According to Osho, the transcendental is the witnessing consciousness beyond both body (objective) and mind (subjective). It cannot be observed or surpassed; resting in it is 'coming home.' In this oneness, everything appears perfect, birthing gratitude, dignity, and bliss. Genuine meditation flowers into this transcendence, unlike mere mantra-chanting, which only relaxes the surface.
The transcendental is the quiet watcher inside you, beyond body and thoughts, where you feel one with everything and deeply at peace.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Question: BELOVED OSHO, WHAT IS THE TRANSCENDENTAL? Meditation is just the opposite. It is awakening. It is becoming fully aware of your body, of your mind. And you have simply to be watchful. You don't have to repeat anything, because repetition means you have fallen into identifying with the thought process. Chanting is also a thought process. Repeating a mantra or a name of God -- Hindu, Mohammedan, Christian, it doesn't matter. You can simply count from one to a hundred and back again, from a hundred to ninety-nine, ninety-eight, ninety-seven, then go back. Go up, go down. Just climb the whole ladder up to a hundred and again come down. Four or five times you will be able to do it and then you will fall asleep. But the whole night you will have to do that, climbing up, coming down, climbing up, coming down.
So the first thing is, the first step is to revive your heart; hence my emphasis on dancing, singing creativity, painting. So something that needs your heart and put the mind aside as much as possible. To be here with me simply means to commune with me through the heart. It should not become an intellectual relationship, it should be a love relationship. The relationship between the master and the disciple cannot be intellectual. First it has to be a loving relationship, heart to heart -- and then finally it has to be an existential relationship, even deeper than the heart. These are the three centres. First, the most superficial, is the head; the second, is the heart, which is just in between the three centres; and the third is your being.
Beloved Osho, meditation, understanding, awareness, love and enlightenment, and now transcendence of enlightenment, seem to be inalienable parts of your teaching. And they also seem to be organically interconnected. Would you please explain to us the whole thing once again?
It is so obvious, so simple. It needs no explanation. It needs only description. Meditation is nothing but your mind in a silent state. Just as a lake is silent, not even ripples on it... thoughts are ripples. Meditation is mind relaxed -- don't make things very complex -- mind in a state of not doing anything, just at ease. And the moment you are relaxed, silent, peaceful, there is great insight and understanding of things that you have never understood before. Nobody is explaining anything to you. Just your clarity of vision makes things clear. It is the same rose, but now you know its beauty in its multi-dimensional way. You had seen it many times -- it was just an ordinary rose. But today it is no more ordinary; today it has become extraordinary because you have a clarity. All the dust is removed from your insight and…
4. Suppose you are gradually being deprived of strength or of knowledge. At the instant of deprivation, transcend.
5. DEVOTION FREES. But either way one goes on worrying about the future. Buddha said, "There is no heaven and no afterlife." And he said, "There is no soul, and your death will be total and complete; nothing will survive." People thought he was an atheist. He was not, he was just trying to create a situation in which you can forget the tomorrow and can remain in this very moment, here and now. Then meditation follows very easily. So if you are thinking of death -- not the death which will come, or is to come later -- fall down on the ground and lie dead. Relax and feel, "I am dying, I am dying, I am dying." And not only think it, feel it in every limb of the body, in every fib of the body. Let death creep in. It is one of the most beautiful meditations.…
We are not the body and we are not the mind either. Mind is also part of the body. The visible part is called body, the invisible part is called mind. It is a psychosomatic mechanism and we are the witness of it. We are in it but we are not it. This is the greatest experience. Once it has happened your life goes through a radical change. Then you are never the same again. It is a breakthrough. The whole effort here is to bring this breakthrough closer and closer. Every support, every technique and device is provided for this breakthrough so that you can see yourself as a witness of it all, as pure consciousness. To know oneself as pure consciousness is to be free of all bondage. It is to be free of birth and death, it is to be free of time.