ACTIVE MEDITATIONS

 

 "Modern man is a very new phenomenon. No traditional method can be used exactly as it exists, because modern man never existed before. So in a way, all traditional methods have become irrelevant.

 For example, the body has changed so much. It is not as natural now as it was in the days when Patanjali [1] developed his system of yoga. It is absolutely different. It is so drugged that no traditional method can be helpful.

 In the past, medicine was not allowed to hatha yogis, absolutely not allowed, because chemical changes will not only make the methods difficult, but harmful. But the whole atmosphere is artificial now: the air, the water, society, living conditions. Nothing is natural. You are born in artificiality; you develop in it. So traditional methods will prove harmful today. They will have to be changed according to the modern situation.

 Another thing: the quality of the mind has basically changed. In Patanjali's days, the center of the human personality was not the brain; it was the heart. And before that, it was not even the heart. It was still lower, near the navel. Hatha yoga developed methods which were useful, meaningful, to the person whose center of personality was the navel. Then the center became the heart. Only then could bhakti yoga be used. Bhakti yoga developed in the middle ages because that is when the center of personality changed from the navel to the heart.

 A method has to change according to the person to whom it is applied. Now, not even bhakti yoga is relevant. The center has gone even further from the navel. Now, the center is the brain. That is why teachings like those of Krishnamurti [2] have appeal. No method is needed, no technique is needed — only understanding. But if it is just a verbal understanding, just intellectual, nothing changes, nothing is transformed. It again becomes an accumulation of knowledge.

 I use chaotic methods rather than systematic ones because a chaotic method is very helpful in pushing the center down from the brain. The center cannot be pushed down through any systematic method because systemization is brain work. Through a systematic method, the brain will be strengthened; more energy will be added to it.

 Through chaotic methods, the brain is nullified. It has nothing to do. The method is so chaotic that the center is automatically pushed from the brain to the heart. If you do my method of Dynamic Meditation vigorously, unsystematically, chaotically, your center moves to the heart. Then there is a catharsis. A catharsis is needed because your heart is so suppressed, due to your brain. Your brain has taken over so much of your being that it dominates you. There is no place for the heart, so the longings of the heart are suppressed. You have never laughed heartily, never lived heartily, never done anything heartily. The brain always comes in to systematize, to make things mathematical, and the heart is suppressed.

 So firstly, a chaotic method is needed to push the center of consciousness from the brain toward the heart. Then catharsis is needed to unburden the heart, to throw off suppressions, to make the heart open. If the heart becomes light and unburdened, then the center of consciousness is pushed still lower; it comes to the navel. The navel is the source of vitality, the seed source from which everything else comes: the body and the mind and everything.

 I use this chaotic method very considerately. Systematic methodology will not help now, because the brain will use it as its own instrument. Nor can just the chanting of bhajans help now, because the heart is so burdened that it cannot flower into real chanting. Chanting can only be an escape for it; prayer can only be an escape. The heart cannot flower into prayer because it is so overburdened with suppressions. I have not seen a single person who can go deep into authentic prayer. Prayer is impossible because love itself has become impossible.

 Consciousness must be pushed down to the source, to the roots. Only then is there the possibility of transformation. So I use chaotic methods to push the consciousness downward from the brain.

 Whenever you are in chaos, the brain stops working. For example, if you are driving a car and suddenly someone runs in front of you, you react so suddenly that it cannot be the work of the brain. The brain takes time. It thinks about what to do and what not to do. So whenever there is a possibility of an accident and you push the brake, you feel a sensation near your navel, as if it were your stomach that is reacting. Your consciousness is pushed down to the navel because of the accident. If the accident could be calculated beforehand, the brain would be able to deal with it; but when you are in an accident, something unknown happens. Then you notice that your consciousness has moved to the navel.

 If you ask a Zen monk, "From where do you think?" he puts his hands on his stomach. When Westerners came into contact with Japanese monks for the first time, they could not understand.

 "What nonsense! How can you think from your stomach?" But the Zen reply is meaningful.

 Consciousness can use any center of the body, and the center that is nearest to the original source is the navel. The brain is furthest away from the original source, so if life energy is moving outward, the center of consciousness will become the brain. And if life energy is moving inward, ultimately the navel will become the center.

 Chaotic methods are needed to push the consciousness to its roots, because only from the roots is transformation possible. Otherwise you will go on verbalizing and there will be no transformation.

 It is not enough just to know what is right. You have to transform the roots; otherwise you will not change.

 When a person knows the right thing and cannot do anything about it, he becomes doubly tense.

 He understands, but he cannot do anything. Understanding is meaningful only when it comes from the navel, from the roots. If you understand from the brain, it is not transforming.

 The ultimate cannot be known through the brain, because when you are functioning through the brain you are in conflict with the roots from which you have come. Your whole problem is that you have moved away from the navel. You have come from the navel and you will die through it. One has to come back to the roots. But coming back is difficult, arduous.

 Kundalini yoga is concerned with life energy and its inward flow. It is concerned with techniques to bring the body and mind to a point where transcendence is possible. Then, everything is changed.

 The body is different; the mind is different; the living is different. It is just life.

 A bullock cart is useful, but it is no longer needed. Now you are driving a car, so you cannot use the technique that was used with the bullock cart. It was useful with the bullock cart, but it is irrelevant with the car.

 Traditional methods have an appeal because they are so ancient and so many persons have achieved through them in the past. They may have become irrelevant to us, but they were not irrelevant to Buddha, Mahavira, Patanjali or Krishna. They were meaningful, helpful. The old methods may be meaningless now, but because Buddha achieved through them they have an appeal. The traditionalist feels: "If Buddha achieved through these methods, why can't I?" But we are in an altogether different situation now. The whole atmosphere, the whole thought-sphere, has changed. Every method is organic to a particular situation, to a particular mind, to a particular man. [...]

 The fact that the old methods don't work doesn't mean that no method is useful. It only means that the methods themselves must change. [...]

 As I see the situation, modern man has changed so much that he needs new methods, new techniques. Chaotic methods will help the modern mind because the modern mind is, itself, chaotic.

 This chaos, this rebelliousness in modern man is, in fact, a rebellion of other things: of the body against the mind and against its suppressions. If we talk about it in yogic terms we can say that it is the rebellion of the heart center and the navel center against the brain.

 These centers are against the brain because the brain has monopolized the whole territory of the human soul. This cannot be tolerated any further. That is why universities have become centers of rebellion. It is not accidental. If the whole society is thought of as an organic body, then the university is the head, the brain.

 Because of the rebelliousness of the modern mind, it is bound to be lenient toward loose and chaotic methods. Dynamic Meditation will help to move the center of consciousness away from the brain.

 Then the person using it will never be rebellious, because the cause of rebellion becomes fulfilled.

 He will be at ease.

 So to me, meditation is not only a salvation for the individual, a transformation for the individual; it can also provide the groundwork for the transformation of the whole society, of the human being as such. Man will either have to commit suicide, or he will have to transform his energy."

 

-OSHO, The Psychology of the Esoteric , Chapter #4