Last year, at a world conference of biologists, the president of the British Biological Association, Badakun, made a statement. From that statement I want to begin today’s small sharing. He said something very significant—astonishing, coming from a scientist’s mouth. He said: the evolution of human life is not the addition of anything new—nothing new added—but the falling away of certain ancient obstacles—old hindrances gone. In the evolution of man nothing has been added; whatever is hidden within man… whenever anything is revealed, only the barriers in between are removed. If you compare animals and human beings, there is not something more in man than in the animal—rather, there is something less. Those hindrances that still obstruct the animal have fallen from man; and what was concealed in the animal has become manifest in man.
Between a seed and a flower, the flower does not have more than the seed—it has less. It sounds very upside down, yet it is the truth. The obstacles in the seed have fallen, and the flower has appeared. In plants there is more than in animals—more hindrances, more obstructions. If these fall, plants become animals. If the animal’s hindrances fall, the animal becomes man. If man’s hindrances fall, what remains we call Paramatman. If all obstacles drop and what is hidden is wholly revealed, that power—whatever name we choose to give it—Atman, Paramatman, or even no name at all—will do. Even in man, obstacles still exist; therefore the evolution of man is still possible.
Badakun has nothing to do with spirituality, yet his statement is exactly what the Buddha declared twenty-five centuries ago when the event of his enlightenment occurred.
The day Buddha awakened, people asked him, “What have you gained?” Buddha said, “I have gained nothing; what was already within me has become manifest. I have received nothing; what was already mine has become known. I have attained nothing; I have simply awakened to what I already am, to which I had been asleep.” Buddha even said, “Let me also tell you that there was indeed something I had which I have lost. Ignorance—I have lost it; unknowing—I have lost it. And whatever I have received, I can say now, was already with me—I was simply unfamiliar with it.”
There is no difference between Badakun’s statement and Buddha’s—except that Badakun speaks regarding beings behind man, and Buddha speaks regarding those who have gone beyond man.
The process of meditation does not take you to a new world; it simply acquaints you with the very world in which you have been, birth after birth. Meditation adds nothing to you; it only cuts away what is false, drops it, brings it to an end.
Someone once said to a sculptor, “You have made this statue so beautiful!” The sculptor replied, “I did not make it. I used to pass this way, and the statue hidden in the stone called out to me. I merely removed the useless stone stuck around it, and the statue appeared. I added nothing; I subtracted. I chiseled away the waste around it, and what was hidden came forth.”
What is hidden within man appears when the wrong accretions are cut away. Paramatman is not something different from man; it is the name of the energy concealed within man. But as we are, much clay is mixed in the gold. If a little of the clay can be sifted out, the gold can shine forth.
So, the first thing I would tell you regarding meditation is this: in the last moments of your development in meditation, whatever you will be then, you already are this very moment. Meditation will not add anything to you—it will only subtract. It will cut away what is wrong in you, separate what is useless. And what is meaningful will gain the full opportunity to be revealed. Nothing—nothing new added; only old hindrances will fall.
To drop these hindrances, the experiments we shall do here for four days are very vital, very full of prana. And for those who are willing to do them honestly, sincerely, the results are certain.
It is good to understand the word honesty a little. By honesty I mean: those who truly do it—the result is assured. Only those who do not do will not have results; for them, expectation would be misplaced. I ask for no other qualification. No other credential is needed. Only one qualification: that whatever I ask you to do in these four days, you do. And what I am going to ask is not difficult—it is very simple; even a small child can do it. So do not think it is so hard that you will fail. No—if there is difficulty, it can only be in being dishonest with yourself. In the method itself there is no difficulty. Even a small child who can understand the language can do it. Only your cooperation is needed—that you do.
Let me explain the experiment: a simple experiment. All important things are simple; only the unimportant are difficult and complex. All truths are simple; only untruths are intricate and complex.
Yet we are strange people! If something appears difficult and complex, we think it must be a very profound truth, something very serious.
It is not so. The truths of life are as simple as two plus two is four. Only untruths are difficult. Untruth must be difficult, because if it were simple it would be caught at once as untruth. Untruth must move in many tricks and circles so that it is not recognized. Truth stands straight and naked. As it is, it is enough. It needs no hiding, no veiling, no change of faces.
Therefore, as a rule, the more difficult the sayings in the world, the more untrue they are. And the more true the sayings, the more simple and direct they are—whether in the Upanishads, the Gita, the Quran, the Bible, or in the words of Buddha and Mahavira—they are as straight as two and two make four.
This experiment I tell you is extremely simple. Its results are astonishing. There are four stages, each of ten minutes. In the first three stages you will do something; in the fourth you will do nothing—only wait, so that the power of the Divine can do whatever it will. In the first stage, ten minutes of intense breathing. For ten minutes breathe as a blacksmith’s bellows moves—as fast as possible, with as much force as you can send the stroke of breath inside. Use the breath as a hammering.
There are consequences. First: the stronger the stroke of breath inside, the more the dormant prana-energy in our body is awakened. Perhaps you do not know that in our bodies—in all forms of life—the energy hidden is of the nature of electricity. Even the force by which our body is functioning is a form of electricity—let us call it organic electricity, living electricity. The more oxygen this electricity receives, the more intensely it awakens. Hence, without oxygen, a man dies. And even a dying man can be kept alive for a while if oxygen is supplied.
In these ten minutes, breathe with such force that all the stale air within goes out and fresh air rushes in. Change the proportion of oxygen inside your body—it will change by itself through this. And hammer so strongly that the power asleep in the body starts to rise.
Within five minutes, in about sixty percent of people, vibrations will begin inside the body. You will very clearly feel that something is starting to vibrate and rise. Yoga has called it Kundalini. If we ask science, it would call it body electricity. It would say: it is the body’s electricity.
In America there is a man in whose body this electricity is unusually strong. After doing a special kind of breathing, he held a five-candle bulb in his hand and lit it. In Sweden there is a woman still alive whom no one can touch; her marriage could not happen because whoever touches her receives a shock like one gets from touching an electric line.
These few have special electricity in their bodies and a slight chemical difference; hence such results. But electricity is in everyone’s body. And even on the first day, at least sixty percent should experience it—indeed, it could be a hundred percent; there is no reason it cannot. But forty percent generally do not do the experiment fully; they hang back—this is my experience—so I say sixty. But I will say to each of you: be among the sixty percent; do not be among the forty percent.
After five minutes, you will begin to feel something trembling and rising within. The body will seem to fill with a new energy. By the end of the ten minutes, you will be in an electrified state. The whole body will become a current of electricity. Naturally, there will be consequences. When strong vibrations move in the body, it will begin to tremble, sway, dance.
The second stage, also ten minutes, is to give the body complete permission to sway, to dance—to allow the body to do whatsoever it wants to do. The results are cathartic.
We have imposed we-know-not-how-many repressions on our bodies; in the mind too we have many suppressions. Whoever wants to enter meditation must first be free of these repressions. Anger came—we swallowed it. Lust arose—we pushed it down. Anxiety came—we swallowed it and went to sleep. We have hidden so much in the mind. When you wanted to weep, you did not weep; when you wanted to laugh, you did not laugh; when you wanted to scream, you did not scream; when you wanted to dance, you did not dance. All that is repressed. In both body and mind, a thousand repressions have accumulated. Unless they fall, the mind cannot become so light that it can take flight.
Therefore, in the second ten minutes give total freedom and cooperation to the body. If the body wants to dance, let it dance utterly. If it wants to scream, let it scream. If it wants to weep, let it weep. Let it do whatever it wants to do—but only with your own body, not with another’s body—give your own body complete freedom and cooperation.
About sixty percent will suddenly find much happening within. To those friends who feel that nothing is happening inside, I will say: at least today—those to whom it happens by itself need not be concerned; for most it will happen by itself—those who feel it is not happening spontaneously, the only reason is this: your inhibitions are so strong that the middle layer is not letting you reach within. So do not worry—if it is not happening by itself, still do whatever you can for these ten minutes. If you can manage to dance, then keep dancing. There is no method, no pattern, no fixed movement. If you can manage to shout, then shout. Tomorrow you will find that the crust has broken, and a spontaneous flow has begun from within.
The results of these ten minutes are very deep. After ten minutes of dancing, screaming, swaying, laughing-crying, you will become so light as perhaps you have never been in life. The electricity awakened in the first stage will support you—in dancing, in shouting, in weeping, in laughing. And you too must cooperate, and allow whatsoever is arising within to happen totally. If your hand is shaking this much, then shake it even more—so that whatever impulses are repressed in the hand are expelled, their discharge happens. In four days with this experiment, as much can happen as would not happen in four years with ordinary methods.
After the second stage, your body will feel weightless—as if utterly light, as if it could fly. Two things will be felt. After the first stage, the body will feel full of power. After the second stage, the power will feel total, yet the body will feel weightless and light. After the second stage, you will clearly begin to feel that there is no body—there is only energy, only shakti, only power.
In this second stage, if the experiment completes in anyone, a wonder will be experienced: for the first time it will begin to be known that the body is separate and I am separate. If you have released your body totally, your identity will break—this can happen even today. The only question is whether you cooperate totally. Do not hold back. Do not think, “If I dance, what will people say? If I scream, what will people say?” Whatever is happening within—let it happen, utterly unconcerned with anyone. Then within ten minutes, what you have read and heard—that the body and I are separate—will become part of your experience. The dancing body will appear separate to you; you will be the witness that the body is dancing. You will be the witness that the body is weeping. You will see very clearly that someone else is laughing and I am watching. This recognition is the indispensable doorway to the depths of meditation. Without it, no one can enter meditation.
In the third stage—when in the second stage this event has happened, that the body is separate and I am separate—then a natural question will arise in the mind: “Then who am I?” For until now I have taken myself to be the body, to be the breath. Now body and breath are clearly seen as separate—then who am I? In this third stage, for ten minutes we will ask within: “Who am I?”
First ten minutes: intense breathing. Second ten minutes: intense cooperation with the body. And in the third stage: the intense shower of “Who am I?” Ask inside with such force that from the toes to the head only one question resounds: Who am I? The body’s electricity will be awakened; the waves of electricity will seize your question, and in the entire vibration of the body the question will echo—Who am I? Ask with such strength that between two “Who am I?” there is no gap. Ask with such power that there remains no time, no energy, no convenience to think of anything else—let these ten minutes be only one question. After five minutes of asking swiftly within, the voices of many friends will begin to come out; do not be frightened by that. Begin “Who am I?” within; if it starts coming out as a shout, let it come out—do not worry about it.
In thirty minutes your body will be tired, your prana-shakti will be tired, your mental energy will be tired. These three stages will tire all three. And in thirty minutes you must reach such a climax of tension—so intense—that after thirty minutes you drop as if dead.
After thirty minutes I will say to you, “Stop!” Some will be sitting, some will have fallen, some will be standing. However you are, remain exactly so. At that time, do nothing on your own. If you have fallen, remain fallen; if sitting, remain seated; if standing, remain standing. Do not, if standing, decide to sit on your own. In whatever state you are then, remain so. And for ten minutes, only wait—see what happens.
In those ten minutes, many experiences will happen. Peace will be experienced by all, easily. More than half will taste bliss as well. Even more will experience light. Some will experience colors. Some will experience fragrance. A very few, one or two, will experience taste. And still, different experiences will happen to each.
As these streams of experience begin to flow within, keep watching with the witness-attitude. These experiences are not spiritual; they are mental. But they are indicators that the movement toward the spiritual has begun. These too will disappear; for some, within these four days they will disappear—only shunya will remain. And in that shunya—whether we call it the formless Paramatman, Brahman, Atman—by whatever word—the taste of it, its rasa, will begin to enter your experience.
All this will happen easily if you complete the three stages—honestly. Because it is a matter of your own knowing; it has nothing to do with anyone else. You can remain standing. If the legs want to dance and you refuse, the legs will remain still. If the life-energy wants to shout and you refuse, it will not shout; it will be held. If you ask “Who am I?” slowly, like a corpse, the necessary momentum will not arise.
If water is to become steam, it must be heated to one hundred degrees—then it becomes steam. At ninety-eight it will not; at ninety-nine it will not. You cannot say to existence, “Why so much fuss for one degree? It’s already ninety-nine—make it steam; it’s only one degree!” But it makes no difference. Only at one hundred degrees does water turn into steam. If you stop even at ninety-nine, you will remain hot water—and then cool down again.
Within each there is exactly such a point of climax from which the upward rise of life begins, from which revolution begins, from which mutation begins, where the person dissolves and Paramatman begins. If you do not reach your hundred degrees, you will fall back, and the effort will be in vain; it will have no meaning.
Therefore I will say: honestly complete what I ask. No prior faith is needed. Do it as a hypothetical experiment—let us see what can happen. Do it for four days and see.
Whoever does it honestly will come to faith. Faith is not needed beforehand. You need not believe that what I say will happen. Just grant this much: someone is saying something—let us do it and see. If it happens, good; if it does not, we will know it is wrong.
And if you do it, it is as certain to happen as water boils at one hundred degrees. No one’s belief is required; belief does not boil water. Whether you are a believer or an atheist—it makes no difference. Heat the water; at one hundred degrees it will become steam.
The meditation I am speaking of is absolutely scientific. You may be an atheist, you may not accept God, Atman, religion—no harm. No need to accept. Do the experiment, and you will find that through the experience of the experiment, something begins to change within you. Shraddha—trust—is the fruit of meditation; it is not the preliminary condition. It is the last result, not the first step.
You have understood. Let me say two or three more things, then we will stand for the experiment. Those who are ill or weak may do the experiment sitting; everyone else will do it standing. Standing, results come quickly; sitting, they come more slowly. Stand at a distance from one another; there is plenty of space—spread out—so that when you begin to dance you do not bump into anyone. And if someone does bump into you, do not be bothered by it.
Two more things—before we begin. I will ask you to close your eyes, and keep them closed for the full forty minutes. This will be your first resolution. Fulfill it honestly. If you open your eyes even once, there will be harm. The energy that will gather within you will be wasted. Most of our inner energy is scattered through the eyes. So keep the eyes utterly closed for forty minutes. Until I say, you are not to open your eyes. There will be shouting, weeping, dancing around you—and within you—let go of all concern.
There will be a desire to see. The child within us does not die so quickly. The body changes quickly; the inner child does not. He will want to know what the person next to him is doing.
For that I have arranged a film. It has been made today. Tonight we will show you the film; you can watch fully what everyone is doing—your curiosity will be satisfied. So do not bother now about who is doing what, or what is happening to whom. Watch the film tonight.
No one will remain here merely to watch. If someone only wants to watch, they must go outside the campus, or far behind—but not here. Not a single person who is not meditating will remain here. His presence will obstruct all our friends. He must move away. Not only is electricity generated within you, the whole atmosphere becomes charged. In that, even one idle person standing around causes harm and breaks the chain. There is no need for him here. So, kindly—whoever does not want to do it, do not remain here; quietly leave.
As for these chairs—when you rise, move them back; otherwise someone may fall on them and be hurt.
Osho's Commentary
Last year, at a world conference of biologists, the president of the British Biological Association, Badakun, made a statement. From that statement I want to begin today’s small sharing. He said something very significant—astonishing, coming from a scientist’s mouth. He said: the evolution of human life is not the addition of anything new—nothing new added—but the falling away of certain ancient obstacles—old hindrances gone. In the evolution of man nothing has been added; whatever is hidden within man… whenever anything is revealed, only the barriers in between are removed. If you compare animals and human beings, there is not something more in man than in the animal—rather, there is something less. Those hindrances that still obstruct the animal have fallen from man; and what was concealed in the animal has become manifest in man.
Between a seed and a flower, the flower does not have more than the seed—it has less. It sounds very upside down, yet it is the truth. The obstacles in the seed have fallen, and the flower has appeared. In plants there is more than in animals—more hindrances, more obstructions. If these fall, plants become animals. If the animal’s hindrances fall, the animal becomes man. If man’s hindrances fall, what remains we call Paramatman. If all obstacles drop and what is hidden is wholly revealed, that power—whatever name we choose to give it—Atman, Paramatman, or even no name at all—will do. Even in man, obstacles still exist; therefore the evolution of man is still possible.
Badakun has nothing to do with spirituality, yet his statement is exactly what the Buddha declared twenty-five centuries ago when the event of his enlightenment occurred.
The day Buddha awakened, people asked him, “What have you gained?” Buddha said, “I have gained nothing; what was already within me has become manifest. I have received nothing; what was already mine has become known. I have attained nothing; I have simply awakened to what I already am, to which I had been asleep.” Buddha even said, “Let me also tell you that there was indeed something I had which I have lost. Ignorance—I have lost it; unknowing—I have lost it. And whatever I have received, I can say now, was already with me—I was simply unfamiliar with it.”
There is no difference between Badakun’s statement and Buddha’s—except that Badakun speaks regarding beings behind man, and Buddha speaks regarding those who have gone beyond man.
The process of meditation does not take you to a new world; it simply acquaints you with the very world in which you have been, birth after birth. Meditation adds nothing to you; it only cuts away what is false, drops it, brings it to an end.
Someone once said to a sculptor, “You have made this statue so beautiful!” The sculptor replied, “I did not make it. I used to pass this way, and the statue hidden in the stone called out to me. I merely removed the useless stone stuck around it, and the statue appeared. I added nothing; I subtracted. I chiseled away the waste around it, and what was hidden came forth.”
What is hidden within man appears when the wrong accretions are cut away. Paramatman is not something different from man; it is the name of the energy concealed within man. But as we are, much clay is mixed in the gold. If a little of the clay can be sifted out, the gold can shine forth.
So, the first thing I would tell you regarding meditation is this: in the last moments of your development in meditation, whatever you will be then, you already are this very moment. Meditation will not add anything to you—it will only subtract. It will cut away what is wrong in you, separate what is useless. And what is meaningful will gain the full opportunity to be revealed. Nothing—nothing new added; only old hindrances will fall.
To drop these hindrances, the experiments we shall do here for four days are very vital, very full of prana. And for those who are willing to do them honestly, sincerely, the results are certain.
It is good to understand the word honesty a little. By honesty I mean: those who truly do it—the result is assured. Only those who do not do will not have results; for them, expectation would be misplaced. I ask for no other qualification. No other credential is needed. Only one qualification: that whatever I ask you to do in these four days, you do. And what I am going to ask is not difficult—it is very simple; even a small child can do it. So do not think it is so hard that you will fail. No—if there is difficulty, it can only be in being dishonest with yourself. In the method itself there is no difficulty. Even a small child who can understand the language can do it. Only your cooperation is needed—that you do.
Let me explain the experiment: a simple experiment. All important things are simple; only the unimportant are difficult and complex. All truths are simple; only untruths are intricate and complex.
Yet we are strange people! If something appears difficult and complex, we think it must be a very profound truth, something very serious.
It is not so. The truths of life are as simple as two plus two is four. Only untruths are difficult. Untruth must be difficult, because if it were simple it would be caught at once as untruth. Untruth must move in many tricks and circles so that it is not recognized. Truth stands straight and naked. As it is, it is enough. It needs no hiding, no veiling, no change of faces.
Therefore, as a rule, the more difficult the sayings in the world, the more untrue they are. And the more true the sayings, the more simple and direct they are—whether in the Upanishads, the Gita, the Quran, the Bible, or in the words of Buddha and Mahavira—they are as straight as two and two make four.
This experiment I tell you is extremely simple. Its results are astonishing. There are four stages, each of ten minutes. In the first three stages you will do something; in the fourth you will do nothing—only wait, so that the power of the Divine can do whatever it will. In the first stage, ten minutes of intense breathing. For ten minutes breathe as a blacksmith’s bellows moves—as fast as possible, with as much force as you can send the stroke of breath inside. Use the breath as a hammering.
There are consequences. First: the stronger the stroke of breath inside, the more the dormant prana-energy in our body is awakened. Perhaps you do not know that in our bodies—in all forms of life—the energy hidden is of the nature of electricity. Even the force by which our body is functioning is a form of electricity—let us call it organic electricity, living electricity. The more oxygen this electricity receives, the more intensely it awakens. Hence, without oxygen, a man dies. And even a dying man can be kept alive for a while if oxygen is supplied.
In these ten minutes, breathe with such force that all the stale air within goes out and fresh air rushes in. Change the proportion of oxygen inside your body—it will change by itself through this. And hammer so strongly that the power asleep in the body starts to rise.
Within five minutes, in about sixty percent of people, vibrations will begin inside the body. You will very clearly feel that something is starting to vibrate and rise. Yoga has called it Kundalini. If we ask science, it would call it body electricity. It would say: it is the body’s electricity.
In America there is a man in whose body this electricity is unusually strong. After doing a special kind of breathing, he held a five-candle bulb in his hand and lit it. In Sweden there is a woman still alive whom no one can touch; her marriage could not happen because whoever touches her receives a shock like one gets from touching an electric line.
These few have special electricity in their bodies and a slight chemical difference; hence such results. But electricity is in everyone’s body. And even on the first day, at least sixty percent should experience it—indeed, it could be a hundred percent; there is no reason it cannot. But forty percent generally do not do the experiment fully; they hang back—this is my experience—so I say sixty. But I will say to each of you: be among the sixty percent; do not be among the forty percent.
After five minutes, you will begin to feel something trembling and rising within. The body will seem to fill with a new energy. By the end of the ten minutes, you will be in an electrified state. The whole body will become a current of electricity. Naturally, there will be consequences. When strong vibrations move in the body, it will begin to tremble, sway, dance.
The second stage, also ten minutes, is to give the body complete permission to sway, to dance—to allow the body to do whatsoever it wants to do. The results are cathartic.
We have imposed we-know-not-how-many repressions on our bodies; in the mind too we have many suppressions. Whoever wants to enter meditation must first be free of these repressions. Anger came—we swallowed it. Lust arose—we pushed it down. Anxiety came—we swallowed it and went to sleep. We have hidden so much in the mind. When you wanted to weep, you did not weep; when you wanted to laugh, you did not laugh; when you wanted to scream, you did not scream; when you wanted to dance, you did not dance. All that is repressed. In both body and mind, a thousand repressions have accumulated. Unless they fall, the mind cannot become so light that it can take flight.
Therefore, in the second ten minutes give total freedom and cooperation to the body. If the body wants to dance, let it dance utterly. If it wants to scream, let it scream. If it wants to weep, let it weep. Let it do whatever it wants to do—but only with your own body, not with another’s body—give your own body complete freedom and cooperation.
About sixty percent will suddenly find much happening within. To those friends who feel that nothing is happening inside, I will say: at least today—those to whom it happens by itself need not be concerned; for most it will happen by itself—those who feel it is not happening spontaneously, the only reason is this: your inhibitions are so strong that the middle layer is not letting you reach within. So do not worry—if it is not happening by itself, still do whatever you can for these ten minutes. If you can manage to dance, then keep dancing. There is no method, no pattern, no fixed movement. If you can manage to shout, then shout. Tomorrow you will find that the crust has broken, and a spontaneous flow has begun from within.
The results of these ten minutes are very deep. After ten minutes of dancing, screaming, swaying, laughing-crying, you will become so light as perhaps you have never been in life. The electricity awakened in the first stage will support you—in dancing, in shouting, in weeping, in laughing. And you too must cooperate, and allow whatsoever is arising within to happen totally. If your hand is shaking this much, then shake it even more—so that whatever impulses are repressed in the hand are expelled, their discharge happens. In four days with this experiment, as much can happen as would not happen in four years with ordinary methods.
After the second stage, your body will feel weightless—as if utterly light, as if it could fly. Two things will be felt. After the first stage, the body will feel full of power. After the second stage, the power will feel total, yet the body will feel weightless and light. After the second stage, you will clearly begin to feel that there is no body—there is only energy, only shakti, only power.
In this second stage, if the experiment completes in anyone, a wonder will be experienced: for the first time it will begin to be known that the body is separate and I am separate. If you have released your body totally, your identity will break—this can happen even today. The only question is whether you cooperate totally. Do not hold back. Do not think, “If I dance, what will people say? If I scream, what will people say?” Whatever is happening within—let it happen, utterly unconcerned with anyone. Then within ten minutes, what you have read and heard—that the body and I are separate—will become part of your experience. The dancing body will appear separate to you; you will be the witness that the body is dancing. You will be the witness that the body is weeping. You will see very clearly that someone else is laughing and I am watching. This recognition is the indispensable doorway to the depths of meditation. Without it, no one can enter meditation.
In the third stage—when in the second stage this event has happened, that the body is separate and I am separate—then a natural question will arise in the mind: “Then who am I?” For until now I have taken myself to be the body, to be the breath. Now body and breath are clearly seen as separate—then who am I? In this third stage, for ten minutes we will ask within: “Who am I?”
First ten minutes: intense breathing. Second ten minutes: intense cooperation with the body. And in the third stage: the intense shower of “Who am I?” Ask inside with such force that from the toes to the head only one question resounds: Who am I? The body’s electricity will be awakened; the waves of electricity will seize your question, and in the entire vibration of the body the question will echo—Who am I? Ask with such strength that between two “Who am I?” there is no gap. Ask with such power that there remains no time, no energy, no convenience to think of anything else—let these ten minutes be only one question. After five minutes of asking swiftly within, the voices of many friends will begin to come out; do not be frightened by that. Begin “Who am I?” within; if it starts coming out as a shout, let it come out—do not worry about it.
In thirty minutes your body will be tired, your prana-shakti will be tired, your mental energy will be tired. These three stages will tire all three. And in thirty minutes you must reach such a climax of tension—so intense—that after thirty minutes you drop as if dead.
After thirty minutes I will say to you, “Stop!” Some will be sitting, some will have fallen, some will be standing. However you are, remain exactly so. At that time, do nothing on your own. If you have fallen, remain fallen; if sitting, remain seated; if standing, remain standing. Do not, if standing, decide to sit on your own. In whatever state you are then, remain so. And for ten minutes, only wait—see what happens.
In those ten minutes, many experiences will happen. Peace will be experienced by all, easily. More than half will taste bliss as well. Even more will experience light. Some will experience colors. Some will experience fragrance. A very few, one or two, will experience taste. And still, different experiences will happen to each.
As these streams of experience begin to flow within, keep watching with the witness-attitude. These experiences are not spiritual; they are mental. But they are indicators that the movement toward the spiritual has begun. These too will disappear; for some, within these four days they will disappear—only shunya will remain. And in that shunya—whether we call it the formless Paramatman, Brahman, Atman—by whatever word—the taste of it, its rasa, will begin to enter your experience.
All this will happen easily if you complete the three stages—honestly. Because it is a matter of your own knowing; it has nothing to do with anyone else. You can remain standing. If the legs want to dance and you refuse, the legs will remain still. If the life-energy wants to shout and you refuse, it will not shout; it will be held. If you ask “Who am I?” slowly, like a corpse, the necessary momentum will not arise.
If water is to become steam, it must be heated to one hundred degrees—then it becomes steam. At ninety-eight it will not; at ninety-nine it will not. You cannot say to existence, “Why so much fuss for one degree? It’s already ninety-nine—make it steam; it’s only one degree!” But it makes no difference. Only at one hundred degrees does water turn into steam. If you stop even at ninety-nine, you will remain hot water—and then cool down again.
Within each there is exactly such a point of climax from which the upward rise of life begins, from which revolution begins, from which mutation begins, where the person dissolves and Paramatman begins. If you do not reach your hundred degrees, you will fall back, and the effort will be in vain; it will have no meaning.
Therefore I will say: honestly complete what I ask. No prior faith is needed. Do it as a hypothetical experiment—let us see what can happen. Do it for four days and see.
Whoever does it honestly will come to faith. Faith is not needed beforehand. You need not believe that what I say will happen. Just grant this much: someone is saying something—let us do it and see. If it happens, good; if it does not, we will know it is wrong.
And if you do it, it is as certain to happen as water boils at one hundred degrees. No one’s belief is required; belief does not boil water. Whether you are a believer or an atheist—it makes no difference. Heat the water; at one hundred degrees it will become steam.
The meditation I am speaking of is absolutely scientific. You may be an atheist, you may not accept God, Atman, religion—no harm. No need to accept. Do the experiment, and you will find that through the experience of the experiment, something begins to change within you. Shraddha—trust—is the fruit of meditation; it is not the preliminary condition. It is the last result, not the first step.
You have understood. Let me say two or three more things, then we will stand for the experiment. Those who are ill or weak may do the experiment sitting; everyone else will do it standing. Standing, results come quickly; sitting, they come more slowly. Stand at a distance from one another; there is plenty of space—spread out—so that when you begin to dance you do not bump into anyone. And if someone does bump into you, do not be bothered by it.
Two more things—before we begin. I will ask you to close your eyes, and keep them closed for the full forty minutes. This will be your first resolution. Fulfill it honestly. If you open your eyes even once, there will be harm. The energy that will gather within you will be wasted. Most of our inner energy is scattered through the eyes. So keep the eyes utterly closed for forty minutes. Until I say, you are not to open your eyes. There will be shouting, weeping, dancing around you—and within you—let go of all concern.
There will be a desire to see. The child within us does not die so quickly. The body changes quickly; the inner child does not. He will want to know what the person next to him is doing.
For that I have arranged a film. It has been made today. Tonight we will show you the film; you can watch fully what everyone is doing—your curiosity will be satisfied. So do not bother now about who is doing what, or what is happening to whom. Watch the film tonight.
No one will remain here merely to watch. If someone only wants to watch, they must go outside the campus, or far behind—but not here. Not a single person who is not meditating will remain here. His presence will obstruct all our friends. He must move away. Not only is electricity generated within you, the whole atmosphere becomes charged. In that, even one idle person standing around causes harm and breaks the chain. There is no need for him here. So, kindly—whoever does not want to do it, do not remain here; quietly leave.
As for these chairs—when you rise, move them back; otherwise someone may fall on them and be hurt.