Osho (Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh) is the most prolific author on this planet with over 650 books ( 64 million words) in print. He is an enlightened mystic from India whose wisdom has impacted millions of people. Even after he left his body in 1990, Osho's teachings continue to grow and inspire spiritual seekers around the world today. He teaches us how to become a whole again, connected to Source, a more authentic human being, and someone who celebrates life passionately as well with a deep sensitivity to it
Osho is a mystic who brings the timeless wisdom of the East to bear on the urgent questions facing men and women today. He speaks of the search for harmony and wholeness that lies at the core of all religious and spiritual traditions, illuminating the essence of Christianity, Hassidism, Buddhism, Sufism, Tantra, Tao, Yoga, and Zen.
Osho's vision is a new man. After his enlightenment in 1953, the evolution of that new man became his whole work. In 1963 he left the academic world where he had taught philosophy at the University of Jabalpur and began speaking to tens of thousands across India. He then focused intensely on developing practical tools for man's transformation. Modern man, he said, is so burdened with traditions of the past and anxieties of modern-day living, that he must go through a deep cleansing process before he can begin to discover the thought-free relaxed state of meditation.
In 1974, a campas was established around him in Poona, India, and a trickle of visitors from the West soon became a flood. Today this campas has become the largest meditation resort and spiritual-growth center in the world. Each year it attracts thousands of international visitors to its meditation, therapy, bodywork and creative programs.
In the course of his work, Osho speaks on virtually every aspect of the development of human consciousness. His talks cover a staggering range from the meaning of life and death to the struggles of power and politics; from the challenges of love and creativity to the significance of science and education.
Osho, who was born in India in 1931 and left his body in 1990, belongs to no tradition. He says, "My message is not a doctrine, not a philosophy. My message is a certain alchemy, a science of transformation."
Rajneesh Chandra Mohan Jain (December 11, 1931 - January 19, 1990), better known during the 1970s as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and later as Osho was an Indian spiritual teacher. He lived in India and the United States and was the spiritual head of the Osho-Rajneesh movement, a controversial new religious movement.
As is customary with spiritual teachers in India, he received several honorifics over his life. He was known as Acharya Rajneesh (teacher Rajneesh) during his early years, later Shree Rajneesh and finally Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh.
In February 1989, following a request from some of his disciples, Rajneesh adopted the name "Osho". "Osho" is an ancient Japanese term used to address a spiritual master in certain Zen traditions, though it also means just a Zen priest, and can be understood as a modest honorific in the way the Dalai Lama refers to himself as a simple monk. The name "Osho" in this context means "The Friend". It fit how Rajneesh wanted to be known by his followers and lovers.
In the Western world, "Orange People" and Rajneeshees were popular terms to designate Rajneesh followers, the former because of the colour of their clothes, which were meant to be the colour of the sky at dawn.
Osho's philosophy
Osho (Rajneesh) claimed that the greatest values in life are (in no specific order) love, meditation and laughter, and that the highest goal of human life was to reach spiritual enlightenment.
He extracted and expounded philosophies from various spiritual sources. He was a prolific speaker both in Hindi and English on various spiritual traditions including those of Buddha, Krishna, Jesus, Socrates, Zen masters, Hassidism, Sufism and many others. He also took pains to ensure no "system of thought" would define him, since no philosophy can fully express the truth. His was more a "philosophy of no philosophy".
An experienced orator, he used his skills to convey his message, but insisted that the only reason he kept on talking was to convince his listeners to start on a path of meditation.
He was often called the "sex guru" after some speeches in the late 1960s on sexuality which scandalised an orthodox society. These were later compiled under the title From Sex to Superconsciousness. According to him, "For Tantra everything is holy, nothing is unholy", and all repressive sexual morality was self-defeating, since one could not transcend sex without experiencing it thoroughly and consciously.
[edit]
Osho on meditation
Osho had a different view of meditation than the usual one, at least in the Western world. According to him, meditation is a state beyond mind. It is not concentration. It is not about spiritual thoughts; it is a state of thoughtlessness. It is something that can just happen, it is a state that one can be in, it is not something that one can do. But he said that it is very difficult for modern man to just sit and be in meditation, so he devised some active meditation techniques that naturally take one into meditation. These techniques allow a person to unburden by expressing whatever is repressed in him.
Some of these preparatory exercises can also be found in western psychological therapies (i.e. gestalt therapy), such as altered breathing, gibberish, laughing or crying. His most significant meditation techniques are referred to as Active Meditations, such as "Dynamic Meditation", "Kundalini Meditation", "Nadabrahma", "Nataraj", and are quite demanding physically.
He also reintroduced several traditional meditation techniques, reducing them to their most minimal expression, stripping them of ritual and tradition, and retaining the most therapeutic parts. He also supports the theory that, given sufficient practice, the meditative state can be achieved and maintained while performing everyday tasks. Furthermore, enlightenment is nothing but being continuously in a meditative state.
[edit]
Biographical notes
[edit]
Childhood and awakening
Osho was born at Kuchwada, a small village in Raisen District of Madhya Pradesh state in India. At the time, the astrologer predicted that he might die before he was seven years old according to the birth chart. His parents, who were Jains, chose to send him to be with his maternal grandparents until he was seven years old.
Osho said this was a major influence on his growth because his grandmother gave him the utmost freedom and respect. As a consequence, he was left carefree without an imposed education or restrictions.
Osho explains that children, during their first seven years, have their development negatively affected by being forced to learn and having their dignity ignored. He says ideally it should be the opposite. People can learn from children that which they themselves have forgotten. If a child is allowed freedom during his initial years, he will grow in strength and have enough intelligence to decide and to discuss, and can self-educate with minimal guidance.
This, as he puts it, was what happened to him. When he joined the first school, he was able to discuss with and convince his teacher, who was very strict with children. Osho explains that if the child receives respect, he is more obedient to his parents. If the parents ignore the child's individuality, the child would in turn ignore them.
After Osho was seven, he went back to his parents. Osho explains that he received a similar kind of respect from his paternal grandfather who was staying with them. He was able to be very open with his grandfather. His grandfather used to tell him, "I know you are doing the right thing. Everyone may tell you that you are wrong. But nobody knows which situation you are in. Only you can decide in your situation. Do whatsoever you feel is right. I will support you. I love you and respect you as well."
On 21 March 1953, when Osho was 21 years old, he says that he became spiritually enlightened. He dropped all effort and hope and after an intense seven-day process he went out at night to a garden, where he sat under a maulshree tree.
He did manage to finish his studies and during the 1960s he served as philosophy professor at the University of Jabalpur while touring India, lecturing on his philosophy.
[edit]
The Commune
In 1969 a group of his disciples established a foundation to support his work and allowed him to drop his university job. They settled in an apartment in Mumbai where he gave daily discourses and received visitors. The number and frequency of visitors soon became too much for the place, overflowing the apartment and bothering the neighbours. A much larger apartment was found on the ground floor (so the visitors would not need to use the elevator, a matter of conflict with the former neighbours).
On September 26th, 1970 he initiated his first disciple or sannyasin at an outdoor meditation camp, one of the large gatherings where he lectured and guided group meditations.
Still the new and bigger apartment proved insufficient and the climate of Mumbai was very bad for Osho's health, so a new place had to be found. On the 21st anniversary of his enlightenment a caravan of cars departed from the Mumbai apartment to the newly purchased property in Koregaon Park, in the city of Pune, a four hour trip from Mumbai. Pune had been the secondary residence of many wealthy families from Mumbai because of the cooler climate (Mumbai lies in a coastal wetland, hot and damp, Pune is inland and much higher so it is drier and cooler).
The two adjoining houses and 6 acres of land had known better times but in little time the nucleus of an Ashram started to grow and those two buildings are still at the heart of the present day Osho International Commune. This stable and ample space allowed for the regular audio and video recording of his discourses and later printing for worldwide distribution, which allowed him to reach far larger audiences internationally.
[edit]
The U.S. chapter
In 1981, Rajneesh was taken to the United States in search of better medical care (he suffered from diabetes and severe back problems) and also, allegedly, to escape tax evasion charges in India. His followers, at his request, bought (for US$6 million) a ranch in Wasco County, Oregon, previously known as "The Big Muddy", but later renamed Rajneeshpuram where they settled for the next several years.
Disagreements over zoning rules and building codes in the beginning continued to escalate between not only his followers and the inhabitants of Wasco County, but eventually with the rest of the state. His followers, known as Rajneeshees, settled en bloc in Antelope, Oregon, and were able to elect a majority of the town council. They did this after the previously valid legal incorporation of Rajneeshpuram as a city was invalidated by the Oregon Legislature's setting new standards of incorporation and making them retroactive.
Comments by his public spokeswoman, Ma Anand Sheela, only increased tensions. Matters were not helped by Rajneesh's vow of silence, or the 93 Rolls-Royces his followers bought him as gifts - they said that he wanted 365 cars so that he had a new one for each day of the year (technically, he did not have income or own any property). One of his followers explains this in what is called "Face to Faith Parable of the Rolls Royces." When the Rajneeshees subsequently recruited homeless people from across the United States to settle at Rajneeshpuram, it was widely seen as an attempt to use the ballot box to seize control of Wasco County.
At the same time the commune offered an international refuge for his followers to live Osho's teaching; the ideal of meditating, celebrating, and trusting in love. At its largest, Rajneeshpuram consisted of some 7,000 members on a 6.25-square-mile ranch 20 miles from Antelope. It included homes, meditation centers, its own road system, power grid, bus service, schools for children, and even a small airport.
In 1984, a bioterrorist attack involving salmonella typhimurium contamination in the salad bars of the 10 restaurants at The Dalles, Oregon, was traced to the Rajneeshee group.[1] The attack sickened about 750 people and hospitalized forty-five; none died. It was the first known bioterrorist attack of the 20th century in the United States, and is still known as the largest germ warfare attack in the U.S. Eventually Sheela and Ma Anand Puja, one of Sheela's close associates, confessed to the salmonella attack and to attempted poisonings on county officials.
While these controversial events brought much negative publicity to the commune, it is worth noting that Osho himself spoke very strongly against these acts, and that it was only a handful of people who were responsible out of the thousands of people who were living in the communce either permanently or temporarily. Osho never apologized to any of the victims of the germ attack, which was orchestrated by his own hand picked disciples. Some of the victims were women and small children.
In May 1985, Sheela called a meeting of Rajneesh's inner circle to plot the assassination of Charles Turner, the U.S. Attorney for Oregon, after the attorney was appointed to head a grand jury investigation into the commune. Catherine Jane Stubbs, known as Ma Shanti Bhadra, volunteered to be the killer. She later bought weapons and scouted Turner's property.
In September 1985, Sheela quit her post as Rajneesh's secretary, and fled to Europe, allegedly with a large piece of the commune's money. After she and twenty of her confederates left, Rajneesh called for an investigation of what she had been doing, during which some of the foregoing came to light.
In late October 1985, Rajneesh was arrested in North Carolina as he was allegedly fleeing the U.S. Though his lawyers had approached the federal grand jury in Portland, Oregon that was about to secretly indict Rajneesh and some of his followers for alleged immigration crimes, and offered for him to be available to them, that offer was refused. Soon after, a Wasco County grand jury returned indictments against Sheela and two others, charging them with the attempted murder of Swami Devaraj, Bhagwan's personal doctor. Rajneesh on advice of his lawyers entered an "Alford plea," or no-contest plea, in regard to the immigration crimes, and was given a suspended sentence on condition that he leave the country.
[edit]
Back in Pune
On January 19, 1990, four years after his arrest, Osho died, with "heart failure" being the publicly reported cause. Osho claimed that his rapid health decline leading to his death was caused by his poisoning with the element thallium by US authorities while he was in prison. He claimed a plot led by the CIA and Ronald Reagan to assassinate him had been carried out due to their fear of Osho's controversial and counter-cultural teachings combined with his powerful ability to influence people. There has never been any evidence to support this claim, which is contradicted by the fact that thallium poisoning causes dramatic hair loss within one week of exposure. Osho never experienced any abnormal hair loss and he died with a full beard.
Osho was chronically ill most of his adult life and he was exceptionally sensitive to smells and chemicals, a condition known as "multiple chemical sensitivity." Those wishing to meet him were first sniffed by helpers to make sure they were not wearing perfume. It was widely reported that he was addicted to the prescription drug Valium in the 1980s and was a heavy user of nitrous oxide gas. On the CBS television show 60 Minutes, Ma Anand Sheela claimed that Rajneesh took sixty milligrams of Valium every day. When questioned by journalists about this allegation, however, Osho categorically denied it, adding that Sheela was in no position to know what medication he was given, this being a matter between him and his personal physician.
In a 1998 preface to Books I Have Loved, Osho's personal dentist, Swami Devageet, states that Osho dictated three books under the influence of nitrous oxide. They were Glimpses of a Golden Childhood, Notes of a Madman, and Books I Have Loved. Referring to his own nitrous oxide use, Rajneesh himself stated that "Actually oxygen and nitrogen are basic elements of existence. They can be of much use, but for reasons the politicians have been against chemicals of all kinds, all drugs."
After the Rajneeshpuram commune was abandoned, it was discovered that Rajneesh had installed nitrous oxide spigots in his home by his bedside. This was widely reported in newspapers and verified first hand by the FBI and former Oregon Congressman Jim Weaver, who wrote the following in a newspaper article.
"A few years later, I went through the abandoned city of Rajneeshpuram and saw things that were almost unbelievable. Ma Anand Sheela's headquarters, a group of mobile homes pieced together, was a hive of secret doors and hidden tunnels, her private room a command post with electronic listening gear tapped into every room in the development. The Bhagwan's parquet-paneled quarters had nitrogen oxide spigots by his bedside, and was surrounded by huge bathrooms with multiple showers." - Jim Weaver
Osho was 58 years old when he died. His ashes were placed in a reconstructed meditation hall, at his last home place, his Ashram in Pune, India. The epitaph reads, "OSHO. Never Born, Never Died. Only Visited this Planet Earth between Dec 11 1931 - Jan 19 1990."
In 1999, Sheela was convicted by a Swiss court. In September 2005, Catherine Stubbs pleaded guilty to conspiring to kill Turner, 15 years after being indicted; she had fled to Germany, where she is a naturalized citizen. In 1991, Germany had declined an extradition request from the United States.
The Osho Commune in Pune, India is now called the Osho Meditation Resort. It offers daily Osho Active Meditations, workshops through its "Multiversity," and many resort amenities including pool, jacuzzi, sauna, tennis, parties and entertainment. Though Osho's teachings still remain at the core of the day-to-day activities, there is currently less emphasis on Osho the man, and much more on his practices.
47 Enlightening Osho Quotes
1) Experience life in all possible ways -- good-bad, bitter-sweet, dark-light, summer-winter. Experience all the dualities. Don't be afraid of experience, because the more experience you have, the more mature you become.
2) Ecstasy is our very nature; not to be ecstatic is simply unnecessary. To be ecstatic is natural, spontaneous. It needs no effort to be ecstatic, it needs great effort to be miserable. That's why you look to tired, because misery is really hard work; to maintain it is really difficult, because you are doing something against nature.
3) Remain in wonder if you want the mysteries to open up for you. Mysteries never open up for those who go on questioning. Questioners sooner or later end up in a library. Questioners sooner or later end up with scriptures, because scriptures are full of answers. And answers are dangerous, they kill your wonder."
4) All the Buddhas of all the ages have been telling you a very simple fact: Be -- don't try to become. Within these two words, be and becoming, your whole life is contained. Being is enlightenment, becoming is ignorance.
6) Truth cannot be defined, although it can certainly be experienced. But experience is not a definition. A definition is made by the mind, experience comes through participating. If somebody asks, "What is a dance?" how can you define it? But you can dance and you can know the inner feel of it. God is the ultimate dance.
7) To be creative means to be in love with life. You can be creative only if you love life enough that you want to enhance its beauty, you want to bring a little more music to it, a little more poetry to it, a little more dance to it.
8) No dead principles can help, but only living consciousness. Be absolutely unprincipled and just follow life.
9) You can go on changing the outer for lives and you will never be satisfied; something or other will remain to be changed. Unless the inner changes, the outer can never be perfect.
10) Any human being who is becoming independent of conditionings, of religions, scriptures, prophets and messiahs, has arrived home. He has found the treasure which was hidden in his own being.
11) To be alone in the only real revolution. To accept that you are alone is the greatest transformation that can happen to you.
12) Falling in love you remain a child; rising in love you mature. By and by love becomes not a relationship, it becomes a state of your being. Not that you are in love - now you are love.
13) Become more and more innocent, less knowledgeable and more childlike. Take life as fun - because that's precisely what it is!
14) If you take the responsibility for your life you can start changing it. Slow will be the change, only in the course of time will you start; moving into the world of light and crystallization, but once you are crystallized you will know what real revolution is. Then share your revolution with others; it has to go that way, from heart to heart.
15) Intelligence is a natural phenomenon -- just as breathing is, just as seeing is. Intelligence is the inner seeing; it is intuitive. It has nothing to do with intellect. Never confuse intellect with intelligence, they are polar opposites. Intellect is of the head; it is taught by others, it is imposed on you. You have to cultivate it. It is borrowed, it is something foreign, it is not inborn. But intelligence is inborn. It is your very being, your very nature.
16) Drop the fear. Fear was taken up by you in your childhood, unconsciously. Now consciously drop it and be mature. Then the life can be a light which goes on deepening as you go on growing.
17) Know the whole world is nothing when it is compared to knowing your own inner mystery of life.
18) Seriousness is a sickness; your sense of humor makes you more human, more humble. The sense of humor -- according to me -- is one of the most essential parts of religiousness.
19) Misery nourishes your ego -- that's why you see so many miserable people in the world. The basic, central point is the ego.
20) The beauty of facing life unprepared is tremendous. Then life has a newness, a youth; then life has a flow and freshness. Then life has so many surprises. And when life has so many surprises boredom never settles in you.
21) What is needed is not something in which you can forget your loneliness; what is needed is that you become aware of your aloneness – which is a reality. And it is so beautiful to experience it, to feel it, because it is your freedom from the crowd, from the other. It is your freedom from the fear of being lonely.
22) Man has lost one quality, the quality of zestfulness. And without zest, what is life? Just waiting for death? It can't be anything else. Only with zest do you live; otherwise you vegetate.
23) The perfectionist is bound to be a neurotic, he cannot enjoy life, until he is perfect. And perfection as such never happens, it is not in the nature of things. Totality is possible, perfection is not possible.
24) Your innermost core has always been pure. Purity is intrinsic to you, it cannot be taken away. Your virginity is eternal. You cannot lose it, there is no way to lose it. You can only forget about it or you can remember it. If you forget about it, you live in confusion. If you remember about it, all is clear.
25) In this world the greatest courage is to drop the mind aside. The bravest man is who can see the world without the barrier of the mind, just as it is. It is tremendously different, utterly beautiful. There is nobody who is inferior and there is nobody who is superior -- there are no distinctions.
26) The mind exists in time, in fact the mind is time; it exists in the past and the future. And remember, time consists of only two tenses, the past and the future. The present is not part of time, the present is part of eternity.
27) Mind is repetitive, mind always moves in circles. Mind is a mechanism: you feed it with knowledge, it repeats the same knowledge, it goes on chewing the same knowledge again and again. No-mind is clarity, purity, innocence. No-mind is the real way to live, the real way to know, the real way to be.
28) Millions of people are suffering: they want to be loved but they don't know how to love. And love cannot exist as a monologue; it is a dialogue, a very harmonious dialogue.
29) There is no evil and there are no evil forces in the world. There are only people of awareness, and there are people who are fast asleep -- and sleep has no force. The whole energy is in the hands of the awakened people. And one awakened person can awaken the whole world. One lighted candle can make millions of candles lighted without losing it's light.
30) The heart is always right-- if there's a question of choosing between the mind and the heart-- because mind is a creation of the society. It has been educated. You have been given it by the society, not by existence. The heart is unpolluted.
31) The 'truth' is only a way of speaking; there is not something labeled 'Truth,' that one day you will find and open the box and see the contents and say, 'Great! I have found the truth.' There is no such box. Your existence is the truth, and when you are silent you are in truth. And if the silence is absolute then you are the ultimate truth. But don't think of the truth as an object –it is not an object. It is not there, it is here.
32) Mind functions in 'either/or' way: either this can be right or its opposite can be right. Both together cannot be right -- as far as mind, its logic, its rationality is concerned. If mind is 'either/or' then the heart is 'both/and.' The heart has no logic, but a sensitivity, a perceptivity. It can see that they both can not only be together, in fact they are not two. It is just one phenomenon seen from two different aspects.
33) The heart knows nothing of the past, nothing of the future; it knows only of the present. The heart has no time concept.
34) If the whole existence is one, and if the existence goes on taking care of trees, of animals, of mountains, of oceans –from the smallest blade of grass to the biggest star -- then it will take care of you too. Why be possessive? The possessiveness shows simply one thing – that you cannot trust existence. You have to arrange separate security for yourself, safety for yourself; you cannot trust existence. Non-possessiveness is basically trust in existence. There is no need to possess, because the whole is already ours.
35) Drop guilt! -- because to be guilty is to live in hell. Not being guilty, you will have the freshness of dewdrops in the early morning sun, you will have the freshness of lotus petals in the lake, you will have the freshness of the stars in the night. Once guilt disappears you will have a totally different kind of life, luminous and radiant. You will have a dance to your feet and your heart will be singing a thousand and one songs.
36) If the mind wants to comprehend reality, it will have to come out of the past and the future. But coming out of the past and the future, it is no longer the mind at all. Hence the insistence of all the great masters of the world that the door to reality is no-mind.
37) Existence is not a problem to be solved, it is a mystery to be lived. And you should be perfectly aware what the difference is between a mystery and a problem. A problem is something created by the mind; a mystery is something which is there, not created by the mind. A problem has an ugliness in it, like disease. A mystery is beautiful. With a problem, immediately a fight arises. You have to solve it; something is wrong, you have to put it right; something is missing, you have to supply the missing link. With a mystery there is no question like that. The moon arises in the night.... It is not a problem, it is a mystery. You have to live with it. You have to dance with it. You have to sing with it, or you can be just silent with it. Something mysterious surrounds you."
38) Be less of a judge and you will be surprised that when you become a witness and you don't judge yourself, you stop judging others too. And that makes you more human, more compassionate, more understanding.
39) Looking at a sunset, just for a second you forget your separateness: you are the sunset. That is the moment when you feel the beauty of it. But the moment you say that it is a beautiful sunset, you are no longer feeling it; you have come back to your separate, enclosed entity of the ego. Now the mind is speaking. And this is one of the mysteries, that the mind can speak, and knows nothing; and the heart knows everything, and cannot speak. Perhaps to know too much makes it difficult to speak; the mind knows so little, it is possible for it to speak."
40) The witnessing soul is like the sky. The birds fly in the sky but they don't leave any footprints. \line That's what Buddha says, that the man who is awakened lives in such a way that he leaves no footprints. He is without wounds and without scars; he never looks back -- there is no point. He has lived that moment so totally that what is the need to look back again and again? He never looks ahead, he never looks back, he lives in the moment.
41) All beings are from the very beginning Buddhas. It is like water and ice: Apart from water, no ice, outside living beings, no Buddhas. Not knowing it is near they seek it afar, what a pity!
42) You are a Buddha. But remember you are not a Buddha in any special sense. Everybody is - So don't take it in an egoistic sense that "I" am a Buddha. Don't make it ambitious, don't go on an ambition trip. All is Buddha. Life is Buddha, being is Buddha-hood, existence is Buddha-hood.
43) All that you need is just to be silent and listen to existence. There is no need of any religion, there is no need of any God, there is no need of any priesthood, there is no need of any organization.
44) The whole world is a cyclone. But once you have found the center the cyclone disappears. This nothingness is the ultimate peak of consciousness.
45) All that this world needs is a good cleansing of the heart of all the inhibitions of the past. And laughter and tears can do both. Tears will take out all the agony that is hidden inside you and laughter will take all that is preventing your ecstasy. Once you have learned the art you will be immensely surprised.
46) Life is not a tragedy, it is a comedy. To be alive means to have a sense of humor.
47) If you are absolutely without mind, just pure consciousness,
time stops completely, disappears, leaving no trace behind.
2006-07-25 20:09:04
·
answer #1
·
answered by Anonymous
·
2⤊
0⤋