The 112 Methods

Shiva’s answer to Devi was not a doctrine but a technique — one hundred and twelve of them.

These one hundred and twelve methods of meditation constitute the whole science of transforming mind. … Not a single method could be added to Shiva’s one hundred and twelve methods. … It is exhaustive, complete. Every type of mind has been taken into account.

Each method is distilled from Osho’s commentary: the verse, then what you actually do and why it works. The map of traditions shows where each genuinely reappears in other schools.

01

The gap between two breaths

Radiant one, this experience may dawn between two breaths. After breath comes in (down) and just before turning up (out) -- the beneficence.
02

Realize at the turning point

As breath turns from down to up, and again as breath curves from up to down -- through both these turns, realize.
03

Touch the energy-less, energy-filled center

Or, whenever in-breath and out-breath fuse, at this instant touch the energy-less, energy-filled center.
04

The universal pause that dissolves the small self

Or, when breath is all out (up) and stopped of itself, or all in (down) and stopped -- in such universal pause, one's small self vanishes. This is difficult only for the impure.
05

The Third Eye: Witness, Prana, and the Light Shower

Attention between eyebrows, let mind be before thought. Let form fill with breath essence to the top of the head and there shower as light.
06

The Breath-Gap Held in the Midst of Activity

When in worldly activity, keep attentive between the two breaths, and so practicing, in a few days, be born anew.
07

Falling Asleep with Prana at the Heart: Direction Over Dreams and Death

With intangible breath in center of forehead, as this reaches heart at the moment of sleep, have direction over dreams and over death itself.
08

The Devotional Variant: The Body as Temple

With utmost devotion, center on the two junctions of breath and know the knower.
09

Four Withdrawals of the Doer

Lie down as dead. Enraged in wrath, stay so. Or stare without moving an eyelash. Or suck something and become the sucking.
10

Become the caress

While being caressed, sweet princess, enter the caress as everlasting life.
11

Seal the senses, become stone

Stop the doors of the senses when feeling the creeping of an ant. Then.
12

Shed the weight, shed the mind

When on a bed or a seat, let yourself become weightless, beyond mind.
13

Peacock Colors / The Dissolving Point

Or, imagine the five-colored circles of the peacock tail to be your five senses in illimitable space. Now let their beauty melt within. Similarly, at any point in space or on a wall -- until the point dissolves. Then your wish for another comes true.
14

The Silver Cord in the Spine

Place your whole attention in the nerve, delicate as the lotus thread, in the center of your spinal column. In such be transformed.
15

Stop the outflow: enter the third eye

Closing the seven openings of the head with your hands, a space between your eyes becomes all inclusive.
16

Senses into the heart lotus

Blessed one, as senses are absorbed in the heart, reach the center of the lotus.
17

The middle that kills the mind

Unminding mind, keep in the middle -- until.
18

The Loving Gaze

Look lovingly at some object. Do not go to another object. Here in the middle of the object — the blessing.
19

The Balanced Seat

Without support for feet or hands, sit only on the buttocks. Suddenly, the centering.
20

The Inner Whirl

In a moving vehicle, by rhythmically swaying, experience. Or in a still vehicle, by letting yourself swing in slowing invisible circles.
21

Enter the Piercing

Pierce some part of your nectar-filled form with a pin, and gently enter the piercing and attain to the inner purity.
22

The Backward Witness

Let attention be at a place where you are seeing some past happening, and even your form, having lost its present characteristics, is transformed.
23

One Object, Then Void

Feel an object before you. Feel the absence of all other objects but this one. Then, leaving aside the object-feeling and the absence-feeling, realize.
24

Trace the Mood to Its Source

When a mood against someone or for someone arises, do not place it on the person in question, but remain centered.
25

The Sudden Stop

Just as you have the impulse to do something, stop.
26

Consider, Then Quit

When some desire comes, consider it. Then, suddenly, quit it.
27

Exhaust Into Wholeness

Roam about until exhausted and then, dropping to the ground, in this dropping be whole.
28

Die before dying

Suppose you are gradually being deprived of strength or of knowledge. At the instant of deprivation, transcend.
29

Dissolve into the beloved

Devotion frees.
30

Stone-still eyes

Eyes closed, see your inner being in detail. Thus see your true nature.
31

The bowl that vanishes

Look upon a bowl without seeing the sides or the material. In a few moments become aware.
32

First-time eyes

See as if for the first time a beauteous person or an ordinary object.
33

Gaze into the boundless sky

Simply by looking into the blue sky beyond clouds, the serenity.
34

Become an empty ear for the master's whisper

Listen while the ultimate mystical teaching is imparted. Eyes still, without winking, at once become absolutely free.
35

Stare into the well until wonder takes over

At the edge of a deep well look steadily into its depths until -- the wondrousness.
36

Withdraw from object, then from its inner image

Look upon some object, then slowly withdraw your sight from it, then slowly withdraw your thought from it. Then.
37

From Letters to Silence: The Reverse Descent

Devi, imagine the Sanskrit letters in these honey-filled foci of awareness, first as letters, then more subtly as sounds, then as most subtle feeling. Then, leaving them aside, be free.
38

Two Poles of Sound: Center and Silence

Bathe in the center of sound, as in the continuous sound of a waterfall. Or, by putting the fingers in the ears, hear the sound of sounds.
39

Riding the sound to its dissolution

Intone a sound, as Aum, slowly. As sound enters soundfulness, so do you.
40

Catching sound at its birth and death

In the beginning and gradual refinement of the sound of any letter, awake.
41

The backbone of music

While listening to stringed instruments, hear their composite central sound; thus omnipresence.
42

The Fading Mantra

Intone a sound audibly, then less and less audibly as feeling deepens into this silent harmony.
43

Tongue's Center / The Inbreath's Whisper

With mouth slightly open, keep mind in the middle of the tongue. Or, as breath comes silently in, feel the sound 'hh'.
44

The Middle of AUM

Center on the sound 'aum' without any 'a' or 'm'.
45

The exhale as death-door

Silently intone a word ending in 'ah.' Then in the 'hh,' effortlessly, the spontaneity.
46

Seal both doors, hear the pillar

Stopping ears by pressing and the rectum by contracting, enter the sound.
47

Your name as the door to all existence

Enter the sound of your name and, through this sound, all sounds.
48

The valley of union: stay in the fire, skip the fall

At the start of sexual union keep attentive on the fire in the beginning, and so continuing, avoid the embers in the end.
49

Become the shaking: dissolve the spectator in the vibration

When in such embrace your senses are shaken as leaves, enter this shaking.
50

Solo communion: recreating the circle from memory

Even remembering union, without the embrace, transformation.
51

Permeate the inner joy: center on the feeling, not the trigger

On joyously seeing a long absent friend, permeate this joy.
52

Become the taste: total sensory absorption as spiritual act

When eating or drinking, become the taste of food or drink, and be filled.
53

The double arrow: remember that you are

Oh lotus-eyed one, sweet of touch, when singing, seeing, tasting, be aware you are and discover the ever-living.
54

Saturate yourself in the satisfied moment

Wherever satisfaction is found, in whatever act, actualize this.
55

Catch the neutral gear between waking and sleep

At the point of sleep, when the sleep has not yet come and the external wakefulness vanishes, at this point being is revealed.
56

Use maya to find the only certainty

Illusions deceive, colors circumscribe, even divisibles are indivisible.
57

The undisturbed center in the cyclone of desire

In moods of extreme desire, be undisturbed.
58

The world as drama: the festive mind

This so-called universe appears as a juggling, a picture show. To be happy, look upon it so.
59

Stop the pendulum: the middle as the only real vantage

Oh beloved, put attention neither on pleasure nor on pain, but between these.
60

One standard: acceptance as the transforming agent

Objects and desires exist in me as in others. So accepting, let them be transformed.
61

The ocean behind the wave

As waves come with water and flames with fire, so the universal waves with us.
62

The sky behind the clouds

Wherever your mind is wandering, internally or externally, at this very place, this.
63

See through the eye, not by it

When vividly aware through some particular sense, keep in the awareness.
64

Catch the involuntary wave at its very first stir

At the start of sneezing, during fright, in anxiety, above a chasm, flying in battle, in extreme curiosity, at the beginning of hunger, at the end of hunger, be uninterruptedly aware.
65

Drop every label and become undivided

The purity of other teachings is an impurity to us. In reality, know nothing as pure or impure.
66

The unchanging witness behind all flux

Be the unsame same to friend as to stranger, in honor and dishonor.
67

Float in the river: let change devour change

Here is the sphere of change, change, change. Through change consume change.
68

Mother only what is real

As a hen mothers her chicks, mother particular knowings, particular doings, in reality.
69

Liberation from liberation itself

Since, in truth, bondage and freedom are relative, these words are only for those terrified with the universe. This universe is a reflection of minds. As you see many suns in water from one sun, so see bondage and liberation.
70

Light rising the spine

Consider your essence as light rays rising from center to center up the vertebrae, and so rises 'livingness' in you.
71

Lightning jump between centers

Or in the spaces between, feel this as lightning.
72

The cosmos as living light

Feel the cosmos as a translucent ever-living presence.
73

Dissolve into the open sky

In summer when you see the entire sky endlessly clear, enter such clarity.
74

Absorb the cosmos in your skull

Shakti, see all space as if already absorbed in your own head in the brilliance.
75

The undying flame through all three states

Waking, sleeping, dreaming, know you as light.
76

Into the Sourceless Dark

In rain during a black night, enter that blackness as the form of forms.
77

Make the Inner Dark Real

When a moonless rainy night is not present, close eyes and find blackness before you. Opening eyes, see blackness. So faults disappear forever.
78

The Look That Returns to Its Source

Wherever your attention alights, at this very point, experience.
79

Burn the body, witness the ash

Focus on fire rising through your form, from the toes up, until the body burns to ashes but not you.
80

Burn the dream-world, rise above the human

Meditate on the make-believe world as burning to ashes, and become being above human.
81

Let the universe pour through you

As, subjectively, letters flow into words and words into sentences, and as, objectively, circles flow into worlds and worlds into principles, find at last these converging in our being.
82

Peel to the Cosmic Me

Feel: my thought, I-ness, internal organs -- me.
83

Fall Into the Gap

Before desire and before knowing, how can I say I am? Consider. Dissolve in the beauty.
84

Toss the Body's Tether

Toss attachment for body aside, realizing I am everywhere. One who is everywhere is joyous.
85

The No-Mind Unlimits

Thinking no thing will limited-self unlimit.
86

Beyond perception — you

Suppose you contemplate something beyond perception, beyond grasping, beyond not being — you.
87

Feel existence illimitably

I am existing. This is mine. This is this. Oh beloved, even in such know illimitably.
88

The Witnessing Third

Each thing is perceived through knowing. The self shines in space through knowing. Perceive one being as knower and known.
89

Include All, Exclude Nothing

Beloved, at this moment let mind, knowing, breath, form, be included.
90

The Feather-Gate

Touching eyeballs as a feather, lightness between them opens into heart and there permeates the cosmos.
91

Enter the Etheric Light

Kind Devi, enter etheric presence pervading far above and below your form.
92

Dissolve thoughts, fall back to the heart

Put mindstuff in such inexpressible fineness above, below and in your heart.
93

Expand any body-area to infinite space

Consider any area of your present form as limitlessly spacious.
94

Saturate with the cosmic

Feel your substance, bones, flesh, blood, saturated with the cosmic essence.
95

Woman's center: creativity through the breasts

Feel the fine qualities of creativity permeating your breasts and assuming delicate configurations.
96

Boundless Space, No Horizon for the Ego

Abide in some place endlessly spacious, clear of trees, hills, habitations. Thence comes the end of mind pressures.
97

The Infinite Sky as Your Bliss Body

Consider the plenum to be your own body of bliss.
98

The peace that sleeps in the chest

In any easy position gradually pervade an area between the armpits into great peace.
99

No walls, no edge

Feel yourself as pervading all directions, far, near.
100

Remain in the subjective mood

The appreciation of objects and subjects is the same for an enlightened as for an unenlightened person. The former has one greatness: he remains in the subjective mood, not lost in things.
101

Believe yourself all-knowing, all-powerful, all-pervading

Believe omniscient, omnipotent, pervading.
102

Imagination dissolves matter into spirit

Imagine spirit simultaneously within and around you until the entire universe spiritualizes.
103

Burn the seed of desire in total awareness

With your entire consciousness in the very start of desire, of knowing, know.
104

Follow every limit beyond itself until the mind drops

O Shakti, each particular perception is limited, disappearing in omnipotence.
105

Realize self and other as one undivided consciousness

In truth forms are inseparate. Inseparate are omnipresent being and your own form. Realize each as made of this consciousness.
106

Dissolve into every being

Feel the consciousness of each person as your own consciousness. So, leaving aside concern for self, become each being.
107

All things are condensed consciousness

This consciousness exists as each being, and nothing else exists.
108

Surrender to the inner guide

This consciousness is the spirit of guidance of each one. Be this one.
109

The vacant house

Suppose your passive form to be an empty room with walls of skin — empty.
110

Cosmic play

Gracious one, play. The universe is an empty shell wherein your mind frolics infinitely.
111

Beyond both poles

Sweet-hearted one, meditate on knowing and not-knowing, existing and not-existing. Then leave both aside that you may be.
112

The supportless plunge

Enter space, supportless, eternal, still.