Is it possible to meditate without any technique?

Question: BELOVED MASTER, IS IT POSSIBLE TO MEDITATE WITHOUT ANY TECHNIQUE? Deva Maturo, the question you have asked is certainly of great importance because meditation, as such, needs no technique at all. But techniques are needed to remove the obstacles in the way of meditation. So it has to be understood very clearly: meditation itself needs no techniques, it is a simple understanding, an alertness, an awareness. Neither alertness is a technique, nor awareness is a technique. But on the way to being alert, there are so many obstacles. For centuries man has been gathering those obstacles -- they need to be removed. Meditation itself cannot remove them, certain techniques are needed to remove them. So the work of the techniques is just to prepare the ground, is just to prepare the way, the passage. The techniques in themselves are not meditation.

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.

Beloved Osho, you spoke the other morning about rising through the different levels of consciousness and bringing light to their respective counterparts in the unconscious. Are special techniques needed for this, or will watchfulness of the mind, the body, and the emotions simply bring us through these different levels?

He said, "The woman you were talking about. I believe in ghosts; just this is enough. But no more than this! I have heard the sound, and I don't want to get into all that trouble that that other woman had" -- because the story had spread all over the city that that woman... She stopped coming to the house because she became so afraid. She had a constant fever for three or four days; even after she became conscious and went to her home she had a fever, the fear went so deep. And the old man said, "I don't want to get into that trouble. Just open the door and let me go to my home!" I said, "You are such a God-believing person. This is the time to test your God." He said, "I am not going to listen to you; you are a dangerous fellow. God?…

When wolves were discovered in the village near master shoju's temple, shoju entered the graveyard nightly for one week and sat in zazen. This put a stop to the wolves' prowling.

OVERJOYED, THE VILLAGERS ASKED HIM TO DESCRIBE THE SECRET RITES HE HAD PERFORMED. 'I DIDN'T HAVE TO RESORT TO SUCH THINGS,' HE SAID, 'NOR COULD I HAVE DONE SO. WHILE I WAS IN ZAZEN A NUMBER OF WOLVES GATHERED ROUND ME, LICKING THE TIP OF MY NOSE, AND SNIFFING MY WINDPIPE, BUT BECAUSE I REMAINED IN THE RIGHT STATE OF MIND, I WASN'T BITTEN. AS I KEEP PREACHING TO YOU, THE PROPER STATE OF MIND WILL MAKE IT POSSIBLE FOR YOU TO BE FREE IN LIFE AND DEATH, INVULNERABLE TO FIRE AND WATER. EVEN WOLVES ARE POWERLESS AGAINST IT. I SIMPLY PRACTICE WHAT I PREACH.' You cannot see both together. They are contradictory. They cannot be seen together. When you see the figure, the background disappears; when you see the background, the figure disappears. Mind has a limited capacity to know -- it cannot know the contradictory. That s why…

What is meditation?

Meditation is not an Indian method; it is not simply a technique. You cannot learn it. It is a growth: a growth of your total living, out of your total living. Meditation is not something that can be added to you as you are. It can come to you only through a basic transformation, a mutation. It is a flowering, a growth. Growth is always out of the total; it is not an addition. You must grow toward meditation. This total flowering of the personality must be understood correctly. Otherwise one can play games with oneself, one can occupy oneself with mental tricks. And there are so many tricks! Not only can you be fooled by them, not only will you not gain anything, but in a real sense you will be harmed. The very attitude that there is some trick to meditation -- to conceive of meditation in terms…