Relaxation is as easy as 1-2-3

Relaxation is as easy as 1-2-3

"If you become capable of relaxing the body voluntarily, then you will be able to help your mind relax voluntarily," says Osho.

“Total relaxation is the ultimate. That’s the moment when one becomes a Buddha. That is the moment of realisation, enlightenment, Christ-consciousness. You cannot be totally relaxed right now. At the innermost core a tension will persist. But start relaxing. Start from the circumference—that’s where we are, and we can start only from where we are. Relax the circumference of your being—relax your body, relax your behaviour, relax your acts. Walk in a relaxed way, eat in a relaxed way, talk, listen in a relaxed way. Slow down every process. Don’t be in a hurry and don’t be in haste.

“Tension means hurry, fear, doubt. Tension means a constant effort to protect, to be secure, to be safe. Tension means preparing for the tomorrow now, or for the afterlife—afraid tomorrow you will not be able to face the reality, so be prepared. Tension means the past that you have not lived really but only somehow bypassed; it hangs, it is a hangover, it surrounds you. If you become capable of relaxing the body voluntarily, then you will be able to help your mind relax voluntarily.”

“Remember one very fundamental thing about life: Any experience that has not been lived will hang around you, will persist: ‘Finish me! Live me! Complete me!’ There is an intrinsic quality in every experience that it tends and wants to be finished, completed. Once completed, it evaporates; incomplete, it persists, it tortures you, it haunts you, it attracts your attention. It says, ‘What are you going to do about me? I am still incomplete—fulfil me!’

“Your whole past hangs around you with nothing completed—because nothing has been lived really, everything somehow bypassed, partially lived, only so-so, in a lukewarm way. There has been no intensity, no passion. You have been moving like a somnambulist, a sleepwalker. So that past hangs, and the future creates fear. And between the past and the future is crushed your present, the only reality.

“You will have to relax from the circumference. The first step in relaxing is the body. Remember as many times as possible to look in the body, whether you are carrying some tension in the body somewhere—at the neck, in the head, in the legs. Relax it consciously. Just go to that part of the body, and persuade that part, say to it lovingly ‘Relax!’

“And you will be surprised that if you approach any part of your body, it listens, it follows you—it is your body! With closed eyes, go inside the body from the toe to the head searching for any place where there is a tension. And then talk to that part as you talk to a friend; let there be a dialogue between you and your body. Tell it to relax, and tell it, ‘There is nothing to fear. Don’t be afraid. I am here to take care—you can relax.’ Slowly, you will learn the knack of it. Then the body becomes relaxed.

“When the mind is relaxed, then start relaxing your heart, the world of your feelings, emotions subtle—which is even more complex, more subtle. But now you will be moving with trust, with great trust in yourself. Now you will know it is possible.”

“Then take another step, a little deeper; tell the mind to relax. And if the body listens, mind also listens, but you cannot start with the mind—you have to start from the beginning. You cannot start from the middle. Many people start with the mind and they fail because they start from a wrong place. Everything should be done in the right order.

If you become capable of relaxing the body voluntarily, then you will be able to help your mind relax voluntarily. The mind is a more complex phenomenon. Once you have become confident that the body listens to you, you will have a new trust in yourself. Now even the mind can listen to you. It will take a little longer with the mind, but it happens.

“When the mind is relaxed, then start relaxing your heart, the world of your feelings, emotions subtle—which is even more complex, more subtle. But now you will be moving with trust, with great trust in yourself. Now you will know it is possible. If it is possible with the body and possible with the mind, it is possible with the heart too. And then only, when you have gone through these three steps, can you take the fourth. Now, you can go to the innermost core of your being, which is beyond body, mind, heart: the very centre of your existence. And you will be able to relax it too.

“And that relaxation certainly brings the greatest joy possible, the ultimate in ecstasy, acceptance. You will be full of bliss and rejoicing. Your life will have the quality of dance to it.”

Abridged from The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha by Osho

Osho is known for his revolutionary contribution to the science of inner transformation, with an approach to meditation that acknowledges the accelerated pace of contemporary life.

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