All methods of helping a seeker were found in tirthas and temples

Scientists think that it is not likely that electricity existed when the pyramids were built – some were constructed ten thousand years ago and others twenty thousand years ago. It is possible that people entered them with the help of burning torches, but there are no signs of smoke anywhere on the walls or ceilings of the pyramids. The paths within the pyramids are very long, with many twists and turns, and along them it is very dark. There could not have been electricity because there are no signs of electric fittings or a source to supply power. Torches burning oil or ghee would have left some signs of smoke. So a problem arises as to how people went inside. If no one went in, as some people suggest, why were so many paths made? There are many paths, staircases, doors and internal windows and also places for people to sit or stand about. But what was all this for? This has remained an unsolved puzzle. Some people guess that the pyramids were a whim of some emperor or king.

The most plausible explanation is that they were tirthas. When someone experiments in the right way with the inner fire, his body emanates a light. Such people were qualified to enter the pyramids. Neither electricity nor torches were ever needed, their body light was sufficient to move around inside the pyramid. But such body light is only produced through special meditative practices. So the producing of that body light was itself the test of certain people’s right to enter.

In the early nineteen hundreds, when investigations were being done on the pyramids, one of the scientist’s assistants became lost. With the help of search lights they looked for him everywhere – for twenty-four hours he could not be found. Then after twenty-four hours, some time around two o’clock in the morning, he came running towards them, almost deranged. He said,

“I was feeling my way in the darkness and I suddenly became aware of an opening. I went through it, and as soon as I did the door shut behind me. When I looked back the door was already closed. Yet when I had first approached it, there was only an open passage, nothing there like a door. But as soon as I entered that part of the passage, a door closed behind me; a heavy rock slid down, sealing off the exit. Then I shouted, but there was no response. I had no choice but to keep walking, and the things I saw…! It’s difficult to describe….”

It is true that he was lost for twenty-four hours and that when he was found he was half insane, but what he described as having seen was incredible. The whole search party tried to find the door, but couldn’t – he could neither show where he had entered nor where he came out – so it was concluded that the man must have either fainted, or gone to sleep and dreamt. But anyway, whatever he related was made a note of.

Some time after, during further explorations, the group found a book which described similar things to what the man had related. So the mystery deepened. It was thought that these things were in some sealed off room which opened up only under the influence of someone who is in a certain psychic state. Perhaps it had been accidental, perhaps it was a coincidence: triggered by his mental state the man may have been unknowingly become attuned to the state in which the opening happened. It had to be so, because although the man was not able to prove his experience, nevertheless the door did open.

All tirthas
have their
own music.

So the secret places about which I am talking have their doors and there are methods through which one can enter them. There are arrangements and special inner spiritual conditions for reaching there. All the rooms and halls of the pyramids have been built in accordance with certain pre-determined measurements. You may have experienced sometimes that where a roof is set rather low, although it does not touch you, you feel that something within you is compressed, contracted. Nothing actually compresses you, but within you something feels compressed. When you enter a place where the ceiling is very high, you have a feeling of something expanding within. The measurements of a room can be calculated in such a way that meditation becomes very easy for you.

The exact measurements for a room that makes meditation most easy were determined after experimentation. Certain measurements of a room can be used either to help you to expand or contract your consciousness. The color scheme outside and inside rooms, the fragrance in the room, and the acoustics also can be devised in such a way as to help meditation.

All tirthas have their own music. In fact all music was born in such places, and the music was originally created by seekers. Not only the art of music, but all dance originated in temples. Fragrance was also first used in temples. When it became known that one could reach the divine with the help of music, it was also realized that through music one could also go astray. If a certain fragrance can help you go toward the divine, then with another fragrance one can also go towards sensuality. If in a certain kind of room one can go into meditation more quickly and easily, there are other kinds which can prevent meditation.

In China there are specially constructed rooms in which prisoners can be brainwashed; the dimensions are predetermined, and changes in the dimensions made brainwashing difficult. After many experiments the exact height, width and breadth of such rooms are determined, and no sooner is a prisoner brought into the room that his mind begins to become affected. The exact time it will take before his mind becomes deranged and begins to deteriorate was also determined. A certain sound was created to speed up the process of deterioration, and if a particular place on his head was hammered, the deterioration would be even faster.

A water pot is suspended above the prisoner’s head, water slowly drips onto him in a particular rhythm. Drop by drop, the water falls on that place on his head for twenty-four hours. The prisoner is not allowed to move from that position; he cannot sit, he has to stand. Within half an hour he becomes so bored that the sound seems to become louder and louder, shattering, so much so he will feel as if a mountain is falling on top of him. That repetitive sound in the enclosure for twenty-four hours, in that particularly designed room, will shatter a person’s mind; when he comes out he will not be the same person. In every way the technique will have broken him down.

All methods of helping a seeker were found in tirthas and temples. The bells hanging in the temple, the sounds that emanate, the incense, the flowers – their fragrance – were all prearranged. It was all designed to maintain a certain harmony whose continuity would not be broken.

If aarti – a ritual with a lighted lamp – is to be done, it is always performed at fixed times, for a fixed length of time, in the morning, the afternoon and the evening, and always accompanied by the same mantra or incantation. The ritual goes on at regular intervals year after year for thousands of years.

Just as I told you earlier that when water is repeatedly distilled it changes its quality, if in a room a sound is created thousands of times, the vibrations of that room and the quality of that room changes. If a seeker is taken into that room his transformation will be helped. As our whole individuality is built from matter, whatever changes are brought about in matter will affect our individuality too. Man is such an extrovert that it is easier to change him from the outside, inner changes are difficult in the beginning; so a system was devised through which matter could be arranged to help one transform on a physical level.

Osho, Hidden Mysteries, Ch 2  (translated from Hindi), Part 6 of 9

Previous parts
1. There are hidden meanings not visible from the outside
2. The whole purpose of the places of pilgrimage
3. All religions have developed their own code languages
4. Every religion has its own keys
5. The whole of the River Ganges is an experiment of alchemists

List of all excerpts published: Hidden Mysteries