According to Osho, trance-like states are always below consciousness—forms of unconsciousness that may feel relaxing or overwhelming but are not superconscious and do not lead to enlightenment. Even Ramakrishna’s trances weren’t awakening; he awakened only through witnessing. Trance can mimic spirituality, but true growth requires alert awareness, not possession, excitement, or crowd-induced phenomena.
Trances are like zoning out; real spirituality is being wide awake and watching.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Beloved Osho, can trance-like states be higher or lower than the conscious?
The trance-like state is always lower than the conscious. It is always unconscious. It is a very significant question, because for centuries it has been avoided and not discussed. There have been people like Ramakrishna who used to go into a trance very easily. Ultimately Ramakrishna became enlightened, but he became enlightened when he met a master who taught him witnessing. Before that he was not an enlightened man. But he was a very simple, very spontaneous, very loving person, and he would go into a trance just by seeing something. For example, he was passing by the side of a lake. It was evening time, the sun was setting, and there was a black cloud -- the rains were just going to come. And as he passed by he disturbed almost two dozen cranes that must have been sitting by the side of the lake. Because of Ramakrishna's coming…
A friend has asked: Osho, is the samadhi attained when consciousness is lost a state of swoon? Sri Ramakrishna Paramhansa would lie for days as if near death!
In the West they have invented new ways: even blows are not enough; so they set up many lights, rapidly changing, deafening sound, assorted dances and songs; a completely deranged atmosphere is created. After an hour in that derangement one feels: ah, there is some life, some experience of living! We have died so much that unless the blow is enormous, there is no experience of life. Soft tones we cannot hear at all. Yet the natural tones of life are all soft. We cannot hear the night’s silence, nor the heart’s own beat. Have you ever heard the sound of your blood’s flow? It is very soft; you cannot hear it; but there is a sound. Buckminster Fuller wrote that for the first time he went into a building—a scientific laboratory—completely soundproof, where no sound from outside could enter. Inside he began hearing two kinds of sounds. He asked…
Question: OSHO, HOW DOES ONE EXPLORE THE HIGHER STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS? So all these explanations are about your dreams because your dreams are truer than your waking life. In waking life you don't beat your teacher, but in dreams you can. That's your real desire. If you were allowed, or if you were powerful enough you would have done it. But it is not possible, not practical. In dreams you are free to do it; it is a kind of substitute. So below the conscious is the subconscious, which is the field of your dreaming. Below the subconscious is the unconscious, which is the field of your dreamless sleep, when you are in a kind of coma. You reach the same state as you were in your mother's womb; hence the relaxation, hence the feeling of rejuvenation.
Beloved Osho, I understood from past discourses when you have talked on hypnosis, that one becomes, to all intents and purposes, totally unconscious, aware only of the hypnotist's voice. I have not experienced this state, but something more akin to what I feel in discourse, except more so: I feel mentally and physically transfixed, without any volition to move, talk or think; but I am definitely present and aware of everything going on around me. Have I not got the hang of hypnosis yet, or are there different levels of trance?
The authentic master... and the East has known so many authentic masters that it was very difficult for anyone to compete with the authentic ones. It was impossible because of the sheer fact that the one who was not authentic had no hypnotic presence. He had no fragrance of the real flower, he was just plastic. You cannot deceive people with a plastic flower. People try.... I used to live in a place in Raipur -- not many days, just six months and the university got rid of me. The professor living next door had a beautiful flowerpot in his window and every day... I was surprised, because I could see that the flowerpot was not true: the flowers in it were not authentic, they were plastic, because I never saw them disappearing, their petals falling. And he used to water them to deceive me -- I was the only…
Question: BELOVED OSHO, WHAT IS THE TRANSCENDENTAL? Meditation is just the opposite. It is awakening. It is becoming fully aware of your body, of your mind. And you have simply to be watchful. You don't have to repeat anything, because repetition means you have fallen into identifying with the thought process. Chanting is also a thought process. Repeating a mantra or a name of God -- Hindu, Mohammedan, Christian, it doesn't matter. You can simply count from one to a hundred and back again, from a hundred to ninety-nine, ninety-eight, ninety-seven, then go back. Go up, go down. Just climb the whole ladder up to a hundred and again come down. Four or five times you will be able to do it and then you will fall asleep. But the whole night you will have to do that, climbing up, coming down, climbing up, coming down.