Is there a possibility of hypnosis and delusion in meditation, and what does it mean if nothing is happening during the process?

Osho, in your new method of meditation, isn’t there still the possibility of hypnosis and delusion? Many people say nothing is happening to them—does that mean they are not on the true path? And for those in whom many processes are happening, are they surely on the true path? Or could some of them be doing it deliberately, pretending?

Do not decide without doing Our mind makes very strange arrangements. It says, “All this is nonsense; nothing will happen to me. I am not weak; I am strong.” But had you been strong, it would have happened; had you been intelligent, it would have happened. The first mark of an intelligent person is that until he has done it himself he does not make a judgment. He will not even say that the other is faking. Who am I to decide that? And to judge another as false is a very degrading thing. Who are we to decide that the other is pretending? It is this kind of false judgment that has caused so much trouble. People did not accept that something had happened to Jesus—otherwise they would not have crucified him. They thought he was a confused man, saying anything. They would not have thrown stones at Mahavira.…

Is there not a possibility of hypnosis and illusion in your new method of dynamic meditation? With many participants nothing is happening; are they not on the right track? There are others in whom a lot of processes are happening; are they on the right path? Could some of these be just putting on an act?

There are two or three things which have to be properly under-stood. Hypnosis is a science and it can be easily used for creating deceptions. However, hypnosis can also be used to help you. Science is always a two-edged sword. Atomic energy can produce wheat in the fields; it can also wipe out the whole humanity at a stroke. Both the possibilities are there. The electric current that moves the fans in your house can also kill you, but you will not hold electricity responsible for it. If an egoist makes use of hypnosis he will do so to suppress, destroy and delude the other. But the opposite of this is also possible. Hypnosis is a neutral energy; it is a science. It can be used to break the dreams that go on inside you, and your deep-rooted illusions can also be eradicated by it. The method I am using…

Beloved Osho, while using hypnosis in the service of meditation, I have noticed that the line between therapy and meditation is dissolving. As witnessing can become easy and natural in hypnosis, it seems to provide the ground for a quantum leap into no-mind. Beloved master, would you speak on the transformation of hypnosis into meditation?

Hypnosis was the door, has always been the door to meditation. Once a man enters into the world of meditation, he has such clarity, such a strength, so much life arising in him that he no longer needs any father in heaven. He no longer needs any priest to pray for him. He himself has become prayer -- not prayer to any God, but simply a prayerfulness, a gratitude to the whole. It was absolutely necessary for Christianity to condemn hypnosis and to condemn it as something created by the devil. For the same reasons witchcraft was brutally destroyed; millions of women were burnt alive because they were also doing the same thing. They were trying to contact the ultimate on their own without going through the proper channel of the church. Your question is very significant, Purna. You are asking, "While using hypnosis in the service of meditation..." Hypnosis…

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…

Question: BELOVED MASTER, HOW CAN HYPNOSIS AND MEDITATION COME TOGETHER? And it is possible, with the help of hypnosis, to make meditation the easiest process. But drop any idea of condemnation of hypnosis, which you may have gathered because all the world, the whole world, is afraid of being hypnotized. There have been people, highly intelligent, who wanted to come to see me but they finally decided not to because they were afraid they may be hypnotized. Nobody can hypnotize you against your will. Millions of people would like to come. They are reading my books, they are listening to my tapes, they are seeing the videos, but they are afraid to come close to me. A fear has been created by the so-called religious leaders that they will be hypnotized. It happened that one famous but ugly and pornographic magazine, STERN, from Germany, had sent a reporter.