Osho - Meditation for busy people : stress-beating strategies for people with no time to meditate

By John Andrews MD MBBS MRCP

This is an amazing little book. It has many wonderfully simple techniques to help you relax, and glide into something called meditation. It also unravels all those knotty questions we have about how it actually works, how to understand what is going on, and how it can be useful in our busy lives.

I was asked to put this practical Osho meditation book into the context of the latest developments in medicine and neuroscience, and the application of these findings to every aspect of everyday life, reflected in ever-increasing media coverage. We are at a point where the question is no longer, why meditate? but why not?

If you already know how valuable it can be to add moments of awareness to your everyday life, this is your book.

If you are still wondering if all this talk about meditation is just another fad, another temporary hype like yet another diet program except this time for the brain there is now lots of information to help you decide. Ten years ago, there were about 50 academic papers on meditation published each year. Now there are about 500.

The subject of meditation is a little more complex than most topics we apply our scientific intelligence to.

If something roughly our size moves, we are pretty good at telling how fast it is going, and when it will reach a certain point in the future. If there are sounds within our auditory spectrum, we hear them. If there is light within our visual spectrum, we see it. We also know there are many sensations that are out of reach. There are some things we are just not built to notice.

Who would have guessed that the sun doesnt go around the earth? Or that we are whizzing through space at an incredible speed, rather than standing still at the center of the universe? Or that the earth we stand on is not flat? It took the combination of an unprejudiced observer and objective data to discover how wrong we had been.

It is the same when you feel very hot and sweaty, or cold and shivery, and wonder if you have a fever. Not always so easy to know. Enter science: the thermometer comes to your rescue. Of course, if your thermometer says you have a temperature of 200 degrees centigrade, you dont jump out of the window or call the fire brigade you spend $10 on a new thermometer, or find your reading glasses. Again, both an unbiased observer with a clear view and objective data are required.

What has all that to do with meditation, you might ask?

Well, suppose the object of your observation is you! Lets back up a bit, why would you want to observe yourself? When your mum scolded you with a, Just look at yourself, she meant the mud all over your shoes from playing in the garden. She didnt mean the state of your mind,

Perhaps you discover, as recent research has confirmed, that you spend about half your waking hours not present but off in some illusory world of daydreams rather than turning up for your own life. Maybe you discover for yourself, as science now also confirms, that you feel much better when you are here, present, than when you are not here, no matter how beautiful the dreams.

Imagine if you went to the doctor and were told you had a condition that would halve your lifespan. That would get your attention for sure. To then discover you are also less happy in escape mode makes this all pretty interesting, especially if you happen not to want to be unhappy.

Or maybe it is obvious to you that whatever you are up to, chances are it will go better if you at least turn up. Maybe you just enjoy being relaxed and notice that the present is much more relaxing than being pulled into dramas of the past or the future by these thoughts or those emotions.

Ok, clear. If you want to stop stubbing your toes on the furniture it would be good to be at least a little aware of what is happening to the feet.

Remaining conscious of the feet is difficult enough. Remembering to watch the thoughts and the feelings? now you are knee deep into the challenge of meditation.

This science of self-observation is quite tricky. When the subject of our scientific enquiry is the observer him or herself, how to know who is looking at whom? Who is this observer? Who am I? If it is important to know the state of the thermometer to be able to rely on it, it is no less important to know the state of the observer.

I wont spoil it for you, you can read the book. It is a fascinating journey. Suffice to say, if this amazing nervous system cant figure out that we are travelling through space at a zillion kilometers an hour and thinks we are standing still, be wary of all that hubristic, sniffy, I know attitude that inevitably trips us up.

The real issue here is the human mind, which poses a dilemma we all face. Because we have all been convinced that we are the mind, and that this is our smartest attribute, we naturally assume that it makes sense to use the human mind to find out about the human mind. Most scientists take this approach and do not seem to even notice that this is pretty unscientific.

The reason scientists always run double blind controlled trials in order to find out if a particular new medication is effective is because we all know we are all biased.

When it comes to the mind, those same scientists, just know the answer like their earth-centric predecessors just knew that the sun went around the earth. They are sure that the mind is capable of studying the mind. However, if even the best scientist is going to be biased about the value of a new medication, then think of the biases involved when we try and use our conditioned minds to investigate our conditioned minds.

At last this belief that these mind-centric scientists have been clinging on to is starting to crumble in the face of the scientists own best friend: doubt. Doubt that the mind can ever objectively see the mind. Doubts driven by science itself.

For over two millennia, many people in the East have been just as interested in what makes us tick as any modern white-coated scientist. They had no equipment to play with so could only rely on their own observations of their own mind and body. Out of that evolved what we might call the science of the inner. Just as the science of the outer is based on observation and experimentation, so the science of the inner is based on observation and experience.