High altitude is a natural ally of meditation. Far above the earth, gravity loosens its pull, the ground-bound world recedes, and you are held by clouds, moon, stars, and vast open space. For centuries seekers have climbed to mountain heights like the Himalayas for this very reason; on an airplane, the same grace is suddenly available.
Osho offers a simple three-step inner expansion for travelers—the jet-set—turning flight time into a doorway to the inner sky. By progressively widening your felt sense of self to include the cabin, the aircraft, and finally the boundless heavens, you dissolve edges and rest as spaciousness itself. As this feeling becomes your meditation, tension melts and a relaxed, non-tense presence arises—vast, unconfined, and serene.
Phase Instructions
First Stage: Fill the Plane
Seated quietly while flying, for a few minutes simply think and feel that you are becoming bigger—so big that you fill the whole airplane. Without moving, let the sense of your body expand until your presence seems to occupy the entire cabin. Stay with this enlargement until it feels natural.
Second Stage: Encompass the Plane
Now start feeling that you are becoming even bigger—bigger than the plane itself. Sense that the entire aircraft is inside you. Let the image be vivid: you are the larger space, and within you, effortlessly, the plane is held.
Third Stage: Become the Sky
Let the expansion continue until you feel you have opened into the whole sky. Experience the clouds, the moon, and the stars moving within you. You are huge, unlimited. Rest in this feeling and let it be your meditation—relaxed, spacious, and free of tension.
Core Benefits
- Utilizes high altitude as a natural ally for meditation.
- Reduces gravitational pull aiding a lighter meditative experience.
- Transforms flight time into an opportunity for inner expansion.
- Helps dissolve personal boundaries, creating a sense of spaciousness.
- Melts tension, fostering a relaxed and serene state.
What Osho Said About This Technique
[A sannyasin, leaving for the West, asks about meditation. Should she still keep trying or is it time to let go and drop effort, she wonders. Osho checks her energy. My feeling is that for a few months more you should continue doing things. Right now, it will not be possible for you to do meditations spontaneously. A time will come, certainly, when you will be able to do meditations spontaneously, but right now it will be impossible. It will be just a trick of the mind to avoid. The mind will say 'Be spontaneous -- don't try to do', and then nothing will happen. There is a layer from your very childhood: you must have been disciplined too much, you must have been told to do this, not to do that, and you have learned the trick.Read the full discourse →
When you feel spent that is a totally different feeling -- beautiful. After one has done a good job one feels spent. The energy has been used, creatively used; one feels happy. A painter when he has painted, a poet when he has written the poem that was haunting him for months or for years.... It is said about gibbon, that when he completed his history -- the great history of the world which took thirty years for him to complete.... The night he completed it he wept... out of joy. His wife could not believe what he was doing why he was crying and weeping. She thought he was unhappy or something. He was tremendously joyful. He said, 'I feel spent, but I am happy. My energy has been used -- it has not been in vain. ' Your work is of a tremendous import.Read the full discourse →
[A sannyasin says: When I was doing the Gourishankar (a meditation) I had a terrible feeling of death come over me, and I guess I immediately associated it with my mother. I've really been worrying about it, and I wonder if everything is okay back home. Osho checks her energy.] Mm, nothing to worry about your mother. It has something to do with you, not with your mother. Everybody comes to a feeling of death some day or other in deep meditation. Whenever meditation touches your inner depth, the feeling of death comes -- because that very point where you touch yourself is the beginning of you and the end of your ego. So your ego goes through a sort of feeling of death; not exactly death, but... great panic. Next time it happens don't be afraid; just move in it. Death is as beautiful as life.Read the full discourse →
Abide in some place endlessly spacious, clear of trees, hills, habitations. Thence comes the end of mind pressures.
CONSIDER THE PLENUM TO BE YOUR OWN BODY OF BLISS. Man is born alone and dies alone, but between these two points he lives in society, he lives with others. Aloneness is his basic reality; society is just accidental. And unless man can live alone, can know his aloneness in its total depth, he cannot be acquainted with himself. All that happens in society is just outer: it is not you, it is just your relations with others. You remain unknown. From the outside you cannot be revealed. But we live with others. Because of this, self-knowledge is completely forgotten. You know something about yourself, but indirectly -- it is said to you by others. It is strange, absurd, that others should tell you about yourself. Whatsoever identity you carry is given to you by others; it is not real, it is just a labelling. A name is given to…Read the full discourse →
My beloved Atman! Meditation is the name for becoming one with existence. We have limits; to break them and become one with the limitless is its name. We are like a small drop, and just as a drop falls into the ocean and becomes one.... Meditation is not an act; rather, call it non-action, non-doing. For in any act the doer will survive; only in non-action can one be erased. In a certain sense, meditation is the art of dying by one’s own hand. And the wonder is this: those who learn the art of dying are the only ones who attain the supreme meaning of life. This morning, in this one hour, we shall lose ourselves and attempt to become one with that vastness which spreads all around us. In language it will sound like an effort, but deep within, no effort is possible.Read the full discourse →
Common Questions
High altitude reduces the gravitational pull, which can aid meditators in feeling lighter and more expansive, making meditation easier.
The meditation focuses on expanding the consciousness from the confines of the self to include the aircraft and, finally, the vastness of the sky, promoting a feeling of spaciousness.
Yes, it can help by dissolving tension and inviting a relaxed, non-tense presence that is vast and serene.
No prior experience is required. The meditation is simple and can be practiced by anyone during flight.
Air travel provides a unique environment where natural factors, such as altitude, enhance the meditative experience by promoting an expansive state.