What should those who wear glasses do during night meditation?

A friend has asked: In the night meditation, what should those who wear glasses do? Please clarify whether we should look at you or toward you?

Both have to be done. Because without looking toward me, you cannot see me. You must look toward me. But not only “toward,” because “toward” is a very big thing; much else comes with it. Look toward me, but look at me. Keep your glasses on. In the night experiment there is no need to take off your glasses—at least those who are seated certainly don’t need to. Those who are standing can take them off. So those who have difficulty seeing, who cannot see from a distance, should stand near me, close to the stage. Those who are seated need not remove their glasses.

A friend has asked: Osho, during the stages of meditation, it often looks as though the movements are like those seen when exorcists drive out spirits.

Do not remain in the delusion that you have no ghosts and spirits within. That they haven’t yet been shaken out—this may be. That the time for shaking them out has not yet come—this may be. But we all have our own ghosts. And within all of us are states that should be released. If you don’t bring them out yourself, then some other “ghost” has to enter you and force them out. There’s no real difference. Certainly, what happens in a state of possession is almost the same as what happens in meditation. But there is a difference. From the outside the processes may look similar; inside there is a very fundamental difference. A person afflicted by possession is out of control, under another’s power; whatever happens within him is as if someone else is making it happen. In your case, whatever is happening, you are doing it; no…

Beloved Osho, I remember you talking about eyes and looking into people's eyes and hiding through not looking directly into someone's eyes. After this discourse I dropped my glasses, which I have had since I was one year old. Not wearing them, I found myself being more open in looking in someone's eyes, and I felt great power in my eyes. Would you please talk about the psychological need to wear glasses?

And there is no need for glaring lights; otherwise you have started already destroying his eyes. Soon he will need glasses. If you have been using them since you were one year old, that shows what we have been doing with children. And nobody tells you to use glasses only when you need them; otherwise don't let them become an essential habit. It is known about Mulla Nasruddin that one night he woke up and asked his wife, "Where are my glasses?" She said, "What is the need in the middle of the night for glasses?" He said, "I don't want to fight -- I am not in a position right now -- I will explain everything later on. First, my glasses!" With his glasses on he tried for a few minutes, then he said, "You destroyed it. If you had given them to me immediately, perhaps I may not…

In the same way, use of the sense organs should be reduced to the minimum. For example, use your eyes less and less. When using them lower the sight to the earth or raise it upward and see the sky. Watch the sea. But as far as men and women are concerned see as little of them as possible. Because most of our mental associations are formed of human faces, not of trees, clouds and seas. Look at the trees and the clouds and the seas; they don't give rise to any thoughts in you. Human faces, on the other hand, immediately stir all kinds of thoughts in your mind. While walking, lower your gaze and keep it confined to a distance of four feet from you. And keep your eyes only half open so they concentrate on the tip of your nose. That is enough.

Osho, Mahavira meditated with nasagra drishti—gazing at the tip of the nose. Is that itself the posture of meditation?

If someone lives with eyes completely open to the outer world, like Charvaka, he will say there is nothing within, soul and such are false notions: eat, drink, be merry. This is the experience of fully open eyes—that everything is outside: eat, drink, enjoy. There is nothing within; go within and you die—there is nothing there. There is nothing like a soul. If one lives by the experience of fully open eyes, only sensory pleasures remain; the soul dissolves. Then the world is true and the soul is false. And Mahavira says: the world is true and the soul is true. The world is not false, nor is the soul false. Mahavira says these are two ways of seeing. If someone experiences with closed eyes, the self will seem true and the world false. Another view is: someone never sits in meditation with closed eyes and lives only in the…