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Osho - Transcendental meditation is neither transcendental nor meditation. But still what he is doing is good. What he is teaching in the name of meditation is only an ancient method of chanting. If you chant any word or any mantra continuously inside the mind, other thoughts stop because they don't have any space. And this continuous chanting is a certain device of auto-hypnosis; it is not meditation. It does not lead you to any spiritual enlightenment, but it certainly gives you a good feeling of wellbeing and health. You will feel refreshed -- just as you feel refreshed after a good shower; but a shower is not a transcendental meditation.

So there is nothing wrong with what he is doing. It cannot harm anybody. He is harmless, but he is misdirected. He is giving a toy which is not the real thing. If people enjoy toys -- and many people enjoy toys -- I have nothing against them. If they are happy, that's perfectly good.

But one thing I want to make clear: it is not meditation. It is just a mental trick which can also be done by auto-hypnosis, looking just at one thing continuously without blinking your eyes, you will fall into a sleep and that sleep will be deeper than your ordinary sleep. Certainly it will give you a feeling of rejuvenation, of well-being.

So it is something that should be part of gymnasium programs. It has nothing religious in it, nothing spiritual in it, but it is a good exercise. People who are doing physical exercise in gymnasiums should learn transcendental meditation; after their exercise for fifteen or twenty minutes they can relax, and it will help their bodies, but not their beings.

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Originally posted by Etherfish

"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.

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1.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.

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There is no word in English to translate mantra. It means a sacred word, not of any use in the day-to-day life experiences, but only significant when you go beyond this visible world and enter into the invisible consciousness. A mantra is a secret key. It opens the door to the ultimate.

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When you chant a mantra, all the energy used in your thoughts is released to flow into the mantra. Only the mantra remains in your mind; all other avenues of thought are closed, all other outlets for your mental energy are shut off; there is nowhere else for it to flow. Normally when you are thinking your energy flows in countless different currents; one thought travels north, another south, another east, another west. When you think, you travel in many different directions. You are not one, you are not a unity; you are divided. But when you chant a mantra, all the energy begins to flow in one direction.

If we use a lens to make the rays of the sun converge, fire can be created. The fire is hidden in the sunrays, but when they are separate, at the most some heat can be created, not fire. It is when they are concentrated together that the fire appears. In just the same way there is a great fire hidden in your mind, but as long as the rays of the mind are separate there is only a little heat. Mantra is a method to concentrate the rays of your mind together. The moment this happens great heat, a tremendous amount of energy is created.

If you consistently practice a mantra, many phenomena relating to energy and power will begin to happen in your life, and they will provide great nourishment to your ego. Whatever you predict will come true, whatever you describe will happen exactly as you have said; if you curse it will come to pass; if you grant a wish it will come true, because so much energy and power is concentrated in you that your statements begin to materialize. The only reason for their materialization is that when a person can invest great power in the things he says, his words enter directly into the unconscious of the listener – the arrow flies straight to the other’s heart. And when anything reaches to the heart it starts taking effect.

Suppose you say to someone, “Tomorrow morning you will fall sick,” and suppose, in saying this, it is the only thing in you – a mantra; there is nothing else, no other line of thought, no distraction…. If this sentence, “Tomorrow morning you will fall sick,” becomes your mantra, your mind totally full with it, then the moment you say this to someone your words will strike the core of his heart. Now he will be unable to sleep the whole night; he has seen your eyes, heard the tone of your voice, caught your gesture, and his mind is so impressed that there is no way for him to avoid what you have said to him. His mind will keep coming back to this mantra. In his dreams that night he will see you and hear your words, and although his mind will try to argue that nothing is going to happen – “Why fear this man? Nothing is going to happen!” – yet some force will drive him. He is repeating the mantra – your mantra – even in his fighting it. He is bound to fall sick by the morning! Half this sickness is your creation, and half his own.

From Osho, Nowhere To Go But In, Chapter 6

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There is an idea that there is a special mantra for each person, and that a mantra should be secret. It has been my experience that gurus who are amassing wealth from unsuspecting Americans and Europeans will give all kinds of mantras. And they will be couched in a format that is sellable, like packaged merchandise. They will be made secret. But none of the traditional mantras that produce true realization and are lauded and acclaimed are secret. They are well known by every Hindu in the world.

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Originally posted by BuddhiHermit

Osho was extremely complex

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