According to Osho, before attempting shatavadhan, practitioners engage in rigorous training in concentration. The entire discipline is a cultivation of sustained, one-pointed attention, sharpening the mind’s capacity to remain undistracted across multiple streams. By strengthening focus beforehand, they prepare the mental clarity and steadiness required to perform shatavadhan’s demanding feats without being scattered.
They practice concentrating very hard beforehand so their mind stays steady during shatavadhan.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, for a few days my heart settles into meditation; then for a few days worship and bhajans flow. But I cannot concentrate anywhere. I am troubled by this state. Kindly guide and train me.
About three years later he was found in Paris learning painting. Reduced to a beggar’s state. His friends rushed there. “What have you done? You had everything—everything was fine.” He said, “That was the obstacle—everything was fine. But there was no exhilaration. Nowhere any surge. Everything ran fine, and I ran it fine—but no stream of rasa was flowing. “All my life I longed to be a painter. I never wanted to be a broker. That success was accidental. Now I am happy. I have nothing. I paint; if paintings sell, I manage food and clothes. I have not even a roof of my own. I live in a friend’s room. But I am not going back. I am happy.” And the friends saw that the man was filled with a strange energy, a strange aura. His body had thinned, but there was a light. He said, “Tell my wife…
Question: Osho, Matsu was immersed in practice. In a secluded hut of his master’s ashram, he practiced day and night to subdue the mind. He would not pay any attention even to those who came to see him. One day his master went to his hut. Matsu did not pay any attention to him either. But the master sat there the whole day, rubbing a brick on a stone. At last Matsu could not restrain himself and asked, “What are you doing?” The master said, “I am making a mirror out of this brick.” Matsu said, “A mirror out of a brick? Have you gone mad? Even if you keep rubbing it all your life, it will not become a mirror.” Hearing this, the master laughed and asked Matsu, “Then what are you doing? If a brick cannot become a mirror, can the mind become a mirror?
23. By performing samyama on the two types of karma, active and dormant, or upon omens and portents, the exact time of death can be predicted.
24. BY PERFORMING SAMYAMA ON FRIENDLINESS, OR ANY OTHER ATTRIBUTE, GREAT STRENGTH IN THAT QUALITY IS OBTAINED. 25. BY PERFORMING SAMYAMA ON THE STRENGTH OF AN ELEPHANT, THE STRENGTH OF AN ELEPHANT IS OBTAINED. 26. BY DIRECTING THE LIGHT OF THE SUPERPHYSICAL FACULTY, KNOWLEDGE IS GAINED OF THE SUBTLE, THE HIDDEN, AND THE DISTANT. 27. BY PERFORMING SAMYAMA ON THE SUN, KNOWLEDGE OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM IS GAINED. You dropped many objects. When there were many objects, you were many subjects, a crowd, a polypsychic existence -- not one mind, many minds. People come to me and they say, "I would like to take sannyas, but...." That "but" brings the second mind. They think they are the same, but the "but" brings another mind. They are not one. They would like to do something and, at the same time, they would not like to do it -- two minds. If…
Osho, yesterday you spoke of the great value of concentration, yet in your meditation experiments you emphasize witnessing rather than concentration. What is the reason?
Concentration is a method to attain power. Witnessing is a method to attain peace. From power, peace does not necessarily follow; from peace, power inevitably follows. Those who are in search of power will have a taste for concentration. When the sun’s rays are converged, fire is created; when the mind’s scattered thoughts are gathered, power is born. Try a little and you will understand. Whenever the mind becomes unified, your life-energy begins to flow in one direction. The narrower the channel, the more powerful the current. The more scattered the thoughts, the more your energy runs down many pathways; then only a paltry power remains in your hands. Whatever thought you become concentrated upon quickly turns into reality; a thought toward which the mind wavers has little chance of becoming real. Even the worldly person seeks concentration. If the worldly person attains success anywhere, it is because of concentration.…
Dharana, concentration, is confining the mind to the object being meditated upon.
DHYAN, CONTEMPLATION, IS THE UNINTERRUPTED FLOW OF THE MIND TO THE OBJECT. SAMADHI IS WHEN THE MIND BECOMES ONE WITH THE OBJECT. THE THREE TAKEN TOGETHER -- DHARMA, DHYAN, AND SAMADHI -- CONSTITUTE SAMYAMA. BY MASTERING IT, THE LIGHT OF HIGHER CONSCIOUSNESS. And the way in the West you are looking for causes, for ways and means how to help humanity, seems to have from the very beginning gone wrong. You are still looking for causes outside -- and the causes are within. The causes are not outside, not in relationship, not in the world; they are deep in your unconsciousness. They are not in your thinking: they are not in your dreams. The analysis of dreams and the analysis of thoughts is not going to help much. At the most it can make you normally abnormal, not more than that. The basic cause is that you are not aware…