What is the relationship between meditation and the practices of yoga?

Osho, at the Nargol camp you said that yogic asanas, pranayama, mudras and bandhas were discovered in meditative states, and that in different states of meditation different postures and gestures arise by themselves, from which one can tell the seeker’s inner condition. Conversely, if those postures and gestures are done deliberately, the same meditative mood can be created. Then can meditation be attained through the practice of asanas, pranayama, mudras and bandhas? What is their importance and use in meditation practice?

Then, if it begins within, it can be understood. Suppose a seeker is sitting in meditation and I feel that his crying wants to burst forth, but he is holding it back. I can see that if he cries for ten minutes, a movement will happen—a catharsis, a cleansing. But he is restraining himself so that the crying does not come out. If we tell this seeker, “Now don’t hold back—cry from your side; cry,” then for two minutes he will cry as if acting, but from the third minute his crying will become right and authentic, because crying wanted to pour out from within and he was preventing it. His act of crying will not bring crying; it will break the suppression, and what was flowing within will flow out. Similarly, a seeker may be in a state to dance but is standing stiffly. If we say to him,…

The meditative process of inner transformation: the source of Yoga-vidya It may surprise you to know, but you must know it: all the yogasanas have been discovered only as spontaneous postures in meditative states. No one sat down and invented them by thinking. No one prepared them at a desk. In meditation the body assumed those postures, and then it was found that such postures exist. Then gradually the associations were discovered: when the mind goes into a certain state, the body goes into a certain stance. Then it occurred to us that if the body is taken into that stance, the mind will go into that state. We know that when inner weeping fills us, tears come to the eyes. If tears come to the eyes, inner weeping will be filled. These are two ends of the same phenomenon. When anger comes, our hand rises to strike someone’s head.

In the nargol meditation camp you have said that either the energy rises from within and reaches up to the divine or the energy of the divine descends and merges within. You said that the first is rising of the kundalini and the second is the grace of the divine. Then later on you have said that when the sleeping energy within meets the enormous energy of the infinite, an explosion takes place which is samadhi. Is the union of the awakened kundalini and grace absolutely necessary for samadhi? Or, is the evolution of the kundalini up to the sahasrar similar to the happening of divine grace?

As I said before, man is a ladder. Nietzsche's words in this context are very precious. He said, "Man is a bridge between two eternities." There is one eternity -- that of nature, which has no end -- and there is the other, of the divine, which is also infinite, limitless. Man is a bridge swaying between these two. Therefore man is not the resting place. One either goes forwards or backwards. There is no place to build a house on this bridge. Whoever tries to settle on it repents, because a bridge is not a place to have a house; it is only meant for crossing over from one end to the other. In Fatehpur Sikri, Akbar tried to build a temple of all religions. He dreamed of one religion, which he named Deen-e-Illahe -- the essence of all religions. So he had inscribed a sentence on the entrance…

Is the practicing of traditional asanas helpful for meditation?

Why was Mahavira sitting in that position? Buddha's posture is all right, but Mahavira's posture is very absurd. He was not practicing it; it came. Something happened within him and his body took on a certain posture -- although a very absurd posture. If he had been practicing asanas he would have been sitting just like Buddha, because that was the traditional meditation posture. But he was in an attitude of letgo, and samadhi came and created a posture that was particularly required for his body and his individuality. Everyone will need to express himself individually. No person is like any other and no one can be. An individual is unique so that everything that flowers in him will flower in an individual and unique way. If you impose something from without, then it will be a generalized conception; it can never be fitting and harmonious to your situation. So…

Those who want to enter the domain of energy, those who want to go on a pilgrimage to the temple of the supreme energy, they will have to shed all fear, and if the body begins to tremble and shake or begins to dance, allow it to happen with ease and spontaneity. You will be surprised to know that all the techniques of yogic asanas -- body postures -- were discovered accidentally in meditation, in the various states of meditation. It is not that someone created them through thinking and deliberation. They were not created independently. In the state of meditation the body took different positions first, and then they were recognized as yogic postures. And gradually an association between the body and mind was revealed which said that when the mind is in a particular state, the body follows it with a particular posture of its own.