According to Osho, when the sahasrar opens, all religious visions, mudras, and symbolic manifestations cease. They are the mind’s final, archetypal signs—often appearing as one’s central sacred figure—but with this flowering the mind ends, metaphors drop, and duality dissolves. What remains is indescribable, non-dual suchness: no experiencer and no experienced, either total nothingness—or totality without separation.
When the crown center opens, all spiritual pictures stop; the mind falls silent and there’s only one seamless reality, with no separate you seeing it.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Question: what happens to religious visions and other manifestations of deep meditation when the sahasrar opens?
All these things will drop. All pictures will drop - visions, everything, will drop, because these things come only in the beginning. They are good signs, but they will drop away. Before the opening of the sahasrar comes, many visions will come to you. These are not unreal; visions are real, but with the opening of the sahasrar there will be no more visions. They will not come because this "flowering experience" is the peak experience for the mind, it is the last experience for the mind; beyond this, there will be no mind. All that is happening beforehand is happening to the mind, but the moment you transcend mind, there will be nothing. When the mind ceases, there will be neither mudras - outward expressions of psychic transformation - nor visions; neither flowers nor serpents. There will be nothing at all, because beyond mind there is no metaphor. Beyond…
During samadhi, the objects of the experiences are not separate from the soul, hence they are not experienced. But these glorified experiences of the seeker who has come out of samadhi are inferred through recollections of the mind.
IN THIS BEGINNINGLESS WORLD, MILLIONS AND MILLIONS OF KARMA, ACTION-IMPRESSIONS, ARE ACCUMULATED. THEY ARE ALL DESTROYED BY THIS SAMADHI AND PURE DHARMA, THE SELF-NATURE, GROWS. THE KNOWERS OF YOGA CALL IT DHARMAMEGHA -- THE RAINCLOUD OF DHARMA -- SAMADHI, BECAUSE IT SHOWERS A THOUSAND NECTAR-STREAMS OF DHARMA, THE SELF-NATURE, LIKE A RAINCLOUD. IN THIS SAMADHI, THE NETWORK OF DESIRES DISSOLVES COMPLETELY AND THE THICKETS OF ACCUMULATED KARMA CALLED VIRTUE AND SIN ARE ALL UPROOTED AT THEIR VERY SOURCE. AT FIRST, THIS BOUNDLESS STATEMENT -- TATTVAMASI, THAT ART THOU -- BEING TRUE, IS ONLY REALIZED INDIRECTLY; THEN THE DIRECT KNOWLEDGE, LIKE A MYROBALAN FRUIT KEPT ON ONE'S OWN PALM, IS BORN. Dharmamegha is a lovely word. Clouds we have seen. When Ashadh, the first month of monsoon comes, clouds gather in the sky. But we are not aware of the whole phenomenon. Those clouds gather in the sky in Ashadh, and…
In the state of nirvichara samadhi, an object is experienced in its full perspective, because in this state knowledge is gained direct, without the use of the senses. The perception gained in nirvichara samadhi transcends all normal perceptions both in extent and intensity.
WHEN THIS CONTROLLING OF ALL OTHER CONTROLS IS TRANSCENDED, THE SEEDLESS SAMADHI IS ATTAINED, AND WITH IT, FREEDOM FROM LIFE AND DEATH. This is where all the paths culminate, all the Buddhas meet: Tantra and Yoga, Zen and Hassid, Sufi and Baul -- all the paths. Paths may be different -- they are -- but now this comes, the peak; here paths disappear. WHEN THIS CONTROLLING OF ALL OTHER CONTROLS IS TRANSCENDED... because Patanjali says that it is still a controlled state. Thoughts have disappeared: you can perceive now the existence, but still the perceiver and the perception, the object and the subject... With the body, the knowledge was indirect. Now it is direct, but still the knower is different from the known. The last barrier exists, the division. When even this is dropped, when this control is transcended, and the painter disappears in the painting and the lover disappears…
Osho, in meditation the sounds one hears, the fragrance that arises, or the light that appears—don’t these become obstacles?
If you mistake all this for spiritual attainment, it will become a hindrance. If you think, “I have found it—fragrance is coming, the inner sound resounds, light is appearing—now everything is achieved,” you miss. The stone that could have become a step now becomes a wall. You get stuck badly. You were safer with the gross, because there the risk of confusing it with the spiritual was small; here the risk is great. Out there it was collective. Others would say, “What spirituality? That’s just a house. That’s the sound of a sitar. That’s electric light. That’s the scent of a flower.” You had critics. Now you are utterly alone. There is no one else there, so it is easy to trust yourself—and easy to deceive yourself. There is no critic now. Only you hear that sound; no one else hears it. Only you see that light; no one else…
These samadhis that result from meditation on an object are samadhis with seed, and do not give freedom from the cycle of rebirth. On attaining the utmost purity of the nirvichara stage of samadhi, there is a dawning of the spiritual light.
IN NIRVICHARA SAMADHI, THE CONSCIOUSNESS IS FILLED WITH TRUTH. For example if you contemplate on emptiness; the object is almost not, if you meditate on nothingness. There are Buddhist schools which emphasize only one meditation, and that is on nothingness. One has to think, one has to meditate, one has to imbibe the idea that nothing exists. Continuously meditating on nothingness, a moment comes when the object becomes so subtle that it cannot withhold your attention; it is so subtle that there is nothing to contemplate, and one goes on and on and on. Suddenly, one day the consciousness bounces upon oneself. Not finding any standing ground there in the object, not finding any foothold, not finding anything to cling to, the consciousness bounces upon itself. It returns, comes back to its own center. Then it becomes the highest, the purest, nirvichara. The highest, nirvichara, is when the consciousness bounces…