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If you are intrinsically spiritual then you don't need to do special exercises, but if you are miserable than you need transformation. You can start with the body, if you find it difficult to start with the mind. Everybody can't start transformation by doing nothing, philosophizing, contemplation.

@Shanmugam 29 If any one should wish to get the kingdom for himself, and to effect this by what he does, I see that he will not succeed. The kingdom is a spirit-like thing, and cannot be got by active doing. He who would so win it destroys it; he who would hold it in his grasp loses it. The course and nature of things is such that What was in front is now behind; What warmed anon we freezing find. Strength is of weakness oft the spoil; The store in ruins mocks our toil. Hence the sage puts away excessive effort, extravagance, and easy indulgence. 37 The Tao in its regular course does nothing (for the sake of doing it), and so there is nothing which it does not do. If princes and kings were able to maintain it, all things would of themselves be transformed by them. If this transformation became to me an object of desire, I would express the desire by the nameless simplicity. Simplicity without a name Is free from all external aim. With no desire, at rest and still, All things go right as of their will. 56 He who knows (the Tao) does not (care to) speak (about it); he who is (ever ready to) speak about it does not know it. He (who knows it) will keep his mouth shut and close the portals (of his nostrils). He will blunt his sharp points and unravel the complications of things; he will attemper his brightness, and bring himself into agreement with the obscurity (of others). This is called 'the Mysterious Agreement.' (Such an one) cannot be treated familiarly or distantly; he is beyond all consideration of profit or injury; of nobility or meanness:--he is the noblest man under heaven.

@Ilya You can go into meditation just by sitting, but then be just sitting; do not do anything else. If you can be just sitting, it becomes meditation. Be completely in the sitting; nonmovement should be your only movement. In fact, the word Zen comes from the word zazen, which means, just sitting, doing nothing. If you can just sit, doing nothing with your body and nothing with your mind, it becomes meditation; but it is difficult. You can sit very easily when you are doing something else but the moment you are just sitting and doing nothing, it becomes a problem. Every fiber of the body begins to move inside; every vein, every muscle, begins to move. You will begin to feel a subtle trembling; you will be aware of many points in the body of which you have never been aware before. And the more you try to just sit, the more movement you will feel inside you. So sitting can be used only if you have done other things first. You can just walk, that is easier. You can just dance, that is even easier. And after you have been doing other things that are easier, then you can sit. Sitting in a buddha posture is the last thing to do really; it should never be done in the beginning. Only after you have begun to feel identified totally with movement can you begin to feel totally identified with nonmovement. So I never tell people to begin with just sitting. Begin from where beginning is easy, otherwise you will begin to feel many things unnecessarily ¯ things that are not there. If you begin with sitting, you will feel much disturbance inside. The more you try to just sit, the more disturbance will be felt; you will become aware only of your insane mind and nothing else. It will create depression, you will feel frustrated. You will not feel blissful; rather, you will begin to feel that you are insane. And sometimes you may really go insane. If you make a sincere effort to 'just sit,' you may really go insane. Only because people do not really try sincerely does insanity not happen more often. With a sitting posture you begin to know so much madness inside you that if you are sincere and continue it, you may really go insane. It has happened before, so many times; so I never suggest anything that can create frustration, depression, sadness ¯ anything that will allow you to be too aware of your insanity. You may not be ready to be aware of all the insanity that is inside you; you must be allowed to get to know certain things gradually. Knowledge is not always good; it must unfold itself slowly as your capacity to absorb it grows. I begin with your insanity, not with a sitting posture; I allow your insanity. If you dance madly, the opposite happens within you. With a mad dance, you begin to be aware of a silent point within you; with sitting silently, you begin to be aware of madness. The opposite is always the point of awareness. With your dancing madly, chaotically, with crying, with chaotic breathing, I allow your madness. Then you begin to be aware of a subtle point, a deep point inside you that is silent and still, in contrast to the madness on the periphery. You will feel very blissful; at your center there is an inner silence. But if you are just sitting, then the inner one is the mad one; you are silent on the outside, but inside you are mad. If you begin with something active ¯ something positive, alive, moving ¯ it will be better; then you will begin to feel an inner stillness growing. The more it grows, the more it will be possible for you to use a sitting posture or a lying posture ¯ the more silent meditation will be possible. But by then things will be different, totally different. A meditation technique that begins with movement, action, helps you in other ways, also. It becomes a catharsis. When you are just sitting, you are frustrated; your mind wants to move and you are just sitting. Every muscle turns, every nerve turns. You are trying to force something upon yourself that is not natural for you; then you have divided yourself into the one who is forcing and the one who is being forced. And really, the part that is being forced and suppressed is the more authentic part; it is a more major part of your mind than the part that is suppressing, and the major part is bound to win. That which you are suppressing is really to be thrown, not suppressed. It has become an accumulation within you because you have been constantly suppressing it. The whole upbringing, the civilization, the education, is suppressive. You have been suppressing much that could have been thrown very easily with a different education, with a more conscious education, with a more aware parenthood. With a better awareness of the inner mechanism of the mind, the culture could have allowed you to throw many things. For example, when a child is angry we tell him, 'Do not be angry.' He begins to suppress anger. By and by, what was a momentary happening becomes permanent. Now he will not act angry, but he will remain angry. We have accumulated so much anger from what were just momentary things; no one can be angry continuously unless anger has been suppressed. Anger is a momentary thing that comes and goes: if it is expressed, then you are no longer angry. So with me, I would allow the child to be angry more authentically. Be angry, but be deep in it; do not suppress it. Of course, there will be problems. If we say, 'Be angry,' then you are going to be angry with someone. But a child can be molded; he can be given a pillow and told, 'Be angry with the pillow. Be violent with the pillow.' From the very beginning, a child can be brought up in a way in which the anger is just deviated. Some object can be given to him: he can go on throwing the object until his anger goes. Within minutes, within seconds, he will have dissipated his anger and there will be no accumulation of it. You have accumulated anger, sex, violence, greed, everything! Now this accumulation is a madness within you. It is there, inside you. If you begin with any suppressive meditation ¯ for example, with just sitting ¯ you are suppressing all of this, you are not allowing it to be released. So I begin with a catharsis. First, let the suppressions be thrown into the air; and when you can throw your anger into the air, you have become mature. If I cannot be loving alone, if I can be loving only with someone I love, then, really, I am not mature yet. Then I am depending on someone even to be loving; someone must be there, then I can be loving. Then that loving can only be a very superficial thing; it is not my nature. If I am alone in the room I am not loving at all, so the loving quality has not gone deep; it has not become a part of my being. You become more and more mature when you are less and less dependent. If you can be angry alone, you are more mature. You do not need any object to be angry. So I make a catharsis in the beginning a must. You must throw everything into the sky, into the open space, without being conscious of any object. Be angry without the person with whom you would like to be angry. Weep without finding any cause; laugh, just laugh, without anything to laugh at. Then you can just throw the whole accumulated thing ¯ you can just throw it. And once you know the way, you are unburdened of the whole past. Within moments you can be unburdened of the whole life ¯ of lives even. If you are ready to throw everything, if you can allow your madness to come out, within moments there is a deep cleansing. Now you are cleansed: fresh, innocent ¯ you are a child again. Now, in your innocence, sitting meditation can be done ¯ just sitting, or just lying or anything ¯ because now there is no mad one inside to disturb the sitting. Cleansing must be the first thing ¯ a catharsis ¯ otherwise, with breathing exercises, with just sitting, with practicing asanas, yogic postures, you are just suppressing something. And a very strange thing happens: when you have allowed everything to be thrown out, sitting will just happen, asanas will just happen ¯ it will be spontaneous. You may not have known anything about yoga asanas but you begin to do them. Now these postures are authentic, real. They bring much transformation inside your body because now the body itself is doing them, you are not forcing them. For example, when someone has thrown many things out, he may begin to try to stand on his head. He may have never learned to do shirshasan, the headstand, but now his whole body is trying to do it. This is a very inner thing now; it comes from his inner body wisdom, not from his mind's intellectual, cerebral information. If his body insists, 'Go and stand on your head!' and he allows it, he will feel very refreshed, very changed by it. You may do any posture, but I allow these postures only when they come by themselves. Someone can sit down and be silent in siddhasan or in any other posture, but this siddhasan is something quite different; the quality differs. He is trying to be silent in sitting ¯ but this is a happening, there is no suppression, there is no effort; it is just how your body feels. Your total being feels to sit. In this sitting there is no divided mind, no suppression. This sitting becomes a flowering. You must have seen statues of Buddha sitting on a flower, a lotus flower. The lotus is just symbolic; it is symbolic of what is happening inside Buddha. When 'just sitting' happens from the inside, you feel just like the opening of a flower. Nothing is being suppressed from the outside; rather, there is a growth, an opening from the inside; something inside opens and flowers. You can imitate Buddha's posture, but you cannot imitate the flower. You can sit completely buddhalike ¯ even more buddhalike than Buddha ¯ but the inside flowering will not be there. It cannot be imitated. You can use tricks. You can use breathing rhythms that can force you to be still, to suppress your mind. Breath can be used very suppressively because with every rhythm of breath a particular mood arises in your mind. Not that other moods disappear; they just go into hiding. You can force anything on yourself. If you want to be angry, just breathe the rhythm that happens in anger. Actors do it, when they want to express anger they change their breathing rhythm; the breathing rhythm must become the same as when there is anger. By making the rhythm fast they begin to feel anger, the anger part of the mind comes up. So breathing rhythm can be used to suppress the mind, to suppress anything in the mind. But it is not good, it is not a flowering. The other way is better; when your mind changes and then, as a consequence, your breath changes; the change comes first from the mind. So I use breathing rhythm as a sign. A person who remains at ease with himself constantly remains in the same breathing rhythm; it never changes because of the mind. It will change because of the body ¯ if you are running it will change ¯ but it never changes because of the mind. So tantra has used many, many breathing rhythms as secret keys. They even allow sexual intercourse as a meditation, but they allow it only when your breathing rhythm remains constant in intercourse, otherwise not. If the mind is involved, then the breathing rhythm cannot remain the same, and if the breathing rhythm remains the same, the mind is not involved at all. If the mind is not involved even in such a deep biological thing as sexual intercourse, then the mind will not be involved in anything else. But you can force. You can sit and force a particular rhythm on your body, you can create a fallacious buddhalike posture, but you will just be dead. You will become dull, stupid. It has happened to so many monks, so many sadhus; they just become stupid. Their eyes have no light of intelligence; their faces are just idiotic, with no inner light, no inner flame. Because they are so afraid of any inner movement, they have suppressed everything ¯ including intelligence. Intelligence is a movement, one of the most subtle movements, so if all inner movement is suppressed, intelligence will be affected. Awareness is not a static thing. Awareness, too, is movement ¯ a dynamic flow. So if you start from the outside, if you force yourself to sit like a statue, you are killing much. First be concerned with catharsis, with cleaning out your mind, throwing everything out, so that you become empty and vacant ¯ just a passage for something from the beyond to enter. Then sitting becomes helpful, silence becomes helpful, but not before. To me, silence in itself is not something worthwhile. You can create a silence that is a dead silence. Silence must be alive, dynamic. If you 'create' silence, you will become more stupid, more dull, more dead; but this is easier in a way, and so many people are doing it now. The whole culture is so suppressive that it is easier to suppress yourself still more. Then you do not have to take any risks, then you do not have to take a jump. People come to me and say, 'Tell us a meditation technique that we can practice silently.' Why this fear? Everyone has a madhouse inside and still they say, 'Tell us a technique that we can do silently.' With a silent technique you can only become more and more mad ¯ silently ¯ and nothing else. The doors of your madhouse must be opened! Don't be afraid of what others will say. A person who is concerned about what others think can never go inward. He will be too busy worrying about what others are saying, what they are thinking. If you just sit silently, closing your eyes, everything will be okay; your wife or your husband will say that you have become a very good person. Everyone wants you to be dead; even mothers want their children to be dead ¯ obedient, silent. The whole society wants you to be dead. So-called good men are really dead men. So don't be concerned with what others think, don't be concerned about the image that others may have of you. Begin with catharsis and then something good can flower within you. It will have a different quality, a different beauty, altogether different; it will be authentic. When silence comes to you, when it descends on you, it is not a false thing. You have not been cultivating it; it comes to you; it happens to you. You begin to feel it growing inside you just like a mother begins to feel a child growing. A deep silence is growing inside you; you become pregnant with it. Only then is there transformation; otherwise it is just self-deception. And one can deceive oneself for lives and lives ¯ the capacity to do so is infinite. Osho, Meditation: The Art of Ecstasy , Talk #5

@Loreena Just like people, and as silly as it sounds stones/crystals can absorb energy/emotions/feelings and actually need a break. Everything is made of energy, and has a vibration, and so do stones and crystals. I've had experiences where I've bought brand new necklaces and they broke shortly after because I didn't cleanse and take care of them. Last year, I had a malachite pendant that fell off my necklace in my car. It was the craziest thing, I swear on my life, this stone every time I tried to grab it, it went even further under my car seat! For REAL!! The good news is malachite is great for safe traveling, so I had no problem keeping it there! lol I'm sure it was because I had over used the pendant without cleansing it. Just the day before, I was a passenger in my friends car and he wasn't looking where he was going and almost crashed into another car...inches away. I was wearing that pendant when it happened....we should have been in an accident...I firmly believe the necklace was a big contributing factor to my safety! There are different ways to cleanse stones/crystals and clear their vibrations. (ex: washing them with running water, placing them in the sun light/moon light for 24 hours, sound therapy, sending reiki, etc.) https://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-14887/how-to-clear-activate-store-your-crystals.html I'm no expert in crystals yet, but I have been told by a few crystal experts that you don't pick the crystals, they pick you. (A lot of people use crystal pendulums to choose their stones/crystals) But that wouldn't constitute a reason to have bad luck, or the drastic set of events that occurred for you. Crystals don't retaliate against people! I can tell you from personal experience and the Law of Attraction, that we can attract a cycle of bad luck to us by our feelings. I've had days where things go drastically wrong, with one turn of an event after another, and usually I'm in a really negative vibration (negative mood) the whole day, so I keep attracting more bad things. And the same has happened with good days...everything just goes right. I wish the Law of Attraction was a major topic on this forum. It sounds like I'll have to start a forum topic some time soon about Positive/Negative Energy and the Law of Attraction. The good thing about stones and crystals and their meanings is that it's so easy to look them up on the internet. I have a few books about crystals and their meanings but I haven't had the time to get reading all of them yet! I'm actually preparing to take another Reiki Certification class in early August, so I probably will be disappearing from this forum for the next few weeks very soon. So if you don't see me around replying, that's probably why. Here is a link here that shows a few crystals for good luck. I just typed into google "stones for good luck" and this was one of the sites that came up. http://www.energymuse.com/blog/crystals-for-good-luck/ This is one of the books I have at home that I need to read. There are so many stones, and they all have different abilities, and resonate with different chakras. I was told by my reiki instructor it takes quite some time to learn this stuff. Atleast for using "Crystal Reiki" it is an extensive set of courses. What's great is a lot of these books you can look up key phrases like "good luck", "wealth", "opening the third eye" etc. and they will point you to what stones to work with. http://meanings.crystalsandjewelry.com/labradorite/ Labradorite (also called Spectrolite sometimes) is a considered by mystics to be a stone of transformation and magic. It is said to clear, balance and protect the aura, as well as being an excellent stone for general protection. It is purported to help provide clarity and insight into your destiny, as well as attract success. It is used in metaphysics for dream recall, and finding ways to use dreams in daily life. Mystically, energies of stress and anxiety are said to be reduced by labradorite, possibly due to is energy of self-confidence. Labradorite is said to increase intuition, psychic development, esoteric wisdom, help with subconscious issues, and provide mental illumination. In crystal healing and folklore, Labradorite is said to help with eyes, sight, diagnosis, brain, digestion, metabolism, warts. Note that healing crystal meanings are spiritual supports to healing and are not prescriptions or healthcare information. Labradorite is associated with the solar plexus and brow chakras.

Hey Leo, Im new here and i only go into spirituality recently through Julien Himself's Transformation Mastery. There seems like so many different types of meditation - subconcious releases, emptying mind, and now like this enlightenment excercise where you focus on "what am i". Whats the right one.. which do i invest my time into?

I used to be convinced that no-fap, (particularly the act of retaining sexual fluids) was a definite route of increasing energy, confidence, happiness, health, radiance, etc etc etc... I experimented a lot when I was a bit younger and had interesting results. Personally however I can no longer be sure that the connection is as direct as I had assumed because in my experience, it is possible to create this level of transformation and MORE simply through intent - that is the power of belief. It is possible to transform from depression, mental fog, insecurity and low level functioning into very high states that are sustainable for moderate periods of time simply through a correctly or conveniently placed intention or belief. This can carry profound physiological changes alongside it. Therefore, it is difficult to state just how much of a correlation there is between not masturbating and the array of profound effects that people claim. Happiness is an internal birthright and it's possible that people are temporarily taking claim to it through this 'permission slip'. I also have noticed that not many high masters have gone in depth about the connection between well-being, energy and masturbation. I have a theory that it may be because people would take it as pejorative and it may create sexual tension/shame in people - and suppressing the sexual drive can cause unforeseen consequences. Or perhaps the connection is overblown entirely.

Self-development is similar to experimenting with what we eat in life. Some only eat-out, some only cook their own, and most do both. Self-development often requires much transformation from the norm. Those that do so are alchemists, they do a fair bit of cooking. I was once invited to a foundation meeting for the Alternative Sciences and Technologies Research Organisation (ASTRO). While people were gathering for the meeting I was wondering around listening to people sprouting all sorts of read knowledge but without any practical experiences. It was sad to see that only one man showed any experimentation, even though he lacked practical know-how. He came to the meeting to find that know-how but found none from the others. They could not relate to him what he needed to know. @Shane597 If you can help others, through your own experience, to become more practical with their self-development, then that would be the greatest way to help others.

I'm trying to build a strong foundation for learning before I completely immerse myself in all the books I want to read on my list. The reason is inefficient reading, learning, memorizing, understanding, comprehending and even thinking and I'm frustrated by it, so like a good programmer, I want to master the mind and optimize these learning systems before I move forward with "writing code" or reading books and understanding reality. So the books I recently finished reading are Systems Thinking, Unlimited Memory and Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself, I also started reading How to Read a Book and Signs and Symbols Sourcebook. The first, most fundamental system that I want to redesign and optimize is the Thinking System, so I'm trying to apply Systems Thinking to Thinking System of the mind. All information is the obvious inflow into the system, which can be either external (text, audio, visuals - environment (nature, people, movies, pictures, symbols, colors, shapes)), or internal - memories, thoughts. Some of the outflow that the Thinking System creates are behavior (movement, emotions, reactions, verbal communication), reality, paradigm, self-image, memories (short term and long term) and other thoughts. I think the stock in this Thinking System would be "active thoughts", in a similar way how the CPU is processing information. There is also another component to "active thoughts" - conscious and sub-conscious, and to continue using the computer analogy, conscious thoughts would be an open program like "Adobe Photoshop" and sub-conscious thoughts would be like programs running in the background. Since we're concentrating on Thinking at this time, I think it's also important to be aware of the "link" between active thoughts, both conscious and sub-conscious and how they create other thoughts. Installing meditation software. So from this break down of the Thought System, we can already make some useful conclusions, for example: the more I become aware of sub-conscious thoughts, the more freedom I will have to choose what thoughts I want to add, subtract and what kind of links I want to create between those thoughts. (eg: I became aware that I was blaming my parents for bringing me up in a way that created a lot of judgement, critisizm and limited beliefs in me), by becoming mindful of those sub-conscious thoughts, I realized it wasn't my parents creating these negativities in my life anymore, but rather myself (I am my worst enemy). Another example is choosing how to link thoughts to other thoughts that I want: a thought about my parents suffering because of their alcoholism and negative lifestyle triggered (link) thoughts (or rather emotionally charged thoughts) of pity, guilt, and sadness. As I became aware of these negative links, I could further analyze all the reasons behind these negative thoughts triggered by my parents and I can now create new, positive thoughts (new links): compassion, unconditional love, understanding, motivation (healing myself will heal and help them). These are just a couple of examples of intervening (taking advantage of leverage points) within this system's internal information flows. Similarly, we can intervene in the external information flows: 1) unplugging from all toxic sources of information 2) establishing quality information flows which are as closely related to helping the system achieve it's goal (Leo's videos, books) 3) create new links in everyday objects in the environment (tree is a system, green is a color of nature, nature is creative, intelligent, diverse, sun is a symbol for - Stage Yellow systems thinking, it's the source of power (solar plexus chakra), yellow is a color of joy, happiness etc.) there are countless ways of how we can integrate everyday objects and nature and making them reminders for triggering emotions and thoughts that we want to trigger, instead of allowing our minds to create random associations (links) even if they are negative and don't serve our system's purpose. This is the reason I want to study Symbols and bought a book called Signs and Symbols Sourcebook which is already giving me a ton of ideas for more associations within the environment and more effective thinking, eg: space is a symbol for absolute infinity/god, dot is the symbol for beginning and end (the content within the absolute), vertical line is a symbol for physical body reaching for the reunion with the divine (spiritual development), trees are vertical so it can now be a constant reminder for enlightment. From the Systems Thinking, the best place to intervene is in the System Paradigm, this is what happened to me when I took 5g powdered mushrooms, just about four months ago, which completely shifted my whole view of reality and myself and the reason why I'm on an unstoppable hero's journey of transformation and personal growth right now. By applying the concepts from Thinking in Systems, we can look not only at the world's problems, but ourselves, and our minds as the most complex biological machines and start applying the concepts from the book to all the leverage points, redesigning and optimizing our systems to become super computers, super humans, sages, saints, geniuses, demigods!

The idea is to get to really be honest with yourself to see how your ego plays a role in your life. Mainly that it always seeks validation, because it is not valid, but just a story the mind has created to make sense of itself. The more validation it can gather the more energy it has to exploit itself and others for more validation. This energy (validity) is what I refer to as ego-energy or self-esteem. Esteem means 'respect and admiration'. How to get around this is to truly know and accept yourself (good and bad). Be your own judge, but be okay with yourself too, since nobody is perfect. In this way, by being true to yourself, and accepting it, you'll know that you are still okay, even without external validation. You may see yourself lower than a worm, but you will also know that this worm is still capable of loving, caring and true. From this, is where your okayness is centered/located. This transformation from basing your life on your fearful deceptive self to basing it on your loving true Self, is like building up enough self-esteem to a point of no longer needing it. You'll know when this becomes you for all that matters in life is to be true, genuine and real. You will value this above anything else, even relationships, even all the money in China (so to speak), and it all comes from within you.

Some symbolism: The frog goes from a swimming sperm cell to a frog in a few months, representing rapid transformation Also, the toad goes into hibernation (representing going inwards) (And when Bashar was asked about Arizona as to what that place represents he said spiritual growth)

@Leo Gura I can see how it can take some time to get used to it and to explore it. It's a radically different way of looking at and living in reality. It's like being reborn as the watcher. Maybe it's a re-incarnation. Who's to say that enlightenment is not a death and re-birth. It's definitely a transformation. How that transformation is conceptualized versus how it happened in reality are two different things. I get the feeling that most of you believe what happened is that beliefs were changed. Thoughts were simply held differently. The ego was forced to eat itself. It could no longer stand on a rational foundation, it's own standard, so it gave up the ghost! When you live by the sword you may die by the sword too.

Osho was not against yoga, he only warned about stupidities people are doing on the path of yoga. Osho has explained sutras of Patanjali in his discourses "Yoga, the alpha and the omega". https://www.google.co.in/search?q=yoga+alpha+and+omega+osho&rlz=1C1DFOC_enIN675IN675&oq=yoga+alpha&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0l5.10829j0j8&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 Osho lived in India, he was well aware of the fact that people are doing yoga to make their body strong and healthy, instead for spiritual transformation. He never said breathing exercises in yoga will necessarily damage your brain and makes you stupid, guidance and preparation is necessary for doing breathing exercises in yoga. Hatha Yoga Pradipika, says "As lions, elephants and tigers are tamed slowly & systematically. So must be the case with prana, otherwise the practitioner is destroyed. http://www.yogaxtc.com/pranayama.html If you tell me the exact words of Osho about breathing exercises, I can explain it in right context.

@Prabhaker you know what. I thank you so much. I think I'm going through a spiritual transformation. Not sure. just feel energy up the front of me and down my spine. Guilt is coming up and I am finding every excuse to feel guilty. And trying to figure out if it's rational or not. This came up recently and has had me stuck. Seriously, I was under a different name before and you guided me. So thank you again for such a quick and eloquent response.

@Joseph Maynor Your thoughts have no roots, they have no home; they wander just like clouds. So you need not fight them, you need not be against them, you need not even try to stop thoughts. This should become a deep understanding in you, because whenever a person becomes interested in meditation he starts trying to stop thinking. And if you try to stop thoughts they will never be stopped, because the very effort to stop is a thought, the very effort to meditate is a thought, the very effort to attain buddhahood is a thought. And how can you stop a thought by another thought? How can you stop mind by creating another mind? Then you will be clinging to the other. And this will go on and on, ad nauseam; then there is no end to it. Don´t fight – because who will fight? Who are you? Just a thought, so don´t make yourself a battleground of one thought fighting another. Rather, be a witness, you just watch thoughts floating. They stop, but not by your stopping. They stop by your becoming more aware, not by any effort on your part to stop them. Osho, Tantra: the Supreme Understanding, Talk #2 THINKING cannot be stopped. Not that it does not stop, but it cannot be stopped. It stops of its own accord. This distinction has to be understood, otherwise you can go mad chasing your mind. No-mind does not arise by stopping thinking. When the thinking is no more, no-mind is. The very effort to stop will create more anxiety, it will create conflict, it will make you split. You will be in a constant turmoil within. This is not going to help. And even if you succeed in stopping it forcibly for a few moments, it is not an achievement at all -- because those few moments will be almost dead, they will not be alive. You may feel a sort of stillness, but not silence, because a forced stillness is not silence. Underneath it, deep in the unconscious, the repressed mind goes on working. So, there is no way to stop the mind. But the mind stops -- that is certain. It stops of its own accord. So what to do? -- your question is relevant. Watch -- don't try to stop. There is no need to do any action against the mind. In the first place, who will do it? It will be mind fighting mind itself. You will divide your mind into two; one that is trying to boss over -- the top-dog -- trying to kill the other part of itself, which is absurd. It is a foolish game. It can drive you crazy. Don't try to stop the mind or the thinking -- just watch it, allow it. Allow it total freedom. Let it run as fast as it wants. You don't try in any way to control it. You just be a witness. It is beautiful! Mind is one of the most beautiful mechanisms. Science has not yet been able to create anything parallel to mind. Mind still remains the masterpiece -- so complicated, so tremendously powerful, with so many potentialities. Watch it! Enjoy it! And don't watch like an enemy, because if you look at the mind like an enemy, you cannot watch. You are already prejudiced; you are already against. You have already decided that something is wrong with the mind -- you have already concluded. And whenever you look at somebody as an enemy you never look deep, you never look into the eyes. You avoid! Watching the mind means: look at it with deep love, with deep respect, reverence -- it is God's gift to you! Nothing is wrong in mind itself. Nothing is wrong in thinking itself. It is a beautiful process as other processes are. Clouds moving in the sky are beautiful -- why not thoughts moving into the inner sky? Flowers coming to the trees are beautiful -- why not thoughts flowering into your being. The river running to the ocean is beautiful -- why not this stream of thoughts running somewhere to an unknown destiny? is it not beautiful? Look with deep reverence. Don't be a fighter -- be a lover. Watch! -- the subtle nuances of the mind; the sudden turns, the beautiful turns; the sudden jumps and leaps; the games that mind goes on playing; the dreams that it weaves -- the imagination, the memory; the thousand and one projections that it creates. Watch! Standing there, aloof, distant, not involved, by and by you will start feeling... The deeper your watchfulness becomes, the deeper your awareness becomes, and gaps start arising, intervals. One thought goes and another has not come, and there is a gap. One cloud has passed, another is coming and there is a gap. In those gaps, for the first time you will have glimpses of no-mind, you will have the taste of no-mind. Call it taste of Zen, or Tao, or Yoga. In those small intervals, suddenly the sky is clear and the sun is shining. Suddenly the world is full of mystery because all barriers are dropped. The screen on your eyes is no more there. You see clearly, you see penetratingly. The whole existence becomes transparent. In the beginning, these will be just rare moments, few and far in between. But they will give you glimpses of what samadhi is. Small pools of silence -- they will come and they will disappear. But now you know that you are on the right track -- you start watching again. When a thought passes, you watch it; when an interval passes, you watch it. Clouds are also beautiful; sunshine also is beautiful. Now you are not a chooser. Now you don't have a fixed mind: you don't say, "I would like only the intervals." That is stupid -- because once you become attached to wanting only the intervals, you have decided again against thinking. And then those intervals will disappear. They happen only when you are very distant, aloof. They happen, they cannot be brought. They happen, you cannot force them to happen. They are spontaneous happenings. Go on watching. Let thoughts come and go -- wherever they want to go. Nothing is wrong! Don't try to manipulate and don't try to direct. Let thoughts move in total freedom. And then bigger intervals will be coming. You will be blessed with small satoris.Sometimes minutes will pass and no thought will be there; there will be no traffic -- a total silence, undisturbed. When the bigger gaps come, you will not only have clarity to see into the world -- with the bigger gaps you will have a new clarity arising -- you will be able to see into the inner world. With the first gaps you will see into the world: trees will be more green than they look right now. You will be surrounded by an infinite music -- the music of the spheres. You will be suddenly in the presence of God -- ineffable, mysterious. Touching you although you can not grasp it. Within your reach and yet beyond. With the bigger gaps, the same will happen inside. God will not only be outside, you will be suddenly surprised -- He is inside also. He is not only in the seen; He is in the seer also -- within and without. By and by... But don't get attached to that either. Attachment is the food for the mind to continue. Non-attached witnessing is the way to stop it without any effort to stop it. And when you start enjoying those blissful moments, your capacity to retain them for longer periods arises. Finally, eventually, one day, you become master. Then when you want to think, you think; if thought is needed, you use it; if thought is not needed, you allow it to rest. Not that mind is simply no more there: mind is there, but you can use it or not use it. Now it is your decision. Just like legs: if you want to run you use them; if you don't want to run you simply rest -- legs are there. In the same way, mind is always there. When I am talking to you I am using the mind -- there is no other way to talk. When I am answering your question I am using the mind -- there is no other way. I have to respond and relate, and mind is a beautiful mechanism. When I am not talking to you and I am alone, there is no mind -- because it is a medium to relate through. Sitting alone it is not needed. You have not given it a rest; hence, the mind becomes mediocre. Continuously used, tired, it goes on and on and on. Day it works; night it works. In the day you think; in the night you dream. Day in, day out, it goes on working. If you live for seventy or eighty years it will be continuously working. Look at the delicacy and the endurability of the mind -- so delicate! In a small head all the libraries of the world can be contained; all that has ever been written can be contained in one single mind. Tremendous is the capacity of the mind -- and in such a small space! and not making much noise. If scientists some day become capable of creating a parallel computer to mind... computers are there, but they are not yet minds. They are still mechanisms, they have no organic unity; they don't have any center yet. If some day it becomes possible... and it is possible that scientists may some day be able to create minds -- then you will know how much space that computer will take, and how much noise it will make. Mind is making almost no noise; goes on working silently. And such a servant! -- for seventy, eighty years. And then, too, when you are dying your body may be old but your mind remains young. Its capacity remains yet the same. Sometimes, if you have used it rightly, it even increases with your age! -- because the more you know, the more you understand, the more you have experienced and lived, the more capable your mind becomes. When you die, everything in your body is ready to die -- except the mind. That's why in the East we say mind leaves the body and enters another womb, because it is not yet ready to die. The rebirth is of the mind. Once you have attained the state of samadhi, no-mind, then there will be no rebirth. Then you will simply die. And with your dying, everything will be dissolved -- your body, your mind... only your witnessing soul will remain. That is beyond time and space. Then you become one with existence; then you are no more separate from it. The separation comes from the mind. But there is no way to stop it forcibly -- don't be violent. Move lovingly, with a deep reverence -- and it will start happening of its own accord. You just watch. And don't be in a hurry. The modern mind is in much hurry. It wants instant methods for stopping the mind. Hence, drugs have appeal. Mm? -- you can force the mind to stop by using chemicals, drugs, but again you are being violent with the mechanism. It is not good. It is destructive. In this way you are not going to become a master. You may be able to stop the mind through the drugs, but then drugs will become your master -- you are not going to become the master. You have simply changed your bosses, and you have changed for the worse. Now the drugs will hold power over you, they will possess you; without them you will be nowhere. Meditation is not an effort against the mind. It is a way of understanding the mind. It is a very loving way of witnessing the mind -- but, of course, one has to be very patient. This mind that you are carrying in your head has arisen over centuries, millennia. Your small mind carries the whole experience of humanity -- and not only of humanity: of animals, of birds, of plants, of rocks. You have passed through all those experiences. All that has happened up to now has happened in you also. In a very small nutshell, you carry the whole experience of existence. That's what your mind is. In fact, to say it is yours is not right: it is collective; it belongs to us all. Modern psychology has been approaching it, particularly Jungian analysis has been approaching it, and they have started feeling something like a collective unconscious. Your mind is not yours -- it belongs to us all. Our bodies are very separate; our minds are not so separate. Our bodies are clear-cutly separate; our minds overlap -- and our souls are one. Bodies separate, minds overlapping, and souls are one. I don't have a different soul and you don't have a different soul. At the very center of existence we meet and are one. That's what God is: the meeting-point of all. Between the God and the world -- 'the world' means the bodies -- is mind. Mind is a bridge: a bridge between the body and the soul, between the world and God. Don't try to destroy it! Many have tried to destroy it through Yoga. That is a misuse of Yoga. Many have tried to destroy it through body posture, breathing -- that too brings subtle chemical changes inside. For example: if you stand on your head in shirshasan -- in the headstand -- you can destroy the mind very easily. Because when the blood rushes too much, like a flood, into the head -- when you stand on your head that's what you are trying to do.... The mind mechanism is very delicate; you are flooding it with blood. The delicate tissues will die. That's why you never come across a very intelligent yogi -- no. Yogis are, more or less, stupid. Their bodies are healthy -- that's true -- strong, but their minds are just dead. You will not see the glimmer of intelligence. You will see a very robust body, animallike, but somehow the human has disappeared. Standing on your head, you are forcing your blood into the head through gravitation. The head needs blood, but in a very, very small quantity; and very slowly, not floodlike. Against gravitation, very little blood reaches to the head. And that, too, in a very silent way. If too much blood is reaching into the head it is destructive. Yoga has been used to kill the mind; breathing can be used to kill the mind. There are rhythms of breath, subtle vibrations of breath, which can be very, very drastic to the delicate mind. The mind can be destroyed through them. These are old tricks. Now the latest tricks are supplied by science: LSD, marijuana, and others. More and more sophisticated drugs will be available sooner or later. I am not in favour of stopping the mind. I am in favour of watching it. It stops of its own accord -- and then it is beautiful When something happens without any violence it has a beauty of its own, it has a natural growth. You can force a flower and open it by force; you can pull the petals of a bud and open it by force -- but you have destroyed the beauty of the flower. Now it is almost dead. It cannot stand your violence. The petals will be hanging loose, limp, dying. When the bud opens by its own energy, when it opens of its own accord, then those petals are alive. The mind is your flowering -- don't force it in any way. I am against all force and against all violence, and particularly violence that is directed towards yourself. Just watch -- in deep prayer, love, reverence. And see what happens! Miracles happen of their own accord. There is no need to pull and push. You ask: How to stop thinking? I say: Just watch, be alert. And drop this idea of stopping, otherwise it will stop the natural transformation of the mind. Drop this idea of stopping! Who are you to stop? At the most, enjoy. And nothing is wrong -- even if immoral thoughts, so-called immoral thoughts, pass through your mind, let them pass; nothing is wrong. You remain detached. No harm is being done. It is just fiction; you are seeing an inner movie. Allow it its own way and it will lead you, by and by, to the state of no-mind. Watching ultimately culminates in no-mind. No-mind is not against mind: no-mind is beyond mind. No-mind does not come by killing and destroying the mind: no-mind comes when you have understood the mind so totally that thinking is no longer needed -- your understanding has replaced it. ~ OSHO~A Sudden Clash of Thunder

Think of happiness as being + values in action. Do not expect yourself to literally embody values perfectly, as values themselves are concepts. But do make the attempt. It's the trying that counts. Don't know your values? Figure them out. Once you nail down your personal values, you can eliminate all the distractions that keep you from living out those values. Embodying your values is hard enough. Embodying values without knowing them yet is a recipe for disaster. - When you practice your values in actions enough, you'll get to a point where you don't even think about it that much. - Add unconditional happiness to your list of values . That said, don't get upset with yourself for getting upset and not 100% living up to the value of unconditional happiness. Keep asking yourself "am I setting up conditions for my happiness? Oh yes! I am!" and then finding a proper solution to that condition or letting go of the condition completely. Over time, you will come closer to truly unconditional happiness as you get better at facing and removing your happiness-conditions. - We all have a list of human needs. These needs may cloud our awareness such that we become desperate to fulfill them, in order. - in desperation, we may go against our values or make rash actions that make the world worse for everyone and everything in it. So the game is to figure out how, when, and why your needs are clouding your awareness. - The wholehearted do value play and joy. This is part of their secret. - The problem is that people go overboard with it and knock themselves out of balance. Life is not all about fun. - The opposite of play is not work. It's depression. So if you find that you're not doing anything fun while on your quest, then know that you're fucking yourself over. - The Specific answer to that question depends on the person, but basically the overall structure will be: having complete experiences of life, especially by opening up to new ones growing in the ability to handle more complex problems (on your own and with other people) practicing authenticity - being able to speak your mind and heart as necessary connecting the Truth that you literally are God in God hanging out with other versions of God helping others do everything listed above in a direct, appreciable way Do that and you're bound to have a great life. Enlightenment? Enlightenment does not equal personal transformation. You can access the Truth but still go back to do thing the same 'ol things. Then again, the Truth can be used for a) mental clarity so that you can get shit done b) a reminder that you don't actually have to do anything, so you don't have to become neurotic about getting shit done and c) simple amazement at the fact that you are aware of everything at all - if you understand what to look for, then the world becomes this goddamn amazing wonder of stuff to discover. (HINT: you are awareness in the never ending process of not knowing and figuring itself out. Or better yet, you are how the universe feels itself and contemplates about itself.) Example: Peter Ralston wrote a whole book about the fact that enlightenment does not equal personal transformation and yet his enlightenments (note: plural! there's a lot to become enlightened about!) allowed him to not give a f*ck about pain while winning world martial Arts Championships. Being As a synonym for being use "complete experience" or "stopping to smell the roses" or "really feeling what it is like to be you in the moment of being you as you do the things you do, whatever they may be" Overall, enlightenment and being are themselves part of fulfillment, as I hinted at earlier with the list of things that generally comprise a fulfilling life.

I am just playing, it's not like I am looking to gain something from that discussion. How am I wasting my time? I don't care about opinions, opinions are irrelevant to me. I want to see where this thought takes me while I am in this eternal presence of no-mind. I am like riding a wave. I am the DJ of my own creation, shifting trought realities. My point was that you do your own research if your interested in this subject, this is very deep. The first post was just a starting point for you guys to go do your own research if you want to experiment with the way I became enlightened fast. If you fully researched the stuff I have mentioned in the first post and tried everything, you would see it first hand. If you are fast jumping to conclusions than your stuck in mind. Just prove it to yourself. Your doing it all the time. You have a lifetime to try new things. I have done it and words cannot even desribe the true transformation that took place. And I am pretty sure nobody has researched this stuff deep enought because every body that commented is so fast jumping to conclusions without putting in hours to do the work. I have posted this topic today, and It's not possible to study everything I'm talking about in this topic so fast. If you would study all of it, by putting it a whole week at least of solid research and than experimentation the following weeks and months you would came to different conclusions. You would find how this ways are indeed fast ways of accelerationg the awareness evolution of an individual.

I can appreciate this. You seem like you've made some huge progress. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater regarding thought though. Now that you see thought for what it is, you don't have to be scared that it will mislead you anymore. You can play with thought like an architect plays with building materials. And then you can revel in your cathedrals without believing that they are living beings. I see a lot of fear of thought on this forum. The truly enlightened person should be able to do philosophy mindful of its purpose and limitations. This is where Stage Blue (or Green) becomes Stage Turquoise. Turquoise is not dogmatic nor scared of thought. Blue is scared of thought and tries to banish it from discourse. Green has a tendency to be dogmatic too, stuck on relativism, which is a paradigm in itself. They will deny this, but they tend to practice it and gravitate towards it. Thought is not evil, it just needs to be caveated properly. Just like lions are not evil, they just need to be caveated properly. So, watch out for your own paradigms. I notice that a lot of Advaita/ Zen folks have a bad paradigm regarding thought. Awareness and contemplation over this issue would serve some of you more "religious" folks. Religious thinking has no place in Turquoise consciousness. Be mindful of your own substandard paradigms too. You can always improve something. Just when you think you got it all figured out, think again. Reality speaks in shades of grey. Being against thought is just as bad as being an armchair-philosopher. And any of these "views" always sits at cross-purposes to reality anyway. Reality includes thought. Let's acknowledge that fully and not bury our heads in the sand like blind religious folks over this issue. Thought is not bad. It's our interpretation of thought that is bad. There's a key difference there! Being a thinker, even a theorist, or a philosopher, is necessary if you really want to have the highest awareness possible. But there are a lot of over-thinkers that never become enlightened, so I get that, and that justifies your fear against thought. However, I think a lot of people miss the issue I am trying to communicate here, and I'm going out of my way to spell it out carefully here, and here it is: Don't get paradigm-locked against thinking, theorizing, or philosophizing. Learn how to use these items in your own life when they are appropriate. That's the wiser paradigm. I humbly speak from my own perspective and from what resonates with me only. I'm not putting this out there like it's an objective truth for everybody. But I felt like this perspective needs to be communicated to expose a very nasty trap. It's a common trap, but a lot of folks appear to be blind to it. Blindness to the trap itself is the worst kind of trap. It's like walking blind without a cane; and additionally, not even being aware of one's own blindness! // I like this part of your post. I took the liberty of re-organizing it below. Print it out folks. I didn't tweak your language (but you should always double space after periods, it will improve your writing dramatically): How to become enlightened FAST Your(ego), your sense of self will not survive this process. You are reality. Don't seek too much information, seek massive transformation. To destroy the ego you have to be in the being state, and if you want results with enlightenment fast, you have to have a serious intent to raise your consciousness. You have to be this awareness continuously to get rid of all thoughts. This means that it's harder to become enlightened by being aware just when you’re doing your traditional meditation practice for up to 60 minutes or 3 hours or even 5 hours. Reality is so fucking simple you will NEVER understand it with thought. Understanding awareness with the mind is like lighting up the sun with a cigarette lighter. After I got enlightened I became aware how the body just moves automatically without me thinking anything (hearing mental sounds). I was like shit, I have a lot of work to do to undo all of that programming. So I was starting to do more and more personal development and consciousness work simultaneously. Enlightenment changed nothing. Enlightenment just made me more aware of the functioning of existence, how everything is happening without effort inside me. At that point your mind and ego die, because you surrender to effortlessness and ego and mind is all about effort. So after you become enlightened everything you could accomplish is effortless. You really don't need any thought anymore to function and succeed in life. So... that means you don't have to go to meditate in a cave for 30 years. You can do your life purpose and enlightenment simultaneously. Yes it's hard but if you apply everything I am talking about here you will be enlightened extremely fast. You have to become increasingly aware moment to moment and maintain that intention for a few months. To not pay attention to the content of awareness but to awareness. And after that you will arrive in utopia, you will want to go back but you'll recognize that you can't. You have embodied that which is permanent. The mind surrendered to consciousness. Ask yourself how conductive you are. If you want to be enlightened fast, you need to drop all resistance and drop arising resistances for extended periods of time with awareness, by observation, without being judgmental, attached, not building any meaning when thoughts arise, not labeling anything as good or bad for your own gain (because when you do you start constructing meaning and that is illusion), not gossiping not comparing yourself with others, not creating a sense of linearity, being aware that your're not what you sense as yourself, existence cannot be perceived with senses it's only through consciousness. Have a serious intent at the start, like your life depends on it. As you become more and more conscious this seriousness will vanish and all that will be left is playfulness. You will start playing with all of the content of awareness and not seriously indulge in it by assigning it meaning, thinking of it good or bad. You will be detached, and after a while that detachment will become automatic, a part of you. This intent must be present for long periods of time, uninterruptedly.

“What are Dreams?” – OSHO We have seven bodies: the physical, the etheric, the astral, the mental, the spiritual, the cosmic, and the nirvanic. Each body has its own type of dream. The physical body is known in Western psychology as the conscious, the etheric body as the unconscious, and the astral body as the collective unconscious. The physical body creates its own dreams. If your stomach is upset, a particular type of dream is created. If you are unhealthy, feverish, the physical body creates its own type of dream. One thing is certain: the dream is created out of some dis-ease. Physical discomfort, physical dis-ease, creates its own realm of dreams, so a physical dream can even be stimulated from the outside. You are sleeping. If a wet cloth is put around your legs, you will begin to dream. You may dream you are crossing a river. If a pillow is put on your chest, you will begin to dream. You may dream that someone is sitting on you, or a stone has fallen on you. These are dreams that come through the physical body. The etheric body — the second body — dreams in its own way. These etheric dreams have created much confusion in Western psychology. Freud misunderstood etheric dreams for dreams caused by suppressed desires. There are dreams that are caused by suppressed desires, but these dreams belong to the first body, the physical. If you have suppressed physical desires — if you have fasted for instance — then there is every possibility that you will dream of breakfast. Or, if you have suppressed sex, then there is every possibility that you will have sexual fantasies. But these dreams belong to the first body. The etheric body is left out of psychological investigation, so its dreams are interpreted as belonging to the first body, the physical. Then, much confusion is created. The etheric body can travel in dreams. There is every possibility of it leaving your body. When you remember it, it is remembered as a dream, but it is not a dream in the same sense as the dreams of the physical body. The etheric body can go out of you when you are asleep. Your physical body will be there, but your etheric body can go out and travel in space. There is no space limiting it; there is no question of distance for it. Those who do not understand this, who do not recognize the existence of the etheric body, may interpret this as the realm of the unconscious. They divide man’s mind into conscious and unconscious. Then physiological dreaming is called “conscious” and etheric dreaming is called “unconscious.” It is not unconscious. It is as conscious as physiological dreaming, but conscious on another level. If you become conscious of your etheric body, the dreaming concerned with that realm becomes conscious. Just as physiological dreams can be created from the outside, so too can etheric dreams be created, stimulated. A mantra is one of the methods to create etheric visions, etheric dreams. A particular mantra or a particular nada — a particular word, sounding repeatedly in the etheric center — can create etheric dreams. There are so many methods. Sound is one of them. Sufis have used perfume to create etheric visions. Mohammed himself was very fond of perfume. A particular perfume can create a particular dream. Colors can also be of help. Leadbeater once had an etheric dream of blueness — just blueness, but of a particular shade. He began to search for that particular blue all over the markets of the world. After several years of search, it was finally found in an Italian shop — a velvet of that particular shade. The velvet was then used to create etheric dreams in others as well. So when someone goes deep in meditation and sees colors, and experiences perfumes and sounds and music absolutely unknown, these too are dreams, dreams of the etheric body. So-called spiritual visions belong to the etheric body; they are etheric dreams. Gurus revealing themselves before their disciples is nothing but etheric travel, etheric dreaming. But because we have only searched the mind at one level of existence, the physiological, these dreams have either been interpreted in the language of the physiological or discarded, neglected. Or, put into the unconscious. To say that anything is part of the unconscious is really just to admit that we do not know anything about it. It is a technicality, a trick. Nothing is unconscious, but everything that is conscious on a deeper level is unconscious on the previous level. So for the physical, the etheric is unconscious; for the etheric, the astral is unconscious; for the astral, the mental is unconscious. Conscious means that which is known. Unconscious means that which is still not known, the unknown. There are also astral dreams. In astral dreaming you go into your previous births. That is your third dimension of dreaming. Sometimes in an ordinary dream, part of the etheric or part of the astral may be there. Then the dream becomes a muddle, a mess; you cannot understand it. Because your seven bodies are in existence simultaneously, something from one realm can pass into another, can penetrate it. So sometimes, even in ordinary dreams, there are fragments of the etheric or astral. In the first body, the physical, you can travel in neither time nor space. You are confined to your physical state and to the particular time it is — say, ten o’clock at night. Your physical body can dream in this particular time and space, but not beyond it. In the etheric body you can travel in space but not in time. You can go anywhere, but the time is still ten o’clock at night. In the astral realm, in the third body, you can travel not only in space but also in time. The astral body can trespass the barrier of time — but only toward the past, not toward the future. The astral mind can go into the whole infinite series of the past, from amoeba to man. In Jungian psychology, the astral mind has been called the collective unconscious. It is your individual history of births. Sometimes it penetrates into ordinary dreams, but more often in pathological states than in healthy ones. In a man who is mentally diseased, the first three bodies lose their usual distinction from one another. A person who is mentally ill may dream about his previous births, but no one will believe him. He himself will not believe it. He will say it is just a dream. This is not dreaming on the physical plane. It is astral dreaming. And astral dreaming has much meaning, much significance. But the third body can dream only about the past, not about what is to be. The fourth body is the mental. It can travel into the past and into the future. In an acute emergency, sometimes even an ordinary person can have a glimpse of the future. If someone near and dear to you is dying, the message may be delivered to you in an ordinary dream. Because you do not know any other dimension of dreaming, because you do not know the other possibilities, the message will penetrate your ordinary dreaming. But the dream will not be clear because of barriers that have to be crossed before the message can become a part of your ordinary dreaming state. Each barrier eliminates something, transforms something. Each body has its own symbology so every time a dream passes from one body to another it is translated into the symbology of that body. Then, everything becomes confused. If you dream in the fourth body in a clear-cut way — not through another body but through the fourth body itself — then you can penetrate into the future, but only into your own future. It is still individual; you cannot penetrate into another person’s future. For the fourth body, the past is as much the present as the future is the present. Past, future and present become one. Everything becomes a now: now penetrating backward, now penetrating forward. There is no past and no future, but there is still time. Time, even as “the present,” is still a flowing of time. You will still have to focus your mind. You can see toward the past, but you will have to focus your mind in that direction. Then the future and the present will be held in abeyance. When you focus toward the future, the other two — past and present — will be absent. You will be able to see past, present and future, but not as one. And you will be able to see only your own individual dreams, dreams that belong to you as an individual. The fifth body, the spiritual body, crosses the realm of the individual and the realm of time. Now you are in eternity. The dreaming is not concerned with you as such, but with the consciousness of the whole. Now you know the entire past of the whole existence, but not the future. Through this fifth body, all myths of creation have been developed. They are all the same. The symbols differ, the stories differ a little bit, but whether they are Christian or Hindu or Jewish or Egyptian, the myths of creation — how the world was created, how it came into existence — are all parallel; they all have an undercurrent of similarity. For example, similar stories of the great flood exist all over the world. There is no historical record of them but, still, there is a record. That record belongs to the fifth mind, the spiritual body. The fifth mind can dream about them. The more you penetrate inward, the more the dream comes nearer and nearer to reality. Physiological dreaming is not so real. It has its own reality, but it is not so real. The etheric is much more real, the astral is even more real, the mental approximates the real and finally, in the fifth body, you become authentically realistic in your dreaming. This is the way to know reality. To call it dreaming is not adequate. But in a way it is dreaming, because the real is not objectively present. It has its own objectivity, but it comes as a subjective experience. Two persons who have realized the fifth body can dream simultaneously, which is not possible before this. Ordinarily there is no way of dreaming a common dream, but from the fifth body onward, a dream can be dreamt by many persons simultaneously. That is why the dreams are objective in a way. We can compare notes. That is how so many persons, dreaming in the fifth body, came to know the same myths. These myths were not created by single individuals. They were created by particular schools, particular traditions working together. So the fifth type of dreaming becomes much more real. The four preceding types are unreal in a sense because they are individual. There is no possibility of another person sharing the experience; there is no way to judge the validity of it — whether it is a fantasy or not. A fantasy is something you have projected; a dream is something that is not in existence as such, but which you have come to know. As you go inward, the dreaming becomes less fantastic, less imaginary — more objective, more real, more authentic. All theological concepts are created by the fifth body. They differ in their language, their terminology, their conceptualization, but they are basically the same. They are dreams of the fifth body. In the sixth body, the cosmic body, you cross the threshold of conscious/unconscious, matter/mind. You lose all distinctions. The sixth body dreams about the cosmos. You cross the threshold of consciousness and the unconscious world also becomes conscious. Now everything is alive and conscious. Even what we call matter is now part of consciousness. In the sixth body, dreams of cosmic myths have been realized. You have transcended the individual, you have transcended the conscious, you have transcended time and space, but language is still possible. It points toward something; it indicates something. Theories of Brahma, maya, theories of oneness, of the infinite, have all been realized in the sixth type of dreaming. Those who have dreamt in the cosmic dimension have been the creators of the great systems, the great religions. Through the sixth type of mind, dreams are in terms of being, not in terms of nonbeing; in terms of positive existence, not in terms of non-existence. There is still a clinging to existence and a fear of non-existence. Matter and mind have become one, but not existence and non-existence, not being and nonbeing. They are still separate. This is the last barrier. The seventh body, the nirvanic, crosses the boundary of the positive and jumps into nothingness. It has its own dreams: dreams of non-existence, dreams of nothingness, dreams of the void. The yes has been left behind, and even the no is not a no now; the nothingness is not nothing. Rather, the nothing is even more infinite. The positive must have boundaries; it cannot be infinite. Only the negative has no boundaries. So the seventh body has its own dreams. Now there are no symbols, no forms. Only the formless is. Now there is no sound but the soundless; there is absolute silence. These dreams of silence are total, unending. These are the seven bodies. Each of them has its own dreams. But these seven dimensions of dreams can become a hindrance in knowing the seven types of realities. Your physiological body has a way to know the real and a way to dream about it. When you take your food, this is a reality, but when you dream that you are taking food, it is not a reality. The dream is a substitute for the real food. So the physiological body has its own reality and its own way of dreaming. These are two different ways in which the physiological functions, and they are very far apart from one another. The more you go toward the center — the higher the body you are in — the nearer dream and reality are to one another. Just like lines drawn from the periphery toward the center of a circle come nearer as they approach the center, and are further apart as they go toward the circumference, so too dream and reality come nearer and nearer as you go toward your center and they become further and further apart as you go toward the periphery. So as far as the physiological body is concerned, dreaming and reality are far apart. The distance between them is great. Dreams are just fantasy. This separation will not be so great in the etheric body. The real and the dream will come nearer, so to know what is real and what is a dream will be more difficult than in the physiological body. But still, the difference can be known. If your etheric travel has been real travel, it will happen while you are awake. If it has been a dream it will happen when you are asleep. To know the difference, you will have to be awakened in the etheric body. There are methods to be aware in your etheric body. All methods of inner working such as japa — the repetition of a mantra — disconnect you from the outside world. If you fall asleep, the constant repetition can create a hypnotic sleep. Then, you will dream. But if you can remain aware of your japa and it does not create a hypnotic effect in you, then you will know the real as far as the etheric is concerned. In the third body, the astral, it is even more difficult to know the difference because the two have come even closer. If you have known the real astral body and not just astral dreaming, then you will go beyond the fear of death. From here, one knows one’s immortality. But if the astral is a dream and not real, then you will be crippled by the fear of death. This is the point of distinction, the touchstone: the fear of death. A person who believes that the soul is immortal and goes on repeating and repeating it, convincing himself, will not be able to know the distinction between what is real in the astral body and what is an astral dream. One should not believe in immortality, one should know it. But before knowing, one must have doubts about it, uncertainty about it. Only then will you know whether you really know it or whether you have just projected it. If it is your belief that the soul is immortal, the belief may penetrate your astral mind. Then you will begin to dream, but it will just be a dream. But if you have no belief, just a thirst to know, to seek — without knowing what is to be sought, without knowing what will be found, without any preconceptions or prejudices — if you are just seeking in a vacuum, then you will know the difference. So people who believe in the immortality of the soul, in past lives, those who accept them on faith, may just be dreaming on the astral plane and not knowing the real. In the fourth body, the mental, dream and reality become neighbors. Their faces are so alike that there is every possibility that one will be judged to be the other. The mental body can have dreams that are as realistic as the real. And there are methods to create such dreams — yogic, tantric and other methods. A person who is practicing fasting, loneliness, darkness, will create the fourth type of dreams, mental dreams. They will be so real, more real than the reality that is surrounding us. In the fourth body, the mind is totally creative — unhindered by anything objective, unhindered by material boundaries. Now it is totally free to create. Poets, painters, all live in the fourth type of dreaming; all art is produced by the fourth type of dreaming. A person who can dream in the fourth realm can become a great artist. But not one who knows. In the fourth body, one must be aware of any type of mental creation. One should not project anything; otherwise it will be projected. One should not wish anything; otherwise there is every possibility that the wish will be the fulfillment. Not only inwardly, even outwardly the wish can be fulfilled. In the fourth body, the mind is so powerful, so crystal clear, because the fourth body is the last home for the mind. Beyond this, no-mind begins. The fourth body is the original source of the mind, so you can create anything. One must constantly be aware that there is no wish, no imagination, no image; no god, no guru. Otherwise they will all be created out of you. You will be the creator! It is so blissful to see them that one longs to create them. This is the last barrier for the sadhaka, the seeker. If one crosses this, he will not face a greater barrier. If you are aware, if you are just a witness in the fourth body, then you know the real. Otherwise you go on dreaming. And no reality is comparable to these dreams. They will be ecstatic; no ecstasy is comparable. So one must be aware of ecstasy, of happiness, of blissfulness, and one must constantly be aware of any type of image. The moment there is an image, the fourth mind begins to flow into a dream. One image leads to the next, and you go on dreaming. The fourth type of dreaming can only be prevented if you are a witness. Witnessing makes the difference, because if dreaming is there you will be identified with it. Identification is dreaming as far as the fourth body is concerned. In the fourth body, awareness and the witnessing mind are the path toward the real. In the fifth body the dream and the real become one. Every type of duality is cast off. There is no question of any awareness now. Even if you are unaware, you will be aware of your unawareness. Now dreaming becomes just a reflection of the real. There is a difference, but no distinction. If I see myself in the mirror, there is no distinction between me and the reflection, but there is a difference. I am the real and the reflected one is not real. The fifth mind, if it has cultivated different concepts, may have the illusion of knowing itself because it has seen itself reflected in the mirror. It will be knowing itself, but not as it is — only as it is reflected. This is the only difference. But in a way, it is dangerous. The danger is that you may become satisfied with the reflection, and the mirrorlike image will be taken as the real. As far as the fifth body itself is concerned, there is no real danger if this happens, but it is a danger as far as the sixth body is concerned. If you have seen yourself only in the mirror, then you cannot cross the boundary of the fifth and go to the sixth. You cannot pass any boundary through a mirror. So there have been persons who have remained in the fifth. Those who say that there are infinite souls and each soul has its own individuality — these persons have remained in the fifth. They have known themselves, but not immediately, not directly — only through the medium of a mirror. Where does this mirror come from? It comes through the cultivation of concepts: “I am the soul. Eternal, immortal. Beyond death, beyond birth.” To conceive of oneself as the soul without knowing it is to create a mirror. Then you will not know yourself as you are, but as you are mirrored through your concepts. The only difference will be this: if the knowledge is coming through a mirror it is a dream and if it is direct, immediate, without any mirror, then it is real. This is the only difference, but it is a great one — not in relation to the bodies that you have crossed, but in relation to the bodies that are still to be penetrated. How can one be aware whether he is dreaming in the fifth or living the real? There is only one way: to drop every type of scripture, to take leave of every type of philosophy. Now there should be no more guru; otherwise the guru will become a mirror. From here on, you are totally alone. No one can be taken as a guide or the guide will become a mirror. From now on, the aloneness is total and complete. Not loneliness but aloneness. Loneliness is always concerned with others; aloneness is concerned with oneself. I feel lonely when there is no link between me and anyone else, but I feel alone when I am. Now one should be alone in every dimension: words, concepts, theories, philosophies, doctrines; gurus, scriptures; Christianity, Hinduism; Buddha, Christ, Krishna, Mahavira…. One should be alone now; otherwise anything that is present will become a mirror. Buddha will become a mirror now. Very dear, but very dangerous. If you are absolutely alone, there will be nothing in which you can be reflected. So meditation is the word for the fifth body. It means to be totally alone, free from every type of mentation. It means to be with no mind. If there is any type of mind it will become a mirror and you will be reflected in it. One should now be a no-mind, with no thinking, no contemplation. In the sixth body there is no mirror. Now only the cosmic is. You have been lost. You are no more; the dreamer is not. But the dream can still exist without the dreamer. And when there is a dream without the dreamer, it looks like authentic reality. There is no mind, no one to think, so whatever is known is known. It becomes your knowledge. Myths of creation come; they float by. You are not; things are just floating by. No one is there to judge; no one is there to dream. But a mind that is not, still is. A mind that is annihilated still exists — not as an individual, but as the cosmic whole. You are not, but the Brahma is. That is why they say that the whole world is a dream of the Brahma. This whole world is a dream, maya. Not a dream of any individual, but a dream of the total, the whole. You are not, but the total is dreaming. Now the only distinction is whether the dream is positive. If it is positive it is illusory, it is a dream, because in an ultimate sense only the negative is. When everything has become part of the formless, when everything has come back to the original source, then everything is and at the same time is not. The positive is the only factor remaining. It must be jumped over. So if, in the sixth body, the positive is lost, you penetrate into the seventh. The real of the sixth is the door of the seventh. If there is nothing positive — no myth, no image — then the dream has ceased. Then there is only what is: suchness. Now nothing exists but existence. Things are not, but the source is. The tree is not, but the seed is. Those who have known have called this type of mind samadhi with seed — samadhi sabeej. Everything has been lost; everything has returned to the original source, the cosmic seed. The tree is not, but the seed is. But from the seed, dreaming is still possible, so even the seed must be destroyed. In the seventh, there is neither dream nor reality. You can only see something real up to the point where dreaming is possible. If there is no possibility of dreams, then neither the real nor the illusory exists. So the seventh is the center. Now, dream and reality have become one. There is no difference. Either you dream of nothingness or you know nothingness, but the nothingness remains the same. If I dream about you it is illusory. If I see you it is real. But if I dream about your absence or I see your absence, there is no difference. If you dream about the absence of anything, the dream will be the same as the absence itself. Only in terms of something positive is there a real difference. So up to the sixth body there is a difference. In the seventh body only nothingness remains. There is an absence even of the seed. This is nirbeej samadhi, seedless samadhi. Now there is no possibility of dreaming. So there are seven types of dreams and seven types of realities. They penetrate one another. Because of this, there is much confusion. But if you make a distinction between the seven, if you become clear about it, it will help much. Psychology is still far away from knowing about dreams. What it knows is only about the physiological, and sometimes the etheric. But the etheric too is interpreted as the physiological. Jung has penetrated a little deeper than Freud, but his analysis of the human mind is treated as mythological, religious. Still, he has the seed. If Western psychology is to develop, it is through Jung not Freud. Freud was the pioneer, but every pioneer becomes a barrier for further progress if attachment to his advances becomes an obsession. Even though Freud is out of date now, Western psychology is still obsessed with its Freudian beginning. Freud must become part of history now. Psychology must proceed further. In America, they are trying to learn about dreaming through laboratory methods. There are many dream laboratories, but the methods used are concerned only with the physiological. Yoga, tantra and other esoteric training must be introduced if the whole world of dreams is to be known. Every type of dream has a parallel type of reality and if the whole maya cannot be known, if the whole world of illusions cannot be known, then it is impossible to know the real. It is only through the illusory that the real can be known. But do not take what I have said as a theory, a system. Just make it a starting point, and begin to dream with a conscious mind. Only when you become conscious in your dreams can the real be known. We are not conscious even of our physical body. We remain unaware of it. Only when some part is diseased do we become aware. One must become aware of the body in health. To be aware of the body in disease is just an emergency measure. It is a natural, built-in process. Your mind must be aware when some part of the body is diseased so that it can be taken care of, but the moment it becomes alright again you become sleepy about it. You must become aware of your own body: its workings, its subtle feelings, its music, its silences. Sometimes the body is silent; sometimes it is noisy; sometimes relaxed. The feeling is so different in each state that it is unfortunate we are not aware of it. When you are going to sleep, there are subtle changes in your body. When you are coming out of sleep in the morning, there are changes again. One must become aware of them. When you are going to open your eyes in the morning, do not open them right away. When you have become aware that sleep is over, become aware of your body. Do not open your eyes yet. What is going on? A great change is taking place inside. The sleep is leaving you and the awakening is coming. You have seen the morning sun rising, but never your body rising. It has its own beauty. There is a morning in your body and an evening. It is called sandhya: the moment of transformation, the moment of change. When you are going to sleep, silently watch what is happening. The sleep will come, it will be coming. Be aware! Only then can you become really aware of your physical body. And the moment you become aware of it, you will know what physiological dreaming is. Then in the morning you will be able to remember what was a physiological dream and what was not. If you know the inner feelings, the inner needs, the inner rhythms of your body, then when they are reflected in your dreams you will be able to understand the language. We have not understood the language of our own bodies. The body has its own wisdom; it has thousands and thousands of years of experience. My body has the experience of my father and mother and their father and mother and so on, centuries and centuries during which the seed of my body has developed into what it is. It has its own language. One must understand it first. When you understand it, you will know what a physiological dream is. And then, in the morning, you can separate the physiological dreams from the non-physiological dreams. Only then does a new possibility open up: to be aware of your etheric body. Only then, not before. You become more subtle. You can experience more subtle levels of sounds, perfumes, lights. Then when you walk, you know that the physiological body is walking; the etheric body is not walking. The difference is crystal clear. You are eating. The physical body is eating, not the etheric body. There are etheric thirsts, etheric hungers, etheric longings, but these things can only be seen when the physical body is known completely. Then by and by, the other bodies will become known. Dreaming is one of the greatest subjects. It is still undiscovered, unknown, hidden. It is part of the secret knowledge. But now the moment has come when everything that is secret must be made open. Everything that was hidden up till now must not be hidden any longer or it may prove dangerous. In the past it was necessary for some things to remain secret, because knowledge in the hands of the ignorant can be dangerous. This is what is happening with scientific knowledge in the West. Now scientists are aware of the crisis and they want to create secret sciences. Nuclear weapons should not have been made known to politicians. Further discoveries must remain unknown. We must wait for the time when man becomes so capable that the knowledge can be made open and it will not be dangerous. Similarly, in the realm of the spiritual, much was known in the East. But if it fell into the hands of ignorant people it would prove dangerous, so the key was hidden. The knowledge was made secret, esoteric. It was passed on from person to person very guardedly. But now, because of scientific progress, the moment has come for it to be made open. Science will prove dangerous if spiritual, esoteric truths still remain unknown. They must be made open so that spiritual knowledge will be able to keep pace with scientific knowledge. Dream is one of the greatest esoteric realms. I have said something about it so that you can begin to be aware, but I have not told you the whole science. It is neither necessary nor helpful. I have left gaps. If you go in, these gaps will be filled automatically. What I have said is simply the outer layer. It is not enough for you to be able to make a theory about it, but enough for you to begin. – OSHO [The Psychology of the Esoteric]

Truth has to be total, truth has to be whole. And the whole truth is: bliss PLUS meditation. It is difficult of course, arduous, to manage both. Why? — because they seem to be polar opposites. Meditation means silence and bliss means dance. Meditation means stillness and bliss means a song. Meditation means escaping from the world and bliss means sharing with the world. Meditation you can do in a Himalayan cave, but to be blissful you will have to come back to the world. Bliss needs to be shared; it exists only in sharing. It can’t exist when you are alone, it disappears. It is a communion. Meditation can exist in aloneness and bliss can exist in togetherness. But when both exist then you have to learn a totally new way of life. Many people have tried to meditate without bliss because it is simple, less complex. You have to take only one work upon yourself: that you have to still your mind. And you can force your mind to be stilled, but you will become sad, you will have a long face. They have avoided the complexity of spiritual transformation. They have chosen meditation, they have forced their mind to be still. It is a negative state; their minds are only empty, not silent — forcibly made still. But it is not a natural growth of silence, it is not the flowering of silence. Their silence is like the cemetery, it is not the silence of a garden.

Review of the first half of 2017 Wow, 6 months are already over. Sometimes much has happened, sometimes almost nothing. Some failures, some successes. 2017 is and will be a year of change. The completion of my school chapter in life, and the beginning of my university (and adulthood?) chapter in life. Now comes a summary of some of my thoughts and stuff that happened: School The last weeks of school were strange. It felt weird to not have to spend so much time there, but now I am used to it. I have prepared a lot for the final exams. It was quite stressful to study for history. But I got really great result - better than I have ever imagined. I even got a price for being the best student in chemistry. And now everything is finally and officially over. I have got my certificate and have no school obligations anymore. I will not see these people probably in a very long time or for forever. Some I will miss. Life Purpose I went through the LPC a bit again and now have a compelling life purpose statement: "I understand systems and develop solution processes to create technology that advances consciousness." I have started working on an vocabulary training app. Its fun and I have a vision of making money with it. It might become a very big project. Books I have read quite a few books: Radical Honesty The Happiness Hypothesis Our Inner Ape Taming your Gremlin Loving What Is The Path of Least Resistance And I have listened to two audiobooks in a very short time: So good they can't ignore you Deep Work The books are great but I have learned that its much more important to use the information and revise it. Otherwise nothing will stick and reading the book was probably a waste of time and money. I should therefore focus more on revising and implementing the information. Freedom I have gained a little bit more freedom Driver License Own car turning 18 finishing school Habits Transformation At the beginning of the year I have started a new journal, entirely dedicated to journaling my process with changing my habits. My biggest bad habit is overeating. I have tried to change this habit. I have had a few successes. I eat more raw stuff now. But I still have big problems with eating less. I have tried to change to many habits at a time and have forget the rule of changing only one habit at a time. I now should focus only on the eating habit. And I also forgot the principle of 100% Commitment, especially in regards to the eating habit. I made too often too many excuses and therefore made it not stick. Failures I've had quite a few things that I wanted to do this year. But all didn't work out. Gap year wwoofing Vipassana Retreat Meeting @Dragallur again and visiting him. Other Stuff I decided on what I want to study in university: computer science major and electrical engineering minor. I meditate less. Gaining independence from my family is the priority now. I gained more openmindedness through learning about conspiracy theories. I have started skyping with some people.

Go on loudly repeating the mantra hoo. This is just to hit your sex center from within, because the sex center is the source of all energies. If the source is not hit, nothing great is possible; no transformation is possible. Your sex center is hit by the mantra HOO. Sex is the most vital energy, the source of all energies. With that hitting, the sex center opens within. The sex center can open in two ways. When you become attracted to the opposite sex, it opens outward and your energy starts flowing outward. Even if the attraction is just in your imagination, and the other is not even aware of it, you are losing energy. Don't be confused and think that semen is sex energy. Semen is just the vehicle. It is not exactly sex energy, just the vehicle for it. It is just the material part of it, not the real psychic energy. When you become attracted to the opposite sex you are not losing semen, but you are losing energy. Energy is dissipated. Whenever you think about sex you are dissipating energy. It may only be through the imagination, but energy is still moving outward. HOO goes directly to the sex center and hits it. If you say HOO loudly, you will feel that your sex center has been hit from within. When your whole body is jumping and alive and in deep contact with the cosmic forces -- if you hit your sex center at the right moment, at this moment, the energy rushes up. And when sex energy rushes up.... It is not semen, remember. Sex energy: the spiritual part of semen. Just like you have a body and a soul, the semen's body is material and its soul is sex energy. The energy rushes upward and passes through your spine, you become a different person. The New Alchemy - Osho

Everybody wants consolations, to escape the pain of transformation. Masters who behave according to your expectations appear to be genuine. Who wants to beak his sleep.

From Pursuing Consciousness: The Book of Enlightenment and Transformation by Peter Ralston

From Pursuing Consciousness: The Book of Enlightenment and Transformation by Peter Ralston.

--From Pursuing Consciousness: The Book of Enlightenment and Transformation by Peter Ralston.