OSHO

1. OSHO

“My effort here is to create bliss, not happiness. Happiness is worthless; it depends on unhappiness. Bliss is transcendence: one moves beyond the duality of being happy and unhappy. One watches both; happiness comes, one watches and does not become identified with it. One does not say, ‘I am happy. Peace, it is wonderful.’ One simply watches, one says, ‘Yes, a white cloud passing.’

“And then comes unhappiness, and one does not become unhappy either. One says, ‘A black cloud passing. I am the witness, the watcher.’

“This is what meditation is all about, just becoming a watcher. Failure comes, success comes, you are praised, you are condemned, you are respected, you are insulted – all kinds of things come, they are all dualities. And you go on watching. Watching the duality, a third force arises in you; a third dimension arises in you. The duality means two dimensions: one dimension is happiness; another is unhappiness. Watching both, a depth arises in you: the third dimension, witnessing, sakshin.

“And that third dimension brings bliss. Bliss is without any opposite to it. It is serene, tranquil, cool. It is ecstasy without any excitement.”

…… and that is OSHO

About Osho          

                                                                                   

Right from the earliest childhood , Osho was a rebellions  independent spirit. He challenged all accepted religious , social and  political traditions and insisted on experiencing truth for himself rather than acquiring knowledge and beliefs given by others.

At the age of twenty-one , on March 21, 1953, Osho realized his enlightenment. He says about himself, “I am no longer seeking, searching for anything.  Existence has opened all  its doors to me. I cannot even say that I belong to existence, because I am part of it. … When a flower blossoms I blossom with it. When sun rises, I rise with it, The ego in me which keeps people separate, is no longer there. My body is part of nature, being is part of whole. I am not a separate entity”.

He graduated from the University of Sagar with first Class Honors in philosophy. While a student He was All India Debating Champion and a Gold Medal winner. After a nine year stint as Professor of Philosophy at the University of Jabalpur, He left to travel around the country giving talks, challenging orthodox religious leaders in public debate, upsetting traditional beliefs, and shocking the status quo.

In the course of His work, Osho has spoken on virtually every aspect of development of human consciousness. From Sigmund Freud to Chuang Tzu, from George Gurdjieff to Goutam Buddha, from Jesus Christ to Rabindranath Tagore…He has distilled from each the essence of all that is significant to the spiritual quest of the contemporary man, based not on intellectual understanding but tested against His own existential experience.

He belongs to no tradition – “I am the beginning of totally new religious consciousness,” He says  “Please do not connect me with the past – it is not even worth remembering”

He talks to disciples and other seekers from all over the world have been published in more than six hundred and fifty volumes, and translated, into over thirty languages. He says “My message is not a doctrine, not a philosophy. My message is a certain alchemy, a science of transformation, so only those who are willing to die as they are and be born again into something so new that they cannot even imagine it right now – only those few courageous  people will be ready to listen, because listening , you have to take first step towards being reborn.  So it is not a philosophy that you can just make an overcoat of and go bragging about.  It is a doctrine where you can find consolation for harassing questions. No, my message is not for some verbal communication. It is far more risky. It  is nothing less than death and rebirth”

Osho left his body on January 19, 1990.

Extracted below are some of his views on happiness. Osho is too vast to be condensed in few lines and that will be a sacrilege.  Nevertheless this is an attempt to expose him to the beginners, who have not yet tasted him and enjoyed him. The discontinuity in the in the presentation may be pardoned for it may be observed that altering even a single word may render it inappropriate. The collection is about happiness.

Can’t You Be a Cause to Your Own Happiness?

“Meditation is enjoying oneself, just sitting silently doing nothing: happy, joyous without any reason, because all reasons come from outside. You meet a beautiful woman and you are happy, or you meet a beautiful man and you are happy – but the mediator is simply happy. His happiness has no reason from the outside world; his happiness wells up within himself.

“Relationship is happiness coming from the other, but have you watched, when happiness is coming from the other it must be welling up in the other, otherwise how will it reach you? And your happiness is reaching the other, you are both enjoying each other’s happiness; you are drinking out of each other’s well. And the well is there, otherwise how can you drink? But the woman that you love thinks she is enjoying your happiness – you are making her happy, you are the cause of her happiness. And you are thinking she is the cause of your happiness. But if you can both be causes to each other’s happiness, can’t you be a cause to your own happiness?”

Continue reading – ----

Happiness Is Related to What You Are

“Happiness has nothing to do with what you have or don’t have. Happiness is related to what you are. However many things you may collect, perhaps they may increase your worries, your troubles, but happiness will not increase because of them. Certainly unhappiness will increase with them, but they have no relation to an increase in your happiness.

“I am not saying that you should renounce things, that you should escape from your home and renounce the marketplace. No, don’t misunderstand my statement. What is, is good. Nothing will happen either by dropping things and escaping from them or by clinging to them. Remain where you are, but begin the search within. Much outer searching has already been done, now go within. Now know the one, in this knowing one attains all. All desires are at once fulfilled.”

Money Has Nothing to Do With Happiness

“Don’t be too much concerned about money, because that is the greatest distraction against happiness. And the irony of ironies is that people think they will be happy when they have money. Money has nothing to do with happiness. If you are happy and you have money, you can use it for happiness. If you are unhappy and you have money, you will use that money for more unhappiness. Because money is simply a neutral force.

“I am not against money – remember. Don’t misinterpret me: I am not against money. I am not against anything. Money is a means. If you are happy and you have money, you will become more happy. If you are unhappy and you have money, you will become more unhappy because what will you do with your money? Your money will enhance your pattern, whatsoever it is. If you are miserable and you have power, what will you do with your power? You will poison yourself more with your power, you will become more miserable.”

It Is Impossible to Pursue Happiness

“If life is a gift then all that belongs to life is going to be a gift. Happiness, love, meditation – all that is beautiful is going to be a gift from the holy, from the whole. You cannot deserve it in any way and you cannot force existence to make you happy, or to make you loving, or to make you meditative. That very effort is of the ego. That very effort creates misery. That very effort goes against you. That very effort has destroyed you – it is suicidal.

”It is impossible to pursue happiness. Nobody has ever pursued it. One has to wait for it. And it is not a right at all. No law court can force you to be happy or force happiness to be with you. No government violence is capable of making you happy. No power can make you happy…

”The very idea that you can pursue happiness, that you can deserve it, that you can demand it, that you have the right to be happy, is foolish. Nobody has the right to be happy. You can be happy, but there is nothing like a right about it. And if you think that it is your right you will go on missing, because you have started to look in the wrong direction from the very beginning.

”Why is it so? If live is a gift, all that belongs to and is intrinsic to life is going to be a gift. You can wait for it, you can be receptive to it, you can remain in a surrendered mood, waiting, patient, but you cannot demand, and you cannot force.”

Happiness Is One Pole, Sadness Is Another

“Happiness is one pole, sadness is another. Blissfulness is one pole, misery is another. Life consists of both, and life is richer because of both. A life only of blissfulness will have extension, but will not have depth. A life of only sadness will have depth, but will not have extension.

"A life of both sadness and blissfulness is multi-dimensional; it moves in all dimensions together. Watch the statue of Buddha or sometimes look into my eyes and you will find both together – a blissfulness, a peace, a sadness also.

"You will find a blissfulness which contains in it sadness also, because that sadness gives it depth. Watch Buddha’s statue – blissful, but still sad. The very word sad gives you wrong connotations – that something is wrong. This is your interpretation. To me, life in its totality is good.”

The Fruit Is Created within You

 

“Spread compassion all around you. Look around you – people are so unhappy, don’t add to their unhappiness. Your compassion will lessen their unhappiness; just one word of compassion will lessen their unhappiness. Don’t add to their unhappiness.

"You are all adding to each other’s unhappiness; you are all helping each other to be more unhappy. Every single man has many people behind him making him unhappy. If an understanding of compassion is there, then you will change all the ways that you cause unhappiness in others. And if you can bring happiness to someone’s life, you will find a way to do it.

“Remember one thing: the one who brings unhappiness to others in the end becomes unhappy himself, and the one who brings happiness to others in the end reaches to the heights of happiness. That’s why I am saying that someone who tries to give happiness develops the center of happiness inside himself, and someone who tries to bring unhappiness to others develops the center of unhappiness inside himself.

"The fruit does not come from the outside, the fruit is created within you. Whatever you do, you develop receptivity for it inside yourself. Someone who wants love should give his love. Someone who wants bliss should start sharing his bliss. Someone who wants flowers to shower in his home should shower flowers in other people’s homes. There is no other way.

Who Is Osho?

Never Born - Never Died - Only visited this planet Earth between December 11, 1931 and January 19, 1990.

With these literally immortal words, Osho both dictates his epitaph and dispenses with his biography. Having previously removed his name from everything, he finally agrees to accept "Osho," explaining that it is derived from William James' "oceanic." "It is not my name," he says, "it is a healing sound."

His thousands of hours of extemporaneous talks, spoken to people around the world over a twenty-year period, are all recorded, often on video - that can be listened to anywhere by anyone, when, Osho says, "that same silence will be there."

There are over 225 Osho books in English and around the same number in Hindi. There are several OSHO meditation centers spread all over the world. All of his books are available on online.

The transcriptions of  his talks are now published in hundreds of titles in dozens of languages.

A conclusion? There are no full stops in the Osho vision, Nevertheless we have to stop somewhere……

To begin with some of his Quotes

 

“"I would like to say to you: Science is the ultimate value. And there are only two kinds of sciences: one, objective science, that decides about the outside world; and two, subjective science, which up to now has been called religion. But it is better not to call it religion. It is better to call it the science of the inner, and to divide science into a science of the outer, and a science of the inner - objective science and subjective science- Osho

Read through..

Turn in

Osho says;  turn in you will find happiness there. As of now you are always turned out , out  into the world outside. If you can use it, if you can turn in, you can be utterly contented. Life has so much to give, but it gives only to those who turn inwards.

And the person who is after fame never turns in, because his whole point is to catch the attention of others. He is really childish, still saying ‘Daddy, Mummy, look at me, pay attention to me.’ He is still searching for somebody to pat him, appreciate him. Deep down he feels he is nothing; he wants to be patted, appreciated, so that he can feel some worth. But even if the whole world pats you and the whole world appreciates you, you will remain the same. This is not the way to attain to worth"

"How to decide whether it is true enlightenment or untrue? The only decisive factor is: the absence of I. In true enlightenment, the idea of I simply disappears, it is not found. There is nobody to claim ‘I am enlightened’, there is simply nobody to claim anything"

Listen to your heart in its totality …

"If one can know what god is, one need not know anything else, and if one knows everything else and has not come across god, all that is just absurd, meaningless; it is not going to take you anywhere"

"It is only out of totality that suddenly you feel the presence of God all around you. But the irony is that the split has been created by your so-called saints, priests and churches. In fact the priest has been the greatest enemy of God on the earth"

"Do what your nature wants to do, do what your intrinsic qualities hanker to do. Don’t listen to the scriptures, listen to your own heart; that is the only scripture I prescribe. Yes, listen very attentively, very consciously, and you will never be wrong. And listening to your own heart you will never be divided. Listening to your own heart you will start moving in the right direction, without ever thinking of what is right and what is wrong"

"Only silence communicates the truth as it is"

Before moving further some more about Osho…

OSHO’s Early Years

December 11,1931: Osho is born in Kuchwada, a small village in the state of Madhya Pradesh, central India on December 11,1931.

He was the eldest of eleven children of a Jaina cloth merchant. Stories of His early years describe Him as independent and rebellious as a child, questioning all social, religious and philosophical beliefs. As a youth He experiments with meditation techniques.

On March 21, 1953:  becomes enlightened at the age of twenty-one, while majoring in philosophy at D.N. Jain college in Jabalpur. Osho receives His M.A. from the University of Sagar with First Class Honors in Philosophy. He is then appointed Professor of Philosophy at the University of Jabalpur, where He taught until 1966.

A powerful and passionate debater, He also travels widely in India, speaking to large audiences and challenging orthodox religious leaders in public debates.

After nine years of teaching, He leaves the university to devote Himself entirely to the raising of human consciousness. On a regular basis, He begins to address gatherings 20,000 to 50,000 in the open-air maidans of India’s major cities. Four times a year He conducts intense ten-day meditation camps.

In 1970, the 14th of April, He introduces His revolutionary meditation technique, dynamic Meditation, which begins with a period of uninhibited movement and catharsis, followed by a period of silence and stillness. Since then this meditation technique has been used by psychotherapists, medical doctors, teachers and other professionals around the world .

 For Him it is not the material world that needs to be renounced but our past and the conditionings and belief systems that each generation imposes on the next. He continues to conduct meditation camps at Mount Abu in Rajasthan but stops accepting invitations to speak throughout the country. He devotes his energies entirely to the rapidly expanding group of sannyasins around Him.

At this time, the first Westerners begin to arrive and to be initiated into Neo-Sannyas. Among them are leading psychotherapists from the human potential movement in Europe and America, seeking the next step in their own inner growth. With Osho they experience new, original meditation techniques for contemporary man, synthesizing the wisdom of the East with the science of the West.

During  1974 - 1981, these seven years He gives a 90 minutes discourse nearly every morning, alternating every month between Hindi and English. His discourses offer insights into all the major spiritual paths, including Yoga, Zen, Taoism, Tantra and Sufism. He also speaks on Gautam Buddha, Jesus, Lao Tzu, and other mystics. These discourses have been collected into over 600 volumes and translated into 50 languages.

In the evenings, during these years, He answers questions on personal matters such as love, jealousy, meditation. These ‘darshans’ are compiled in 64 darshan diaries of which 40 are published.

1990 - Osho leaves His body

Osho leaves His body at 5 p.m. on January 1990.  His ashes were brought to Osho Commune International and placed in His samadhi in Chuang Tzu Auditorium with the inscription:

OSHO
Never Born
Never Died
Only Visited This Planet Earth Between

( A Parable

Freedom Parrot

A man, a great man, a fighter for freedom was traveling in the mountains. He stayed in a caravanserai for the night. He was amazed that in the caravanserai there was a beautiful parrot in a golden cage, continually repeating "Freedom! Freedom!" And it was such a place that when the parrot repeated the word "Freedom!" it would go on echoing in the valleys, in the mountains.

The man thought: "I have seen many parrots, and I have thought they must want to be free from those cages... but I have never seen such a parrot whose whole day, from the morning to the evening when he goes to sleep, is spent in calling out for freedom." He had an idea. In the middle of the night, when the owner was fast asleep, he got up and opened the door of the cage. He whispered to the parrot, "Now get out."

But he was very surprised that the parrot was clinging to the bars of the cage. He said to him again and again, "Have you forgotten about freedom? Just get out! The door is open and the owner is fast asleep; nobody will ever know. You just fly into the sky; the whole sky is yours."

But the parrot was clinging so deeply, so hard, that the man said, "What is the matter? Are you mad?" He tried to take the parrot out with his own hands, but the parrot started pecking at him, and at the same time he was shouting "Freedom! Freedom!" The valleys in the night echoed and re-echoed, but the man was also stubborn; he was a freedom fighter.

He pulled the parrot out and threw him into the sky; and he was very satisfied, although his hand was hurt. The parrot had attacked him as forcefully as he could, but the man was immensely satisfied that he had made a soul free. He went to sleep.

In the morning, as the man was waking up, he heart the parrot shouting, "Freedom! Freedom!" He thought perhaps the parrot must be sitting on a tree or on a rock. But when he came out, the parrot was sitting in the cage. The door was open.)

Living totally is goal

"The real man knows no other goal than life itself. Living totally is his goal; living moment to moment, intensely, passionately, hot, that is his goal. Then each moment becomes so precious, such a gift. And only when you know those gifts can you be thankful to god, can you feel grateful, can prayer arise in you"

"You will find meaning in life only if you create it. It is not lying there somewhere behind the bushes, so you can go and you search a little bit and find it. It is not there like a rock that you will find. It is a poetry to be composed, it is a song to be sung, it is a dance to be danced"

"Take hold of your own life. See that the whole existence is celebrating. These trees are not serious, these birds are not serious. The rivers and the oceans are wild, and everywhere there is fun, everywhere there is joy and delight. Watch existence, listen to the existence and become part of it"

"All you need is just to be watchful, and nothing will affect you. This unaffectedness will keep your purity, and this purity has certainly the freshness of life, the joy of existence - all the treasures you have been endowed with.

But you become attached to the small things surrounding you and forget the one that you are. It is the greatest discovery in life and the most ecstatic pilgrimage to truth. And you need not be an ascetic, you need not be anti-life; you need not renounce the world and go to the mountains. You can be where you are, you can continue to do what you are doing.

Just a new thing has to be evolved: Whatever you do, you do with awareness, even the smallest act of the body or the mind - and with each act of awareness you will become aware of the beauty and the treasure and the glory and the eternity of your being"

Everyone wants to be extraordinary…

"Everybody is after being extraordinary. That is the search of the ego: to be someone who is special, to be someone who is unique, incomparable.

And this is the paradox: the more you try to be exceptional, the more ordinary you look, because everybody is after extraordinariness. It is such an ordinary desire.

If you become ordinary, the very search to be ordinary is extraordinary, because rarely does somebody want to be just nobody, rarely does somebody want to be just a hollow, empty space. This is really extraordinary in a way, because nobody wants it. And when you become ordinary you become extraordinary, and, of course, suddenly you discover that without searching you have become unique"

As these Osho quotes make abundantly clear, Osho was not interested in creating beliefs in anyone or in imparting any kind of ideology. His whole effort was - as it has been with all the enlightened ones since the beginning of time - to provoke truth in us.

To quote Osho - "I know it is already there; it just needs a synchronicity. It just needs something to trigger the process of recognition in you."

( Some Parables by OSHO before we end ..

The Great Mystic Saint, Uwais Qarni, may God be pleased with him, was once asked, "How do you feel?"

He said, "like one who has arisen in the morning and does not know whether he will be dead in the evening."

The other man said, "But this is the situation of all men."

Uwais, the mad lover said, "YES, BUT HOW MANY OF THEM FEEL IT?"

Commentary: Now many things have to be understood.

First, when Uwais said, "like one who has arisen in the morning and does not know whether he will be dead in the evening," he is saying many things. It is a very pregnant statement. You will have to go deep into it.

First he is saying that a Sufi lives moment by moment; he does not bother about what is going to happen the next moment. He has no plan for the next moment. A Sufi has no future. This moment is all. She or he lives in it, s/he lives totally in it, because there is nowhere else to go. You cannot live totally in the moment if you have a future – a part of your being will be flowing towards the future, naturally.

If you have a past you cannot live in the present – part of your mind will be flowing towards the past. You will become fragmented. The major part of your being will remain hanging somewhere in the past and the remaining greater part will have already moved somewhere in future. Nothing will he left for the present. And the present is so small, so atomic, that you can miss it very easily. People are missing it. People have pasts and people have futures, people don’t have any present.

The Sufi lives in the present. To live in the present the basic need is to withdraw yourself from the past, to withdraw yourself from the future. Then there comes a concentration of energies, then this small moment becomes luminous, you pour your total energy into it – then there is joy and benediction. If you are miserable it is only because you live in the past and in the future. A miserable man has past and future, a man who lives in bliss has only the moment, this moment. He lives in the now.)

…………………..

BUNDLE OF MISERY

There is a Sufi parable:

A man used to call every night to God and he would pray the same prayer. Again and again he would ask, “Do one favor for me, at least one favor — and I have been asking my whole life. As far as I can see, I am the most miserable man on the earth. Why have you chosen me to be the most miserable? I am ready to exchange my misery with anybody else, anybody will do — just let me exchange my misery with somebody else. I don’t ask for bliss. Can’t you give me only this single opportunity to exchange my misery with somebody else? This is not asking much!”

And one night in a dream he saw God had spoken. A great voice came from the heavens saying, “Gather all of your miseries into bundles and bring them to the temple hall.”

So the whole town gathers their miseries into big bundles and they bring them. This man is tremendously happy: “So the moment has come! It seems something is going to happen!”

He rushes with his bundle. On the way he finds others also are rushing. By the time he reaches to the temple he becomes afraid, very afraid, because he sees people are carrying bigger bundles than his. People that he had always seen smiling — Rotarians, Lions — in beautiful clothes and always saying nice things to each other, and they are carrying bigger bundles! He starts becoming a little hesitant whether to go or not to go, but he has been praying his whole life, so he says, “Let us see what happens.”

They enter into the temple. The voice says, “Put your bundles around the hall.” They put their bundles, and the voice says again, “Now you can choose any bundle that you like.”

And the miracle of miracles happens: everybody rushes to his own bundle! This man also rushes so fast towards his own bundle, afraid that if somebody else chooses it then he will be at a loss. Everybody has chosen his own bundle, with great relief and they are all happy, carrying their bundles back to their homes. Even this man is very happy, for the simple reason that “Who knows what is in the other’s bundle? At least we are aware of our own bundle and what it contains. And we have become accustomed, we have become adjusted to our misery.”

As told by Osho in “The Dhammapada: The way of the Buddha”

……….

A SERVANT IN BAGHDAD

An ancient Sufi parable:

A rich merchant in Baghdad sent his servant one day to the marketplace to buy food. But after a few minutes the servant returned looking panic-stricken.

“Master!” he cried. “You must lend me your best horse immediately, so that I may flee to Damascus and thereby escape my fate.”

“Whatever is the matter?” asked the merchant.

“I went to the marketplace and I saw Death standing there among the stallholders!” exclaimed the servant. “He made a hostile gesture at me and started walking towards me. I beg you, lend me your best horse so that I may flee to Damascus and escape.”

The merchant was a kind man and he did as his servant asked. Then he himself walked down to the marketplace to see if the story was true. Sure enough, Death was standing in the crowd.

“Why did you make a hostile gesture at my servant?” asked the merchant.

“I made no gesture of hostility,” replied Death. “I was simply very surprised to see him, for I have an appointment with him tonight… in Damascus.”

You cannot escape. Wherever you go you will find your death waiting for you. Yes, it can be prolonged, postponed, but what is the point? Rather than postponing, why not use this opportunity of becoming aware of death — that it is approaching, that it is on the way, that any moment you will be in its grip. Don’t ask for the horse and don’t try to go to Damascus. You cannot escape. The only way is to transcend, not to escape

We end with these  .)

(OSHO meditation Centre at Pune is located at :

OSHO International Foundation
17 Koregaon Park,
Pune 411001, Maharashtra
India
Tel: +91 20 6601 9999
Fax: +91 20 6601 9990