Keep the mind outside please!

OSHO Auditorium

The Osho auditorium is designed in such a way that it seems it is coming out of water. Secondly, there is a small bridge connecting to the auditorium. This is a unique Osho play. He says, keep your mind outside the meditation hall. The bridge will help you cross the distance between the mind and the inner space.
In fact one of Osho quips is: leave your mind where you leave your shoes.
Great suggestion, isn't it?
If it could be followed by more people, life would be much easier than what it is today.
This  image  shows a row of meditators in white robes crossing the bridge to enter the auditorium. And what goes on inside?

Wait and watch this space.
Sadhana

The mystery of pyramid



Osho auditorium

  

Osho International Meditation Resort, Pune, is well known for its cluster of black pyramids.The biggest of them, the Osho Auditorium is a marvel of architecture. This is Osho's one of the dreams for the modern man:  people sitting in an airconditioned  pyramid to meditate.

Those of us who meditate in this huge structure every day feel rejuvenated and recharged after the meditation. Not only that, there is a healing energy. So serene and blissful.  Don't believe me, experience for yourself.

You may be wondering, what is so special about a pyramid?

 

 " Now much scientific work is being done on form. Now they say the pyramids have a certain form which helps. You can sit inside a pyramid and you will have new experiences that you may not have outside, because the form of the pyramid gives a certain shape to space, gives a certain vibration.

"They have made small pyramids to keep your razor blades in. And you will be surprised: a razor blade kept in a small pyramid can be used for years; it does not lose its sharpness. The same razor blade is gone within days without the pyramid. What happens under that space? That pyramidical space somehow goes on sharpening the razor blade. This is a miracle! Now this is a scientific fact. If it can sharpen the razor blade, is it possible that it can sharpen your consciousness, that it can sharpen your mind? It is possible. They were invented by great Masters.

"If you want to go deep in meditation, it will be easier under a pyramid, because you will need less food, less water. You can go on a long fast inside a pyramid more easily than outside. You can live with minimum expenditure of energy. Even when the body is gone and dead it can be preserved by the pyramid. "Osho

The Wisdom of the Sands, Vol 1

Next time I will publish some photos of people meditating in the pyramid.
Sadhana

Throw your moods out



Exhale deeply



 It's  Monday. You are getting ready to go to work reluctantly. You feel heavy and down. Is it possible to change the inner climate? By all means!

Use the natural resource of breathing. Because breathing and thinking are deeply connected, as if they are two aspects of one phenomenon. If you are little mindful you will find that whenever the mind changes, the breathing changes. For example, you are angry: immediately the breathing changes, the rhythm is gone. When you are silent and relaxed, the breathing has a different rhythm.

Osho has suggested some methods that can help you transform your moods.

Whenever you feel that the mind is not tranquil, first exhale deeply. Always start by exhaling.Exhale deeply; as much as you can, throw the air out. Throwing out the air, the mood will be thrown out too, because breathing  carries the mood. And then expel the breath as far as possible. Pull the belly in and retain for a few seconds. Let the air be out, and don’t inhale for a few seconds.

Climate changed

Then allow the body to inhale.  Again stop for a few seconds. The gap should be the same as when you retain the breath out – if you retain it out for three seconds, retain the breath in for three seconds. Throw it out and hold for three seconds; take it in and hold for three seconds. But it has to be thrown out completely. Exhale totally and inhale totally, and make a rhythm.

The next time anger erupts, don't allow the breathing to change; retain the rhythm of breathing as if you are happy. Anger is not possible then because the breathing forces the inner glands in the body which release chemicals in the blood. 

 Immediately you will feel a change coming into your whole being. The mood will go; a new climate will enter you.
Sadhana

Language of love

The Valentine's day has become All Lovers' Day around the world. There is lot of buzz and fizz everywhere. Flowers and gifts, beautiful wishes and hopes... but where is love in all this? All this is a warm up. The real thing is missing.
Osho  presents many nuances of love and  gives tips on loving. His basic contention is, you cannot love unless you meditate.
Let's sink into the depths of love with Osho-- deeper and deeper....from the gross to the subtle....

Say it with a flower

"The more you meditate, the more you will love, and the more you will relate. And finally one comes to a moment when only silence helps. So next time when you are with somebody and you are not communicating with words, and you are feeling very uneasy, feel happy. Become silent and allow that silence to communicate.

Language is needed to relate to people with whom you have no love relationship. No language is needed for people with whom you have a love relationship. One has to become innocent again, like a child, and silent. Gestures will be there  ....



Say it with touch

 sometimes you will smile and hold hands, or sometimes you will just remain silent, looking into each other’s eyes, not doing anything, just being. The presences meet and merge, and something happens which only you will know. Only you to whom it has happened – no one else will become aware, it happens in such depth."
From the book Hammer on the rock


Meet and merge

                                                                                

Osho Heart Meditation

As promised  in my last post, here is the lovely heart meditation created by Osho. This will open new spaces in your heart, and will give you a new strength to go through the miseries of life. It is a big change of gestalt when you know that your heart can transform the misery into happiness.
Wow! Incredible.

First Stage: 5 minutes
Moving into the heart

Bringing your awareness to your body and breathing, feel yourself here and now. Then bring your awareness to your heart chakra, the energy center inside the middle of your chest. If it helps you, place one or both hands on your heart center.
Absorb each in-breath into the heart, pour each out-breath out from the heart.

Second Stage: 15 minutes
Begin with yourself
Start with your own misery, feel it with as much intensity as possible: the hurt, wounds and suffering in your whole life. Accept it and welcome it.
Breathe in your misery…absorb it into the heart…let it be transformed there into joy, into bliss. Breathe out all the joy, the blissfulness; pour yourself into existence.
You may express in sounds, words, gestures and movements what is happening inside you, or let it happen silently.

Third Stage: 15 minutes
Include all the people in the world

Now expand this process. Take the whole misery of all beings, unconditionally – friends, enemies, family, strangers. Accept and welcome it.
Breathe in all this misery and hell…absorb it into the heart…let it be transformed there into joy, into bliss. Breathe out all the joy, the blissfulness; pour yourself into existence.
You may express in sounds, words, gestures and movements what is happening inside you, or let it happen silently.

Fourth Stage: 15 minutes
Come back
Now completely withdraw your attention from the world, from others, even from yourself. Lie down, close your eyes, be silent and still.
The Book of Wisdom

Applying this in daily life
Once you experience how pain and suffering can be transformed into joy through the breath and heart, you may like to apply this method silently whenever people and events around you trigger the process.

Listen to your heart

Life is so confusing, we don't know which way to go, what will be the right decision. Who can tell us? Maybe some astrologer or a fortune teller or a spiritual juggler. They give us nothing but hope. Simply hope which is hopeless. It may give solace, not the solution.

If you ask someone like Osho he says that the solution is simple : don't ask anybody, listen to your heart. Is it really that simple? Yes, try it out. We don't want to take this path because we don't trust ourselves, and basically we don't want to go wrong. We always want to be right. But what's wrong with going wrong? Of course, it does need some courage, and the ability to take risk.
If you need a boost here it is, from Osho: "Do what your nature wants to do, do what your intrinsic qualities hanker to do. Don’t listen to the scriptures, listen to your own heart. That is the only scripture I prescribe. Listen very attentively, very consciously and you will never be wrong. Listening to your own heart you will never be divided. Listening to your own heart you will start moving in the right direction, without ever thinking of what is right and what is wrong.
"The whole art for a new humanity will consist of the secret of listening to the heart – consciously, alertly, attentively. Follow it through any means, and go wherever it takes you. Sometimes it will take you into dangers – but then remember, those dangers are needed to make you ripe. And sometimes it will take you astray – but remember again, those goings astray are part of growth. Many times you will fall. Rise up again, because this is how one gathers strength – by falling and rising again. This is how one becomes integrated." (The Book of Wisdom,# 11) 
There are lots of heart meditations devised by Osho. If you do them you can open your heart and strengthen it. I will share one of them in my next post.

Sadhana

The fragrance of friendliness

Osho says friendship is a ship that sinks.

Friends meditating at OSHO International Meditation Resort

 A word used loosely and too often dilutes its significance. Take the word 'friend': now there are facebook friends, twitter friends or mobile friends. It creates an illusion that the world is full of friends but in the true sense they are just acquaintances. In the modern lifestyle friends don't come by easily for friendships need time and space to mature, just like an old wine does. It is the most unavailable species right now––I mean, the real freind. People are so hard pressed for time, how can they have the leisure and luxury of cultivating friends?

There was a time when friendship was treasured and nurtured; people were more humane perhaps. The modern man sees friendship as a tool to better oneself or using it for self gain. The proverbs like " a friend in need... " has stemmed from this mentality. Looking for people who will help oneself in the need is reducing the other to a commodity.

In this extrovert world having someone to whom they can trust and expose their hurts and wounds, who can guide them selflessly and be happy in their prosperity are a rare breed. Friend-ship has become a ship that sinks easily when the interests clash.

This is why Osho prefers the word friendliness to friendship. He says, "Friendship need not be addressed to anyone in particular; that is also a rotten idea, that you have to be friends with a certain person. Istead of creating friendship, create friendliness. Let it become a quality of your being, a climate that surrounds you, so you are friendly with whomsoever you come in contact."

Friendliness cannot be restricted to humans, it spreads like fragrance to the trees, flowers, birds and the whole of environment. The environment is crying for friendliness, seeking some healing and loving caress from more compassionate humans. But it is a forgotten language for the intellectual, mercenary human beings of today.

Please press the 'pause' button, stand still and look within. Do you see a glow of friendliness in the heart? It needs a heart as innocent and pure as children, that can rejoice in others' happiness, can share its own abundance. Meditation is the best way to purify the heart, weed out all the hatred and violence breeding inside and empty it to receive the new healing energy. This kind of heart can share its abundant love and friendliness. It will give without expecting anything in return, it will give without binding the other into a friend-ship.

Friendliness is a great privilege of mankind because it is not programed by biology. It needs a conscious resolution to rise above the narrow self-centeredness and evolve to a new level of consciousness.

Sadhana

Why Ladies First?

Amrit Sadhana

I remember, in my childhood when the younger kids played with older kids they were accepted reluctantly. The older ones couldn't refuse the younger ones because it was their mother's order to take the younger siblings along with them. So they would find a way out, they would call the younger ones " kachcha neebu" meaning a raw lemon : not ripe enough to play with the older ones. They were not taken seriously, ignored, at best tolearted by the elders. The youngsters, too, felt hurt for being labelled as " a raw lemon" . What could they do but wait till they grew older and take revenge with kids younger than them? All smaller people want to be treated as equal to the people higher than them.

When I hear the phrase "ladies first" I have the same reaction, as if I am being treated as a 'raw lemon.' Men think, and women too, that it is an honor that the women are given the first preference. But it is not, it is an insult. Special privilege is given to the undeveloped and weaker sections of society.

It was Osho who underlined this while speaking to a girls' college in Gujarat some forty five years ago. In his inimitable firey way he was trying to shake the girls from their psychological slumber and encourage them to reclaim their individuality. I don't know how much the girls understood at that time but even today the plight of women is no better than it was half a century ago.

In the light of the latest upsurge of violence against women there is a fresh demand to protect women. But who do women seek protection from? The same men who lust and molest them. If men on the street misbehave with them they come home and ask their family men to protect them. Ironically, these men are dangerous to other unknown women on the street. Would they really want to protect women?

This is no soultion to the problem. Women have to learn to rely on their own inner strength. The girls should grow up together with boys so that both get familiar with each other. Down the ages we have been separating them and it has not made the women stronger nor the men happier.

Is it not strange that even after thousands of years of our moral education, culture and religion, we have not been able to accept a natural friendship between a man and a woman; that the woman still does not trust the man regarding his sexuality?

An urgent solution is needed. Trust nature, do not go against it; for it only produces insanity such as we see all around.