Meditate

Your Way to
a Bigger
Brain
News Item

P
Once you drop the ush-ups, crunches and gyms are fine for building
ego, you become bigger muscles and stronger bones. But can you
meditate your way to a bigger brain?
part of the whole. The answer is yes, as a new study has established that
The ego keeps you certain regions in the brains of those meditating long-term
separate, it keeps a were larger than in a similar group, reports IANs from New
boundary between York.
you and the whole, A group of researchers at the University of California Los
Angeles (UCLA), used high-resolution magnetic resonance
a wall. To live imaging (MRI) to scan the brains of people who meditate.
behind the wall is Specifically, such people showed significantly larger
to live in darkness, volumes of the hippocampus and areas within the orbito-
in misery; to drop frontal cortex, the thalamus and the inferior temporal gyrus-
the wall, to come regions known for regulating emotions.
"We know that people who consistently meditate have a
out of the prison singular ability to cultivate positive emotions, retain
emotional stability and engage in mindful behaviour," said
Eileen Luders, study co-author and postdoctoral fellow at
the UCLA Lab of Neuro Imaging.
Luders and colleagues examined 44 people, 22 control
subjects and 22 who had practised Zazen, Samatha and

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Vipassana meditation, among
others. They had devoted an
average of 24 years to the practice.
More than half of all the people
who meditate said that deep
concentration was an essential part
of their practice, and most
meditated between 10 and 90
minutes daily, said an UCLA
release.
The researchers used a high-
resolution, three-dimensional form
of MRI and two different
approaches to measure differences
in brain structure.
These findings were published in
NeuroImage.
Osho Says...
Meditation Releases
Intelligence
Meditation is a device to release
your intelligence. The more
meditative you become, the more
intelligent you become. But
remember, by intelligence I don't
mean intellectuality. Intellectuality
is part of stupidity.
Intelligence is a totally different
phenomenon, it has nothing to do
with the head. Intelligence is
something that comes from your
very centre. It wells up in you, and
with it many things start growing
in you. You become happy, you
become creative, you become
rebellious, you become
adventurous, you start loving
insecurity, you start moving into the
unknown. You start living
dangerously, because that is the
only way to live.
Osho
The Book of Wisdom
Ch. 20
Back to Nature
Meditation can bring you to
your nature. It can help you to drop
all the perversions. It can make you
intelligent, it can make you loving,
it can make you spontaneous, it can
make you responsible. It can make
you a benediction to yourself and to
existence. Except meditation there
is no other method which can help.
This is the key, the master key.
Let me repeat: intelligence is
your nature. All that is needed is to
discover it, because it has been
hidden from you for certain reasons
by people who are powerful and
who want to remain in power. Of
course they will not like it.
Osho
Guida Spirituale,
Ch. 12
Sharpens Being
Thinking is borrowed. All your
thoughts are given by others to you.
Watch -- can you find a single
thought that is yours, authentically
yours, that you have given birth to?
They are all borrowed. The sources
may be known or unknown, but
they are all borrowed. The mind
functions like a computer, but
before the computer can give you
any answer, you have to feed it. You
have to supply all the information;
then it will give you the answer.
That's what the mind has been
JUNE 2009 43
doing. The mind is a biocomputer.
You keep collecting data,
knowledge, information, and then
when a certain question arises your
mind supplies the answer out of
that collection. It is not a real
response; it is just out of the dead
past.
What is understanding? --
understanding is pure intelligence.
That pure intelligence is originally
yours; you are born with it.
Nobody can give you
intelligence. Knowledge can be
given to you, not intelligence.
Intelligence is your own sharpened
being. Through deep meditation
one sharpens one's being; through
meditation one drops borrowed
thoughts, reclaims one's own being,
reclaims one's originality, redaims
one's childhood, innocence,
freshness. Out of that freshness,
when you act, you act out of
understanding. And then the
response is total, here-now; and the
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response is because of the
challenge, not because of the past.
-Osho
The Beloved,
Vol.1
Highest Peak
The person who is meditating
has the greatest possibility of
reaching the highest peaks of
intelligence because in meditation
he is doing the greatest possible
work that a man is capable of -- and
that is realising oneself, knowing
"Who am I?" Entering into the
deepest interiority of one's
subjectivity is the greatest work for
intelligence. Then you cannot even
count -- you cannot count Gautam
Buddha's intelligence, it is beyond
calculations, beyond
measurements. And if you are a
meditator, as your meditation keeps
becoming more and more
luminous, your intelligence will be
growing to the last breath of your
life. Not only that, even after the
last breath your intelligence will
continue to grow -- because you are
not going to die, only your body
will be dying. And the body has
nothing to do with intelligence, the
mind has nothing to do with
intelligence.
Intelligence is the quality of
your awareness -- more aware,
more intelligent. And if you are
totally aware, you are as intelligent
as this whole existence is.
Osho
Beyond Enlightenment,
Ch. 30
Inner Treasures
The really intelligent person is
one who discovers the inner
treasures, who discovers the inner
eternity, who discovers God. That's
my definition of the intelligent
person: one who discovers God.
Unless you have discovered God,
don't think of yourself as an
intelligent person. You may be
intellectual but you will not be
intelligent.
And to be intellectual is easy.
You can go to the university and
you can get a degree, a diploma.
You can study many books, you can
visit the libraries, and you can
become acquainted with great
words, great systems of thought.
You can become a good talker, a
good conversationalist, a good
writer, author, philosopher, but still
you will not be an intelligent
person, remember.
Intelligence is possible only
through meditation. When the
mind dissolves in meditation, when
thoughts are no longer your
constant obsession -- when you can
put the thoughts aside whenever
you want and you can move into
inner emptiness at your own will,
when you are not a victim of your
mind but a master -- then you are
intelligent.
And those are the moments
when you discover who you are.
You discover what this life is. You
discover what the meaning of the
word God is. You cannot find the
meaning in the dictionaries, in the
encyclopedias; it has to be found
within your own being.
Osho
The White Lotus,
Ch. 6
Taste of Samadhi
In a more intelligent world,
meditation should become
absolutely mandatory in every
school, in every college, in every
university. And unless a person has
some taste of samadhi, he will not
be allowed to leave the university.
He will not be given the certificates
to leave.
And if we can make meditation
an intrinsic part of all education
systems, then naturally these
people are going to be politicians,
these people are going to be
business men, these people are
going to be industrialists, these
people are going to be musicians,
these people are going to be
painters, actors, dancers. But they
will all have one thing in common
and that will be their experience of
meditation. And that will be the
common element joining the whole
of humanity into one whole.
A man of meditation functions
differently. Whatever profession he
chooses, it does not matter. He will
bring to his profession some quality
of sacredness. He may be making
shoes, or he may be cleaning the
roads, but he will bring to his work
some quality, some grace, some
beauty, which is not possible
without samadhi.
We can fill the whole world with
ecstatic people. Just a simple thing
has to be accepted .... Whether you
are going to be a doctor or an
engineer or a scientist, whatever
you are going to be, that does not
matter. Meditation should be the
foundation for every profession, for
every dimension of education.
Osho
Bodhidharma: The Greatest Zen
Master
Ch.11
Read or Listen to
Full Discourse on
www.oshoworld.com
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