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Covid changed the entire landscape. Out of the garden of our in-person meditation gatherings, A Course in Witnessing grew. We did not have any intention to create it. But covid changed everything.
We had been holding almost weekly meditation meetings wherever we happened to be living. They had started in Prescott, AZ, moved to Gainesville, FL, and on to the Atlanta area.
But covid created the need to reimagine the meditation meetings. And then we heard about Zoom. We began to experiment with holding our meditation meetings on Zoom on a weekly basis.
Several years before, I had begun to explore Osho’s books chronologically: Image may be NSFW.
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from the earliest talks, through the meditation camps, the Bombay discourses, the talks in Pune 1, the discourses in Rajneeshpuram, the talks held around the globe on Osho’s world tour and his talks on his return to Pune 2. All the while, I was collecting pieces where Osho spoke on his teaching of witnessing. I discovered that witnessing was the common thread through all the discourses from the very beginning all the way to the last Zen series where Osho led us into witnessing in the no-mind, let-go guided meditations.
For our meditation meetings, we had created recorded Osho/music satsangs, so that we could just put on a CD and join in the meditation ourselves. In addition to the satsangs created, we also put together some of Osho’s talks on Shiva’s meditation techniques from The Book of Secrets in order to be able to work with, and practice them, in our meditation meetings.
The blog site Sat Sangha Salon had been created many years before and was the repository of the collected works.
When we moved our meditation meetings to Zoom, a whole new world opened up. First of all, friends could join us from anywhere, and secondly, it allowed the possibility of having two-hour meditations rather than the one-hour meetings that we had restricted ourselves to previously.
Soon, all those posts of Osho discourse excerpts and The Book of Secrets meditations were forming the basis of what I began to see as modules, all part of one whole, which we would call A Course in Witnessing. I must state here that much credit for the creation of A Course in Witnessing has to be given to all the friends who joined us in our online meditations, because this became the laboratory in which the course emerged.
Before we knew it, we had created 144 two-hour meditation programs collected in seven modules. I say, “before we knew it,” but the complete course blossomed 14 years after the first satsang recording was created.
So, what exactly are the meditation programs? They are in two parts: first the Listening Meditation and then the Satsang Meditation.
The Listening Meditation is an approximately one-hour discourse excerpt. We call it Listening Meditation because we encourage the participants to bring a meditative quality to the space of listening. That means listening without either agreeing or disagreeing, listening without judging, and listening without analyzing. Osho has called this right listening, or total listening. It is the kind of listening we would bring to our time sitting in front of Osho during discourse. In the discourse excerpts in A Course in Witnessing, we are listening to Osho describe in great detail the whole journey of witnessing, sometimes through the teachings of the Upanishads, sometimes through the meditation techniques of Yoga or Tantra, sometimes through Zen stories, and sometimes through answering questions from his sannyasins.
Throughout all of these discourses is a common thread and that is Osho’s teaching of witnessing.
The second part of the meditation program is Satsang Meditation. These meditations are made up of alternating periods of silence, music and spoken word (highlights from the discourse). This is an opportunity to experiment with, explore more fully in our own light, that which has been heard in the listenings, maybe one of the techniques that has been introduced or maybe Osho’s guidance through the flow of watching, being and witnessing.
Currently we are holding weekly Zoom meditation meetings based on A Course in Witnessing. If you would like to be put on our mailing list to receive announcements for the meditation meetings, send an email with name and email address to info@o-meditation.com.
Whether in our meditation meetings or in your own time, we invite you to explore A Course in Witnessing:
Osho Sakshi and the Science of Awakening (16 programs)
Osho Transcendence from the Many to the One (16 programs)
Osho Alchemy and the Fire of Awareness (16 programs)
Osho Tantra and the Secrets of Meditation (20 programs)
Osho Yoga and the Discipline of Transformation (20 programs)
Osho Zen and the Mystery of No-Mind (20 programs)
Osho Dhamma and the Flowers of Awarefulness (36 programs)
The modules can be done independently, consecutively or randomly. They are arranged chronologically, however, in the order that Osho spoke them. The individual meditation programs within the modules can also be done randomly or in chronological order. There is, however, much benefit in doing them chronologically, especially the first six modules because the discourses that make up these meditation programs have a natural progression.
If you choose to do the programs randomly, you may want to print out the Map of Programs, so that you can check off the ones completed in order not to repeat.
If you are less linear, and more of spiral-oriented person, you could begin your first rotation with Osho Sakshi, move to Osho Tantra and end with the first 12 programs from Osho Dhamma; the second rotation would be Osho Transcendence, Osho Yoga and the second 12 programs from Osho Dhamma; and on to the final rotation, Osho Alchemy, Osho Zen and the last 12 programs from Osho Dhamma. Personally, I think this is the optimal approach. Frankly though, in whichever way you use the programs, I cannot see how you can go wrong. Each of the individual meditations (listening and satsang) can be either listened to online or downloaded to your own device. With 144 programs you have plenty to work with.
The Listening Meditations in the modules Osho Sakshi and Osho Transcendence are from discourses that Osho gave at meditation camps in different locations around India, mostly on various Upanishads. Osho Alchemy and Osho Tantra are from discourses that Osho gave at his apartment in Mumbai on the Atma Pooja Upanishad (The Ultimate Alchemy) and Vigyan Bhairav Tantra (The Book of Secrets). The discourses in Osho Yoga on The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali were given in Mumbai and then continued in Pune after his move there. Osho Zen includes discourses that Osho gave on Zen both from Pune 1 and Pune 2. The last eight programs of Osho Zen include Osho guiding us into no-mind meditation. The module Osho Dhamma is made up of discourses arranged mostly chronologically that Osho gave in Pune 1, Rajneeshpuram, on his world tour, and finally, back in Pune 2.
We have also gathered all of the discourses from the listening meditations and compiled them into PDF books based on the seven modules, A Course in Witnessing Module Books.
Osho spent his whole life working to awaken as many individuals as possible through the practice of meditation. In addition to teaching the 112 ancient meditation techniques of the Vigyan Bhairava Tantra, Osho also devised new “active” meditation techniques designed specifically to overcome the complexities and busyness of the modern mind. Osho, however, also says that the very core of meditation is witnessing.
“Real meditation is not a technique. Real meditation is just relaxing, sitting silently, letting it happen, whatsoever it is. Allowing the whole anxiety to come up, to surface. And watching it, watching it. And doing nothing to change it. Witnessing it is real meditation.
“In that witnessing your Buddhahood will become more and more powerful. Witnessing is the nourishment for your Buddhahood. And the more powerful your Buddhahood is, the less anxiety there is. The day your Buddhahood is complete, all anxiety is gone.”
-Osho
From The Perfect Master, V.1, Discourse #8
Enjoy!
Purushottama and Amido