSHO
( September 26th to October 5th, 1970, Osho holds a Meditation Camp in Manali, in the Himalayas. On September 26th He initiates His first group of disciples, now called neo-sannyasins.)

ONLY BLISS MAKES A PERSON COMPASSIONATE

ONLY BLISS MAKES A PERSON COMPASSIONATE...
I don't talk about compassion at all, but I teach bliss, and compassion comes as a shadow….
( A Sannyas Initiation )

“Anand means bliss, rahimo means compassion -- a blissful compassion. Bliss is spontaneously compassionate. Suffering is never compassionate. The man who suffers is always angry with life. The man who suffers would like everybody to suffer. He has a grudge against life. He cannot feel compassion.

Usually people think just the reverse: they think that if a man has suffered he will feel compassion for others' suffering. That is not so. 

The man who has suffered becomes hard, insensitive; he cannot feel compassion. That you can see everywhere in a country like India: people have lived in poverty so long, they have suffered so much that they have become oblivious of poverty. 

A beggar may be dying on the road -- nobody feels anything for the beggar. If suffering made people compassionate then India would be the most compassionate country. It is not?

Suffering has made people hard, suffering has dulled their sensitivity, suffering has made them thick. Just to protect themselves they had to become hard: they have grown a hard crust around their hearts. If they continuously feel for everybody who is suffering it will be impossible to live. Suffering is all over the place. 

They have invented beautiful theories to protect themselves: if somebody is suffering he is suffering because of his past karma. It has nothing to do with the person who is suffering but it gives a good explanation to the person who wants to avoid compassion. 

This theory is just a protection, otherwise you will have to be compassionate; and if you are not compassionate you will feel guilty and that will be heavy on you. People have lived in poverty, starvation, suffering, for so long that others have to invent theories to console themselves, to defend themselves. They have to create an armor, a psychological armor.

My own observation is that only bliss makes a person compassionate. If he has known joy he will feel compassion for those who are in suffering. 

If he has not known any joy he accepts suffering as life. Why should he feel compassion? There is no reason. He has suffered, everybody suffers -- life is suffering -- and because he has not tasted anything contrary to it he cannot feel it.

The East has talked about religion for so long but has no compassion. The West is not so religious, not at all, but more compassion is arising, and the reason is: the West has tasted something of the joys of life.

They are not much, they are only on the circumference, but still some pleasure on the circumference has been tasted. 

Suddenly, when a person comes from the West to the East and sees poverty and starvation, he feels aghast; it is inconceivable to him. He cannot believe his eyes -- how people are tolerating this and why nobody is doing anything to change it. This is only because on the circumference the West has attained a little affluence, a little better standard of life.

When one comes to know the innermost joy, when one knows something of God, something of love, something of meditation -- when one has flown high or has tasted something of the deepest in one's consciousness -- then a great compassion arises. 

One would like to share all that one has; one would like to pour one's whole being. One would like the whole existence to become enlightened. One would like everybody to dance and sing and celebrate. But that happens only when you have come to know something.

So I make bliss a prerequisite of being compassionate. I don't teach compassion to people. I teach bliss. Compassion comes of its own accord. 

Many people come to me and they ask why I am teaching you to meditate and dance and sing when people are in suffering. I should teach people to serve, to be compassionate, to do something. But I know that is not the right way. 

Unless they have tasted something of joy they will never feel compassionate. And if they are convinced logically, rationally, to feel compassion, their compassion will be a kind of obligation to the people and they will feel very egoistic about it. They will go on an ego trip, and when you are on an ego trip it is not compassion -- it is destruction.

So I don't teach compassion at all, I don't talk about compassion at all, but I teach bliss, and compassion comes as a shadow. And when compassion comes as a shadow it has a beauty. Then you don't oblige anybody; you don't become a great public servant. Then you are not on an ego trip for humanity's salvation. Then all that is nonsense. 

You simply do whatsoever you can do because you enjoy doing it, because it is your sheer joy that wants to be shared; it has nothing to do with the other. You don't want even a thank you from the other; you don't wait for him to feel grateful to you. 

And when you can be loving and compassionate without obliging the other, then compassion is really beautiful -- a benediction to you and to others too.”

OSHO
God's Got a Thing About you
Chapter 12 - None (12 September 1978 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium)

LOVE YOUR BODY AND YOU WILL FEEL A RELAXATION

LOVE YOUR BODY AND YOU WILL FEEL A RELAXATION SUCH AS YOU HAVE NEVER FELT BEFORE. 

Love is relaxing.
When there is love, there is relaxation.
If you love someone -- if, between you and him or you and her, there is love -- then with love comes the music of relaxation.
Then relaxation is there.

When you are relaxed with someone, that is the only sign of love.

If you cannot be relaxed with someone, you are not in love; the other, the enemy, is always there.

That is why Sartre has said, "The other is hell." Hell is there for Sartre, it is bound to be. When there is no love flowing between the two, the other is hell, but if there is love flowing in between, the other is heaven. 

So whether the other is heaven or hell depends on whether there is love flowing in between.

Whenever you are in love, a silence comes.
Language is lost; words become meaningless.
You have much to say and nothing to say at the same time.
The silence will envelop you, and in that silence, love flowers. 

You are relaxed. There is no future in love, there is no past; only when love has died is there a past.
You only remember a dead love, a living love is never remembered; it is living, there is no gap to remember it; there is no space to remember it.
Love is in the present; there is no future and no past.

If you love someone, you do not have to pretend. Then you can be what you are.
You can put off your mask and be relaxed.
When you are not in love, you have to wear a mask. You are tense every moment because the other is there; you have to pretend, you have to be on guard. You have to be either aggressive or defensive: it is a fight, a battle -- you cannot be relaxed.

The bliss of love is more or less the bliss of relaxation.
You feel relaxed, you can be what you are, you can be nude in a sense, as you are.
You need not be bothered about yourself, you need not pretend. You can be open, vulnerable, and in that opening, you are relaxed.

This same phenomenon happens if you love your body; you become relaxed, you care about it.
It is not wrong, it is not narcissistic to be in love with your own body. 

In fact, it is the first step toward spirituality.”

OSHO
Source book : Meditation: The Art of Ecstasy
Chapter 6 - Moving Deeply into the Known ()

SELF REMEMBERING

SELF REMEMBERING…….
“ Remember yourself, whatsoever you are doing.
It is very difficult. It looks very easy, but you will go on forgetting. Even for three or four seconds you cannot remember yourself. 

You will have a feeling that you are remembering, and suddenly you will have moved to some other thought. Even with this thought that "Okay, I am remembering myself," you will have missed, because this thought is not self-remembering.

In self-remembering there will be no thought; you will be completely empty. And self-remembering is not a mental process. It is not that you say, "Yes, I am." Saying "Yes, I am," you have missed. This is a mind thing, this is a mental process: "I am."

Feel "I am," not the words "I am." Don't verbalize, just feel that you are. Don't think, FEEL! Try it. It is difficult, but if you go on insisting it happens. 

While walking, remember you are, and have the feeling of your being, not of any thought, not of any idea. Just feel. I touch your hand or I put my hand on your head: don't verbalize. Just feel the touch, and in that feeling feel not only the touch, but feel also the touched one. Then your consciousness becomes double-arrowed.

You are walking under trees: the trees are there, the breeze is there, the sun is rising. This is the world all around you; you are aware of it. Stand for a moment and suddenly remember that you are, but don't verbalize. Just feel that you are. This nonverbal feeling, even if for only a single moment, will give you a glimpse -- a glimpse which no LSD can give you, a glimpse which is of the real. 

For a single moment you are thrown back to the center of your being. You are behind the mirror; you have transcended the world of reflections; you are existential. And you can do it at any time. It doesn't need any special place or any special time. 

And you cannot say, "I have no time." When eating you can do it, when taking a bath you can do it, when moving or sitting you can do it -- anytime. No matter what you are doing, you can suddenly remember yourself, and then try to continue that glimpse of your being.

It will be difficult. One moment you will feel it is there, the next moment you will have moved away. Some thought will have entered, some reflection will have come to you, and you will have become involved in the reflection. But don't be sad and don't be disappointed. 

This is so because for lives together we have been concerned with the reflections. This has become a robot-like mechanism. Instantly, automatically, we are thrown to the reflection. But if even for a single moment you have the glimpse, it is enough for the beginning. 

And why is it enough? Because you will never get two moments together. Only one moment is with you always. And if you can have the glimpse for a single moment, you can remain in it. Only effort is needed -- a continuous effort is needed.

A single moment is given to you. You cannot have two moments together, so don't worry about two moments. You will always get only one moment. And if you can be aware in one moment, you can be aware for your whole life. Now only effort is needed, and this can be done the whole day. Whenever you remember, remember yourself

You can practice this: relaxing in a chair or just sitting under a tree, forget everything and feel this "you-areness." No Christian, no Hindu, no Buddhist, no Indian, no Englishman, no German -- simply, YOU ARE

And the moment you are aware that you are, you are thrown into the current of the ever-living. The false is going to die; only the real will remain.”

OSHO
Book - Vigyan Bhirav Tantra (Volume 1)
Chapter # 35
Chapter Name - Turning Inward Toward The Real

CHANTING AUM

CHANTING AUM WILL BE VERY HELPFUL TO YOU……
Whenever you feel that there is too much disturbance around you, or your mind is distracted too much, just chant aum. 

You can become a natural chanter.

Make it a point for at least twenty minutes in the morning and twenty minutes in the night to sit silently in this posture (indicating the posture in which she was sitting, legs folded back on either side of her). 

Half open the eyes and just be looking down.
Breathing should be slow, body unmoving, and start chanting aum inside.
There is no need to bring it out.
It will be more penetrating with lips closed; even the tongue should not move.
Chant aum fast -- aum aum aum aum; fast and loud but inside you.
Just feel that it is vibrating all over the body from the feet to the head, from the head to the feet………

“ A group participant says: We did an exercise where two people were making noises, gibberisb, in the ears of someone else and when we did it I felt like this was the world -- always people saying gibberisb to me and I listen. This time I stayed with the noise and said 'aum' and all the noises stopped.]

Very very good. So you can do that. Chanting aum will be very helpful to you. Whenever you feel that there is too much disturbance around you, or your mind is distracted too much, just chant aum. You can become a natural chanter.

Make it a point for at least twenty minutes in the morning and twenty minutes in the night to sit silently in this posture (indicating the posture in which she was sitting, legs folded back on either side of her). 

Half open the eyes and just be looking down. Breathing should be slow, body unmoving, and start chanting aum inside. There is no need to bring it out. It will be more penetrating with lips closed; even the tongue should not move. Chant aum fast -- aum aum aum aum; fast and loud but inside you. Just feel that it is vibrating all over the body from the feet to the head, from the head to the feet.

Each aum falls into your consciousness like a rock thrown into a pool and ripples arise and spread to the very end. The ripples go on expanding and touch the whole body.

Doing this there will be moments -- and they will be the most beautiful moments -- when you will not be repeating and everything has stopped. Suddenly you will become aware that you are not chanting and everything has stopped. Enjoy it. If thoughts start coming, again start chanting.

And when you do it at night, do it at least two hours before you go to sleep, otherwise if you do it just before you go to bed, you will not be able to go to sleep because it will make you so fresh that you will not feel like it. You will feel like it is morning and you have rested well, so what is the point.

And do it fast... but you can find your own pace. After two or three days you will find what suits you. To a few people it suits very fast -- aum aum aum -- almost overlapping. To others it suits very slow, so it depends on you.

But whatsoever feels good, you continue, mm? ”

OSHO
Beloved of My Heart
Chapter 21 - Here and Now is not a Goal (23 May 1976 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium)

MEDITATION-TOTAL RELAXATION-EFFORTLESS EFFORT

MEDITATION IS EQUIVALENT TO TOTAL RELAXATION.
JUST DOING NOTHING, SITTING SILENTLY, AND THE GRASS GROWS BY ITSELF…..

You have not only to hear my voice; you have to hear the still, small voice of your own being……

This is not going to happen just by itself; you will have to move a little, make a little effort. And the effort has to be very relaxed -- that is the secret. We know efforts, but they become tensions, anxieties, worries.

You have to learn a different kind of effort -- what Lao Tzu calls effortless effort -- utterly relaxed, because you are not going anywhere. You are simply relaxing within yourself……….

Questioner : “ Beloved Osho,
Being with you, seeing your beauty, hearing your cosy voice, feeling your presence -- this all uncovered again the deep longing in me for that which Zarathustra called 'the great noontide'. Is that enough? Does that lead me to the ultimate?”

OSHO : “ Shantu Abhinava, this is not enough. This will not bring you to what Zarathustra calls, "the great noontide", but it is a good beginning.

You are saying, "Being with You, seeing Your beauty, hearing Your cosy voice, feeling Your presence -- this all uncovered again the deep longing in me for that which Zarathustra called 'the great noontide'. Is that enough? Does that lead me to the ultimate?"

It is not enough, and it will not lead you on its own to the ultimate. You will have to understand something deeper on each point that you mention. "Being with You" is not enough; you have to be with yourself. Being with me may give you a taste, but that is not going to be enough nourishment. You have to learn, from that -- being with yourself.

"Seeing Your beauty" ... these are good indications, but when are you going to see your beauty? I can only be an arrow. But the arrow is always pointing towards your center. The arrow may be beautiful, you may appreciate it, that was not the purpose of the arrow. The purpose of the arrow was for you to move to where it was pointing.

You have to see your beauty.

You have not only to hear my voice; you have to hear the still, small voice of your own being.
It is a good beginning to experience my presence, but one should not stop at it. You have to experience your presence. That will bring in you what Zarathustra calls 'the great noontide'.

The master is just a milestone, on every milestone there is an arrow showing you -- move on, you are coming closer to the goal. And when you come to the milestone where there is no arrow but zero, you have come home. That is the great noontide.

This is not going to happen just by itself; you will have to move a little, make a little effort. And the effort has to be very relaxed -- that is the secret. We know efforts, but they become tensions, anxieties, worries.

You have to learn a different kind of effort -- what Lao Tzu calls effortless effort -- utterly relaxed, because you are not going anywhere. You are simply relaxing within yourself. 

You are not going to find some goal, some achievement far away which creates worries -- whether you are on the right path or on the wrong path, whether you are moving in the right direction, whether the goal really exists or it is just a fiction that you have heard from others. With me one thing is clear -- that you are not a fiction.

God may be a fiction and paradise may be a fiction.

You are a reality.

Relaxing within yourself simply means not going outwards, withdrawing all your energy which generally goes on moving outwards. Don't go anywhere -- just be now and here. There is no question of tension, there is no question of any worry.

Silently you will slip into your own being and you will feel a great presence and you will hear a soundless sound -- what the Zen people call "the sound of one hand clapping." You will see the most beautiful space which you cannot imagine, which you cannot even dream of. And it is so close by -- just at the very center of you.

The journey is small, but it has to be done, and done in such a strange way that there is no doer -- almost the way you fall asleep. 

You cannot be a doer, you cannot make any effort to bring sleep -- that will be a disturbance. This entering into your own being and presence is almost like allowing it to happen.

That is the great effort which is effortless, which will bring the noontide and the ultimate experience. In a single word: meditation is equivalent to total relaxation. Just doing nothing, sitting silently, and the grass grows by itself.”

OSHO
Source book : The Golden Future.

IN THE EAST, THE DAY ONE GETS BEYOND SEX, HE REJOICES

IN THE EAST, THE DAY ONE GETS BEYOND SEX, HE REJOICES
-- the earlier the better -- because now the time has come to grow into a new dimension, into freedom from biology, into freedom from body, into freedom from mind. It is the beginning of the experience of your innermost self…..

If sex is going, say goodbye to it. It was good when it was there; it is better when it is gone. Now begins a totally different space of experiencing. Now begins a new adventure, more free, more individual, more unfettered. And the sky is so vast to explore... and on each step there are miracles and miracles….

Questioner: “ Beloved Osho, could dry leaves really be falling at such a young age? i am thirty, and i enjoy sex when it comes, though i don't come so often. i don't feel i am holding something down; on the contrary, i find i usually have to hold it up.
Beloved Osho, it now takes me all night to do what i used to do all night. am i missing, or is it missing?”

OSHO: ” Nityanando, this is the difference between the Eastern evolution of consciousness and the Western mind.

In the East, to get rid of sex is a blessing; in the West, it is the ultimate calamity, it is dying before death. The day one starts feeling that his sexual energy is getting down, he starts counting days -- that death is not far away.

In the East, the day one gets beyond sex, he rejoices -- the earlier the better -- because now the time has come to grow into a new dimension, into freedom from biology, into freedom from body, into freedom from mind. It is the beginning of the experience of your innermost self.

Sex is continuously taking you away from yourself. Whether you are a man or a woman, it doesn't matter: sex takes you away from yourself. The moment sex is not there, there is no drive to go away from yourself. You start settling within.

So, Nityanando, old leaves are really falling because new leaves want to grow. And old leaves have to go and give space for new experiences, new spaces. It is a blessing -- don't take it according to the Western, rotten mind.

The West has everything, but it has forgotten itself. And once you are no longer aware of yourself, then sex becomes the ultimate reality. In the West, sex is God. Sex is now the only God worshiped in the West. 

But sex simply means you are no longer independent: you depend for your happiness, for your joy, on somebody else -- and that dependence is the greatest misery.

It is not incidental that men and women, husbands and wives, are continuously quarreling. Even if they are not quarreling, they are in the mood, and the reason is that nobody wants deep down to be dependent on the other. It brings many other diseases by the side: if you are dependent on the woman you love, you will be jealous, you will be continuously watchful... you will start becoming a detective, a CIA, a KGB, an FBI agent, upon your own wife! You will put your children on alert: Be careful, when I am away... what happens in the house.

Why this jealousy...? The fear is that perhaps she may start loving someone else. And the fear is natural, because you are starting to think of other women: why should she not think of other men? This is a natural corollary that goes on in both the minds. So she goes on detecting you, she goes on looking into your letters, she goes on searching into your pockets, any address, any phone number...

Nityanando, let the dry leaves fall. You are fortunate that they are falling at thirty. And they are falling at thirty because, as I say, if you live intensely, totally, then the year forty-two... it is only the average, and in existence nothing is average. It all depends on you: there are people who will be at the age of ninety and still thinking of nothing but sex. All other things are finished... the only thing left is sex. That continues to the very end of their life, because they never lived it intensely; they have spread a thin layer of sexuality over all their life. If you live intensely, it is going to disappear sooner.

The thirtieth year is perfectly the right time. That leaves you -- because you are from the West -- at least fifty to sixty years to work upon yourself, to find yourself, and to find the innermost mysteries of existence. 

In fact, now begins the real life; up to now you were a slave. Now, boundaries are dropping and the whole sky is becoming available to you with all its stars.

But in the West it is certainly a very difficult problem. The whole conditioning of centuries has brought man to such a state that sex seems to be everything: it is money, it is power, it is position. Everything is sacrificed for sex, and everything is achieved only for sex.

Nobody bothers that sex is not your reality, sex is not love, and nobody even bothers whether you are getting anything out of it or not. 

What are you getting out of it? -- it is almost like people smoking cigarettes: one wonders why they are smoking, and once in a while they also wonder why. But just a habit... and it is only a mental habit. Sex is a biological habit, very deep-rooted.

You say, "It now takes me all night to do what I used to do all night." That's why -- you did well. Soon it will take you twenty-four hours to do what you used to do the whole night!

Now, try to understand: you have lost the infatuation and the foolishness and the slavery, and this is the time to start meditating. 

If you cannot meditate now, then when will you be meditating? I will not prevent you... once in a while you can have your sex, but it will become more and more sparse.

There is a saying in Tibet: If you feel tired, lie down. If you feel energetic, move over. But first, feel whether you are energetic, otherwise it is better to lie down.

And from me the advice is:

If you do not know what to do, at least laugh.

Priests and monks and saints, Nityanando, are in more difficulty than you think you are, because the time when they could have been deeply into sex is gone. Now only the thought goes on and on like a continuous record. And the needle of the record has stuck at sex; it does not move from there……

Don't be an old fool. And if you can become wise while you are young, just thirty, thank God. Be grateful to existence that he is allowing you so much time to explore much that is not available to any other animal, which is only available to man. And the more time you have to explore it, the deeper will be your insight, the greater will be your consciousness and tremendous will be your splendor. You will not die an ugly death; you will die with a grace and with a smile on your face.

A life that cannot reach to enlightenment has been a sheer waste. 

It is good that your thirty years were passed in the West. Thirty years in the East are bad luck; thirty years in the West are good luck -- but good luck only if after thirty years you can come into contact with the Eastern mysteries. Then you have more chances than the Eastern counterpart, because the Eastern counterpart has been repressing sex, so it will not be possible for him to meditate at the age of thirty. If he can manage to meditate even at the age of sixty, it will be a surprise.

It is a tremendously fortunate moment, at least for my people, because the East is so orthodox, so traditional, so blind, so deaf, that they will not hear me. They can hear Morarji Desai and even can start drinking their own urine. That is possible because for centuries they have been drinking the urine of the cows, so in fact it is better to drink your own -- self-sufficiency! Why be dependent on a cow? And who knows what kind of dirty water she has been drinking? As far as I know Morarji Desai has no need of any water. The same water goes on circulating, so naturally he never falls sick, because infections are difficult, pollution is difficult....

But they will not listen to me. They cannot listen to any reasonable, logical, scientific truth.

So it is a very strange situation. I am here in the East, but my people are going to be from the West, because only the Western youth can understand. 

Sex has become futile, he has lived with too many women; drugs have become useless, he has known too much... now what else? There seems to be nothing around which can keep the youth in the West interested, intrigued, still feeling that life may have some significance.

All the modern, contemporary Western philosophers are talking about one thing only: meaninglessness. And they appeal to the Western youth because he can see himself: it is not a question to be convinced about, to be argued -- he has lived everything and he finds everything falls flat sooner or later. He has lived with many women; the woman has lived with many men. They are all alike... you have just to put the light off! The question is only whether the light is on or off; that much difference and the most beautiful woman or the most ugly woman are the same.

Because they have known many women and many men, the hope that still can be helpful in the East is no more for them. In the East everybody is caught up with one woman, and that means monotony. People call it monogamy, but that is not the right word. They are so fed up with the woman, the woman is so fed up with the man, but there is no other way. It is a lifelong contract.

So they go on hoping that, perhaps what my wife does not have, other women have; what my husband is not able for, other people seem to be able.... But in the West, that hope has died. People have tried and found that it is all nonsense; every woman has the same physiology, the difference is just superficial. Every man has the same physiology, and everything comes to the same end.

Then they tried grass, they tried marijuana, they tried hashish, they tried transcendental meditation. Now they are trying yogic flying and making themselves so foolish. But what to do? -- they have to do something, otherwise life seems to be empty.

Nityanando, you are fortunate that life need not be empty for you. If sex is going, say goodbye to it. It was good when it was there; it is better when it is gone. 

Now begins a totally different space of experiencing. Now begins a new adventure, more free, more individual, more unfettered. And the sky is so vast to explore... and on each step there are miracles and miracles.

So sing and dance and meditate. And life is immensely beautiful: it has all that Gautam Buddha experienced and more, because twenty-five centuries have passed; man has become far more mature, and evolution has gone higher. We can produce greater Gautam Buddhas with more dimensions to them.

In the past it was thought that a man can only experience himself or God -- which are only different names -- if he tortures himself. That was a primitive idea.

I give you a sophisticated, cultured version, the latest edition: there is no need to torture yourself -- it is absolutely absurd! You can be blissful, you can be ecstatic, you can be meditative, comfortably. I don't see the connection that you can be meditative sitting in a bullock cart but you cannot be meditative sitting in a Rolls Royce. If you can be meditative sitting on a camel, then why can't you be meditative flying in a jumbo jet -- which is far more comfortable, far more silent, far more peaceful.

Have you ever tried sitting on an animal like a camel? -- sex is exactly like that! It is the ugliest vehicle.... I have suffered it, I'm not saying it without experience. And those two, three hours I was on a camel, I said, "My god, whether I'm going to survive or not..."

Life has gone on -- in spite of all hindrances from politicians, from priests, from traditionalists, from the orthodox. Life has gone on, although it could have gone far faster if all these hindrances were not there. But still, after twenty-five hundred years we are in a position to create better Gautam Buddhas, better Mahaviras. We know much more about human physiology, we know much more about human biology, we know much more about human sexuality.

The ancientmost book on sex was written in India; that was Vatsyayana's KAMASUTRAS, sutras on sex. But looking at it, it looks as if a child is writing about sex. After Sigmund Freud and Masters and Johnson, and after so many discoveries in biology, in genetics, we are in such a position that we can create far greater giants of enlightenment, awareness, illumination. But if you are feeling too much attached to that which is gone, then your life will be a life of misery, continuously thinking of something which you cannot do. It is up to you.

Being my sannyasin, I don't think you will accept this despair. Less than ultimate ecstasy is not our concern.”
OSHO
The Great Pilgrimage: From Here to Here
Chapter 11 - Meditation -- now or never! (11 September 1987 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium)

START EXHALING DEEPLY

START EXHALING DEEPLY………
[A sannyasin says she sits all day in the ashram boutique, where she works, her fists clenched tight with tension, as if on guard lest someone attack her. And she's become more aware of tension in her belly too.

Osho checks her energy. Calling her back, you suggest she begin to exhale deeply, then allow inhalation to happen of its own accord. This exercise will change the musculature of the stomach, which has become hardened, has lost elasticity, you explain, with the lack of deep in breathing.]

The majority of people suffer from this rocklike stomach. It is the cause of a thousand and one illnesses -- physical, mental, both -- because the stomach is the centre where your psychology and your physiology meet; they meet at the navel. The navel is the contact point between the psychology and the physiology. 

So if around the navel the musculature becomes rocklike, you become very divided. Your mind and body become separate; then they are almost two things, with no bridge.

So sometimes you can do a thing which only the mind feels like doing and the body is not ready for. For example, you can eat: the body is not hungry but you can go on eating because the mind is enjoying the taste. 

It will not know how the body is feeling because the feeling is cut; there is no bridge. Sometimes it can happen that you are so much engaged in playing cards or seeing the movie that the body is hungry and you may not know about it. Then one remains like two parallel lines, never meeting. That's what schizophrenia is, and it is very rare to find a person who is not, in some way, schizophrenic. But one symptom will always be there: a rocklike stomach.

So the first thing to do is: start exhaling deeply. And when you exhale deeply, naturally, you will have to pull the stomach in. Then relax and let the air rush in. If you have exhaled deeply, the air will rush in with such force. It will go like a hammering -- it will destroy the rocklike structure around the stomach... One thing.

The second thing: in the morning, after the motion when your stomach is empty, take a dry towel and rub the stomach, massage the stomach. Start from the right comer and go around, not otherwise -- three to four minutes massage. That will also help to relax.

And the third thing: whenever you can, do a little running. Running will be very good -- jogging, running. These three things, and within a month this rock will disappear. When it disappears, just inform me.”

OSHO
Don't Look Before You Leap

VISUALIZE YOUR SPINAL COLUMN

VISUALIZE YOUR SPINAL COLUMN, and in the middle a silver cord running through it. 

First it may look like imagination, but by and by you will feel that imagination has disappeared and your mind has become focused on that spinal column.
And then you will see your own spine. 

The moment you see the inner core, suddenly you will feel an explosion of the light within you……….

“ PLACE YOUR WHOLE ATTENTION IN THE NERVE, DELICATE AS THE LOTUS THREAD, IN THE CENTER OF YOUR SPINAL COLUMN. IN SUCH BE TRANSFORMED.

For this sutra, for this technique of meditation, one has to close his eyes and visualize his spinal column, his backbone. It is good to look up in some physiology book the structure of the body, or to go to some medical college or hospital and look at the structure of the body. 

Then close your eyes and visualize your backbone. Let the backbone be straight, erect. Visualize it, see it, and just in the middle of it visualize a nerve, delicate as the lotus thread, running in the center of your spinal column. IN SUCH BE TRANSFORMED.

If you can, concentrate on the spinal column, and then on a thread in the middle of it -- on a very delicate nerve like a lotus thread running through it. Concentrate on it, and this very concentration throws you to your center. Why?

The spinal column is the base of your whole body structure. Everything is joined to it. Really, your brain is nothing but one pole of your spinal column. Physiologists say it is nothing but a spinal column growth; your brain is really a growth of your spinal column.

Your spine is connected with your whole body -- everything is connected to it. That is why it is called the spine, the base. 

In this spine there is really a thread-like thing, but physiology will not say anything about it because it is not material. In this spine, just in the middle, there is a silver cord -- a very delicate nerve. It is not really a nerve in the physiological sense. You cannot operate and find it; it will not be found there.

But in deep meditation it is seen. It is there; it is non-material. It is energy, not matter. And really, that energy cord in your spinal column is your life.

Through that you are related to the invisible existence, and through that also you are related to the visible. That is the bridge between the invisible and the visible. Through that thread you are related to the body, and through that thread also you are related to your soul.

First, visualize the spine. At first you will feel very strange, you will be able to visualize it, but as an imagination. And if you go on endeavouring, then it will not be just your imagination. You will become capable of seeing your spinal column.

Really, there is another way of looking at your own body -- from within. If you can concentrate within, suddenly you begin to see your body -- the inner lining of the body. This is good for those who are deeply body-oriented. 

If you feel yourself a materialist, if you feel yourself to be nothing but body, this technique will be very helpful for you. If you feel yourself to be a body, if you are a believer in Charvak or in Marx, if you believe that man is nothing but a body, this technique will be very helpful for you. Then go and see the bone structure of man.

In the old tantra and yoga schools they used many bones. Even now a tantric will always be found with some bones, with a man's skull. Really, that is to help concentration from inside. First he concentrates on that skull, then he closes his eyes and tries to visualize his own skull. He goes on trying to see the outer skull inside, and by and by he begins to feel his own skull. His consciousness begins to be focused. That outer skull, the concentration on it and the visualization, are just helps. 

Once you are focused inside, you can move from your toes to your head. You can move inside -- and it is a great universe. Your small body is a great universe.

This sutra uses the spinal column because within the spinal column there is the thread of life. This is why there is so much insistence on a straight backbone, because if the backbone is not straight you will not be capable of seeing the inner thread. It is very delicate, it is very subtle -- it is minute. It is an energy flow. So if the spinal column is straight, absolutely straight, only then can you have glimpses of that thread.

But our spinal columns are not straight. Hindus have tried to make everyone's spinal column straight from the very childhood. Their ways of sitting, their ways of sleeping, their ways of walking were all based, basically, on a straight spinal column. If the spinal column is not straight, then it is very difficult to see the inner core. It is delicate -- and really, it is not material. It is immaterial; it is a force. When the spinal column is absolutely straight, that thread-like force is seen easily.

... IN SUCH BE TRANSFORMED. Once you can feel, concentrate and realize this thread, you will be filled with a new light. The light will be coming from your spinal column. It will spread all over your body; it may even go beyond your body. When it goes beyond, auras are seen.

Everyone has an aura, but ordinarily your auras are nothing but shadows with no light in them -- just dark shadows around you. And those auras reflect your every mood. When you are angry, then your auras become as if blood-filled; they become filled with a red, angry expression. When you are sad, dim, down, then your auras are filled with dark threads, as if you are just near death -- everything dead, heavy.

When this spinal column thread is realized, your auras become enlightened. So a Buddha, a Mahavir, a Krishna, a Christ are not painted with auras just as decorations, those auras exist. 

Your spinal column begins to throw out light. Within, you become enlightened -- your whole body becomes a body of light -- then it penetrates the outer. So really, for a buddha, for anyone who is enlightened, there is no need to ask anyone what he is. The aura shows everything. And when someone becomes enlightened the master knows it, because the aura reveals everything.

When the spinal column thread is touched, seen, realized, an aura begins to grow around you. ... IN SUCH BE TRANSFORMED. Be filled with that light and be transformed. This is also a centering -- a centering in the spinal column. If you are body-oriented, this technique will help you. If you are not body-oriented, it is very difficult, it will be very difficult to visualize from the inside. Then to look at your body from the inside will be difficult.

This sutra will be more helpful for women than for men. They are more body-oriented. They live more in the body; they feel more. They can visualize the body more. Women are more body-oriented than men, but for anyone who can feel the body, who feels the body, who can visualize, who can close his eyes and feel his body from within, this technique will be very helpful for him.

Then visualize your spinal column, and in the middle a silver cord running through it. First it may look like imagination, but by and by you will feel that imagination has disappeared and your mind has become focused on that spinal column. And then you will see your own spine. The moment you see the inner core, suddenly you will feel an explosion of the light within you.

Sometimes this can also happen without any effort. It happens sometimes. Again, in a deep sex act it sometimes happens. 

Tantra knows: in a deep sex act your whole energy becomes concentrated near the spine. Really, in a deep sex act the spine begins to discharge electricity. And sometimes, even, if you touch the spine you will get a shock. 

If the intercourse is very deep and very loving and long -- really, if the two lovers are just in a deep embrace, silent, non-moving, just being filled with each other, just remaining in a deep embrace -- it happens. It has happened many times that a dark room will suddenly become filled with light, and both bodies will be surrounded with a blue aura.

Many, many such cases have happened. Even in some of your experiences it may have happened, but you may not have noticed that in a dark room, in deep love, suddenly you feel a light around both of your bodies, and that light spreads and fills the whole room. 

Many times it has happened that suddenly things drop from the table in the room without any visible cause. And now psychologists say that in a deep sex act, electricity is discharged. That electricity can have many effects and impacts. Things may suddenly drop, move or be broken, and even photographs have been taken in which light is visible. But that light is always concentrated around the spinal column.

So sometimes, in a deep sex act also -- and tantra knows this well and has worked on it -- you may become aware, if you can look within to the thread running in the middle of the spinal column. And tantra has used the sex act for this realization, but then the sex act has to be totally different, the quality has to be different. It is not something to be gotten over with; it is not something to be done for a release; it is not something to be finished hurriedly; it is not a bodily act then. Then it is a deep spiritual communion. Really, through two bodies it is a deep meeting of two innernesses, of two subjectivities, penetrating each other.

So I will suggest to you to try this technique when in a deep sex act -- it will be easier. Just forget about sex. When in a deep embrace, remain inside. Forget the other person also, just go inside and visualize your spinal column. It will be easier, because then more energy is flowing near the spinal column, and the thread is more visible because you are silent, because your body is at rest. 

Love is the deepest relaxation, but we have made love also a great tension. We have made it an anxiety, a burden.

In the warmth of love, filled, relaxed, close your eyes. But men ordinarily do not close their eyes. Ordinarily, women do close their eyes. That is why I said that women are more body-oriented while men are not. In a deep embrace in the act of sex, women will close their eyes. Really, they cannot love with open eyes. With closed eyes, they feel the body more from within.

Close your eyes and feel your body. Relax. Concentrate on the spinal column. And this sutra says very simply, IN SUCH BE TRANSFORMED. And you will be transformed through it.”

OSHO
Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 1
Chapter 9 - Techniques for centering (12 November 1972 pm in Woodlands, Bombay)

A CONSCIOUS DEATH IS ONE OF THE MIRACLES OF LIFE

A CONSCIOUS DEATH IS ONE OF THE MIRACLES OF LIFE……….

Enlightenment only means that your whole being is conscious: there are no dark corners left inside you.

Dying in such consciousness the body, the mind, the brain can be taken away from you, because you know now – not just as a theory, but as your authentic experience – that you have always been separate.
The involvement with the body was broken the day you became enlightened…..

Questioner : “ Is it possible to die consciously without being enlightened?”
OSHO : “ Nirah, existence follows certain laws – and there are no exceptions. If one wants to die consciously, the only way is to be enlightened.

Death is such a great surgery: your soul is being taken apart from the body and mind, with which it has been involved for seventy or eighty years. Even for a small operation you need anaesthesia; and this is the greatest operation in existence.

Unconsciousness is nothing but nature’s way of giving you anaesthesia. Unless you are completely unidentified with body and mind, you cannot die consciously – and a death which is not conscious is a great opportunity missed.

Enlightenment is an absolute necessity.

Enlightenment only means that your whole being is conscious: there are no dark corners left inside you. Dying in such consciousness the body, the mind, the brain can be taken away from you, because you know now – not just as a theory, but as your authentic experience – that you have always been separate. The involvement with the body was broken the day you became enlightened.

In the ancient scriptures of the Buddhists, enlightenment is called the “great death” – not that you are going to die, but the death is great because you will be able to see it happening, you will be a witness. Now you are no longer attached to the body, no clinging, and you have become aware of your immortality.

You can die consciously only when you know that you are immortal, that you belong to eternity, not to time; that deep within you is the beginning of existence and the end of existence – if there is any beginning or if there is any end. In fact there is no beginning and no end; you have always been here, and you will always be here.

A conscious death is one of the miracles of life, because after that you will not be born again in any form – as a man, as a bird, as a tree. You will remain in the eternal consciousness of the universe, spread all over the ocean. Hence, it has been called the “great death.”

But there are no exceptions. Existence follows absolutely definite laws, and this is a law of the highest order, because it concerns your consciousness, your life, your death.”

OSHO
The Rebellious Spirit. Chapter 17.