on using Mantras, Chanting
Many chanters of mantras fall asleep — hence the use of Transcendental Meditation for people who suffer from sleeplessness, hence its appeal in America. Insomnia has become a normal thing. The more insomnia is there, the more will be the appeal of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, because people need some tranquilizers. A mantra is a prefect tranquilizer, but that is not its real use. There is nothing wrong in it — if it gives you good sleep, good, but that is not its real use.It is as if you are using an airplane like a bullock-cart. You can use it. You can put the airplane behind bullocks, and use it as a bullock-cart — nothing wrong in it, it will serve a little purpose, but that is not its use. You could soar very high with it.A mantra has to be used with full awareness that this is to create boredom, and you are to remember not to fall asleep. Otherwise, you miss. Don’t fall asleep. Go on repeating the mantra and don’t allow yourself to fall into sleep. So it is better if you repeat the mantra standing, or repeat it walking, so that you don’t fall asleep.
- Osho, "Ancient Music in the Pines, #7"
If you can focus the mind through a lens, the mantra is a lens, and you go on repeating Ram, Ram, Ram, or Om, Om, Om, or anything, just one word -- if you go repeating and repeating and repeating it, and the mind's whole energy is centered in that one word -- it becomes a lens. Now all the rays are passing through that lens. Narrowed to one point it becomes powerful, you can do miracles. Just by thinking you can do miracles.
But remember, those miracles are not spiritual.Power is never spiritual. Powerlessness, helplessness, to be nothing, is spiritual;.power is never spiritual. This is the difference between magic and religion; magic is after power, religion is after nothingness.
A mantra is a part of magic not of religion at all, but everything is a big mess, mixed up. People who are doing miracles are magicians, not spiritual in any way. They are even anti-spiritual because they are spreading magic in the name of religion, which is very dangerous.
Through a mantra the mind is narrowed; it is more narrowed, more powerful, and then anything can be done. There is only one thing you will miss -- you will miss yourself. All miracles will be possible, the ultimate miracle you will miss. You will miss yourself because through narrowing down you can achieve an object. The more the mind is narrowed, the more it becomes fixed to an object; it becomes objective. You are hidden behind and the object is outside.
So if you are a man of mantras you can say to this tree, "Die," and the tree will die; you can say to a man, "Be healthy," and the disease will disappear, or, "Be unhealthy," and the disease will enter -- many things you can do. You can become somebody, and people will recognize you as a man of power but never a man of God.
- Osho, “A Bird on the Wing, #6”
When thinking disappears, these are the two alternatives left: either you move into satori -- a fully alert, no-thought state; or a fully asleep, no-thought state -- sleep. And sleep is more natural, because you have practised it long. If you live sixty years, twenty years you have been asleep. It is the greatest activity that you have been doing; one third of your life is spent in sleep. In no other exercise do you spend so much time and so much energy.
So if you are doing TM-type meditations, repeating a mantra, by the time the mantra helps you to become non-thinking, immediately sleep will possess you. Hence, I call TM a sort of tranquillizer. And that is the appeal in America for Maharishi and his method, because America is the only country which is suffering from sleeplessness so tremendously. Insomnia has become almost common.
- Osho, “A Sudden Clash of Thunder, #9”
So what to do? Repeating a mantra, doing transcendental meditation, is not going to help. Transcendental meditation has become very important in America because of the objective approach, because of the scientific mind. Now it is the only meditation on which scientific work can be done. It is exactly concentration and not meditation, so it is comprehensible for the scientific mind. In the universities, in the science laboratories, in psychological research work, much is being done about TM, because it is not meditation. It is concentration, a method of concentration; it falls under the same category as scientific concentration; there is a link between the two. But it has nothing to do with meditation. Meditation is so vast, so tremendously infinite, that no scientific research is possible. Only compassion will show whether the man has achieved or not. Alpha waves won't be of much help because they are still of the mind and meditation is not of the mind -- it is something beyond.
So, let me tell you a few basic things. One, meditation is not concentration but relaxation -- one simply relaxes into oneself. The more you relax, the more you feel yourself open, vulnerable, the more you are less rigid, you are more flexible -- and suddenly existence starts penetrating you. You are no longer like a rock, you have openings. Relaxation means allowing yourself to fall into a state where you are not doing anything, because if you are doing something, tension will continue. It is a state of non-doing. You simply relax and you enjoy the feeling of relaxation. Relax into yourself, just close your eyes, and listen to all that is happening all around. No need to feel anything as distraction. The moment you feel it is a distraction, you are denying God. This moment God has come to you as a bird. Don't deny. He has knocked at your door as a bird. The next moment he has come as a dog -- barking, or as a child crying and weeping, or as a madman laughing. Don't deny; don't reject; accept -- because if you deny you will become tense. All denials create tension. Accept. If you want to relax, acceptance is the way. Accept whatsoever is happening all around; let it become an organic whole. It is -- you may know it or you may not know it. Everything is inter-related. These birds, these trees, this sky, this sun, this earth, you, me -- all are related. It is an organic unity. If the sun disappears, the trees will disappear; if the trees disappear, the birds will disappear; if the birds and trees disappear, you cannot be here, you will disappear. It is an ecology. Everything is deeply related with each other.
So don't deny anything, because the moment you deny, you are denying something in you. If you deny these singing birds then something in you is denied.
- Osho, “Ancient Music in the Pines, #3“