Huh? Can somebody who is a little more advanced eplain this to me in any way?
ps. If this is the wrong forum I’m sorry - I didn’t know where to post it
Moderator note: Topic moved for better placement
hi escapado 
check the following…also from Osho…
http://www.deeshan.com/osho.htm
once again he says that repetition of mantra is not meditation
Well I know that meditation is none of this here but I always saw mantra meditation (or DM in that case) as a way of detaching from the things (mind) while he is clearly speaking out against it.
Does he only make a distinction between practicing meditation and meditation (witnessing) itself?
From Osho’s point of view DM shouldn’t be called Deep Meditation but Mantra Repetition and is as useful for enlightenment as TM which he declares as useless… why?
DM… create inner silence and witnessing…it is based a direct personal experience…
vedanta teachers also talk about not using any mantra and recommend only the following: BE.
this is possible only for mature souls…the majority needs more practical tools and mantras are one of them
it is like climbing a ladder…to reach the roof you should pass by all the steps…
Mantras are not that simple.
- They are not only about suppressing thoughts/reducing random thoughts/concentration/attain calm abiding i.e. techniques for Shamata.
- They are not merely techniques for attaining trance states.
These are very minor and only beginner aspects of mantric science. Mantras are all about Deity Yoga or the Vehicle of Archetypal energy. Hence the Buddhists call it Mantrayana - the vehicle of the mantra. It’s effect depends on how you use it, whether as a disjoint, isolated element, or a part of a bigger scheme such as Kashmiri Shaivism, Shrividya, Vajrayana, Siddhanta Shaiva and so on. Each of these complete systems have specific uses for mantra and their usage is much beyond attaining shamata. Here is an article by my teacher on more about mantras.
I would not pay too much attention to what Osho says about meditation and yoga. IMO he spoke on things (yes very attractive words at times, but other times he showed himself as a complete narcissist.
He spoke to attract attention to the techniques that he had invented that he insisted were specifically designed by him for modern man…
I don’t buy it sorry
Hi escapado,
Thanks for your question because I have wondered myself about meditation and hypnosis. I found this topic from the forum regarding hypnosis and meditation, and in it there is a link in it to another related topic.
http://www.aypsite.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=7959#7959
Personally, I don’t find Osho’s logic convincing. First of all, even if meditation is simply self-hypnosis, so what? How does he define what is spiritual and what isn’t? Isn’t everything spiritual? Everything we do has a spiritual effect, whether we are in a gymnasium or a church or an ashram. How is my body separate from my being anyway?
Jennifer
Thanks for your answers, they were both inspiring to me! but how do all these facts stand against what osho said?
ps a little bit off-topic: today i realized that my hands and arms feel (in a comfortable and relaxing way) numb (like they’re connected to each other / one arm) during my session because they get charged in my pranayama session and while i was practising i am i noticed that the mantra was outside of the body. to be acribic: i ‘saw’ it coming out of where i think is the third eye, went straight down to my arms and ‘split’ to the left and right arm.
we dont want this for our practise, or shall i just let it go wherever it’s going even if its outside of the body? does it naturally go where the ‘electricity’ is the ‘strongest’/‘most’?
what always felt like coming back to ‘it’ is connected with a subtle feeling in the crown but i ‘rebel’ against it bc i feel/think that it’s wrong - shouldnt coming back be more subtle than a subtle energy-motion? should i just come back to i am whatevr it does? help 
Master Nan Huai Chin which is one of the few living recognized ENLIGHTENENED masters recomand mantra meditation as one of the best methods in his book:
Tao & Longevity: Mind-Body Transformation
Here some info on him:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nan_Huai-Chin
He is also the teacher of William Bodri who has Meditationexpert.com
It is from the same place the white skeleton meditation i posted earlier comes from.(A very special meditation)
Hi escapado
With regards to what Osho said: it’s just another system he believed that worked. I haven’t experimented with it, but if you feel drawn to it then by all means try it. However, I can tell you that AYP’s DM is the most effective practice I have tried!
Just treat the sensations you experience as ‘scenery’, and gently come back to the mantra.
If you start interacting with sensations etc it only means one thing: you are not meditating!
Take care
I love ayp and I’m not gonna quit it like that I just wondered WHY Osho would say that about Mantra Meditation and if there’s some true point about it or so.
anyway thanks everybody
I agree with the above posters; it’s Osho’s narcissism. If AYP was based on self-hypnosis we wouldn’t be getting such lasting results by so many people. A lot of people don’t respond to hypnosis.
Hypnosis is getting into a gullible state, then implanting information. Deep meditation does neither of those things.
Can see where Osho is going with this…
Meditation is transcending the mediator. How can the mediator be transcended if it is being crystallized by doing(mantra repetition)?
Instead of repeating mantra, why not abide as the silence out of which the mantra appears.
But…
The vast majority of aspirants are unable to just BE or abide in pure consciousness…
Look at the mantra as a gateway. Keep repeating the mantra, in time the gap between the mantra will lengthen, in time the mantra will become less frequent.
Also, there is a certain vibration quality which facilitates self-realization.
My experience has been that the mantra is leading to silence. Identity is shifting to silence, the background is coming to the foreground. In time the mantra will become more transparent and silence will prevail and become natural. If the mantra appears wonderful, if absorbed inside oblivious to any doing, wonderful…
Keep at it… it works. It’s worked on my end and with plenty of others on this board.
There are plenty of gurus and spiritual teachers who reached supreme peace via mantra. In fact, it might be the most common means…
j
“Can see where Osho is going with this…
Meditation is transcending the mediator. How can the mediator be transcended if it is being crystallized by doing(mantra repetition)?”
Assuming you meant “meditator”, if that’s what Osho meant it isn’t right. In the writing of Carlos Castaneda the sorcerer teaches “not doing”. They are actions done by the body and mind, but they are designed specifically to not add anything to the illusion of who we are. In one lesson he has his apprentice slowly draw a circle in the dirt around the cabin, and keep going making it into a spiral.
When we do repeated actions that seem to have no meaning, the ego loses interest.
The longer you do this, and the more meaningless the actions are, the more you disconnect from the mundane world. Then add in the vibrational characteristics of a mantra - and voila!
You can experiment with this concept - try doing anything repeatedly that has absolutely no purpose or meaning and see how it makes you feel. This does not put you in a vulnerable hypnotic state at all.
Now try “doing nothing”; just sit there and don’t move and don’t think. You will find much more manifestations of the mind.
Ether,
Get where your coming from. Just a different perspective. Osho is coming from a purist(for lack of a better word) point of view. This is the way Zen and Advaita teach.
These mentioned methods, while might be the most direct, are also the steepest, and most difficult to grasp.
AYP teaches a cultivation and a systematic approach. Rare is the individual who after self-inquiry will recognize his true nature and be able to abide as that effortlessly. The mind needs to be cultivated and made fertile for the overwhelming majority before it can be impregnated with the knowledge of the Self.
Seen way too many advaita satsang goers who after years have not transformed in the least bit, in fact most seem more frustrated now than before they ever started seeking.
In doing repetition(whether mantra or drawing lines) it is a break from the constant self-referral of “me” and “my” story. In this break there can be a disassociation from the relative(me, i, self).
You break the constant stream of thought about “me” with something else mundane not relating to the story of “me”.
Hi,
I think Osho was jealous of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and the TM movement.
link: http://www.oshoteachings.com/osho-on-mantra-chanting-osho-on-using-mantras-chanting/
If you examine what Osho said here, it is clear that he respects mantras:
link: http://www.facebook.com/notes/osho-the-song-in-my-life/osho-on-ancient-sanskrit-mantras/193436670705807
Here are some more of Osho’s writings about mantra and what he is saying is that the mantra is a powerful tool…
link: http://www.osho.com/library/online-library-mantra-chant-mind-e9786752-1a7.aspx
So, the opposing views that Osho has written leads me to believe that the first post on this thread is biased, and probably directed at TM.
Funny, I found this on mantras in Gurudeva’s writings. Seems Osho wasn’t the only person with an axe to grind with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi… And, in here Gurudeva also states that mantras can produce enlightenment…
link: http://www.himalayanacademy.com/resources/books/mws/mws_ch-23.html
The above link points to a chapter in “Merging with Shiva” called “The Yoga of Incantation”, which examines the use of mantras.
If you’d like to read more about mantras, here is another link from the same source:
http://www.himalayanacademy.com/resources/books/mws/mws_cgz_canto-09.html
And, if you think about it, mantra is prayer and we all know the power of prayer…
Like I have said before, reading Osho is like eating out of a snack tray without first removing the toothpicks!
In my own discovery, whenever you think or chant a mantra, it causes prana or chi to be released from the lower tan tien (below the naval). This prana will empower whatever you focus your attention on, be it by thought, sound or intention…
TI
Dear escapado,
that topic was discussed in some other threads as well some time ago:
one is here: http://www.aypsite.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=5157&SearchTerms=osho,mantra,yogani
another one here: http://www.aypsite.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=4894&SearchTerms=osho,mantra,yogani
Yogani is participating in both. His answer in short: Osho had no experience with mantra meditation =P
Sure, dhyan is a state of happening. You are you and what happens happens.
Mantra meditation is a little bit different as it is a more dynamic version of dharana - dyhan - samadhi. That is the reason why Osho’s words are true and false at the same time =P
Osho was extremely complex
Don’t think it’s that Osho was complex but rather that the mind makes tings complex. In fact the mind insists that things be complex, hence truth remains always hidden behind the transparent shroud of its utter simplicity.
However Osho’s scope of teaching was perhaps the broadest in recorded human history.
j