WESTERN MYSTICS
The New Alchemy 19
Nineteenth Discourse from the series of 34 discourses - The New Alchemy by Osho.
You can listen, download or read all of these discourses on oshoworld.com.
The Vedas have said that breath is Brahma, and it is right in a very subtle way. Breath is your life, and breath is also the bridge between the conscious and the unconscious, between your body and your soul. This bridge has to be used. If you can use this bridge rightly, you can go to the other shore.
I wonder whether or not you have observed that your breath changes with your emotions. When you are angry, you breathe in a different way. Try to observe how you breathe when you are angry, and then try to breathe differently while you are angry. You will not be able to be angry. You can be angry only in a certain way, with a certain rhythm of breath – or a certain non-rhythm of the breath.
When you are in love, observe your breath: the rhythm, the music, the harmony. Disturb that harmony and the love will disappear. Or, create that harmony and love will appear.
If you can become the master of your breathing – and it is a deep science – you become master of your emotions. When you are in the sex act, observe how you breathe: your breathing is basically related to the sex act. You cannot do anything in which your breath is not deeply related.
You cannot move into meditation unless you try to understand, and use your breathing system. Your breath is also the bridge between your conscious and unconscious. The unconscious goes on changing the rhythm, and if you become aware of this rhythm and its constant changes, you can become aware of your unconscious roots, aware of what the unconscious is doing.
Many things can be known about you through the rhythm of your breathing, even while you are sleeping. If you are sleeping and you are having a dream about anger, your breath can be observed, and the observers can know that you are angry in your dream. If you are having sex in your dream it can be observed from the outside and can be known that you are having a sexual experience in your dream, because your breath will follow a certain rhythm.
If you observe the rhythm of a buddha’s breathing, it is different from yours. It remains constantly the same. While he is asleep, his rhythm remains the same. When he is awake, whether he is talking or he is silent, his rhythm remains the same.
So in this camp, you are to do three things with your breathing system. One: breathe deeply the whole day – rhythmically, silently. Not forced, but deep, slow and deep. Create a silent rhythm and feel that in the rhythm you are relaxed, not strained. Then, follow that rhythm for the whole day. Whenever you remember it, breathe deeply, relaxedly, silently, with a musical rhythm. Feel the music of it. It has a music.
And secondly: watch your breath, observe it. When the breath goes out, move with the breath. When the breath goes in, move with the breath. Go out, go in, with the breath. Follow it. If you can observe your breath it will become deep, silent, rhythmic. And with this following of the breath you will become very, very different, because this constant awareness of the breath will detach you from your mind. The energy that moves into thinking will move into observation.
This is the alchemy of meditation: to change the energy that moves into thinking, into observation.
How to change the energy of thought into observation? – that is what the device of meditation basically is: how not to think and to observe, how not to be a thinker but to be a witness.
So, observe your breath the whole day, but don’t be tense about it. If you become tense, the purpose is lost. Remain relaxed. Just observe – playfully. Don’t make it work. Whenever you remember, observe your breathing. If you forget, then forget, but the moment you remember, start observing again. It will come to you. By and by you will begin observing. Through your very observation, the quality will change. Observing the breath will give you no space for thinking, so it will be a good diversion.
Thirdly: simultaneously use your breath as an awareness of life and death. When the breath goes out, it is associated with death. When the breath comes in, it is associated with life. With every outgoing breath you die, and with every incoming breath you are reborn. Life and death are not two things, separate, divided. They are one, and each moment both are present.
So remember this: when your breath is going out, feel as if you are dying. Don’t be afraid. If you are afraid, your breath will be disturbed. Accept it. The outgoing breath is death, and death is beautiful, it is relaxing.
Whenever you are relaxed you say “Ahh!” and the breath goes out. Feel a deep relaxation with the outgoing breath. And when the breath comes in, feel “Ah! Life is coming in” – you are reborn. Make it a circle: life and death. Move and be aware of it. It is a deep cleansing. Die with every breath, and with every new breath be reborn.
Remember this for these eight days. This is going to be your mantra. I give you this as a mantra for the camp. The outmoving breath is death. With it, die, feel as if you are dying. The incoming breath is life. Feel you are being reborn. For the whole day, twenty-four hours, remember this whenever you are aware. It will totally change the quality of your mind.
If the outgoing breath becomes death, and you die each moment, what is happening? – your death means you are dying to your past, the old man is no more. And if you have to die every moment, there is no future: the next moment is death. You cannot project yourself into the future. You cannot be related to the past and you cannot be projected into the future. Only this very moment, this lonely, atomic moment, remains with you. And even in this very moment you will have to die and be reborn.
Think of the concept of reincarnation not in terms of life but in terms of breath. Every moment you will be renewed, reoriented, fresh – a child again, with no burden of the past and with no anxiety for the future. The present moment is anxiety-less. Anxiety is created only by the past or by the future. So remember this, and spread it all over your being.
Remember these three things, and not only remember, practice them.
I wonder whether or not you have observed that your breath changes with your emotions. When you are angry, you breathe in a different way. Try to observe how you breathe when you are angry, and then try to breathe differently while you are angry. You will not be able to be angry. You can be angry only in a certain way, with a certain rhythm of breath – or a certain non-rhythm of the breath.
When you are in love, observe your breath: the rhythm, the music, the harmony. Disturb that harmony and the love will disappear. Or, create that harmony and love will appear.
If you can become the master of your breathing – and it is a deep science – you become master of your emotions. When you are in the sex act, observe how you breathe: your breathing is basically related to the sex act. You cannot do anything in which your breath is not deeply related.
You cannot move into meditation unless you try to understand, and use your breathing system. Your breath is also the bridge between your conscious and unconscious. The unconscious goes on changing the rhythm, and if you become aware of this rhythm and its constant changes, you can become aware of your unconscious roots, aware of what the unconscious is doing.
Many things can be known about you through the rhythm of your breathing, even while you are sleeping. If you are sleeping and you are having a dream about anger, your breath can be observed, and the observers can know that you are angry in your dream. If you are having sex in your dream it can be observed from the outside and can be known that you are having a sexual experience in your dream, because your breath will follow a certain rhythm.
If you observe the rhythm of a buddha’s breathing, it is different from yours. It remains constantly the same. While he is asleep, his rhythm remains the same. When he is awake, whether he is talking or he is silent, his rhythm remains the same.
So in this camp, you are to do three things with your breathing system. One: breathe deeply the whole day – rhythmically, silently. Not forced, but deep, slow and deep. Create a silent rhythm and feel that in the rhythm you are relaxed, not strained. Then, follow that rhythm for the whole day. Whenever you remember it, breathe deeply, relaxedly, silently, with a musical rhythm. Feel the music of it. It has a music.
And secondly: watch your breath, observe it. When the breath goes out, move with the breath. When the breath goes in, move with the breath. Go out, go in, with the breath. Follow it. If you can observe your breath it will become deep, silent, rhythmic. And with this following of the breath you will become very, very different, because this constant awareness of the breath will detach you from your mind. The energy that moves into thinking will move into observation.
This is the alchemy of meditation: to change the energy that moves into thinking, into observation.
How to change the energy of thought into observation? – that is what the device of meditation basically is: how not to think and to observe, how not to be a thinker but to be a witness.
So, observe your breath the whole day, but don’t be tense about it. If you become tense, the purpose is lost. Remain relaxed. Just observe – playfully. Don’t make it work. Whenever you remember, observe your breathing. If you forget, then forget, but the moment you remember, start observing again. It will come to you. By and by you will begin observing. Through your very observation, the quality will change. Observing the breath will give you no space for thinking, so it will be a good diversion.
Thirdly: simultaneously use your breath as an awareness of life and death. When the breath goes out, it is associated with death. When the breath comes in, it is associated with life. With every outgoing breath you die, and with every incoming breath you are reborn. Life and death are not two things, separate, divided. They are one, and each moment both are present.
So remember this: when your breath is going out, feel as if you are dying. Don’t be afraid. If you are afraid, your breath will be disturbed. Accept it. The outgoing breath is death, and death is beautiful, it is relaxing.
Whenever you are relaxed you say “Ahh!” and the breath goes out. Feel a deep relaxation with the outgoing breath. And when the breath comes in, feel “Ah! Life is coming in” – you are reborn. Make it a circle: life and death. Move and be aware of it. It is a deep cleansing. Die with every breath, and with every new breath be reborn.
Remember this for these eight days. This is going to be your mantra. I give you this as a mantra for the camp. The outmoving breath is death. With it, die, feel as if you are dying. The incoming breath is life. Feel you are being reborn. For the whole day, twenty-four hours, remember this whenever you are aware. It will totally change the quality of your mind.
If the outgoing breath becomes death, and you die each moment, what is happening? – your death means you are dying to your past, the old man is no more. And if you have to die every moment, there is no future: the next moment is death. You cannot project yourself into the future. You cannot be related to the past and you cannot be projected into the future. Only this very moment, this lonely, atomic moment, remains with you. And even in this very moment you will have to die and be reborn.
Think of the concept of reincarnation not in terms of life but in terms of breath. Every moment you will be renewed, reoriented, fresh – a child again, with no burden of the past and with no anxiety for the future. The present moment is anxiety-less. Anxiety is created only by the past or by the future. So remember this, and spread it all over your being.
Remember these three things, and not only remember, practice them.