Osho...Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh

Osho...(Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh)
born in 11th December 1931 in India, Chandra Mohan Jain (Hindi: चन्द्र मोहन जैन), and died in 19th January, 1990. (aged 58)

He said, "my effort is to bring man back to his natural self. I will be condemned, I will be criticized. Every religion, every tradition, every morality, every ethical code is going to condemn me. That does not surprise me! I expect it, because what I am saying and doing is changing the very course of human consciousness."

Influenced: Jivan Jagruti Andolan, Neo- Sannyas

Works: Over 600 books, and audios & video discourses.

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 struggle of power and politics, from the challenges of love and creativity to the significance of science and education.

He has an uncanny ability to translate ancient teachings into modern day understandings. He speaks on a vast array of spiritual traditions, such as Christianity, Sufism, Hassidism, Zen, Taoism and Buddhism. He also shares stories of the colorful history of mystics from all over the world!

Some of my favourties:

Remember that you are only a watcher.
You are neither the body nor the mind,
but only a mirror reflecting, without any judgment,
a pure reflection of the moon in the lake.

Witnessing is a key word for all meditators.
Witness that you are not the body...
Witness that you are not the mind...
Witness that you are only a witness.

Man is mind...

The word ‘man’ itself comes from the Sanskrit root man, which means mind. If you understand the workings of the mind, you will understand the reality of man and the possibility too. If you understand the inner mechanism of the mind, you will understand the past of man, the present and the future too.

Man in himself is not a being but a passage. In himself man is not a being, because man is continuously a becoming. There is no rest in being a man. Rest is below man or above man.

Below is nature, above is God. Man is just in between – a link, a ladder. You cannot rest on a ladder, you cannot stop on the ladder. The ladder cannot become your abode. Man has to be surpassed, man has to be transcended.

Man is a journey between your two infinities. One is your nature, one infinity; another is your hidden God, the other infinity. And man is just between the two, a ferry boat. Use it, but don’t be confined by it. Use it, but don’t be defined by it. Always remember that you have to go beyond.

That’s exactly what man is: a disease, a constant tension – to be or not to be, to be this or to be that – a constant fight between the soul and the body, the lower and the higher, unconsciousness and consciousness. To understand man as a conflict, to understand man as a constant tension will help immensely, because then you stop clinging to man as such. Rather, on the contrary, you start thinking ’How to go beyond, how to transcend, how to surpass?’

Friedrich Nietzsche is right when he says that man is the only animal who tries to surpass himself, the only animal who can surpass himself. It is the greatest miracle in the world: to surpass oneself. But it has happened. It can happen in you! You are a great promise, a project, an adventure. But don’t start thinking about yourself as if you have arrived. Then you cling somewhere in between, and a part of you will be pulled to one side and the other part to another side – you will be torn apart. And you will remain in anguish, and your existence will be nothing but a long on-going nightmare.

The first state of mind we can call ‘pre-mind’. It exists in a very small child – very primitive, animal-like. Hence the beauty of the children, and the innocence, and the grace – because that anxiety which we call man has not yet evolved. The child is at ease. The child is not yet a traveller; he has yet not left his home in search for some other home. The pilgrimage has not started yet. The child is at rest – perfectly at ease and happy to be whatsoever he is. That’s why his eyes have no anxiety, and the child has a certain grace around him.

But this grace is going to be lost. This grace cannot stay forever, because it is unconscious, because it has not been earned, because it is a natural gift, and the child is completely oblivious to it. He cannot hold onto it. How can you hold onto something when you are unconscious of it? It has to be lost. The only way to gain it is to lose it. The child will have to go into corruption, into perversion. The child will have to go into the cunningness of the mind, and then the child will understand that he has lost something – something immensely valuable. But one can know it only when it is lost. There is no other way to know it. Then the search starts.

Something has been lost, something has been forgotten, something was there which is no more there; something is being missed, and one starts searching for it. here is no responsibility, because a child knows nothing of duty, the child knows nothing of values, virtues. The child knows nothing of sainthood, so he is not aware of sin either. He exists before the diversion, he exists before those two paths of sin and sainthood diverge, separate and go apart. He is in a kind of primitive unity. The child loses his innocence, loses his virginity, loses nature and becomes part of the civilised world – really becomes man.

And yet in anger we become more childish, in love we become more childish. Listen to the dialogue of two lovers, and you will find it very childish. Remember your own memories when you first fell in love: how you behaved, what you said to your beloved or your lover, and you will find childishness. Or remember when somebody provokes you and you become angry – you start doing things which are very illogical, unintelligent, undisciplined, chaotic. You repent for them later on, because later on, when the second layer comes back, the second layer repents for the first layer. When the civilized mind comes back, takes hold again, it repents. It says ‘It was not good of me. It was not good to do what I did.’ You regret...

People said about Osho..

"He is an enlightened master who is working with all possibilities to help humanity overcome a difficult phase in developing consciousness." -The Dalai Lama

"I was inspired by Osho's wisdom when I wrote the song 'How Fragile We All Are'. Reading his books gave me hope for humanity. It is a must for everybody to have a look into his words ....." - Sting, Singer & Performer

References/Bibliography:

http://www.osho.com/

http://www.oshoinuk.com/

http://www.oshoworld.com/

http://www.facebook.com/osho.international.meditation.resort

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Osho/107845722578322