Vigyan Bhairav Tantra - Meditation Technique 20

 

 

IN A MOVING VEHICLE, BY RHYTHMICALLY SWAYING, EXPERIENCE. OR IN A STILL VEHICLE, BY LETTING YOURSELF SWING IN SLOWING INVISIBLE CIRCLES.

 

 

It is the same in a different way. IN A MOVING VEHICLE... You are traveling in a train or in a bullock cart -- when this technique was developed there was only the bullock cart. You are moving in a bullock cart on an Indian road -- even today the road is the same. But when you are moving, your whole body is moving. Then it is useless.

 

IN A MOVING VEHICLE, BY RHYTHMICALLY SWAYING...

 

Sway rhythmically. Try to understand; this is very minute. Whenever you are in a bullock cart or in any vehicle, you are resisting. The bullock cart sways to the left, but you resist it. You sway to the right in order to balance; otherwise you will fall down. So you are constantly resisting. Sitting in a bullock cart, you are fighting its movements. It moves to this side, and you have to move to that.

 

That is why when sitting in a train you become tired. You have not been doing anything. Why do you become so tired? You have been doing much unknowingly. You were fighting the train continuously; there was resistance. Do not resist -- this is the first thing. If you want to do this technique, do not resist. Rather, move with the movements, sway with the movements. Become part of the bullock cart, do not resist it. Whatsoever the bullock cart is doing on the road, become part of it. That is why children are never tired of journeying.

 

Poonam, a disciple, has just come from London with her two children, and she was afraid that they may get ill, that they may get tired because of such a long journey. She became tired, and they came laughing. She became completely tired when she came here. The moment she entered my room she was dead tired, and the two children started playing right then and there. An eighteen-hour-long journey from London to Bombay and they were not a bit tired. Why? Because they do not know how to resist yet.

 

So a drunkard can sit in a bullock cart for the whole night, and in the morning he will be as fresh as ever, but you will not be. It is because a drunkard cannot resist. He moves with the cart; there is no fight. The fighting is not there, he is one. IN A MOVING VEHICLE, BY RHYTHMICALLY SWAYING... So do one thing: do not resist. And the second thing, create a rhythm. Create a rhythm in your movements. Make it a beautiful harmony. Forget about the road; do not curse the road and the government -- forget them. Do not curse the bullock and the bullock cart, or the driver -- forget them. Close your eyes, do not resist. Move rhythmically and create a music in your movement. Make it as if it is a dance. IN A MOVING VEHICLE, BY RHYTHMICALLY SWAYING, EXPERIENCE. The sutra says the experience will come to you.

 

OR IN A STILL VEHICLE...

 

Do not ask where to get a bullock cart; do not deceive yourself, because the sutra says, OR IN A STILL VEHICLE, BY LETTING YOURSELF SWING IN SLOWING INVISIBLE CIRCLES.

 

Just sitting here, swing in a circle. First take a big circle, then go on slowing it... slowing, slowing, making it smaller and smaller and smaller, until your body is not visibly moving, but inside you feel a subtle movement.

 

Start with a bigger circle, with closed eyes. Otherwise, when the body will stop you will stop. With closed eyes make big circles; just sitting, swing in a circle. Go on swinging, making the circle smaller and smaller and smaller. Visibly you will stop; no one will be able to detect that you are still moving. But inside you will feel a subtle movement. Now the body is not moving, only the mind. Go on making it slower and slower, and experience. That will become a centering. In a vehicle, in a moving vehicle, a non-resisting rhythmical movement will create a centering within you.

 

Gurdjieff created many dances for such techniques. He was working on this technique. All the dances he was using in his school were, really, swaying in circles. All the dances were in circles -- just whirling but remaining aware inside, by and by making the circles smaller and smaller. A time comes when the body stops, but the mind inside goes on moving, moving, moving.

 

If you have been traveling in a train for twenty hours, after you have come home, after you have left the train, if you close your eyes you will feel that you are still traveling. Still you are traveling. The body has stopped, but the mind is still feeling the vehicle. So just do this technique.

 

Gurdjieff created phenomenal dances, very beautiful. In this century he worked miracles -- not miracles like Satya Sai Baba. Those are not miracles; any street magician can do them. But Gurdjieff really created miracles. He prepared a group of a hundred people for meditative dancing, and he was showing that dance to an audience in New York for the first time. A hundred dancers were on the stage whirling. Those who were in the audience, even their minds began whirling. There were a hundred white-robed dancers just whirling.

 

When he indicated with his hand, they would whirl, and the moment he would say, "Stop," there would be dead silence. That was a stop for the audience, but not for the dancers -- because the body can stop immediately, but the mind then takes the movement inside; it goes on and on. It was beautiful even to look at, because a hundred persons suddenly became dead statues. It created a sudden shock in the audience also, because a hundred movements -- beautiful movements, rhythmical movements -- suddenly stopped. You would be looking at them moving, whirling, dancing, and suddenly the dancers stopped. Then your thought would also stop.

 

Many in New York felt that it was a weird phenomenon: their thoughts stopped immediately. But for the dancers, the dance continued inside, and the inside whirling circles became smaller and smaller until they became centered.

 

One day it happened that they were coming just to the edge of the stage, dancing. It was expected, supposed, that Gurdjieff would stop them just before they danced down the stage onto the audience. A hundred dancers were just on the edge of the stage. One step more and they would all fall down into the hall. The whole hall was expecting that suddenly Gurdjieff would say stop, but he turned his back to light his cigar. He turned his back to the dancers to light his cigar, and the whole group of a hundred dancers fell down from the stage upon the floor -- on a naked stone floor.

 

The whole audience stood up. They were screaming, shouting, and they were thinking that many must have broken their bones -- it was such a crash. But not a single one was hurt; not even a single bruise was there.

 

They asked Gurdjieff what had happened. No one had been hurt, and the crash was such that it seemed impossible. The reason was only this: they were really not in their bodies at that moment. They were slowing down their inner circling. And when Gurdjieff saw that now they were completely oblivious of their bodies, he allowed them to fall down.

 

If you are completely oblivious of your body, there is no resistance. A bone is broken because of resistance. If you are falling down, you resist: you go against the pull of gravity. That going against, that resistance, is the problem -- not gravity. If you can fall down with gravity, if you can cooperate with it, then no possibility of being hurt will arise.

 

This sutra:

IN A MOVING VEHICLE, BY RHYTHMICALLY SWAYING, EXPERIENCE. OR IN A STILL VEHICLE, BY LETTING YOURSELF SWING IN SLOWING INVISIBLE CIRCLES.

 

You can do it. There is no need of a vehicle, just whirl like children do. When your mind goes crazy, and you feel that now you will fall down, do not stop -- go on! Even if you fall down, do not worry about it, close your eyes and whirl. Your mind will get whirled, and you will fall down. When your body has fallen down, inside, feel! The whirling will continue. And it will come nearer and nearer and nearer, and suddenly you will be centered.

 

Children enjoy this very much because they get a great kick. Parents never allow their children to whirl. It is not good: they should be allowed -- rather, encouraged. And if you can make them aware of inner whirling also, you can teach them meditation through their whirling. They enjoy it because they have a bodiless feeling. When they whirl, suddenly children become aware that their body is whirling but they are not. Inside they feel a centering which we cannot feel so easily, because their bodies and souls are still a bit apart; there is a gap.

 

When you come into your mother's womb, you cannot immediately get totally in the body; it takes time. When a child is born, then too he is not absolutely fixed, his soul is not absolutely fixed to the body; there are gaps. That is why there are many things which he cannot do. His body is ready to do it, but he cannot do it.

 

If you have observed, you may have noticed that newly-born children cannot see with two eyes, they always see with one eye. If you observe, then you will see that when they observe and see anything, they cannot see with two eyes. They always look with one eye -- one eye gets bigger. The pupil of one eye will become bigger, and the other pupil will remain small. The consciousness of a newborn child is not yet fixed, it is loose. By and by it will become fixed, and then they will look with two eyes.

 

They cannot yet feel their own body and others' bodies as different. It is difficult. They are not yet fixed, but fixation will come, by and by.

 

Meditation is again trying to create a gap. You have become fixed, solidly fixed in your body. That is why you feel, "I am the body." If a gap can be created, then only can you feel that you are not the body but something beyond the body. Swaying and whirling are helpful. They create the gap.

 

-Osho, "Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 1, #13"