Active Meditation is the process of witnessing while being engaged in activity.

To experience a truly meditative state of self-aware consciousness at all times, we need to completely disengage from our thoughts, emotions, and body at every given moment. This is difficult, or almost impossible to achieve when we are physically, mentally, and emotionally stressed.

Through structured activity and movement such as chaotic breathing, catharsis, expression, laughter, crying, shaking, jumping, dance, or gibberish Active Meditation helps to first release stress, rebalance the mind and purify the body of the many layers of repressed thought forms and emotions accumulated in the body and energy. Free expression practiced in a well-considered and organized way naturally brings about physical and mental relaxation, which then helps to prepare the necessary ground for self-observation and witnessing to happen on its own accord. In particular, the Osho Active Meditations are jet-speed methods that have helped even the busiest minds to experience silent gaps of inner peace quickly and effortlessly.

For more about Active Meditation see Active vs. Passive Meditation.

At their core, there is no difference between active and passive meditations. The intent of these methods is the same – to empty the mind and help us connect with our inner witnessing presence.

Normally, when we think of meditation, we imagine it to be something that happens by sitting motionless in silence. This is far from the truth. Although silent sitting makes it easier to draw our attention and energy inward so that we are able to look inside and watch our breath, body, thoughts, and emotions, physical inactivity alone is not enough to attain lasting awareness of our inner silence and stillness.

Traditionally, meditation has been practiced through passive sitting and self-observation. This kind of watchfulness is the core of the meditation technique known as Vipassana. Vipassana was used by Gautama the Buddha twenty-five hundred centuries ago. Passive sitting and observation was much easier to practice in Buddha’s time than it is today, because people then lived closer to nature and were more relaxed and heart-centered.

In our society, when we are faced with progressively increasing mental and physical activity and speed, and are preoccupied with worries, aches and pains, or feel alone and depressed, quieting the mind through passive sitting feels like a monumental task that very few can achieve. Multiple layers of suppressed emotions and beliefs are accumulated in our energy and body, which we are often unable to release. Consequently, trying to break through these dense layers of thought forms and emotions with passive sitting alone is extremely difficult.

To help the contemporary seeker solve this problem and reach an experience of self-awareness and inner stillness much faster, Osho, the twentieth century Indian mystic, created several new Active Meditation methods. These methods have been used by millions of people around the globe since the early seventies, with tremendous results. Not only the Active Meditations are fast and effective, they are also fun to practice.

Each Osho Active Meditation technique is about one hour long and is divided into 3 to 5 stages. It comes with its own pre-recorded music, which helps to enhance the overall experience of the meditation, as well as carry the meditator from one stage to the next without needing to engage the mind. You can practice the Osho Active Meditations in the comfort of your own home, either alone or with friends and family.

It is important that the meditation technique you choose be enjoyable to practice. Even if you choose only one Meditation technique, but do it regularly (at least once or twice a week) you will feel a tremendous change in your personal, spiritual, and work life.

To prevent your practice from becoming mechanical, it is good to alternate between the meditation techniques once in a while and then return to the one you like to practice most.

In Osho’s own words: “Modern man is a very new phenomenon. No traditional method can be used exactly as it exists because modern man never existed before. So, in a way, all traditional methods have become irrelevant.

For example, the body has changed so much. It is so drugged that no traditional method can be helpful. The whole atmosphere is artificial now: the air, the water, society, living conditions. Nothing is natural. You are born in artificiality; you develop in it. So traditional methods will prove harmful today. They will have to be changed according to the modern situation.

Another thing: the quality of the mind has basically changed. In Patanjali's [the most famous commentator on Yoga] days, the center of the human personality was not the brain; it was the heart. Before that, it was not even the heart. It was still lower, near the navel. The center has gone even further from the navel. Now, the center is the brain. That is why teachings like those of Krishnamurti have appeal. No method is needed, no technique is needed – only understanding. But if it is just a verbal understanding, just intellectual, nothing changes, nothing is transformed. It again becomes an accumulation of knowledge.

I use chaotic methods rather than systematic ones because a chaotic method is very helpful in pushing the center down from the brain. The center cannot be pushed down through any systematic method because systemization is brainwork. Through a systematic method, the brain will be strengthened; more energy will be added to it. Through chaotic methods the brain is nullified. It has nothing to do. The method is so chaotic that the center is automatically pushed from the brain to the heart. If you do my method of Dynamic Meditation vigorously, unsystematically, chaotically, your center moves to the heart. Then there is a catharsis.

A catharsis is needed because your heart is so suppressed, due to your brain. Your brain has taken over so much of your being that it dominates you. There is no place for the heart, so the longings of the heart are suppressed. You have never laughed heartily, never lived heartily, never done anything heartily. The brain always comes in to systematize, to make things mathematical, and the heart is suppressed. So firstly, a chaotic method is needed to push the center of consciousness from the brain toward the heart.

Then catharsis is needed to unburden the heart, to throw off suppressions, to make the heart open. If the heart becomes light and unburdened, then the center of consciousness is pushed still lower; it comes to the navel. The navel is the source of vitality, the seed source from which everything else comes: the body and the mind and everything.

I use this chaotic method very considerately. Systematic methodology will not help now, because the brain will use it as its own instrument. Nor can just the chanting of bhajans help now, because the heart is so burdened that it cannot flower into real chanting. Consciousness must be pushed down to the source, to the roots. Only then is there the possibility of transformation. So I use chaotic methods to push the consciousness downward from the brain.

Whenever you are in chaos, the brain stops working. For example, if you are driving a car and suddenly someone runs in front of you, you react so suddenly that it cannot be the work of the brain. The brain takes time. It thinks about what to do and what not to do. So whenever there is a possibility of an accident and you push the brake, you feel a sensation near your navel, as if it were your stomach that is reacting. Your consciousness is pushed down to the navel because of the accident. If the accident could be calculated beforehand, the brain would be able to deal with it; but when you are in an accident, something unknown happens. Then you notice that your consciousness has moved to the navel.

If you ask a Zen monk, "From where do you think?" he puts his hands on his belly. When Westerners came into contact with Japanese monks for the first time they could not understand. "What nonsense! How can you think from your belly?

But the Zen reply is meaningful. Consciousness can use any center of the body, and the center that is nearest to the original source is the navel. The brain is furthest away from the original source, so if life energy is moving outward, the center of consciousness will become the brain. And if life energy is moving inward, ultimately the navel will become the center.

Chaotic methods are needed to push the consciousness to its roots, because only from the roots is transformation possible. Otherwise you will go on verbalizing and there will be no transformation. It is not enough just to know what is right. You have to transform the roots; otherwise you will not change.

When a person knows the right thing and cannot do anything about it, he becomes doubly tense. He understands, but he cannot do anything. Understanding is meaningful only when it comes from the navel, from the roots. If you understand from the brain, it is not transforming.

The ultimate cannot be known through the brain, because when you are functioning through the brain you are in conflict with the roots from which you have come. Your whole problem is that you have moved away from the navel. You have come from the navel and you will die through it. One has to come back to the roots. But coming back is difficult, arduous.

Traditional methods have an appeal because they are so ancient and so many people have achieved through them in the past. They may have become irrelevant to us, but they were not irrelevant to Buddha, Mahavira, Patanjali or Krishna. They were meaningful, helpful. The old methods may be meaningless now, but because Buddha achieved through them they have an appeal. The traditionalist feels: "If Buddha achieved through these methods, why can't I?”

But we are in an altogether different situation now. The whole atmosphere, the whole thought-sphere, has changed. Every method is organic to a particular situation, to a particular mind, to a particular man. The fact that the old methods don't work doesn't mean that no method is useful. It only means that the methods themselves must change. As I see the situation, modern man has changed so much that he needs new methods, new techniques.” Osho: The Psychology of the Esoteric, #4

Copyright Osho international

Active Meditation is for everyone who seeks physical, psychological, and spiritual health. You don’t have to be a spiritual seeker or subscribe to any specific set of beliefs to practice Active Meditation.

Active Meditation knows no boundaries, no race, no religion, no creed. It knows no body type, no age, nor ability. It is not limited by financial or social status. You can practice Active meditation in a group, with a guide or on your own.

“Always remember, whatsoever you enjoy can go deep in you; only that can go deep in you. Enjoying it simply means it fits with you. The rhythm of it falls in tune with you: there is a subtle harmony between you and the method.
Once you enjoy a method then go into that method as much as you can. You can do it once at least or if possible, twice a day. The more you do it, the more you will enjoy it. Only drop a method when the joy has disappeared; then its work is finished. Search for another method. No method can lead you to the very end. On the journey you will have to change trains many times. A certain method takes you to a certain state. Beyond that it is of no more use, it is spent.

So two things have to be remembered: when you are enjoying a method go into it as deeply as possible but never become addicted to it, because one day you will have to drop it too. If you become too much addicted to it then it is like a drug; you cannot leave it. You no more enjoy it – it is not giving you anything – but it has become a habit. Then one can continue it, but one is moving in circles; it cannot lead beyond that.

So let joy be the criterion. If joy is there, continue. The last bit of joy has to be squeezed totally. No juice should be left behind...not even a single drop. And then, don’t be greedy, be capable of dropping it. Choose some other method that again brings the joy. Many times a person has to change. It varies with different people but it is very rare that one method will do the whole journey.”

Osho: Only Losers Can Win in This Game

Copyright Osho international

The human longing to know the truth about Existence and the Self has lead to the discovery and invention of various techniques and practices. The commonly used meditation techniques are based on individual experimentation of the few mystics who have chosen to look inside and examine their own mind and inner world.  Historically, the sub-continent of India became the pioneer in the development of meditation techniques for the transformation of human consciousness. It is said that there are 112 basic meditation methods that have been devised by an Indian god, Shiva. These methods were reintroduced to the modern world by the Indian mystic Osho in his book; Vigyan Bhariav Tantra: the Book of the Secrets, a New Commentary. According to Osho, amongst these methods there is one that will suit every type of man and woman in the world. Due to the vast number of these methods and the new Active Meditation techniques created by Osho, a meditator may often become confused about when it is the right time to change methods. Below is Osho’s advice: Just as regular exercise is essential for our physical health, meditation is essential for our mental, emotional, and spiritual health. Through meditation we free ourselves from fear and the turmoil of suffering created by our ego-mind.

Quotes from the works of Osho and descriptions of Osho Meditations used with permission of the copyright holder ã 1953 to 2008 Osho International Foundation, Switzerland. Osho and ancillary marks are registered trademark or trademarks of the foundation. All rights reserved. For details see: www.osho.com/copyrights.