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THE BOOK OF SECRETS The 112 ancient Tantra meditation techniques of Lord Shiva.
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A comprehensive and practical guide to
meditation, The Book of Secrets invites us to experience and experiment with
everyday life through the awareness of our beings. Osho introduces 112
individual meditation techniques based on ancient texts – and translates them
into a contemporary understanding of meditations that focus on consciousness of
the present moment. Each technique is described in detail and explains how to
discover those best suited to each of us and how to integrate them into our
daily lives. Osho’s audience is actively involved in follow up questions to
which Osho responds.
This transformative book comes with a DVD of an original Osho Talk and his
response to the question “What is Meditation?” introduces us to a deep and
direct experience of meditation, relaxation and higher awareness. Osho takes
meditation out of any religious or spiritual context and makes it the underlying
science of a new way of living in joy and awareness.
Chapter Titles
Chapter 1: The World of Tantra
Chapter 2: The Path of Yoga and the Path of Tantra
Chapter 3: Breath - A Bridge to the Universe
Chapter 4: Overcoming the Deceptions of the Mind
Chapter 5: Five Techniques of Attentiveness Attention between eyebrows, let mind be before thought. Let form ...
Chapter 6: Devices to Transcend Dreaming
Chapter 7: Techniques to Put You at Ease
Chapter 8: Total Acceptance and Non-Division: The Meaning of Tantric Purity
Chapter 9: Techniques for Centering
Chapter 10: Self Actualisation: The Basic Need
Chapter 11: Techniques to Penetrate the Inner
Chapter 12: Beyond Mind to the Source
Chapter 13: Inner Centering
Chapter 14: Changing the Direction of Energy
Chapter 15: Seeing the Past as a Dream
Chapter 16: Beyond the Sin of Unconsciousness
Chapter 17: Several Stop Techniques
Chapter 18: Remaining with the Facts
Chapter 19: A Technique for the Intellectual and a Technique for the Feeling Type
Chapter 20: Ordinary Love and the Love of a Buddha
Chapter 21: Three Looking Techniques
Chapter 22: Unblocking the Third Eye
Chapter 23: Several More Looking Methods
Chapter 24: Doubt or Faith, Life or Death: The Bases of Different Paths
Chapter 25: From Words to Pure Words to Being
Chapter 26: Acceptance of the Peaks and the Valleys
Chapter 27: Soundlessness, Soundfulness and Total Awareness
Chapter 28: Meditation: An Unburdening of Repressions
Chapter 29: Methods for the Dropping of Mind
Chapter 30: Accept Life in Its Totality
Chapter 31: From Sound to Inner Silence
Chapter 32: "No Fight" Is the Central Teaching
Chapter 33: The Spirituality of the Tantric Sex Act
Chapter 34: Cosmic Orgasm through Tantra
Chapter 35: Turning Inward toward the Real
Chapter 36: From Maya (Illusion) to Reality
Chapter 37: Techniques to Witness the Fluxlike Film of Life
Chapter 38: Toward the Authentic Being
Chapter 39: From the Wave to the Cosmic Ocean
Chapter 40: Sudden Enlightenment and Its Obstacles6
Chapter 41: Tantric Methods for Awareness and Non-Judgement
Chapter 42: Alertness through Tantra
Chapter 43: Finding the Changeless through the Changing
Chapter 44: Secrets of Love and Liberation
Chapter 45: Remaining with the Real
Chapter 46: The Tantric Way to Freedom from Desires
Chapter 47: Tantric MeditationUsing Light
Chapter 48: The Potentiality of the Seed
Chapter 49: Conscious Doing
Chapter 50: Moving to the Roots
Chapter 51: Come Back to Existence9
Chapter 52: Entering This Moment
Chapter 53: From Death to Deathlessness ... Focus on fire rising through your form, from ...
Chapter 54: The Fire of AwarenessChapter 55: Only the Unreal Dissolves
Chapter 56: Discovering Emptiness
Chapter 57: You Are Everywhere
Chapter 58: Go Beyond Karma
Chapter 59: Watch from the Hill
Chapter 60: Liberate Yourself - From Yourself
Chapter 61: Techniques to Become One with the Whole
Chapter 62: Right Now Is the Goal
Chapter 63: Start Creating Yourself
Chapter 64: Choicelessness Is Bliss
Chapter 65: Destroy the Limits ... Life is not a problem but a mystery...
Chapter 66: A Buddha Is Nobody
Chapter 67: Go Beyond Mind and Matter
Chapter 68: Energy Enjoys Itself Playing
Chapter 69: You Are Unknown to Yourself
Chapter 70: Suffer the Pain of Aloneness
Chapter 71: Forget the Periphery
Chapter 72: Start Living in Insecurity
Chapter 73: Fear of Transformation Goes Deep
Chapter 74: Sensitivity Is Awareness
Chapter 75: Seek the Rhythm of Opposites
Chapter 76: Life Is Sex Energy The first thing is to understand sex energy
Chapter 77: Become Each Being
Chapter 78: The Inner Guide
Chapter 79: The Philosophy of Emptiness
Chapter 80: All and Nothing Mean the Same
Excerpt from The Book of Secrets
ABOUT TANTRA: (from Chapter 1)
"Tantra says, accept whatsoever you are. This is the basic note -- total
acceptance. And only through total acceptance can you grow. Then use every
energy you have.
How can you use them? Accept them, then find out what these energies are -- what
is sex, what is this phenomenon. We are not acquainted with it. We know many
things about sex, taught by others. We may have passed through the sex act, but
with a guilty mind, with a suppressive attitude, in haste, in a hurry. Something
has to be done in order to become unburdened. The sex act is not a loving act.
You are not happy in it, but you cannot leave it. The more you try to leave it,
the more attractive it becomes. The more you want to negate it, the more you
feel invited. You cannot negate it, but this attitude to negate, to destroy,
destroys the very mind, the very awareness, the very sensitivity which can
understand it. So sex goes on with no sensitivity into it. Then you cannot
understand it.
Only a deep sensitivity can understand anything; only a deep feeling, a deep
moving into it, can understand anything. You can understand sex only if you move
in it as a poet moves amidst flowers -- only then! If you feel guilty about
flowers, you may pass through the garden, but you will pass with closed eyes.
And you will be in a hurry, in a deep, mad haste. Somehow you have to go out of
the garden. Then how can you be aware?
So tantra says, accept whatsoever you are. You are a great mystery of many
multidimensional energies. Accept it, and move with every energy with deep
sensitivity, with awareness, with love, with understanding. Move with it! Then
every desire becomes a vehicle to go beyond it. Then every energy becomes a
help. And then this very world is nirvana, this very body is a temple -- a holy
temple, a holy place.
FOCUS ON FIRE RISING THROUGH YOUR FORM, FROM THE TOES UP,
UNTIL THE BODY
BURNS TO ASHES BUT NOT YOU.
A very simple technique and very wonderful, very
easy to do, but some basic requirements are to be fulfilled beforehand. Buddha
liked this technique very much; he initiated his disciples into this
technique.
Whenever someone was initiated by Buddha, the first thing was this: he
would tell him just to go to the burning place and observe a body being
burned, a dead body being burned. For three months he was not to do anything,
but just sit there and watch. So the seeker would go to the burning place of
the village. He would stay there for three months, day and night, and whenever
a dead body would come there he would just sit and meditate. He would just
look at the dead body; then the fire would be created and then the body would
start burning. And for three months continuously he would not do anything else
- just look at dead bodies being burned.
Buddha said, 'Don't think about it. Just look at it.' And it is
difficult not to come upon the thought that sooner or later your body is going
to be burned. Three months is a long time, and continuously, day and night,
whenever there was a body to be burned, the seeker was to meditate. Sooner or
later he would start seeing his own body on the burning pyre. He would start
seeing himself being burned.
It will be helpful; if you want to do this technique, go to the burning
place. Watch - not for three months - but at least watch one body being
burned; observe it. Then you can do this technique easily with yourself. Don't
think, simply watch the phenomenon, watch what is happening.
People go to burn their relatives' bodies, but they never watch. They start
talking of other things, or about death; they argue and discuss. They do many
things. They talk many things and gossip, but they never watch. It should be
made a meditation. No talking should be allowed there, because it is a rare
experience to see someone you loved being burned. You are bound to feel that
you are also burning there. If you are seeing your mother being burned, or
your father, or your wife, or your husband, you are bound to see yourself also
there in the flames. That experience will help for this technique. The first
thing.
The second thing: if you are very much afraid of death you cannot do
this technique, because the very fear will protect you. You cannot enter into
it. Or, you can just imagine on the surface, but your deep being will not be
in it. Then nothing will happen to you. So remember, the second thing: whether
you are afraid or not, death is the only certainty.
It makes no difference whether you are afraid or not; it is irrelevant. In
life, nothing is certain except death. Everything is uncertain; only death is
not accidental. And look at the human mind. We always talk about death as if
it is an accident. Whenever someone dies we say his death was untimely.
Whenever someone dies we start talking as if it has been an accident. Only
death is not an accident - only death. Everything else is accidental. Death
is absolutely certain. You have to die.
And when I say you have to die, it seems in the future, very far away. It
is not so - you have already died. The moment you were born, you died. With
birth, death has become a fixed phenomenon. One part of it has already
happened - the birth; now only the second, later part has to happen. So you
are already dead, half-dead, because once one is born, one has come into the
realm of death, entered into it. Now nothing can change it, now there is no
way to change it. You have entered into it. You are half-dead with birth.
Secondly: death is not going to happen in the end; it is already happening.
It is a process. Just as life is a process, death is a process. We create the
now - but life and death are just like your two feet, your two legs. Life and
death are both one process. You are dying every moment.
Let me put it in this way: whenever you inhale, it is life, and whenever
you exhale, it is death. The first thing a child does is to inhale. A child
cannot exhale. The first thing is inhalation. He cannot exhale, because there
is no air within his chest; he has to inhale. The first act is inhalation. And
the old man, while dying, will do the last act, which will be exhalation.
Dying, you cannot inhale - or can you? When you are dying, you cannot inhale.
The last act cannot be inhalation; the last act will be exhalation. The first
act is inhalation and the last is exhalation. Inhalation is birth and
exhalation is death. But every moment you are doing both - inhaling,
exhaling. Inhalation is life, exhalation is death.
You may not have observed, but try to observe it. Whenever you exhale, you
are more at peace. Exhale deeply and you will feel a certain peace within.
Whenever you inhale, you become intense, you become tense. The very intensity
of inhalation creates a tension. And the normal, ordinary emphasis is always
on inhalation. If I tell you to take deep breaths, you will always start with
inhalation.
Really, we are afraid of exhaling. That's why breathing has become shallow.
You never exhale, you go on inhaling. Only the body goes on exhaling, because
the body cannot exist with inhalation alone. It needs both: life and death.
Try one experiment. The whole day, whenever you remember, exhale deeply and
don't inhale. Allow the body to inhale; you simply exhale deeply. And you will
feel a deep peace, because death is peace, death is silence. And if you can
pay attention, more attention, to exhalation, you will feel egoless. With
inhalation you will feel more egoistic; with exhalation you will feel more
egoless. Pay more attention to exhalation. The whole day, whenever you
remember, exhale deeply and don't inhale. Allow the body to inhale; you don't
do anything.
This emphasis on exhalation will help you very much to do this experiment,
because you will be ready to die. A readiness is needed, otherwise the
technique will not be of much help. And you can be ready only if you have
tasted death in a certain way. Exhale deeply and you will have a taste of it.
It is beautiful.
Death is just beautiful, because nothing is like death - so silent, so
relaxing, so calm, so unperturbed. But we are afraid of death. And why are we
afraid of death? Why is there so much fear of death? We are afraid of death
not because of death - because we don't know it. How can you be afraid of
something you have never encountered? How can you be afraid of something that
you don't know? At least you must know it to be afraid of it. So really you
are not afraid of death; the fear is something else. You have never really
lived - that creates the fear of death.
The fear comes because you are not living, so you are afraid - `I have not
lived yet, and if death happens then what? Unfulfilled, unlived, I will die.'
The fear of death comes only to those who are not really alive. If you are
alive, you will welcome death. Then there is no fear. You have known life; now
you would like to know death also. But we are so afraid of life itself that we
have not known it, we have not entered deep into it. That creates the fear of
death.
If you want to enter this technique you must be aware of this deep fear.
And this deep fear must be thrown away, purged, only then can you enter the
technique. This will help: pay more attention to exhalation. And really, if
you can pay all attention to exhalation and forget inhaling.... Don't be
afraid that you will die; you will not die - the body will take inhalation by
itself. The body has its own wisdom: if you deeply exhale, the body will take
a deep inhalation by itself. You need not interfere. Then a very deep
relaxation will spread all over your consciousness. The whole day you will
feel relaxed, and an inner silence will be created.
You can deepen this feeling more if you do another experiment. Just for
fifteen minutes in the day exhale deeply. Sit in a chair or on the ground,
exhale deeply, and while exhaling close the eyes. When the air goes out, you
go in. And then allow the body to inhale, and when the air goes in, open the
eyes and you go out. It is just the opposite: when the air goes out, you go
in; when the air goes in, you go out.
When you exhale, space is created within, because breath is life. When you
exhale deeply, you are vacant, life has gone out. In a way you are dead, for a
moment you are dead. In that silence of death, enter within. Air is moving
out: you close your eyes and move within. The space is there and you can move
easily.
Remember, when you are inhaling, to move inwards is very difficult, because
there is no space to move. While exhaling you can move within. And when the
air goes in, you go out; open the eyes and move out. Create a rhythm between
these two. Within fifteen minutes you will feel so deeply relaxed, and you
will be ready to do this technique.
Before doing this technique, do this for fifteen minutes so that you are
ready - not only ready, but welcoming, receptive. The fear of death is not
there, because now death appears like relaxation, death appears like a deep
rest. Death appears not antagonistic to life, but the very source of it, the
very energy of it. Life is just like ripples on the face of a lake, and death
is the lake itself. When ripples are not there the lake is there. And the lake
can exist without the ripples, but the ripples cannot exist without the lake.
Life cannot exist without death. Death can exist without life, because it is
the source. Then you can do this technique.
The first thing is to understand sex
energy...
Life is not a problem but a mystery.