According to Osho, the difference between meditation and autohypnosis is like that between awareness and induced sleep. Autohypnosis is a cultivated, suggestion-driven state: you command the obedient body-mind to relax and grow drowsy, producing tandra (sleepiness). Meditation isn’t produced by suggestion or effort; it arises naturally as alert, effortless awareness, not a mechanical, conditioned trance.
Autohypnosis is you telling your body to get sleepy; meditation is simply being awake inside without forcing anything.