Why are most meditation methods not more fruitful in helping people?

Why are most meditation methods not more fruitful in helping people?

There are many meditation methods and each method is meaningful to a particular type of mind. Then, too, there are certain methods that are meaningful in a particular age. All of our traditional methods are basically silent ones. My method of Dynamic Meditation ends in silence but begins in catharsis because in our age our minds need a deep catharsis first; only then can they become silent. This method is needed only because the modern mind -- whether Christian or nonChristian, Hindu or nonHindu -- is a byproduct of a very suppressive attitude toward desires, thoughts, instincts... everything. We have lived for centuries with a very repressive attitude toward life. That repression has to be thrown out first, only then can you enter your center. So my method is new in a way -- not in its results but only in the methodology. First you must throw your madness out;…

I have been trying to meditate for a long time, but I am not getting any clear results. What's wrong with me?

There can be many reasons. It may be that the medita-tion method you are using is wrong or that the way in which you are practicing it is wrong. Or it may be that neither the method nor the way you are practicing it is wrong, but the unconscious longing behind the method is wrong. Then the unconscious must be changed. If you have been using a method for many years and only getting shallow results, change the method. There are so many methods of meditation that one should not cling to only one method. There may be nothing wrong with the method, but as far as you are concerned it may be wrong. So change the method. Change is always helpful. If one becomes accustomed to a method, the experiences one has through it will be shallow. And when nothing new is happening but you go on repeating the…

Question: BELOVED OSHO, YOU HAVE BEEN USING THE KEY WORD "DEPROGRAMMING" TO DESCRIBE YOUR WORK. THE TECHNIQUES THAT YOU HAVE SUGGESTED DURING THESE YEARS, GO FROM CHAOTIC AND DYNAMIC MEDITATION TO THE MODERN THERAPEUTIC SCHOOL. I WOULD LIKE YOU TO EXPLAIN IN BRIEF WHY YOU HAD TO CREATE NEW MEDITATION TECHNIQUES LIKE KUNDALINI MEDITATION OR DYNAMIC MEDITATION, EVEN THOUGH THERE IS A TRADITION ALREADY INCLUDING HUNDREDS OF TECHNIQUES FROM YOGA, SUFISM, BUDDHISM ETC. WHAT IS ALSO SURPRISING TO THE WEST IS THAT YOU ARE USING THERAPIES SUCH AS GESTALT, PRIMAL, ENCOUNTER, IN YOUR COMMUNE. IS IT REALLY NECESSARY? THE SUSPICION IS THAT YOUR SECRET INTENTIONS ARE NOTHING BUT TO BRAINWASH PEOPLE'S MINDS, AND THAT CANNOT BE TOLERATED BECAUSE YOU ARE TOUCHING THE MOST PRECIOUS THING THEY HAVE. My methods of meditation have been developed out of an absolute necessity.

In 1969 followers of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi invited Osho to talk to them. This was the first occasion on which Osho addressed a western audience, and the first time he talked publicly at length in English. The discourse has been published in OTI January 1 & 16, 1991; and February 1, 1991. Osho: Really, there can be no method as far as meditation is concerned. Meditation is not a method. Through technique, through method, you cannot go beyond mind. When you leave all methods, all techniques, you transcend mind. So meditation itself is not a method. Truth cannot be achieved through method. Method is our own invention. We, who are ignorant, have achieved knowledge through methods constructed, created, projected, in our ignorance. Through method you can achieve a sort of self-hypnosis, a sort of auto-hypnosis. Any method, whatsoever it's name, can only give you an illusory kind of peace.

THE HUMAN MIND IS EFFORT-ORIENTED, action-oriented, obsessed with activity -- because the more active you are, the more your ego can be fulfilled, the more you can say 'I'. All activity is basically food for your egoistic personality. Meditation is not an effort, it is not an activity. Rather, it is a deep surrender. It is to be in nonactivity. Basically, just to be is meditation -- not doing anything, not desiring anything, not hankering to go somewhere; just being here and now, simply being here and now. That's what I call meditation. But it is very difficult to conceive. Even to contemplate it is difficult. The mind cannot conceive of anything that is not an effort. The very language of the mind, the very framework, the very structure, is based on effort: to do something, to achieve something, to go somewhere.