Become your own inner guide

What the method is

The core instruction for this meditation, as listed in the provided text, is “Become your own inner guide”. While a specific, two-line sutra for this method is not detailed in the excerpts, it represents a fundamental aim of Tantra: to lead the practitioner to discover their own inherent wisdom and truth, moving beyond reliance on external authority.

How it is done

The practice of “Becoming your own inner guide” is not a single, explicit step-by-step technique, but rather an overarching principle actualized through various meditative approaches discussed by Osho. It involves cultivating self-awareness, trusting one’s inner experience, and dissolving reliance on external conditioning:

  • Self-Remembering: A core practice is “self-remembering” – being continuously aware of your own being (“I am”) in every activity, without verbalizing it. This involves feeling your existence rather than thinking about it. This practice, derived from a related sutra, helps ground consciousness and transcend the mind. Similarly, the inquiry “Who am I?” is used not to find a conceptual answer but to dissolve the ego and arrive at a state of pure nothingness or void.
  • Embracing Inner Facts without Judgment: The method encourages total acceptance of all inner experiences – including anger, hate, or other moods – without projecting them onto others or trying to suppress them. Instead, one is to go to the “source” from where these emotions arise, using them as a path back to one’s inner center. This involves being a witness to one’s own internal flux without interference.
  • Cultivating Alertness and Awareness: The fundamental practice is to become increasingly alert and aware in all moments, both during formal meditation and daily activities. This means becoming conscious of one’s physiological and psychological processes, such as the breath, and eventually transcending the “dreaming” state of ordinary consciousness.
  • Experimentation and Trust in Personal Experience: The practitioner is encouraged to experiment with various techniques to find what “clicks” for them, with their own inner feeling and experience serving as the ultimate authority, rather than relying on scriptures or doctrines.
  • Dissolving Identification: Practice techniques that aim to dissolve identification with the body and mind, such as visualizing oneself as light rising through the spine or experiencing the body as weightless. These help realize that one’s true nature is beyond these temporary forms.
  • Being in the Middle: Cultivate the “middle path” by remaining equipoised between polarities (e.g., pleasure and pain, love and hate, extremes) in all aspects of life. This state of non-choice leads to a “no-mind” state where one is simply present.
  • Non-attachment to Results: While practicing, the focus should be entirely on the technique itself, without concern for the outcome or “bliss”. The desired transformation is a “by-product” that happens indirectly when the action is total.
Commentaries and Insights
  • The Individual as the Center: Tantra’s central subject matter is “you!” – what you are and what you can become. It emphasizes that truth is already present within you, “here and now,” and is not something to be achieved in the future. Meditation is a discovery, an uncovering, not an attainment.
  • The Illusion of the Separate Self: The “small self” or ego is an illusory construct, the root of suffering and fear. “Become your own inner guide” means realizing “I am no more!” and that your true being is a vast emptiness or nothingness (shunya). This leads to liberation from suffering.
  • Beyond Duality and Morality: Tantra is amoral, transcending conventional notions of good/bad, pure/impure, or moral/immoral. The only “sin” is unconsciousness or unawareness, and the goal is total alertness. The path involves accepting oneself in totality, without division or self-condemnation.
  • Role of the Master: While Osho explains techniques directly, he notes that initiation by a master is a “secret transmission” and a “living relationship” where the master observes the disciple’s unique nature and guides them individually. The master helps to “shatter the fictions” and disturb the disciple’s sleep. However, the ultimate transformation comes from one’s own efforts and eventual surrender (which itself is a deep awareness and non-doing).
  • Uniqueness of the Path: Tantra holds that every individual is unique, and there is no universal “ideal” to imitate. Following others leads to becoming “phony” and missing one’s own inherent truth. Inspiration from great masters can serve as a challenge to discover one’s own unique “buddhahood,” but not as a template for imitation.
  • Mind as the Barrier: The mind is the primary source of division, problems, and suffering, and it constantly interprets reality through its own conditioning. Techniques are essentially designed to put the mind aside and allow direct experience of reality.
  • Danger and Precautions: Some powerful techniques, especially those involving Kundalini energy, can be dangerous if not completed properly or if they create fear. Osho warns against leaving energy “in the middle” and advises stopping if discomfort becomes unbearable. It is crucial to choose techniques that feel harmonious and natural to oneself.
  • Transformation vs. Adjustment: Meditation is a science of transformation, not mere adjustment to external norms or an increase in knowledge. It brings about a profound change in one’s being.
  • Cosmic Connection: Ultimately, “becoming your own inner guide” leads to a state where the individual center dissolves into the cosmos, realizing an “oceanic feeling” of oneness with all existence. This is samadhi, where the self is omnipresent and beyond the ego. The individual becomes a “spiritual atom” that explodes, becoming everywhere or nowhere.