According to Osho, seeing colors, auras and sudden joy in meditation is a natural, mysterious upsurge of being—a transcendental glimpse. Do not interrogate it; doubt makes it vanish. Trust, relax and taste it fully; enter the colors, let delight open your wings. In that silent tasting, understanding flowers by itself, and the same radiance begins to appear around trees, flowers—everywhere—when you look with love and quietude.
When colors and happiness show up while meditating, don’t question them—just enjoy and go deeper; then they grow and you can sense that beauty everywhere.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, while listening to you, many times you begin to appear colorful, and yet like an emptiness. The wall behind your chair also looks colorful, and I become filled with a strange joy. What is all this?
And once you learn the knack of entering those colors—if you descend even a single step into this depth—then you won’t need to see those colors only around me. If you look at any tree with the same peace and love with which you looked at me, then around that tree too a sea of colors will begin to surge. It is surging; you lack the eyes. Existence is veiled by no curtain; only you are blind. Even by a small flower you will see dimensions of aura opening. Once you understand that to look at anyone with quietude and love is essential for seeing truth, then you will see as it is. Until now you have seen very little. You have seen as if many curtains had been hung and behind them the lamp is hidden, and only tiny rays manage to reach you. As each curtain is removed,…
Osho, in meditation I experience light; I also experience peace and bliss. Is this the state of samadhi?
Not so fast. Call it the first glimpse of samadhi. The first waft of fragrance has arrived. Say, the first flower of spring has bloomed. But the blooming of spring’s first flower is not spring’s arrival. Spring is on the way; it will come. The first guest has arrived. Don’t take this to be the whole, otherwise you will get stuck, you will stop. Much is yet to happen. And the final understanding dawns only when no experience remains—not the experience of light, not the experience of peace, not the experience of bliss. You will be a little startled. Up to now you have known suffering; opposite to it comes the experience of happiness. As the meditative state in the mind deepens a little, happiness takes the place of sorrow. Then both happiness and sorrow depart. The duality is gone. Then a tremor of bliss arises. But that tremor feels…
Osho, when one experiences different forms of light and colours in meditation -- such as red, yellow, blue, ochre, etc. -- how can one know to which layers of being they belong? Is there any gradual sequence of colour and light experiences before reaching the ultimate light experience?
There is a Sufi sect which uses black -- black clothes for their fakirs. Black is also very, very meaningful. It shows absence of color, everything absent. It is just the contrary of white. Sufis say that unless we become totally absent, the God cannot be present to us. So one must be like black -- absolutely absent, a nonentity, a nonbeing, just a nothingness. They have chosen black. Colors are meaningful. So with whatsoever you choose you show much. Even your clothes indicate much. Nothing is just accidental. If you have chosen a particular color for your clothes, it is not accidental. You may not be aware why you have chosen it, but science is aware -- and it shows much. Your clothes show much because they belong to your mind, and your mind chooses. You cannot choose without your mind having certain leanings, certain tendencies. So the sequence…
During my lsd experiences I saw a particular sequence of colors: saffron, then yellow, then white, then a deep blue. What do these colors mean?
We do not see every color. The seven colors that we can see are not all the colors that exist -- beyond those seven we are colorblind. Below and beyond these seven colors are infinite ranges of colors. We have not seen them so we will not experience them in our inner journey. All that is felt or experienced is what we have stored within us of the outer world. If a musician goes into meditation he will experience sounds that a nonmusician can never know. A painter will experience colors that a nonpainter can never know. If someone like Van Gogh were to go into meditation, we cannot conceive of the colors he would see or what new combinations he would know. This, too, will differ from individual to individual. Only one thing is certain: when you go deep within on your own inner path, things will begin to…
Question: MASTER LU-TSU SAID: NOW THERE ARE THREE CONFIRMATORY EXPERIENCES WHICH CAN BE TESTED. THE FIRST IS THAT, WHEN ONE HAS ENTERED THE STATE OF MEDITATION, THE GODS ARE IN THE VALLEY. MEN ARE HEARD TALKING AS THOUGH AT A DISTANCE OF SEVERAL HUNDRED PACES, EACH ONE QUITE CLEAR. BUT THE SOUNDS ARE ALL LIKE AN ECHO IN A VALLEY. ONE CAN ALWAYS HEAR THEM, BUT NEVER ONESELF. THIS IS CALLED: 'THE PRESENCE OF THE GODS IN THE VALLEY.' AT TIMES THE FOLLOWING CAN BE EXPERIENCED: AS SOON AS ONE IS QUIET, THE LIGHT OF THE EYES BEGINS TO BLAZE UP, SO THAT EVERYTHING BEFORE ONE BECOMES QUITE BRIGHT AS IF ONE WERE IN A CLOUD. IF ONE OPENS ONE'S EYES AND SEEKS THE BODY, IT IS NOT TO BE FOUND ANY MORE. THIS IS CALLED: 'IN THE EMPTY CHAMBER IT GROWS LIGHT'. INSIDE AND OUTSIDE, EVERYTHING IS EQUALLY LIGHT.