HIS VISION

This is the first time I am taking part in a meditation camp. Would you explain to me the need of active meditation techniques?

The human mind is effort-oriented, action-oriented, obsessed with activity - because the more active you are,

the more your ego can be fulfilled, the more you can say"I".All activity is basically food for your egoistic personality.

Meditation is not an effort, it is not an activity. Rather, it is a deep surrender. It is to be in nonactivity. Basically, just to be is meditation - not doing anything, not desiring anything not hankering to go somewhere; just being here and now, simply being here and now. That's what I call meditation. But it is very difficult to conceive. Even to contemplate it is difficult. The mind cannot conceive of anything that is not an effort. The very language of the mind, the very framework, the very structure, is based on effort: to do something, to achieve something, to go somewhere.

Mind is very serious, because people go on talking about meditation very seriously. But meditation is not a serious thing. It is more like play. Non serious. Sincere, but nonserious. Its not something like work; it is more like play. Play is not an activity.Even when it is active, it is not an activity. Play is just pleasure. The activity is not going anywhere; it is not motivated. Rather, its just pure, flowing energy.

But it is difficult, because we are so involved in activity We have always been so active that activity has become a deep-rooted obsession. Even while asleep we are active. Even when we are thinking about relaxing we are active. We even make relaxation an activity; we make an effort to relax. This is absurd! But it happens because of the robotlike habits of the mind.

So what to do? Only nonactivity leads you to your inner center, but the mind cannot conceive of how to be nonactive. So what to do?

I have devised a means. And the means is to be active to such an extreme that activity simply ceases; to be so madly active that the mind that is hankering to be active is thrown out of your system. Only then, after a deep catharsis, can you fall down into inactivity and have a glimpse of the world that is not the world of effort.

Once you have the feeling of it - how to be just here and now, without doing anything - you can move into it at any moment; you can remain in it anywhere. Ultimately, you can be outwardly active and inwardly deeply inactive. But in the beginning, you will have to do a very paradoxical thing. The paradox is this: you will first have to be active, madly active, violently active, so that everything is released, your repressions are released.

You have suppressed so many things. You are just a heap of repressions. These repressions are always there working in the unconscious, constantly disturbing you, poisoning you. Unless they are released, you cannot feel at ease with yourself. And if you cannot feel at ease with yourself how can you feel at ease with the universe? But unless you are deeply at ease with the whole, you have not tasted what religion is.

You have not been in contact with yourself for so long, for many lives. You are alienated from yourself, you have become a stranger to yourself, because of this repressive attitude. You go on repressing everything. You have not screamed, not deeply; you have not done anything in which your totality is involved.

Deep down, you have been collecting madness. It can erupt at any moment. No one is normal because, right behind the so-called normalcy, the abnormal, the madman, is hidden. That abnormal, repressed unconscious is a volcano that goes on disturbing your life. It goes on disturbing your perceptions, it goes on disturbing everything. It is a poison that has to be released if you are ever to feel at home with yourself. That's the first step that has to be done. Only then can you be at ease with the universe.

And once the universe becomes your home even for a single moment, you have become religious. It's a transformation. Then you will never be anywhere other than at home. You can move anywhere, you can be anyone or do anything, and you will remain at home, at ease. But this feeling comes only when all the accumulated nonsense inside you is released and thrown out.

We go on preserving it. We are always on guard so that it won't be released; we are constantly protecting it.

If you go on protecting your accumulated nonsense even during this meditation camp, nothing will happen. But if you are ready to act out whatsoever is repressed in your system, then much is possible. You wall be able to leave here a totally new person; a new being can happen to you. But you will have to be daring, expressive, authentic and playful.

We will be doing three meditations: in the morning, in the afternoon and the night. I'll tell you something about the morning meditation so you can be ready for it.

The morning meditation is a mad meditation, madness with a method. Whatsoever is suppressed in you has to be brought out. Once it is brought out , you wall be relieved of it, unburdened from it. As I see you, you are so burdened. Everyone is carrying the Himalayas on his head You cannot move an inch with all this weight on your head. Throw it! That's what I call daring. So, be courageous.

In the morning meditation there are four steps. The first step is ten minutes of chaotic breathing. I say"chaotic." No system is to be applied. Just chaotic breathing: breathing in and breathing out. Forget everything else but the breathing. Use breathing as a hammering and breathe so fast, so deep and so chaotically that you become like a bellows: breathing in, breathing out. This wall work miracles. It will help you to release your repressed emotions. Breathing has helped you to repress them so only through breathing can they be released.

You may not be aware of it, but the more repressed you are, the shallower your breathing will be. A repressed man or woman cannot take deep breaths. He is afraid. His breath cannot go deep down to his navel, it is shallow. He takes it in and throws it out. It never goes to the very roots of his being. He is afraid of the roots, he is afraid of being total, because if he is total then he will have to releases his repressions. He will have to act differently; he will not be able to control himself. He will be thrown into the deep river of existence. We control our breathing in an effort to be in control.

Look at a child. He breathes differently. He is not yet cultured, civilized, that's why. But the whole society woking to cultivate him, and once he becomes aware of the society, his breathing will change.

The breathing changes at a particular moment. When the child becomes aware of his sex - or the society, his parents, his family make him aware of his sex or her sex - the breathing changes. The breathing becomes shallow because deep breathing massages your sex center from within; it excites the sex center; it goes deep dawn and helps the sex energy to move. Society, religion, the so-called religions, are all afraid of sex. Families, cultures, civilizations are all afraid of sex. Once the child is condemned about his sexuality, he will never again breathe naturally. His breathing will become shallow because if the breath goes deep down, the sex center will be excited. He cannot allow the breathing to go so deep. That's why everyone's breathing is shallow.

So the first step of the technique is just to create the opposite situation to what the society has created. You have to breathe so deeply that sex center is hit from within, and hit so forcibly that the energy is released from there.

The sex center can be hit in two ways. It can be hit from without. Then the energy moves outward. If you take a deep breath and hit the center from within, the energy moves within - the same energy. sex is both. It can move out; it can move in. It can move down; it can move up. Both avenues are there. In one direction or another, the energy has to be released. An inner system exists in which sex energy can move. We have called it"kundalini."Kundalini is nothing but sex energy moving within.

So for ten minutes you have to fight with civilization, with shallow breathing. Chaotic breathing! This will do another thing also. It will release your body energy, your body electricity. This is what is known as bioelectricity. Once the bioelectricity is released in the body you can use it as a vehicle to go beyond - to go beyond the body.

We are afraid of the body, so we don't allow it to be really alive. We have made it half-dead. If it is half-dead, it is controllable. If it is totally alive, it is not controllable.

We are afraid of it. The mind always afraid. And afraid of only one thing: what will happen if the mind is not in control? The mind can control only a dead body or a half-dead body. If the body is fully alive, the mind becomes afraid. The energy is so much that the mind is thrown off.

These ten minutes of chaotic breathing will help your body energy to be released. Every cell of your body will become alive and dancing. And when these cell start dancing within, you will also have a feeling of dance your self. Your whole body will start dancing and jumping. Allow it. This is how one enters into the river of existence.

In the second step, for ten minutes you have to act out all your madness. Don't be shy, because here we have not gathered for that. Don't be afraid of others. Just think that you are alone here. This is a path of loneliness; one has to travel it alone. Many others will be doing the meditation, everyone will be doing it, but you are to be concerned only with your self. If you are concerned with others you will not move an inch from where you are and your whole time here will be wasted. So don't be concerned with others.Remain absolutely concerned with yourself.

And remember, you have many madness within you. You already know that; that's why you are so afraid. Release them! If you want to scream, scream. If you want to jump, jump. If you want to dance, dance. If you just want be like a child - playing with your body, jumping, dancing, screaming - do it!

And do it playfully; don't be serious you cannot be totally released. Be playful. Enjoy the madness that is coming out of you. Help it, enjoy it, cooperate with it. If you are really interested in going beyond your madness, this is the way. When the madness is released you will feel unburdened, you will feel weightless, you will feel a subtle newness entering in you, as if your childhood has come back. You are again a child. New-born, fresh.This freshness is very essential, this innocence is very essential if you are to move further.

In the third step, we will be using the sound "hoo" as a mantra. You have to say,"Hoo, hoo, hoo," loudly, forcibly, bringing your total energy to it as if your whole life is at stake. For ten minutes you have to go on screaming, yelling, "Hoo!Hoo!" What is this "hoo" going to do?

It is going to do two things. When you scream hoo, your total breath is thrown out. The more loudly you scream, the better. Exhale with the sound so that your total breath is let out. This creates a space within you. In that space, sex energy can move upward. The hoo is to help sex energy to move up. When you say hoo, your sex center contracts, the breath goes out, and a space is created within you right near the sex center. In that space, in that emptiness, sex energy can move up.

These three steps are to be done with so much energy and force that nothing is left behind. You are not withholding anything; you are totally in it. Then, after thirty minutes, when I feel that you have released your madness and your energy is moving, suddenly I will say,"Stop!" Then you have become just a stone, a statue. Someone will be standing, someone will be lying down. Don't move, don't cry. No noise, no movement. Suddenly it is to be as if everyone has become dead. Even if you fall....If you are standing and your posture is such that you cannot remain that way, don't make any adjustments with your body; just let the body fall. But don't help it fall. Don't make any ajustments; don't change your body in any way.

It is very essential that this stopping be deeply understood, because you can deceive yourself. If your posture is awkward, if you feel it is troublesome, inconvenient, your mind con deceive you. Because I am not there to see it, you think that you can change your posture a little and be comfortable. Then you have missed the point.

Don't do anything. The moment I say,"Stop!"stop all movements, What will happen? In this sudden stop, you will be thrown to the center. Just a moment before, you were moving like a cyclone, in mad activity. Suddenly I say"Stop!" Everything stops. You are thrown to the center; you become the obserever. But you most stop immediately. If you so anything at all, you will miss the moment.

Don't do anything. A single movement and you can miss the whole point.When you hear me calling you to stop, stop! Whatsoever happens! Your body may fall down. Let it fall. But don't help it. Consciously, you are not to do any thing.

For ten minutes you are to remain in this stonelike state. These ten minutes will be a new experience. You will enter a space within; something which is beyond you, you have never known it. And even a glimpse of it will fill you with bliss. For these ten minutes - in this stonelike, dead state - you will be really alive for the first time. You will become an observer, a witnessing of your own body.

This witnessing is meditation. In this wittnessing you will feel light filling you, bliss enterring you and a divine presence everywhere: all around, within, without. But you are just to be a witness of everything - of the light, of bliss, of divine presence. Just a witness.

Osho, The New Alchemy: To Turn You On