A Unique Holiday Package

Amrit Sadhana

OSHO International Meditation Resort, Pune

It is a holiday time and everyone must be looking for a good holiday package. You might have noticed that you go on a holiday with great enthusiasm and come back home more exhausted than before. Reason ? The mind had no holiday, it was working over time. While looking for a holiday package would you like to give mind a holiday, too? The mind is at rest only in meditation, so include meditation in your holiday package.

The mind is a bio-computer. Mind collects its data from the parents, from the school, from other children, neighbors, relatives, society ... all around there are sources. And then children start learning to read and write, thus more data is fed in the memory of the computer.

The current education teaches you how to use the mind, it does not teach you how to stop it so that it can relax. So the mind goes on working even when you are asleep. We have forgotten that the mind is a machine, and like any other machine and it needs rest, servicing and recycling. Most of our problems spring out of the overworked mind, and nobody knows how to give it a break.

Osho gives a simple method which can rest the overused mind and make you feel rejuvenated. He says, " It is possible to put a switch on the mind and turn it off when it is not needed. It is helpful in two ways: it will give you a peace, a silence, which you have never known before, and an acquaintance of yourself which has not been possible, because the chattering mind has always kept you engaged. Use the mind when it is needed, after the use put it aside just as you take off your shoes or formal clothes."Beyond Psychology

The method is: introduce silence in your daily schedule. Find time to be silent. Let the mind be unoccupied for a while, which means no TV, no reading, no cell phone or talking of any kind. If you make it a habit, the mind will be restful and relaxed; then it is fresh, young, full of energy and juice. Then whatever you say is full of life, full of authority, full of truth, sincerity, and has tremendous meaning.

What is known in the world as charisma is simply a mind which knows how to relax and let energy collect, so when it speaks it is poetry. But in this society, silence does not pay; words pay, and the more articulate you are, the more you will be paid.

Detach yourself from your thoughts, emotions . Watch them like waves on the sea. This gap is very healthy and restful for the mind. The mind will certainly enjoy this holiday.

Sound: a passage to feeling

Amrit Sadhana

In this environment full of noise polution and artificially produced eletronic sounds we have forgotten the value of natural sounds which can be used as a direct passage to deep feelings and to the silent spaces of the heart. Natural sounds have a calming effect on the mind, the nervous system and the body. Any sound uttered with feeling can lead one to the silent harmony of the heart.

Recently I came across a wonderful sutra, a meditation technique from The Book of Secrets, the ancient treatise of Tantra.

The technique goes like this: Intone a sound audibly and then less and less audibly as feeling deepens into this silent harmony.

It may sound like a scientific formula, difficult to solve. It indeed is a formula. And it needs an enlightened one like Osho to unravel the mystery of this ambiguous sutra. You will come to know the secret if you practise it.

There are some sounds we have a feeling for. For instance the names of our loved ones, or a certain art-form, maybe our birthplace or our mother tounge. When we utter these names which are essentially sounds a deep feeling of love, pride, gratitude or joy wells up. These feelings stem from the heart. Normally we are not aware of them while uttering the sound hence we don't separate the sound from the feeling. But Tantra shows us the way of intoning the sound, and by repeating it continuously we can intensify the feeling hidden in the sound.

Osho gives the clue: " Intone one sound. Go on intoning it, first audibly so that you can hear it, and then by and by, inaudibly. No one else can hear it then, but you can hear it inside. Make it more quiet, make it less and less audible, and then suddenly drop it. There will be silence, an explosion of silence -- but feeling will be there. Now there will be no thought, but simply feeling will be there."

In this way the name you love becomes a mantra. Even your own name can become your mantra. This sound can be used as a passage toward feeling. The mind cannot reach the heart directly, it needs a passage. Repeating a sound creates vibrations and these sound vibrations reach the core of the heart.

Go on dropping the audible sound, make it more subtle and you will feel the change. The more sound will drop, the more you will be filled with feeling. It is like peelingoff the skin of a fruit. When sound disappears, only feeling remains. This feeling cannot be named. It is a deep love, but not towards anyone . It is unaddressed. It is the inner sky-- a cloudless, blue presence.