What happens if someone goes mad during meditation?

Another friend has asked: Osho, what is the relationship between the method of meditation and jati-smaran (recollection of past lives)?

But the one who becomes skilled in this—who can fully awaken any day’s memory up to the age of five—will find that the memories begin to awaken completely. And you should test it. As today passes, note down some events and lock them up. After two years, try to recall today. Most of it will have been forgotten. Then remember—and after remembering, break the lock and compare whether what you recalled matches what you had written. You will be amazed—astonished—that besides what you wrote, many more details have come back which you did not even note at the time. They will all be there in memory. Buddha called this alaya-vijnana. There is a corner of the human mind he called the storehouse of consciousness. Like a junk room in the house where we keep all the odds and ends, there is a storehouse that collects memories—where everything from birth after…

SOMEONE HAS SAID THAT THE MEDITATION WE ARE DOING HERE SEEMS TO BE SHEER MADNESS. It is. And it is that way for a purpose. It is madness with a method; it is consciously chosen. Remember, you cannot go mad voluntarily. Madness takes possession of you. Only then can you go mad. If you go mad voluntarily, that's a totally different thing. You are basically in control, and one who can control even his madness will never go mad. You can go mad at any moment because you have accumulated everything that is necessary to become mad. Everyone is just on the verge of madness. I am reminded of one incident: One of the greatest psychologists of this century, William James, once went to visit a madhouse, a mental asylum.

Osho, in the experiment you are speaking about these days, what physical and psychic difference is there between doing it sitting and doing it standing?

When you are in anger, in a sense you are in a momentary madness. At that time you do things you would never do in awareness. You abuse, you throw stones, you can break things, jump off a roof—anything. If a madman did it, we would understand; but when an ordinary person does it in anger, we say, “He was angry.” But it was the same person. If these things were not inside him, they could not come out; they are within. We are just holding them down. My understanding is that, before meditation, all this must be released. The more it is released, the lighter your consciousness will become. Therefore, what took years in the old methods where you sat in siddhasana can be completed in months by this process; what took lifetimes can happen in days. Because even in that approach, expulsion had to happen—only, the movements had…

In the meditation experiments you are presently conducting, what are the physical and psychic differences brought about by sitting or standing for the experiment?

It makes a great difference. As I told you before, deep within every condition of the body is connected with a particular state of mind that corresponds with it. If we tell a man to remain awake when he is lying down it will be difficult for him to do so; if we tell him to be alert when he is standing this will be easy. If we tell him to sleep when he is standing it will be difficult; if we tell him to sleep when he is lying down it will be easy. So there is a double process in which there is the fear that the meditator may fall asleep or become drowsy. If he stands this will help to dispel this fear. If he stands the possibility of drowsiness is less. The second part of the experiment is the witnessing attitude -- awareness. Initially it is…

Another friend has asked: If we continue this at home—shouting, dancing, laughing—the people around us will start thinking we are crazy.

People around already think one another mad. They may not say it; that’s another matter. This whole earth is almost a madhouse. Except for themselves, people consider everyone else mad. But if you show courage and do this experiment, the likelihood of your going mad will decrease day by day. The one who accumulates madness inside can indeed go mad; the one who throws madness out can never go mad. For a day or two—at most four days—people will be curious. After four days nobody is ready to keep their curiosity. No one is so interested in another that they stay curious for long. And the change that will come into your behavior round the clock will also be visible; not only your crying and shouting will be seen. When you are angry, have you ever worried whether people will think you mad? You don’t think of it then—because you…