1962 Osho opens his first Meditations Centres known as Jivan Jagruti Kendras (Life Awakening Centres), and names his movement Jivan Jagruti Andolan (Life Awakening Movement).
With the help of meditation temples or centers, I would like to, in a scientific way, introduce the modern man to meditation not only in an intellectual way but get him there in an experimental way. And it is more difficult to enter meditation through intellectualism than through experimentation. There are certain things that we can know of only by doing them. They cannot be understood just by knowing them. Actually we cannot know them till we do them. The meditation centers are scientific places where a modern man can understand meditation through modern language and symbols. Not only that they can actually do it and get introduced to it.... There are hundred and twelve such methods in the world. I would like to give a detailed scientific basis for these methods in the meditation centers. So that not only can you understand but also do them. If not one method then through some other method. But we would not let you come out disappointed from that center. Because these are the ultimate one hundred and twelve methods, there cannot be more than this. If one of them does not work then some other will work. If not then the next one. And you can very easily find out which method is going to work for you. The technique to find out a particular method for a person, is also a science. If we can build such meditation centers in the major cities of our country and also outside the country, then we will be able to give some ray of hope to mankind which at present is undergoing a lot of pain and sorrow and is unable to see any path out of it. hasiba02
Osho writes to a friend: A meditation centre has started here where some friends are experimenting. When I have some definite results there is every possibility of my writing something. About my experiments on myself, I am sure and certain, but I want to test their usefulness to others. I do not want to write anything in the manner of philosophy, my outlook is scientific. I want to say something about yoga based on certain psychological and para-psychological experiments. There are many illusory notions held about it and these have to be refuted. Therefore I am experimenting here also. It is clear to me that this work is not for promoting any group or cause. teacup01
In February 1964 Osho writes: I am going to speak on Samadhi Yoga in Delhi and I have also to inaugurate a meditation centre there. Such centres I have already begun at Bombay, Calcutta, Jaipur, Kanpur, Udaipur, Chanda and other places. Thousands of people have come into contact and one gathers hope that meditation can be brought to each and every home. Meditation is the central essence of religion. It is only through re-establishing it that religion can be revived. letter04
One of the professors who was my colleague wanted to learn meditation. I had a small school of meditators there. He participated, and the first day he experienced silence he simply jumped out of the small temple where we used to sit and ran away! I could not understand what had happened. I had to follow him. He would look back at me, and as he looked at me following him, he ran faster. I thought, "This is something. What happened to this man?" I yelled, "You wait, Nityananda!"--his name was Nityananda Chatterji--"just wait for a moment!" He just waved his hand, meaning "finished" and said, "I don't want to meditate. You are a dangerous man!" Finally I got hold of him just before he entered his house. He could not run anywhere else now. I said, "You better tell me what happened." He said, "What you did I don't know, but I became so silent--and you know me, I am a chatterbox"--Chatterji was his name, too. He was a Bengali. "In the morning I start talking, and I talk till I fall asleep...almost in the middle of a sentence--I continuously talk. It keeps me engaged, unworried, with no problems. I know there are problems, but talking to anybody...if nobody is there I talk alone. "And there, sitting with you, suddenly talking stopped. I was blank. And I said, `My God, I am going mad! If this happens to me twenty-four hours--finished. Nityananda Chatterji,' I said, `your life is finished. If the mind does not come back again...before this silence goes further, escape from here. And why are these thirty, forty people sitting here with closed eyes?--but that is their problem. Everybody has to take care of himself.' So I escaped." I said, "Don't be worried. Silence is not something that destroys your mind, it simply helps the mind to rest. And to you it happened so easily because you are a chatterbox; the mind is tired. It does not usually happen so easily. Those other people are sitting. It is not so easy that when for the first time you sit to meditate, your mind becomes silent. "You have bothered the mind so much your whole life, people are afraid of you. Your wife is afraid, your children are afraid. In the university the professors are afraid. If you are sitting in the common room, the whole common room becomes empty; everybody escapes from there. It is because of too much use of the mind. It is a mechanism, it needs a little rest. "Scientists say that even metal gets tired; it also needs rest. The mind is a very sophisticated phenomenon, the most sophisticated thing in the whole universe, and you have used it so much that finding a chance to become silent it immediately became silent. You should be happy." He said, "But will it start again or not?" I said, "It will, whenever you want." He said, "I became afraid that if it does not start again...then Nityananda Chatterji, your life is finished. You will be in a madhouse. Why, in the first place, did you ask this man about meditation?" And I said, "I was also asking myself why you want to meditate." He said, "I was simply talking about it, just the way I talk about everything--and you grabbed me. You said, `That's perfectly okay. You come with me in the car.' I had never meant...I talk about everything--whether I know about it or not, it does not matter. I can talk for hours. Just because you were sitting in the common hall and there was nobody else, I thought, `What subject will be right?' Seeing you I thought, `Meditation is the only subject you may be interested to talk about,' so I talked. And you grabbed me; you brought me in the car. "And I thought, `What harm can it be? My house is just a few minutes away from your house so it is good to go in the car. And all the way I will talk.' And all the way I talked about meditation. And that's how I got into your trap, because then I could not turn back. You pushed me into that temple where forty people were sitting, so I had to sit. I wanted to escape from the very beginning. I never wanted to meditate, because I don't want to get into anything if I don't know where it will lead. "And just as I was sitting there, everything became silent. I opened my eyes, I looked around, and everybody was with closed eyes, silent. I thought, `This is the time that I should escape.' And you are such a man that you won't let me even run away. The whole street saw that I am escaping and you are following. And I was saying, `I am not going to stop.' Just I became very much afraid. I am afraid of silence. Talking is perfectly okay." I said, "You are fortunate because you have talked so much that your mind is ready to relax. Don't miss this opportunity. And don't be afraid. Can't you see me?--I can talk. You will be able to talk whenever you want. Right now talking is not within your power; it simply goes on by itself. You are simply a gramophone record, and silence will make you a master." He said, "Well, if you promise, I trust you and I will come every day. But remember, I don't want to lose my mind. I have children, I have a wife, I have old parents." I said, "Don't be worried. You will not lose your mind." And you will be surprised that that man progressed in meditation better than anyone else. That gave me the idea of a special meditation, and I started a new technique, gibberish. It was not absolutely new, but nobody had used it as a device for many people to meditate.... So I told Nityananda Chatterji, "You don't be worried. You have been doing gibberish so much that you are going to certainly attain a deep silence." And he became very silent. The whole university was shocked. They could not believe what I have done to him. Now people would approach him, want him to talk, and he would say, "No, enough. When I used to talk, you all used to escape. I am finished. Just leave me alone." He was promoted but he refused and went on pension, so his wife and children could live and he could continue his silence. I saw him after ten years. He had become a totally new man, so fresh and so young, as if a bud is just opening and becoming a rose--with that freshness. And he didn't talk; for hours he would come and sit, and there would be no talk. So whatever is happening, allow it to happen. The mind is accustomed to a certain quantity of inner talk.... Mind is only a mechanism--it can talk, it can be silent. The only problem is, it should not be the master, it should be the servant. As a servant it is great; as a master it is dangerous. You should be the master of it. mystic15