Self Hypnosis

BELOVED OSHO,

THE OTHER EVENING I TRIED THE TECHNIQUE YOU SUGGESTED FOR BEING HYPNOTIZED. ALTHOUGH I BECAME MORE DEEPLY RELAXED THAN I EVER HAVE, I STILL REMAINED QUITE CONSCIOUS, SO IT SEEMS I DID NOT TAP INTO THE UNCONSCIOUS AND ANY UNCONSCIOUS MEMORIES. BUT I DID HAVE MANY IMAGES PASSING RAPIDLY THROUGH MY MIND, WHICH I DESCRIBED ALOUD. IS THERE ANY POINT IN DOING THIS, OR SHOULD ONE BYPASS ANY IMAGES AND WAIT UNTIL ONE FINDS THE KNACK OF FALLING INTO THE UNCONSCIOUS?

Self-hypnosis takes a little longer time, but there is no need to repeat or say the images, because that becomes a disturbance. You simply let them pass by. You just watch and go on relaxing more and more. A moment will come that all those images are gone, and for a period of time that you have decided beforehand you will not be alert. In that gap you have entered into the unconscious. Coming out of the unconscious, you will feel immensely refreshed.

So first don't repeat the images, so that you can enter into the unconscious. When you have become capable of entering into the unconscious for a period of time and you simply lose track of where you have been -- you cannot give any account of it... That time is simply not recorded by your memory, because the memory system is in the conscious mind. The unconscious has no memory system, and the unconscious has no idea of the calendar, the time, the day, the date -- nothing.

So first let that happen. And when you wake up, in the first moment when you feel that you are out of the unconscious, repeat three times, "Next time when I do the experiment, I will go faster into it, deeper into it."

When it becomes a small thing to you, no problem at all -- you just relax and go into it -- then you can do the second part. After coming out of the unconscious, the first thing you have to repeat is, "Now I will remember whatever I see in the unconscious. I will not be unconscious. I will be in the unconscious but a small consciousness will be with me, so I can see what is there." That will be the second part.

With that second part you can start releasing, because some part of the conscious enters into the unconscious. Then there is a way for memories that are repressed to be released. Then coming out of the unconscious you will not only feel refreshed, you will feel relieved, unburdened. Those subtle feelings have to be remembered. First you will only feel refreshed, as after a good night's sleep. Second you feel unburdened. Something was on your chest; it was heavy, and now it is no longer there -- or is less there. Then continue in that way, and go on repeating, "I will be more and more conscious, so more and more unconscious can be released."

And in the third stage you should repeat, "I should be completely conscious so that the barrier between consciousness and unconsciousness is broken." When you come out of it, then you will feel not only freshness, not only unburdened, but an absolute freedom -- as if you had been chained, handcuffed, and they have been removed.

Self-hypnosis takes a little longer time, but it is good. You are totally your own master. But don't repeat the images, because repeating them, you will not fall into unconsciousness; just let them pass. Your whole effort right now should be how to move from the conscious to the unconscious through relaxing, through being silent, through just witnessing. And everything has to be done in a very soft way -- even witnessing.

If you stare, that will not allow you to enter into the unconscious. Just see by the way; just as if you are sitting by the side of the road and by the way people are passing -- you don't even care who is passing, whether he is a man or a woman. You just see them because you are looking that way, but no staring.

So you have done everything right -- just the repeating was wrong. That you should not do. And then slowly, slowly, as I described in three parts, keep going.

---The Path of the mystic, #10