Swaram writes:
Dynamic Meditation is a wonderful meditation technique which has helped thousands of people around the world. It has certainly helped me find inner calm, emotional balance and live a happier and healthier life. Here are 5 insights I have gained out of my own personal experience, which might help you avoid some pitfalls along the way.
#1 – Don’t stop till you break through
Dynamic Meditation is like a magic box hiding an immensely valuable treasure often taken for granted. It cannot reveal all its secrets in just few days, weeks or even months. It is a life-long process which opens up layers upon layers of value, as you go along the way. Each stage of this genius technique offers so much, that it takes time and commitment to discover and appreciate the full benefits. It’s very unfortunate that so many people prevent themselves from having a breakthrough simply because they don’t pursue with the practice. Yes, Dynamic Meditation is tough, but only those who dare to go deep into the technique will enjoy the reward. So keep doing Dynamic Meditation till you break through!
#2 – Dynamic Meditation is much more than just catharsis
What comes to your mind if I say “Dynamic Meditation”? My guess is: shouting, kicking, jumping, rolling on the floor, beating a pillow, going mad, etc. Dynamic Meditation is normally associated with catharsis. And catharsis is a significant part of the reason why Dynamic Meditation works so well. Osho understood that modern people are so overwhelmed that unless they unburden the heavy luggage they carry within, there is no chance to live a peaceful life, never mind to meditate. However, remember that catharsis is just one of five stages of the technique. Dynamic Meditation is a complete system that works as a seamless process where each stage is perfectly designed to bring about a total inner transformation. So enjoy catharsis, but don’t get stuck there!
#3 – Dynamic Meditation is therapeutic but it’s NOT therapy
Dynamic Meditation is a meditation technique and not therapy per se. According to Osho, therapy is needed for people with a particular condition; whereas meditation is for everyone. Therapy is like patching up; fixing an individual to make him/her function in society. This is not the main purpose of Dynamic Meditation. Of course it can help you find emotional balance and cope better with everyday stress. Expressing repressed emotions is therapeutic and has profound healing effects. But Dynamic Meditation is ultimately intended as a meditation practice for those who are seeking inner silence and true happiness. Don’t stop at the therapeutic layer, there is so much more to it!
#4 – Dynamic Meditation is about being aware
Dynamic Meditation requires you to be aware during each and every stage. Even the catharsis has to be done with awareness. It has to be conscious catharsis. It’s expression of whatever surfaces from the unconscious mind. And to do that, you need to be aware of it. Awareness is not confined only to the silent stage. So be conscious throughout the whole technique, including the catharsis stage, and use the silence stage as the peak of your awareness.
#5 – Dynamic Meditation is preparation for real silence
At the beginning of your meditation journey, you are likely to face difficulties in sitting quietly and watching your mind. Dynamic Meditation helps to remove the obstacles which prevent you to enter into deep meditation. It’s a tool to make you natural, fluid, relaxed and crystallised. All the breathing, sweating, shouting and jumping are ways to prepare the ground for meditation to happen. So unless you can sit in silence, do not give up Dynamic Meditation!
When I started meditating, even just to enjoy few moments of peace, calm and relaxation was a faraway chimera. Through Dynamic Meditation, not only have I gained a solid sense of physical and mental wellbeing, but it allowed me to appreciate silence and learn how to watch my mind slow down and spot silent gaps. If you are really interested in meditation, then just do Dynamic Meditation! And keep going! And going!
It is a really a well written essay about Dynamic Meditation. Satyadeva will ask, “Shantam, have you ever done Dynamic or simply read about it?” What to say?!
Being devil´s advocate, at present my question will be: how come such wonderful and holistic meditation-cum-fitness technique has not attracted huge fan following?
I don´t think there are even two thousand people among 8.5 billion any single day doing Dynamic Meditation. When was the last time bloggers did Dynamic? In my case, it was 20 minutes youtube version last year.
Shantam.
Everyone I know who has gone into dynamic meditation for a length of time has developed a degree of self-awareness. You show no sign of even a trace of that.
This post exemplifies your lack. You obviously haven’t gone into dynamic meditation in any depth, otherwise why else would you be on the defensive about what SD might say?
Further to that, you are not playing devil’s advocate.
This is a typical glass-is-half-empty Shantam post, and a product of your ugly negative outlook on life and pompous self-importance.
I am wondering, Arps, the only thing he has done in depth is being a father to his children and that is the only reason he does what he does!
Well, give Shantam credit for being that devoted father.
I can respect him for that, Kavita, feel postive about him for that if it’s true, but not the conceit that almost certainly goes with that.
A few more loving fathers and mothers and the world would be a better place.
I would like to qualify the remarks about fathers and mothers.
Parenting is not easy.
I would hate to appear judgemental about anybody as a parent. The remark is more to do with my own background.
Apologies if I’ve offended anyone.
First of all, wondering if Swaram himself could come up with this title, ‘Misunderstandings about Osho Dynamic Meditation’?!
This sounds like a perfect advertisement for Dynamic meditation!
I guess everything has a time & place &one has to decide that, if there is a choice, I had mine & used it as much as my body-mind could digest.
Now personally do not have the need for advertising this/any activity as I have realised real meditation, if any, is to just be as much as possible!
The topic ‘meditation’ is no less controversial than ‘enlightenment’, I think.
When I did the ‘Osho Meditation Training’, the basic lesson for all the techniques was to observe the briefness of the instructions contained in the cd (or in the music tape).
But being the Dynamic Meditation, also all the things shared by Swaram, it’s hard not to be inspired by the effectiveness of the technique, contributing with additional words to indicate the real silence.
In short, the problem is how to describe the silence. It is difficult as to clap with one hand to the prodigy of a healthy goose coming out of an unbroken bottle.
Ciao,
VF
Dynamic is the roughest, toughest, meanest macho meditation of all time. Doing it, I headbutted my way into nirvana like a super-conscious psycho-spiritual hardman in the away end of my mind…
After thrashing the crap out of my own ego, I was ready to start on the others.
Heavy breathing like a red-faced monkey on crank…
Shouting “fuck you!” louder and louder every day…
Projectile vomiting my unconsciousness with total awareness…
I chundered my ego wholesale down the toilet at one point…
Jumping up and down like a kangaroo-hoo loose in the top paddock…
Standing as still as a Gurdjieffian yak-killer
And silent as a Buddha on quaaludes
Dancing like a hooligan Nijinsky with tourettes at a rave…
I was ready to kick the universe`s ass after that…
Thanks, Osho….
I came to the notion eventually about Dynamic, that if one had the expectation that difficult was good, and easy was bad, suffering was good, easy was bad; then dynamic fed that idea with a vengeance; and the longer one did dynamic, the bigger a head one developed.
Masochism (the more horrible the medicine the better it was for you).
As a former volleyball player, in these last years becoming old, the third stage is not anymore the easiest one (of course with the dancing stage), while the first stage is still the toughest, in my book.
Masochism, or sadism, given our self-reflective nature (bio-feedback), depends on the intensity which someone follows the instructions of the technique, it can not be decided by standards outside the subject but having at least two keys of understanding: ‘You are responsible’ and ‘Everything you can see is not you’ (including the idea, and its owner, of Atonement, or the idea that you can not have a crystallised image of our own fluidity, and etc.).
In short, the evidence of the effectiveness of the technique is to see who created it has never needed it.
.
Yes, well, Arps, I think that, unlike any other Osho meditation (except perhaps, Mandala, which opens with 15 minutes’ running on the spot) a capacity to endure sustained physical discomfort and pain is more or less essential for maximum benefits. Especially if, like myself at age 25, one goes into it after a lifetime of repression.
Then, it suited me extremely well, especially as I was used to pushing myself physically in order to create a feeling of well-being that was an antidote to general depressive dysfunction. I guess you could call that a sort of ‘masochism’, but at least it was ‘masochism-with-a-purpose’, to feel good, not an end in itself.
I did dynamic consistently, often 5 or 6 times a week, for about 15 months, enjoyed the resulting regeneration, then went to Pune for over 9 months, where at the time there were inadequate facilities for loud catharsis, a huge disappointment – and found, to my surprise and dismay, that back in the UK and having recovered from mild hepatitis, doing dynamic just didn’t have the same power, in fact it was rather draining, although, probably somehow addicted to catharsis, I tried to deny this by carrying on, albeit less often than before.
Eventually, I realised its time had passed, it wasn’t the lifelong ‘magic pill’ I’d naively imagined it to be. That’s why I’m a bit sceptical reading Swaram’s promo article, which tends to imply that dynamic is ‘the answer’ rather than a beginning.
Also, I disagree with what he writes in section 4, stipulating a prerequisite of ‘being aware’ in each stage. I’d say this is unnecessary, as all that’s required is totality, giving everything one has in the first three parts, eg as one early dynamic ‘leader’ in ‘Nirvana’, the old Bell Street, London centre, a young veteran of Mt. Abu and Bombay open air mass dynamics, once said, “Breathe until you die!”
If you apply that degree of energy then awareness follows naturally. Making a mental point of holding the idea of being aware could easily detract from giving it your all.
Still, Swaram’s doing a great job, the world needs to know how dynamic can help people’s psycho-physical health, and perhaps he or someone else might set up further, equally regular Osho meditations for ‘the public’ to sample.
I’ve not thought about this before, but I was affected differently in the West to when I did Dynamic in Poona, apart from the very first time in the West before Poona.
Meditation in the West just made me more extrovert in some ways, although approaching anything innocently is different to approaching with expectations; and my initial sorties into dynamic were innocent and in the West, I now know, with expectations.
(The masochism remark was more about me than all-inclusive of everybody. I came to Sannyas with a miserable puritanical streak, for myself. Growing up round an authoritarian Forces parent who had been through the second world war, played a big part in that, and then my teachers were all varying degrees of puritanical, to very puritanical).
Swaram seems alright to me, but probably still a bit evangelical.
Yes, Frank, dynamic meditation certainly burns up the whole slavery that the mind has created & opens the door to freedom, just like a glass of wine. Now only hiking, dancing, swimming for me as time goes by…Life is full of wonders.
No misunderstandings possible, I´d say, Parmartha, about the ´squeaky clean´ (Lokesh´s invention) advert of Swaram about Dynamic Meditation, culminating in his words: “It’s a tool to make you natural, fluid, relaxed and crystallised.”
However – when I attended quite some meetings at a Sufi Meditation Place here in Munich very recently – one could truly call it ´a tribal gathering´; the attempt to integrate and to commune-(i)-cate amongst different tribal scenes (and their facilitators and/or also what you, Parmartha, would call ´calamity cases’).
What I found out is that the re-a-spect of the friends of catharsis-at- any-price and the friends of using other means of sharing traumata issues is just starting these days and not very developed yet.
And quite often I´ve been remembered these days of what Lokesh contributed here a few days ago:
Lokesh said:
24 September, 2017 at 9:57 am
“Your irreverent comment about Papaji did not even raise an eyebrow, Tan. Fairly typical of you and the old school sannyas approach of fuck you, here I am, and I am in your face, so there. Or something like that.
That sort of thing is okay up to a point. I can relate to it and am guilty as charged of such behaviour myself, from time to time, that is. Reminds me of when I did an Aum Marathon in ’77. For weeks after that I would answer my London squat’s front door with a friendly, “What the fuck do you want? You’re full of shit!”
I must have appeared like a real asshole to most, but it felt good to give expression to that kind of negativity. I do not know if such antics do much good in the long run. Today, I tend to go about more quietly.”
Misunderstandings – as it is put as a title for this topic with the question mark – are not to be found in the cathartic Dynamic (or AUM) Meditation approach itself, but in the coming together or the effort of a reunion of different tribal branches in more everyday life.
Respecting one another´s different ways to deal with inner or outer obstacles and to share this is just in its beginnings. And I wish we could have more meetings like that. Meetings of a reunion.
As – in a ´more quiet way´, as Lokesh put it the other day, disrespect is quite often mashed with the imagination and delusion of a special ´authenticity´, especially amongst those who dedicated their spiritual life to the work of Veeresh and the Humaniversity.
Madhu
I’ve often felt that dynamic meditation suited some and not others. Osho devised it particularly for westerners in mind; and for those for who had deeply repressed feelings and emotions. We were a sorry bunch at the time, coming as we did mostly from Victorian and Christian backgrounds. The method allowed us to scream and shout and loosen us up a bit.
But there’s no meditation that suits all, and the tendency to make everyone do it was pretty silly, a little scripted, even conformist.
I wondered that those who were most attracted to it were the types who believed ‘expressing’ their anger and hurt would in some way heal them.
Whereas I recognised that expression didn’t necessarily do this at all. Indeed, it fed and nurtured emotion and feelings rather than made us any more intelligent about these repressed feelings.
As with Kundalini and other meditations that Osho and others devised, there were sometimes moments of peace and stillness and ‘stopping’ of the mind during these meditations. I remember hoping that such moments would continue afterwards, but they never do, do they? Indeed, the search for stillness and peace is one all spiritual disciplines and traditions obsess about, and seekers get so confused about. You might call it ‘meditationitis’.
As Swaram indicates, he now has moments where he can “spot the silent gaps” and this is never ending and pointless, because the gaps he’s looking for will always only be so numbingly momentary. And after all these years, he is only experiencing “gaps”! How many years will it take before these “gaps” lengthen? Lifetimes?
Fortunately, Osho didn’t just focus on meditation, but offered a much wider perspective on the problems we all faced. He also explored the mind, analysed and dissected and reminded us that it’s through daily life and interactions with others where we really begin seeing into and through our selves. As we do this, with honestly and passion, so a form of stillness and detachment arises naturally and the need to ‘practise’ meditation fades away.
I don’t recall everybody having to do Dynamic in Poona, Rev Simond; although I did it while working for a time, and some twat had a go at me on the grounds there must be something wrong with me, because work should be enough.
In my experience, people in Poona were across a spectrum, and still are; between bloody terrific at one extreme, and dickheads from my point of view, at the other; but pluralism is good in my book.
We can learn as much from dickheads as we can from the terrific.
Yes indeed, Arps, as Hurree Singh often said in ‘Billy Bunter’ stories, “The dickheads are terrific!”
“Those were the days”, as Frank would say.
“We can learn as much from dickheads as we can from the terrific.”
I owe to the German instructors, Meditation Leaders of ´Dynamic´ as the German Facillitators of ´Encounter´-”Therapy” in the seventieth last century ” much” , and this words above of Arpana brings that to the point: Felt like in a kind of concentration camp.
There and then it became clear to me that I either had to move to India , close to the living Master and His multidiversional, multinational Sangha to get the juice out of this and/ or other meditation techniques and approaches or drop it alltogether.
And what a difference that then made at that time ( for me), to attend this/these meditation/s in Pune, India !
So much water down ANY river, inside -outside till then, and much more understanding happening , as some of you are stating it.
And sure enough, Swaram and others, providing spaces and places for people , to become aquainted with the utter manifold suggestions, Osho left to us, to go inside, are doing ´a great job´.
Madhu
Good point re dynamic med. suiting some more than others, Simond. Although I’d say it might well still be very useful for most as a good beginning to open up energetically and release held-in emotions.
And, as one of those people you mentioned who liked to cathartically express a lot, I agree it’s also important to know when to stop and move on…Btw, BL was good for me in that respect, encouraging me to ‘contain’, that I’d done enough of the other stuff.
Yes, I agree. The impulse to cathart time after time reminds me of masturbation – a quick ‘release’, which provides a momentary peace. Whereas ‘containing’ offers the opportunity to examine the feelings or issues more intelligently.
You’re such a Christian, Rev Simond. Dividing the world into sheep and goats. All those imperfect goats you’re surrounded by.
Thanks for sharing, Simond.
Dynamic Meditation is still useful to give me a centering, when I live in too stressful phases (usallly not for the body..).
I agree that it or other Osho techniques are just a beginning, but only if we consider such any other spiritual seeker’s activity, and if we preserve the enthusiasm and humility of beginners.
Let me give an example:
After years of sannyas (groups, trainings, sharings etc.) months ago I lived as a worker in a therapeutic Osho commune.
Emotional expressions, mainly anger, fear and pain, were at the centre of therapeutic and meditative activities and very little space was reserved at listening to biographies (stories), and eventually to the study of personalised (intelligent) approaches, with the aim of not feeding the ego of the victim.
I’m still working on the limits and the risks of this approach (firstly claiming it the best in the Osho world), and maybe one day I will share my thoughts on this.
But I can anticipate to you that a structure that generously puts you under pressure with limiting situations, and where understanding-wisdom is not one amongst the options with which one can get out when pushed in a corner, and last but not least, gave me the opportunity to show my arrogance, recognising it when I saw the difference between an emotional block due to fear or shame, and the ability to contain a provocation of a 20 y.o. student, thanks to my long experience in exploring, analysing and dissecting the mind.
Dynamic was always misnamed in my view. It was not a meditation, it was a procedure/exercise that might lead, after a time, to being meditative.
I myself think all the formal meditations are sort of preludes towards the 24 hour meditation which is a wonderful challenge, and I have sometimes heard run down by those who are into the formal stuff, as basically it challenges all their self-importance through what they consider to be the missed nuances of the meditative hour…such bullshit.
Yes, Parmartha, as years go by meditation becomes a way of life…living each moment fully. I think once Lokesh has written beautifully about it. All the active meditation techniques are mostly for young people as old bodies need different methods & sometimes just vippassana is enough. I do not do any meditation method though. I just live.
“Living each moment Fully”
It is Neo-Sannyas way of life. Majority of sannyasins have this notion they live each moment fully. Meditation has become a way of life. Others are not living, just existing!
Why think in terms of division? All are one.
P.S:
“Some people feel the rain and others just get wet.” (Bob Marley)
Dynamic is a great meditation technique, as far as it goes. How far that is, really is up to you. I did it for years, positively addicted. That was a long time ago.
Swaram declares, “Dynamic allowed me to appreciate silence and learn how to watch my mind slow down and spot silent gaps.”
Spotting silent gaps! That makes me smile.
Trainspotting makes me laugh!
It`s certainly a phenomenon in all walks of life, including the spiritual.
Sick Boy`s unifying theory of life:
“Ye`ve got it ,then ye lose it.”
But seriously, there`s an undertone of negativity here:
Simond thinks cathartic meditators are wankers and Lokesh thinks they`re trainspotters.
Sometimes I really wonder, we people did so much meditations, catharsis, dancing, singing, silent, we became like empty hollow bamboo.
But…
But Existence played its flute through non-meditative Americans.
Google, facebook, über, youtube, airbnb, amazon; Mamamia! Not a single product has come through the followers of any Indian masters.
One can think, are not meditation techniques natural tranquillisers, new kind of intoxicants where one becomes addicted to brands?
What about Baba Ramdev`s brand of instant noodles?
Thus speaks the one who thinks he’s qualified to know how the Pune ashram/Resort should be run….
…
Not to be confused with Guru Ram Rahim Singh`s instant canoodles…
which are illegal!
Being stunned about the momentary ´rivering´of the string, stuck in ´noodles and ´canoodles´ and the attempt to deciffre, what´s going on, I ended briefly in a long interview of The Telegraph, interviewing Irvine Welsh, September, 26, 2017.
Really amazing, what this man made up out of his truly difficult Scottish upbringing and – even more amazing, I guess, that he developped sucessfully a differenciation between being frenzy with drugs and being frenzy with creative writing; the latter he even compared with an inner state of meditation at one point.
Being asked about his work ethic, Irvin Welsh answered:
“How would you describe your work ethic?
I’m the worst employee in the world. I’ll cheat and steal time and resources from my employer, although I’ll con everybody into believing I’m essential to the operation. But working for yourself is different. I’m the worst employer I could wish for because I push myself hard.”
Other responses to a curious interviewer have been of a similiar honesty.
Imaginable then, how some of you are so chilled.
Not my cup of tea though, ( or my noodle dish….).
Madhu
Returning to Swaram’s declaration…
“Through Dynamic Meditation, not only have I gained a solid sense of physical and mental well-being, but it allowed me to appreciate silence and learn how to watch my mind slow down and spot silent gaps.”
To be honest, my first thought in relation to this statement was to hear Frank Zappa’s voice in my head saying, “Strictly commercial.”
Two days ago, I visited a relative in a care home. In her late teens she was a promising student. That is, until she developed MS, 33 years ago. She is pretty much bed-bound now, although her mind is still more or less functioning. Sitting with her I asked her what she thought about. Her reply was, “Nothing.”
I enquired further by asking her if she dreamed much. “I do not have dreams” was her answer. The fact that she does not have any dreams that she recalls and does not think is perhaps just as well. All she really has to look forward to is the complete breakdown of her body as it spirals towards death, which I have no doubt will come as a great relief to her.
In spite of this sobering reality, she never complains. She is really quite remarkable on that level. Very touching, indeed.
Leaving her behind in the care home I could not help but feel lucky for having lived such a full life, a life that holds so much that my poor relative cannot even dream about. What a very strange life she has lived. There are times when there is no figuring out why things in life happen as they do.
So, Swaram believes the mind slowing down and spotting the gaps is something to be desired. I, of course, know what is meant by such a statement. Watching my relative, though, whose mind is slowing down completely and her witnessing of her inner world presenting her with one big gap, I could not help feeling good about the thoughts and dreams bouncing around in my head to study and play with. Sitting in utter silence is all very well, but there are qualities to silence and I do not believe for a moment all of them are good.
The watcher on the hills is well and good. The real action starts with the enquiry into who and what that watcher is. The thing about that is that there can be no commercialism in regards such an enquiry. You have all you need, right here, right now. Is not the one who wrote this and the one who reads this one and the same? That is, when you really get down to it.
Jesus! Do you reckon any of this has to do with being in the Scottish Highlands? Oh yeah…and the fact that the sun has put in a rare appearance, making my surroundings jaw-droppingly beautiful. Mind the gap!
Lokesh,
Confronting the reality of the terminal certainly gives a different perspective.
Here`s a poem I like from David Whyte…
The Well of Grief
Those who will not slip beneath
the still surface on the well of grief,
turning down through its black water
to the place we cannot breathe,
will never know the source from which we drink,
the secret water, cold and clear,
nor find in the darkness glimmering,
the small round coins,
thrown by those who wished for something else.
Frank,
Did you get the David Whyte poem from the Film ‘The Work’? If you didn’t, the poem was quoted in the film.
“Set inside a single room in Folsom Prison, ‘The Work’ follows three men from outside as they participate in a four-day group therapy retreat with level-four convicts. Over the four days, each man in the room takes his turn at delving deep into his past. The raw and revealing process that the incarcerated men undertake exceeds the expectations of the free men, ripping them out of their comfort zones and forcing them to see themselves and the prisoners in unexpected ways.
‘The Work’ offers a powerful and rare look past the cinder block walls, steel doors and the dehumanizing tropes in our culture to reveal a movement of change and redemption that transcends what we think of as rehabilitation.”
Arps,
Cheers,I didn`t know that, I haven`t seen that movie.
Have you watched it?
Watched the trailer and Mark Kermode`s review.
Looks intense!
I’m half way through it, Frank.
Yeah. It is intense. Moving and disturbing.
Great poem. Even more so in the context.
Nice post, Lokesh.
As usual, from you, a real and honest exploration with a humanity and humility you often express.
You always contribute from your own understanding and experience, rather than debate from a position of knowledge and certainty, which is why your posts are often the most interesting.
It was a super post indeed, Lokesh.
As shiny as your bald head under the hot Ibizan sun after you’ve slapped on a bit of sun cream; the sort of thing only truly elevated souls would appreciate.
Arps, you make me laugh! XX
I’ve been laughing about it all day, Tan.
Chortle.
I am sure Lokesh is mature enough to ignore the opinion of ‘extras’.
Few people´s appreciation or contempt matters not when you write honestly and from your heart.
Yes, Shantam, although for some, such lack of concern might merely indicate a certain fanatical obsessiveness coupled with its habitual partner, a considerably undermined intelligence. Not to mention the mandatory thick skin.
No names mentioned, of course, but if the shoe fits….
When I wrote the above comment, SD, you were not in my mind. I wonder why it pinched you and this retaliation of a psychological analyst!
No idea, Shants…Mysterious, eh? Channelling, perhaps?
I’m friends with my inner world now, rather than enemies; and Dynamic played a part in that, along with various other techniques I have used; and I am using a method now which is amazingly effective and the least like hard work I have explored; but I never concern myself about being silent internally anymore; which is dramatically easier because I no longer function in that bloody awful analyzing place which I came to sannyas with.
Seems to me these active meditations are also a tool for developing the will, and commitment; because speaking personally, when Osho says be playful about meditating, I always mutter, ‘Give me a break Osho. If I could be playful about meditating, let alone doing dynamic, I wouldn’t need to meditate”. Meditation has always taken resolve on my part.
Swaram and Chetna deserve credit. This piece is necessarily upbeat.
Anyone who has really gone into meditation knows it involves bloody awful stormy weather as well as sunny hot days, winter and spring.
When anyone ever asks me about meditating, I never tell them the truth; apart from ”well worth the effort in the long run.”
I also never tell them, in my experience, you will not get what you are pursuing if you really go for it, you will get what you get, and you will find dealing with what you are given bloody hard going as often as not. Meditation is that Chinese box Osho has talked about.
“I have heard a story about Count Keyserling — his grandson is here, a sannyasin. Count Keyserling was one of the most famous German thinkers. He traveled far and wide in the East; he was fascinated by the East. The grandson must have something of Count Keyserling in him, hence he has come to me.
When Count Keyserling was in China, a friend presented him with a beautiful box, two thousand years old, but with a condition which has been fulfilled for two thousand years: that the box’s face has to be towards the East. A beautiful piece of art work, a great work of art! With that condition, for two thousand years whosoever had it has followed it.
Count Keyserling went with it. He placed the box in his drawing room facing towards the East, but then the whole drawing room was unbalanced. The box looked odd, so the whole drawing room had to be redone. But then the whole drawing room was no longer fitting with the house! But Count Keyserling was a man of his word — he changed his whole house… but then the garden was not fitting, so he had to change the garden. And then he became afraid, because when he changed the garden the house was not fitting in the neighborhood. Now, he could not do anything with the neighborhood!
Then he wrote a letter to the friend who has given the box, “Please take this box back — I don’t know how I can fulfill the condition. I will have to change the whole world! Now the neighborhood, then the town, then the district, then the province, then the country…. This is too much!”
If you start seeing just a ray of light, a new light, you will have to change your whole world.
The friend wrote to Count Keyserling, “Don’t be worried, that’s exactly the message: that even a small box can change your whole world. It is an ancient Taoist symbol; a message is contained in it. You have understood the message.” ”
Osho
The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 7
Chapter #2
Chapter title: The greatest rebellion ever tried
12 December 1979 am in Buddha Hall
Swaram is doing a good job, sharing dynamic meditation in London, also on his youtube channel, also writing about it on his blog.
He is doing something, spreading vibes, spreading energy, spreading love.
MOD:
POST EDITED.