The heart of this meditation is to discover that you are not the one who can be seen, touched, or measured, but the invisible, intangible awareness itself. Meditation is the fast track to this authentic reality: being eternally present, beyond the mind’s constant identification with body and thought.
In the spirit of the enlightened mystic Osho, this method begins with physically energetic, expressive stages—dancing, shaking, or any other cathartic movement—to help quieten the mind and release emotions held in the body. These active stages are accompanied by music and culminate in a period of silence with no music, where you rest as the silent witness, the Watcher on the Hill. The movement clears the path; the stillness reveals who you are.
Phase Instructions
First Stage: Enter Through Movement
Begin standing with enough space to move freely. Put on music. Allow the body to move spontaneously—dance, shake, sway, stamp, or gesture—without choreography or self-judgment. Let the body lead and the mind follow. Keep attention inside the body as sensations arise, noticing tension, heat, tingling, or vibration. Give full permission to movement so the energy that is usually locked in thinking can circulate. If emotions surface, acknowledge them and keep moving; nothing to suppress and nothing to perform.
Second Stage: Cathartic Expression
Intensify expression while music continues. Use breath, voice, and posture to let the body discharge what it has been carrying—sigh, hum, laugh, cry, growl, or exhale sharply if that is what wants to happen. Stay authentic rather than dramatic: the intention is release, not display. Feel how expressing through the body lightens the mind. Let movements be a bridge from thinking to sensing. The only guideline is awareness; the only discipline is sincerity.
Third Stage: Flow Toward Stillness
Without forcing, allow movements to gradually slow. Let the music support a natural easing. Track the subtle moment when doing becomes being—when the impulse to move fades into a simple presence. If small twitches or micro-movements remain, let them complete. Sense the breath softening, the heartbeat settling, the energy descending from the head to the heart and belly.
Fourth Stage: Silent Watching on the Hill
Turn the music off. Stand or sit comfortably, eyes open or closed, and be utterly still. Do nothing; simply witness. Notice thoughts as passing clouds, sensations as passing weather. Disidentify: you are the watcher, not the body, not the mind. Rest as the invisible, intangible awareness that perceives all phenomena without becoming any of it. If a thought hooks you, notice it and return to simple watching. Let silence deepen by itself.
Fifth Stage: Integration and Commitment
When the silence feels complete, gently open and close the hands, soften the gaze, and let a natural breath announce the end. Sense how movement and stillness now coexist. If this method gives you a felt affinity—ease, well-being, a sense of ‘this is for me’—honor it. Play with it for at least three days; if the resonance continues, commit to it for three months. If it does not suit you, respectfully set it aside and explore another method. Let joy and curiosity, not seriousness, guide your practice.
Core Benefits
- Discover your true nature as invisible, intangible awareness
- Experience being eternally present beyond mind identification
- Quieten the mind through energetic, expressive stages
- Release emotions held in the body
- Recognize and rest as the silent witness
What Osho Said About This Technique
As you move into meditation this feeling starts becoming stronger every day. That does not mean that you start neglecting the body, on the contrary, you start caring about the body more carefully because it is a beautiful house, a gift of god. You have to keep it clean and beautiful and young and vital, energetic, alive, because you have to live in it for many many years. There is no need to make it ugly, poor, starved. Make it a palace, make it a marble palace, make it a temple, but remember "I am not it," so when it dies you are not dying. The body is born, the body dies; you are never born and you never die. And the method of meditation is very simple: just watching. Three things have to be watched. The first is the body and its actions.Read the full discourse →
In 1969 followers of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi invited Osho to talk to them. This was the first occasion on which Osho addressed a western audience, and the first time he talked publicly at length in English. The discourse has been published in OTI January 1 & 16, 1991; and February 1, 1991. Osho: Really, there can be no method as far as meditation is concerned. Meditation is not a method. Through technique, through method, you cannot go beyond mind. When you leave all methods, all techniques, you transcend mind. So meditation itself is not a method. Truth cannot be achieved through method. Method is our own invention. We, who are ignorant, have achieved knowledge through methods constructed, created, projected, in our ignorance. Through method you can achieve a sort of self-hypnosis, a sort of auto-hypnosis. Any method, whatsoever it's name, can only give you an illusory kind of peace.Read the full discourse →
Osho, you say that if there is awareness, then how are the two to be brought into harmony?
That is precisely the practice of active meditation: awareness. Awareness is the very means of going into emptiness in relation to all actions, to the movements of the mind as well. For example, if you lie there for half an hour—what will you do? In that half hour, whatever thoughts are moving in your mind, you are to be simply aware of them. Simply a witness—what else will you do? Just become a witness. Keep silently watching; let them move. But obstacles arise in our seeing. We become absorbed. We fail to remain a witness. We don’t even notice when we have become one with those very thoughts. That sense of awareness fades; a kind of stupor, a moorchha, comes in. A thought comes, a memory arises, and we stop being the watcher. We become part of that thought and of its flow. That is moorchha. And the opposite is…Read the full discourse →
SECOND STAGE Now we have to enter the second stage. Continue deep breathing, and let go of the body. Leave the body to do what it wishes to do. Let go of it. Let it take whatever asanas or postures it wants to take; let it form whatever mudras or gestures it likes. Leave it free to move and shake and whirl as it likes. If it wants to weep let it. Let go of the body completely. Continue deep breathing and let go of the body. Let the body fall down if it wants to fall down. And let it rise again if it wants to rise. And if it wants to dance allow it wholly. Let go of the body absolutely. Let it do whatever it wants to do. Leave it free. Don't impede it even in the least. Cooperate with the body. If it spins, let it.Read the full discourse →
We are not the body and we are not the mind either. Mind is also part of the body. The visible part is called body, the invisible part is called mind. It is a psychosomatic mechanism and we are the witness of it. We are in it but we are not it. This is the greatest experience. Once it has happened your life goes through a radical change. Then you are never the same again. It is a breakthrough. The whole effort here is to bring this breakthrough closer and closer. Every support, every technique and device is provided for this breakthrough so that you can see yourself as a witness of it all, as pure consciousness. To know oneself as pure consciousness is to be free of all bondage. It is to be free of birth and death, it is to be free of time.Read the full discourse →
Common Questions
The physical stages such as dancing or shaking help to quieten the mind and release emotions held in the body.
After the active stages, there is a period of silence with no music where you rest as the silent witness.
Stillness reveals your true nature beyond the mind's identification with the body and thoughts.