OSHO Whirling Meditation

Meditators whirling at Buddha Grove, OSHO International Meditation Resort, Pune,India

Osho has spoken on Sufi stories and The Sufi Way extensively. He has also introduced the famous whirling meditation which we do every day at the open air Buddha Grove.
Osho says: "All over the world, children like to twirl, to whirl, and naturally the parents will stop them: "Don't do that, you may get dizzy. You may fall, you may hurt yourself." But all over the world, children enjoy it. And it was from seeing children enjoying whirling that Jalaluddin Rumi got the idea that there must be something... because whenever you see a child whirling, his face changes. A strange grace comes to his face; he starts radiating a certain aura, and when he stops he is so full of joy....
"Jalaluddin Rumi tried -- in the forest, so nobody makes a laughingstock of him -- just to know what these children find in twirling. And he was amazed: he discovered one of the greatest methods of meditation, and for twelve hundred years after him, his school has been a living school. His school is called the Whirling Dervishes; in their temple, that is their prayer, that is their meditation. That is their whole religion. They go on twirling for hours together.Jalaluddin himself became enlightened after thirty-six hours of continuous, nonstop twirling. And when he was asked, "There is no scripture describing this meditation; how have you found it?" He said, "Just by looking at children. I tried it myself, and I was amazed because the more you twirl, the faster you go, soon you become aware that something deep inside you is absolutely still and unmoving. The whole body is moving and the faster it moves, the more is the contrast between the unmoving and the moving. And the unmoving consciousness within is my soul. That is the center of the cyclone."
From The Hidden Splendor/copyright OSHO International Foundation