Question – In meditation the distraction is often physical pain. Would you talk about meditating on pain while pain is happening?
Osho – This is what I was talking about. If you feel pain, be attentive to it, don’t do anything. Attention is the great sword — it cuts everything. You simply pay attention to the pain.
For example, you are sitting in the last part of the meditation silently, unmoving, and you feel many problems in the body. You feel the leg is going dead, there is some itching in the hand, you feel ants are creeping on the body and many times you have looked — there are no ants. The creeping is inside, not outside.
What you should do? You feel the leg is going dead — be watchful just give your total attention to it. You feel itching — don’t itch. That will not help. You just pay your attention. Don’t open even your eyes. Just pay your attention inwardly, and just wait and watch, and within seconds the itching has disappeared.
Whatsoever happens — even if you feel pain, severe pain in the stomach or in the head, it is possible because in meditation the whole body changes. It changes its chemistry. New things start happening; the body is in a chaos. Sometimes the stomach will be affected, because in the stomach you have suppressed many emotions, and they are all stirred. Sometimes you will feel like vomiting, nausea. Sometimes you will feel a severe pain in the head because the meditation is changing the inner structure of your brain. You are really in a chaos passing through meditation. Soon things will settle. But for the time being, everything will be unsettled.
So what are you to do? You simply see the pain in the head; watch it. You be a watcher. You just forget that you are a doer, and by and by, everything subsides and subsides so beautifully and so gracefully that you cannot believe unless you know it. And not only that the pain disappears from the head — because the energy which was creating pain, if it is watched… pain disappears and the same energy becomes pleasure. The energy is the same.
Pain or pleasure are two dimensions of the same energy. And if you can remain silently sitting and paying attention to distractions, all distractions disappear. And when all distractions disappear, you will suddenly become aware that the whole body has disappeared.
In fact, what was happening? Why these things were happening? — and when you don’t meditate they don’t happen. The whole day you are there and the hand never itches, the head has no pain, and the stomach is perfect, and the legs are okay. Everything is okay. What was really happening? Why in meditation these things start suddenly?
The body has remained the master for long, and in meditation you are throwing the body out of its mastery. You are dethroning it. It clings; it tries in every way to remain the master. It will create many things to distract you so the meditation is lost. You are thrown off balance and the body is again on the throne. Up to now, the body has remained the master and you have been a slave. Through meditation, you are changing the whole thing; it is a great revolution.
And of course, no ruler wants to be thrown out of his power. The body plays politics — that’s what is happening. When she creates imaginary pain, itching, ants creeping, the body is trying to distract you. And it is natural, because the body has remained in rule for so long; for many lives it has been the emperor and you have been the slave. Now you are changing everything upside down. You are reclaiming your throne, and it is natural the body will try whatsoever it can do to disturb you. If you get disturbed, you are lost. Ordinarily, people suppress these things. They will start chanting a mantra; they will not look at the body.
I am not teaching you any sort of suppression. Only awareness I teach. You just watch, pay attention, and because it is false, immediately it will disappear. When all the pains and itches and ants have disappeared and the body has settled in its right place of being a slave, suddenly arises so much bliss you cannot contain it. Suddenly arises so much celebration in the being, you cannot express it; you are overflowing with a peace that passeth understanding, a bliss which is not of this world.
Source – Osho Book “Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, Vol 3″
This has been tremendously helpful in a practical way (if there is any other way). I have been experiencing difficulties in my breathing during meditation, and exactly as Osho says, these difficulties are NOWHERE to be found the rest of the time I am not meditating, haha! It is very beautiful to be able to read these helpful things, because when difficulties arise it is hard to keep going.
Ya Hagh!