Osho - The Secret of the Golden Flower On Chinese Alchemy

The Secret of the Golden Flower

On Chinese Alchemy

This book, The Secret Of The Golden Flower, is one of the most esoteric treatises in the world. It will show you the way to become more than the body. It will show you the way to go beyond death. It will show you the way to bloom - how not to remain a seed but to become a Golden Flower. What in India we have called the one-thousand-petalled lotus, in China they call the Golden Flower. It is a symbol.

The flower represents perfection, totality. The flower represents the uttermost expression of the potential, the actualization of the potential. The flower represents the beauty, the grandeur, the splendour of being. And unless you have become a thousand-petalled lotus or a Golden Flower...

Remember you have to go far. Remember that you have to get out of the traps that the society has put around you. Remember that you have not yet done the work for which you have come to the earth. Remember you are just a seed, not yet a soul.

This treatise, The Secret Of The Golden Flower, is very ancient - possibly one of the most ancient treatises in the world certainly twenty-five centuries old, and the possibility is that it is older than that. But twenty-five centuries can be traced back very easily. And this treatise is also a great synthesis of all the great religions. That is rare, unique.

The Bible belongs to the Christians, the Talmud belongs to the Jews, the Vedas belong to the Hindus, the Dhammapada to the Buddhists, the Tao Te Ching to the Taoists. But this small book, The Secret Of The Golden Flower, belongs to no one in particular, or, it belong to all.

It is deeply based in Taoist teachings. It is a flowering of the Taoist approach to life and existence. But it is not only that - Zarathustra has played a role. Zarathustra's teachings have been incorporated in it. Buddhist teachings have also been incorporated in it. And a certain esoteric school of Christians, the Nestorians, they have also played their part. So Christianity and Judaism also have become part of it.

It is one of the most synthetical approaches. It combines all that is beautiful in all the traditions of the world.

(Osho - The Secret of Secrets, volume 1)

Meditation is turning back towards the innermost core from where all has arisen – the body has arisen, the desires have arisen, the thoughts have arisen, the mind has arisen. You have to go back to the source. Religion is a return to the source – and to know the source is to know God. To know the source is to know the goal, because they are both one. To come back to your innermost core, from where you had started, means you have come to the ultimate where you wanted to reach. The circle is full.

There is a moment where the alpha becomes the omega, and then there is fulfillment. When the circle is complete there is fulfillment. And that is the whole teaching of The Secret Of The Golden Flower of Master Lu-tsu. He’s trying to make the path clear to you: how the circle can be complete, how the light can circulate, how you can move inwards, how you can also have a little bit of sky, a little bit of heaven. And then you can be happy anywhere – even in hell you will be happy.

Right now, as you are, you would be unhappy anywhere, even in heaven. You will find ways and means of being unhappy there too, because you will carry all your jealousies, all your anger, all your greed, all your possessiveness. You will carry all your rage, all your sexuality, all your repressions; you will carry this whole luggage. The moment you reach heaven, you will create hell around yourself there too, because you will be carrying the seeds of hell.

It is said that if you are pure, if you are silent, you reach heaven. The truth is just the opposite: if you are pure, if you are silent, heaven reaches you. One never goes anywhere, one is always here, but once the inside becomes full of light the whole world outside is transformed. Buddha moves in the same world in which you move, Buddha passes through the same streets as you pass, but Buddha lives in a totally different world – Buddha lives in paradise and you live in hell.

(Osho - The Secret of Secrets, volume 2 )

The Secret of the Golden Flower Meditation

Osho suggests that the best time to do this meditation is just on waking in the morning, before getting out of bed and just before falling asleep in the evening. He describes the meditation as follows:

Simply lie down, as you are lying down in your bed, on your back. Keep your eyes closed. When you breathe in, just visualize great light entering from your head into your body, as if a sun has just risen close to your head - golden light pouring into your head. You are just hollow and the golden light is pouring into your head, and going, going, going, deep, deep, and going out through your toes. And when you breathe out, visualize another thing: darkness entering through your toes, a great dark river entering through your toes, coming up, and going out through the head. Do slow, deep breathing, so you can visualize. Go very slowly.

Let me repeat: Breathing in, let golden light come into you through your head, because it is there that the golden light is waiting. The golden light will help. It will cleanse your whole body and will make it absolutely full of creativity. This is male energy. Then when you exhale, let darkness, the darkest you can conceive, like a dark night, riverlike, come from your toes upwards - this is feminine energy, it will sooth you, it will make you receptive, it will calm you, it will give you rest - and let it go out of the head. Then inhale again, and golden light enters in. Do it for twenty minutes early in the morning.

And the second best time is when you are going back to sleep, in the night. Lie down on the bed, relax for a few minutes. When you start feeling that now you are wavering between sleep and waking, just in that middle, start the process again and continue for twenty minutes. If you fall asleep doing it, it is best, because the impact will remain in the subconscious and will go on working. And after a three month period you will be surprised: the energy that was constantly gathering at the muladhar, at the lowest, the sex center, is no longer gathering there. It is going upwards.

(Osho - The Secret of Secrets, volume 2)