Fever Meditation

Suffering is on the periphery

When you are lying on your bed, feverish, on fire, the whole body burning, just watch it. Watching, you will recede towards the source. Watching, not doing anything.... What can you do? The fever is there, you have to pass through it; it is no use unnecessarily fighting with it.

You are resting, and if you fight with the fever you will become more feverish, that's all. So watch it. Watching fever, you become cool; watching more, you become cooler. Just watching, you reach to a peak, such a cool peak, even the Himalayas will feel jealous; even their peaks are not so cool. This is the Gourishankar, the Everest within. And when you feel that the fever has disappeared.... It has never really been there; it has only been in the body, very, very far away.

Observing distance to the body

Infinite space exists between you and your body, an unbridgeable gap between you and your body. And all suffering exists on the periphery. Hindus say it is a dream because the distance is so vast, unbridgeable. It is just like a dream happening somewhere else -- not happening to you -- in some other world, on some other planet.

When you watch suffering suddenly you are not the sufferer, and you start enjoying. Through suffering you become aware of the opposite pole, the blissful inner being. When I say enjoy, I am saying: Watch. Return to the source, get centered. Then, suddenly, there is no agony; only ecstasy exists.

Ecstasy in the center

Those who are on the periphery exist in agony. For them, no ecstasy. For those who have come to their center no agony exists. For them, only ecstasy.

When I say break the cup it is breaking the periphery. And when I say be totally empty it is coming back to the original source, because through emptiness we are born, and into emptiness we return. Emptiness is the word, really, which is better to use than God, because with God we start feeling there is some person.

Buddha never used "God" he always used shunyata -- emptiness, nothingness. In the center you are a nonbeing, nothingness, just a vast space, eternally cool, silent, blissful. When I say enjoy I mean watch, and you will enjoy. When I say enjoy, I mean don't escape.

Osho, excerpted from A Bird on the Wing, #1

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In this Osho quote it is described how suffering in fever or any other sickness can be used for meditation. Osho suggests just watching the body and the distance to the body helps everything to cool down. Suffering exists on the periphery, in the center there is ectasy.