Am I going deep in meditation or just falling asleep?

Sometimes at your lectures I can't keep my eyes open or concentrate, and keep falling somewhere and coming back with a jerk. There is no memory of where I have been. Am I going deep, or just falling asleep?

That's how in the morning you remember that in the night there were so many dreams, or on some day you say, "I slept very deeply; there were no dreams." These are both memories -- one positive, one negative. If dream happens there will be a positive memory -- something was happening, certain activity going on. If there is no dream you will have just a peaceful remembrance of nothing, that nothing happened. But this you will remember: that nothing happened and no dream crossed my mind and sleep was really deep, very deep, not a single ripple. But you will remember and you will say, "I was very blissful." But if you fall not asleep but into the meditative state -- they are similar, almost similar -- than you will not be able to remember anything. Because when you fall into a meditative state, theta, or sometimes you can…

A friend has asked: Osho, if through meditation or spiritual practice one can conquer death, does not the same state occur in sleep? And if it does, why can’t death be conquered through sleep?

But meditation and hypnosis are not the same. Understand me carefully. I said: up to this point it is hypnosis, mesmerism—so long as we are manufacturing suggestions. When the manufacturing of suggestions stops and you awaken—where awareness begins—there meditation begins. Where witnessing begins, meditation begins. And the reason for this hypnosis is that you have fallen into a reverse hypnosis. In scientific language, this is not hypnosis but de-hypnosis. Not mesmerism, but the breaking of mesmerism. We are the ones mesmerized—but we don’t know it. In life we have become hypnotized, and we have no idea how many kinds of hypnotic trances we have taken on, by how many devices we have produced them. A large part of our life is hypnosis. And when we want to be hypnotized, we don’t notice what we are doing. For example… we live like this all our lives. If we became aware of…

Another friend has asked in this regard: Osho, between Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s Transcendental Meditation—his bhavātīt dhyān—and my meditation, is there similarity or any difference?

There is absolutely no similarity. Not just a difference—there is opposition, a fundamental contrast. What is being called “transcendental meditation” is simple mantra-yoga, name-chanting. If you repeat any word inside the mind, a stupor arises, hypnosis arises, sleep arises, and you get lost in deep sleep. Unconsciousness can come from it—and does. The process of meditation taught by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi is like a tranquilizer, like a sleep-inducing drug. The process I call meditation is like an activator—something that awakens, that breaks unconsciousness. Because in the three stages you exert yourself so much—your blood circulation increases, the oxygen in your body increases, your bodily activity increases, the dormant energy within you awakens—that sleep becomes impossible. In these three stages you are so active, and inwardly you must remain totally aware, a witness, to whatever is happening. When you are breathing, you are a witness to the breath; when you are…

If you all sleep here tonight—so long as you are awake, there may be some differences; once asleep, all difference disappears. One and the same sleep descends upon all. If someone were to inspect each face—he would find only one taste: of sleep. However he investigates—women will be sleeping, men sleeping; children sleeping, old people sleeping; the healthy sleeping, the ill sleeping; the ugly and the beautiful sleeping; the poor and the rich sleeping; the worldly and the sannyasin sleeping—but the sleep is alike. The taste of sleep is one: unconsciousness. So too happens in the supreme awakening. Whoever awakens—their taste is one. Certainly their words differ—Krishna spoke in Sanskrit, the Buddha in Pali, Mahavira in Prakrit, Jesus in Aramaic, Mohammed in Arabic; languages differ, cups of different colors and shapes from different lands and times—but the taste is one. And the one who recognizes this taste—he alone is religious.

A friend has asked: according to what you have said, one can triumph over death through meditation or sadhana. But then, doesn't the same state exist when we are in sleep? And if it does, then why can't death be conquered through sleep?

Every year, millions of dollars are being spent on tranquilizers in America. Ten big laboratories are conducting research on thousands of people who are being paid to undergo nights of rather uncomfortable, painful sleep. All kinds of electrodes and thousands of wires are attached to people's bodies, and they are examined from all angles to find out what is happening inside them. One incredible discovery these experiments have revealed is that man dreams almost the whole night. Waking up, some people said they didn't dream, while some said they did. But in fact, all of them dreamt. The only difference was that those with better memories remembered dreaming, while those with weaker memories could not recall dreaming. It was found, however, that a completely healthy person was able to slip into a deep, dreamless sleep for ten minutes. Dreams can be scanned through machines. Nerves in the brain remain active…