OSHO Nataraj Meditation
– a technique often chosen as the night meditation at the monthly meditation camps.
NATARAJ is dance as a total meditation. There are three stages, lasting a total of 65 minutes.
Forget the dancer, the centre of the ego; become the dance. That is the meditation. Dance so deeply that you forget completely that ‘you’ are dancing and begin to feel that you are the dance. The divisionmust disappear; then it becomes a meditation. If the division is there, then it is an exercise: good, healthy, but it cannot be said to be spiritual. It is just a simple dance. Dance is good in itself – as far as it goes, it is good. After it, you will feel fresh, young. But it is not meditation yet. The dancer must go, until only the dance remains.
So what to do? Be totally in the dance, because division can exist only if you are not total in it. If you are standing aside and looking at your own dance, the division will remain: you are the dancer and you are dancing. Then dancing is just an act, something you are doing; it is not your being. So get involved totally; be merged in it. Don’t stand aside, don’t be an observer. Participate!
Let the dance flow in its own way; don’t force it. Rather, follow it; allow it to happen. It is not a doing but a happening. Remain in the mood of festivity. You are not doing something very serious; you’re just playing, playing with your life energy, playing with your bioenergy, allowing it to move in its own way. Just like the wind blows and the river flows – you are flowing and blowing. Feel it.
And be playful. Remember this word ‘playful’ always – with me, it is very basic. In this country we call creation God’s leela – God’s play. God has not created the world; it is his play.
- From the Orange Book
– a technique often chosen as the night meditation at the monthly meditation camps.
NATARAJ is dance as a total meditation. There are three stages, lasting a total of 65 minutes.
- First Stage: 40 minutes
- Second Stage: 20 minutes
- Third Stage: 5 minutes
Forget the dancer, the centre of the ego; become the dance. That is the meditation. Dance so deeply that you forget completely that ‘you’ are dancing and begin to feel that you are the dance. The divisionmust disappear; then it becomes a meditation. If the division is there, then it is an exercise: good, healthy, but it cannot be said to be spiritual. It is just a simple dance. Dance is good in itself – as far as it goes, it is good. After it, you will feel fresh, young. But it is not meditation yet. The dancer must go, until only the dance remains.
So what to do? Be totally in the dance, because division can exist only if you are not total in it. If you are standing aside and looking at your own dance, the division will remain: you are the dancer and you are dancing. Then dancing is just an act, something you are doing; it is not your being. So get involved totally; be merged in it. Don’t stand aside, don’t be an observer. Participate!
Let the dance flow in its own way; don’t force it. Rather, follow it; allow it to happen. It is not a doing but a happening. Remain in the mood of festivity. You are not doing something very serious; you’re just playing, playing with your life energy, playing with your bioenergy, allowing it to move in its own way. Just like the wind blows and the river flows – you are flowing and blowing. Feel it.
And be playful. Remember this word ‘playful’ always – with me, it is very basic. In this country we call creation God’s leela – God’s play. God has not created the world; it is his play.
- From the Orange Book
