Posted by Julia Buchebner from Plenum

SHORT DESCRIPTION

This meditation is a fast and thorough way to break old patterns in the body memory that keep one imprisoned in the past, and to experience the freedom, silence and peace that are hidden behind these prison walls.

 BACKGROUND

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE

WHY ACTIVE MEDITATIONS? (by Osho)

I use chaotic methods rather than systematic ones because a chaotic method is very helpful in pushing the center down from the brain. The Dynamic Meditation is so chaotic that the center is automatically pushed from the brain to the heart.

Then catharsis is needed to open the heart . 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.

Consciousness must be pushed down to this source, to the roots. Only then is there the possibility of transformation.

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 belly. When Westerners came into contact with Japanese monks for the first time they could not understand. "What nonsense! How can you think from your belly?

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.

Osho, The Psychology of the Esoteric, Talk #4

ORIGINAL SOURCE

OSHO Rajneesh Chandra Mohan Jain (indian spiritual teacher and philosopher 1931-1990)

• http://www.osho.com/meditate/active-meditations/dynamic-meditation

 STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE

PRE-EXERCISES

PREPARATION:
- experienced faciliator explains the meditation step by step and also demonstrates what it looks like
- after a detailed description of each stage, the facilitator gives a summary
- participants can pose their questions to the facilitator
- when there are no more questions, you can start
- the meditation itself takes 1 hour
- after the meditation people should have the possibility to stay in the room (in silence), people that want to talk should go out. There should also be enough time for having a shower afterwards.

PREPARATION (excluding materials)

The meditation lasts one hour and has five stages. Keep your eyes closed throughout, using a blindfold if necessary. It can be done alone, but can be even more powerful if it is done with others.

OSHO says "This is a meditation in which you have to be continuously alert, conscious, aware, whatsoever you do. The first step, breathing; the second step, catharsis; the third step, the mantra 'Hoo.' Remain a witness. Don’t get lost. It is easy to get lost. While you are breathing you can forget; you can become one with the breathing so much that you can forget the witness. But then you miss the point. Breathe as fast, as deep as possible, bring your total energy to it, but still remain a witness. Observe what is happening as if you are just a spectator, as if the whole thing is happening to somebody else, as if the whole thing is happening in the body and the consciousness is just centered and looking. This witnessing has to be carried in all the three steps. And when everything stops, and in the fourth step you have become completely inactive, frozen, then this alertness will come to its peak."

1 First Stage: 10 minutes

2 Second Stage: 10 minutes

3 Third Stage: 10 minutes

4 Fourth Stage: 15 minutes

5 Fifth Stage: 15 minutes

 FURTHER INFORMATION

EXAMPLES

As an alternative you could also offer other active OSHO meditations, such as the OSHO Kundalini Meditation or the OSHO Nataraj Meditation. You can check the links below!

CULTURAL VARIATIONS

If your meditation space prevents you from making noise, you can do this silent alternative: rather than throwing out the sounds, let the catharsis in the second stage take place entirely through bodily movements. In the third stage, the sound Hoo! can be hammered silently inside, and the fifth stage can become an expressive dance.

As a ritual, the Dynamic Meditation can be done every morning before breakfast throughout the whole workshop.

Anything else one should know about this method?

It is very important that the host has already done the Dynamic Meditation him/herself several times and has special expertise and experience in teaching (active) meditation methods! Only this will allow him/her to answer all questions from participants before starting and to react properly to any indispositions that might occur by participants.