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OSHO DYNAMIC MEDITATION: Catharsis and Celebration
“When the sleep is broken the whole of nature becomes alive. The night has gone, the darkness is no more, the sun is coming up, and everything becomes conscious and alert. So this first meditation is a meditation in which you have to be continuously alert, conscious, aware, whatsoever you do.
“Remain a witness. Don’t get lost. It is easy to get lost. While you are breathing you can forget; you can become one with the breathing so much that you can forget the witness. But then you miss the point. Breathe as fast, as deep as possible, bring your total energy to it, but still remain a witness. Observe what is happening as if you are just a spectator; as if the whole thing is happening to somebody else; as if the whole thing is happening in the body and the consciousness is just centered and looking.”This witnessing has to be carried in all the three steps. And when everything stops—and in the fourth step you have become completely inactive, frozen—then this alertness will come to its peak.”
—Osho
Instructions
The Osho Dynamic Meditation lasts one hour and is in five stages. It can be done alone, but the energy will be more powerful if it is done in a group.
It is an individual experience so you should remain oblivious of others around you and keep your eyes closed throughout, preferably using a blindfold.
It is best to have an empty stomach and wear loose, comfortable clothing.
First Stage: 10 minutes
Breathe chaotically through the nose, concentrating always on exhalation.
The body will take care of the inhalation. Do this as fast and as hard as you possibly can—and then a little harder, until you literally become the breathing. Use your natural body movements to help you to build up your energy. Feel it building up, but don’t let go during the first stage.
Second Stage: 10 minutes
Explode! Let go of everything that needs to be thrown out. Go totally mad.
Scream, shout, cry, jump, shake, dance, sing, laugh; throw yourself around. Hold nothing back; keep your whole body moving. A little acting often helps to get you started. Never allow your mind to interfere with what is happening. Be total.
Third Stage: 10 minutes
With raised arms, jump up and down shouting the mantra, ’HOO! HOO!
HOO!’ as deeply as possible. Each time you land, on the flats of your feet, let the sound hammer deep into the sex center. Give all you have; exhaust yourself totally.
Fourth Stage: 15 minutes
Stop! Freeze wherever you are, in whatever position you find yourself. Don’t arrange the body in any way. A cough, a movement—anything will dissipate the energy flow and the effort will be lost. Be a witness to everything that is happening to you.
Fifth Stage: 15 minutes
Celebrate and rejoice with music and dance, expressing your gratitude towards the whole. Carry your happiness with you throughout the day.
Note: If your meditation space prevents you from making a noise, you can do this silent alternative: Rather than throwing out the sounds, let the catharsis in the second stage take place entirely through bodily movements. In the third stage, the sound ‘HOO’ can be hammered silently inside, and the fifth stage can become an expressive dance.
“Someone has said that the meditation we are doing here seems to be sheer madness. It is! And it is that way for a purpose. It is madness with a method; it is consciously chosen. Remember, you cannot go mad voluntarily. Madness takes possession of you. Only then can you go mad. If you go mad voluntarily, that’s a totally different thing. You are basically in control, and one who can control even his madness will never go mad.”
Some reactions can happen in the body as a result of the deep catharsis of Dynamic Meditation. Osho has said this about it:
If you feel pain, be attentive to it; don’t do anything. Attention is the great sword; it cuts everything. You simply pay attention to the pain.
For example, you are sitting silently in the last part of the meditation, unmoving, and you feel many problems in the body. You feel the leg is going numb, there is some itching in the hand, you feel ants are creeping on the body, and many times you have looked but there are no ants. The creeping is inside, not outside. What you should do? You feel the leg is going dead—be watchful, just give your total attention to it. You feel itching; don’t scratch, that will not help. You just give it your attention. Don’t even open your eyes. Just give your attention inwardly, just wait and watch, and within seconds the itching has disappeared.
Whatsoever happens—even if you feel pain, severe pain in the stomach or in the head…. It is possible, because in meditation the whole body changes. It changes its chemistry. New things start happening and the body is in a chaos. Sometimes the stomach will be affected, because in the stomach you have suppressed many emotions, and they are all stirred up. Sometimes you will feel like vomiting, nausea. Sometimes you will feel a severe pain in the head because the meditation is changing the inner structure of your brain. Soon things will settle. But for the time being, everything will be unsettled.
So what are you to do? You simply see the pain in the head; watch it.
You be a watcher. You just forget that you are a doer and, by and by, everything subsides, and subsides so beautifully and so gracefully that you cannot believe it unless you experience it. Not only does the pain disappear from the head, but the energy that was creating pain, if watched, disappears and becomes pleasure. The energy is the same. Pain or pleasure are two dimensions of the same energy.
If you can remain silently sitting and paying attention to distractions, all distractions disappear. And when all distractions disappear, you will suddenly become aware that the whole body has disappeared.
Osho has also warned against turning this witnessing approach into another fanaticism. If unpleasant physical symptoms—aches and pains or nausea— persist beyond three or four days of daily meditation, there is no need to be a masochist. Seek medical advice.
This applies to all Osho meditation techniques. Have fun!
Helpful hints
Dynamic Meditation begins with breathing, because breathing has deep roots in the being. You may not have observed it, but if you can change your breathing, you can change many things. If you observe your breathing carefully, you will see that when you are angry you have a particular rhythm of breathing. When you are in love, a totally different rhythm comes to you. When you are relaxed you breathe differently; when you are tense you breathe differently. You cannot breathe the way you do when you are relaxed and be angry at the same time. It is impossible.
When you are sexually aroused, your breathing changes. If you do not allow the breathing to change, your sexual arousal will drop automatically. This means that breathing is deeply related to your mental state. If you change your breathing, you can change the state of your mind. Or, if you change the state of your mind, breathing will change.
So I start with breathing and I suggest ten minutes of chaotic breathing in the first stage of the technique. By chaotic breathing I mean deep, fast, vigorous breathing, without any rhythm—just taking the breath in and throwing it out, taking it in and throwing it out, as vigorously, as deeply, as intensely as possible. Take it in; then throw it out.
This chaotic breathing is to create a chaos within your repressed system.
Whatever you are, you are with a certain type of breathing. A child breathes in a particular way. If you are sexually afraid, you breathe in a particular way. You cannot breathe deeply because every deep breath hits the sex center. If you are fearful, you cannot take deep breaths. Fear creates shallow breathing.
This chaotic breathing is to destroy all your past patterns. What you have made out of yourself, this chaotic breathing is to destroy. Chaotic breathing creates a chaos within you because unless a chaos is created, you cannot release your repressed emotions. And those emotions have now moved into the body.
You are not body and mind; you are body/mind, psycho/somatic. You are both together. So whatever is done with your body reaches to the mind and whatever is done with the mind reaches to the body. Body and mind are two ends of the same entity.
Ten minutes of chaotic breathing is wonderful! But it must be chaotic. It is not a type of pranayama, yogic breathing. It is simply creating chaos through breathing. And it creates chaos for many reasons.
Deep, fast breathing gives you more oxygen. The more oxygen in the body,
the more alive you become, the more animal-like. Animals are alive and man is half-dead, half-alive. You have to be made into an animal again. Only then can something higher develop in you.
If you are only half-alive, nothing can be done with you. So this chaotic breathing will make you like an animal: alive, vibrating, vital—with more oxygen in your blood, more energy in your cells. Your body cells will become more alive. This oxygenation helps to create body electricity—or, you can call it bio-energy. When there is electricity in the body you can move deep within, beyond yourself. The electricity will work within you.
The body has its own electrical sources. If you hammer them with more breathing and more oxygen, they begin to flow. And if you become really alive, then you are no longer a body. The more alive you become, the more energy flows in your system and the less you will feel yourself physically. You will feel more like energy and less like matter.
And whenever it happens that you are more alive, in those moments you are not body-oriented. If sex has so much appeal, one of the reasons is this: that if you are really in the act, totally moving, totally alive, then you are no longer a body—just energy. To feel this energy, to be alive with this energy, is very necessary if you are to move beyond.
The second step in my technique of Dynamic Meditation is a catharsis. I tell you to be consciously insane. Whatever comes to your mind—whatever—allow it to express itself; cooperate with it. No resistance; just a flow of emotions.
If you want to scream, then scream. Cooperate with it. A deep scream, a total scream in which your whole being becomes involved, is very therapeutic, deeply therapeutic. Many things, many diseases, will be released just by the scream. If the scream is total, your whole being will be in it. So allow yourself expression through crying, dancing, screaming, weeping, jumping, laughing—‘freaking out’ as they say. Within a few days, you will come to feel what it is.
In the beginning it may be forced, an effort, or it may even be just acting. We have become so false that nothing real or authentic can be done by us. We have not laughed, we have not cried, we have not screamed authentically. Everything is just a facade—a mask. So when you begin to do this technique—in the beginning—it may be forced. It may need effort; there may be just acting. But do not bother about it. Go on. Soon you will touch those sources where you have repressed many things. You will touch those sources, and once they are released, you will feel unburdened. A new life will come to you; a new birth will take place.
This unburdening is basic and without it there can be no meditation for man as he is. Again, I am not talking about the exceptions. They are irrelevant.
With this second step—when things are thrown out—you become vacant. And this is what is meant by emptiness: to be empty of all repressions. In this emptiness something can be done. Transformation can happen; meditation can happen.
Then in the third step I use the sound hoo. Many sounds have been used in the past. Each sound has something specific to do. For example, Hindus have been using the sound aum. This may be familiar to you. But I won’t suggest aum. Aum strikes at the heart center, but man is no longer centered in the heart. Aum is striking at a door where no one is home.
Sufis have used hoo, and if you say hoo loudly, it goes deep to the sex center. So this sound is used just as a hammering within. When you have become empty and vacant, this sound can move within you.
The movement of the sound is possible only when you are empty. If you are filled with repressions, nothing will happen. And sometimes it is even dangerous to use any mantra or sound when you are filled with repressions. Each layer of repression will change the path of the sound and the ultimate result may be something of which you never dreamed, never expected, never wished. You need a vacant mind; only then can a mantra be used.
So I never suggest a mantra to anyone as he is. First there must be a catharsis. This mantra hoo should never be done without doing the first two steps. It should never be done without them. Only in the third step (for ten minutes) is this hoo to be used—used as loudly as possible, bringing your total energy to it. You are to hammer your energy with the sound. And when you are empty—when you have been emptied by the catharsis of the second step—this hoo goes deep down and hits the sex center.
The sex center can be hit in two ways. The first way is naturally. Whenever you are attracted to a member of the opposite sex, the sex center is hit from without. And that hit is also a subtle vibration. A man is attracted to a woman or a woman is attracted to a man. Why? What is there in a man and what is there in a woman to account for it? A positive or negative electricity hits them, a subtle vibration. It is a sound, really. For example, you may have observed that birds use sound for sex appeal. All their singing is sexual. They are repeatedly hitting each other with particular sounds. These sounds hit the sex centers of birds of the opposite sex.
Subtle vibrations of electricity are hitting you from without. When your sex
center is hit from without, your energy begins to flow outward—toward the other. Then there will be reproduction, birth. Someone else will be born out of you.
Hoo is hitting the same center of energy, but from within. And when the sex center is hit from within, the energy starts to flow within. This inner flow of energy changes you completely. You become transformed: you give birth to yourself.
You are transformed only when your energy moves in a totally opposite direction. Right now it is flowing out, but then it begins to flow within. Now it is flowing down, but then it flows upward. This upward flow of energy is what is known as kundalini. You will feel it actually flowing in your spine, and the higher it moves, the higher you will move with it. When this energy reaches the brahmarandhra—the last center in you: the seventh center, located at the top of the head—you are the highest man possible.
In the third step, I use hoo as a vehicle to bring your energy upward. These first three steps are cathartic. They are not meditation, but just preparation for it. They are a ‘getting ready’ to take the jump, not the jump itself.
The fourth step is the jump. In the fourth step I tell you to stop! When I say “Stop!” stop completely. Don’t do anything at all because anything you do can become a diversion and you will miss the point. Anything—just a cough or a sneeze—and you may miss the whole thing because the mind has become diverted. Then the upward flow will stop immediately because your attention has moved.
Don’t do anything. You are not going to die. Even if a sneeze is coming and you do not sneeze for ten minutes, you will not die. If you feel like coughing, if you feel an irritation in the throat and you do not do anything, you are not going to die. Just let your body remain dead so that the energy can move in one upward flow.
When the energy moves upward, you become more and more silent. Silence is the by-product of energy moving upward and tension is the by-product of energy moving downward. Now your whole body will become so silent—as if it has disappeared. You will not be able to feel it. You have become bodiless. And when you are silent, the whole existence is silent because the existence is nothing but a mirror. It reflects you. In thousands and thousands of mirrors, it reflects you. When you are silent, the whole existence has become silent.
In your silence I will tell you to just be a witness—a constant alertness: not doing anything, but just remaining a witness, just remaining with yourself; not
doing anything—no movement, no desire, no becoming—but just remaining then and there, silently witnessing what is happening.
That remaining in the center, in yourself, is possible because of the first three steps. Unless these three are done, you cannot remain with yourself. You can go on talking about it, thinking about it, dreaming about it, but it will not happen because you are not ready.
These first three steps will make you ready to remain with the moment. They will make you aware. That is meditation. In that meditation something happens that is beyond words. And once it happens you will never be the same again; it is impossible. It is a growth; it is not simply an experience. It is a growth.
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