There are many different, even contradictory ideas, about what meditation is. Primary to the Osho approach is the need for the meditator to understand the nature of the mind, rather than fight with it.

Most of us most of the time are run by, dominated by our thoughts or feelings. It follows that we tend to think we are those thoughts and feeling. Meditation is the state of simply being, just pure experiencing, with no interference from the body or mind. It's a natural state but one which we have forgotten how to access.

The word meditation is also used for what is, more accurately, a meditation method. Meditative methods, techniques or devices are means by which to create an inner ambience that facilitates disconnecting from the bodymind so one can simply be. While initially it is helpful to put time aside to practice a structured meditation method, there are many techniques that are practiced within the context of one's everyday life - at work, at leisure, alone and with others.

Methods are needed only until the state of meditation - of relaxed awareness, of consciousness and centering - has become not just a passing experience but as intrinsic to one as, say, breathing.

Some Common Misconceptions

Meditation is.

1) Only for people who are on a spiritual search.
The benefits of meditation are manifold. Chief among them are the ability to relax and to be aware without effort. Useful tools for just about everyone!

2) A practice to gain "peace of mind."
Peace of mind is a contradiction in terms. By its very nature the mind is a chronic commentator. What you can discover through meditation is the knack of finding the distance between yourself and the commentary, so that the mind, with its constant circus of thoughts and emotions, no longer intrudes on your inherent state of silence.

3) A mental discipline or effort to control or "tame" the mind, to become more mindful.
Meditation is neither a mental effort nor an attempt to control the mind. Effort and control involve tension, and tension is antithetical to the state of meditation. Besides, there is no need to control the mind, only to understand it and how it works. The meditator does not need to tame his mind, to become more mindful, but to grow more in consciousness.

4) Focusing, concentrating or contemplating.
Focusing, like concentrating is a narrowing of awareness. You concentrate on one object to the exclusion of everything else. By contrast, meditation is all-inclusive, your consciousness is expanded. The contemplator is focused on an object - perhaps a religious object, a photograph or on an inspiring aphorism. The meditator is simply aware, but not of anything in particular.

5) A new experience.
Not necessarily - sportsmen know this space, which they refer to as "the zone." Artists know it - through singing, painting, playing music. We can know it through gardening, playing with the kids, walking on the beach or making love. Even as children we may have had experiences of it. Meditation is a natural state and one that you have almost certainly tasted, although perhaps without knowing the name of the flavor.

Are there set times and places to meditate? Any prerequisites? How to choose the right method? Here are some tips that you might find helpful.

What is the Best Time to Meditate?
It is important to understand that "meditation" is simply being aware of what is happening both within and around us. So ultimately, this is just a natural part of everything we do, twenty-four hours a day. Learning the "knack" or "watching" what is going on rather than being immersed in it can take awhile. And meditation methods are designed to help you first learn that knack, and then allow the watcher to become strong enough to become part of your everyday life. So the comments below refer to the methods that can help you with this process.

Some methods are designed to be most effective when done at a certain time of the day. For example, Osho Dynamic Meditation is an energy-activating method best first thing in the morning. Similarly, Osho Kundalini is designed for the end of the day, to shake off accumulated tensions. Osho Nataraj and Osho Nadabrahma can be done at any time.

If you choose to use the Art of Listening approach using the recorded Osho Talks, then the recommended time is 7 p.m. each evening.

What's important is that you find what method works best for you, given your particular lifestyle. If you are doing a method that requires you set aside a certain time of your day, try to keep that time only for your meditation. Then it becomes as much a part of your natural rhythm as cleaning your teeth or having your breakfast.

Where...
Many meditative techniques, such as watching the breath, can be practice anywhere at any time. For the Osho active methods you need a room where you will be undisturbed and can move freely. For Dynamic meditation, having the option to make as much noise as you want is helpful but not absolutely needed.

What to Wear
You'll feel more comfortable in loose clothing that does not restrict the flowing of your energy in any way.

Minimizing Disturbances
Make sure you're not disturbed. It might be valuable to distinguish between noise outside the door, which is only to be watched, and cannot be a disturbance, and say, the phone going, or people coming in the room, which is different. There is a thought form that mediation has to take place in "quiet place" which is not what Osho is saying, which is to watch everything, inside and out.

Posture
You can read about particular postures needed for a specific technique in its individual description. In a sitting method, such as Osho Nadabrahma, or for methods that have a sitting stage, as does Osho Kundalini, you'll find it easier to be alert and aware if your spine is erect, because then you are assisted by gravitation. You can sit on a chair if that is better for you than sitting on the floor. In any lying-down stage, such as the last stage of Osho Kundalini, if you lie on your back rather than your side, there is less chance of falling asleep!

Over all, what's important is that you are comfortable, so that the body is relaxed.

Psychological Preparation
It is important that you don't meditate with some goal or desire or any expectation. The whole secret is to allow the process to unfold. Wanting something to happen is the surest way to prevent it happening. Just be content to enjoy the time of meditation in itself, for itself. Results will come, but only if you're not demanding that they do. Create a climate of receptivity, openness and relaxation.

Modern man is a very new phenomenon. No traditional method can be used exactly as it exists because modern man never existed before. So, in a way, all traditional methods have become irrelevant.

For example, the body has changed so much. It is so drugged that no traditional method can be helpful. The whole atmosphere is artificial now: the air, the water, society, living conditions. Nothing is natural. You are born in artificiality; you develop in it. So traditional methods will prove harmful today. They will have to be changed according to the modern situation.

Another thing: the quality of the mind has basically changed. In Patanjali's [the most famous commentator on Yoga] days, the center of the human personality was not the brain; it was the heart. Before that, it was not even the heart. It was still lower, near the navel. The center has gone even further from the navel. Now, the center is the brain. That is why teachings like those of Krishnamurti have appeal. No method is needed, no technique is needed - only understanding. But if it is just a verbal understanding, just intellectual, nothing changes, nothing is transformed. It again becomes an accumulation of knowledge.

I use chaotic methods rather than systematic ones because a chaotic method is very helpful in pushing the center down from the brain. The center cannot be pushed down through any systematic method because systemization is brainwork. Through a systematic method, the brain will be strengthened; more energy will be added to it. Through chaotic methods the brain is nullified. It has nothing to do. The method is so chaotic that the center is automatically pushed from the brain to the heart. If you do my method of Dynamic Meditation vigorously, unsystematically, chaotically, your center moves to the heart. Then there is a catharsis.

A catharsis is needed because your heart is so suppressed, due to your brain. Your brain has taken over so much of your being that it dominates you. There is no place for the heart, so the longings of the heart are suppressed. You have never laughed heartily, never lived heartily, never done anything heartily. The brain always comes in to systematize, to make things mathematical, and the heart is suppressed. So firstly, a chaotic method is needed to push the center of consciousness from the brain toward the heart.

Then catharsis is needed to unburden the heart, to throw off suppressions, to make the heart open. If the heart becomes light and unburdened, then the center of consciousness is pushed still lower; it comes to the navel. The navel is the source of vitality, the seed source from which everything else comes: the body and the mind and everything.

I use this chaotic method very considerately. Systematic methodology will not help now, because the brain will use it as its own instrument. Nor can just the chanting of bhajans help now, because the heart is so burdened that it cannot flower into real chanting. Consciousness must be pushed down to the source, to the roots. Only then is there the possibility of transformation. So I use chaotic methods to push the consciousness downward from the brain.

Whenever you are in chaos, the brain stops working. For example, if you are driving a car and suddenly someone runs in front of you, you react so suddenly that it cannot be the work of the brain. The brain takes time. It thinks about what to do and what not to do. So whenever there is a possibility of an accident and you push the brake, you feel a sensation near your navel, as if it were your stomach that is reacting. Your consciousness is pushed down to the navel because of the accident. If the accident could be calculated beforehand, the brain would be able to deal with it; but when you are in an accident, something unknown happens. Then you notice that your consciousness has moved to the navel.

If you ask a Zen monk, "From where do you think?" he puts his hands on his belly. When Westerners came into contact with Japanese monks for the first time they could not understand. "What nonsense! How can you think from your belly?

But the Zen reply is meaningful. Consciousness can use any center of the body, and the center that is nearest to the original source is the navel. The brain is furthest away from the original source, so if life energy is moving outward, the center of consciousness will become the brain. And if life energy is moving inward, ultimately the navel will become the center.

Chaotic methods are needed to push the consciousness to its roots, because only from the roots is transformation possible. Otherwise you will go on verbalizing and there will be no transformation. It is not enough just to know what is right. You have to transform the roots; otherwise you will not change.

When a person knows the right thing and cannot do anything about it, he becomes doubly tense. He understands, but he cannot do anything. Understanding is meaningful only when it comes from the navel, from the roots. If you understand from the brain, it is not transforming.

The ultimate cannot be known through the brain, because when you are functioning through the brain you are in conflict with the roots from which you have come. Your whole problem is that you have moved away from the navel. You have come from the navel and you will die through it. One has to come back to the roots. But coming back is difficult, arduous.

Traditional methods have an appeal because they are so ancient and so many people have achieved through them in the past. They may have become irrelevant to us, but they were not irrelevant to Buddha, Mahavira, Patanjali or Krishna . They were meaningful, helpful. The old methods may be meaningless now, but because Buddha achieved through them they have an appeal. The traditionalist feels: "If Buddha achieved through these methods, why can't I?"

But we are in an altogether different situation now. The whole atmosphere, the whole thought-sphere, has changed. Every method is organic to a particular situation, to a particular mind, to a particular man. The fact that the old methods don't work doesn't mean that no method is useful. It only means that the methods themselves must change. As I see the situation, modern man has changed so much that he needs new methods, new techniques.

Osho: The Psychology of the Esoteric , #4