Amrit Sadhana

The problem with the modern man is that he has become completely cerebral. He has forgotten that thinking is not the only means of perception; there is feeling, sensing, or just being. But the intellectual man “thinks” that he feels. He thinks he is hungry. But hunger is a sensation, not a thought. If someone is just sitting, people ask, “What are you thinking about?” As if it is not possible to just sit doing nothing.
Excessive domination of the intellect has dulled people’s senses. When they view a beautiful tree they immediately start wondering about the name, or how old the tree may be, and so on.
A psychotherapist was teaching a woman about feeling. So he put his hand on the woman’s hand and asked her to close her eyes and relate what she felt. She said immediately, “I feel your hand”.
The therapist said, “No, this is not your feeling. This is just your thinking, your interpretation. What do you feel? Just close your eyes and move to the place where my hand is; then tell me what you feel”.
Then she said, “Oh! I was missing the point. I feel pressure and warmth”.
This is feeling in the true sense: feeling without labelling.
Meditation is heightened sensitivity. Come down from your head and enter every pore of your body. And you will “sense” the world in a different way. For the first time you will feel that your are really alive. This is the way of Tantra.
Osho suggests many techniques that will help you get out of the chattering mind and enjoy living as a natural being. These techniques are so simple that they may not fit into the traditional concept of meditation. But the results are astounding.
If you have a small child in your house (or a pet), follow the child around for one hour every day. It will be better and more fulfilling than following a guru. If the child is moving on all fours, you also move on all fours. For the first time you will feel a new life, a new energy coming to you. You will again become a child. The child will go to every corner, s/he will touch everything — not only touch, s/he will taste everything, smell everything. Just follow, and do whatsoever the child is doing.
The child is feeling. The child is not intellectualising, the child is not thinking. If the child feels a smell, s/he moves to that corner from where it is coming. If the child sees an apple, s/he tastes it. Just taste like a child. This will be so enriching that your defence mechanisms will drop, your armour will drop, and you will start looking at the world from the dimension of feeling.
When you go to sleep just feel your bed, feel the pillow — the coldness. Just turn onto it; play with the pillow. Touch it with your whole body, like a cat rolls on the floor. Close your eyes and listen to the noise of the airconditioner, or of the traffic or of the clock or anything. Just listen. Don’t label, don’t say anything.
In the morning, in the first moment of waking up, don’t start thinking. For a few moments be as innocent as a child. Don’t think about your office or work or catching the train. For a few moments just listen to the sounds. A bird is singing or the wind is passing through the trees or a child is crying or the milkman has come and milk is being poured. With anything that happens, feel it. Be sensitive to it, be open to it.
You can expand the dimension of feeling in whatever you do throughout the day, whether taking shower, walking, looking or breathing. Soon you will be more alive, more sensitive and more young.

— Amrit Sadhana is in the management team of Osho International Meditation Resort, Pune. She facilitates meditation workshops around the country and abroad.