Meditation is individual

A meditation technique has to fit with the individual

Drop old ideas of meditations, that just sitting underneath a tree with a yoga posture is meditation. That is only one of the ways, and may be suitable for a few people but is not suitable for all. For a small child it is not meditation, it is torture. For a young man who is alive, vibrant, it is repression, it is not meditation. Maybe for an old man who has lived, whose energies are declining, it may be meditation.

Finding the right meditation technique

People differ, there are many types of people. To someone who has a low kind of energy, sitting underneath a tree in a yoga posture may be the best meditation, because the yoga posture is the least energy-expensive -- the least. When the spine is erect, making a ninety-degree angle with the earth, your body expends the least energy possible.

Meditation is when body, mind and soul are in harmony

Running can be a meditation -- jogging, dancing, swimming, anything can be a meditation. My definition of meditation is: whenever your body, mind, soul are functioning together in rhythm it is meditation, because it will bring the fourth in. And if you are alert that you are doing it as a meditation -- not to take part in the Olympics, but doing it as a meditation -- then it is tremendously beautiful. Each according to his need -- only then this world can be full of meditation; otherwise not.

Many types of meditation available

If we give only a fixed pattern of meditation, then it will be applicable only to a few people. That has been one of the problems in the past: fixed patterns of meditation, not fluid -- fixed, so they fit certain types and all others are left in the darkness.

My effort is to make meditation available to each and everybody; whosoever wants to meditate, meditation should be made available according to his type. If he needs rest, then rest should be his meditation. Then "sitting silently doing nothing, and the spring comes and the grass grows by itself" -- that will be his meditation. We have to find as many dimensions to meditation as there are people in the world. And the pattern has not to be very rigid, because no two individuals are alike. The pattern has to be very liquid so that it can fit with the individual. In the past, the practice was that the individual had to fit with the pattern.

A revolutionary, individual approach towards meditation

I bring a revolution. The individual has not to fit with the pattern, the pattern has to fit with the individual. My respect for the individual is absolute. I am not much concerned with means; means can be changed, arranged in different ways.

Osho, excerpted from The Book of Wisdom #23

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This Osho quote states: Meditation is an individual process, thus the meditation technique has to be individual also. How do you know if a meditation technique is the right one? When body, mind and soul are in harmony, this is when the right meditation technique has been found.