Category Archives: Osho Insight

OSHO also known as Acharya Rajneesh was an enlightened Zen Monk, Mystique, Master & one of the greatest & revolutionary Orators the world has seen may be after Buddha. This category is exclusively dedicated to his talks & discourses.

Nad-Brahma meditation 

“So in Nadabrahma, remember this: let the body and mind be totally together, but remember that you have to become a witness. Get out of them, easily, slowly, from the back door, with no fight, with no struggle. Mm? they are drinking — you get out, and watch from the outside….” 
“ It is a mantra meditation, and mantra is one of the most potential ways. It is very simple yet tremendously effective, because when you chant a mantra or you chant a sound your body starts vibrating; your brain cells particularly start vibrating.

If rightly done your whole brain becomes tremendously vibrant, and the whole body also. Once the body starts vibrating and your mind is already chanting, they both fall in a tune. A harmony — which is ordinarily never there — between the two. Your mind goes on its way, your body continues on its own. The body goes on eating, the mind goes on thinking. The body goes on walking on the road the mind is moving far away in the stars. They never meet — they both go on separate pathways, and that creates a split.
The basic schizophrenia is created because the body goes in one direction, the mind goes in another direction. And you are the third element — you are neither the body nor the mind, so you are pulled apart by these two. Half of your being is pulled by the body and half of your being is pulled by your mind. So there is great anguish — one feels torn apart.
In a mantra meditation — nadabrahma or any chanting — this is how the mechanism works: when you start chanting a sound — and any sound will do; even abracadabra — if you start resounding inside, the body starts responding. Sooner or later a moment comes when the body and the mind are both together in one direction for the first time. When body and mind are both together, you are free from the body and the mind — you are not tom apart. Then the third element which you are in reality — call it soul, spirit,’atma’, anything — that third element is at ease because it is not being pulled in different directions.
The body and the mind are so much engrossed in chanting that the soul can slip out of them very easily, unobserved, and can become a witness — can stand out and look at the whole game that is going on between the mind and the body. It is such a beautiful rhythm that the mind and body never become aware that the soul has slipped out… because they don’t allow so easily, mm? they keep their possession. Nobody wants to lose his possession. The body wants to dominate the soul, the mind wants to dominate the soul.
This is a very sly way to get out of their hold. They become drunk with the chanting, and you slip out.
So in nadabrahma, remember this: let the body and mind be totally together, but remember that you have to become a witness. Get out of them, easily, slowly, from the back door, with no fight, with no struggle. Mm? they are drinking — you get out, and watch from the outside….
This is the meaning of the English word ‘ecstasy’ — to stand out. Stand out and watch from there… and it is tremendously peaceful. It is silence, it is bliss, it is benediction.
This is the whole secret of chanting — that’s why chanting has prevailed down the centuries. There has never been a religion that has not used chanting and mantra. But there is a danger also! If you don’t get out, if you don’t become a witness, there is a danger — then you have missed the whole point. If you become drunk with the body and the mind and your soul also becomes drunk, then chanting is an intoxicant. Then it is like a tranquiliser — it will give you a good sleep, that’s all. It is a lullaby. Good — nothing wrong in it — but not of any real value either.
So this is the pitfall to be remembered: chanting is so beautiful that one wants to get lost. If you are lost, then good, you enjoyed a rhythm, an inner rhythm, and it was beautiful and you liked it, but it was like a drug — it is an acid trip. By chanting, by the sound, you created certain drugs in your body.
Chanting creates chemical changes in the body, and those changes are no different than marijuana or LSD. Some day, when research goes deeper into meditation, they are going to find that chanting creates chemical changes — just as fasting also creates chemical changes.
After the seventh or eighth day of fasting, one feels tremendously jubilant, weightless, very glad for no reason, delighted — as if all burden has disappeared. Your body is creating a certain chemical change.
I am as much against LSD as I am against fasting. And if chanting is used as a drug, I am against it. So the point to be remembered is that you have to use the sound, the chanting, the mantra, not as an intoxicant for your being. Let it be an intoxicant for the body and the mind but you slip out of it before you become intoxicated; you stand out and you watch. You see the body swaying and you see the mind feeling very very peaceful and calm and quiet. Watch from the outside and be alert like a flame.
If this is not done you will have a good sleep but nothing more. Then it is a good thing for health but nothing for the ultimate growth.
Good — pay attention to nadabrahma, mm? And sometimes sitting silently, start chanting anything, ‘aum’, will do, or choose anything, any word, and get in tune with it. Meaning is not important: it can be meaningless — it can be meaningful. ‘Aum’ has no meaning. Or you can create your own mantra and chant it. But remember to slip out of it.
Let the body get drunk, let the mind get drunk, let them fall into a deep love-affair with each other, and you slip out of it. Don’t stay there longer — otherwise you will fall asleep. And if one falls asleep, it is not meditation. Meditation means awareness. So remember it!”
~ OSHO
The Buddha Disease

Chapter 31 – Theology becomes alive only when a person is alive who knows God by existential experience (31 January 1977 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium)

Unconsciousness 

BELOVED MASTER,
WHAT IS UNCONSCIOUSNESS?

Consciousness means living with a witness; unconsciousness means living without a witness. When you are walking on the road, you can walk consciously – that’s what Buddha says one should do – you are alert, deep down you are aware that you are walking; you are conscious of each movement. You are conscious of the birds singing in the trees, the early morning sun coming through the trees, the rays touching you, the warmth, the fresh air, the fragrance of newly opening flowers. A dog starts barking, a train passes by, you are breathing… you are watching everything. You are not excluding anything out of your alertness; you are taking everything in. The breath goes in, the breath goes out… you are watching everything that is happening.
It is not concentration, because in concentration you focus on one thing and you forget everything else. When you are concentrating you will not listen to the humming of the bees or to the singing of the birds; you will only see what you are concentrating upon.
Concentration is narrowing down your consciousness to a point. It is good in archery:
you have a target and you have to see only the target and you have to forget everything else.
Consciousness has to be relaxed; it has to be equivalent to opening. You are simply open to all that is happening. I am talking to you, and the train is passing by, and the distant call of a cuckoo… and you are aware of it all. You are open to all the dimensions of your being. You are simply open and vulnerable, alert, not asleep.

This is consciousness, and its opposite is unconsciousness. You are not open at all, you are closed. You are in a kind of sleep – a metaphysical sleep. All the buddhas down the ages have been fighting the metaphysical sleep.
People are bound to do something stupid. And that’s what they have done to the statements of all the buddhas. They write commentaries, great scholarship, but what comes out is stupid. Libraries are full of it, universities are full of it. All rubbish! But people are sacrificing their whole lives for that, and they are not doing the first necessary thing.

You cannot be wise unless you become conscious, unless you break this old habit of functioning in an unconscious way. You have to de-automatize yourself.
Simple things can do the trick. For example, you always walk in a hurry. Start walking slowly. You will have to be alert; the moment you lose alertness you will start again in a hurried way. These are small devices: walk slowly – because to walk slowly you will have to remain conscious. Once you lose consciousness, immediately the old habit will grab you and you will be in a hurry.
If you smoke cigarettes, make it a very slow process, so slow that it becomes de- automatized. Otherwise, people are not smoking cigarettes – cigarettes are smoking people! They are not conscious of what they are doing. In a very unconscious way they put their hands into their pockets, take out the packet, the cigarette and the matchbox.
They are going through all these motions but they are not alert. They may be thinking a thousand and one things. In fact, when they are more unconscious they tend to smoke more. When they are more in anxiety, tension… worried, they tend to smoke more; that helps them to keep a face as if they are relaxed.
Make it a slow process. Take the cigarette packet out of your pocket as slowly as possible, as consciously as possible. Slowing down the processes is very helpful. Then hold the packet in your hand, look at it, smell it, feel its texture. Then open it very slowly, as if you have all the time in the world. Then take a cigarette out, look at the cigarette from all sides. Then put it in your mouth… wait! Then take the matchbox – again go through those same slow movements. Then start smoking so slowly… take the smoke in very slowly, let it out very slowly.
And you will be surprised: if you were smoking twenty-four cigarettes per day you will be smoking only six at the most; it will be reduced to one-fourth. And slowly slowly, only two, one, and one day suddenly you will find the whole thing so stupid! Still you can go on carrying the cigarette packet in your pocket for a few days, just in case – but it is finished, de-automatized.
This is one of Buddha’s great contributions to the psychology of man: the process of de- automatization, slowing down everything.
Buddha used to say to his disciples, “Walk as slowly as possible, eat as slowly as possible. Chew each bite forty times and go on counting inside: one, two, three, four, five – forty times. When the food is no longer solid, it is almost liquid….” He used to say, “Don’t eat, but drink.” That means make it so liquid that you don’t eat it, you have to drink it. And he helped thousands of people to become conscious.
You are unconscious, although you believe you are conscious…. That is like seeing a dream in which you think you are walking in the marketplace. You are awake in your dream, but your awakenness in a dream is only part of the dream – you are unconscious.
It hurts to accept that “I am unconscious,” but the first act of being conscious is to accept that “I am unconscious.” The very acceptance triggers a process in you
~ OSHO – Dhammapada Volume 5

Rebellious Person 

Who is a rebellious person? ………………………………………………………………………
 A rebellious person is one who has understood the whole nonsense of the society, and simply slips out of it.  
He does not fight with it; on the surface he even continues to pretend that he belongs with you.  
He is a clever person.
Gurdjieff used to call him “the sly person.”  
He is clever enough — he is neither orthodox nor revolutionary, he is just rebellious.  
But his rebellion is so intelligent that he knows there is no point .
If the society says “Walk on the left” he walks on the left, because there is no point in fighting in this — it is meaningless. 
On the surface he goes on following the society; deep down he has slipped out of it, deep down he starts living his own life.  
He does not go into the marketplace to exhibit, because if you exhibit your happiness in the marketplace they are going to kill you; they will crucify you.  
They did the same to Jesus, they did the same to Socrates, to Mansoor — they are not going to leave you alone. 
There is no need.  
When you are sitting with miserable people, keep a miserable face — even more miserable than they have — because it is just a game you are playing: you are not miserable, you can act it better then them — they are REALLY miserable. Keep a longer face than them.  
When alone, have a good laugh.  
Don’t start fighting with the society otherwise you will be in trouble, and happiness will again be far away — as far away as before.  
First you were following the society and could not be happy. Now you fight the society, so the society throws you in a jail or in chains, or the society tries to crush you — and again you are unhappy. 
A rebellious person is a very very clever person. He slips out in such silent ways that he does not create any ripple on the surface… and he starts living his private life in his own way.  
That’s what I teach you: I don’t teach you to be revolutionaries, I teach you to be rebellious. A religious person is a rebellious person. 

………………………………………………………………………

~ OSHO

The Divine Melody 

Chapter #10 

Chapter title: : Married for eternity 

10 January 1977 am in Buddha Hall 

Observe your thoughts 

Become an observer of the currents of thought that flow through your consciousness. Just like someone sitting by the side of a river watching the river flow by, sit by the side of your mind and watch. Or just as someone sits in the forest and watches a line of birds flying by, just sit and watch. Or the way someone watches the rainy sky and the moving clouds, you just watch the clouds of thoughts moving in the sky of your mind. The flying birds of thoughts, the flowing river of thoughts.. .in the same way, silently standing on the bank, you simply sit and watch. It is the same as if you are sitting on the bank, watching the thoughts flowing by. Don’t do anything, don’t interfere, don’t stop them in any way. Don’t repress in any way. If there is a thought coming don’t stop it, if it is not coming don’t try to force it to come. You are simply to be an observer.
 In that simple observation you will see and experience that your thoughts and you are separate – because you can see that the one who is watching the thoughts is separate from the thoughts, different from them. And as you become aware of this, a strange peace will envelop you because you will not have any more worries. You can be in the midst of all kinds of worries but the worries will not be yours. You can be in the midst of many problems but the problems will not be yours. You can be surrounded by thoughts but you will not be the thoughts. 
And if you become aware that you are not your thoughts, the life of these thoughts will begin to grow weaker, they will begin to become more and more lifeless. The power of your thoughts lies in the fact that you think they are yours. When you are arguing with someone you say, “My thought is… ” No thought is yours. All thoughts are different from you, separate from you. You just be a witness to them. 
~ OSHO – Chapter 7, THE PATH OF MEDITATION

Awareness & Enlightenment !!

“ THERE ARE THREE STEPS OF AWARENESS.First, become aware of your body — walking, chopping wood or carrying water from the well. Be watchful, be alert, aware, conscious. Don’t go on doing things like a zombie, like a somnambulist, a sleepwalker.

When you have become aware of your body and its actions, then move deeper — to your mind and its activity, thoughts, imagination, projections. When you have become deeply aware of the mind, you will be surprised. When you become aware of your bodily processes, you will be surprised there too. I can move my hand mechanically, I can move it with full awareness. When I move it with full awareness, there is grace, there is beauty. I can speak without awareness. There are orators, speakers…. I don’t know any oratory; I have never learned the art of speaking, because to me it looks foolish. If I have something to say, that is enough. But I am speaking to you with full awareness, each word, each pause… I am not an orator, not a speaker. But when you are aware of speaking, it starts becoming art. It takes on the nuances of poetry and music……….

When you become aware of the mind, you are in for a greater surprise. The more you become aware, the less thoughts move on the track. If you have one hundred percent thoughts, there is no awareness. If you have one percent awareness, there are only ninety-nine percent thoughts — in exact proportion. When you have ninety-nine percent awareness, there is only one percent thought, because it is the same energy. As you become more aware there is no energy available for thoughts; they die out. When you are one hundred percent aware, the mind becomes absolutely silent. That is the time to move still deeper.

The third step: to become aware of feelings, moods, emotions. In other words, first the body — its action; second, the mind — its activity; third, the heart and its functions. When you move to the heart and bring your awareness there, again a new surprise. All that is good grows, and all that is bad starts disappearing. Love grows, hate disappears. Compassion grows, anger disappears. Sharing grows, greed disappears. 

When your awareness of the heart is complete, the last surprise, and the greatest surprise: you don’t have to take any step. A quantum leap happens on its own accord. From the heart, you suddenly find yourself in your being, at the very center. There you are aware only of awareness, conscious only of consciousness. There is nothing else to be aware of, or to be conscious of. And this is the ultimate purity. This is what I call enlightenment.

And this is your birth right ! If you miss, only you are responsible. You cannot dump the responsibility on anybody else. And it is so simple and natural, that you just have to begin. Only the first step is difficult. The whole journey is simple. There is a saying that the first step is almost the whole journey. Okay? “

~ OSHI – From Bondage To Freedom Chapter # 3 Chapter Name – Learn From This Experience