Believe that you are all-powerful

What the method is

The meditation method “Believe that you are all-powerful” refers to the realization and lived experience of one’s inherent, limitless power and potential, rather than a mere intellectual belief. It involves transcending identification with the limited body and mind to discover the true self, which is always potent and boundless. This realization leads to self-actualization, where one becomes aware of their ultimate purpose and destiny.

How it is done

While there isn’t a single technique explicitly named “Believe that you are all-powerful,” this realization is the culmination of various Tantric meditation practices that lead to inner centering and transcending the limited self. Practical guidance for cultivating this realization includes:

  • Self-Remembering and Feeling “I am”: Continuously be aware of your own “being” or “you-areness” in all activities, such as singing, seeing, or tasting, without verbalizing or intellectualizing it. This practice, emphasized by Gurdjieff, helps to discover the “ever-living” consciousness within. By centering on the feeling of “I am,” one is thrown off the false, limited center to the real, powerful one.
  • Transcending Identification with the Body and Mind: Engage in practices that create a separation from the physical body and mental processes. For example, by lying down and imagining oneself as dead and feeling the body become heavy, one can then shift to being the observer, detached from the dying form. This allows the practitioner to experience themselves as separate from the body’s limitations and the mind’s activity. Alternatively, one can roam until physically exhausted and then drop to the ground, becoming “whole” in that spontaneous dropping, recognizing the body as a separate entity.
  • Centering and Gathering Energy: Focus attention on inner energy centers (chakras) to gather and concentrate one’s diffused energy. This can be done by visualizing one’s essence as light rays rising from center to center up the vertebrae of the spine. This visualization helps awaken “livingness” and raises psychic energy (Kundalini), leading to increased vitality and a profound sense of peace. Any center in the body can be used as a device for centering. Once centered, this gathered energy becomes potent and can “explode” into higher consciousness.
  • Acceptance and Non-Resistance: Instead of suppressing or indulging in emotions like anger, hatred, or desires, accept them totally and remain an undisturbed witness. By moving to the “source” from where these moods arise within, without projecting them onto external objects, the energy is transformed and returns to its origin, leading to a deep sense of inner power without dissipation. This approach creates an “undivided,” “non-conflicting” inner unity.
  • Cultivating Weightlessness: Sit or lie down and feel yourself becoming weightless, transcending the sensation of the body’s weight. This practice helps in realizing that your consciousness is weightless and separate from the physical form, leading to a feeling of being “beyond mind”.
Commentaries and Insights
  • Inherent Potential and Self-Actualization: Osho emphasizes that man is born with infinite potential, like a seed, and the ultimate goal is “self-actualization” – the realization of this inherent potential. This is not an external attainment but a discovery of what already is within. When this happens, one feels deeply content and fulfilled, regardless of external achievements.
  • Transcending Limitations: Realizing one’s “all-powerful” nature means moving beyond the limited self (ego) and its false identifications with the body and mind. This leads to a state where the individual center dissolves into the cosmos, and one becomes “omnipresent” or “one with the whole”. The fear of death disappears when one realizes their deathless nature.
  • Transformation of Energy: Tantra views all energies, including those associated with so-called “negative” emotions like anger or sex, as neutral power. Instead of suppressing them, which creates psychological burdens, these energies can be transformed through awareness. When this energy is redirected inward, it creates a “magnetic center” within the practitioner, leading to a feeling of being “very powerful without being angry”.
  • Effortless Being and Passive Awareness: The ultimate state of true power is one of “no-mind” and “effortless effort”. This passive awareness, where one simply “is” without conscious doing, allows the “whole universe” to “fall into you”. This indicates that true power comes not from force or control, but from a state of receptive presence.
  • Mind as a Barrier: The mind, with its constant thinking, judging, and conceptualizing, is the main obstacle to realizing one’s inherent power. The purpose of these techniques is to put the mind aside.
  • Scientific and Amoral Approach: Tantra is presented as a science of the inner world, concerned with “how” rather than “why”. It is amoral, accepting all aspects of human existence without judgment or condemnation, viewing everything as energy that can be transformed. This acceptance is crucial for allowing energies to flow and become aware.
  • Importance of Authenticity and Practice: Osho stresses that results come from authentic doing, not from intellectual understanding or borrowed beliefs. Simple-looking techniques are profound and require dedication. Initial practice may involve an “inner effort”, but this effort is gradually dropped as awareness deepens, leading to effortless being.
  • Warnings and Master’s Guidance: Certain powerful techniques, especially those involving the rising of Kundalini energy, can be intense and potentially “dangerous if not completed properly”. It is crucial not to leave energy “in the middle” and to complete the meditation for release. Osho and Ranjit Chaudhri advise seeking the guidance of a master for such powerful methods, as they can tailor techniques and provide support through challenging experiences.