Nataraj is dance as a total meditation.

First stage: 40 minutes music. Dance as if possessed. Close your eyes and let your unconscious take over completely. Do not control your movements or be a witness, just be totally in the dance.

Second stage: 20 minutes silence. When the music stops, lie down immediately, silent and still. Allow the vibrations of the dance and the music to penetrate your most subtle layers. (You will need to stop the tape for this section and then start it again for the next stage.)

Third stage: 5 minutes music. Dance in celebration and enjoy.

 

 

Forget the dancer, the centre of the ego; become the dance. That is the meditation. Dance so deeply that you forget completely that 'you' are dancing and begin to feel that you are the dance. The division must disappear; then it becomes a meditation. If the division is there then it is an exercise: good, healthy, but it cannot be said to be spiritual. It is just a simple dance. Dance is good in itself - as far as it goes, it is good. After it, you will feel fresh, young. But it is not meditation yet. The dancer must go, until only the dance remains.

So what to do? Be totally in the dance, because division can exist only if you are not total in it. If you are standing aside and looking at your own dance, the division will remain: you are the dancer and you are dancing. Then dancing is just an act, something you are doing; it is not your being. So get involved totally; be merged in it. Don't stand aside, don't be an observer. Participate!

Let the dance flow in its own way; don't force it.

Rather, follow it; allow it to happen. It is not a doing but a happening. Remain in the mood of festivity. You are not doing something very serious; you're just playing, playing with your life energy, playing with your bioenergy, allowing it to move in its own way. Just like the wind blows and the river flows - you are flowing and blowing. Feel it.

And be playful. Remember this word 'playful' always - with me, it is very basic. In this country we call creation God's leela - God's play. God has not created the world; it is his play.