Chapter 5 – The Healing Power of Meditation

CHAPTER Five
The Healing Power of Meditation

The word “meditation” and the word “medicine” come from the same root. Medicine means that which heals the physical, and meditation means that which heals the spiritual. Both are healing powers.

Another thing to be remembered: the word “healing” and the word “whole” also come from the same root. To be healed simply means to be whole, not missing anything. Another connotation of the word —— the word “holy” — also comes from the same root. Healing, whole, holy, are not different in their root.

Meditation heals, makes you whole; and to be whole is to be holy. Holiness has nothing to do with belonging to any religion, belonging to any church. It simply means that inside you, you are entire, complete; nothing is missing, you are fulfilled. You are what existence wanted you to be. You have realized your potential.

Note: All the above matter is in italic form and this matter is taken from
From Bondage to Freedom

OSHO ACTIVE MEDITATION TECHNIQUES*

Question: “Your active meditations in the beginning tend to tighten muscles, causing pain everywhere. Is there any way to get over that?”

Go on doing it! You will get over it ——and the reasons are obvious. There are two reasons. First, it is a vigorous exercise and your body has to get attuned to it. So for three or four days you will feel that the whole body is aching. With any new exercise it will happen. But after four days you will get over it and your body will feel stronger than ever.

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

For instance, if you get angry what happens to the body? Whenever you get angry certain poisons are released into the blood. Without those poisons you will not get mad enough to be angry. You have particular glands in the body, and those glands release certain chemicals. Now this is scientific, ; this is not just a philosophy. Your blood becomes poisoned.

That is why, when you are angry, you can do something that which you cannot do ordinarily ——because you are mad. You can push a big rock: you cannot do it ordinarily. You cannot even believe afterwards that you could have pushed this rock or thrown it or lifted it. When you are back to normal again, you will not be capable of lifting the rock it again because you are not in the same state. Particular chemicals were circulating in the blood then; . Yyou were in an emergency condition; your total energy was brought to be active.

But wWhen an animal gets angry, he gets angry. He has no morality about it, no teaching about it. He simply gets angry and the anger is released. When you get angry, you get angry in a way similar to the any animal. But then there is society, morality, etiquette, and thousands of other things. You have to push the anger down. You have to show that you are not angry; you have to smile ——a painted smile! You have to create a smile, and you push the anger down. What is happening to the body? The body was ready to fight ——either to fight or to flee fly, to escape from the danger, either to face it or escape from it. The body was ready to do DO something: anger is just a readiness to do something. The body was going to be violent, aggressive.

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

And this happens with every emotion. And this goes on day after day for years. Then your body becomes crippled all over. All the nerves become crippled as well. They are not flowing, they are not liquid, they are not alive. They have become dead, they have become poisoned. And they have all become entangled. They are not natural.

Look at any animal and see the grace of his the body. What happens to the human body? Why is it not so graceful? Why? Every animal is so graceful: why is the human body not so graceful? What has happened to it? You have done something with it: you have crushed it and the natural spontaneity of its flow has gone. It has become stagnant. In every part of your body there is poison. In every muscle of your body there is suppressed anger, suppressed sexuality, suppressed greed ——and everything ——suppressed jealousy, and hatred. Everything is suppressed there. Your body is really re#ally diseased.

Therefore, So when you start doing these active meditations meditating, all these poisons will be released. And wherever the body has become stagnant, it will have to melt, it will have to become liquid again. And this is a great effort. After forty years of living in a wrong way, then suddenly meditating, the whole body is in an upheaval. You will feel aching all over the body. But this aching is good, and you have to welcome it. Allow the body to become again a flow. Again it will become graceful and childlike; again you will gain the aliveness. But before that aliveness comes to you the dead parts have to be straightened, and this is going to be a little painful.

Psychologists say that we have created an armor around the body and that armor is the problem. If you are allowed total expression when you get angry, what will you do? When you get angry, you start crushing your teeth together; you want to do something with your nails and with your hands, because that’s how your animal heritage will have it. You want to do something with your hands, to destroy something.

If you don’t do anything your fingers will become crippled; they will lose their grace, the beauty. They will not be alive limbs. And the poison is there. So when you shake hands with someone, really there is no touch, no life, because your hands are dead.

You can feel this. Touch a small child’s hand ——a subtle difference is there. When the child really gives you his hand… . . . if he is not giving, then it is all right alright ——he will withdraw. He will not give you a dead hand, ; he will simply withdraw. But if he wants to give you his hand, then you will feel that his hand is as if it is melting into your hand. The warmth, the flow —— as if the whole child has come to the hand. In his The very touch, and he expresses all the love that it is possible to express.

But the same child when grown up will shake hands as if his a hand is just a dead instrument. He will not flow through come in it, he will not flow through it. This happens has happened because of there are blocks. Anger is blocked… . really, bBefore your hand becomes alive again to express love, it will have to pass through agony, it will have to pass through a deep expression of anger. If the anger is not released, and that anger it is blocking, and love cannot come out of it.

Your whole body has become blocked, not only your hands. So you can embrace someone, you can take someone near your chest, but that is not synonymous with taking someone near your heart. These are two different things. You can take someone near your chest: this is a physical phenomenon. But if you have an armor around your heart, a blocking of emotions, then the person remains as distant as he ever was; no intimacy is possible. But if you really REALLY take a person near, and there is no armor, no wall between you and the person, then the heart will melt into the other. There will be a meeting, a communion.

Your body has to release many poisons. You have become toxic, and you will have pain — mm? — because those poisons have settled in down. Now I #am creating a chaos again. This meditation is to create chaos within you so that you can be rearranged — , so that a new arrangement becomes possible. You must be destroyed des-troyed as you are, only then can the new be born. As you are, you have gone totally wrong. You have to be destroyed and only then can something new be created. There will be pain, but this pain is worthwhile.

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

By the way, that is why we have become so much obsessed with clothes ——because the body is not worth showing. We have become so much obsessed with clothes! Whenever you stand naked, you will see what you have done to your body. Clothes go on hiding your body from you.

This has been my experience through so many meditation camps: if some people become naked in the camps, really only these people are the ones who have beautiful bodies; thus, they are not afraid. Those who have ugly bodies come and they complain, and they say, “This is not good, people going nude!” Their fear is natural. They are not really afraid of others going nude, they are afraid of themselves; they cannot face their own bodies.

This disease result in is a vicious circle, because if you do not have an alive body, you want to hide it, and when you hide it, it becomes more and more dead —— because then there is no need to be alert about its being alive.

Through centuries of clothing we have lost touch with our own bodies. If your head is cut off and you encounter your own body without a head, I am sure you will not be able to recognize that this is your body ——or will you be able to recognize it? No, Yyou will not be able to recognize it because you are not even acquainted with your own body. You do not have any feeling about it; you are simply living in it without caring about it.

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

You cannot have it right now because the pain is there. You may know it or you may not know it but the pain is there all over your body. You have simply become unconscious about it because it has always been with you. Whatever Whatsoever is always there, you become unconscious about. Through meditation you will become conscious and then the mind will say, “Don’t do this; the whole body is aching.” Do not listen to the mind. Simply go on doing the meditation it.

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

Really, joy only means that your body is in a symphony, nothing else ——that your body is in a musical rhythm, nothing else. Joy is not pleasure; pleasure has to be derived from something else. Joy is just to be yourself ——alive, fully vibrant, vital. ; aA feeling of a subtle music around your body, and within your body, a symphony ——that is joy. You can be joyful when your body is flowing, when it is a riverlike flow.

It will come but first you will have to pass through suffering, through pain. That is part of your destiny because you have created it. But it will go goes. If you do not stop in the middle, it will go goes. If you stop in the middle, then the old settlement will be there again. Within four or five days you will feel okay ——just the old, as you have always been. Be aware of that state of being okay okayness.

Note: this matter is taken from
The Supreme Doctrine

That’s why iIt is so difficult, Kavina, to be in a state of let-go — because it has been always condemned as laziness. It is not acceptable in a was against the workaholic society. Let-go means you start living in a saner way. You are no longer madly seeking after money, you don’t go on working continuously; you work just for your material needs. But there are spiritual needs too! Work is a necessity to earn for material needs. Let-go is necessary for spiritual needs. But the majority of humanity has been completely boycotted from any spiritual growth.

Let-go is one of the most beautiful spaces. You simply exist, doing nothing, sitting silently, and the grass grows by itself. You simply enjoy the songs of the birds, the greenness of the trees, the multidimensional, psychedelic colors of the flowers. You don’t have to do anything to experience existence; you have to stop doing. You have to be in an absolutely unoccupied state, with no tensions, with no worries.

In this state of tranquility you come into a certain tuning with the music that surrounds us. You suddenly become aware of the beauty of the sun. There are millions of people who have never enjoyed a sunset, who have never enjoyed a sunrise. They cannot afford to it. They are continuously working and producing ——not for themselves, but for the cunning vested interests: those who are in power, those who are capable of manipulating human beings.

Naturally they teach you that work is something great ——it is in their interest. And the conditioning has become so deep that even you don’t know why you cannot relax.

Even on holidays people go on doing something or other. They cannot enjoy a holiday, just relaxing on the sea beach and enjoying the ocean and the very fresh and salty air. No, they will do any stupid thing. If they have nothing to do, they may just take their refrigerator apart ——which had been functioning perfectly well ——or they may destroy an old grandfather clock, which had been functioning for centuries; they are trying to improve upon it. But basically they cannot sit silently; that is the problem. They have to do something, ; they have to go somewhere.

On every holiday people are rushing towards health resorts, sea beaches, not to rest there ——they don’t have time to rest, because millions of people are going there. Holidays are the best time to remain at home, because the whole city has gone to the sea beach. Bumper to bumper, cars are going… . . . and by the time they reach the beach it is full of people; they cannot even find a small place to lie down. I have seen pictures of such sea beaches. Even the ocean must be laughing at the stupidity of these people.

For a few minutes they will lie down, and then they need ice cream and they need Coca–Cola. And they have brought their portable television sets and everybody is listening to those or their his transistor radio. And then the time is over, and because again there is the marathon race back towards home.

On holidays more accidents happen in the world than on any other days: more people are killed, more cars are crashed. It is strange! And for the earlier five days in the week ——the working days ——people are hoping, waiting with great longing for the holiday to come. And in those two weekend days which are the weekend, they are simply waiting for their offices and their factories to open again.

People have completely forgotten the language of relaxation. They have been made to forget it.

Every child is born with an inner capacity; you don’t have to teach the child how to relax. You just watch a child ——he is relaxed, he is in a let-go. But you won’t allow him to enjoy this state of paradise. You will soon civilize him.

Every child is primitive, uncivilized. , Aand the parents and the teachers and everybody are after the children to civilize them, to make them part of the society. No one seems to care Nobody bothers that the society is absolutely insane. It would will be good if the child could remains as he is, and not be is no longer initiated into the society and your the so-called civilization.

But with all good wishes the parents cannot leave the child alone. They have to teach him to work, they have to teach him to be productive, they have to teach him to be competitive. They have to teach him that, “Unless you are at the top you have failed us.”

Thus So everybody is running to be at the top.

How can you relax?

When, for the first time in India, railway lines were laid down… I have heard a beautiful story about when the railway lines were first laid down in India: The British engineer who was overseeing the work that was going on was amazed to see that every day a young Indian, a villager, would come and lie down under the shade of a big tree and watch the workers working and the engineers instructing them. The engineer became interested: every day this a strange fellow; every day he comes. He brings his food with him, he takes his lunch and rests, then sleeps in the afternoon under the shade of the tree.

Finally the engineer could not resist the temptation and he asked the villager, “Why don’t you start working? You come anyway every day, and you waste your time just lying down watching.”

The villager asked, “Working? But for what?”

The engineer said, “You will earn money!”

The villager asked, “But what will I do with the money?”

The engineer said, “You stupid man, you don’t know what can be done with the money? When you have money you can relax and enjoy!”

The poor villager said, “This is strange, because I am already relaxed and enjoying! This is going about it in such a roundabout way: working hard, earning money, and then enjoying and relaxing. But I am doing it already!”

Children come with the intrinsic, intuitive quality of let-go. They are utterly relaxed. That’s why all children are beautiful. Have you ever thought about it? All children, without exception, have a tremendous grace, aliveness and beauty. And these children are going to grow up, and all their beauty and their grace will disappear.

It is very difficult to find a grown-up man with the same grace, with the same beauty, with the same aliveness. If you can find a man with childlike innocence and relaxation, you have found a sage.

That’s how we have defined the sage in the East: he attains his childhood again. After experiencing all the ups and downs in life, finally he decides, out of experience ——the decision comes by itself ——that what he was in his childhood he has to be again before death comes.

I teach you let-go, because that’s the only thing that can make you a sage. No church will help, no theology, no religion, because none of them teach you let-go. They all insist on work, on the dignity of labor. They use beautiful words to enslave you, to exploit you. They are in conspiracy with the parasites of the society.

I am not against work; work has its own utility ——but only utility. It cannot become your life’s all and all. It is an absolute necessity that you have need food, that you have need clothes, that you have need a shelter. Work, but don’t become addicted to work. The moment you are out of work, you should know how to relax. And it does not take need much wisdom to relax; it is a simple art. And iIt is so very simple because you already knew how to do it when you were born; you just have it is already there, it just has to be awaken it made active from its dormant state position. It has to be provoked.

All methods of meditation are nothing but ways methods to help you to remember the art of let-go. I say remember, because you once knew it already. And you know it still, but that knowledge is being repressed by the society.

Simple principles have to be remembered: The body should be the starting point beginning. Lie Lying down on your bed ——and you do this lie down on your bed every day, so nothing special is necessary ——and when you lie down on the bed, before sleep comes, with closed eyes start watching with closed eyes the energy from your feet. Move from there ——just watch inside: Is there some tension somewhere? in the legs, in the thighs, in the stomach? Is there some strain, some tension? And if you find some tension somewhere, simply try to relax it. And don’t move from that point unless you feel the relaxation has come.

Go through the hands ——because your hands are your mind; they are connected with your mind. If your right hand is tense, the left side of your brain will be tense. If your left hand is tense, the right side of your brain will be tense. So first go through the hands ——they are almost the branches of your mind ——and then reach finally to the mind.

When the whole body is relaxed, the mind is already 90 ninety percent relaxed, because the body is nothing but an extensions of the mind. Then simply watch the 10 ten percent tension that is in your mind… simply watch it, and just by watching the clouds will disappear. It will take you a few days for you; you have to acquire the it is a knack. And it will revive your childhood experience, when you were so relaxed.

Have you ever noticed that watched? Cchildren go on falling every day, but they don’t get hurt, rarely they don’t get fractures. You try it; . Pick a whenever the child and whenever the child falls, you also fall.

A One psychoanalyst tried an was trying some experiment. He announced in the newspapers, “I will pay good enough money if somebody will is ready to come to my house and just follow my child for the whole day. Whatever my child does, you have to do it too that.”

A young wrestler turned up and he said, “I am ready; where is the child?”

But by the middle of the day the wrestler was flat on his back. He had already sustained got two fractures, because he did everything that the child was doing he had done to do. And the child got very excited: . This is strange! , he thought. So he would jump unnecessarily, and then the wrestler would had to jump; he would climb a the tree, and then the wrestler would had to climb it; and he would jump from the tree, and the wrestler would follow had to jump. And this continued. The child completely forgot about food, about anything; , because he was enjoying so much the misery of the wrestler so much.

By the afternoon the wrestler simply refused to go on. He said to the psychoanalyst, “Keep your money. This child of yours will kill me by the end of the day. I am already ready to go to the hospital. This child is dangerous. Don’t do this experiment with anybody else.”

Every child has so much energy, and still he is not tense. Have you watched a child sleeping? Have you watched a child just sucking his own thumb, enjoying it, dreaming beautiful dreams? His whole body is in a deep let-go.

It happens ——it is a known fact ——that every day, around all over the world, drunkards fall but they don’t get fractures. Every morning they are found in some gutter and brought home. But it is a strange fact that they go on falling.…

I have heard about a drunkard who was coming home and got hit on the head by an electric pole. He looked at the pole and he saw at least eight poles. He said, “My God, how am I going to reach home?”

He tried this way and that way, but nothing helped. Every time the same electric pole would hit him hard. Finally he shouted for help. A policeman came and asked, “What is the matter?”

He said, “I am surrounded by electric poles and I cannot get out. And you know my wife! I have to reach home. It has been almost two hours that I have been struggling! Who has made this? — because in the day I saw that there was only one electric pole!”

The policeman took him out from those imaginary poles. He had been struggling for two hours, but he was not hurt, because a drunkard is relaxed.

I have known accidents in which only drunkards remained unhurt; everybody else was hurt.

Once a train fell from a bridge — that happens two, three times almost every year in India. Bridges simply collapse, particularly the newly built bridges, because there are so many people to be bribed before you can get the government permission to build the bridge, that finally the constructor, the builder, has to take money out of the bridge — he has spent so much. You have to bribe almost every person who is concerned.

Naturally he does not use cement, but only sand. So the first time the train comes on the bridge… with the bridge the whole train goes into the river.

Just near my village, once it happened. I rushed to see: only one man had remained without being hurt, and that was the village drunkard. When I saw him he asked me, “What has happened? In fact, I don’t know why I was traveling in this train. Some idiots put me in the train. I resisted, but before I could get out the train moved and then suddenly I found myself swimming in the river. I don’t know what happened in the middle. The middle portion of the story is completely missing!”

I said, “You just come home with me, because everybody else has to go to the hospital.” A few people were unconscious, a few had died, a few had many fractures, multiple fractures. Everybody was in a mess except that drunkard, who was asking me, “What has happened?”

I took him back home. He was asking me on the way, again and again…”You can tell me, I will not tell anybody.”

I said, “I don’t know. You were on the train.”

He said, “That I know. I remember a few people had pushed me in the train. And I was absolutely reluctant, because I didn’t want to go anywhere. I was going to my home! I thought perhaps the train is going towards my home. And then finally I found myself in the river. But in a way it is good, because for at least two, three months I have not taken a bath. And the cold water in the river has also made my senses come back. I am a little conscious.”

The drunkard will not get hurt, because he does not know he is falling, so he does not become tense. He simply falls without becoming tense. It is the tenseness that gives you fractures. If you can fall relaxed, you will not be hurt. Drunkards know it, children know it; how did you manage to forget, Kavina?

Start from your bed, every night, and within a few days you will have acquired be able to catch the knack. And oOnce you have known the secret ––—nobody can teach it to you, you will have to search within your own body —— then any time during even in the day, at any time, you will be able can relax. And to be a master of relaxation is one of the most beautiful experiences in the world. It is the beginning of a great journey towards spirituality, because when you are completely in a let-go, you are no longer a body.

Have you ever observed the a simple fact: that you become aware of your body only when there is some tension, some strain, some pain? Have you ever become aware of your head without a headache?

If your whole body is relaxed, you simply forget that you are a body. And in that forgetfulness of the body is the remembering of a new phenomenon that is hidden inside the body: your spiritual being.

Let-go is the way to know that you are not the body, but something eternal, immortal.

There is no need for of any other religion in the world. Just the simple art of let-go will turn every human being into a religious person. Religion is not believing in God, religion is not believing in the pope, religion is not believing in any ideological system.

Religion is knowing that which is eternal within you: satyam shivam sundram — that which is the truth of your existence, that which is your divinity, and that which is your beauty, your grace, your splendor.

The art of let-go is synonymous with experiencing the immaterial, the immeasurable: your authentic being.

There are a few moments when, without being aware, you are in a let-go. For example, when you are really laughing ——a belly laughter, not just from the head, but from your belly ——you are relaxed without your knowing, you are in a let-go. That’s why laughter is so health-giving. There is no other medicine which can help you more in attaining well-being.

But laughter has been stopped by the same conspirators who have stopped your awareness of let-go. The whole of humanity has been turned into a serious, psychologically sick mess.

Have you heard the giggle of a small child? His whole body participates in it. And when you laugh, it is very rare that your whole body laughs ——it is usually just an intellectual, heady thing.

My own understanding is that laughter is far more important than any prayer, because prayer will not relax you. On the contrary, it may make you more tense. In laughter you suddenly forget all the conditioning, all the training, all seriousness. Suddenly you are out of it, just for a moment. Next time you laugh, be alert about how relaxed you are. And find out other times when you are relaxed.

After making love you are relaxed… . . . although the same company of conspirators does not allow you to be relaxed even after making love. The man simply turns to the other side and pretends to go to sleep, but deep down he is feeling guilty that he has committed a sin again. The woman is crying, because she feels she has been used. And it is absolutely natural to feel so, because she gets no nourishment from love. She never gets any orgasmic experience. Just fifty years ago there was not a single woman in the whole world who had experienced orgasm. In India it is extremely difficult to find a woman who knows what orgasm is.

There cannot be a greater conspiracy against humanity. The man wants to finish the whole thing as quick as possible. Inside him he is carrying the Bible THE BIBLE, the Koran, Shrimad Bhagavadgita, KORAN, SHRIMAD BHAGAVADGITA, and they are all speak against what he is doing. He is also convinced that he is doing something wrong. So naturally, the quicker it is over the better. And afterwards he feels very tremendously bad. How can he relax? He becomes more tense. And because he is so quick, the woman never reaches comes to her peak. By the time she starts, he is finished. Naturally, the woman starts believing that man is something more like an animal.

In the churches, in and the temples, you will find only women, old women particularly. And when the priest talks about sin, they know! It was absolutely sin, because they had gained no pleasure from out of it; they were used like a any commodity ——sexual objects. On the other hand Otherwise, if you are free of guilt, free of all inhibitions, love will give you a tremendous experience of let-go.

So yYou have to look into your life, where you can to find some natural experience of let-go. Listening to me you can experience a let-go. It happens every day, but you are not aware. I can see your faces changing, I can see your silences deepening. I can see when you laugh that your laughter is no longer chained and handcuffed, that your laughter is now your freedom. I can observe every day: you go on becoming more and more relaxed, as if you are not listening to a talk, but listening to soft music, not to words but to my silences.

If you cannot experience a let-go in my presence here, it will be very difficult for you to find it anywhere else. But there are Swimming can provide such a moments when you are swimming. If you are really a real swimmer you can manage just to float, not to swim, and then you will find tremendous let-go ——just going with the river, not even making any movement against the current, becoming part of the current.

You have to gather experiences of let-go from different sources, and soon you will have the whole secret in your hands. And it is one of the most fundamental things, particularly for my people. It will free you from the workaholic conditioning.

It does not mean that you will become lazy; on the contrary, the more relaxed you are, the more powerful you are, the more energy gathers when you are relaxed. Your work will start having a quality of creativity ——not production. Whatever you will do, you will do with such totality, with such love. And you will have tremendous energy to do it.

So understand that let-go is not against work. In fact, let-go transforms work into a creative experience.

Let me tell you a A few jokes so for you can enjoy, Kavina, and for you all to have a total laughter. It takes away all tensions from your face, from your body, from your stomach, and you feel suddenly you feel a totally different kind of energy within you; otherwise most people are continuously always feeling they have knots in their stomachs.

Nathan Nussbaum went to consult a world-famous specialist about his medical problem.

“How much do I owe you?” asked Nat.

“My fee is five hundred dollars,” replied the doctor.

“Five hundred dollars? That’s impossible!” exclaimed Nathan.

“In your case,” the specialist replied, “I suppose I could adjust my fee to three hundred dollars.”

“Three hundred dollars for one visit? Ridiculous!” cried Nathan.

“Well then,” asked the doctor, “can you afford one hundred and fifty dollars?”

“Who has so much money?” Nathan moaned.

“Listen,” said the doctor, “just give me fifty dollars and be gone.”

“I can give you twenty dollars,” said Nathan. “Take it or leave it.”

“I don’t understand you,” said the specialist. “Why did you come to the most expensive doctor in New York?”

“Listen, doctor,” explained Nathan, “when it comes to my health, nothing is too expensive.”

Paddy’s friend, Joe, was taking a night course in adult education. “Who is Ronald Reagan?” he asked Paddy.

“I don’t know,” Paddy replied.

“He is the president of the United States,” said Joe. “Now, do you know who Margaret Thatcher is?”

“No,” said Paddy.

“She is the prime minister of Britain,” said Joe. “You see, you should go to night school like I do.”

“Now I have a question for you,” said Paddy. “Do you know who Mick O’Sullivan is?”

“I don’t,” admitted Joe.

“Well,” said Paddy, “he is the guy who is screwing your wife while you are at night school.”

Jesus and Moses are out one Sunday afternoon for a round of golf. Moses drives first and the ball goes straight down the fairway. Jesus gets ready and on his first drive slices the ball into some tall grass.

“Holy Moses!” cries Jesus. But Moses, being a good fellow, offers Jesus the chance to place his ball on the fairway with no penalty. But Jesus is stubborn and turns down the offer. Moses then says, “Come on Jesus, you can’t take a shot in such tall grass.”

“If Arnold Palmer can do it,” replies Jesus, “so can I.” Jesus then takes a smash and knocks the ball, splash! `splash!’ into a pond. Then Moses hits his second shot straight onto the green and returns to watch Jesus. Jesus is rolling up his jeans.

“Jesus, please!” cries Moses, “I implore you to just place your ball on the fairway. It will take a miracle to make such a shot!”

“If Arnold Palmer can do it,” replies Jesus, “so can I,” and he strides off across the top of the water. A gardener, who has been watching the scene, approaches Moses and says, “Just who does that guy think he is, Jesus Christ?”

“No such luck,” replies Moses. “He thinks he is Arnold Palmer!”

Note: this matter is taken from
Satyam Shivam Sundram
Chapter – 5 title: Remember the art of let go
Question – 1

EVERYDAY MEDITATION

Whenever you find time, just for a few minutes just relax the breathing system, nothing else ——there is no need to relax the whole body. Sitting in the train or plane, or in the car, nobody will become aware that you are doing something. Just relax the breathing system. Let it be as when it is functioning naturally. Then close your eyes and watch the breathing going in, coming out, going in…. . . .

[The visitor asks: And forget everything else completely, just concentrate?]

No no, Do not concentrate. If you concentrate, you create trouble, because then everything becomes a disturbance. If you try to concentrate sitting in the car, then the noise of the car becomes a disturbance, the person sitting beside you becomes a disturbance.

Meditation is not concentration. It is simple awareness. You simply relax and watch the breathing. In that watching, nothing is excluded. The car is humming ——perfectly okay, accept it. The traffic is passing ——that’s okay, part of life. Your The fellow passenger is snoring by your side,— just accept it. Nothing is rejected. You are not to narrow down your consciousness.

Concentration is a narrowing down of your consciousness so you become one-pointed, but everything else becomes a competition. You are fighting everything else because you are afraid that the point may be lost. You may be distracted, and that becomes disturbing. Then you need seclusion, the Himalayas. You need India, and a room where you can sit silently, nobody disturbing you at all.

No, that is not right ——that cannot become a life process. It is isolating yourself. It does have some good results ——you will feel more tranquil, more calm ——but those results are temporary. That’s why you feel again and again that tone is lost. Once you don’t have the conditions in which it can happen, it is lost.

A meditation in which you need certain prerequisites, in which certain conditions need to be fulfilled, is not meditation at all ——because you will not be able to do it when you are dying. Death will be such a distraction. If life distracts you, just think about death. You will not be able to die meditatively, and then the whole thing is futile, lost. You will die again tense, anxious, in misery, in suffering, and you create immediately your next birth of the same type.

Let death be the criterion. Anything that can be done even while you are dying is real ——and that can be done anywhere; anywhere, and with no condition as a necessity. If sometimes the good conditions are there, good, then fine, you enjoy them. If not, it makes no difference. Do it Eeven in the marketplace you do it.

[Osho went on to describe this breathing meditation in more detail. (See ‘Above All, Don’t Wobble’ — Jan 18th)

The visitor asked if there should be any attempt to control the breath.]

No, no Do not make any attempt to control it, because all control is from the mind, so meditation can never be a controlled thing.

Mind cannot meditate. Meditation is something beyond the mind, or below the mind, but never within the mind. So if the mind remains watching and controlling, it is not meditation; it is concentration. Concentration is a mind effort. It brings the qualities of the mind to their peak. A scientist concentrates, a soldier concentrates; a hunter, a research worker, a mathematician, they all concentrate. These are mind activities.

[The visitor asks: How many times a day would you suggest?]

You can choose Aany time. There is no need to make a fixed time. Use whatever whatsoever time is available. In the bathroom when you have ten minutes, just sit under the shower and meditate. In the morning, in the afternoon, just four or five times, for small intervals — , just five minutes — meditate, and you will see that it becomes a constant nourishment.

There is no need to do it for twenty-four hours.

Just a cup of meditation will do. (laughter) No need to drink the whole river. Just a cup of tea will do. And make it as easy as possible. Easy is right. Make it as natural as possible. And don’t run be after it ——just do it whenever you find time. Don’t make a habit of it, because all habits are of the mind, and a real person in fact has no habits.

Note: this matter is taken from

Just before you go to sleep, sit in your chair. Be comfortable. Comfort is the most essential part of it. For relaxation one has to be very comfortable. , Sso make yourself comfortable. Whatsoever posture you want to take in the chair, take. Close your eyes and relax the body. Just from the toes up to the head, feel inside where you feel the tension. If you feel it at the knee, relax the knee. Just touch the knee and say to the knee, ‘ “Please relax.” ‘ If you feel some tension in the shoulders, just touch the place and say, ‘ “Please relax.” ‘ Within a week you will be able to communicate with your body. And once you start communicating with your body, things become very easy.

The body need not be forced, it can be persuaded. One need not fight with the body — that’s ugly, violent, aggressive, and any sort of conflict is going to create more and more tension. So you need not be in any conflict — let comfort be the rule. And the body is such a beautiful gift from God that to fight with it, is to deny God Himself. It is a shrine… we are enshrined in it; it is a temple. We exist in it and we have to take every care of it — it is our responsibility.

So for seven days…. It will look a little absurd in the beginning because we have never been taught to talk to our own body — and miracles can happen through it. They are already happening without our knowing it. When I am saying something to you, my hand follows in a gesture. I am talking to you — it is my mind that is communicating something to you. My body is following it. The body is en rapport with the mind.

When you want to raise the hand, you have to do nothing — you simply raise it. Just the very idea that you want to raise it and the body follows it; it is a miracle. In fact biology or physiology has not yet been able to explain how it happens. Because an idea is an idea; you want to raise your hand — it is an idea. How does this idea become transformed into a physical message to the hand? And it does not take any time at all — in a split second; sometimes without any time gap.

For example I am talking to you and my hand will go on collaborating; there is no time gap. It is as if the body is running parallel to the mind. It is very sensitive — one should learn how to talk to it, and many things can be done.

So the first thing. Relax in your the chair, have the light as dark or dim as you like, but the light should not be bright. Tell everybody for these twenty minutes you are not to be disturbed no disturbance, no phone calls, nothing whatsoever… , as if the outside world does not exist is no more for those twenty minutes. Close the doors, relax in your the chair with loose clothes so there is no tightness anywhere, and start feeling where the tension is. You will find many spots of tension. Those have to be relaxed first, because if the body is not relaxed, the mind cannot be either. The body creates the situation for the mind to relax. The body becomes the vehicle of relaxation.

When you want to be angry, or when you are angry, if the body does not collaborate with you, you will not be able to be angry. A subtle mechanism follows, certain poisons are released into the blood: your face becomes red, your eyes become red, your hands want to beat or to kill or to hit. You want to shout or shriek, and the whole body is ready. Sometimes try — without any bodily symptom of anger, try to be angry, and you will feel that it is impossible. Unless the body gives a base, nothing is possible. So the first thing is to create a body base.

So just go on touching the place. Wherever you feel some tension, touch your own body with deep love, with compassion. The body is your servant, and you have not paid anything for it ——it is simply a gift. And the body is so Ccomplicated, so tremendously complex that science has not been able yet to make anything like a the body. But we never think about that; we don’t love the body. On the contrary; we feel angry about it. The And so-called saints have taught many foolish things to people —— that the body is the enemy, that the body is your degradation. , that the body is pulling you downwards, that the body is the sin; it is all sin.

If you want to commit a sin, the body helps, that’s true. But the responsibility is yours, not the body’s. If you want to meditate, the body is ready to help you do for that too. If you want to go downwards. . the body follows you. If you want to go upwards, the body follows you. The body is not the culprit at all. The whole responsibility belongs to is of your own consciousness ——but we always try to find scapegoats. The body has been one of the most ancient scapegoats. You can throw anything. , and the body is dumb. It cannot retaliate, it cannot answer, it cannot say that you are wrong. Sso whatever whatsoever you say, the body has there is no reaction from the body against it.

So go on all over the body and surround it with loving compassion, with deep sympathy, with care. This will take at least five minutes, and you will start feeling very very limp. , relaxed, almost sleepy. Then bring your consciousness to the breathing: relax the breathing.

The body is our outermost part, the consciousness the innermost, and the breathing is the bridge that joins them together. That’s why once breathing disappears, the person is dead ——because the bridge is broken; now the body cannot function as your home, your abode.

So when the body is relaxed, just close your eyes and see your breathing; relax that too. Have a little talk to your the breathing: ‘ “Please relax. Be natural.” ‘ You will see that the moment you say, ‘ “Please relax,” ‘ there will be a subtle click. Ordinarily breathing has become very unnatural, and we have forgotten how to relax it because we are so continuously tense that it has become almost habitual for the breathing to remain tense.

So just tell it to relax two or three times and then just remain silent.

Note: this matter is taken from
Darshan Diaries
The Great Nothing
Chapter – 9 title: None