Enlightened masters in the past used very simple methods of meditation to help millions of people to transform themselves. And the people did get transformed and self-realization happened to them. But if we look at the world situation today, we come to know that for most of the people it has become impossible to enter into the meditative space easily. They have become very complicated, even though they have more comforts than the previous generations. They are more depressed and the suicide rate in the world has been increasing steadily. According to the World Health Organisation:  Close to 800 000 people die due to suicide every year, which is one person every 40 seconds. Many more attempt suicide. Suicide occurs throughout the lifespan and is the second leading cause of death among 15-29-year-olds globally.  It is reported that a person dies by suicide about every 11.7 minutes in the United States. 25 million Americans suffer from depression each year. Over 50 percent of all people who die by suicide suffer from major depression. If one includes alcoholics who are depressed, this figure rises to over 75 percent.

This is very scary that people are committing suicide at such an age 15-29 year when they have a tremendous amount of energy to create a solid foundation of their life. Such youthful people are supposed to enjoy and celebrate their life. Why is this happening? There can be reasons but one thing is clear that such people do need therapy urgently to become normal and when they have become normal, they need meditation to be able to celebrate their life.

Osho understood this 50 years ago when people started coming to him from around the world. His ashram in Pune was the first spiritual center of the world where various kinds of psychotherapies were introduced and developed alongside hundreds of methods of meditation. Most of the top therapists of the world became his disciples and they offered therapy sessions under the guidance of an enlightened master Osho.

In The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha ( Vol-7, Chapter-6) Osho says: I must be the first enlightened person who is using therapeutic groups as a help to meditation, for the simple reason that in the past man was so simple there was no need for him to pass through therapies first. He was healthy in a way, saner in a way, authentic, truer, sincere and honest. Modern man is cunning, very cunning, and very repressed, so much so that he himself is not aware of what he has repressed in his being. And modern man is very clever, he is not simple. He is so clever that he can go on deceiving even himself. By deceiving others continuously he has become skillful in deceiving. The skill has become so ingrained that now no conscious, deliberate effort is needed for him to be cunning. He can simply be cunning without any effort on his own. This changed situation demands new methods, new approaches, new windows, so new that your mind is at a loss what to do. If your mind knows what to do, the device cannot be of any help. The mind, when it is unable to find a way out, is at a loss — that is the great, precious moment when something of the beyond can happen.

Meditation is beyond psychology and psychotherapy. Osho adds in the Light on the Path: My therapists are not only therapists, they are meditators too. and therapy is a superficial thing. It can help to clean the ground, but just to clean the ground is not to have a garden. You will need something more.

That something more is meditation–which is really therapeutic. Meditation gives us joy and does not allow any depression to overpower us. Meditation surrounds us as a protective aura.

The enlightened Mystic, J Krishnamurti says in the Book of Life: Can the mind be free from the past, free from thought—not from the good or bad thought? How do I find out? I can only find out by seeing what the mind is occupied with

Existence has gifted us humans with an amazing mind. Strange are it’s ways. Either it functions with the memories of the past, or with the imaginations of the future– and we become occupied with it, or imprisoned by it. This way we miss the aliveness and beauty of the present moment. It is our mind only which stands in the way of our mindfulness. Mindfulness means being Here-Now–observing and living life in the present moment.

The jump happens spontaneously without effort and without conflict.

In today’s world, we are living in an atmosphere of conflicts— conflict between family members, social institutes, so-called religious groups, political parties, and nations. No one knows the real reason of conflicts, but every one knows that it is always the other who is at fault. This has become so common everywhere that we always blame the others for any conflict, we do not take any responsibility ourselves. This way we end up having no solution to any of our conflicts. What happens that one conflict generates million more conflicts. Then it all goes out of control. In this unconscious spread of unlimited tension between people, it is natural that we desire to have some moments of peace. That too seems to have become impossible. It is impossible because we don’t know the real cause—the central cause of conflict. Discussing on this eternal human problem in The Book of Life, the enlightened mystic J. Krishnamurti says: Do not think by merely wishing for peace, you will have peace, when in your daily life of relationship you are aggressive, acquisitive, seeking psychological security here or in the hereafter. You have to understand the central cause of conflict and sorrow and then dissolve it and not merely look to the outside for peace.

He points out the problem: But you see, most of us are indolent. We are too lazy to take hold of ourselves and understand ourselves, and being lazy, which is really a form of conceit, we think others will solve this problem for us and give us peace, or that we should destroy the apparently few people that are causing wars.

Every enlightened mystic, from Ashtavakra to Zarathusthra, from Gautama the Buddha, Mahavira to Jesus Christ, from Lord Krishna to the sages of Upanishads, and so many luminous souls like Gorakh, Kabir, Guru Nanak, Meera, Rabiya-al -Adaviya, Raidas, Sufi and Zen masters, all have emphasised the individual revolution, the individual transformation: the individual must go through a metamorphosis and resolve or dissolve conflict within himself. When the individual is in conflict within himself he must inevitably create conflict without, and only he can bring about peace within himself and so in the world, for he is the world.

In his letter to a disciple who was in conflict, Osho wrote: There is conflict in the mind –always, because the mind cannot exist without the conflict. It gets strengthened through conflict; even warring against conflict is conflict and struggling to go beyond the mind is mind. See this deeply and immediately without motive, just as if you have come across a snake in the street – and the jump. Then it is not that you jump but – the jump. The jump happens spontaneously without effort and without conflict. When this happens there is no-mind and no-mind is the door to the divine.

Today’s scenario is that India is also on the path of becoming more and more affluent and less and less happy.

It was an amazing piece of positive news that came recently from the UK that the British government had appointed a “Minister for Loneliness.” This news created a certain amount of wonder, though some people ridiculed it also. Stephen Colbert, on his TV show in the USA, said:“This is so British. They’ve defined the most ineffable human problem and come up with the most cold, bureaucratic solution.”

Loneliness in the modern world of instant connectivity is a totally paradoxical problem and is certainly a matter of concern. It is a good thing if the governments of the world also become sensitive and help people to deal with it. Inspired by Bhutan, a Ministry of Happiness was created in July 2016 to ensure happiness in the lives of the common people on the lines of the neighbouring country.  Ministry of Happiness is a positive name while Loneliness is a negative name. A positive approach is better because it suggests dealing with not just loneliness but several other killers like anxiety and anguish, sadness and stress, despair and depression.  The Ministry of Happiness can search for intelligent people from various fields, such as philosophy and psychology, art and culture, yoga and meditation, and science and spirituality.

But the Indian situation is very different from the situation in the Western countries. The West has reached a certain level of affluence while India has to deal with the basic problems of food, cloth, and shelter. Only after this is solved, the people will need something more to be happy in their lives. As Goswami Tulsidas, the great author of Ramayana wrote:  “Bhukhe Bhajan Nahi Hoi Gopala” (God is not remembered on empty stomach).

Today’s scenario is that India is also on the path of becoming more and more affluent and less and happy. The problems of loneliness and depression are also creeping into the psyche of this supposedly spiritual country. India needs to wake up and find solutions urgently for the vast population that we are blessed with.  It is already turning out to be a curse.

Osho’s message is good for both India and the rest of the world:  We need to learn the art of transforming loneliness into aloneness. He says:  Loneliness is misunderstood as aloneness. Aloneness has a beauty and grandeur, a positivity; loneliness is poor, negative, dark, dismal. He says:  The capacity to be alone is the capacity to love. It may look paradoxical to you, but it’s not. It is an existential truth: only those people who are capable of being alone are capable of love, of sharing, of going into the deepest core of another person–without possessing the other, without becoming dependent on the other, without reducing the other to a thing, and without becoming addicted to the other. They allow the other absolute freedom because they know that if the other leaves, they will be as happy as they are now. Their happiness cannot be taken by the other, because it is not given by the other.