Vigyan Bhairav Tantra – Meditation Technique 23
FEEL AN OBJECT BEFORE YOU. FEEL THE ABSENCE OF ALL OTHER OBJECTS BUT THIS ONE. THEN LEAVING ASIDE THE OBJECT-FEELING AND THE ABSENCE-FEELING, REALIZE.
FEEL AN OBJECT BEFORE YOU — any object.
For example, a roseflower. Anything will do.
FEEL AN OBJECT BEFORE YOU. First, feel it.
Osho – Seeing won’t do — feel it. You see a roseflower, but your heart is not stilled, you are not feeling it; otherwise you may start weeping and crying, otherwise you may start laughing and dancing. You are not feeling it, you are just seeing it. And even that seeing may not be complete, because you never see completely. The past, the memory, says that this is a rose, and you pass on. You have not seen it really. The mind says that this is a rose. You know everything about it, as you have known roses before, so what about this one? So you pass on. Just a glimpse is enough to revive the memory of your past experience of roses, and you pass on. Even seeing is not complete.
Remain with the rose. See it, then feel it. What to do to feel it? Smell it, touch it, let it become a deep bodily experience. First close your eyes and let the rose touch your whole face. Feel it. Put it on the eyes, let the eyes touch it; smell it. Put it against the heart, be silent with it; give a feeling to the rose. Forget everything, forget the whole world.
FEEL AN OBJECT BEFORE YOU AND FEEL THE ABSENCE OF ALL OTHER OBJECTS, because if your mind is still thinking of other things then this feeling will not penetrate deeply. Forget all other roses, forget all other persons, forget everything. Just let this rose remain there. Only the rose, the rose, the rose! Forget everything else, let this rose envelope you completely… you are drowned in the rose.
This will be difficult because we are not so sensitive. But for women it will not be so difficult; they can feel it more easily. For men it may be a little bit more difficult, unless they have a very developed aesthetic sense, like a poet or a painter or a musician — they can feel things. But try. Children can do it very easily.
I was teaching this method to the son of one of my friends. He could feel very easily. When I gave him a roseflower and I told him all that I have told to you, he did it, and he enjoyed it deeply. And then I asked him, “How are you feeling?” He said, “I have become a roseflower — that is the feeling. I have become a roseflower.” Children can do it very easily, but we never train them; otherwise they could be the best meditators. Forget all other objects completely.
FEEL THE ABSENCE OF ALL OTHER OBJECTS BUT THIS ONE.
This is what happens in love. If you are in love with someone, you forget the whole world. If you are still remembering the world, then know well that this is not love. You have forgotten the whole world; only the beloved or the lover remains. That is why I say love is a meditation. You can use this technique also as a love technique: forget everything else.
Just a few days ago a friend came to me with his wife. His wife was complaining about a certain thing; that is why she had come. The friend said, “I have been meditating for a year and now I am deep in it. And while I meditate I have found it helpful when a peak comes to my meditation to suddenly cry, `Rajneesh, Rajneesh, Rajneesh!’ It helps me, but now a strange thing has happened. When I am making love to my wife, when I come to a sexual peak, I start crying, `Rajneesh, Rajneesh, Rajneesh!’ Because of this my wife is very much disturbed, and she says, `Are you making love with me, are you meditating, or what are you doing? And why does this “Rajneesh” come in?'”
The man said to me, “It is now very difficult because if I do not cry, `Rajneesh, Rajneesh!’ I cannot achieve a peak. And if I cry, my wife is very much disturbed. She starts crying and weeping and making a scene. So what to do? Thus, I have brought my wife.” Of course, his wife’s complaint is right, because she does not like for someone else to be present between them. That is why love needs privacy — absolute privacy. The privacy is meaningful, just to forget all else.
In Europe and America, now they are working with group sex. That is nonsense — many couples making love in one room. It is absolute nonsense because then love can never go very deep. It will become just a sex orgy. The presence of others becomes a barrier; then it cannot be meditative.
With any object, if you can forget the whole world you are in a deep love — with a rose or with a stone or with anything. But the condition is to feel the presence of this object and feel the absence of all else. Let this object be the only existential thing in your consciousness. It will be easy if you try with some object you are naturally in love with.
It would be difficult for you to put a stone, a rock, before you and forget the whole world. It would be difficult, but Zen masters have done it. They have rock gardens for meditation. No flowers, no trees, nothing — just rocks and sand. And they meditate on a rock because, they say, if you can have a deep love relationship with a rock, then no man can create a barrier for you. And men are like rocks. If you can love a rock, then you can love a man, then there is no problem. Men are like rocks — even more stony. It is difficult to break them and penetrate them.
But choose some object you naturally love, and then forget the whole world. Relish the presence, taste the presence, feel it, go deep into it and let it go deep into you. THEN, LEAVING ASIDE THE OBJECT… And then comes the most difficult part of this technique. You have left all other objects, and only one object has remained. You have forgotten all, only one has remained. Now, LEAVING ASIDE THE OBJECT-FEELING…
Now leave aside the feeling that you have for this object. LEAVING ASIDE THE OBJECT-FEELING AND THE ABSENCE-FEELING — of other objects.
Now there are only two things; everything else is absent. Now leave that absence also. Only this rose, this face, this woman, this man, this rock, is present. Leave this also, and leave the feeling as well. Suddenly you fall into an absolute vacuum and nothing remains.
And Shiva says, REALIZE. Realize this vacuum, this nothingness. This is your nature, this is pure being.
It will be difficult to approach nothingness directly — very difficult and arduous. So it is easy to pass through one object as a vehicle. First put one object in the mind, and feel it so totally that you need not remember anything else. Your whole consciousness is filled with this one object. Then leave this also, forget this also.
You fall into an abyss. Now nothing remains, no object. Only your subjectivity is there — pure, uncontaminated, unoccupied. This pure being, this pure consciousness, is your nature. But do it in steps; do not try the whole technique at once. First create an object-feeling. For a few days only do this part, do not do the whole technique.
First, for a few days or for a few weeks, just do one part — the first part. Create an object-feeling; be filled with the object. And use one object, do not go on changing objects, because with every object you will have to make the same effort again. If you have chosen one roseflower, then go on using that roseflower every day. Be filled with it so that one day you can say, “Now I am the flower.” Then the first part is fulfilled. When only the flower is there and all else is forgotten, then relish this idea for a few days. It is beautiful in itself — very, very beautiful, vital, powerful in itself.
Just feel it for a few days. And then, when you are attuned to it and it has become easy, then you need not struggle. Then the flower comes there suddenly, the whole world is forgotten and only the flower remains.
Then try the second part: close your eyes and forget the flower also. If you have done the first, the second will not be difficult — remember. But if you try the whole technique in one sitting, the second will be impossible — because if you can do the first, if you can forget the whole world for one flower, you can forget the flower also for nothingness.
So the second part will come, but first you have to struggle for it. But the mind is very tricky. The mind will always say to try the whole thing, and then you will not succeed. Then the mind will say, “It is not useful,” or, “It is not for me.” Try it in parts if you want to succeed. Let the first part be complete, and then do the second. Then the object is not there and only your consciousness remains, just like a light, a flame without anything around it.
You have a lamp and the lamp’s light falls on many objects. Visualize it. In your room there are many, many objects. If you bring one lamp into the darkness of the room, all the objects are lighted. The lamp radiates light on every object so that you can see them. Now remain with an object; let there be one object. The lamp is the same, but now only one object is there in its light. Now remove that object also: now light remains without any object.
The same happens with your consciousness. You are a flame, a light; the whole world is your object. You leave the whole world, and you choose one object for your concentration. Your flame remains the same, but now it is not occupied with multi-objects, it is occupied with only one. And then drop that object also. Suddenly there is simply light — consciousness. It is not falling on anything. This Buddha has called NIRVANA; this Mahavir has called KAIVALYA — the total aloneness. The Upanishads have called it the experience of the BRAHMAN, or the ATMAN. Shiva says that if you can do this single technique, you will realize the supreme.
