Why does meditation often lead to fatigue instead of freshness during energy awakening?

Osho, if this energy is abundant, one shouldn’t feel tired; one should feel fresh.

No—at the beginning you will feel tired. Gradually you will feel a great freshness, a freshness you have never known. But at first there will be fatigue. The initial fatigue is because your identity is with the senses. You take them to be “I.” So when the senses get tired, you say, “I am tired.” This is exactly where your identity needs to break, isn’t it? It’s like this: your horse gets tired while you are sitting on it—but you have always believed, “I am the horse.” Now the horse is tired and you say, “We are finished, we are exhausted.” What we call “our” tiredness simply reflects where our identity lies. If I am the horse, then I am tired. The day you know “I am not the horse,” a very different kind of freshness will begin to arise. Then you will know: the senses are tired—but where am…

Questioner: if it is a case of energy awakening, then this meditation should bring freshness instead of fatigue. But ordinarily it brings only fatigue. Why?

It will be so only in the beginning. But by and by you will feel fresh and exhilarated. This freshness and exhilaration is such as you have never known before. But in the beginning you will, for sure, feel tired. It is so because you have identified yourself with these senses. You think them to be yourself. So when the senses are tired, you say that you are tired. This identification with the senses has to go. For instance, you are riding a horse and the horse gets tired. Now if you are identified with the horse you will say that you are tired, you are dead tired. We take on the fatigue of all those with whom we are identified. If you identify yourself with the horse, you will be tired when the horse is tired. The day you will know that you are not the horse, a freshness…

A friend has asked: Osho, in the very first stage of meditation I feel completely exhausted within a minute or two.

No, you don’t actually get tired; the thought of being tired arises. The thought of tiredness is a big thing. When you feel, “I’m utterly exhausted,” if at that very moment someone were to come after you with a gun, threatening to kill you, you would discover you’re not tired at all. You’d run for miles, and the fatigue would vanish. What happened? You were tired, weren’t you? Someone is chasing you with a gun—how are you running now? In truth, we have no idea how much power lies within us. We live using only the small amount of energy that floats on the surface. When that little portion gets a bit weary, we conclude, “Now I’m tired; that’s the end of it.” The moment you feel fatigue, begin again with even more intensity. Within two minutes you will find the tiredness has disappeared and a great energy has surged…

Please say something about the relationship of consciousness and energy.

Hence my insistence on dancing and music, because it is only in dance that you will feel that your body, your mind and you are functioning together. And the joy is infinite when all these function together; the richness is great. Consciousness is the highest form of energy. And when all these three energies function together, the fourth arrives. The fourth is always present when these three function together. When these three function in an organic unity, the fourth is always there; the fourth is nothing but that organic unity. In the East, we have called that fourth simply "the fourth" -- turiya; we have not given it any name. The three have names, the fourth is nameless. To know the fourth is to know God. Let us say it in this way: God is when you are an organic orgasmic unity. God is not when you are a chaos,…

Osho, in meditation a kind of dullness has begun to set in. Thoughts don’t particularly bother me, yet full awareness is also not there. What is this state, and what should I do?

Let only one remembrance remain—do not stop; keep going. There are many possibilities, because each person is different; so the stages cannot be described too precisely. It is uncertain where rivers and mountain gorges will be met. Guidelines can be given, but each person is very distinct, very different. Where you meet mountains, another may not. Where you meet dullness, another may not. It depends on your habits in life, on the structure of your living. One who has always lived in the mountains will not feel dullness there; for him the mountains are just fine. You go there and you feel dullness—you belong to the market. You are a creature of the bazaar. Then it will be very hard. Bring a mountain man to the market and he will feel derangement: this is madness. He will want to run away. Gurdjieff once experimented with his disciple Ouspensky. He kept…