According to Osho, sustained unblinking observation (about forty minutes) dissolves the boundary between seer and seen: the sky enters you, you become the waves, trees, or even the master’s presence. Any chosen object can serve. This steady gaze awakens an inner connection and reveals oneness; even a photo of the master can carry the presence and allow his work to be accomplished.
If you gently stare without blinking, you start to feel one with what you look at, and that connection can even happen through a picture of a teacher.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
The nightly experiment of unblinking observation—one friend has asked: how will they do it without me?
The question is not about me. Keep gazing at the open sky for forty minutes without blinking. And very wondrous results will follow. As you look at the open sky for forty minutes, you will suddenly find that you have become a part of the sky, the sky has entered within you. Sit by the ocean; gaze unblinkingly at the sea for forty minutes, and you will find that you and the waves have become one. Keep looking at the trees and the same will happen. Anything can be used. And for those in whom an inner connection has been formed by looking at me—as many friends came today and told me that much was revealed to them—if they keep my picture, even then my work will be accomplished.
A friend has asked, Osho, isn’t the night-meditation experiment simply an exercise in concentration? And what will be the results of this experiment, and what are its foundations?
Keeping the eyes open, fixed, without a blink, is first of all an experiment in resolve: not allowing the eyes to close. To not let the eyes close is an experiment in resolve, in will-power. And if you can keep the eyes open for forty minutes, there will be very broad results. Forty minutes is the span of the human mind’s capacity; that is why in school and college we keep a forty-minute period. Whatever can be done for forty minutes can then be carried much further. If you can keep the eyes open for forty minutes—if this small resolve can be fulfilled—it will have many consequences. First, the result of keeping the eyes open for forty minutes will be that if the eyes have remained open and you have continued to keep them open for that long, your mind’s susceptibility to hypnosis will end at once. You will no…
Osho, in one of your discourses you mentioned the sage Durvasa. You cited him as an example of the deranged state to which concentration can ultimately lead. But in trataka the spirit is also of concentration. What is the difference between the two? Please explain.
The traditional trataka—the conventional understanding of trataka—is indeed concentration. And concentration generates power; siddhis are acquired. But the union with the Divine, the supreme rest we seek, does not happen through it. Concentration is a function and an extension of the ego. You do not dissolve; you become more solid. You do not melt; you freeze like ice. Your power increases, not your bliss. But what I am calling trataka is not the use of concentration; it is only the experiment of seeing—just looking. Understand the difference. Trataka means gathering the entire mind and fixing it on one point—on the sun, on an image, on a mark—on anything. It means narrowing the mind so that it does not run here and there. All the currents of the mind turn in one direction. The mind goes on flowing toward a single point. Not even a single ray of awareness scatters elsewhere.…
What is the difference between waiting for godot and waiting for god?
It is as if the sun has risen in the morning and you are sitting in your room with closed doors and windows, in darkness. Open the doors, you become available to the sun. The sun was already available -- just the meeting happens. You cannot wait for God. All waiting is for Godot. Godot means the one who never comes, who CANNOT come, whose arrival is impossible. And the only impossible thing is that which has already happened -- how can it happen again? You are alive, and you are waiting for life, Now, this is ridiculous. The real man of religion does not think in terms of God. He thinks in terms of life or, even better, of living -- because life can again become an abstract idea. Living, moment-to-moment living. In that very living, one knows what God is, because one knows who one is. Your idea…
9. Simply by looking into the blue sky beyond clouds, the serenity.
10. LISTEN WHILE THE ULTIMATE MYSTICAL TEACHING IS IMPARTED. EYES STILL, WITHOUT BLINKING, AT ONCE BECOME ABSOLUTELY FREE. 11. AT THE EDGE OF A DEEP WELL LOOK STEADILY INTO ITS DEPTHS UNTIL -- THE WONDROUSNESS. 12. LOOK UPON SOME OBJECT, THEN SLOWLY WITHDRAW YOUR SIGHT FROM IT, THEN SLOWLY WITHDRAW YOUR THOUGHT FROM IT. THEN. So look into the blue sky and go on looking. The object is infinite, there is no boundary to it. Do not think about it; do not say it is beautiful. Do not say, "How lovely!" Do not appreciate the color; do not start thinking. If you start thinking, you have stopped. Now your eyes are not moving into the blue, the infinite blue. Just move, just look -- do not think. Do not create words; they will become barriers. Not even "blue sky" should be said. Do not verbalize. There should be just a…