The Book of Secrets” is based on contemporary mystic Osho’s commentaries on the “Vigyan Bhairav Tantra” – an ancient text from the school of Tantra. The treatise consists of 112 techniques for self-realization, each expressed very succinctly in a few lines during dialogues between Lord Shiva and his consort, Devi. Osho says these methods form the whole science of transformation.
The sutra : “Just as you have the impulse to do something, stop!”
Osho explains :
The mechanism of the techniques of stopping is to throw you suddenly into inactivity. The point must come suddenly because if you try to be inactive, you will turn it into an activity. So don’t try: be suddenly inactive. That is the meaning of “Stop!” You are running and I say, “Stop!” Don’t try, just stop! If you try, you will miss the point. For example, you are sitting here. If I say stop, then stop immediately then and there; not a single moment is to be missed. If you try and adjust, and you settle down and then say, “Okay, now I will stop,” you have missed the point. Suddenness is the base, so don’t make any effort to stop – just stop!
Whatever you have is not your being, and whatever you do or you can do is not your being. Your being precedes all doing. Your being precedes all your possessions, all your having. But the mind is constantly involved in doing and having. Beyond the mind or below the mind exists your being. How to penetrate that center is what religions have been searching for. Miracles happened because in activity, in dance, in movement, when suddenly you stop, a gap happens. This sudden stoppage of all activity divides you into two: your body and you. Your body was in movement. Suddenly you stop. The body has the tendency to move. It was in movement, so there is momentum; you were dancing, and there is momentum. The body is not ready for this sudden stop. Suddenly you feel that the body has an impulse to do something, but you have stopped. A gap comes into existence. You feel your body as something distant, far away, with the impulse to move, with momentum for activity. And because you have stopped and you are not cooperating with the body and its activity and its impulse, its momentum, you become separate from it. Just as you have an impulse to do something, stop. Try it. Remember three things… One, try it only when a real impulse is there. Secondly, don’t think about stopping, just stop. And thirdly, wait! When you have stopped, no breathing, no movement – wait and see what happens. Don’t try. When I say to wait, I mean don’t try now to think about the inner center. Then you will again miss.”
“You can try it anywhere. You are taking your bath – suddenly order yourself to “Stop!” and stop. Even if it is only for a single moment, you will feel a different phenomenon happening within you. You are thrown to the center. Suddenly everything stops – not only the body. When the body stops totally, your mind stops also. When you say, “Stop!” then don’t breathe. Let everything stop – no breathing, no body movement. For a single moment remain in this stop, and you will feel you have penetrated suddenly, at rocket speed, to the center. And even a glimpse is miraculous, revolutionary. It changes you, and by and by you can have clearer glimpses of the center. That’s why inactivity is not to be practiced. Use it suddenly, unawares. You feel the sensation that the sneeze is coming: stop! Don’t do anything. Remain completely unmoving, with not even your breath going in and coming out. For a moment, stop, and you will feel that the impulse has gone back, dropped. And in this dropping of the impulse a subtle energy is released which is used in going toward the center, because in a sneeze you are throwing some energy out – in any impulse.”
Osho, The Book of Secrets, ch.17