Devi asks Shiva what reality is; Shiva answers not with philosophy but with methods — ways in through the breath, the senses, sound, love, sleep, light and emptiness. Below is each method as Osho read it at the start of a talk. To learn the method, read the talk: he explains each one, how to do it and what to watch for.
Breath -- a bridge to the universe
Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 1 · Talk 3 · 3 October 1972
Radiant one, this experience may dawn between two breaths. After breath comes in (down) and just before turning up (out) -- the beneficence.
As breath turns from down to up, and again as breath curves from up to down -- through both these turns, realize.
Or, whenever in-breath and out-breath fuse, at this instant touch the energy-less, energy-filled center.
Or, when breath is all out (up) and stopped of itself, or all in (down) and stopped -- in such universal pause, one's small self vanishes. This is difficult only for the impure.
Five techniques of attentiveness
Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 1 · Talk 5 · 5 October 1972
Attention between eyebrows, let mind be before thought. Let form fill with breath essence to the top of the head and there shower as light.
When in worldly activity, keep attention between two breaths, and so practicing, in a few days be born anew.
With intangible breath in center of forehead, as this reaches heart at the moment of sleep, have direction over dreams and over death itself.
With utmost devotion, center on the two junctions of breath and know the knower.
Lie down as dead. Enraged in wrath, stay so. Or stare without moving an eyelash. Or suck something and become the sucking.
Techniques to put you at ease
Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 1 · Talk 7 · 7 October 1972
While being caressed, sweet princess, enter the caress as everlasting life.
Stop the doors of the senses when feeling the creeping of an ant. Then.
When on a bed or a seat, let yourself become weightless, beyond mind.
Techniques for centering
Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 1 · Talk 9 · 12 November 1972
Or, imagine the five-colored circles of the peacock tail to be your five senses in illimitable space. Now let their beauty melt within. Similarly, at any point in space or on a wall -- until the point dissolves. Then your wish for another comes true.
Place your whole attention in the nerve, delicate as the lotus thread, in the center of your spinal column. In such be transformed.
Techniques to penetrate the inner centers
Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 1 · Talk 11 · 14 November 1972
Closing the seven openings of the head with your hands, a space between your eyes becomes all inclusive.
Blessed one, as senses are absorbed in the heart, reach the center of the lotus.
Unminding mind, keep in the middle -- until.
Entering the inner centering
Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 1 · Talk 13 · 16 November 1972
Look lovingly at some object. Do not go to another object. Here in the middle of the object -- the blessing.
Without support for feet or hands, sit only on the buttocks. Suddenly, the centering.
In a moving vehicle, by rhythmically swaying, experience. Or in a still vehicle, by letting yourself swing in slowing invisible circles.
Pierce some part of your nectar-filled form with a pin, and gently enter the piercing and attain to the inner purity.
Toward the untouched inner reality
Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 1 · Talk 15 · 18 November 1972
Let attention be at a place where you are seeing some past happening, and even your form, having lost its present characteristics, is transformed.
Feel an object before you. Feel the absence of all other objects but this one. Then, leaving aside the object-feeling and the absence-feeling, realize.
When a mood against someone or for someone arises, do not place it on the person in question, but remain centered.
Several stop techniques
Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 1 · Talk 17 · 8 December 1972
Just as you have the impulse to do something, stop.
When some desire comes, consider it. Then, suddenly, quit it.
Roam about until exhausted and then, dropping to the ground, in this dropping be whole.
A Technique for the intellectual and a technique for the feeling type
Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 1 · Talk 19 · 12 December 1972
Suppose you are gradually being deprived of strength or of knowledge. At the instant of deprivation, transcend.
Devotion frees.
Three looking techniques
Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 1 · Talk 21 · 14 December 1972
Eyes closed, see your inner being in detail. Thus see your true nature.
Look upon a bowl without seeing the sides or the material. In a few moments become aware.
See as if for the first time a beauteous person or an ordinary object.
Several more looking methods
Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 1 · Talk 23 · 16 December 1972
Simply by looking into the blue sky beyond clouds, the serenity.
Listen while the ultimate mystical teaching is imparted. Eyes still, without blinking, at once become absolutely free.
At the edge of a deep well look steadily into its depths until -- the wondrousness.
Look upon some object, then slowly withdraw your sight from it, then slowly withdraw your thought from it. Then.
From words to pure sounds to being
Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 1 · Talk 25 · 22 January 1973
Devi, imagine the Sanskrit letters in these honey-filled foci of awareness, first as letters, then more subtly as sounds, then as most subtle feeling. Then, leaving them aside, be free.
Bathe in the center of sound, as in the continuous sound of a waterfall. Or, by putting the fingers in the ears, hear the sound of sounds.
Soundlessness, soundfulness and total awareness
Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 1 · Talk 27 · 24 January 1973
Intone a sound, as AUM, slowly. As sound enters soundfulness, so do you.
In the beginning and gradual refinement of the sound of any letter, awake.
While listening to stringed instruments, hear their composite central sound; thus omnipresence.
Sound methods for the dropping of mind
Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 1 · Talk 29 · 26 January 1973
Intone a sound audibly, then less and less audibly as feeling deepens into this silent harmony.
With mouth slightly open, keep mind in the middle of the tongue. Or, as breath comes silently in, feel the sound "Hh".
Center on the sound "AUM" Without any "A" Or "M".
From sound to inner silence
Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 1 · Talk 31 · 28 January 1973
Silently intone a word ending in "Ah." Then in the "Hh," Effortlessly, the spontaneity.
Stopping ears by pressing and the rectum by contracting, enter the sound.
Enter the sound of your name and, through this sound, all sounds.
The spirituality of the tantric sex act
Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 1 · Talk 33 · 22 February 1973
At the start of sexual union keep attentive on the fire in the beginning, and so continuing, avoid the embers in the end.
When in such embrace your senses are shaken as leaves, enter this shaking.
Even remembering union, without the embrace, transformation.
On joyously seeing a long absent friend, permeate this joy.
When eating or drinking, become the taste of food or drink, and be filled.
Turning inward toward the real
Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 1 · Talk 35 · 24 February 1973
Oh lotus-eyed one, sweet of touch, when singing, seeing, tasting, be aware you are and discover the ever-living.
Wherever satisfaction is found, in whatever act, actualize this.
At the point of sleep, when the sleep has not yet come and the external wakefulness vanishes, at this point being is revealed.
Illusions deceive, colors circumscribe, even divisibles are indivisible.
Techniques to witness the flux-like film of life
Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 1 · Talk 37 · 26 February 1973
In moods of extreme desire, be undisturbed.
This so-called universe appears as a juggling, a picture show. To be happy, look upon it so.
Oh beloved, put attention neither on pleasure nor on pain, but between these.
Objects and desires exist in me as in others. So accepting, let them be transformed.
From the wave to the cosmic ocean
Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 1 · Talk 39 · 28 February 1973
As waves come with water and flames with fire, so the universal waves with us.
Wherever your mind is wandering, internally or externally, at this very place, this.
When vividly aware through some particular sense, keep in the awareness.
Be a witness not a judge
Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2 · Talk 1 · 25 March 1973
At the start of sneezing, during fright, in anxiety, above a chasm, flying in battle, in extreme curiosity, at the beginning of hunger, at the end of hunger, be uninterruptedly aware.
The purity of other teachings is an impurity to us. In reality, know nothing as pure or impure.
Finding the changeless through the changing
Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2 · Talk 3 · 27 March 1973
Be the unsame same to friend as to stranger, in honor and dishonor.
Here is the sphere of change, change, change. Through change consume change.
Remaining with the real
Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2 · Talk 5 · 29 March 1973
As a hen mothers her chicks, mother particular knowings, particular doings, in reality.
Since, in truth, bondage and freedom are relative, these words are only for those terrified with the universe. This universe is a reflection of minds. As you see many suns in water from one sun, so see bondage and liberation.
Tantric meditation with light techniques
Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2 · Talk 7 · 31 March 1973
Consider your essence as light rays from center to center up the vertebrae, and so rises "Livingness" In you.
Or in the spaces between, feel this as lightning.
Feel the cosmos as a translucent ever-living presence.
Conscious doing
Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2 · Talk 9 · 22 May 1973
In summer when you see the entire sky endlessly clear enter such clarity. Shakti,
See all space as if already absorbed in your own head in the brilliance.
Waking, sleeping, dreaming, know you as light.
Come back to existence
Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2 · Talk 11 · 24 May 1973
In rain during a black night enter that blackness as the form of forms.
When a moonless rainy night is not present, close eyes and find blackness before you. Opening eyes, see blackness. So faults disappear forever.
From death to deathlessness
Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2 · Talk 13 · 28 May 1973
Focus on fire rising through your form from the toes up until the body burns to ashes but not you.
Meditate on the make-believe world as burning to ashes and become being above humanas,
As subjectively, letters flow into words and words into sentences, and as, objectively, circles flow into worlds and worlds into principles, find at last these converging in our being
The fire of awareness
Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2 · Talk 14 · 29 May 1973
A meditator who is vulnerable, passive, open and receptive, feels that with these characteristics he suffers due to the influence of the non-meditative, negative and tense vibrations around him. Please explain how he can preserve his vulnerable psyche from the harmful vibrations.
Searching for freedom
Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2 · Talk 17 · 28 June 1973
Toss attachment for body aside, realizing I am everywhere. One who is everywhere is joyous.
Watching from the hills
Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2 · Talk 19 · 30 June 1973
Suppose you contemplate something beyond perception, beyond grasping, beyond not being. -- you.
I am existing. This is mine. This is this. Oh beloved, even in such know illimitably.
Techniques to become one with the whole
Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2 · Talk 21 · 2 July 1973
Each thing is perceived through knowing. The self shines in space through knowing. Perceive one being as knower and known.
Beloved, at this moment let, mind, knowing, breath, form,
No map to follow
Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2 · Talk 23 · 4 July 1973
Touching eyeballs as a feather, lightness between them opens into heart and there permeates the cosmos.
Kind Devi, enter etheric presence pervading far above and below your form.
Life is a mystery, not a problem
Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2 · Talk 25 · 25 July 1973
Put mindstuff in such inexpressible fineness above, below and in your heart.
Consider any area of your present form
Neither mind nor matter
Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2 · Talk 27 · 27 July 1973
Feel your substance, bones, flesh, blood, saturated with the cosmic essence.
Feel the fine qualities of creativity permeating your breasts' and assuming delicate configurations.
You are unknown to yourself
Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2 · Talk 29 · 29 July 1973
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.
Forget the periphery
Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2 · Talk 31 · 31 July 1973
In any position gradually pervade an area between the armpits into great peace.
Feel yourself as pervading all directions, far, near.
Fear of transformation
Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2 · Talk 33 · 1 November 1973
The appreciation of objects and subjects is the same for an enlightened as for an unenlightened person. The former has one greatness: he remains in the subjective mood, not lost in things.
Believe omniscient, omnipotent, pervading.
The search for the rhythm of the opposites
Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2 · Talk 35 · 3 November 1973
Image spirit simultaneously within and around you until the entire universe spiritualizes.
With your entire consciousness in the very start of desire, of knowing, know.
O Shakti, each particular perception is limited, disappearing in omnipotence.
In truth forms are inseparate. Inseparate are omnipresent being and your own form. Realize each as made of this consciousness.
Become each being
Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2 · Talk 37 · 5 November 1973
Feel the consciousness of each person as your own consciousness. So, leaving aside concern for self, become each being.
This consciousness exists as each being, and nothing else exists.
This consciousness is the spirit of guidance of each one. Be this one.
Sunyawad -- the philosophy of emptiness
Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2 · Talk 39 · 7 November 1973
Suppose your passive form to be an empty room with walls of skin -- empty.
Gracious one, play. The universe is an empty shell wherein your mind frolics infinitely.
Sweet hearted one, meditate on knowing and not-knowing, existing and not-existing. Then leave both aside that you may be.
Enter space, supportless, eternal, still.
No method matches. Try another word.
The methods are quoted from the transcripts of Osho's talks, in the order he took them; the running numbers are only for finding your place here. The full explanations are in the linked talks.
