Which meditation technique should I practice? || Acharya Prashant (2011)
Question: I have been reading Osho’s book ‘Vigyan Bhairav’ and in this book Lord Shiva explained 112 meditation techniques to keep the mind in present. However, Osho has also said that, “meditation is a quality of being that you bring to the act”.
I am confused as Osho has contradicted his own statement?
I have also read your blog: Don’t chase the Truth just stop running away from the Truth
You have said,”You just stop, enlightenment will chase you. You just stop, enlightenment will take hold of you. You just stop! God is more eager to have you than all your eagerness to have him”.
I hope in India these 112 meditation techniques are being practiced by most of the spiritual mentors. What do you think about these 112 meditation techniques? Are these techniques real or help us to understand Truth/God or these are just illusion created by the mind.
If truth is beyond mind then what is Lord Shiva trying to explain through these meditation techniques?
Are these techniques effective in this new era? In present time how to keep our mind in present?
Answer: All methods of meditation, or religion, are*for somebody*. This must not be forgotten.
No method is universally applicable. All methods assume a particular configuration of mind, a particular personality, a particular patient. You know very well that every medicine, or combination of medicines, is for a particular patient, or type of patients.
You have mentioned about Osho pointing to the common root of meditation and medicine. So,
- Medicine is needed only when one is a patient. Otherwise, normal food, normal breathing, normal exercise is sufficient. Similarly, a healthy mind needs no method of meditation.
- A disturbed mind surely needs a method of meditation, depending upon its disease.
- Since diseases are different, so methods of meditation for different states of mind have to be different.
- Since the states of mind change every moment, so the method of meditation also has to keep changing according to the situation and state of mind.
- So, there need to be hundreds and thousands, in fact millions, of methods.
- How to know which method is applicable in a particular moment, or situation?
Two ways:
- Be attentive amid all the disturbance. Due to Grace, the mind never totally loses the capacity to be attentive. Even in the middle of deep disturbance, it is possible to be attentive. This attention itself will tell you the right method of meditation. Because this attention is your very own, so you can always depend on it to keep continuously telling you the right method in every life-situation.
- If you somehow fail to summon your attention, then you will have to ask a Teacher to recommend you a particular method. If the Teacher is a good teacher, he will first and foremost try to remove the barriers to your own attention. He will try to enable you so that you can yourself keep finding methods. He will diagnose your life and understand what is hindering your own attention, and clear away the barriers. This would mean that he may ask you to change your lifestyle, change your ecosystem, or keep you under some kind of a discipline for some time. None of this will be a permanent way of living, but just an enabler to clear away the dirt within.
If the teacher is just a mediocre one, then he will pick up some conventional method or book and hand it over to you, asking you to keep practicing. This will help to some extent, but will not suffice. The student will continue to be trapped in disturbance.
– Based on my interactions on various e-media.
