TM : Neither Transcendental Nor Meditation

Sadhana

Osho has talked about Transcendental Meditation which was made popular by the late Mahesh Yogi. Osho says that TM is a non-medicinal sleeping pill,that's all. Do not mistake it for meditation.
I have picked up this interesting excerpt from Osho library which I thought would be useful in understanding what was TM all about. And how Osho defines the term meditation.
Osho says : "Your so-called saints go on singing lullabies; they help you to sleep better. And you will be surprised that the so-called mantras are nothing but a way to fall deeply asleep. That's what Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's Transcendental Meditation is. If you repeat ANY word... it does not matter what word you repeat -- Rama, Rama, or Krishna, Krishna, or Christ, Christ, or Coca-Cola, Coca-Cola -- anything will do. If you go on repeating a certain word continuously it will help you to fall deep asleep, because the mind becomes bored with it. When the mind becomes bored it starts feeling dull, sleepy. When the mind becomes bored there is only one escape from the boredom -- to fall asleep.
"Mothers have known it for centuries. Transcendental meditation has been used by all the mothers all over the world. Whenever the child is not going to sleep they start repeating a single line, a lullaby. Anything will do; just go on repeating the same again and again and the child starts falling asleep.
"And that's how hypnosis functions: any repetition -- a mantra is not necessarily needed -- ANYTHING. You can make a black spot on the wall and go on looking at it, looking constantly at it, and within minutes you will be fast asleep, because consciousness needs flow, consciousness needs something new to keep alert, consciousness needs movement. Consciousness is a stream.
"In fact it is because of this that Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's Transcendental Meditation -- which is neither transcendental nor meditation -- has become so significant in America. America is the country which suffers most from sleeplessness, the only country which can sleep only through tranquilizers, sleeping pills -- and even those are no longer working -- the only country which has become so restless that sleep has become almost impossible. New methods are needed, more subtle methods are needed.
But to fall asleep is not meditation, it is consolation. It will give you a little rest and tomorrow you will find yourself a little more fresh. It is good -- I am not against it. It is a nonmedicinal tranquilizer. If you use tranquilizers you can use transcendental meditation -- far better. At least you are not stuffing yourself with chemicals which may have any side effect. It will not harm you, but it is not meditation at all -- because meditation means sharpening of intelligence. Meditation means becoming more alert, more bright, more brilliant, becoming more luminous, becoming more wise.

The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 3/copyright Osho International Foundation/www.osho.com

Osho on Mahesh Yogi

Amrit Sadhana
Osho has spoken about the late Mahesh Yogi's Transcendental Meditation in his own inimitable style. There was a period when TM had taken the West by storm, particularly the US. At the time meditation was not a popular word in the west so Mahesh Yogi seemed to bring a new message. But soon humanity outgrew TM and started looking for more radical and trasformatory process of meditation. Osho insight on Mahesh Yogi is very useful in understanding meditation.

Osho : "If you can learn one thing with me, then that one thing is: Be alert, aware, about your own inner motives, about your own inner destiny. Never lose sight of it, otherwise you will be unhappy. And when you are unhappy, then people say: "Meditate and you will become happy!" They say: "Concentrate and you will become happy; pray and you will become happy; go to the temple, be religious, be a Christian or a Hindu and you will be happy!" This is all nonsense.
Be happy! and meditation will follow. Be happy, and religion will follow. Happiness is a basic condition. People become religious only when they are unhappy -- then their religion is pseudo. Try to understand why you are unhappy.
Many people come to me and they say they are unhappy, and they want me to give them some meditation. I say: First, the basic thing is to understand why you are unhappy. And if you don't remove those basic causes of your unhappiness, I can give you a meditation, but that is not going to help very much -- because the basic causes remain there.
The man may have been a good, beautiful dancer, and he is sitting in an office, piling up files. There is no possibility for dance. The man may have enjoyed dancing under the stars, but he is simply going on accumulating a bank-balance. And he says he is unhappy: "Give me some meditation." I can give him! -- but what is that meditation going to do? what is it supposed to do? He will remain the same man: accumulating money, competitive in the market. The meditation may help in this way: it may make him a little more relaxed to do this nonsense even better.
That's what TM is doing to many people in the West -- and that is the appeal of transcendental meditation, because Maharishi Mahesh Yogi goes on saying, "It will make you more efficient in your work, it will make you more successful. If you are a salesman, you will become a more successful salesman. It will give you efficiency." And American people are almost crazy about efficiency. You can lose everything just for being efficient. Hence, the appeal.
Yes, it can help you. It can relax you a little -- it is a tranquillizer. By constantly repeating a mantra, by continuously repeating a certain word, it changes your brain chemistry. It is a tranquillizer! a sound-tranquillizer. It helps you to lessen your stress so tomorrow in the marketplace you can be more efficient, more capable to compete -- but it doesn't change you. it is not a transformation.
You can repeat a mantra, you can do a certain meditation; it can help you a little bit here and there -- but-it can help you to remain whatsoever you are. It is not a transformation.
Hence, my appeal is only for those who are really daring, dare-devils who are ready to change their very pattern of life, who are ready to stake everything -- because in fact you don't have anything to put at the stake: only your unhappiness, your misery. But people cling even to that."
A Sudden Clash of Thunder/Copyright Osho International Foundation/www.osho.com

When silence sprouts within

Welcome Center Osho International Meditation Resort

Sadhana

This is surreal! I mean what happened to me today. Let me tell you the whole incident.

This afternoon as I was coming through the main gate of the Osho International Meditation Resort, savouring a peaceful joy within me, I was stopped by twittering birds on the tree near the welcome center. I halted and looked around -- the green expanse behind the welcome center, the calm Buddha statue of white marble, small waterfall behind it, and the curve of the running canal-- soft winter sun cast a diffused light on the green profusion…Perfect synchronicity between the outside and the inside. I breathed in silence and tranquility.

In the evening I went to the evening meditation meeting in the pyramid shaped Osho auditorium, and now comes the surreal ---
Osho was talking ( in the video, of course) on Zen. And believe me, the same kind of birds twittered in the video, Osho stopped while speaking and said , " just like that --- silence sprouts within you…"

It was unbelievable! How could it happen the same day? One has to agree with Osho when he says, "Life is a mystery, that is the very essence of Zen."

Osho said in the video, "Just act with your totality -- continuously -- and wait for the right time. The flower blossoms and the rain comes, the sun rises and the birds sing. ( at this point birds start twittering. Osho stops and says ) Just like that -- absolutely naturally -- silence sprouts within you, brings flowers of the unknown, fills you with immense fulfillment. You know, although you cannot say a single word about it: you experience, but you have no explanation."
"Life is a mystery, that is the very essence of Zen."
Zen: The Quantum Leap From Mind to No-Mind

Japanese Tea Ceremony

Last night there was a Japanese tea ceremony at Osho International Meditation Resort. The ambience and serenity was just like Osho has described in Beyond Enlightenment. And yes, Yoko from Japan was playing lilting flute in the background. Couldn't resist sharing this beautiful event with you.

"In Japan they have the tea ceremony. In every Zen monastery and in every person's house who can afford it, they have a small temple for drinking tea. Now, tea is no longer an ordinary, profane thing; they have transformed it into a celebration. The temple for drinking tea is made in a certain way -- in a beautiful garden, with a beautiful pond; swans in the pond, flowers all around... guests come and they have to leave their shoes outside. It is a temple.
"And as you enter the temple, you cannot speak; you have to leave your thinking and thoughts and speech outside with your shoes. You sit down in a meditative posture. And the host, the lady who prepares tea for you -- her movements are so graceful, as if she is dancing, moving around preparing tea, putting cups and saucers before you as if you are gods. With such respect... she will bow down, and you will receive it with the same respect.
"The tea is prepared in a special samovar which makes beautiful sounds, a music of its own. And it is part of the tea ceremony that everybody should listen first to the music of the tea. So everybody is silent, listening... birds chirping outside in the garden, and the samovar... the tea is creating its own song. A peace surrounds....
"When the tea is ready and it is poured into everybody's cup, you are not just to drink it the way people are doing everywhere. First you will smell the aroma of the tea. You will sip the tea as if it has come from the beyond, you will take time -- there is no hurry.
Somebody may start playing on the flute or on the sitar.
"An ordinary thing -- just tea -- and they have made it a beautiful religious festival, and everybody comes out of it nourished, fresh, feeling younger, feeling juicier."

Copyright Osho International Foundation

Dancing from the hara

This is Soo Hee, an amazing Korean dancer who is a regular visitor to the Osho International Meditation Resort, Pune. She does Osho meditations and also offers her meditative dance during evening events. Soo Hee says that Osho Kundalini meditation has helped her improve her dance movements.
This is a cool place folks! People meditate and cleanse their minds all day and then celebrate in the evening. The nights are colorful and creative -- like the topping of the yummy ice cream.
Osho asks the dancer to disappear in the dance. "Dance seems to be one of the most penetrating things, in which one falls into a harmony. Your body, your mind, your soul all fall into a harmony in dancing. Dancing is one of the most spiritual things there is. If you really dance, you cannot think. If you really dance, the body is used so deeply that the whole energy becomes fluid. A dancer loses shape, fixity. A dancer becomes a movement, a process. A dancer is not an entity: he's movement, he's energy. He melts. Great dancers, by and by, melt. And a dancer cannot retain his ego because if he retains the ego, that will be a jarring note in his dance."
The Beloved Vol 1,Copyright Osho International Foundation

Osho recipe for basic understanding
Sadhana

This is a very busy time in Pune, Osho Meditation Resort. The place is overflowing with new visitors, returnees, re-returnees. A great buzz. It's a miniature universe, I tell you. Whenever you have time, come and feel the expansion of consciousness. Just being with so many diverse minds itself opens something inside.
But I sneaked out to post some short and crisp one liners by Osho. Like spicy
French Fries.

Osho says :
A woman is to be loved, not understood. This is the first understanding.

A psychiatrist is a fellow who asks you a lot of expensive questions that your wife asks you for nothing.

The key to happiness: You may speak of love and tenderness and passion, but real ecstasy is discovering you haven't lost your keys after all.

Women begin by resisting a man's advances and end by blocking his retreat.

If you want to change a woman's mind, agree with her.

If you want to know what a woman really means, look at her -- don't listen to her.

***
A lady walked up to the policeman and said, "Officer, that man on the corner is annoying me."
"I have been watching the whole time," said the cop, "and that man wasn't even looking at you."
"Well," said the woman, "isn't that annoying?"

The Great Pilgrimage: From Here to Here/courtesy Osho Interantional Foundation/www.osho.com

Why do we jump into relationships?

Sadhana

I met one lovely and unique Romanian woman at Osho International Meditation Resort, Pune. Why unique? Because she has dared to meditate in Romania and be an individual.
"What is the most difficult thing for a woman in your country?" I asked her over a cup of coffee.
" To live alone." she said instantly," There is an old saying: 'Living with a bad person is bad, but it is worse living without the bad person'. It means we prefer to live a miserable life with someone, than live alone."
But this is not only in Romania, it is a common fear. People don't know how to live alone, which means how to live with themselves. Because they can't differentiate between loneliness and aloneness.
Osho wants us to understand that loneliness is not aloneness. He says,
" Loneliness is the absence of the other -- you would like the other to be there, but the other is not, and you miss them. YOU are not there in loneliness, the absence of the other is there. Aloneness is your presence; it is a positive phenomenon. You don't miss the other, you meet yourself. Then you are alone, alone like a peak, tremendously beautiful! Sometimes you even feel a terror -- but it has a beauty. But the presence is the basic thing: you are present to yourself. You are not lonely, you are with yourself.
If you are alone, you grow, because there is space to grow -- nobody else to hamper, nobody else to obstruct, nobody else to create more complex problems. Alone you are happy being with yourself, and a bliss arises. There is no comparison: because the other is not there you are neither beautiful nor ugly, neither rich nor poor, neither this nor that, neither white nor black, neither man nor woman."
And The Flowers Showered/copyright Osho International Foundation/www.osho.com