Dhyan

Why do you emphasize that one should jump directly into the seventh step, that is dhyan, and then finish the other steps so as to be total to realize samadhi?

For a specific reason. I insist first to jump into dhyan, into meditation, and then complete all the other steps because you have lost the taste of dhyan. of meditation, so completely that unless you regain the taste you will not take the trouble of fulfilling all other things. In Patanjali's time meditation was an accepted fact. Everybody was meditating. Every child was to be sent to gurukul, into a forest monastery. There the basic teaching was of meditation; everything else was secondary. When he is twenty-five he will come back to the society, but he has learned meditativeness. He will live in the marketplace, but live meditatively. By the age of fifty, he is again ready to go back to the forest. And by the age of seventy-five he will not do anything else other than meditation. So if you just look at the whole span of life, if…

25. The disassociation of the seer and the seen which is brought about by the dispersion of ignorance is the remedy that brings liberation.

26. THE UNWAVERING PRACTICE OF DISCRIMINATION BETWEEN WHAT IS THE REAL AND WHAT IS THE UNREAL BRINGS ABOUT THE DISPERSION OF IGNORANCE. 27. THE HIGHEST STAGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT IS REACHED IN SEVEN STEPS. The whole effort of yoga is like that. Many methods have to be used to remain alert: and because of this many things have gone wrong. For example, fasting: fasting is a method to remain alert -- it has nothing to do with the body -- because whenever you are fasting you cannot fall asleep easily. To fall asleep, the body needs food. When you have overeaten you fall asleep immediately. If you have overeaten, immediately you feel that now you cannot move. you cannot do anything. The consciousness is losing itself. The whole energy of the body moves into the stomach, it leaves the head where it remains conscious, because the food has to be digested,…

Dharana, concentration, is confining the mind to the object being meditated upon.

DHYAN, CONTEMPLATION, IS THE UNINTERRUPTED FLOW OF THE MIND TO THE OBJECT. SAMADHI IS WHEN THE MIND BECOMES ONE WITH THE OBJECT. THE THREE TAKEN TOGETHER -- DHARMA, DHYAN, AND SAMADHI -- CONSTITUTE SAMYAMA. BY MASTERING IT, THE LIGHT OF HIGHER CONSCIOUSNESS. And the way in the West you are looking for causes, for ways and means how to help humanity, seems to have from the very beginning gone wrong. You are still looking for causes outside -- and the causes are within. The causes are not outside, not in relationship, not in the world; they are deep in your unconsciousness. They are not in your thinking: they are not in your dreams. The analysis of dreams and the analysis of thoughts is not going to help much. At the most it can make you normally abnormal, not more than that. The basic cause is that you are not aware…

Osho, you have spoken of the four steps of meditation; please explain the full meaning of all four.

First, understand this clearly: three are only steps, not meditation; meditation is the fourth. The gateway is the fourth; the first three are only steps. Steps are not the door; they lead to the door. The fourth alone is the door—rest, pause, emptiness, surrender, dying, dissolving—that is the door. And the three steps lead you to that door. The fundamental basis of those three steps is one: if you want to enter rest, it becomes very easy after going into total tension. Just as a person who labors all day can sleep at night. The more the labor, the deeper the sleep. Someone may ask, “But labor and sleep are opposites; how can labor lead to sleep? The one who has worked all day should not be able to sleep!” And the one who has lazed on the bed all day should sleep! But the one who stayed in bed…