A professor of philosophy, he travelled throughout India in the 1960s as a public speaker, raising controversy by speaking against socialism, Mahatma Gandhi, and institutionalised religion. He advocated a more open attitude towards sexuality, a stance that earned him the sobriquet "sex guru" in the Indian and later the international press.[1] In 1970, he settled for a while in Mumbai. He began initiating disciples (known as neo-sannyasins) and took on the role of a spiritual teacher. In his discourses, he reinterpreted writings of religious traditions, mystics and philosophers from around the world. Moving to Pune in 1974, he established an ashram that attracted increasing numbers of Westerners. The ashram offered therapies derived from the Human Potential Movement to its Western audience and made news in India and abroad, chiefly because of its permissive climate and Osho's provocative lectures. By the end of the 1970s, there were mounting tensions with the Indian government and the surrounding society.
In 1981, Osho relocated to the United States, and his followers established an intentional community, later known as Rajneeshpuram, in the state of Oregon. Within a year, the leadership of the commune became embroiled in a conflict with local residents, primarily over land use, which was marked by bitter hostility on both sides. In this period Osho attracted notoriety for his large collection of Rolls-Royce motorcars. The Oregon commune collapsed in 1985, when Osho revealed that the commune leadership had committed a number of serious crimes, including a bioterror attack on the citizens of The Dalles. Shortly after, Osho was arrested and charged with immigration violations. He was deported from the United States in accordance with a plea bargain.[2][3][4] Following an enforced world tour during which twenty-one countries denied him entry, Osho returned to Pune, where he died in 1990. His ashram is today known as the Osho International Meditation Resort.
Osho's syncretic teachings emphasise the importance of meditation, awareness, love, celebration, creativity and humour – qualities that he viewed as being suppressed by adherence to static belief systems, religious tradition and socialisation. His teachings have had a notable impact on Western New Age thought,[5][6] and their popularity has increased markedly since his death.[7][8]
Ego and the mind
Osho's view is of man as a machine that is limited to acting out of unconscious, neurotic patterns, and reflects the viewpoint of Gurdjieff and Freud.[154][155] His vision of the "new man" who transcends the constraints of convention is reminiscent of Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil.[156] His views on sexual liberation bear comparison to the thought of D. H. Lawrence.[157] And while his contemporary Jiddu Krishnamurti did not approve of Osho, there are clear similarities between their respective teachings.[154]
Osho taught that every human being is a potential Buddha, with the capacity for enlightenment.[158][159] He believed that everyone is capable of experiencing unconditional love; and in so doing, responding rather than reacting to life: "You are truth. You are love. You are bliss. You are freedom.".[158] He suggested that it is possible to experience innate divinity and to be conscious of one's true identity, even though the ego usually prevents this from happening: "When the ego is gone, the whole individuality arises in its crystal purity.".[158]
The ego, according to Osho, represents the social conditioning and constraints a person has accumulated since birth, creating false needs that are in conflict with one's true self.[160] "The whole of religion is nothing but that: dropping the ego, disappearing as your own master ... Then life becomes such a grace; because all tension arises out of ego ... all anxiety, anguish, despair, frustration. All illness of the mind is because we have taken this wrong attitude ... Dissolve yourself as a separate entity. Become part of the cosmic whole."[160] Osho believed that the ego stands in the way of self-discovery.[158][160]
Osho viewed the mind primarily as a mechanism for survival, replicating behavioural strategies that have proved successful in the past.[158][160] However, he felt that the mind's appeal to the past deprived people of the ability to live authentically in the present.[158][160] As a result, individuals continually repressed their genuine emotions, shutting themselves off from joyful experiences that arise naturally when embracing the present moment.[160][161] The result, he stated, was that people poison themselves with all manner of neuroses, jealousies and insecurities.[162]
In the case of sexual feelings, Osho believed that repression only makes these feelings re-emerge in another guise, and that the final result was a society that was obsessed with sex.[162] Instead of suppressing, Osho argued, people should trust and accept themselves unconditionally. "We have been repressing anger, greed, sex [...] And that's why every human being is stinking. [...] Let it become manure, [...] and you will have great flowers blossoming in you."[160][161] This unconditional acceptance was not a matter to be understood intellectually, he said, as the mind would only assimilate it as another piece of information; instead, he suggested meditation as a practical solution.[162]
Meditation
According to Osho, meditation is not just a practice, but a state of awareness that can be maintained in every moment.[160][162] He taught that this total awareness awakens an individual from sleep and mechanical responses to stimuli, conditioned by beliefs and expectations.[160] Osho employed Western psychotherapy as a means of preparing for meditation, and also introduced his own meditation techniques, which he referred to as "Active Meditations".[163][164] These meditation techniques are characterised by alternating stages of physical activity and silence.[163] In all, he suggested over a hundred meditation techniques.[163][164]
The most famous of these is his first, referred to as OSHO Dynamic Meditation.[163][164] It comprises five stages that are accompanied by music (except for stage 4).[165] In the first, the person engages in ten minutes of rapid breathing through the nose.[165] The second ten minutes are for catharsis: "[L]et whatever is happening happen. ... Laugh, shout, scream, jump, shake – whatever you feel to do, do it!"[163][165] For the next ten minutes, the person jumps up and down with their arms raised, shouting Hoo! each time they land on the flats of their feet.[165][166] In the fourth, silent stage, the person freezes, remaining completely motionless for fifteen minutes, and witnessing everything that is happening to them.[165][166] The last stage of the meditation consists of fifteen minutes of dancing and celebration.[165][166]
There are other "active meditation" techniques, like "OSHO Kundalini Meditation" and "OSHO Nadabrahma Meditation", which are less animated, although they also include physical activity.[163] His final formal technique is called "OSHO Mystic Rose", comprising three hours of laughing every day for the first week, three hours of weeping each day for the second, with the third week for silent meditation.[167] The result of these processes is said to be the experience of "witnessing", enabling the "jump into awareness".[163] Osho believed such cathartic methods were necessary, since it was very difficult for people of today to just sit and be in meditation.
Another key ingredient of his teaching is his own presence as a master: "A Master shares his being with you, not his philosophy. ... He never does anything to the disciple."[152] He delighted in being paradoxical and engaging in behaviour that seemed entirely at odds with traditional images of enlightened individuals.[152] All such behaviour, however capricious and difficult to accept, was explained as "a technique for transformation" to push people "beyond the mind."[152] The initiation he offered his followers was another such device: "... if your being can communicate with me, it becomes a communion. ... It is the highest form of communication possible: a transmission without words. Our beings merge. This is possible only if you become a disciple."[152] Ultimately though, Osho even deconstructed his own authority.[168] He emphasised that anything and everything could become an opportunity for meditation.[152]
Renunciation and the "New Man"
Osho saw his neo-sannyas as a new form of spiritual discipline, or one that had once existed but since been forgotten.[169] He felt that the traditional Hindu sannyas had turned into a mere system of social renunciation and imitation.[169] His neo-sannyas emphasised complete inner freedom and responsibility of the individual to himself, demanding no superficial behavioral changes but a deeper, inner transformation.[169]
Osho hoped to create what he called "a new man", combining the spirituality of Gautama Buddha with the zest for life embodied by Zorba the Greek (from the novel by Nikos Kazantzakis).[152] It was Osho's view that "Zorba the Buddha" should reject neither science nor spirituality, but embrace them both.[152] It was his intention that the "new man" should be "all for matter, and all for spirit."[170]
“He should be as accurate and objective as a scientist [...] as sensitive, as full of heart, as a poet [...] [and as] rooted deep down in his being as the mystic.[152][171]”
His term the "new man" applied to men and women equally, whose roles he saw as complementary; most of his movement's leadership positions were held by women.[151] He said that the "new man" would no longer be trapped in institutions such as family, marriage, political ideologies, or religions.[151][153] In this respect, Osho has much in common with other counter-culture gurus, as well as postmodern and deconstructional thinkers.[153]
Osho said that he was "the rich man's guru" and taught that material poverty was not a genuine spiritual value.[172] He had himself photographed wearing sumptuous clothing and hand-made watches,[173] and while in Oregon drove a different Rolls-Royce each day.[90] His followers had reportedly wanted to buy him 365 of them, one for each day of the year.[90] Publicity shots of the Rolls-Royces (93 in the end) were sent to the press.[172][174] As a conscious display of wealth, they reflected both Osho's acceptance of the material world and his desire to provoke American sensibilities, much as he had enjoyed offending Indian sensibilities earlier.[170][172]
Osho's "Ten Commandments"
In 1970, when he was still known as Acharya Rajneesh, Osho was asked about his "Ten Commandments".[175][176] In his letter of reply, Osho noted that it was a difficult matter, because he was against any kind of commandment, but "just for fun" agreed to set out the following:[175]
“
1. Never obey anyone's command unless it is coming from within you also.
2. There is no God other than life itself.
3. Truth is within you, do not search for it elsewhere.
4. Love is prayer.
5. To become a nothingness is the door to truth. Nothingness itself is the means, the goal and attainment.
6. Life is now and here.
7. Live wakefully.
8. Do not swim – float.
9. Die each moment so that you can be new each moment.
10. Do not search. That which is, is. Stop and see.
”
He underlined numbers 3, 7, 9 and 10.[175] The ideas expressed in these Commandments have remained a constant leitmotif in his movement.[175]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osho
http://www.ashejournal.com/index.php?id=151
http://truthaboutosho.blogspot.com/2007/09/christopher-calderkrishna-christ-and.html
http://samdjordison.blogspot.com/2006/04/osho.html?showComment=1150847220000#c115084723263539843
Meditations for Contemporary People:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-613021187886978268
Marriage and Children:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ocbZhRQS9I
Osho - Bhagwan, The Movie:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1916549395176220097&ei=pAmESvCfLZrQ-Abej5TgDw&q=osho
"There are two types of love. One is the love that happens when you are feeling lonely: as a need, you go to the other. The other love arises when you are not feeling lonely, but alone. In the first case you go to get something; in the second case you go to give something. A giver is an emperor."
"Hindus say, Anam Brahma, food is divine, a gift from God. With deep respect you eat, and while eating you forget everything else, because eating is prayer. It is existential prayer. You are eating God, and God is going to give you nourishment. It is a gift to be accepted with deep love and gratitude."
