|
|
|
             
|
Meditation the art of alertness with no effort If you want to live a more fulfilled life, first you will want to know your potential, who you really are. Meditation is the route to that knowing. It is the methodology of the science of awareness. Only in relaxation can we be aware At Hawaii Naturopathic Retreat Center - for Fasting, Detoxification & Meditation we combine the best of detoxification methods and psychotherapy with meditation and spiritual ideas - read about our purpose and mission, and our philosophy and medical approach. Click here for another meditation article. OSHO ACTIVE MEDITATIONS Modern man is a very new phenomenon. No traditional method can be used exactly as it exists because modern man never existed before. So, in a way, all traditional methods have become irrelevant. For example, the body has changed so much. It is so drugged that no traditional method can be helpful. The whole atmosphere is artificial now: the air, the water, society, living conditions. Nothing is natural. You are born in artificiality; you develop in it. So traditional methods will prove harmful today. They will have to be changed according to the modern situation. Another thing: the quality of the mind has basically changed. In Patanjali's [the most famous commentator on Yoga] days, the center of the human personality was not the brain; it was the heart. Before that, it was not even the heart. It was still lower, near the navel. The center has gone even further from the navel. Now, the center is the brain. That is why teachings like those of Krishnamurti have appeal. No method is needed, no technique is needed – only understanding. But if it is just a verbal understanding, just intellectual, nothing changes, nothing is transformed. It again becomes an accumulation of knowledge. I use chaotic methods rather than systematic ones because a chaotic method is very helpful in pushing the center down from the brain. The center cannot be pushed down through any systematic method because systemization is brainwork. Through a systematic method, the brain will be strengthened; more energy will be added to it. Through chaotic methods the brain is nullified. It has nothing to do. The method is so chaotic that the center is automatically pushed from the brain to the heart. If you do my method of Dynamic Meditation vigorously, unsystematically, chaotically, your center moves to the heart. Then there is a catharsis. A catharsis is needed because your heart is so suppressed, due to your brain. Your brain has taken over so much of your being that it dominates you. There is no place for the heart, so the longings of the heart are suppressed. You have never laughed heartily, never lived heartily, never done anything heartily. The brain always comes in to systematize, to make things mathematical, and the heart is suppressed. So firstly, a chaotic method is needed to push the center of consciousness from the brain toward the heart. Then catharsis is needed to unburden the heart, to throw off suppressions, to make the heart open. If the heart becomes light and unburdened, then the center of consciousness is pushed still lower; it comes to the navel. The navel is the source of vitality, the seed source from which everything else comes: the body and the mind and everything. I use this chaotic method very considerately. Systematic methodology will not help now, because the brain will use it as its own instrument. Nor can just the chanting of bhajans help now, because the heart is so burdened that it cannot flower into real chanting. Consciousness must be pushed down to the source, to the roots. Only then is there the possibility of transformation. So I use chaotic methods to push the consciousness downward from the brain. Whenever you are in chaos, the brain stops working. For example, if you are driving a car and suddenly someone runs in front of you, you react so suddenly that it cannot be the work of the brain. The brain takes time. It thinks about what to do and what not to do. So whenever there is a possibility of an accident and you push the brake, you feel a sensation near your navel, as if it were your stomach that is reacting. Your consciousness is pushed down to the navel because of the accident. If the accident could be calculated beforehand, the brain would be able to deal with it; but when you are in an accident, something unknown happens. Then you notice that your consciousness has moved to the navel. If you ask a Zen monk, "From where do you think?" he puts his hands on his belly. When Westerners came into contact with Japanese monks for the first time they could not understand. "What nonsense! How can you think from your belly? But the Zen reply is meaningful. Consciousness can use any center of the body, and the center that is nearest to the original source is the navel. The brain is furthest away from the original source, so if life energy is moving outward, the center of consciousness will become the brain. And if life energy is moving inward, ultimately the navel will become the center. Chaotic methods are needed to push the consciousness to its roots, because only from the roots is transformation possible. Otherwise you will go on verbalizing and there will be no transformation. It is not enough just to know what is right. You have to transform the roots; otherwise you will not change. When a person knows the right thing and cannot do anything about it, he becomes doubly tense. He understands, but he cannot do anything. Understanding is meaningful only when it comes from the navel, from the roots. If you understand from the brain, it is not transforming. The ultimate cannot be known through the brain, because when you are functioning through the brain you are in conflict with the roots from which you have come. Your whole problem is that you have moved away from the navel. You have come from the navel and you will die through it. One has to come back to the roots. But coming back is difficult, arduous. Traditional methods have an appeal because they are so ancient and so many people have achieved through them in the past. They may have become irrelevant to us, but they were not irrelevant to Buddha, Mahavira, Patanjali or Krishna. They were meaningful, helpful. The old methods may be meaningless now, but because Buddha achieved through them they have an appeal. The traditionalist feels: "If Buddha achieved through these methods, why can't I?" But we are in an altogether different situation now. The whole atmosphere, the whole thought-sphere, has changed. Every method is organic to a particular situation, to a particular mind, to a particular man. The fact that the old methods don't work doesn't mean that no method is useful. It only means that the methods themselves must change. As I see the situation, modern man has changed so much that he needs new methods, new techniques. Osho: The Psychology of the Esoteric, #4 MEDITATION IS NOT CONCENTRATION Remember, concentration is not meditation. Because concentration is a discipline of the mind and meditation is putting the mind aside. In English there is no right word, so you have to understand that we are using "meditation" for dhyana. Dhyana means a state of being where there is no thought, no object, no dream, no desire, nothing. just emptiness. In that emptiness you come to know your self. You discover the truth. You discover your subjectivity. It is perfect silence. There are methods to put aside the mind, just as there are methods to discipline the mind. But in the West, and more so in America...because if the West is bad, America is worse. I have been looking at American books not now; for four years I have not touched a book. All the books that are best sellers in America are somehow concerned with how to increase your willpower, how to influence people and win friends, how to grow rich, mind over matter...but they are all talking about the discipline of the mind. Certainly if you discipline the mind you are a better competitor, you can fulfill your ambition more easily. You can manipulate people more easily, you can exploit people more easily, you can use others as a means to your end. Friedrich Nietzsche has written a book, Will to Power. That is the very essence of the whole Western effort: will-to-power. Will-to-power needs first you should have willpower. And willpower is another name for your mind discipline, crystallized. No, these methods won't do. You have to learn methods to put the mind aside. It is already too powerful; don't make it more powerful, because you are feeding your own enemy. It is already crystallized. Your school, your college, your university, they are all doing that. The pseudo-religions depend upon disciplining the mind. The real religion's first work is to put the mind aside. And it is, in a way, very simple. Those disciplines are very difficult. To train the mind for concentration is very difficult, because it goes on revolting, it goes on falling back into its old habits. You pull it again, and it escapes. You bring it again to the subject you were concentrating on and suddenly you find you are thinking of something else, you have forgotten what you are concentrating upon. It is not an easy job. But to put it aside is a very simple thing - not difficult at all. All that you have to do is to watch. Whatsoever is going on in your mind, don't interfere, don't try to stop it. Do not do anything, because whatsoever you do will become a discipline. So do not do anything at all. Just watch. Watching is not a doing. Just as you watch the sunset or the clouds in the sky or the people passing on the street, watch the traffic of thoughts and dreams, nightmares - relevant, irrelevant, consistent, inconsistent, anything that is going on. And it is always rush hour. You simply watch; you stand by the side unconcerned. The pseudo-religions don't allow you to remain unconcerned, because, they say, greed is bad. So if a thought of greed comes you jump to prevent it; otherwise you will become greedy. Anger is bad; if an angry thought passes by, you immediately jump - you have to change it, you have to be kind and compassionate, and you have to love your enemy just like yourself. If something against your neighbor comes up...no, you have to love your neighbor just like yourself. So all the old religions have given you ideas of what is right and what is wrong - and if the wrong thing is passing by, you certainly have to stop it. You have to interfere, you have to jump in and pull that thing out. You miss the point. That's why I don't say to you what is right and what is wrong. All that I say is: to watch is right; not to watch is wrong. I make it absolutely simplified: Be watchful. It is none of your business - if greed is passing by, let it pass; if anger is passing by, let it pass. Who are you to interfere? Why are you so much identified with your mind? Why do you start thinking, "I am greedy...I am angry"? There is only a thought of anger passing by. Let it pass; you just watch. This simple methodology of watching the mind, that you have nothing to do with it.... Most of its thoughts are not yours but from your parents, your teachers, your friends, the books, the movies, the television, the newspapers. Just count how many thoughts are your own, and you will be surprised that not a single thought is your own. All are from other sources, all are borrowed - either dumped by others on you, or foolishly dumped by yourself upon yourself, but nothing is yours. The mind is there, functioning like a computer; literally it is a bio-computer. You will not get identified with a computer. If the computer gets hot, you won't get hot. If the computer gets angry and starts giving signals in four letter words, you will not be worried. You will see what is wrong, where something is wrong. But you remain detached. Just a small knack...I cannot even call it a method because that makes it heavy; I call it a knack. Just by doing it, one day suddenly you are able to do it. Many times you will fail; it's nothing to be worried about...no loss, it is natural. But just doing it, one day it happens. Once it has happened, once you have even for a single moment become the watcher, you know now how to become the watcher - the watcher on the hills, far away. And the whole mind is there deep down in the dark valley, and you are not to do anything about it. The most strange thing about the mind is, if you become a watcher it starts disappearing. Just like the light disperses darkness, watchfulness disperses the mind, its thoughts, its whole paraphernalia. So meditation is simply watchfulness, awareness. And that reveals - it is nothing to do with inventing. It invents nothing; it simply discovers that which is there. And what is there? You enter and you find infinite emptiness, so tremendously beautiful, so silent, so full of light, so fragrant, that you have entered into the kingdom of God. In my words, you have entered into godliness. And once you have been in this space, you come out and you are a totally new person, a new man. Now you have your original face. All masks have disappeared. You will live in the same world, but not in the same way. You will be among the same people but not with the same attitude, and the same approach. You will live like a lotus in water: in the water, but absolutely untouched by water. Religion is the discovery of this lotus flower within. Osho, From Unconsciousness to Consciousness, #19 The articles are from www.osho.com. Visit Osho's website for more articles on meditation. BACK to articles Mind Your Body - Hawaii Naturopathic Retreat Center - for Fasting, Detoxification & Meditation For more articles - click here. For contact information - click here. For more about the retreat - click here. |
|
HAWAI'I RAW DETOXIFICATION RETREAT HAWAII NATUROPATHIC RETREAT CENTER INC. A center for health, longevity and happiness www.mindyourbody.info Contact information (808) 982-8202 
at http://gersonhawaii.us |
|
|
|
Copyright © 2002 Hawaii Naturopathic Retreat Center
Email: click here Hawaii Gerson Therapy Retreat Center
|
A tree by our retreat