Become a womb

Shanti means peace and garbha means womb – peace womb. This name is a seed-meditation for you. Think of yourself as a womb which is going to give birth to peace. Imagine, visualise yourself as being a womb, and that the peace child is growing within you. Whenever you are sitting, not doing anything, just visualise it – just sit silently… become a womb.

Imagination is going to be your way. Imagination can create many doors, can open many doors… can create a totally new reality. But it works only for a few people, because only a few people are imaginative. So walking, sitting – whenever you remember it or whenever somebody calls you ‘shanti garbha’ – just for a moment think of yourself as a womb, full of peace… the peace oozing out of you. By and by you will start feeling an atmosphere around you of great peace, coolness… but this will come only through imagination, not through will. And the difference has to be understood.…

The difference is vast, but ordinarily people are very much confused about will and imagination. I’m not saying to will that you are a womb, because will becomes effort and will becomes an imposition. Imagination is very persuasive… it is a very subtle seduction.

For example, if somebody wants to change a habit, he can either use will or he can use imagination. Somebody is addicted to smoking and wants to change it or drop it. One way is to fight with it – that is the way of the will. When the desire arises, repress it, stand against it, become stubborn, don’t yield. Even if you feel a sort of suffering – suffer; become a martyr but don’t yield. That is the way of the warrior, the way of the will, the way of the fighter – the male-oriented way.

If somebody wants to drop the habit of smoking, it can be dropped through imagination more easily. You simply imagine that you are not smoking. Even when you are smoking, imagine that it is meaningless. Go on smoking – there is no need to fight with it – just go on imagining that it is futile. Create a great imaginative force within you, and soon you will see, the moment your imagination force has become greater than the habit, it simply disappears – there is no fight.

And there is a subtle law, hypnotists call it the law of the reverse effect: when you will something, it happens more or less that just the contrary is the result; whatsoever you wanted, just the opposite happens.

For example, in the night you cannot sleep. You can force it, you try to bring it, and the result is going to be that you will not be able to sleep at all. The imaginative way is just to simply rest in the bed. Imagine that you are falling asleep – not that you are forcing… just falling asleep. And if you continue imagining, soon you will see that a moment comes when suddenly the imagination has become a reality. […]

Osho, What Is, Is, What Ain’t, Ain’t, Ch 12

Photo by Isaac Quesada on Unsplash