Take your time to meditate every day and regard it as something you give yourself as a present. Above all be generous to yourself.

What is meditation?

“First of all you have to experience, what meditation is, everything else will follow”, the great Indian mystic Osho said. „The Orange Book“ from the Osho publishing house is a treasure chest for meditation techniques which Osho gave his friends over the years. With these methods you can experiment; with them the journey to your soul will be a pleasure.

Our mind is constantly producing new anxieties and sorrows. It always worries about the next day. This is the state without meditation. Meditation is exactly the opposite: When you ceased to think, no thought arises, no desire appears, when you are absolutely quiet – this calm is meditation.

In this calm you see the truth. Meditation is a state beyond thinking. You can not reach the state of meditation by using your mind. As far as that goes, meditation techniques shall help us to get into the state of meditation. Meditation is a natural state to which you will come then. You can only reach this state, if you put aside your mind; if your thoughts pass by you, but you do not relate to them. In those calm moments, you realize who you really are.

Osho said: ”And then comes a day, a day of great salvation, on which meditation becomes your natural state. Meditation is the natural state, which we have lost, and which we can find again. Look into the eyes of a child and you will see vast calm and innocence. Every child is born in the state of meditation, but then it is initiated into society – it teaches every child how to think, how to calculate, how to be reasonable, how to argue. The child learns words, language, drafts, and looses its original innocence.”

It is important to regain this original state. You know it already, and if you experience meditation for the first time, you will be astonished and get a very strong feeling, the sense that you knew this state before. This sense is right: You know it already. You only had forgotten it. This jewel got lost under detritus. However, if you put way the detritus, you will find again the jewel - it is yours.

It can not really get lost. At most it can fall into oblivion. We are born as meditators. Dig, at least a little bit every day, and you will find the source still vital, the source of fresh water. It is the greatest pleasure in life to find it.

Which is the right type of meditation for whom?

In the beginning it is very helpful to try different meditation techniques. “Meditation should not be a compulsive effort. If you force yourself into it, it can not but fail. A forced thing will never make you natural. It is not necessary, that you provoke a conflict. The human mind has got the natural ability to meditate.

The mystic Osho developed innumerable meditation techniques, which have been practised successfully for 30 years by people from all over the world. You can read about them in the book indicated above.

“If you are body-oriented, there are ways for you to get to divinity through your body, because the body is also part of the divine. If you feel, that you are nearer to your heart, prayer will be the right thing for you. If you are more mind-oriented, meditation will be your way. I have tried to find methods which can be used equally by all three groups. Every method requires body, heart, and mind equally. They are put together to an integral whole, and my methods have a different effect on everybody. Body, heart, mind – ally my methods go on the same way. They start with the body, pass through the heart, and reach the mind – and then they go beyond all that.

If you found a method, which is full of joy for you, it means that it suits you. Go as deeply into this meditation as you possibly can. The more often you do it, the more joy it will be for you. Only give up a technique, when you have no longer pleasure in it; then its duty is done. Look out for a new technique. No technique alone can lead you to the essential destination. You will have to change the train on your journey several times. A certain method leads you to a certain state. After that it is no longer sensible, it has had its day.

Two things have to be thought of: As long as you find joy in a method, go into it as deeply as possible, but never get dependent on it, because one day you will have to separate from it. Do not let the method become a habit. Though you can still perform it, you will go round in circles. It can not help you anymore.

It depends on your joy. If the joy is there, go on; go on till the last bit of joy is gone. Then just put it aside. Choose another method, which makes you happy. You have to exchange it very often. It is different with everybody, but it is seldom the case that one method is sufficient for the whole journey.”

I myself have been experimenting with different techniques of meditation for more than 20 years.

For the beginning I advice you to let an experienced meditation instructor explain you the technique, and to practise it several times with him, so that you have got sufficient support and direction for the first steps.

Set off, and follow your intuition, then you will find a technique of meditation that you are ready for.

Swamiji Balendu and Dr. Michael Kosak

Another mystic is Swamiji Balendu, whom I have met for the first time a few years ago. Swamiji Balendu is a famous Indian yoga master and meditated between 1997 and 2000 three and a half years immured in a cave. Back then he was 26 years old.