Osho's Dynamic meditation

Our group congregated at 9am this morning for Dynamic meditation. Apparently this one was more 'powerful' relative to Kundalini a few days ago. There were Feelings of apprehension mixed with unusual confidence that I attributed to having experienced Alan's tantric meditations of yesteryear. If I could get fully present into being an out-of-control wild "animal" for 30 minutes, naked, and in a hall full of other wild, naked people, I could do ANYTHING. An experience like that would certainly evoke a unusual confidence.

Led by music, the first phase of meditation consisted of 10-15 minutes of vigorous breathing through the nostrils, emphasising the exhale. The tissues that were provided prior gave me a pretty accurate indication of exactly how vigorous. Standing eyes closed and using our entire body, we start to  use every centimetre of muscle in our arms, torso, hips, squeezing out every ounce of air from within the body. It didn't take me long to discover how quickly it took to exhaust myself and the rigorous exhales left me dry throated and gasping for air.

Phase two commenced with an abrupt 'gong' from the track and the "pffff"ing sounds from tired bodies and overworked nasal cavities progressed into screaming, yelling and wailing at the top of our lungs. I found my hands progressively flailing about me like a chained animal frantically trying to get free from its shackles, and I jump at the opportunity to "throw away" all negativity that my mind had accumulated up to that point. I discovered anger, rage, feelings of injustice done towards me, and all other kinds of ambiguous mental garbage. Instinctively scooping up it all up from my being with my arms and heaving it away as vigorously and passionately as I could, over and over and over again, yelling at the top of my lungs. The hunger of wanting to be 'free' was never as apparently as I felt in the moment. Once again my face contorted and eyes welled up as I curiously witnessed the happenings of this body. For a few seconds my body was engulfed with overwhelming emotion and my rage was replaced with loud and profuse crying - more of a cleansing, rather than a despairing kind. I also noticed myself noticing this and that I was very much curiously unattached to this spontaneous manifestation of the body.

Another gong goes off and we start jumping on the spot, with our arms straight up in the air, expounding the question "WHO?", in half-expectation that the answer would come from somewhere within us. I found this the most unbearable of all and my legs and shoulders soon started to stiffen and grow numb from the weight of my body. I persevere and wonder how on earth the less physically capable among us are managing to do this for so long.

"STOP!" followed by silence from the speakers propels the group abruptly into the next phase of the meditation: Stop whatever you are doing and freeze in place. I land with my weight distributed evenly over both feet and my arms are comfortably bent below my shoulders. Serendipitously, I had read about this Gurdjieff exercise just the night before (In Search Of The Miraculous) and recall the 'seriousness' that was originally entailed in performing it. Students under Gurdjieff who were committed to his formulations of self-study were required to freeze in whatever position they were in when they heard the command "STOP" by another member/leader of the group. A side-proponent of this exercise was also to test the mental fortitude of the student and if he could not execute this seemingly unharmful exercise in its entirety, would prove to be unworthy and incapable of attaining any serious 'results' whatsoever. I read that one student had picked up a glass of hot tea when the command was sounded and he stayed in that position for many minutes. His fingers was severely blistered afterwards for a very long time. I, on the other hand, was hardly in any sort of compromising situation, and my only anxiety was how I would look if my accumulating saliva were to ooze from the corner of my lips if I didn't do anything to stop it.., and then I gulped!

In these many moments of suspended animation, I did notice, strangely enough, how 'I' am completely ruled by this body. My "gulp" was a utter reaction, an action completely independent of what 'I' wanted to do. 'I' in all my feeble intent, did not want to swallow, but the body swallowed anyway. I also noticed what Gurdjieff had intended for us to experience: to witness the "3 centers" that make up our "selves." The Thinking center (how my mind is constantly trying to analyse), the Emotional center (when I started to tear up), the Moving center (gulping, and how the body constantly wants to move into a position that is most comfortable). Anyway, I digress. 

Finally, phase 5. In typical Osho fashion, melodious smooth music fills the room. We come out of our silent witnessing and begin to sway and dance in celebration. The 'work' is done and now it's time to come back joyfully into the world. I like how Osho thinks!

Dynamic meditation had me experience my body and its inner workings in a variety of ways: Breath, chaos, jumping, statue-like stillness and dance. Witnessing multifarious ways of movement strengthens the 'I', the 'witness', the 'observer' - What we really are.. And in that realisation of our essence lies our freedom.