Duration

Another friend has asked—and two or three others have asked the same—Osho, how long will this crying, shouting, laughing, and dancing continue?

It can continue from three weeks to three months. Those who do the practice rightly will see the crying, laughing, and shouting dissolve within three weeks, and from the first stage they will enter directly into the fourth; the two middle stages will drop on their own. Those who don’t do it properly, who proceed slowly, may take anywhere from three weeks to three months. But this is not something that goes on forever; once the mind’s impurities fall away, it dissolves by itself. The length of time depends on how intensely you let the impurities drop. If you do the practice properly for three months, generally all this will settle within that time. Then you will take one or two deep breaths and immediately enter the fourth stage. But this will happen only if you fully complete the two middle stages. If you hold back even a little, it…

Osho, that friend has asked: might this become just a short rest, a brief entertainment?

No. Let it be for a little while—soon it will take hold of your whole life. This meditation is such a guest that once it slips inside, you will not be able to send it out. Once it is in, you simply cannot expel it. Because it brings such bliss—who can throw bliss away? It brings such peace—who would drive peace out? Try it once—let it come in—and then it will never be able to leave. And even if someone says, “We’ll take it out and give you ten million rupees,” you will not agree to part with it even for ten million. I have heard that in those days an emperor, Shrenik, came to Mahavira. Shrenik said to Mahavira, “I have attained everything. Now I hear so much talk about meditation—what is this thing? How much will it cost? I am ready to buy.” He was an emperor—accustomed to…

Before you were moving as a beggar, now you will be moving like an emperor. Not that you are seeking some happiness from somebody -- that you have already. Now the happiness is too much. The cloud is so full it would like to rain. The flower is so full that it would like to ride on the winds as fragrance and go to the very comers of the world. It is a sharing. A new type of relationship has come into existence. To call it a relationship is not right because it is no longer a relationship; rather it is a state of being. Not that you love, but that you are love. So don't be disheartened or make it a style of life; it is just a passing phase. Renunciation is a passing phase -- celebration is the goal of life, renunciation is just a means.

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…