Detach Yourself from Your Body

What the Method Is
How It Is Done

To experience detachment from your body, several distinct Tantric techniques can be employed:

  • Lie Down as Dead (Imaginary Death): Imagine yourself as dead and motionless. Do not move your body, even if an impulse arises (e.g., a mosquito bite). This practice, which Raman Maharshi spontaneously experienced for his enlightenment, involves confronting and staying with any fear, anger, or sadness that arises, acknowledging the body’s death while remaining a conscious witness.
  • Imagine Yourself Losing All Energy (Dying Meditation): Lie down, relax, and feel as if your body is dying, becoming heavy like lead. Continue this sensation until you feel on the verge of physical death, then suddenly forget the body and transcend by becoming the observer of your “dead” body. This can also be practised by imagining your strength being sucked out by existence until you are completely devoid of energy.
  • Exhaust Yourself and Drop to the Ground: Run, dance, or jump until you are completely exhausted, to the point where your body will drop by itself without conscious effort. In that moment of dropping, become intensely aware and watch your body fall as a dead weight, without falling with it. This sudden inactivity separates the “stopper” (your centre) from the “stopping” (the body’s activity).
  • Let Yourself Become Weightless: While sitting or lying down, feel that your body has become weightless, devoid of physical mass. Persistence in this feeling will lead to a moment of genuine weightlessness, where you realise you are not the body, as weight belongs to the body, not to your being. Balancing perfectly on your buttocks in a seated meditation posture can also facilitate this feeling.
  • Concentrate on a Pain in Your Body: When you experience pain, focus your entire attention solely on the painful part of your body, ignoring all else. As you concentrate, the pain’s perceived area will shrink to a pinpoint, and then dissolve, replaced by bliss. This happens because the act of concentrating creates a broadened gap between you (the observer) and the body (the object of pain), breaking identification.
  • Close Your Senses, Become Stone-like: When experiencing a physical sensation (e.g., an ant creeping, or cold sheets), consciously stop all your senses, as if closing all doors. This can be achieved by briefly stopping your breath, which automatically closes the senses. Become “stone-like”, completely closed to the external world, and by extension, to your own body, which is part of the world. This throws your consciousness back to its centre.
  • Close the Eyes and Stop Their Movement (Inner Seeing): Close your eyes completely and stop all eye movements, preventing inner images or external objects from being seen. Remain in this “stony” state of the eyes. This practice eventually allows you to look inward and perceive your inner being in detail – observing both your body and mind from within, realising your separation from them.
  • Self-Remembering (“I am”): While engaged in any activity (singing, seeing, tasting, eating, walking), maintain awareness that “you are”, not as a verbal thought, but as a pure feeling of your existence. This practice cultivates a constant inner presence, eventually extending into sleep and dreams, leading to a deep grounding in your true centre and the dissolution of the false identity.
  • Look at Your Past, Dis-identified: When recalling a past event, observe it as if it were happening to someone else, remaining detached and aloof from your past self in the memory. This trains the mind to create distance from experiences, which can then be applied to present moments.
Commentaries and Insights
  • The Root of Misery: Osho asserts that the core problem for humanity is the identification with the mind and body. This false identification creates misery and prevents the experience of one’s true nature. These techniques are designed to break this identification.
  • Nature of the True Self: When detached, one realises their true self is pure consciousness – formless, weightless, unmoving, eternal, and deathless. It is a “nothingness” or “emptiness” (shunya) that is paradoxically full of being. This shift allows the individual to become the “witnessing source”.
  • Mind as the Barrier: The mind is considered the “disease” and the “bondage”. It creates illusions, complexities, and problems. The mind’s need for activity and its constant “minding” (verbalisation and thought) dissipate energy and obscure the subtle inner presence. When the body stops totally in these practices, the mind also tends to stop, facilitating transcendence.
  • Body as a Gateway: Tantra embraces the body as a sacred vehicle and a starting point for spiritual transformation, rather than condemning it. Physiological processes are intimately linked to psychological and spiritual states. By working with the body (e.g., breath, sensations, exhaustion), one can induce changes in consciousness.
  • Transformation, Not Adjustment: These methods are not about adjusting to external conditions or societal norms, but about achieving a profound inner transformation. This transformation can initially be disturbing, bringing inner chaos to light, but it leads to authentic freedom.
  • The Paradox of Simplicity: Many of these techniques appear deceptively simple, which can lead the ego-driven mind to dismiss them. However, their simplicity allows them to touch fundamental realities directly. The ego prefers arduous challenges, but true spiritual growth often happens through unappealingly simple methods.
  • Alertness and Awareness are Key: The underlying principle for all these techniques is total alertness and uninterrupted awareness. It’s about bringing full presence to an action or sensation, which allows consciousness to function without mental interference.
  • The Role of Experience vs. Intellect: Intellectual understanding is merely a beginning; genuine transformation arises from doing and direct experience. Trying to intellectualise or verbalise the experience (e.g., saying “I am not the body”) while practising can be counterproductive and creates a false sense of knowing.
  • Gradual Preparation, Sudden Enlightenment: While the ultimate experience of enlightenment is often sudden and non-causal, the path of preparation can be gradual. Techniques often involve a “sudden” element (like a sharp stop or jerking awareness) to break mental patterns and create glimpses of the unmoving centre.
  • Warnings and Guidance: Osho cautions that some powerful techniques, especially those involving energy movement or deep psychological shifts, can be intense. It is crucial to complete the technique (e.g., releasing energy at the crown chakra) to avoid harm. If deep discomfort arises or a technique feels unbearable, it should be stopped. The guidance of a master can be invaluable for personalising methods and providing support through the transformative process.
  • Beyond Duality: Once detached from the body, the usual dualities (like “in” or “out” of the body, pleasure and pain, bondage and freedom) dissolve, becoming merely concepts of the mind. The ultimate experience is one of non-duality and oneness with existence.