According to Osho, the three meditative stages catalyze sweeping physiological and psycho-spiritual shifts: diseases can vanish, longevity rise, dormant glands awaken, and the body may secrete a ‘nectar’ of love. Perception explodes—unheard-of sounds, never-seen colors—because the body’s electrical circuits and brain chemistry rewire. The heart surrenders fear of death; the mind’s ways of perceiving, thinking, and understanding are transformed.
Meditation reshapes your body and brain so you feel healthier, sense more vividly, your heart relaxes, and your thinking becomes new and clearer.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Just now you talked about the three stages. Can you explain what effects they have on the states of one's body, heart, brain and mind?
Effects will be many. (A VOICE) WILL THEY CAUSE HEART-FAILURE? It would be fine if the heart fails. Nothing like it. That is what is wanting. Let the heart fail. Howsoever you try to save it, it is going to fail some day. So why save it? Let it go. At least you will have the satisfaction that it failed while it was on its way to God. That is enough. The friend wants to know what effects the three stages will have on us. They will have many effects. The practice of meditation, the meditation that I teach, will have any number of physiological results. Many physical diseases can disappear, longevity can increase and many chemical changes can take place in the body. Numerous glands of the body that are at the moment as good as dead, can be activated. We have no idea what the psychologists now say,…
SECOND STAGE Now we have to enter the second stage. Continue deep breathing, and let go of the body. Leave the body to do what it wishes to do. Let go of it. Let it take whatever asanas or postures it wants to take; let it form whatever mudras or gestures it likes. Leave it free to move and shake and whirl as it likes. If it wants to weep let it. Let go of the body completely. Continue deep breathing and let go of the body. Let the body fall down if it wants to fall down. And let it rise again if it wants to rise. And if it wants to dance allow it wholly. Let go of the body absolutely. Let it do whatever it wants to do. Leave it free. Don't impede it even in the least. Cooperate with the body. If it spins, let it.
And third, you have heard the word kundalini; as soon as energy starts running through the body, intense vibrations will begin along the spine. It will feel as if something is rising along the spine, as if something from below has set out on a journey upward. These three results occur in the first experiment—if you do it. If you don’t, they don’t happen; if you do, they do. Breathe as intensely as you can; put your whole energy into the first ten minutes. Only if the first stage is right will the second be possible; otherwise not. The second stage is catharsis. As soon as energy awakens and the blows begin to fall on the kundalini, as the sense of the body disappears and the sense of prana remains, as the whole body becomes a flowing current of vibrating electricity, many happenings will begin inside.
In this second stage, if the experiment completes in anyone, a wonder will be experienced: for the first time it will begin to be known that the body is separate and I am separate. If you have released your body totally, your identity will break—this can happen even today. The only question is whether you cooperate totally. Do not hold back. Do not think, “If I dance, what will people say? If I scream, what will people say?” Whatever is happening within—let it happen, utterly unconcerned with anyone. Then within ten minutes, what you have read and heard—that the body and I are separate—will become part of your experience. The dancing body will appear separate to you; you will be the witness that the body is dancing. You will be the witness that the body is weeping.
Won’t there be a heart failure? If heart failure happens, that would be sheer joy—so what! It’s precisely the one that never fails—let it fail. Let it happen; if the heart fails, then it’s delightful—so what! If you go on trying to save it, then when it happens it will be a failure. Don’t try to save it; let it happen. And at least there will be the bliss that it happened on the path of God. That is enough.
Those friends ask: what results will there be? Many—there will be many results. From meditation, the experiment I am calling meditation, there will be many physiological effects on the body. Many illnesses can bid farewell, the body’s lifespan can increase, there will be significant chemical changes. Many glands in the body that lie almost dormant can all become active. As we don’t realize, psychologists now say—and physiologists too—that in anger, special kinds of poisons are released in the body. But so far psychologists and physiologists are not able to say what happens in love. In anger, specific chemicals are released—poisons are released. The whole body becomes toxic. In love too, nectar is released. But because it is so rarely released, the person has not yet reached the physiologist’s laboratory; therefore they have not been able to find out. If the full result of meditation happens, then just as in anger…