Osho Meditations in the UK - Archive

Changing Osho’s Meditations

Osho spent years meticulously creating the form of his meditations and certain processes eg Mystic Rose, Born Again and No-mind. He observed the effect they had on hundreds of thousands of people and he asked many, many people for feedback on how and what they felt and rejected some things and changed and refined the processes accordingly, finally ending up with the meditations as we now know them.

I feel he wanted to leave this legacy to us when he was no longer in the body to personally guide us along the path. The creation of these meditations was not an arbitrary idea, but a painstakingly precise, scientifically proved process.

One of the clearest images Osho used in order to help explain the master/disciple relationship was this one. He said that it was as if the master was sitting at the top of a very tall tree and the disciple was sitting at the base. From the top of the tree, the master could see much further and much more than the disciple, could see what was coming in the future before the disciple could, could see the whole whereas the disciple could only see a small part. This image made it much easier for me to understand that the master was coming from a space I could not as yet know and therefore when he said something, or said to do something, I should just accept and do – even though it often seemed strange at the time.

I am truly concerned to hear of people altering Osho's meditations and the group processes he devised. For somebody to decide ‘Oh, I would like to do it this way’ or ‘I feel more comfortable changing this or leaving out that’ is basically saying that you know better than Osho. You don't. You don't know what you are doing when you change something, you don't know where you or other people are at and therefore how you might affect or disturb yourself or them when you change the process.

Osho explained this in a brilliant way. He was specifically talking about Dynamic Meditation because it is the most intense and demanding of all his meditations and people have many resistances to it, but it applies to all the processes he developed. He said:

"I insist that all the stages of meditation should be gone through, not one of them can be bypassed. So no one should come to me and ask if this or that stage can be dropped or if one can do without deep breathing, shaking or asking ‘Who am I?’ (the ‘HOO’ stage) No, the first three stages are meant to lead you from one extreme to the other in a very systematic and scientific manner.

"It is for this reason that I insist that only when one stage reaches its climax can we change over to the next one. It is like changing gears while driving a car. If you are driving in the first gear, at first you bring it to full speed and then change over to the second gear. And as long as the speed in the second gear is low, you don't put the car in the third gear. All changes take place at the climactic point. So is the case with the transformation of the mind; it happens at the climactic point, too."

Osho, In Search of the Miraculous, Vol 1

There are two other things that are important – the music and the volume of the music. The music which accompanies the meditations is to induce a state of meditation NOT to intrude upon it.

He spent years working with his musicians to get the music just right for the particular meditation. I remember talking to one of his musicians who expressed the frustration he felt because he felt he couldn’t fully understand what Osho wanted. He knew that Osho was trying to create a certain space and it was up to the musicians to use their skills to create that space through the music and thus aid the process Osho was trying to devise. But it was very difficult and it was only after a lot of very hard work and many, many trials that they finally managed to satisfy him and presumably ‘hit the right note’ – as it were!

It may be that the music designed for the meditations seems bland and uninteresting, but that is exactly the point. A good ‘first chakra beat’ or heart-rending lyrics in sweet angelic sexy voices are not appropriate at this time – they are a distraction, a disturbance to the inner space Osho was trying to help you create.

The volume... If the music is too loud it can dramatically interfere with a person’s meditative space. That space is deep, delicate, fragile, so to have the volume blaring out loud, or to have bad sound quality, is like taking a sledge hammer to a fragile rose. It basically makes it impossible to meditate. For example, it is unfortunate that on the CD now existing of the Kundalini music, the volume has been turned up in the third stage. It is so intrusive that it disturbs my meditation. I use an old tape I still have where the music is exactly the same but the volume in the third stage is not so loud– it is as it was originally recorded.

Because Osho is no longer in the body and therefore not present to inform, the Evening Meeting Meditation has undergone many changes made by many different people. I and many of my older sannyasin friends feel that we can no longer go to the evening meditation because it is so disturbing with all the changing bits and pieces. In many instances it has become a mish-mash of different music, different volumes, different recording qualities and insensitive timing – all of which are painful to experience.

Again I think it is important to remember that the music should induce a state of meditation. I am not going to the evening meditation to listen to nice music as if at a concert – I want to meditate and not be disturbed by what someone thinks is a pretty song that people will enjoy! Likewise if the volume during the quiet parts is too loud it becomes very disturbing.

I would also like to say something about the tacking on of the gibberish guided meditations to an interrupted discourse. Sigh! The gibberish process at the end of the discourse was a fantastic experience as Osho did it when he was in the body. But to tack it on as it is now so often done is to not understand the process he was creating. Sitting with him during the discourse it was possible to sink into a deep, silent, fragile space. When he felt the time was right he would slowly start to bring everybody out of that space – like he was changing from fourth gear into third! Then he moved into telling some jokes - second gear – until we were totally back from that space. THEN – in first gear – he would start the gibberish meditation and of course this was wonderful.

Now, during the Evening Meditation Osho is often cut off in the middle of a sentence, of a word sometimes, and immediately a gibberish recording, which is often of a different volume and a different quality to the previous discourse, is turned on. This is absolutely shattering to a person who is in a deep silent space and I cannot believe Osho would condone this kind of disturbance. This has got to be wrong. It is like shifting suddenly from fourth gear into first. Aaaaargh!!! I understand that it is beautiful to have the gibberish but it should happen naturally at the end of a discourse from that series when he carefully brought you out of the deep, silent space. It shouldn’t be arbitrary tacked on to just any discourse. That silent space at the end of a discourse is so precious, so meaningful, so fulfilling, I find it very sad to have it destroyed in the above way.

This chaotic world desperately needs Osho’s meditations. The more people who do them the better. Sitting at the top of that tree he was looking far into the future and devising his techniques accordingly. We should honour this vision and not change things arbitrarily according to our very limited perceptions.

text by Veena – May 2007