The OSHO Evening Meeting ®

The Evening Meeting is the time when everyone can dance and celebrate and then sit silently.

About the Evening Meeting Osho says:

“Every night, these few moments are the most valuable in your life. Every evening, when so many living buddhas gather here, this place becomes the most important in the whole world. Because nowhere are so many people meditating together – digging so deep that they can find the very life source, the eternity, the deathlessness.”

And:

“That which cannot be said has to be experienced. This is a great experience of getting into the inner space. Something is experienced in this gathering which no one has been able to define. This is the highest peak of the whole day’s working, meditating or doing groups.”

High-energy dance:

The meeting starts with 20 minutes of high-energy music for dancing with totality by yourself, “a wild celebration of energy.” Let the energy of celebration build up inside you. Don’t waste this energy in shouting or whistling or looking around at others. This period of dancing includes shouts of “OSHO” three or four times, and ends with three shouts of “OSHO.”

As Osho describes this sound: “It is a sound without meaning. It is simply using sound to reach soundless silence.” 

The raising of the hands to the stars indicates the longing for higher consciousness. It “should be really sharp. And to make it sharp your hand has to be there!”

“It goes just like a sword. It all depends with how much intensity, urgency, totality, you do it. It is not a mantra. It is simply using sound to reach the soundless silence.”

“It has to be said exactly like the lion’s roar, which comes from the belly. It is not just from your tongue – not even from your throat or your heart. It hits just under your navel. That’s where you are coming from. The life center is just under your navel, two inches under the navel. You have to watch from what source it is coming. You have to go inward to that source.

“It not only hits your center, your very being, it also brings in you a tremendous feeling of joy, laughter, dance. It is celebration.”

The three shouts of OSHO are followed by sitting silent. This begins with intermittent pieces of Indian music, up until three “explosive” drumbeats. The sitting silently then continues through the Osho Talk on video until the Gibberish and Let-Go. Osho has described the shouts of OSHO, the sudden interruptions of the Indian music as “stop exercises.”

About the unexpected gaps during his speaking, Osho describes how the TV interviewers would keep asking him to give bite-sized answers to their questions: 

“Why can’t you speak like everybody else? Why do you suddenly become silent? You speak a word and then you leave a gap.” He explains:

“I said, ‘This is the way I am going to speak, because it is a question not only of speaking, it is a question of giving moments of meditation to the people who are listening to me.

“While I am speaking they are engaged, their minds are filled with me. When suddenly I stop for a moment, their minds also stop, waiting…. And those are the most beautiful moments, when they have a taste of meditation without knowing that they are meditating.”

The essential function of the Osho talks is to provide an easily accessible way of learning this art of listening. An opportunity to experience, “silence with no effort,” the key to bringing sharpened awareness to your daily life. 

Gibberish and Let-Go

“Gibberish is to get rid of the active mind, silence to get rid of the inactive mind and let-go is to enter into the transcendental.”

First Stage: Gibberish

While sitting, close your eyes and begin to say nonsense sounds – any sounds or words, so long as they make no sense. Just speak any language that you don’t know! Allow yourself to express whatever needs to be expressed within you. Throw everything out. The mind thinks, always, in terms of words. Gibberish helps to break up this pattern of continual verbalization. Without suppressing your thoughts, you can throw them out. Let your body likewise be expressive.

Second Stage: Moving In

After some minutes of Gibberish, there is a drumbeat, at which point the Gibberish stops. Osho’s voice then guides the listener into a space of deep silence, stillness and relaxation, saying, for example, “Be silent, close your eyes…no movement of the body – feel frozen. Go inwards, deeper and deeper, just like an arrow. Penetrate all the layers and hit the center of your existence.”

Third Stage: Let-Go

Another drumbeat and, without arranging yourself, just allow yourself to fall down “like a bag of rice,” so you are lying utterly still and relaxed, as you are guided even more deeply into a silent stillness.

Fourth Stage: Coming Back and Celebrate

At the final drumbeat, Osho brings us back to a sitting position, with the reminder to carry this same experience of witnessing into all our everyday activities.

“Every night, these few moments are the most valuable moments in your life.”

“If you can remain aware and relaxed around the clock, you will know the beauty and the grace of every moment, of every inch of life. What is possible in this moment is possible in every moment. This is simply to show your potential. You have to bring all this silence and peace and this awareness to your day-to-day life.”

The Evening Meeting ends with a few minutes of celebration and dance.