Essence of Meditation: Flight Of The Alone

By Osho

Essence of Meditation: Flight Of The Alone

Being alone with yourself and understanding yourself is a way to peace.

Man, as he is and as he lives, is a crowd. He appears to be a single unit, but in reality, a crowd of people lives in him: all his relationships exist in him at the same time. So when he enters within himself, images of all his different relationships come floating to him.

At no point is he able to feel himself in entirety, in purity Ð just himself. This situation continues through his whole life. Sometimes, in the next life too. He carries with him this load of memories and images Ð that's what makes him a crowd.

Entering into meditation becomes difficult, almost impossible, because of all this stuff. It is a real sadhana to go beyond this. We have carried this burden in our head, and have become totally one with it. The science of meditation teaches us to disentangle ourselves from this bondage.

There are many methods, but what is needed first of all is the understanding of our situation Ð not intellectually, but actually. One has to sit alone, find a few minutes of solitude to come face-to-face with this understanding. This needs courage. People have the courage to go out and meet with people, but they rarely have the courage to meet their own self. They dread a situation where they may have to be alone. If one can manage a few hours of aloneness, one can get ready for a twenty-one-day period of isolation. For creating intensity in meditation and transformation, the period of twenty one days is really helpful. Much is possible in this period.

To begin with, one has to be courageous. It is difficult to live in isolation for twenty-one days, having only oneself and one's inner dialogue for company. You cannot ask for help. This journey is basically a flight of the alone to the alone. Aloneness is our permanent reality, other things come and go; relationships are made and broken.

They will affect you, bind you, possess you but they can never become you. In your deepest core you will remain utterly alone. Even your so-called deepest love-affairs fade away in course of time. They may leave some indelible impressions or scars on your psyche, but they don't become you Ð they just become a burden or a bundle of memories.

Courage is needed to free oneself from all this and see oneself in one's purity. This is real liberation. Gautama the Buddha said:

Therefore, Ananda, be ye lamps unto yourselves,

Be ye a refuge to yourselves.

Betake yourselves to no external refuge.

Hold fast to the truth as a lamp;

Hold fast to the truth as a refuge.

Look not for a refuge in anyone besides yourselves.

(From The Osho Way: In Romance With Life by Swami Chaitanya Keerti)

.

.

See also: Essence of Meditation , Meditation, Meditation for Beginners, Meditation Techniques

More from same author see: Osho