Shivasutra -2 - OSHO

Osho has often spoken about the 112 methods of meditation given by Shiva to his consort, Devi. Vigyana Bhairava Tantra contains the complete series of discourses given by Osho on all these meditation techniques, and his responses to questions raised by seekers about the meditations. In the first discourse of the series, Osho suggests:

"Really, when you try the right method it clicks immediately. So I will go on talking about methods here every day. You try them. Just play with them - go home and try... And these methods are simple, you can just play with them.

Take one method and play with it for at least three days. If it gives you a certain feeling of affinity, if it gives you a certain feeling of well-being, if it gives you a certain feeling that this is for you, then be serious about it. Then forget the others, do not play with other methods. Stick to it - at least three months. Miracles are possible. The only thing is that the technique must be for you".

AS BREATH TURNS FROM DOWN TO UP, AND AGAIN AS BREATH CURVES FROM UP TO DOWN -- THROUGH BOTH THESE TURNS, REALIZE.

It is the same, but with a slight difference. The emphasis is now not on the gap, but on the turning. The outgoing and ingoing breath make a circle. Remember, these are not two parallel lines. We always think of them as two parallel lines -- breath going in and breath going out. Do you think that these are two parallel lines? They are not. Breath going in is half the circle; breath going out is the other half of the circle.

So understand this: first, breathing in and out creates a circle. They are not parallel lines, because parallel lines never meet anywhere. Secondly, the breath coming in and the breath going out are not two breaths, they are one breath. The same breath which comes in, goes out, so it must have a turn inside. It must turn somewhere. There must be a point where the incoming breath becomes outgoing.

Why put such emphasis upon turning? Because, Shiva says, AS BREATH TURNS FROM DOWN TO UP AND AGAIN AS BREATH CURVES FROM UP TO DOWN, THROUGH BOTH THESE TURNS, REALIZE. Very simple, but he says: realize the turns and you will realize the self.

Why the turn? If you know driving you know about gears. Each time you change the gear, you have to pass through the neutral gear, which is not a gear at all. From the first gear you move to the second or from the second to the third, but always you have to move through the neutral gear. That neutral gear is a turning point. In that turning point the first gear becomes the second and the second becomes the third. When your breath goes in and turns out, it passes through the neutral gear; otherwise it cannot turn out. It passes through the neutral territory.

In that neutral territory you are neither a body nor a soul, neither physical nor mental, because the physical is a gear of your being and the mental is another gear of your being. You go on moving from gear to gear, but you must have a neutral gear where you are neither body nor mind. In that neutral gear you simply are: you are simply an existence -- pure, simple, unembodied, with no mind.

That is why there is the emphasis on the turn. Man is a machine -- a large, very complicated machine. You have many gears in your body, many gears in your mind. You are not aware of your great mechanism, but you are a great machine. And it is good that you are not aware; otherwise you could go mad. The body is such a great machine that scientists say if we had to create a factory parallel to the human body, it would require four square miles of land, and the noise would be such that one hundred square miles of land would be disturbed by it.

The body is a great mechanical device -- the greatest. You have millions and millions of cells and each cell is alive. So you are a big city of seventy million cells; there are seventy million citizens inside you, and the whole city is running very silently, smoothly. Every moment the mechanism is working. It is very complicated. These techniques will be related at many points with the mechanism of your body and the mechanism of your mind. But always the emphasis will be on those points where suddenly you are not part of the mechanism -- remember this. Suddenly you are not part of the mechanism. There are moments when you change gears.

For example, in the night when you drop into sleep you change gears, because during the day you need a different mechanism for a waking consciousness -- a different part of the mind functions. Then you drop into sleep, and that part becomes non-functioning. Another part of the mind begins to function, and there is a gap, an interval, a turning. A gear is changed. In the morning when you are again getting up, the gear is changed. You are silently sitting, and suddenly someone says something and you get angry -- you move into a different gear. That is why everything changes.

If you get angry, your breathing will suddenly change. Your breathing will become irritated, chaotic. A trembling will get into your breathing; you will feel suffocated. Your whole body would like to do something, shatter something, only then can the suffocation disappear. Your breathing will change; your blood will take a different rhythm, a different movement. Different chemicals will have to be released in the body, the whole glandular system will have to change. You become a different man when you are angry.

A car is standing... you start it. Do not put it in any gear, let it be in neutral. It will go on pulling, vibrating, trembling, but it cannot move; it will get hot. That is why, when you are angry and you cannot do something, you will get hot. The mechanism is ready to run and do something and you are not doing -- you will get hot. You are a mechanism, but, of course, not only a mechanism. You are more, but the "more" has to be found. When you get into a gear, everything changes inside. When you change the gear, there is a turning.

Shiva says,

AS BREATH TURNS FROM DOWN TO UP, AND AGAIN AS BREATH CURVES FROM UP TO DOWN -- THROUGH BOTH THESE TURNS, REALIZE.

Be aware at the turn. But it is a very short turn; very minute observation will be needed. And we are just without any observing capacity; we cannot observe anything. If I say to you, "Observe this flower; observe this flower which I give to you," you cannot observe it. For a single moment you will see it, and then you will begin to think of something else. It may be about the flower, but it will not be THE FLOWER. You may think about the flower, about how beautiful it is -- then you have moved. Now the flower is no more in your observation, your field has changed. You may say that it is red, it is blue, it is white... then you have moved. Observation means remaining with no word, with no verbalization, with no bubbling inside -- just remaining WITH. If you can remain with a flower for three minutes, completely, with no movement of the mind, the thing will happen -- the beneficence. You will realize.

But we are not at all observers. We are not aware, we are not alert; we cannot pay attention to anything. We just go on jumping. This is part of our heritage, our monkey heritage. Our mind is just the growth of the monkey mind, so the monkey moves on. He goes on jumping from here to there. The monkey cannot sit still. That is why Buddha insisted so much on just sitting without any movement, because then the monkey mind is not allowed to go on its way.

In Japan they have a particular type of meditation which they call Zazen. The word 'zazen' in Japan means just sitting, doing nothing. No movement is allowed. One is just sitting like a statue -- dead, not moving at all. But there is no need to sit like a statue for years together. If you can observe the turn of your breath without any movement of the mind, you will enter. You will enter into yourself or into the beyond within.

Why are these turnings so important? They are important because on turning, the breath leaves you to move in a different direction. It was with you when it was coming in; it will be with you again when it goes out. But at the turning point it is not with you and you are not with it. In that moment the breath is different from you, and you are different from it: if breathing is life, then you are dead; if breathing is your body, then you are no-body; if breathing is your mind, then you are no-mind... in that moment.

I wonder whether you have observed it or not: if you stop your breath, the mind stops suddenly. If you stop your breath just now, your mind will stop suddenly; the mind cannot function. A sudden stoppage of breath and the mind stops. Why? Because they are disjoined. Only a moving breath is joined with the mind, with the body; a non-moving breath is disjoined. Then you are in the neutral gear. The car is running, the power is on, the car is making a noise -- it is ready to go forward -- but it is not in gear, so the body of the car and the mechanism of the car are not joined. The car is divided into two. It is ready to move, but the moving mechanism is not joined with it.

The same happens when breath takes a turn. You are not joined with it. In that moment you can easily become aware of who you are. What is this being? What is it to be? Who is inside this house of the body? Who is the master? Am I just the house or is there some master also? Am I just the mechanism or does something else also penetrate this mechanism? In that turning gap, Shiva says, REALIZE. He says just be aware of the turning, and you become a realized soul.

Shivasutra - 1 - Osho

RADIANT ONE, THIS EXPERIENCE MAY DAWN BETWEEN TWO BREATHS. AFTER BREATH COMES IN (DOWN) AND JUST BEFORE TURNING UP (OUT) -- THE BENEFICENCE.

That is the technique:

RADIANT ONE, THIS EXPERIENCE MAY DAWN BETWEEN TWO BREATHS.

After breath comes in -- that is, down -- and just before turning out -- that is, going up -- THE BENEFICENCE. Be aware between these two points, and the happening. When your breath comes in, observe. For a single moment, or a thousandth part of a moment, there is no breathing -- before it turns up, before it turns outward. One breath comes in; then there is a certain point and breathing stops. Then the breathing goes out. When the breath goes out, then again for a single moment, or a part of a moment, breathing stops. Then breathing comes in.

Before the breath is turning in or turning out, there is a moment when you are not breathing. In that moment the happening is possible, because when you are not breathing you are not in the world. Understand this: when you are not breathing you are dead; you ARE still, but dead. But the moment is of such a short duration that you never observe it.

For tantra, each outgoing breath is a death and each new breath is a rebirth. Breath coming in is rebirth; breath going out is death. The outgoing breath is synonymous with death; the incoming breath is synonymous with life. So with each breath you are dying and being reborn. The gap between the two is of a very short duration, but keen, sincere observation and attention will make you feel the gap. If you can feel the gap, Shiva says, THE BENEFICENCE. Then nothing else is needed. You are blessed, you have known; the thing has happened.

You are not to train the breath. Leave it just as it is. Why such a simple technique? It looks so simple. Such a simple technique to know the truth? To know the truth means to know that which is neither born nor dies, to know that eternal element which is always. You can know the breath going out, you can know the breath coming in, but you never know the gap between the two.

Try it. Suddenly you will get the point -- and you can get it; it is already there. Nothing is to be added to you or to your structure, it is already there. Everything is already there except a certain awareness. So how to do this? First, become aware of the breath coming in. Watch it. Forget everything, just watch breath coming in -- the very passage.
When the breath touches your nostrils, feel it there. Then let the breath move in. Move with the breath fully consciously. When you are going down, down, down with the breath, do not miss the breath. Do not go ahead and do not follow behind, just go with it. Remember this: do not go ahead, do not follow it like a shadow; be simultaneous with it.

Breath and consciousness should become one. The breath goes in -- you go in. Only then will it be possible to get the point which is between two breaths. It will not be easy. Move in with the breath, then move out with the breath: in-out, in-out.

Buddha tried particularly to use this method, so this method has become a Buddhist method. In Buddhist terminology it is known as Anapanasati Yoga. And Buddha's enlightenment was based on this technique -- only this.

All the religions of the world, all the seers of the world, have reached through some technique or other, and all those techniques will be in these one hundred and twelve techniques. This first one is a Buddhist technique. It has become known in the world as a Buddhist technique because Buddha attained his enlightenment through this technique.

Buddha said, "Be aware of your breath as it is coming in, going out -- coming in, going out." He never mentions the gap because there is no need. Buddha thought and felt that if you become concerned with the gap, the gap between two breaths, that concern may disturb your awareness. So he simply said, "Be aware. When the breath is going in move with it, and when the breath is going out move with it. Do simply this: going in, going out, with the breath." He never says anything about the latter part of the technique.

The reason is that Buddha was talking with very ordinary men, and even that might create a desire to attain the interval. That desire to attain the interval will become a barrier to awareness, because if you are desiring to get to the interval you will move ahead. Breath will be coming in, and you will move ahead because you are interested in the gap which is going to be in the future. Buddha never mentions it, so Buddha's technique is just half.

But the other half follows automatically. If you go on practicing breath consciousness, breath awareness, suddenly, one day, without knowing, you will come to the interval. Because as your awareness will become keen and deep and intense, as your awareness will become bracketed -- the whole world is bracketed out; only your breath coming in or going out is your world, the whole arena for your consciousness -- suddenly you are bound to feel the gap in which there is no breath.

When you are moving with breath minutely, when there is no breath, how can you remain unaware? You will suddenly become aware that there is no breath, and the moment will come when you will feel that the breath is neither going out nor coming in. The breath has stopped completely. In that stopping, THE BENEFICENCE.

This one technique is enough for millions. The whole of Asia tried and lived with this technique for centuries. Tibet, China, Japan, Burma, Thailand, Ceylon -- the whole of Asia except India has tried this technique. Only one technique and thousands and thousands have attained enlightenment through it. And this is only the first technique.

But unfortunately, because the technique became associated with Buddha's name, Hindus have been trying to avoid it. Because it became more and more known as a Buddhist method, Hindus have completely forgotten it. And not only that, they have also tried to avoid it for another reason. Because this technique is the first technique mentioned by Shiva, many Buddhists have claimed that this book, VIGYANA BHAIRAVA TANTRA, is a Buddhist book, not a Hindu book.
It is neither Hindu nor Buddhist -- a technique is just a technique. Buddha used it, but it was there already to be used. Buddha became a buddha, an enlightened one, because of the technique. The technique preceded Buddha; the technique was already there. Try it. It is one of the most simple techniques -- simple compared to other techniques; I am not saying simple for you. Other techniques will be more difficult. That is why it is mentioned as the first technique.

Shivasutra -Intro

Introduction
Our knowledge of the physical world is based on empirical associations. These associations reveal the laws of the physical world. But how do we study the nature of consciousness?
There is no way to observe one's own awareness because we are aware through the associations with the phenomenal world. The Vedas deal precisely with this central question of the nature of knowledge.

Universal consciousness, as a unity, is called Shiva or Bhairava. Shiva makes it possible for the material associations of the phycisal world to have meaning. But the domain of the union of Shiva and the phenomenal world is puzzling and astonishing (1-12).

Section I - Universal consciousness

1. Consciousness is the self.
2. (Ordinary) knowledge consists of associations.
3. Sets of axioms generate structures.
4. The ground of knowledge is matrka (Universal Mother).
5. The upsurge (of consciousness) is Bhairava.
6. By union with the energy centers one withdraws from the universe.
7. Even during waking, sleep, and deep sleep one can experience the fourth state (transcending consciousness).
8. (Sensory) knowledge is obtained in the waking state.
9. Dreaming is free ranging of thoughts.
10. Deep sleep is maya, the irrational.
11. The experiencer of the three states is the lord of the senses.
12. The domain of the union is an astonishment.
13. The power of the will is the playful uma.
14. The observed has a structure.
15. By fixing the mind on its core one can comprehend perceivable and emptiness.
16. Or by contemplating the pure principle one is free of the power that binds (to associations).
17. Right discernment is the knowledge of the self.
18. The bliss of the sight is the joy of samadhi.
19. The body emerges when the energies unite.
20. Elements unite, elements separate, and the universe is gathered.
21. Pure knowledge leads to a mastery of the wheel (of energies).
22. The great lake (of space-time) is experienced through the power of mantra.

Section II- The emergence of innate knowledge

1. The mind is mantra.
2. Effort leads to attainment.
3. The secret of mantra is the being of the body of knowledge.
4. The emergence of the mind in the womb
is the forgetting of common knowledge.
5. When the knowledge of one's self arises one moves in the sky of consciousness
---the Shiva's state.
6. The guru is the means.
7. The awakening of the wheel of mat\drka (the elemental energies).
8. The body is the oblation.
9. The food is knowledge.
10. With the extinction of knowledge emerges the vision of emptiness.

Section III- The transformations of the individual

1. The mind is the self.
2. (Material) knowledge is bondage (association).
3. Maya is the lack of discernment of the principles of transformation.
4. The transformation is stopped in the body.
5. The quieting of the vital channels, the mastery of the elements, the withdrawal from the elements, and the separation of the elements.
6. Perfection is through the veil of delusion.
7. Overcoming delusion and by boundless extension innate knowledge is achieved.
8. Waking is the second ray (of consciousness).
9. The self is the actor.
10. The inner self is the stage.
11. The senses are the spectators.
12. The pure state is achieved by the power of the intellect.
13. Freedom (creativity) is achieved.
14. As here so elsewhere.
15. Emission (of consciousness) is the way of nature and so what is not external is seen as external.
16. Attention to the seed. 17. Seated one sinks effortlessly into the lake (of consciousness).
18. The measure of consciousness fashions the world.
19. As (limited) knowledge is transcended, birth is transcended.
20. Maheshvari and other mothers (sources) of beings reside in the sound elements.
21. The fourth (state of consciousness) should be used to oil the (other) three (states of consciousness).
22. Absorbed (in his nature), one must penetrate (the phonemes) with one's mind.
23. The lower plane arises in the center (of the phoneme).
24. A balanced breathing leads to a balanced vision.
25. What was destroyed rises again by the joining of perceptions with the objects of experience.
26. He becomes like Shiva.
27. The activity of the body is the vow.
28. The recitation of the mantras is the discourse.
29. Self-knowledge is the boon.
30. He who is established is the means and knowledge.
31. The universe is the aggregate of his powers.
32. Persistence and absorption.
33. Even when this (maintenance and dissolution) there is no break (in awareness) due to the perceiving subjectivity.
34. The feeling of pleasure and pain is external.
35. The one who is free of that is alone (with consciousness).
36. A mass of delusion the mind is subject to activity.
37. When separateness is gone, action can lead to creation.
38. The power to create is based on one's own experience.
39. That which precedes the three (states of consciousness) vitalizes them.
40. The same stability of mind (should permeate) the body, senses and external world.
41. Craving leads to the extroversion of the inner process.
42. When established in pure awareness, (the craving) is destroyed and the (empirical)
individual ceases to exist.
43. Although cloaked in the elements one is not free, but, like the lord, one is supreme.
44. The link with the vital breath is natural.
45. Concentrating on the center within the nose, what use are the left and the right
channels or sushumna?
46. May (the individual) merge (in the lord) once again.

ShivaSutra Introduction

ShivaSutras are believed to be a Rahasyagama Sastrasangraha or Sivopanisat Sangraha a compendium containing secret doctrine revealed by Lord Shiva. It is stated that once Srikanthanatha, an incarnation of Lord Shiva, appeared before sage Vasugupta in a dream and directed him that the secret doctrines inscribed on a particular rock on the Mahadeva mountain, about 18 kms., away from Srinagar, behind the famous Harvan garden, be studied and taught to those who deserved such a favor. On awakening sage Vasugupta visited the desired spot and the particular stone turned upside down by his mere touch. He found the Sutras engraved on the big rock which is still known as 'samkaropala'.

Sage Vasugupta the discoverer of ShivaSutras was the guru of Kallata. He is believed to have flourished in the beginning of the 9th century A. D. A prolific writer and learned disciple of Acharya Abhinavagupta, Sh. Ksemaraja, must have written a lucid and detailed exposition of each Sutras known as Vimarsini, in the 10th century AD The Sutras are divided in three awakenings dealing with the three means of liberation viz. Sambhava, Sakta and Anava upayas respectively. Thus these ShivaSutras throw a flood of light on the entire system of Shivayogasupreme identity of the individual self with the divine.

The Shiva Sutras

The Shiva Sutras describe a phonemic notational system in the fourteen initial lines of the Aṣṭādhyāyī, the Sanskrit grammar by Pāṇini. The notational system introduces different clusters of phonemes that serve special roles in the morphology of Sanskrit, and are referred to throughout the text. Each cluster, called a pratyāhara ends with a dummy sound called an anubandha (the so calledIT index), which acts as a symbolic referent for the list. Within the main text, these clusters, referred through the anubandha's, are related to various grammatical functions.

This type of initial notational verse is a standard structure in the sutra style, which focuses on creating short, mnemonic verses that encode complex rules. Often additional sounds may be added to the indices to make the overall string pronunciable.