Backlash Of Meditating

[Sukhpaal]

Hey guys! I have been meditating for a year now but I've noticed here and there some scary moments. About a week ago, I upped my meditation time and a few days later I was hit with a wave of depression. Back in February, I did the same thing and was hit with a wave of depression. Every time I try to make a leap in increasing my meditation session's duration, I notice a huge backlash. I become greatly depressed and confused. I'm not sure what to do... Any tips would be helpful. Thanks guys! 

[Afonso]

Don't try to resist it.

"Depression" is just a fancy name for a couple of feelings and thoughts. Just be aware of those and let them go.

Go further.

[Dogsbestfriend]

The deeper you go, you will start to come in contact with layers you've built on top of your 'self', these can be scary. You need to be okay with feeling these to some extent, to be able to grab them, analyze them and let them go. There is no rush however, you do things at your own pace.

[Prabhaker]

@Sukhpaal

Osho – With a real, authentic meditation you will suffer more

Many times I have seen, observed, persons coming to me for meditation. They say, ”I am very much disturbed, with pains inside, sufferings. Somehow, help me to still my mind.”

I suggest to them something to do, then in a week they come back and say, ”What have you done? I have become more disturbed!” Why did it happen? Because when they begin to meditate, when they begin to feel a certain silence, they begin to feel the disturbance more. Against that silence, the disturbance is felt more keenly. Before they were simply disturbed, without any silence inside. Now they have something to judge against, to compare against. Now they say, ”I am going mad.”

So whenever someone begins meditation, he will become aware of many things of which he was not previously aware, and because of that awareness he will suffer. This is how things are, and one has to pass through them.

So if you start meditation and you do not suffer, it means it is not meditation, but just a hypnosis. That means you are just drugging yourself. You are becoming more unconscious. With a real, authentic meditation you will suffer more, because you will become more aware. You will see the ugliness of your anger, you will feel the cruelty of your jealousy, you will now know the evidence of your behaviour.

Now, in every gesture, you will begin to feel where a hidden animal in you, and you will suffer. But this is how one grows. Growth is a painful birth. The child suffers when it comes out of the womb, but that is part and parcel of growth. So it is right that awareness and knowledge bring more richness and growth and depth in man’s life – not because man doesn’t suffer, but because man suffers.

If someone has led just a snug existence – as it happens in rich families – you will feel, you will observe, that if a person is born rich, if he has lived without knowing suffering, without knowing the pain of living, without knowing anything, then whenever there is a demand, even before the demand the supply is there. He has not suffered hunger, he has not suffered love, he has not suffered anything. Whatsoever is demanded is supplied – rather. it is supplied even before the demand is there. But then look in the eyes of that man: you will not find any depth. It is as if he has not lived. He has not struggled; he does not know what life is.

That is why it is always very difficult to find any depth in such men. They are superficial. If they laugh, their laughter is superficial. It just comes from the lips, never from the heart. If they weep, that weeping is superficial. It is not from the depths of the being: it is just a formal thing. The more the struggle, the more the depth. This depth, this richness, this knowledge, will create such a complexity that you would like to escape from it. When you suffer, you want to escape from it. If you are looking to escape from suffering, then alcohol can become appealing or LSD or marijuana or something else.

Religion means not escaping from suffering but living with it: living with it, not escaping! And if you live with it, you will become more and more aware. If you want to escape, then you will have to leave awareness. Then, somehow, you will have to become unconscious.

There are many methods. Alcohol is the easiest, but not the only method and not even the worst. You can go and listen to music and become absorbed in it; then you are using music as alcohol. Then for the time being, your mind is diverted toward music and you have forgotten everything else. Music is working as alcohol for everything else. Or, you can go to a temple or you can do japa. You can use these things as alcohol, as an intoxicant.

Anything which makes you less aware of your suffering is antireligious. Anything that makes you more aware of your suffering, and which helps you encounter it without escaping, is religious. That is what tapas – austerity – means. tapas means this: not escaping from any suffering, but remaining there and living with it with full awareness. If you do not escape, if you remain there with your suffering, one day suffering will disappear and you will have grown into more awareness.

Suffering disappears in two ways. You become unconscious; then suffering disappears for you. But, really, suffering remains there. It cannot disappear. It remains there! Really, your consciousness has disappeared, so you cannot feel it, you cannot be aware of it. If you become more conscious, in the meantime you will have to suffer more. But accept suffering as a part of growth, as a part of training, as just a discipline, and then one day, when your consciousness has gone beyond your suffering, suffering will disappear not just for you – it will disappear objectively. Use suffering as a stepping-stone; do not escape from it. If you escape from it, you are escaping from your destiny, from the possibility of going beyond knowledge by using suffering as a device.

Source: Osho Book “The Ultimate Alchemy, Vol 2″

[Sukhpaal]

Thank you all very much for the help!

[Leo Gura]

@Sukhpaal Tis the feeling of the Devil leaving your body

Maintaining consistency of practice and mindfulness is the key. If it gets real bad, take a short break, then return to it.

[Sukhpaal]

@Leo Gura Thanks! I watched your video "The Dark Side of Meditation" It makes a lot more sense now.