Khajuraho Temple Meditation is a classical Tantric device that uses the sacred erotic sculptures of Khajuraho (and related temple complexes such as Konarak, Puri, Ajanta, Ellora, and Elephanta) as a mirror for the unconscious. In these temples, stone seems to speak, sing, and dance; the bodies are so alive in form that they reveal, without judgement, the full spectrum of human desire. This is not pornography nor stimulation for stimulation’s sake; it is a method to allow repressed sexuality to surface and release through steady, choiceless awareness. By simply sitting with these images in a quiet, dim-lit sanctum, one watches fantasies, dreams, and forbidden impulses arise and pass, without acting on them and without suppressing them.
The practice unfolds in two movements. First, you sit at the outer walls among the erotic friezes until their charge dissolves and the imagery becomes as empty as a bare wall. Only then do you enter the inner shrine, where there is nothing — just coolness, silence, and the accumulated meditative presence of centuries. When the outer no longer disturbs, the inner opens: a felt cleanliness, weightlessness, and a silence that is full of beauty. In Osho’s spirit, this device turns every fragment of human nature into a doorway to the beyond.
Phase Instructions
First Stage: Outer Wall Contemplation
Go to a temple complex such as Khajuraho where the outer walls are adorned with erotic sculptures. Choose a quiet hour when light is naturally soft (dawn, dusk) or sit with only a dim lamp so forms are visible but not glaring. Sit on the ground with a stable spine, hands resting easily. Keep the body relaxed and the breath natural. Keep the eyes open with a soft, steady gaze upon the sculptures; do not scan restlessly — let the images come to you. Allow everything the images evoke to arise: sensations in the body, memories, fantasies, urges, even dreamlike scenes. Do not indulge and do not suppress. Do not move toward or away from arousal; simply feel it as changing sensation. If heat or restlessness builds, widen and soften the breath, especially on the exhale, and let energy circulate without action. When judgments appear ("obscene," "beautiful," "forbidden"), notice the label and return to simple seeing. Sit long enough that waves of excitation crest and subside multiple times within one session. Repeat this sitting daily or regularly over weeks or months, always in silence. The measure of this stage is transformation, not time.
Second Stage: The Threshold — When Nothing Moves
Continue Stage One until a clear shift occurs: the sculptures no longer provoke sensuality or inner argument. You look and it is as if the walls are empty — forms are seen, but no pull, no push, no charge. Confirm this equanimity across several sittings. If you are practicing with a master, proceed when both you and the master see the same sign: neutrality without suppression. This is the signal that the outer has done its work and the door to the inner is open.
Third Stage: Inner Shrine — Silent Sitting
Now enter the temple’s inner sanctum, where there are no erotic images — often nothing at all. Sit in the cool, quiet space and let the body settle. Close the eyes or keep them half-open toward the floor. Do nothing. No method, no image, no mantra. Rest as awareness in the living silence and the subtle vibration left by centuries of meditation. If thoughts arise, let them pass like echoes; if bliss or lightness appears, do not cling. Abide in the natural ease for as long as it remains effortless. Leave the shrine quietly, carrying the taste of weightless clarity into ordinary life. Return to the outer walls only if new charge reappears; otherwise, continue to deepen the inner silence in subsequent visits.
Core Benefits
- Allows repressed sexuality to surface and release.
- Encourages steady and choiceless awareness.
- Transcends illusions of stimulation to a state of emptiness.
- Invites a deep meditative presence and inner silence.
- Transforms human nature fragments into doorways to the beyond.
What Osho Said About This Technique
As far as Freud is concerned, I wish to explain to this particular friend that it is quite probable Freud was not aware of what I am telling you here. Freud was one of the few seers who guided mankind in the direction of sexual liberation, but he had no idea whatsoever that spiritual sex existed. The knowledge Freud systematized was that of sick sex; his research was with the pathological. Freud was a kind of doctor and his discoveries were used like treatments, doled out to sick people. Freud hadn't studied normal, healthy sex. He was a research scholar dealing in sickness, in perversion, and his mind was primarily set on treatment, on cure. Therefore, if you are bent on confirming the truthfulness of what I say, you will have to turn to the philosophy of Tantra.Read the full discourse →
Question: BELOVED OSHO, YOU HAVE BEEN USING THE KEY WORD "DEPROGRAMMING" TO DESCRIBE YOUR WORK. THE TECHNIQUES THAT YOU HAVE SUGGESTED DURING THESE YEARS, GO FROM CHAOTIC AND DYNAMIC MEDITATION TO THE MODERN THERAPEUTIC SCHOOL. I WOULD LIKE YOU TO EXPLAIN IN BRIEF WHY YOU HAD TO CREATE NEW MEDITATION TECHNIQUES LIKE KUNDALINI MEDITATION OR DYNAMIC MEDITATION, EVEN THOUGH THERE IS A TRADITION ALREADY INCLUDING HUNDREDS OF TECHNIQUES FROM YOGA, SUFISM, BUDDHISM ETC. WHAT IS ALSO SURPRISING TO THE WEST IS THAT YOU ARE USING THERAPIES SUCH AS GESTALT, PRIMAL, ENCOUNTER, IN YOUR COMMUNE. IS IT REALLY NECESSARY? THE SUSPICION IS THAT YOUR SECRET INTENTIONS ARE NOTHING BUT TO BRAINWASH PEOPLE'S MINDS, AND THAT CANNOT BE TOLERATED BECAUSE YOU ARE TOUCHING THE MOST PRECIOUS THING THEY HAVE. Just in Khajuraho there were one hundred temples; only thirty have survived, seventy have been destroyed by Mohammedans.Read the full discourse →
A friend has asked one more thing in this regard. He asks: Osho, we cannot regard you as any authority, any authentic person, on sex. We came to ask you about God, and you started talking about sex. We came to hear about God. So please tell us about God!
A man was taken to a psychologist. He worked in an office, and he was very upset with his boss. Whatever the boss said felt like an insult, and he felt like taking off his shoe and hitting him. But how can you hit the boss with a shoe? Though it would be hard to find a servant who never thought, “Let me take off my shoe and hit him.” Such a servant is rare. If you are a boss, you know it; if you are an employee, you also know it—that being a servant hurts deeply, and one feels like taking revenge. But if the servant could take revenge, he wouldn’t be a servant. So the poor fellow keeps suppressing and suppressing. His condition became so bad that he feared, “Someday, in a fit, I may actually hit him.” So he started leaving his shoes at home. But all…Read the full discourse →
Beloved Osho, in the west, the portrayal of woman's body is used in films, books and magazines. This art form is known as `eroticism'. Through the sculptures of khajuraho and ajanta I have seen that a similar art form was there in the east. Can you talk about the difference between these two cultures in regard to the female body?
What is happening in the West is simply pornography, obscene. It does not help man to get rid of it, but simply gives him a temporary relief. The pornographic literature, photography, are all helping you to stay normal; otherwise, you will go mad. So I don't think there is any harm when somebody reads PLAYBOY hiding it inside the BIBLE. What he is seeing in a pornographic magazine brings up his own unconscious. This was used as a meditation technique in Khajuraho. In the West it is used to create more thirst for the same sexuality which has been aroused by the pornographic magazine, by blue films, by naked dances and striptease. The same method was used to transform your energy into spirituality. In the West it is used to provoke more sexuality, more sensuality. And then there is a kind of insatiation -- almost all painting has gone pornographic,…Read the full discourse →
Osho, today after lecture, as I was kneeling before your platform, sexual fantasies concerning you filled my head. On the one hand, my body was filled with energy and it felt good; on the other hand I began to feel guilty, that it was wrong to have such thoughts about you and I shouldn't allow them to continue. Then my stomach began cramping and I had to run to the bathroom with diarrhoea. What is happening? And is it okay to have such fantasies?
Go inside. As you start moving inside the temple, the figures are less and less, and love starts changing. On the outer walls it is pure sexuality; as you start entering inside, you will find sex is disappearing. Couples are still there, in deep love, looking into each other's eyes, holding hands, embracing each other, but sexuality is no more there. Go still deeper figures are even less. Couples are still there, but not even holding hands, not even touching. Go still deeper -- and the couples have disappeared. Go still deeper.... At the innermost core of the temple what in the East we call the GHARBA, the womb -- there is not a single figure. The crowd is gone, the many is gone. There is not even a window for the outside! No light comes from the outside; it is utter darkness, silence, calm and quiet. And there is…Read the full discourse →
Common Questions
The sculptures serve as a mirror for the unconscious, allowing repressed sexuality to surface without judgement.
Simply sit with the images, letting fantasies and impulses arise and pass without acting on them or suppressing them.
The transition occurs when the charge of the outer imagery dissolves and becomes as empty as a bare wall.
One encounters coolness, silence, and a sense of meditative presence accumulated over centuries.
It turns every aspect of human nature into a pathway to transcendence, embracing all experiences as doorways to the beyond.