Osho Vipassana

Beloved Osho! Yesterday, for the very first time I did Vipassana meditation at the camp. I felt such a flight! Please shed more light on Vipassana.

Buddha says: if you try to regulate the breath in any way, great fruit never comes from effort. The effort is yours; you are small. Your effort cannot be bigger than you. Your hands are small; wherever the imprint of your hand falls, smallness will remain. Therefore Buddha did not say: change the breath. Buddha did not endorse pranayama. He said: you simply sit; the breath is already moving—just sit and watch it as it is moving. As one sits by the roadside and watches the passersby, or sits on a riverbank and watches the flowing current. What will you do? If a big wave comes, you will watch; if no wave comes, you will watch. Cars and buses pass on the road—you watch; if none pass, you watch. Cows and buffaloes pass—you watch. Whatever is there, as it is, keep looking at it just so. Do not impose even…

Beloved master, the other night during darshan, listening to your answer to nivedano's question, I had tears running down my face. For the first time in the seven years I've been with you, I could not only intellectually understand, but really feel that to look inside oneself is the only way to find the real treasures of life. Even though I am feeling this so strongly, it doesn't make it easier to meditate, to look inside. In the past my favorite subject for you to talk about has always been love and relationships. Now, I can't get enough of hearing you talk about meditation. Beloved master, c

Prem Sampurna, there are hundreds of methods of meditation, but perhaps vipassana has a unique status; just the same way as there have been thousands of mystics, but Gautam Buddha has a uniqueness of his own. In many ways he is incomparable, in many ways he has done more for humanity than anybody else. In many ways his search for truth was more sincere, more authentic than anybody else's. Why am I reminded of Gautam Buddha? I am reminded of Gautam Buddha because you have asked a question about vipassana meditation. That is the meditation through which Gautam Buddha became enlightened. The very word vipassana in Pali, the language in which Gautam Buddha spoke... he was perfectly acquainted with Sanskrit; as a prince he was well educated in the highest literature of those days. But when he started speaking he never used Sanskrit because Sanskrit was the language of the…

Osho, in the practice of Vipassana, when does catharsis occur? I practice Vipassana. How can my work in music assist me toward awareness?

Vipassana is an age-old method of meditation. It must have been discovered thousands of years ago; who discovered it, no one knows. It is a wondrous process, the simplest device to get acquainted with oneself. The word Vipassana means: to sit silently and become a witness to yourself. Pashy means: to see. Vipassana means: just sit silently within and watch. This breath came in, this breath went out—watch that too. The heart beat—watch that too. Sit silently inside and watch whatever is happening. And by and by, all the noises disappear and a vast emptiness surrounds you. Buddha spread the process of Vipassana throughout the world. But there is a hitch: two and a half thousand years have passed since Buddha. The method of Vipassana is the same, unchanged. But man’s waywardness is not the same—he has gone further and further into it. Vipassana is simple for an innocent, guileless…

Osho, I thought that meditation was a simple thing. But seeing people doing vipassana, I am losing all hope of ever becoming a successful meditator. Please give me a little encouragement.

Paul, meditation is not difficult. It is simple. Precisely because it is simple you are feeling the difficulty. You would like to do many things, and there is nothing to do; that is the problem. It is a GREAT problem, because we have been taught to do things. We ask what should be done, and meditation means a state of non-doing: you have not to do anything, you have to STOP doing. You have to be in a state of utter inaction. Even thinking is a kind of doing -- drop that too. Feeling is a kind of doing -- drop that too. Doing, thinking, feeling -- all gone, you simply are. That is being. And being is meditation. It is very simple. In your mother's womb you were in the same space. In vipassana you will be entering again into the same space. And you will remember, you will…

Question: SEEKER! DO NOT BE RECKLESS. MEDITATE CONSTANTLY OR YOU WILL SWALLOW FIRE AND CRY OUT: "NO MORE!" IF YOU ARE NOT WISE, HOW CAN YOU STEADY THE MIND? IF YOU CANNOT QUIETEN YOURSELF, WHAT WILL YOU EVER LEARN? HOW WILL YOU BECOME FREE? WITH A QUIET MIND COME INTO THAT EMPTY HOUSE, YOUR HEART, AND FEEL THE JOY OF THE WAY BEYOND THE WORLD. LOOK WITHIN -- THE RISING AND THE FALLING. WHAT HAPPINESS! HOW SWEET TO BE FREE! IT IS THE BEGINNING OF LIFE, OF MASTERY AND PATIENCE, OF GOOD FRIENDS ALONG THE WAY, OF A PURE AND ACTIVE LIFE. SO LIVE IN LOVE. DO YOUR WORK. MAKE AN END OF YOUR SORROWS. FOR SEE HOW THE JASMINE RELEASES AND LETS FALL ITS WITHERED FLOWERS. LET FALL WILLFULNESS AND HATRED. ARE YOU QUIET? QUIETEN YOUR BODY. QUIETEN YOUR MIND. YOU WANT NOTHING. YOUR WORDS ARE STILL.