From meditation and spiritual paths we expect a certain rigor, discipline and seriousness which often don’t allow us to fully answer the call of our heart, to deeply go inside of us and to express and live even our higher aspirations for the mystery of life. This way is too opposed to the beauty, the joy and to the pleasure of life, that we are not ready to drop. If this is what you always felt, especially in this delicate moment of deep transformation on a global level, then Tantra is for you!
Among all the spiritual awakening paths, Tantra is the one that accepts life in its totality: from sex to spirit, from daily life to religiosity. Tantra never asks you to renounce anything in life but on the contrary, to dive into it and fully live and enjoy it. Above all, it teaches you how to transform this joyful dip in life into your meditation, your spiritual awakening.
Radha, the founder of Tantralife school, tells us how she coped with the seriousness of the mind and the ego at the beginning of her life in Osho’s Commune in Pune.
“I was also beginning to see how my mind could play tricks on me, because one consequence of becoming a sannyasin was that I began to create an image of myself as a very serious and dedicated seeker. I certainly was totally involved in meditation, doing Dynamic every morning and another technique called ‘Kundalini Meditation’ every evening. I was also experimenting with meditation techniques given by Osho in darshan and in his discourses.
But I wasn’t planning on years of discipleship. In fact, I was expecting to become enlightened in a matter of weeks or months. Not surprisingly, the level of tension, seriousness and expectation in me was very high, and I had not yet gathered enough experience to see how such an attitude is itself a hindrance to being ‘loose and natural.’
Fortunately, Osho was available to keep my feet on the ground…”
Following, a fun quote where Osho answers one of her questions.
“[A sannyasin says she has a tension like a ’greed for God’ and cannot accept her stupidity.]
Nothing is to be done. They are needed, they are fun! If you are not stupid at all and you become completely wise, life will be too burdened. A little foolishness is good so that one can enjoy also. And every great man… it is not that he has dropped foolishness, he has used it. He has transformed it into his wisdom.
Nothing has to be dropped and nothing has to be cut away, otherwise, you will always remain a fragment, you will never be whole. That stupid path is also you. And who is condemning it? It is the ego. In fact the stupid part is more natural than this ego which goes on condemning and saying that this part is stupid and to drop it.
Don’t be serious – there is no need, no need. And whether you accept yourself or not, you are you. Your rejection doesn’t make any change. It only makes you miserable, that’s all. If you accept, you can dance and be happy and celebrating. If you don’t accept, you become serious and tense. So the real question is not whether to accept or not, but whether you want to be happy or unhappy.
Once Diogenes, who had become a hundred years old, was asked by somebody why he was always happy and what was his secret. He said, ’Every morning when I get up I have two alternatives – to be happy or not to be happy. I always choose to be happy!’
What is the point in being miserable! And this is the most important thing: if you are happy you start changing. Happiness is the only alchemy in the world. It is the only secret of transformation; there is no other. Unhappy people ever change, and because they don’t change they become more unhappy.
Happy people continuously change, and because they change they become happier and happier; and then more and more change is possible. Why do I say that happiness is the only alchemy? It is because in happiness you are flowing, your energy is not frozen; it is not blocked. You have an inner dance of energy, a dynamic energy, that is needed for transformation. When you are unhappy you are dull, solid, rock-like; nothing is flowing, everything is frozen. How can you change?
(…)God is where life is, where the dance is still happening and the flowers blossoming, the rivers flowing, and the world of stars. He is there – in life. God is life. You can forget the word ’god’ and nothing will be lost – ’life’ is enough. And when I say ’life’ I don’t mean life with a capital ’L’, no; just a lower case ’l’ will do. Just a simple life, not even with a capital L. That life is God.
(…) I would like you to be happy and merry and cheerful. I would like you to be madly in love with life, because that is the only way one knows what God is. When you are lost in love and life, you have found Him. When you are too serious in the mind, and after Him too much, you can go on chasing Him but you will never find Him –because you are not the right person. He will not want to meet you. (Radha laughs)
Your company will be too serious.”
from “Hammer on the rock”, Osho
If you want to know how to add some stupidity/lightness to your everyday life and how to find the way to be less serious even in hard times, then you could practice this Osho Meditation technique: the Laughter Meditation.
It’s not a joke! Osho really created a Laughter Meditation and it’s not just very funny, it’s also a very effective way to empty your mind and enjoy the present moment.
Instructions:
The meditation lasts one hour and has three stages. If you are doing the meditation together with others, stay in your own space throughout, with no interaction.
First Stage: 20 minutes
Sitting silently, eyes closed, create a giggle in the very guts of your being, as if your whole body is giggling and laughing. Start swaying with the laughter and let it spread from the belly to the whole of your body: hands laughing, feet laughing. Go crazily into it. If it comes uproariously, loudly, allow it; if it comes silently, then sometimes silently, sometimes loudly – but keep on laughing.
Second Stage: 20 minutes
Lie down, spread yourself on the floor, facing the floor. Make contact with the earth, the whole body lying down there, and just feel that the earth is the mother and you are the child. Get lost in that feeling. Breathe with the earth, feel one with the earth.
Third Stage: 20 minutes
Stand up and start dancing. Energized by the earthing, you will have so much energy that your dancing will have a different quality to it. Just dance, any dance.
Enjoy!
