Waking Up To Life

WAKING UP TO LIFE

Meditation is about waking up from life on automatic and being sensitive to the novelty of everyday experience. It is the state of being attentive to and aware of what is taking place in the present moment. The state of mediation is the expansion of attention in a non-judgmental and nonreactive way to become more aware of our current sensory, mental, and emotional experiences.

Psychotherapy however, aims to improve an individual's well-being and mental health, to resolve or mitigate troublesome forms of behaviour, beliefs, compulsions, thoughts, or emotions, and to improve relationships and social skills. 

Conventional psychotherapists often tend to frown upon spiritual practices such as meditation, just as many spiritual teachers disapprove of psychotherapy. This issue came up as a question from a participant in a Primal Therapy course which I was facilitating, who actually quoted one of the more popular current spiritual teachers, who echoed the edict from many in his lineage that therapy is not needed on the way to self-experience. At the extremes, each camp tends to see the other as avoiding and denying the real issues

Coming out of traditional Eastern societies, many spiritual teachers have a hard time recognizing the developmental challenges facing their Western students and may not understand their pervasive self-hatred, shame, and guilt, as well as their sense of isolation and lack of esteem. These teachers may also fail to detect their students’ tendency to engage in ideas and practices to shore up a shaky sense of self, or to belittle basic needs, feelings, and developmental tasks in the name of enlightenment. So, they often teach self-transcendence to students who first of all need to find some ground to stand on, in my experience and opinion. Finding such a neutral ground to stand on, where attitudes and judgements can be inspected as being valid with our state of being as independent adults, rather than being caught up in attitudes that were put in place as a protection against painful childhood memories is essential to growth and enquiry into who we are. 

Grounding is a key factor in Osho’s active meditations. Western Therapy methods are enhanced when there is a holding space for people to share their basic needs and bring themselves out of isolation. A person who feels supported and appreciated for their qualities has an easier time with looking into the shadows of the subconscious mind and getting to grips with day to day reality. Osho’s therapists are trained to hold this space of empathy, non-judgementalness and awareness. 

Energy released through the letting go of firmly fixed attitudes flows to stimulate a sense of well-being and lightness.

This relates to health in the body as well as the mind. The English word “Disease” can be broken up into two syllables “dis ease”, which occurs in both body and mind when the life force gets caught up in problems 

"I am not saying meditation will solve life problems. I am simply saying that if you are in a meditative state, problems will disappear – not be solved. There is no need to solve a problem. In the first place the problem is created by a tense mind." (Osho - The Orange Book) 

The human mind is conditioned from the very outset of life. It is a storage of various influences that is not within our control when we enter this world. This conditioning creates attitudes and beliefs which we hold onto until we get into conflict and crisis. To tackle the sources of our human conflict, psychotherapy has been developed. The roots of our suffering, have been found to lie in isolation, a feeling of separation. 

Modern Western culture is marked by social isolation, personal alienation, lack of community, disconnection from nature, and the loss of the sacred at the centre of our lives. The Western mind is riddled with inner divisions—between self and other, individual and society, mind and body, spirit and nature, or the guilty ego and the harshly critical superego—that were mostly unknown in the ancient cultures in which the meditative traditions first arose.

Osho began to create the synthesis between mediation and therapy from the very early days of his work beginning with the Dynamic meditation. 

 “I have called the psychology that is based upon meditation the psychology of the buddhas. Modern psychology is the psychology of people who are asleep.

 The psychology of the buddhas means that we accept man as a three-storied building. There are a few who remain only on the ground floor, only in their bodies; all their interests are cantered in the body – this is the lowest life for someone to choose, as if you are living on the porch when the whole building is yours.

The second level of life is that of a well-understood mind – but who is going to understand the mind?

You can see the difficulty of the psychologist: he studies the mind but if you ask who is studying the mind…. Mind cannot study itself” (Osho).

My life as a meditator runs concurrently with my work as a therapist. My experience has been shaped by the influence of this remarkable master for all of my adult life and I am still grateful.

Soon after completing my training as a therapist, in London, I found myself selected to lead Primal Therapy groups in Osho’s ashram in Poona. I look back on this phase of my life with amazement. I was there as a part of his vision from the dawn of its creation. My working day would start after sitting silently in Osho’s presence while he gave discourses on every relevant topic of the human state. His message was sometimes contradictory, offering completely different point of view. This had the effect of scrambling the workings of my brain and bringing me into my senses. The feeling was sublime.

“The psychology of the buddhas is comprehensive of the whole individuality of man – and it does not end there. By studying, by experiencing the body, the mind, the consciousness, and the beyond, Buddha is preparing you to dissolve into the universal.”

I received very specific instructions during those early years from Osho, who personally supervised each process during the evening darshans. 

My job, as was told to me by Osho, was “to clear the mind of past conditioning:” It has become the basic element of my work. Conditioning factors, from the very beginning of life determine our beliefs about ourselves and how life is, how the others are. They form our attitudes and this is carried in our postures. It affects our whole way of being. To embark upon the journey of exploration into what lies beyond this conditioning, a neutral ground, a non-judgemental state needs to be restored. We are all born innocent. Clearing the mind is a way of restoring innocence. It clears the way to increasing attention in the moment. Empathy and compassion with ourselves can lead to maintaining this state.

Among the lasting treasures of Osho’s legacy are the Meditative Therapy techniques, No-Mind Meditation, Mystic Rose Meditation and Born Again.

These methods restore a state of innocence through forms of release past conditioning and integrating the psychological issues that obstruct our clear vision of ourselves. Therapy and meditation go hand in hand in my experience of working from the buddha within