According to Osho, after deep and fast breathing the body feels extraordinarily light, as body-consciousness drops and oxygen rises, awakening kundalini. This produces a sense of bodilessness and weightlessness that the mind pictures as levitation; rarely does actual levitation occur. These are soul-level experiences, not bodily events, so don’t be alarmed—observe the lightness as a sign of inner awakening.
Strong breathing can make you feel floaty, like flying, because your mind turns real lightness into that picture—your body stays on the ground.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Questioner: how is it that the body begins to feel light after deep and fast breathing?
It is true that the body will feel light after this meditation. It will be so because our consciousness of body is one of heaviness. What we call heaviness is nothing more than our awareness of the body. The body weighs heavy on a sick person even if he is skinny and wiry. But a healthy person, even if he is a heavyweight, carries his body very lightly. So it is really our body-consciousness which feels like a weight on us. And we become conscious of our body only when it is in pain, when it is suffering. We become conscious of our feet when they are hurting. We become aware of our head when it is aching. If there is no body pain, we are never aware of our body. This consciousness is the measure of our suffering. We define a healthy person as one who feels as if…
With this, the body feels a little light!
Yes, you will feel light. You will feel light, because what we call the sense of the body—our body-consciousness—is our heaviness. What we call heaviness is nothing but the sense of the body. That is why even a sick, thin person feels burdened, while a healthy person, however heavy in weight, feels light. The awareness of the body that we carry is our load. And that body-consciousness, the sense of the body, exists in the same measure as there is discomfort in the body. If there is pain in the leg, you become aware of the leg; if there is pain in the head, you become aware of the head. If there is no discomfort anywhere, the body is not felt at all. Therefore the very definition of a healthy person is: one who experiences bodilessness; one to whom it does not seem, “I am the body.” Then understand, that…
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.
Question: it is an interesting coincidence that your meditation technique of release through intense chaotic breathing evolved at the same time that certain chaotic therapy techniques were happening in the west, such as r.d.laing's theory that schizophrenia is not something to be fought, but something to be experienced voluntarily. Laing has said that you cannot be sane until you have been non-sane or insane. Then there is wilhelm reich's use of sexual energy to release body blocks that coincide with neurosis; this technique was the inspiration for the therapy which is called bio-energetics, a
Ordinarily, it may look very difficult to be non-neurotic in a neurotic world. It is difficult in a way. If you get too serious, it is very difficult. If you start fighting with insane men and you start fighting with everything they have created, it will be difficult. But you can fight only if you are still insane. Otherwise you will laugh; there is no need to fight. There is no need to fight! You will laugh! Then you will act. A wise man is an actor; he is not serious because there is no need to be serious. You know that all around you are madmen, so there is no need to be serious with them. You can act, and only if you act can you help them. There is a proposal of R.D.Laing's that doctors in asylums for the mad should not be there as doctors but as…
Is there some kind of hypnosis involved in the technique?
The moment a person begins to experiment with this method there is no question of belief or faith, there is no question of hypnosis. The contrary is the case: we have hypnotized ourselves into believing that we are normal and sane human beings. This is the hypnosis! The whole world is a great madhouse and we have hypnotized ourselves into thinking that we are sane, normal. But the insanity that is hidden in the background always tries to come out: it erupts, it explodes out of us in dreams. It explodes out of us when we are intoxicated. LSD or mescaline cause an explosion of madness, but the explosion does not come from the LSD or mescaline, and dreams do not create the madness either. Drugs or dreams just uncover your self, the authentic being that is within you. That is why, for a sadhaka, a seeker, it has been…