According to Osho, meditation is total nakedness—dropping the mind’s garments, and sometimes the body’s. Because clothes symbolize repression and lust, they can initially obstruct; when the mind lightens, a natural urge to shed them may arise—let it, without compulsion. Yet nudity isn’t required; what matters is inner sky-cladness. Bodily nakedness is a situational aid, not a rule.
Meditation is being truly yourself; if clothes feel like shame or lust, you may naturally remove them, but the real task is dropping inner coverings.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Another friend has asked: Osho, what is the relationship between the method of meditation and jati-smaran (recollection of past lives)?
But the one who becomes skilled in this—who can fully awaken any day’s memory up to the age of five—will find that the memories begin to awaken completely. And you should test it. As today passes, note down some events and lock them up. After two years, try to recall today. Most of it will have been forgotten. Then remember—and after remembering, break the lock and compare whether what you recalled matches what you had written. You will be amazed—astonished—that besides what you wrote, many more details have come back which you did not even note at the time. They will all be there in memory. Buddha called this alaya-vijnana. There is a corner of the human mind he called the storehouse of consciousness. Like a junk room in the house where we keep all the odds and ends, there is a storehouse that collects memories—where everything from birth after…
Osho, Desmond Morris calls modern humans “the naked ape.” In your meditation experiments you also say to meditators: let whatever happens, happen. Many laugh, cry, become naked. Would you call this state regression or not? And secondly, how do you hold that such natural behavior does not harm the person?
I say to you: when the inner event happens, then become naked. Naked means: the moment comes when you want to know yourself as you are, and you want others to know you as you are—no longer desiring otherwise. Then you have taken the greatest step toward truth. First you must know your nakedness completely—of body, of mind, in the deepest depths. Only then will you attain the explosion where the Ultimate is revealed. But before that, reveal yourself to yourself. Then all your images, imposed and maintained for the sake of others’ opinions, will fall away. When someone puts powder on the face, it is never for oneself, it is for someone else. Therefore as the person changes, the powder changes. If there is no one to impress, one can do without it; if there is, one cannot do without it. All that you do with your body you…
A friend has asked, Osho, why should we be religious when neither the beginning nor the end is known, and there is no trace of God or soul? The enlightened ones speak of truth—if that truth is real, why can’t they make everyone experience it?
No one is telling you to be religious—at least Lao Tzu would not. The so-called religious people have created so much disturbance that it is better you do not become one of them. Lao Tzu does not say, “Be religious.” He simply says: be what you are. You may ask, why should I be what I am? Because that is the only thing you can be. There is no way to be anything else. Yes, you can try to be something else—and in that trying your life can be wasted. You may then say, why not waste life? No one can stop you. And precisely for this reason even the enlightened ones are defeated and cannot give you the knowledge of truth—because you say, why should we know the truth? What can the enlightened do? They can speak. They can try to awaken in you the thirst for the joy…
Osho, when we sow a seed, the sprout takes time to emerge. Yet you say everything can happen this very moment. And man is called the seed of the Divine.
I certainly say so. When you sow a seed, it takes time. The time is taken in the breaking of the seed, not in the sprouting. The sprout bursts forth in a single instant—an explosion. But the seed’s breaking takes time. Your breaking can take time—I don’t deny that. But the coming of the Divine takes no time; it happens in a single moment. It is like heating water. Heating can take time. To reach a hundred degrees takes time. But becoming steam takes no time—a leap! The water reaches a hundred degrees—the jump—and it has leapt, become steam. It is not that steam takes time to form—half water, half steam; one corner steaming, another not. No, when steam happens, it happens in a jump. Yes, reaching the point of steam takes time. But until it becomes steam, it is still water—whether at a hundred degrees, ninety-nine, or ninety-eight. The…
Why do you teach nudity to people?
Sir, DO YOU SEE ANYBODY NUDE HERE? Are you utterly blind? I teach truth -- truth is bound to be nude. Truth cannot hide itself. I don't teach nudity: I certainly teach nude souls. And your clothes sometimes become a hindrance; they hide, they become defences. Once in a while, whenever the opportunity is possible and nobody is disturbed by your being nude, be nude. I am not telling you to go nude in the marketplace, but whenever the opportunity arrives and whenever you can be nude in the sun and in the wind and in the rain, be. Just by dropping the clothes you will feel a tremendous liberation -- because your clothes are representative of your civilization, of your conditionings. Your clothes are not just clothes -- they are hiding you from everybody else's eyes. And it is good sometimes to be with the birds and with the…