BELOVED MASTER, HOW CAN HYPNOSIS AND MEDITATION COME TOGETHER?
Amrit Nirjan, hypnosis has been condemned by all kinds of ignorant people. They don’t understand anything about it, but you will find people everywhere condemning it. The word is used without knowing even the meaning of it. People will say to you, “You are hypnotized, that’s why you go to Osho!” But just ask them what hypnosis is. They cannot even tell you the literal meaning of it, nor can they tell you what is the technique of it. Just the word is enough to condemn anybody, “You are hypnotized.”
Hypnosis is a tremendously beautiful art, and there is nothing wrong in it. But everything can be used in a wrong way or in a right way. You can have a sword and cut somebody’s head. That is not the fault of the sword; the sword is neutral. With your sword you can prevent somebody from raping a woman. But the sword is absolutely neutral, neither good nor bad; every energy is neutral. Hypnosis is a tremendous source of energy. The word itself means deliberate sleep. You know ordinary sleep, you sleep every day; because it is ordinary sleep, it does not go deep enough. Its function is to help your body to recover its energy lost in the day-to-day work, so tomorrow morning you can get up fresh, again able to work. The ordinary sleep only goes so deep that it can help your body to recover, rejuvenate.
Deliberate sleep is the meaning of hypnosis. It is a simple thing, but it goes as deep as you are ready to go. It refreshes your body, it silences your mind, it cleanses your heart, it can reach to your very being. It all depends on your willingness — nobody can hypnotize you against your will.
That also is a greatly fallacious idea prevalent in the world, that somebody can hypnotize you against your will. That is impossible. Nobody can hypnotize you against your will. Simple methods are used by the hypnotist. He will tell you to relax and concentrate on something shiny, without moving your eyelids; just keep your eyes open as long as you can, and only when it is almost impossible for you, when the eyelids close by themselves — you cannot do anything, you cannot stop — only then… You are relaxed, lying down in a silent place, looking at a very strong light which tires the eyes, staring at it. The hypnotist is repeating, “Your eyelids are becoming very heavy, the light is too strong and you are going to fall asleep soon.” And he will go on repeating it…
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If you follow, cooperate with the hypnotist, he can take you deeper, deeper, deeper… the mind has become silent. And the moment he says anything, it simply sinks into your being. Your heart is dancing with harmony — no tension, no thought. You have entered into the innermost shrine of your being; now relax there.
But this is possible only, and I am saying categorically only, if you are willing to go into it. But it is tremendously helpful, because you find it very difficult on your own to go into that deep silence where the world is left far behind. And if the hypnosis is going to be used for meditative purposes… It can be used for many kinds of purposes, it can be used for healing…
It can be used as an educative methodology. You can learn in hypnosis better than you can learn ordinarily, because everything is silent and you are hearing only one voice. Even if somebody else comes and talks, you will not hear, you are open only to a small narrow way to the hypnotist. He can teach you any new language. He can teach you any new science. He can teach you arithmetic, anything within minutes for which people take hours and days to learn. And it can be used for meditation too. As far as I am concerned
hypnosis is simply a relaxed, deliberate sleep with a small opening, a little window, to the person who hypnotized you. He can tell you that your meditation will go deeper every day, and if this thought gets in your unconscious, your meditation will start going deeper. Just a few sessions and he can give you the last post-hypnotic suggestion: now you don’t need any hypnosis; your meditation will go deeper on its own accord. Hypnosis has not been used in the whole of history for meditation, but it can be used, and it can be used with tremendous power, because you have to fight so much with your thoughts unnecessarily. That whole struggle with your mind can be dropped by hypnotic sessions without much effort…
Your willingness is absolutely needed. It is you who creates the hypnosis, not the person who hypnotizes you. But it is good in the beginning if you can help each other. There is nothing much to it; anybody you trust can help you and take you deep into hypnosis. And when you are in deep hypnosis he can check whether you are in deep hypnosis or not. He can push a needle in your hand; you will not feel it. He can take your hand up and leave it, and it will fall because you are not awake and you cannot keep it that way. So there are just a few small things he can try to find out if you are really in hypnosis. Then he can tell you about meditation: whenever you sit to meditate, take a bath, make a special room for your meditation. Don’t do anything in that room so that it remains vibrating with your meditativeness. Burn incense, bring roses and flowers, sit silently. Close your eyes, watch your thoughts and you will immediately go into deep silence; thoughts will disappear. This can happen without hypnosis but it takes a longer time. Hypnosis is a short cut.
Your question is significant, Amrit Nirjan. You are asking, “How can hypnosis and meditation come together?” They can come together very easily. Hypnosis can be used for many purposes — it can be used for meditation. And the people who said you are being hypnotized by me are, in a way, right. Just because I don’t use methods of hypnotizing you, that does not mean that hypnosis is not created by you. I am not hypnotizing you, but you love me, you trust me — that’s enough. And then when I stop for a moment, you also stop with me. When I am not speaking… just a gap, and you are also in a gap. Slowly, slowly your heart starts the same rhythm as my heart. My words start having a certain music, a certain solacing, a certain relaxing quality. All depends on love, all depends on trust, but you are creating it.
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I am not hypnotizing — I am not a hypnotist…
I love you. I want to share my truth with you for no other reason except that I am so full of it, I cannot contain it. I want to share; I want to unburden myself. And if you are ready on the other end to receive it, hypnosis will happen automatically. And with hypnosis, because my insistence is continuously on meditation, you will find it easier to meditate here with me than anywhere else — in the beginning at least. Later on, when you have developed on your own and you are more confident that you can fly in the silent spaces of your heart, then you will be able to create the same state anywhere; I will not be needed. I don’t want you to be addicted to me — because I am not a drug, and I don’t want you to be addicted to anything. But you can use things which have been condemned by ignorant people, not knowing what they are saying. You can use them for tremendous benefit, for your spiritual growth. Just an innocent heart is needed for meditation. And hypnosis can cleanse your heart and can bring you into the state of a small child.
Source:
This is an excerpt from the transcript of a public discourse by Osho in Buddha Hall, Shree Rajneesh Ashram, Pune.
Discourse Series:
The great pilgrimage: from here to here
Chapter #1
Chapter title: The great pilgrimage: from here to here
6 September 1987 am in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium
References:
Osho has spoken on ‘meditation, hypnosis, mind and body cleansing, awareness, surrender’ in many of His discourses. More on the subject can be referred to in the following books/discourses:
