01:01
7/17/2008
12:45 PM
Page 84
TIMES AUGUST 2008
T H E
M A G A Z I N E
F O R
C O N S C I O U S
Misunderstanding Relating
Questions Lovers Ask Wellness
Breath: The Natural Way to Start OSHO International Foundation
RS. 30
L I V I N G
02-03:02-03
7/17/2008
12:46 PM
Page 2
osho.com
New and fresh
OSHO International Foundation
04-05:04-05
7/17/2008
12:46 PM
Page 4
EDITORIAL
OSHOTIMES
We are continually misunderstanding each other.
I can live only with my own experience, as others live with theirs. We talk about the same things, but no two individuals have the same experience of anything. Even sipping a cup of tea! The word we put on it is only a label. When I talk of love I speak of my love, and another person will understand what happened to their life in love. I am conditioned to be a vegetarian, and I can never know how a non-vegetarian tastes their food. The challenge is to bring my experience across to another person, and to understand their experience. Our use of words is also changing. Web used to mean cobweb, yet today people’s first thought is likely to be World Wide Web.There used to be no word software, and hardware was what you use in plumbing. I was traveling recently and thought I’d get a local SIM card at the airport. I saw Mobile and walked up to the counter only to find it was a car-rental. Actually the bigger human problem is that we don’t want to acknowledge our misunderstanding, and this prevents us from learning from it. In the August Cover Story Osho shows many facets of Misunderstanding, and how to be together with others in harmony. In When Words Get in the Way he talks about how the mind as such is nothing but misunderstanding, and that we’re half awake and half asleep. If we want to understand we need to listen without the interference of the mind in our communications. In our language itself there are filters. One of these is generalization. I once had a bad experience with a car mechanic. He over-charged me, so I went to another and he did the same.With a third the same again – and the fourth time I didn’t even look at the guy; I just took it for granted he was charging too much and not doing good work. I had stopped seeing the person himself…and that’s what we all do. There are many other filters like this; we distort, we delete. If something painful is said to me, I delete it so it doesn’t reach me. Creating Understanding explains that if we can listen with a silent mind, we can be present and available to hear the truth. That’s what we’re practicing every day in the Evening Meeting at the Meditation Resort.What I’m discovering there is that whenever there is genuine understanding, when something really reaches me, my mind stops and there is no question, no query: I got it. Just silence…meditation. Then there is a beauty, a harmony in people – and everyone feels it. . Devendra and the OSHO Times team 4 OSHO TIMES
VOL. 6, ISSUE 12
AUGUST 2008
CONTENTS COVER STORY: Misunderstanding
®
Printed and published by Mukesh Sarda on behalf of OSHO Multimedia & Resorts Pvt. Ltd. and printed at Silverpoint Press Pvt. Ltd., Nerul, Navi Mumbai 400706 and published at OSHO Multimedia & Resorts Pvt. Ltd., 17 Koregaon Park, Pune 411001. Editor: Ma Amrit Sadhana
24
When Words Get in the Way
28
The Truth Is Hard to Swallow
31
Creating Understanding
32
The Religious Mind
36
In a Few Words
ASSISTANT EDITOR: Gandha FEATURES EDITOR: Jeevan EDITORIAL SUPPORT: Almasta, Anuprada,
Chetna, Prem, Satyam CONSULTING: Sanjay DESIGN: Achambho,Varda PHOTOGRAPHY: Anandadas, Barkha, Fiann PRODUCTION: Santosh ADVERTISING: Vairagya Thank you to the meditators who were our models. Headlines and text introductions are written by the editors. All photos used in this issue were taken at the OSHO International Meditation Resort in Pune, India. First Publication Copyright © 1953 OSHO International Foundation. Copyright © All revisions 1953 – 2008 OSHO International Foundation. All rights reserved. OSHO, OSHO Signature, OSHO Dynamic Meditation, OSHO Kundalini Meditation, OSHO Nataraj Meditation, OSHO Nadabrahma Meditation, OSHO Gourishankar Meditation, OSHO Mandala Meditation, OSHO Whirling Meditation, OSHO Mystic Rose, OSHO Born Again, OSHO No-Mind, OSHO Reminding Yourself of the Forgotten Language of Talking to Your BodyMind and OSHO Times are Registered Trademarks and Trademarks of OSHO International Foundation, used under license.
REGULAR COLUMNS Editorial
4
Short ’n Sharp
6
I’m confused!
Relating
8
Questions lovers ask
Meditation of the Month
14
Alone in the crowd
Interview
16
Taking a risk
Osho on…
20
The fear of change
OSHO International Publishing 38
The Book of Understanding
Impressions
40
Monsoon
Working Life
49
A chance to enhance my life
Rebel Books
52
The Man of Truth
The Future Belongs to Those Who Will Love Change…
54
This Beautiful Earth
56
Being Here
59
Haiku
60
Changes, changes, changes
Wellness
62
Breath: the natural way to start
OSHO Multiversity
65 66
Individual OSHO Sessions OSHO Courses and Trainings
In the News
68
I Have Heard
71
…But not understanding
Jokes
72
A little bit of misunderstanding….
Astrology
80
Contact us OSHO International Meditation Resort 17 Koregaon Park, Pune 411 001, MS, India Tel: +91 (0)20 6601 9999 Fax: +91 (0)20 6601 9990 Web: www.osho.com Email: OshoTimes@osho.net For further information
Chillies OSHO Times subscriptions: OTsubs@osho.net OSHO Multiversity: Multiversity@osho.net osho.com/multiversity Guesthouse: guesthouse@osho.com reservations@osho.com Residential Program: workmedtraining@osho.net osho.com/residentialprogram Sannyas: www.neosannyas.org Resort information: Resortinfo@osho.net OSHO International Foundation
82
Nothing higher, nothing lower
Books also available online at
osho.com/ebooks
August 2008 5
06-07:06-07
7/17/2008
12:47 PM
Page 6
SHORT ’N SHARP
Confusion simply means you have started thinking, you have started being an individual on your own. Confusion is not a bad state at all. Every seeker has to When there is confusion, there can be certainty; when confusion disappears, certainty also disappears. It is the most beautiful moment in one’s life when there is neither confusion nor certainty. One simply is, a mirror reflecting that which is, with no direction, going nowhere, with no idea of doing something, with no future, just utterly in the moment, tremendously in the moment.
start with confusion.
Confusion is part of life. Only dead people are never confused. Confusion simply says that you are still alive, you are still growing.
I’m Confused! We don’t think of confusion as a desirable state. But it can be a great gift, a sign that old rigidities and limitations are coming unstuck.
It is good that you are feeling a little confused. That shows the beginning of intelligence, because unless you have some intelligence you cannot be confused.
Whenever you are confused, that simply shows that you have come against something in yourself which needs to be changed.You have come across a block – that block has to be dissolved. Somewhere you have some habit, some pattern, some structure that is creating trouble; that structure can be changed. Don’t be worried!
Whatsoever you are doing, do it playfully, don’t be serious about it. And then there will be no question of confusion.
The heart never gets confused;
The moment you accept that I don’t know, all confusion will disappear, simply evaporate – just as dewdrops evaporate in the early morning sun, leaving no trace behind them.
it simply knows.
Life has tremendous mystery in it because it is based on paradox. You are feeling confused because you have a certain fixed idea about how life should be – you don’t allow life to be as it is. The confusion is of your own creation. All excerpts are from OSHO books
6 OSHO TIMES
August 2008 7 OSHO International Foundation
08-13:08-13
7/17/2008
12:48 PM
Page 8
Questions
RELATING
Lovers
Ask
Jealousy and possessiveness, the longing and the fear of intimacy, conflicting emotions – our relationships are wonderful devices to help love grow.
“I love him and at the same time I hate him. I want to go away and I don’t want to ever leave him. I have never known anything like this before!” So you are really in love! Love is the only problem. Once
love is not there, there is no problem left. There is nothing else left. Love brings both – the peaks and the valleys. The higher the peaks, the deeper will be the valley. One has to learn to accept the negative part of it; it is always there. If you want to drop the negative part, the only way to drop it is to drop the positive part, but then the whole love is dropped.You cannot 8 OSHO TIMES
August 2008 9 OSHO International Foundation
08-13:08-13
7/17/2008
12:48 PM
Page 10
RELATING drop just the hate part. Love is not just a love relationship; it is love-hate relationship. It is being in a constant turmoil. There will be moments of peace just as there are moments of peace in war. And against the background of the conflict, when those moments come they are beautiful. Against the noise comes that silence, and it is beautiful. But something very basic in it needs to be understood: if you love a person you want to come close, but there is only a point up to which you can come close. Beyond that the privacy of the other person starts. The moment you start interfering with his privacy or he starts interfering with your privacy, fighting starts. We allow the other only to a certain extent – and nothing can be done about it – otherwise your soul will be destroyed. He wants you to be close to him but he does not want to be completely effaced. Otherwise you will take him inside you.Then he will become afraid: “This woman is going to kill me!” You would like him to be very close to you but only to a certain extent. And by and by you will know, you will watch and you will see where the point comes where you start overlapping on him or he starts overlapping on you. Immediately the energy changes: you start pushing him, you start going away. That’s part of it; you have to go away. When you are again distant to a certain extent, you start feeling love for the other and you would like to come close.That’s why it feels like being a yo-yo, but love is a yo-yo. It is coming together just to separate again; it is going apart just to come back again. That coming together and the joy of it depends on going away. If you don’t go away, then you are stuck; then there will be no joy. It is just like you eat; then for six, eight hours you fast.You cannot go on eating twenty-four hours a day. Otherwise all joy of eating will be destroyed – you will feel nausea. So for six, eight hours you forget about food – again hunger is there...and you will eat! And the moment you eat, the hunger starts disappearing.
Love is food for the soul. You cannot eat it for twenty-four hours a day. So a real love affair is a constant honeymoon/divorce, honeymoon/divorce. That way it goes – like a yo-yo. So it is perfectly good! If you want a love affair this is how it is to be. If you want a marriage – nice, secure, no fight, nothing, goody-goody – then you can manage that too. But that is not worth much. One has to pay for every joy, remember it! You cannot avoid paying.The fight is the payment, the price. If you desire that joy of being together, of melting and merging into each other, then you will have to suffer the pain of going away again and again. And remember: love is the only problem! Once you have gone beyond love the world is finished; then you will not be coming back into the world again. That is nirvana – gone forever. Excerpted from Don’t Just Do Something, Sit There, Osho
“I have been with my boyfriend for two years and we enjoy being together, but if he goes with other women I freak out. This emotion is so strong that I’m afraid I will destroy the beauty of our relating.” It is not so easy to surpass the jealousy part.
In fact man becomes transcendental to jealousy only when he becomes transcendental to love too. They both go together! I have never come across a man who has transcended jealousy and is still hankering for love. Why should he be? One can be loving but that will be a totally different kind of love – more like a friendship or compassion. It will not be a relationship. Because you need a relationship, there is jealousy. Because there is a great need for relationship there is great fear. Somebody may enter and take away the relationship. So the triangle always keeps one hanging. One is never really settled, the relationship is never really settled; something is always there. The person is divided and a relationship wants total involvement.
The moment you start interfering with his privacy or he starts interfering with your privacy, fighting starts. We allow the other only to a certain extent – and nothing can be done about it – otherwise your soul will be destroyed.
If he is not totally involved with you, how can you be totally involved with him? It is a reciprocal thing, a mutual thing. He is only half involved; how can you be totally involved? At the most you can be half involved. Then your other part, the remaining half, goes on burning and will go on finding reasons, excuses, to be unhappy. There will always be something missing in the relationship because you know that there is somebody else too; you are not alone. One can surpass jealousy but in surpassing it, one surpasses the very desire for a relationship.Then there is a totally different kind of love. It is not a relationship; it is simply that you give out of your abundance.You give because you have it. You don’t bother about whether it is responded to or not, whether the person even says thank you or not, whether he loves you or not, whether he loves somebody else or not. These are all irrelevant. Excerpted from Only Losers Can Win in this Game, Osho
10 OSHO TIMES
“Lately I have begun to realize how even my lover is a stranger to me. It almost feels as if we are lines running parallel to each other. There is an intense longing to overcome the separation between us. Is there a chance that parallels can meet?” It is one of the great miseries that every lover has to face. There is no way for lovers to drop their
strangeness, unfamiliarity, separation. In fact, the whole functioning of love is that lovers should be polar opposites. The farther away they are, the more attractive. Their separation is their attraction. They come very close, but they never become one.They come so close that it almost feels like just one step more and they will become one. But that step has never been taken, cannot be taken – out of sheer necessity, out of a natural law. There is a longing to be one, but on the level of biology, on the level of the body, becoming one is August 2008 11
OSHO International Foundation
08-13:08-13
7/17/2008
12:48 PM
Page 12
RELATING not possible. Even while making love you are not one; separation on the physical level is inevitable. Only on the level of the heart, can you become one – but only momentarily, not permanently. At the level of being, you are one.There is no need to become one; it has only to be discovered. Even the heart-to-heart meeting – although sweet, although immensely joyful – is still insufficient, because it happens only for a moment and then strangers are strangers again. Unless you discover the
world of being, you will not be able to fulfill your longing of becoming one. And the strange fact is, the day you become one with your lover, you will become one with the whole existence too. Perhaps you don’t know non-Euclidean geometry because it is still not taught in our educational institutes. We are still taught Euclidean geometry, which is two thousand years old. In Euclidian geometry, parallel lines never meet. But it has been found that if you go on and on and on they meet. The latest
If lovers could satisfy their longing of becoming one at the physical level, they would never look upwards. They would never try to find that there was much more hidden in the physical body – consciousness, the soul, the divine. It is good that love fails, because the failure of love is bound to take you on a new pilgrimage.
finding is that there are no parallel lines; that’s why they meet.You cannot create two parallel lines. The new findings are very strange: you cannot even create a straight line because the earth is round. If you create a straight line here, if you go on drawing it from both ends and go on and go on, finally you will find it has become a circle. And if a straight line drawn to the ultimate becomes a circle it was not a straight line in the first place; it was only part of a very big circle and a part of a big circle is an arc, not a line. Lines have disappeared in the new, non-Euclidean geometry and when there are no lines, what to say about parallel lines? There are no parallel lines, either. So if it were a question of parallel lines, there is a chance that lovers could meet somewhere – perhaps in old age when they cannot fight, they don’t have any energy left; or they have become so accustomed... what is the point? The same arguments, the same problems, the same conflicts – they both are bored with each other. If lovers could satisfy their longing of becoming one at the level of physical body, they would never look upwards. They would never try to find that there was much more hidden in the physical body – consciousness, the soul, the divine. It is good that love fails, because the failure of love is bound to take you on a new pilgrimage. The longing will haunt you until it brings you to the temple where the meeting happens. But the meeting always happens with the whole...in which your lover will be, but in which the trees will also be, and the rivers and the mountains and the stars. In that meeting, only two things will not be there: your ego will not be there, and your lover’s ego will not be there. Other than these two things, the whole existence will be there. And these two egos were really the problem; they were what was making the two parallel lines. It is not love that is creating the trouble, it is the ego. But the longing will not be satisfied. Birth after birth, life after life, the longing will remain there unless you discover the right door to go beyond the body and to enter the temple. Just keep your longing burning, aflame; don’t lose heart.Your longing is the seed of your spirituality.Your longing is the beginning of the ultimate union with existence. Your lover is just an excuse. Excerpted from
“My jealousy is so ugly. How can I diminish it?” Diminishing is not the right process. That’s what you have done to your life: you have diminished everything. When you diminish jealousy, your love will be diminished, because your love and jealousy are so much entangled with each other. If you diminish sadness, your happiness will be diminished, because your happiness and sadness are so much together. If you diminish hate, your love will disappear – that’s what has happened. You have been taught not to hate and the total result is that you have become incapable of love. Please don’t diminish anything. That is not the way. Rather, magnify, exaggerate, bring it to its total blossoming and then see every minute detail of it. Don’t repress it, express it. Sit in your room, close the doors, bring your jealousy into focus. Watch it, see it, let it take as strong a flame as possible. Let it become a strong flame, burn into it and see what it is. And don’t say from the very beginning that this is ugly, because that very idea that this is ugly will repress it, will not allow it total expression. No opinions! Just try to see the existential effect of what jealousy is, the existential fact. No interpretations, no ideologies! Forget everything else and just let the jealousy be there. Look into it, look deeply into it and so do with anger, so do with sadness, hatred, possessiveness. And by and by you will see that just by seeing through things you start getting a transcendental feeling that you are just a witness; the identity is broken. The identity is broken only when you encounter something within you. Excerpted from Tao:The Pathless Path, Osho
The Hidden Splendor, Osho 12 OSHO TIMES
August 2008 13 OSHO International Foundation
14-15:14-15
7/17/2008
12:49 PM
Page 14
MEDITATION OF THE MONTH
Alone in the Crowd A key to inner transformation.
Abide in some place endlessly spacious, clear of trees, hills, habitations. Thence comes the end of mind pressures.
This technique is concerned with loneliness.
To be alone is basic, foundational – that is how your being is. In the mother’s womb you are alone, totally alone, and psychologists say that the hankering for nirvana, for enlightenment, for salvation, for paradise, is really a deep imprinted memory of the experience of the mother’s womb.You have known it – the total aloneness – and the bliss of it. You were alone. No one else was there. No one disturbed you, no one interfered. Alone, you were the master. This sutra is simple: Abide in some place endlessly spacious – on some hilltop from where you can see endlessly, from where the vision never comes to any end. If you can see endlessly and there is no end to your vision, the ego will dissolve. Ego needs limits, boundaries. The more defined the boundaries, the easier it is for the ego to exist. Mind is very subtle.You can live on a hilltop where there is no one, but if you can see a cottage deep down in the valley you will start talking with that cottage, you will be in relationship with it – the society has come.You don’t know who lives there, but someone lives there, and that becomes the boundary – you will start dreaming about who lives there and your eyes will search each day to see who lives there. The cottage will become a symbol of humanity. So the sutra says without habitations – even without trees, because it has been known that people who live alone start talking with trees.They make friendships, they create a dialogue. You cannot understand the difficulty of a man who has gone to be lonely. He wants someone so he will say “Hello” to the tree and “How are you?”And trees are beings. If you are really honest, they will start replying, there will be a response. So you can create a society. The meaning is this: be in some place and be alert that you don’t create a society again. You may start tending a tree, loving a tree. You may feel that the tree is feeling thirsty so you should bring some water – you have started a relationship and with a relationship you are not alone. 14 OSHO TIMES
So this is the emphasis: move to such a place but have it in your mind that you are not going to create any relationship. Leave all relationship and the world of relationship behind, and be alone there. In the beginning it is going to be very difficult because your mind is created by society. You can leave society but where will you leave the mind? The mind will follow you like a shadow. The mind will haunt you. The mind will start torturing you. Faces will come in your dreams – they will try to pull you. You will try to meditate but thoughts will not cease. You will start thinking of your house, you will start thinking of your wife, of your children. It is human. When you become capable of being alone in the crowd, you have achieved real aloneness. It is easy to be alone on a hilltop.The whole of nature helps you, and nothing is a barrier.To be back in the market-place, in the shop, in the office, in the family, and to remain alone – that is an achievement. Then it is something you have achieved and it is not just accidental, something that happened because of the hills. Now the quality of consciousness has changed. So remain alone in the crowd. This is just a technique, not a style of life. Don’t become a monk, don’t become a nun, don’t move to a monastery to live there forever.That is nonsense. If you live forever in a monastery you will never be able to know whether you have attained what you have attained, or whether the monastery has just given it to you. It may be accidental, not essential.The essential has to be tested. The essential has to be set against society; it has to be brought to the touch-stone. And when it never breaks, when you can depend on it, when nothing can change it, then it has become a crystallization. Excerpted from The Book of Secrets, Osho
See also
osho.com/weeklymeditation August 2008 15
OSHO International Foundation
16-19:16-19
7/17/2008
12:49 PM
Page 16
INTERVIEW
Taking a An MBA, a corporate executive, founder of his own company, an OSHO Reiki Master, a Certified AUM Meditation Leader, trained in the Mystery School, a publisher, a mountain climber, a body worker…Vibhavan has the most diverse background. We asked him how it all comes together.
Risk “I have always been a doer.” I’m totally turned on by doing different things. I love gardening and I worked in Osho’s garden. I love working with people. I love doing Reiki, which is a very soft process, and I like to encourage and push people to follow their dreams. While I was at graduate school I was fascinated with the courses I took in international business. After graduating I went to work for Boise Cascade, one of the largest forest products companies in the United States. After three years of being a product manager there, I was asked if I was interested in going to Europe to take over the sales director’s job for Europe. I said yes. When I was interviewed one of the hard core forest managers said to me, “You’ve never been overseas. You’ve never sold anything in your life. What makes you think you can handle all our business in Europe?” My response came from a no-mind space, “Guts!” And he said, “I like that.” They sent me to London. After three years I decided I wanted to work for myself. I quit my job, moved my family back to America and created my own company. I was involved in international business for many years. By the time I was forty I had accomplished the American dream: I had my family, I had all the money I needed, but I was empty inside. I remember one night screaming: I can’t feel…I want to feel again. A week later I picked up one of Osho’s books in a bookstore, read it three times and went to the big OSHO commune in Oregon. I called to go on a tour.
16 OSHO TIMES
And I said, “You know, I’ve never been on a tour, I have no interest in tours, and I want to come over and live.” So I took the risk. When my family and friends found out about it they said,“You’ve got to be crazy,” and I said,“Maybe so, but I’m going to go and find out for myself.” Years before, my passion had been big game hunting when I wasn’t working, and the commune was on land where I had hunted deer. When I went back I was blown away by all the beauty and creativity that had been created in this wasteland. I remember sending letters to many of my friends and associates saying that I had discovered a diamond of consciousness in the midst of the Oregon desert.
Opening to Energy I sprained my ankle at the Ranch and a woman offered to hold her hands over the sprain. When I asked her what she was doing, she said, “Just shut up and feel.” The next morning I found myself running to OSHO Dynamic Meditation. I thought, “This is impossible because I’ve got a swollen red/blue ankle.” I looked down and the swelling was gone, the color had pretty well subsided. That was my awakening to the fascination of energy work and Reiki. I was particularly touched by distance healings, and I knew I wanted to become a Reiki master; and I did. Again my friends all thought I had gone crazy because they had all known me as a businessman. They said, “What are you doing getting involved with this weird, you know, this energy stuff!” But I August 2008 17
OSHO International Foundation
16-19:16-19
7/17/2008
12:49 PM
Page 18
INTERVIEW has given me one of my most beautiful gifts: the splendor of making love and the power that comes when these two chakras are working together.
“I’m Still Learning”
trusted my own experiences of Reiki healing. Later, as I was practicing, I realized that there was something profound in the spaces that I went into when I was giving these sessions. Soon after, I was a Reiki Master. I also did a Psychic Massage Training, without having any idea about how I would use it. I wasn’t planning anything; I was just saying yes to whatever was coming at me. So I did the training for psychic massage and then the holistic massage training. Now I love giving bodywork sessions in the Meditation Resort.
The Mystery School When I came to Pune in 1987, I was very touched by Kavisha, who was the director of the Mystery School in the Multiversity, and I joined their work. I was doing meditations, assisting in groups, and I was on the metaphysical surgery team. What I discovered in the School was space – space inside myself, silence, stillness that I had never experienced before. I understood that we can live as if we were on an elevator with many different floors, representing our different chakras – the different energy centers in our bodies. I could be in a deep, still meditation and when I had to go and deal with something practical, I would move from a higher chakra down into my third chakra. Then I would meet my girlfriend and pop up to my fourth chakra. Kavisha gave us quite a transmission on not being stuck in any one dimension.
In the Multiversity, you can join the following OSHO programs:
The Power of the Heart
Courses with Vibhavan:
I’m also an AUM facilitator. I love watching people come here, people who are beginning to experience meditation and the work of the Multiversity. For some reason they’re often attracted to the AUM.They may start off glued to the back wall, then all of a sudden they melt and go through their stuff, and come out radiating with beaming smiles. I fell in love with the AUM meditation when I was participating in it myself, and did the AUM Leader’s Training in Holland at the OSHO Humaniversity. Something very beautiful happened for me there that totally changed the way I lead groups and how I am with people. I learned how to be in my heart and my power at the same time. Before that I was either floating or being forceful. Now I can be strong, in my power, very firm and straight – and do it from my heart. From the Humaniversity, I learned to combine being in my first chakra with my fourth chakra.This
Personal Power: The Courage to Risk, 11 – 13 Oct Welcoming the New Man, 19 Oct Welcoming Abundance, 28 – 29 Oct & 21 – 22 Nov Other Courses and Trainings referred to in the interview:
OSHO Humaniversity Therapy: Freedom from the Past, 12 – 18 Jan OSHO Primal Intensive, 17 – 24 Jan Path of Love, 3 – 9 Jan and 27 Jan – 2 Feb Counseling Skills & Relationship Dynamics Training with Svagito, 15 Feb – 2 Mar The AUM: A high energy Evening Event offered every week.
OSHO Reiki: Trainings in self-healing and healing others, offered every month. For additional dates and details, please see osho.com/multiversity
I just finished the OSHO Primal Intensive. Some friends asked me, “Why are you still doing groups after all these years?” I give myself one every year; last year it was Path of Love. I realize I’ve still got a lot of stuff going on. An area that I want to explore deeper in my own life is more effective communications, working with people, using my energy and my voice in new ways. It goes back to the issue of moving from force to a truer place of power. I also did the Group Leading Skills training with Svagito last season. I was quite touched by something he transmitted about how to deal with negativity in a group setting. In the past I would give energy to the person. Svagito opened up something in me in another dimension: just let the person be in their negativity; don’t give them any energy, don’t try to fix them. Just let them be. Give energy to individuals who are looking and sharing from a real space, a deeper space, and don’t give energy to negative mind trips. Right after this I had an opportunity to put it into practice in one of my men’s groups. There was a fellow who was in his negativity. I chose to take a deep breath and connect with him with my heart. I just let him be in his folded arms and grumpiness, and by the end of the group the guy was totally open. I had done nothing. I just let him be.
If I look at my passion, the OSHO courses that I’ve been offering in the Multiversity – Welcoming the New Man, Welcoming Abundance, Personal Power, and The Courage to Risk – the theme that underlies the work is helping people to get in touch with their own energy; to look at what they want in their life; and to see what’s keeping them from going for what they want.
What Next I’m about to go to Brazil. A group of us are creating a community in Fortaleza and we’re going to allow it to happen without a game plan. There are some very strong individuals involved and I feel excited about how we’re going to communicate and how we’re going to work together. It’s a new way for me. I want to come back in October and continue to offer the courses that I’ve been doing. I live with a yes; if an opportunity comes and my belly goes ah ah, I jump. I don’t have a game plan for my life. It’s not like back in the corporate days where you set out your one-year plan, or five-year plan and say, this is what I want. I want to be more open. I get in my own way when I want to do something. It goes back to this aspect of the force. I want to be available. I want to find more relaxation in my work but sharpness as well. I just have to be Vibhavan and to relax into being Vibhavan. Gandha
Bringing the Book to Life Years ago I wanted to publish one of Osho’s talks as a book. The message I got from him was: Go for it totally! It was Majud:The Man with the Inexplicable Life. It’s about finding our own inner master. If I look at the work I’m doing now, it’s about giving less credence to the mind in decision-making, but finding a deeper place in the heart or in the belly that can speak to us – and then taking the risk to follow that voice. I feel so much gratitude when the people I’m working with also find their heart and start following it, going for what they want in their life. That’s one of the experiments that I’ve done with my life: when I want to do something I drop to that place and get an ah, ah and follow it.The track record’s pretty good as to the results that have happened.The head doubts; it will analyze, but we can learn to jump from this deeper place.
18 OSHO TIMES
August 2008 19 OSHO International Foundation
20-21:20-21
7/17/2008
12:50 PM
Page 20
Osho on…
The Fear of Change Real change comes as a shock.
“I have been to many teachers and gurus but I have not changed a bit. Why?” Nobody can transform you. The very idea, the very expectation that somebody else is going to transform you keeps you unintelligent.When are you going to declare the mastery of your own being? When are you going to take the reins in your own hands? When are you going to say, “I will now live according to myself ”? Those so-called gurus will make you more and more mediocre and stupid. Out of a hundred, ninetynine are bogus, and the one who is not bogus will demand so much from you. First he will demand intelligence – and you have completely forgotten that you have that in the first place. He will demand awareness. The false gurus provide you with better sleepingpills. They provide you with psychological strategies to remain comfortably asleep.They give you lullabies so that you can live a drugged life. Their methods are nothing but psychological tranquilizers, nonmedicinal tranquilizers. So for a few days you repeat
a certain mantra and you feel good, and then you become fed up and you start seeing the point that it is not leading you anywhere.Then you go to another guru, he gives you some other method, for a few days again the honeymoon, and then that disappears. I don’t give you any lullaby, I will give you electric shocks – because that is the only way you can come out of your drugged state. You have to be shocked, you have to be brought to consciousness. Hence I don’t provide you with any consolations.Those who come for consolations can have no understanding of what is happening here. You can go on changing your religion, you can go on changing your philosophy.These are really ways to avoid real change. Real change has to happen deep down in you. You are unconscious, and the only change that is going to help is to become conscious. You are living mechanically. The only thing that can help is to live life non-mechanically. De-automatize yourself, de-hypnotize yourself.
Society has hypnotized you. Society has dulled your senses, it has poisoned you. It wants skillful efficient machines; it does not want men. It has reduced you to a machine; you are a good clerk or a good soldier or a good stationmaster or a good deputy collector. It has reduced you to something which has a utility. It has made you a commodity. It does not want your intelligence, your awareness. You will have to rebel against it. The gurus you have been to are nothing but agents of the same society. Hence society respects them; hence society supports them. A Buddha, a Jesus, a Mansoor, a Sanai – whenever these people walk on the earth they create fire, they create revolution.They start transforming people, transforming their unconsciousness into consciousness. And then there is trouble. People will be afraid of such a place.Their marriage may disappear, their old ways of living may be shattered. It is ultimately good that something wrong falls down and disappears, but in the beginning it is painful. Twenty years you have lived with a woman. It is difficult to unclinch yourself. It is painful, it is agony. But if you don’t stop a false relationship, you will never be in any true relationship in your life.
20 OSHO TIMES
Each generation goes on loading the new generation with its own diseases, illnesses and pathologies. If you come here, I am going to unburden you of all your pathologies. And they may be very traditional and very long-respected, and your parents may have carried them for thousands of years, but I will teach you to drop all that nonsense, all that rubbish, and simply become your own being, your own self. Society cannot tolerate it. Society is bound to be antagonistic towards me. This has always been so. You must have gone to the gurus who are agents of the same rotten society. How can they help you to change? They are there to protect society. Society gives them respect; that is how society goes on paying them for their services. If you have some courage in your heart, and you don’t escape from this surgical energy-field, you will be transformed. And remember, I will not transform you. I can only create situations in which you can transform yourself. Excerpted from Unio Mystica, Osho See also
osho.com/osho August 2008 21
OSHO International Foundation
22-23cs_intro:22-23
7/17/2008
12:51 PM
Page 22
Misunderstanding
Misunder standing Language is not a very good vehicle for communication. People have their own ways of understanding. Words have their own meanings for each person. All language is very, very personal. Osho
There is so much confusion between husbands and wives, friends and lovers, the mystics and the masses, one religion and the next – nobody can understand anybody else. Osho comments on the endless misunderstandings that fill our lives and suggests new possibilities for being together in harmony.
22 OSHO TIMES
August 2008 23 OSHO International Foundation
24-27cs#1:24-27
7/17/2008
12:52 PM
Page 24
Misunderstanding
But I have come across many interpretations of this simple sentence of only three words: Existence precedes essence. The first interpretation is that for some people this idea becomes: Nothing is possible for man, because man is empty. Man has no intrinsic nature, so there is no destiny to be fulfilled. Man is accidental, life has no meaning, life is utterly hopeless. A seed has a meaning because it has a built-in program that it has to become a tree, that it has to attain to a certain kind of fruit and flowers, that it has to rise into the sky, that it has to be this and that. That’s why there is hope and there is meaning. The seed can trust that something is going to happen. The seed is not accidental because there is a destiny. This is one interpretation – that man is accidental, has no nature, is a hopeless thing. Sartre says man is a useless passion. There is no possibility of any significance in man’s life. For some others the idea is translated into: Everything is possible for man because there is no
When Words Get in the Way The existential principle existence precedes essence means “you are born as pure existence with no essence, with no built-in program, with no destiny.” Osho uses this statement as an example of what our minds can do with words.
“Why is there so much misunderstanding in the world?” Because people are unconscious. Because people are fast asleep. Because people are robots. Communication is impossible; you say something, something else will be understood. The only way to communicate is in love, through silence. But nobody knows how to be in love and nobody knows how to be in silence. Only in love and silence, communication is possible. But we are so full of knowledge, that’s why communication is impossible. Language is one of the reasons why there is so much misunderstanding in the world.
There is an existential principle: Existence precedes essence. A simple statement that you are born first, that you are born without any intrinsic nature, that you are born a tabula rasa. Nothing is written on you, writing comes later on. You come into the world not knowing who you are.You are nobody when you come into the world, a pure emptiness. And then by your acts, by your doings, you start defining yourself. Essence comes later on by your own effort. A simple statement and a beautiful statement….
will be his own signature. Man has uniqueness, individuality. Now see: the meaning has turned to the opposite polarity. I have come across a third interpretation. For others it means: Everything is permissible to man. They say, “When there is no nature, when there is nothing as a given program for man, then there is no need for any morality, no need for any discipline, no need for anything. Man is a chaos and should remain a chaos.” Then nothing is good and nothing is bad. If there is a built-in program then you can decide what is good and what is bad. For a mango tree you can decide what manure will help and what manure will not help, how much water is needed, how much sun is needed, how much space is needed. You can find a pattern, a discipline, for the tree. This will be decided by the intrinsic nature of the tree. But man has no intrinsic nature, so anything goes. Man is free is interpreted as: Man needs no discipline, man is permitted to do whatsoever he The only way to communicate is in love, through silence. But nobody wants to do. Adolf knows how to be in love and nobody knows how to be in silence. Hitler is as good as Gautam Buddha. We are so full of knowledge, communication is impossible. Language To kill a man is as is one of the reasons there is so much misunderstanding in the world. good as to be compassionate, to love is nature, hence no boundaries. They find great hope as good as to hate. How to decide what is good and and freedom in it. This interpretation says: Because what is bad? There is no criterion. All is good – there is no intrinsic nature, man is not a slave. The murder is good, suicide is good, destruction is good. seed is a slave.The mango seed will become a mango Now this is a totally different interpretation. And tree, there is no freedom. Man can become anything with this they abandon all restraint. They become he chooses to be. There is a possibility to choose. licentious, indulgent. This indulgence is bound to The mango tree cannot choose, it is a slave; it is destroy humanity, but this interpretation is possible. just mechanical. It has to fulfill a certain destiny. And for still others there is a fourth meaning: Everything is predetermined. So how can there be Everything is permissible against man. Man has no freedom and how can there be joy? How can there nature, so you can bend man this way or that.You can be any hope in it? It is a mechanical repetition. Out make man a soldier or a saint or a sinner. Man is of a mango seed will come a mango tree and out of empty, so you can write anything on man. Everything a mango tree will come again mango seeds. It will go is permissible against man. on and on for eternity, and there will never be What Adolf Hitler did to millions of people, anything else. This is a hopeless situation. converting them into robots – those Nazi soldiers Now the sentence takes a new meaning, contrary were robots, they were trained to be machines not to the first.The meaning is that man is free. Man can men – that’s permissible. Buddha turned thousands be whatsoever he chooses to be. Nobody decides for of people into sannyasins, brought them out of their man, man has to decide for himself. Man’s decision mechanicalness into consciousness. Everything is has to come from his own soul. What he is going to good – Buddha is doing his thing and Adolf Hitler is write on the tabula rasa is his own writing, there doing his thing and there is no criterion to judge.
24 OSHO TIMES
August 2008 25 OSHO International Foundation
24-27cs#1:24-27
7/17/2008
12:52 PM
Page 26
Misunderstanding Language seems to be the medium of communication but it is not. You say something and
immediately you will be misinterpreted.... Once you say something you are no more the master of it.Then whosoever gets hold of it will have his own meaning; he will squeeze his own meaning out of it. And you are helpless, you cannot do anything. Language is not the right medium to communicate. But people don’t know silence, so there is no other way. Even a Buddha has to talk, or a Lao Tzu has to use words which are inadequate, dangerous.
There is an existential principle: Existence precedes essence. It is a simple statement that you are born without any intrinsic nature; nothing is written on you. And then by your acts, by your doings, you start defining yourself. Essence comes later on by your own effort. A simple statement and a beautiful statement…. The day Buddha died, his disciples divided into thirty-six schools. Just the day he died – as if they were just waiting. Thirty-six meanings to each of Buddha’s assertions. On Krishna’s Bhagavad Gita there are one thousand commentaries – one thousand meanings to each of Krishna’s statements. If Krishna comes back and reads these commentaries he will not be able to conceive what has happened. He was talking to his disciple and his friend, Arjuna. It was a love dialogue. And one thousand meanings? And ten thousand more are possible. Language is the basic problem.That’s why there is so much misunderstanding. If you want to have understanding, you will have to drop language. You will have to learn how to dehypnotize yourself from words. You will have to put aside the word rose and you will have to see the red rose – there on the bush, in the wind, in the rain, in the sun. And while seeing the rose, don’t go on repeating “This is a rose” – otherwise you will carry a curtain on your ears, on your eyes, on your being. You will not be able to hear and see and feel. And don’t go on saying that this is a beautiful rose – that beautiful is again a word. Don’t go on using the word beautiful; just see, penetrate, encounter beauty itself. The rose is there – what is the point of using
the word? Put the words aside. Clean the passage between you and the rose. And don’t compare it with other roses that you have seen before. Otherwise you say “Yes, this is a beautiful rose. I have seen such roses before,” or “This is more beautiful than the roses of last year,” or “This is more beautiful, or less beautiful, than the roses of the neighbor.” Again you are getting lost in words.You just look, and forget all language. In that forgetting of language, understanding arises. One has to be non-verbal for understanding to arise. Start communicating through silence sometimes. Holding the hand of your friend, sit silently. Just looking at the moon, feel the moon, and both feel it silently. And see, there happens a communion – not
only communication but a communion.Your hearts start beating in the same rhythm.You start feeling the same space, the same joy. You start overlapping each other’s being. There is communion. You have said without saying anything, and there will be no misunderstanding. If you want to avoid misunderstanding, you will have to learn silence. If you learn silence, the first thing will be that you will never misunderstand anybody else. And that’s a great joy – not to misunderstand anybody. You will become a good listener, you will know the right kind of listening. And everything will be crystal clear to you. That clarity will not come from logic, from intellect,
26 OSHO TIMES
from analysis; that clarity will come through silence. If in your silence somebody’s word falls you cannot misinterpret it, because there is nobody to interfere. Either you understand or you don’t understand, but there is no way to misunderstand. Learn silence. And at least with your friends, with your lovers, with your family, here, sit in silence sometimes. Don’t go on gossiping, don’t go on talking. Stop talking, and not only on the outside – stop the inner talk. Be in an interval. Just sit there, doing nothing, just being presences to each other. And soon you will start finding a new way to communicate. And that is the right way. Excerpted from This Very Body the Buddha, Osho August 2008 27
OSHO International Foundation
28-31cs#2-3:28-31
7/17/2008
12:53 PM
Page 28
Misunderstanding
The Truth Is Hard to Swallow Why is there so much misunderstanding surrounding Osho and his work? The same thing happened to Buddha, to Socrates, to the great artists. Is there anything that can be done to change this, or is it always going to be this way?
“What can be done so that people can understand you? I see so much misunderstanding about you and your teachings.” In a way it is natural. It is not unusual, it is to be
expected that people will misunderstand me. They have always misunderstood the truth, the naked truth.They are very slow, so they always get the joke very late. They started understanding Buddha when he was dead, they started understanding Socrates when they themselves had killed him, they started having respect for Jesus when they had crucified him – they themselves! Now they remember with great respect the names of Al-Hillaj Mansur and Sarmad, whom they themselves destroyed. People are very slow to understand. Recently a letter of Gauguin’s sold for over five thousand dollars. In the letter the painter complained
of his poverty; he was starving to death. People are strange! They take such a long time to understand. Vincent van Gogh’s paintings are worshipped now all over the world. He was so poor while he was alive that he would only eat three days a week. He used to get enough money from his brother to eat for the whole week, but he had to save some money for canvases and paints and colors and brushes. He had to starve for four days to save a little money. He committed suicide when he was only thirty-three, just because it was so difficult to survive. Nobody would accept his paintings; there was no question of anybody purchasing them. People even refused to accept his paintings for hanging in their houses. He would present his paintings free to people and they threw them in the basement or somewhere else. He painted nearabout one thousand paintings.
Eight hundred paintings have been lost because people never cared about them. When his paintings started becoming famous after his death, people started searching for his paintings.They were found in all kinds of places – people’s basements, bathrooms. People were willing to give them away for a little money or even for no money. Now each single painting is valued at one million dollars.That’s how people have always functioned, so there is nothing unnatural about it. People have their own understanding.... Nothing can be done. If you understand me, live that understanding, that’s all. If somebody is ready to understand, good. If nobody is ready to understand, that is nothing to bother about; that is their business. Don’t become too concerned about others because that concern will disturb your own growth. Grow according to your inner light, and if you are full of light maybe some people will start understanding. If my meditators start living exactly what I mean, then that’s enough.A few people will certainly understand you. Only a few are capable of understanding it; the larger mob is incapable of understanding anything that goes beyond them. But that is their freedom. If they don’t want to understand, it has not to be forced upon them. Excerpted from Zen: Zest, Zip, Zap and Zing, Osho
“Why are people so much against you?” They are not so much against me as they are afraid of me. The root cause is fear. And why are
they afraid? Because they don’t understand. It always happens, it is bound to happen; it is nothing new. I say one thing, they understand something else because their minds are prejudiced. They have been brought up in certain traditions and I am breaking
28 OSHO TIMES
all traditions.They have been brought up to think in certain ways, and my whole effort here is to take you beyond thinking. Hence it is very difficult for the masses to understand what I am saying. The masses live according to the past. They are continuously brought up in traditional ways. They have been told what is right, what is wrong; they have been told whether god exists or not. They have learned all these things. They have accumulated so much information that their minds are full of knowledge; they think they already know. They would rather cling to their own ego than listen to the truth. Because of their prejudices they go on hearing something which is not said. I say one thing, they immediately interpret it according to their own ideas. They don’t listen in silence; they listen through all kinds of barriers of thoughts. For example, there are Jews, Mohammedans, Hindus, Christians, Jainas, Buddhists, Sikhs – all kinds of people are gathered here. Do you think when I say something the Jew hears the same as the Jaina, the Mohammedan hears the same as the Christian, the Buddhist hears the same as the Hindu? Impossible! If I am talking about rebirth, then the Christian, the Jew and the Mohammedan are a little on guard, unconsciously, because they have been told there is only one life. They cannot trust that there are many lives. But when I am talking about rebirth the Hindu is happy, absolutely willing. The Buddhist is willing, the Jaina is absolutely willing. There is no problem in their minds. Not that they are agreeing with me – they are happy because I am agreeing with them! And that’s how it is about each single statement. When I talk about god, the Buddhist will immediately stop listening. It is absolutely automatic. God? Buddha has said that the whole idea is nonsense, it has to be so. And not only Buddha – for twenty-five centuries many other mystics who have attained to the ultimate have been telling him that god is not there. But the Hindu, the Mohammedan, the Christian, the Jew, they are immensely happy that I am talking August 2008 29
OSHO International Foundation
28-31cs#2-3:28-31
7/17/2008
12:53 PM
Page 30
Misunderstanding about god – their god! The Jaina and the Buddhist will not be happy; they don’t believe in god. When I talk about the soul, the Jaina will be happy, the Hindu will be happy, the Mohammedan, the Christian, the Jew – everybody except the Buddhist. He does not believe in the soul either.The Buddhist, the moment I talk about soul or god, stops listening. He says,“This is not for me.” Not that he does it consciously – these are unconscious habits, conditionings. It is not so much that people are against me;
the reality is they don’t understand what I am talking about, or they understand something totally different which is not being talked about. They are not aware what I am doing here. They don’t come here, they depend on newspapers. Some third-rate journalist comes and reports something – what can he report about meditation? He has never meditated. You don’t send a journalist
It is not so much that people are against me – they don’t understand what I am talking about. Or they understand something totally different which is not being talked about. They are not aware of what I am doing here. They don’t come here, they depend on newspapers.
to report about a surgeon if he does not know anything about surgery, do you? If physicists are meeting, papers are read and discussed, and you send somebody, you have to send an expert who knows what physics is. Modern physics is a very evolved phenomenon; it needs years of studies. You can’t depend on a general journalist who goes on reporting about mediocre politicians and their stupid speeches. But when you send a journalist here, you never require that he should be a meditator, that he should know something about meditation. Any Tom, Harry, Dick is thought to be perfectly capable of reporting about meditation, about Tantra, about Tao, about Zen, about Sufism. People depend on his reports, and he has never meditated in his life. He has never had a single moment of meditation. He knows nothing of a state of no-thought. He knows nothing of those intervals, those spaces, where mind disappears, ego disappears, time disappears. How can he understand? Just by watching people sitting silently, will you be able to understand anything? You can take a picture of the person but you will not be able to take a picture of the inner happening. You can see people dancing like Sufis, whirling dervishes; you can see them dancing and you will report that you saw people dancing, jumping – but how are you going to know their inner world? You should participate! You should dance yourself. You should have a taste of it. Only then you may be able to report something of it – only something, not all of it, because all of it is impossible to report; all of it is inexpressible. When these people who don’t understand report, their report is only sensational.Then the masses read them, and they read even that report according to their own ideas.Then there is misunderstanding upon misunderstanding, layers and layers of misunderstanding! What I am saying is totally different from what is being understood by the outsiders. But that is natural and I accept it. I have no grudge, no complaint about it. It’s how it is going to be. I can be understood only by those who are in deep love, who are in deep trust with me. I can be understood only by those who are ready to put their minds aside. In that state of silence, something from me can stir your heart, can trigger a process of understanding.
Creating Understanding If we can listen in the right way, if we can be present and available, we can hear the truth.
Right listening means you have put aside your mind. It does not mean that you become gullible,
that you start believing whatsoever is said to you. It has nothing to do with belief or disbelief. Right listening means, “I am not concerned right now whether to believe or not to believe. There is no question of agreement or disagreement at this moment. I am simply trying to listen to whatsoever it is. Later on I can decide what is right and what is wrong. Later on I can decide whether to follow or not to follow.” And the beauty of right listening is this: that truth has a music of its own. If you can listen without prejudice, your heart will say it is true. If it is true, a bell starts ringing in your heart. If it is not true, you remain aloof, unconcerned, indifferent; no bell rings in your heart, no synchronicity happens. That is the quality of truth: that if you listen to it with an open heart, it immediately creates a response in your being – your very center is uplifted.You start growing wings; suddenly the whole sky is open. It is not a question of deciding logically whether what is being said is true or untrue. On the contrary, it is a question of love, not of logic.Truth immediately creates a love in your heart; something is triggered in you in a very mysterious way. But if you listen wrongly – that is, full of your mind, full of your garbage, full of your knowledge – then you will not allow your heart to respond to the truth. You will miss the tremendous possibility, you will miss the synchronicity. Your heart responds only to truth, remember, it never responds to the untrue. With the untrue it remains unresponsive, unaffected, unstirred.With the truth it starts dancing, it starts singing, as if suddenly a sun has risen and the dark night is no more, and the birds are singing and the lotuses are opening, and the whole earth is awakened. When you hear the truth really, totally, immediately something awakens in you. Truth has that immense impact.
Communication is a dialogue in which two persons
Excerpted from
Excerpted from
authentically try to understand each other. It need not always be verbal; if it is always verbal it will be superficial. Sometimes two persons sit in silence, holding hands, just doing nothing, just meeting and merging in silence. Then communication becomes communion. Then it is being to being. A discussion, a debate, a conflict, is between head and head. A communication is between heart and heart. A communion is between being and being. Communion is silent, communication is poetic, discussion is logical. Logic is the most superfluous and superficial thing in the world. The deeper you go, the more will you find poetry, sympathy, heart to heart feeling.With the being all words stop; only silence flows between two beings.
The Dhammapada:The Way of the Buddha, Osho
The Dhammapada:The Way of the Buddha, Osho
Excerpted from Tao:The Three Treasures, Osho
30 OSHO TIMES
August 2008 31 OSHO International Foundation
32-35cs#4:32-35
7/17/2008
12:54 PM
Page 32
Misunderstanding
Even with the most educated, cultured people, their Christianity remains, their Hinduism remains. They remain superstitious, and their misunderstanding becomes even deeper. They have more refined arguments for their misunderstanding.
Mind as such is nothing but misunderstanding.
The Religious Mind Our minds are full of beliefs, values, dogmas. It is all conditioning. How is it possible to experience true religiousness with so much clutter in the way?
If you really want to understand, get rid of the mind. But people do just the opposite: in trying to understand they go on strengthening their minds. They think a stronger mind – more nourished, more reformed, more educated – will be able to understand. I have seen the most educated people, but their Christianity remains there, their Hinduism remains there. Even very highly educated cultured people remain superstitious...and their misunderstanding becomes even deeper. Now they have more refined arguments for their misunderstanding. One great Christian missionary, Stanley Jones used to stay with me. He had fallen in love with me. He was an old man and a world-famous missionary, very educated, very refined and sophisticated. I asked him one day, “The only thing that puzzles me is that with so much information and so much sophistication, you are still a Christian; you have not yet become just human. Deep down you still think that Christianity is the only true religion, that all other religions are so-so.They may be faraway echoes of truth, but Christianity has the monopoly of truth. “Even with your understanding you have not been able to see that Jesus Christ cannot be compared to Gautam Buddha. Jesus Christ remains a Jew, dies a Jew. He had no idea that his crucifixion would become the beginning of a new religion. He had never thought beyond the boundaries of Jewish thinking. “Gautam Buddha was a rebel. He was born a Hindu, but he renounced Hinduism. By renouncing Hinduism, he renounced the whole mind that the Hindus had given to him. He became clear and pure,
32 OSHO TIMES
just a child again. That makes him a totally unique and different person than all other religious people.” Stanley Jones said to me,“Whenever you argue for anything, you argue well! But there are reasons which cannot be dispelled by argument.” I said, “What kind of reasons?” He said, “I cannot refute you on this point, but in the deepest part of me I cannot put anybody above Jesus Christ.” I said, “This is what I call the mind. You don’t have any argument, but still you have a conditioning so deep that with this conditioning you cannot look around the world with open eyes, unprejudiced, impartial. “You go on arguing against other religions without any difficulty.You go on finding superstitions in Hindus, in Mohammedans, in Jainas, in Buddhists, but I have never heard you talk about the superstitions of Christians. Do you mean to say that they don’t have any superstitions? Or is it simply that your mind cannot conceive of it because it has been created by Christians? “In Christian colleges, in theological trainings, your mind has been completely filled with Christian ideas, and you think it is your mind. In fact you are being used.” But this is the situation. People think they need a greater mind to understand. I want you to see it clearly: you need no mind if you want to understand. You need only a meditative silent space. Excerpted from
The Great Pilgrimage: From Here to Here, Osho
August 2008 33 OSHO International Foundation
32-35cs#4:32-35
7/17/2008
12:54 PM
Page 34
Misunderstanding All that we can say is only relatively true – perhaps for the moment, but we cannot say it’s forever. We cannot make any unconditional statement. But people want certainty; they are living in uncertain lives. People want beliefs; they are drowning. People do not want puzzles. People want clear-cut belief systems.
Misunderstanding is the mother superior of mistakes. Man lives almost half awake, half asleep.
His consciousness is certainly very small – just a thin layer, not more than skin-deep. And his unconsciousness is long, deep, nine times more than his consciousness. So whatever your consciousness tries to see, to hear, your unconsciousness, which is nine times more – its weight, its pressure is tremendous – distorts it. You think you have understood something, but it is always finally a misunderstanding. The misunderstanding is not coming from outside, neither is it coming from your conscious mind. It is coming from your darkness within. And unless that darkness disappears, there is no way to get rid of misunderstandings. Almost all the time, everything is distorted. It is not in your control not to distort it. What is in your control is to start getting deeper into your being, bringing more awareness to the dark parts of your being. Awareness is just like the light. And as the light goes deeper into you, the darkness, the unconsciousness, will disappear. The moment you are fully conscious there will be no misunderstanding possible. Before that, you cannot avoid misunderstanding. It is good to understand that you cannot avoid misunderstanding. That will help you in many ways: it will make you humble; it will take away your arrogance; it will take away your so-called knowledgeability; it will put aside your ego which depends on all kinds of misconceptions; it will bring more innocence to you. And in innocence meditation becomes easier. When the ego is not there a great barrier is removed. And when you are humble you can see that as you are now, in ten situations, nine times there is misunderstanding. Perhaps one time there may be understanding. But you cannot even figure out when it is understanding and when it is misunderstanding. Your light is so dim. Everything is vague. One moment, just like a flash, a lightning, you see something, and another moment it is all darkness. And what you have seen seems to be just like a dream. Perhaps it is right, perhaps it is not. In fact, if you are alert enough, you will start using the word perhaps more. If you are asked about anything, you will not be so deterministic, you will not be so definitive; you will not be so arrogantly certain; you will not talk in terms of absolutes, you will become more relative. You will say perhaps. “Perhaps it is so. It is very difficult ....”
In the authentic totality of consciousness, there is no question. You don’t ask about god or
hell or heaven.You simply don’t ask about anything. You are so silent. Out of your silence questions cannot come. Questions grow in the mind, and you are so far away and beyond the mind – in your innermost center – where there is no question and there is no answer. You are tremendously fulfilled, contented, at ease with existence, with yourself, with everything. When your whole being is full of light and all darkness has disappeared, you are so in tune with existence that even to say you are in tune with existence is not right. It will be right to say that you are one with existence. Or this will be even better, to say you are existence. All separation has disappeared. There is no questioner. There is no quest. You have arrived home. In that state there is understanding but there is nothing to understand. This is the strange situation of man. When he wants to understand, he cannot.When he is capable of understanding, there is nothing to understand. Excerpted from Sat Chit Anand, Osho
You think you have understood something, but it is always finally a misunderstanding. The misunderstanding is not coming from outside, neither is it coming from your conscious mind. It is coming from your darkness within. And unless that darkness disappears, there is no way to get rid of misunderstandings.
“Why is there so much conflict and misunderstanding between different religions?” There is no misunderstanding between a Buddha and a Christ, no misunderstanding between a Mahavir
and a Krishna, no misunderstanding between a Zarathustra and a Mohammed. These are religious people. There is misunderstanding between Mohammedans and Hindus and Jains and Christians, but these are not religious people.They are pseudo-religious; they believe they are religious but they are not. How can there be misunderstanding when religion has arisen in your heart? Religion makes you free of all kinds of opinions. How can there be any misunderstanding? You can misunderstand when you carry an opinion in your mind. When all opinions have
34 OSHO TIMES
been dropped and the mind has attained to silence, how can there be any conflict, misunderstanding? A Buddha sitting, and by his side a Christ sitting, can there be any argument? No possibility. How can two silences argue? Yes, if you are sitting by the side of a Buddha there is the possibility of every kind of argument. But Buddha sitting by the side of Christ, there is no question of argumentation. They have nothing to propose, they have nothing to state. They will look into each other’s eyes and will see infinity. Two mirrors facing each other will reflect each other in millionfold ways, but nothing else will arise.
Buddha and Mohammed and Christ enter into the same purity, into the same luminosity, but when they come back Buddha speaks in his way – a king’s son has his own ways of speaking. Christ speaks in his own way – a carpenter’s son has his own way of speaking. They are utterly different. Different religions speak different languages on different planes. They speak about the One, they speak about the same, but the speakers are different. And when the hearers catch hold of those words from Buddha, Christ, Mahavir, they can’t see the similarity. The language is so different that they cannot see the unity in it. That’s why there is much misunderstanding. There is no way to create understanding without becoming religious yourself. If you meditate, if you become silent, if you attain a few glimpses of no-mind, all misunderstanding will disappear. Suddenly you will see all is one, only one exists – in millions of forms – but only one exists. Excerpted from Zen:The Path of Paradox, Osho August 2008 35
OSHO International Foundation
36-37cs#5:36-37
7/17/2008
12:54 PM
Page 36
Misunderstanding
I speak one language, you speak another language. By the time words reach to you they have a totally different meaning. Unless you start listening to me in the same silent space in which I am speaking to you, misunderstanding is inevitable.
There is a lot to say about understanding. There is Osho’s Book of Understanding. And you can also read what he says about misunderstanding here,
Ego is only a misunderstanding.You don’t drop misunderstandings, you simply understand – and the misunderstanding is no more there.
In a Few Words
The mind is the very root of ignorance. Why can’t the mind understand? Because the mind is just a tiny part of your being, and the part cannot understand. Understanding is of the total, misunderstanding is of the part.
Be more and more silent and you will understand why there is so much misunderstanding in the world.
Truth has always been misunderstood, because the
If you misunderstand, you go on thinking you have understood; so you don’t ask again. And you have not understood. And that misunderstanding will make your life a corrupted phenomenon.
Understanding is bliss, misunderstanding is the cause of misery.
whole majority of humanity lives in lies.
Just to hear the words is not hearing and just to see figures is not seeing. Unless you see the meaning, the content, unless you hear the silence which is the soul of the words, you have not heard.
Unless you are absolutely silent, not even a thought stirring inside, not even a small ripple in the lake of consciousness, you will not be able to hear. And if you cannot hear, then whatsoever you think you hear is going to be wrong. You are bound to misunderstand me because you are. I is the cause of all misunderstanding. It interprets, it colors, it distorts. It chooses, it adds, it deletes. It does a thousand and one things, and only then does it allow what I am saying to go in.
If you want to share your love, don’t make it a condition that it should be understood. Love has become such a rare thing in the world that nobody understands it. There are always some notions, some ideas, some fears, some suspicions. Nobody can believe that love can be simply for no reason at all. They think according to their own minds. They show love only when they have something to get out of it. Whenever they come across a person who is not using love as a means, they are bound to misunderstand.
Why can’t people who love each other, who live with each other, understand each other? The problem is the past. The wife interprets through the past, the husband interprets through the past. Nobody is listening to the present.
You have misunderstood life as a problem – hence questions arise. Life is not a problem: life is a mystery. But the misunderstanding is possible because a mystery looks like a problem – and the ego starts trying to solve it. But a mystery is by its very definition insoluble. A question is a misunderstanding about life: you think it can be solved – this is the misunderstanding. If you misunderstand me, what can I do about it? Misunderstanding is always your freedom. People go on believing that they understand – and this very idea that they understand keeps their ignorance intact. The first step to be taken towards understanding is to understand that you don’t understand, to recognize and realize your ignorance, to realize in deep humility that you have been ignoring the truth. When you are in the mind, you are a victim; money deceives you, power deceives you, prestige deceives you, anything….You are living in so many misunderstandings that if you come to see, you will be surprised at how articulate you are in creating falsehoods. Only those who are really ready to understand will be able to understand; otherwise I am going to be misunderstood. The crowd, the mass, is going to misunderstand me. But I don’t expect that they should understand. It takes time. It takes centuries. For more information about Osho’s Book of Understanding, please see p. 38 of this issue.
See also
osho.com/library
When two persons are talking, just watch their faces. One is saying something, the other is preparing to answer it; he is not listening.
Husbands and wives sooner or later come to one understanding: that it is better not to talk. It is better to keep silent because the moment you utter a word, misunderstanding is bound to follow.
36 OSHO TIMES
August 2008 37 OSHO International Foundation
38-39:38-39
7/17/2008
12:56 PM
Page 38
International Publishing
The Book of Understand ing Creating your own path to freedom
This is one of Osho’s most ambitious and groundbreaking works – perhaps even the most provocative. It explores some of the most fundamental questions of our existence: Who am I? How do I become my best self? How can I live my best self every day despite the roadblocks in my way?
Excerpted from the book: The word understand is beautiful. When you are in
This book presents a comprehensive and clear statement of the key elements at the heart of Osho’s vision. We see it as a foundation text, a key to understanding all of his previous books. You won’t think about yourself or look at the world in the same way again. Julia Pastores Random House Editor
The path to freedom is filled with questions and uncertainty. Is it possible to truly know who we are? Do our lives have a purpose, or are we just accidental? What are we meant to contribute, to become, to create and share? In The Book of Understanding, Osho challenges us to understand our world and ourselves in a new and radical way. The first step in understanding, he says, is to question and doubt all that we have been taught to believe. For years we’ve been handed so-called truths by countless others – beliefs we learned to accept without reason. It is only in questioning our beliefs, assumptions, and prejudices that we can begin to uncover our own unique voice and begin to heal the divisions within us and without. Once we discover our authentic self, we can embrace all aspects of the human experience – from the earthy, pleasure-loving qualities that characterize Zorba the Greek to the watchful, silent qualities of Gautam the Buddha. We can become whole and live with integrity, able to respond with creativity and compassion to the religious, political and cultural divides that currently plague our society. In this groundbreaking work, Osho identifies, loosens, and ultimately helps to untie the knots of fear and misunderstanding that bind us – leaving us free to discover and create our own individual path to freedom.
meditation everything stands under you, you are so above it. That’s the meaning of understanding. Everything is there far below you, so you can see...like a bird’s-eye view. You can see the whole from your altitude. Intellect cannot see it; it is on the same plane. Understanding happens only when the problem is on one plane and you are on a higher plane. If you are also on the same plane, understanding is not possible. You will misunderstand only. And that is one of the greatest problems to be encountered by every seeker. Jesus says again and again to his disciples, “If you have ears, hear; if you have eyes, see.” He was not talking to blind people or deaf people, he was just talking to people like you. But why does he go on insisting? – for the simple reason that hearing is not listening, and seeing is not true seeing. You see one thing and you understand something else. Your mind immediately distorts it. Your mind is upside down. It makes a mess of everything. It is in confusion, and you look through that confusion, so the whole world looks confused. I do not believe in believing. My approach is to know,
and knowing is a totally different dimension. It starts from doubt, it does not start from believing. The moment you believe in something you have stopped inquiring. Belief is one of the most poisonous things to destroy human intelligence. All the religions are based on belief, only science is based on doubt. And I would like the religious inquiry also to be scientific, based on doubt. So we need not believe, but we can come to know someday the truth of our being and the truth of the whole universe. Whenever you hear truth, suddenly something in you immediately perceives it. It is not a question of time. Others who cannot perceive it will think that you have been hypnotized. Argue, reason, think about it, brood then believe. But whenever you hear truth, the very
38 OSHO TIMES
quality of it is such that immediately it fills your gap, because your own truth has been called. Whenever you hear a truth, it is not coming from the outside. The outside is just an opportunity for the inside to open. Immediately, you know that this is true. Not that you can argue about it, not that you can prove it, not that you are convinced by it, no. You are transformed by it, not convinced. It is a conversion, not a conviction. There is no need to develop a conscience at all.
What is needed is consciousness, not conscience. Conscience is a pseudo thing. Conscience is created in you by the society. It is a subtle method of slavery. Society teaches you what is right and what is wrong. And it starts teaching the child even before the child is aware, before the child can decide on his own what is right and what is wrong, before the child is even conscious of what is happening to him. We are conditioning him according to our ideas – and all these ideas – from parents, from priests, teachers, politicians, saints – all these ideas jumble together inside him. They become his conscience. Because of this conscience he will never be able to grow consciousness – because conscience is a pseudo consciousness. And if you are satisfied with the pseudo you will never even think of the real.
Title: The Book of Understanding Author: Osho Subject: Understanding our world and ourselves Publisher: Random House, Harmony (hardcover) Pages: 278 ISBN: 0-307-34672-2
Look for news about the English-language releases in the on-line catalog at www.osho.com/shop and in the monthly OSHO newsletters.
August 2008 39 OSHO International Foundation
40-47:40-47
7/17/2008
12:57 PM
Page 40
OSHO INTERNATIONAL MEDITATION RESORT
IMPRESSIONS
Monsoon The whole of life is so tremendously beautiful and so tremendously graceful.... Listen to those rains and clouds. Life is such an ongoing, continuous bliss. Just be happy...be open to it. Osho
40 OSHO TIMES
August 2008 41 OSHO International Foundation
40-47:40-47
7/17/2008
12:57 PM
Page 42
IMPRESSIONS
Look at life through a state of not-knowing, through wonder – and suddenly all is perfect. Yes, sometimes it is cloudy, but it is perfect. And sometimes it is sunny and it is perfect. And sometimes it rains and it is perfect. As it is, it is a blessing. To be in tune with this blessing is to be prayerful.
42 OSHO TIMES
August 2008 43 OSHO International Foundation
40-47:40-47
7/17/2008
12:58 PM
Page 44
IMPRESSIONS
The mystic is not a philosopher; he does not bother to think about things. He simply rejoices in them. When it rains, the mystic dances, he joins hands with the rain. When trees are rejoicing, becoming fresh, one starts feeling the same freshness.
44 OSHO TIMES
August 2008 45 OSHO International Foundation
40-47:40-47
7/17/2008
12:58 PM
Page 46
IMPRESSIONS
Enjoying everything – the moon, the cloud, the monsoon shower – because everything to the meditator becomes so divine that it is an expression and manifestation of the same original source.
All excerpts are from OSHO books.
46 OSHO TIMES
August 2008 47 OSHO International Foundation
48-51:48-51
7/17/2008
12:59 PM
Page 48
WORKING LIFE
Multiversity
presents:
awareness totality creativity
a chance to enhance my life
Immerse yourself totally in the OSHO experience at OSHO International Meditation Resort.
Work as Meditation Residential Training
Neerava is a commerce and law graduate with a diploma in Journalism and Income Taxation. She is a practicing lawyer, and was court financial consultant to Reliance Capital and assistant to the Superintendent of Police in Bhavnagar, Gujarat.
60days
*
Now participating in the Residential Program, she speaks about her work outside and inside the Meditation Resort.
* Starting date is at any time, subject to availability.
■ Do you want to learn to use your work time also as time for personal growth and meditation? Do you want to enhance your life while enhancing the quality of your work? ■ The Program offers understanding, experience, resources, and methods to radically change your work & life. Courses, seminars and training sessions are interspersed at strategic moments. All this in a playful atmosphere.
■ All methods offered, based on OSHO insights, have passed the test of time and practice. ■ On completion you qualify for renewed participation in the scholarship-based Residential Program. For more information or to apply: visit www.osho.com/residentialprogram or mail to workmedtraining@osho.net
48 OSHO TIMES
August 2008 49 OSHO International Foundation
48-51:48-51
7/17/2008
12:59 PM
Page 50
WORKING LIFE before coming here, so now I am going back in complete insecurity. I am taking love from here and will try to share it with other people. I will reopen my finance consultancy, and I am sure to earn enough to survive in the world. After all how much does a person need? Existence provides everything. The test of work as meditation is in the marketplace, isn’t it? Sadhana
Please tell something about your background.
I was a student leader in college. I was always a fighter, and my father encouraged me. I contested elections of the local municipal corporation and won the seat for the reserved classes when I was 21.You can imagine the opposition I had to face. A 21-year-old girl sitting in a chair coveted by hundreds of strong men! I became a mayor at the age of 24. For five years I was the chairperson of the revenue department. For the whole term I did not allow any corruption in my area, because the whole payment was in my hands. Naturally everybody was cursing me.The opposition took every opportunity to harass me, to try and remove me, but I stuck to my guns. You also worked with prisoners and provided OSHO meditations for them. How was that?
My boss was an Osho sannyasin, and he had a compassionate, caring attitude towards prisoners. We regularly conducted OSHO Dynamic and OSHO Kundalini Meditations in the prison. We gave them OSHO books to read, and played his audio talks. I also organized many meditation camps for them. They proved to be very flexible and sensitive to the meditations.They were transformed to the extent that they could be trusted. You won’t believe how those rowdy people – who were labeled die-hard criminals…nobody was prepared to keep them – were changed as a result. Now they are teaching meditation to newcomers! One prisoner in particular was feared even by the police. He had tried to escape a couple of times but after doing OSHO Meditations, he started to take responsibility within the jail. Last Diwali he was allowed to go home for seven days, on my responsibility. Everyone thought he would not come back, yet he returned after only four days. He said he did not like it outside.
How did you come to know about Osho?
My father introduced me to OSHO books when I was young. During my political career, I met a couple who conducted OSHO meditations every Sunday in their house, and I attended. For the first time I heard his voice on audio, and he was speaking about politics! I was deeply impacted by his views because I had seen the ugly side of politics first hand. The truth in his words hit me so hard I left politics. I went to OSHO Manan Commune in Mehsana for a short time, and found a different kind of world. I couldn’t believe that there could be so much love. When did you first come to the Meditation Resort?
Four years ago. The moment I set foot here I felt as if I was dreaming. This can’t be real! I stayed for ten days. It took me that long to get acquainted with the beauty, joy and serenity here, which I found almost sacred. What made you decide to join the work program?
An advertisement for the Residential Program in the OSHO Times inspired me to take the jump.When I read, “Do you want to enhance your working life?” it stirred something inside,and I decided that was for me. Working here has changed my whole life. I have learned how to love. I find people so loving. I don’t think there is any other place in the world where one can get so many hugs in one day.
In the beginning I was a gate watcher. My job was to sit at the gate and check everybody’s pass. At first my conditioning of being a lawyer and something of a celebrity came in the way of being a mere watcher, sitting at the gate. I had come from a particularly tough environment. In that world, a watchman or guard is one of the lowest ranks in any institution. I wanted to quit, but then I watched how the others were behaving. For the first time I saw their loving attitude, their acceptance. Each moment, every person was a mirror; I learned so much about how people cooperate. Then I did the Multiversity Courses Inner Skills for Work & Life, and Fast Track to Yourself, which were eye openers. I understood how to be meditative while working and saw how fortunate I was to meet people from the whole world just sitting at the gate. So different from what I was used to! Later I was coordinating the Visitors Center. It was as if the whole world converged on that small space. People from faraway countries poured in just for a glimpse of the Meditation Resort. Once I had been part of that crowd, and now I was on the other side of the fence. It was a great learning. What are you taking back with you?
Watchfulness, love and insecurity. My pillar of strength is Osho’s statement: “My sannyasins live in total insecurity.” I took the step of resigning from my job
50 OSHO TIMES
You have to learn to function in all kinds of situations – in the marketplace, in the
monastery; with people in the crowd or alone in a cave; with friends or with enemies; with family, familiar people, and with strangers; with men and with animals. In all kinds of situations, in all kinds of challenges, you have to learn to function in compassion, in meditation – because all these experiences of different situations will make you more and more ripe. Don’t escape from any situation – if you escape, then something will remain missing in you. Then you will not be that ripe, will not be that rich. Live life in its multidimensionality. Live life in its totality. And living in the world, don’t be of it. Live in the world like a lotus flower in water: it lives in water, but the water touches it not. Only then will you come to know the ultimate consciousness which is freedom, which is joy, eternal joy, which is benediction. Not to know it is to miss the whole point of life; to know it is the only goal. The only goal – remember it. Excerpted from The Book of Wisdom, Osho August 2008 51
OSHO International Foundation
52-53:52-53
7/18/2008
11:25 AM
Page 52
Osho talks to the press
THE MAN OF TRUTH A Majority of One
The Last Testament: Interviews with the World’s Press
Excerpted from Chapter 1
Good Morning America, ABC-TV, United States If you were to explain to someone listening and watching who knows nothing about you or your religion…. What is your theology, what is your belief, what do you stand for, what are you trying to achieve?
I have no system of belief. I have no catechism like the Christians, and I don’t have any dogmas, principles, theology. If somebody wants to understand me he will have to learn meditation, learn being silent and sit with me, live with me. There is no other way. All those belief systems are nothing but a process of conditioning you. A belief simply means you don’t know, still you believe. My effort here is that you never believe unless you know. When you know there is no question of believing; you know it. I destroy all belief systems and I do not give you any substitute. Hence, it is not easy to understand me. You have no philosophy of life?
No philosophy of life. I have life itself. There are people who have philosophies of life, but they don’t have any life. Your philosophy, if there is one, has been expressed in “the three L’s,” love, life, laughter. Is that a philosophy of life?
No.
Could you explain that?
It is just a consequence of being silent and in tune with existence: love arises in you, life becomes abundant – laughter too, for no reason, just because this whole existence is so hilarious. This is not philosophy, this is the consequence of being silent. Is it to enjoy life and not worry about tomorrow?
There is no tomorrow. If there is a tomorrow, you cannot stop worrying about it.Tomorrow never comes, it is a process of worrying. Nor is there any yesterday. One is no more, one is not yet. All that is in our hands is the present moment, now, here. And this is a miraculous experience. If there is no yesterday, no tomorrow, and this very moment you are silent, all worrying disappears. All imagining, dreaming, projecting disappears. And it is not that you have to enjoy this moment. That rejoicing arises out of this moment. But you are never here, you are always somewhere else. You are never in the now, you are always then. Otherwise, everything is available but you are absent. I want my people to understand a very simple fact – not a philosophy, something existential, not philosophical – be present to this moment and then see what happens. You say the whole world is a mess. What is it that you’re trying to create in man, in the world?
I’m simply saying that there is a way to be sane. I’m saying that you can get rid of all this insanity created by the past in you.
“That’s what I have been doing all my life: standing all alone – the majority of one against the whole world. And the reason why I can manage to be against the whole world is because I have found my own life source. I don’t depend on anyone. I don’t need any admiration, any compliments, any rewards, any Nobel Prizes. I am enough unto myself.” Osho
Osho has been described by the international press as “an oracle of modern times,” yet he describes himself simply as an ordinary man. This book is a selection of his numerous responses to questions from the world’s media. Facing the most remarkable interviewee they are ever likely to meet, a few journalists are seen to flounder as they sense they are losing their grip on the proceedings. But many become fascinated and delighted by the realization that they are spending precious time with a unique and extraordinarily ordinary being who is sharing his inimitable vision of world events, human relationships, and the art of being a seeker while living in the thick of the challenges of the contemporary world.
Included in this book is a DVD of an incomparable press interview from this series.
How?
Just by being a simple witness of your thought processes. That’s my method of meditation. It is not a prayer because there is no god to pray to. It is simply sitting silently, witnessing the thoughts passing before you. Just witnessing – not interfering, not even judging, because the moment you judge you have lost the pure witness. The moment you say “this is good,” “this is bad,” you have already jumped into the thought process. It takes a little time to create a gap between the witness and the mind. Once the gap is there, you are in for a great surprise: you are not the mind, you are the witness, a watcher. This process of watching is the very alchemy of real religion, because as you become more and more deeply rooted in witnessing, thoughts start disappearing. A moment comes when there is no thought at all. You are, but the mind is utterly empty. That is the moment of enlightenment. That is the moment when for the first time you become unconditioned, sane, a really free human being.
DETAILS Title: The Man of Truth – A Majority of One Author: Osho Subject: Interviews with the World Press Publisher: Rebel Books Pages: 400 ISBN 81-7261-222-2 ISBN 978-81-7261-222-1
For a list of overseas distributors visit: www.osho.com/shop To order within India contact: OSHO Multimedia & Resorts Pvt. Ltd. 17 Koregaon Park, Pune 411 001 Tel: +91 (20) 6601 9981 email: distribsale@osho.net From April 2008 onwards, OSHO Books, Magazine, CDs and DVDs of OSHO Talks, Meditations and Music etc. can be ordered from OSHO Multimedia and Resorts Pvt. Ltd. 17 Koregaon Park, Pune 411001 Tel: +91 (20) 6601 9981 email: distribsale@osho.net
52 OSHO TIMES
Also available online at
osho.com/audiobooks August 2008 53
OSHO International Foundation
54-55:54-55
7/18/2008
11:26 AM
Page 54
The se Who Will WillLove LoveChange… Change… The Future Future Belongs Belongs to toTho Those If we can teach independence and freedom to people, all fictions in religion will disappear.
Here nobody is dependent on me. You want to be dependent, but I won’t allow it. It is because of your desire to be dependent that you have created organized religions. You have become enslaved by all kinds of churches, cults and creeds, because of your desire to be dependent. It is a father-fixation, in the terms of psychoanalysis, because the child is so dependent on the mother and the father. If it is a boy, he becomes fixed on the mother, and that is a great trouble. If it is a girl, she becomes fixed on the father. Every girl her whole life will be trying to find a father-figure in her husband – and that is impossible. Nothing is being repeated. You cannot find your father as a husband. Hence, every woman is frustrated, no husband seems to be right. Every man is disappointed – because no woman is going to be your mother. Now, it is a very strange problem. The husband is trying to find his mother in the wife, the wife is trying to find her father in the husband. There is constant struggle. Marriage is hellfire. Because they are miserable as a husband, as a wife, they have to find some consolation somewhere else – in god, in the priest. Why do you call god the father? And there are mother goddesses also.... These are fixations of childhood.You were dependent then. How long are you going to be parasites on your parents? The father and mother want you to be independent but without being aware of it, they have taught only one thing: be dependent.
Now you are thrown into the world.Your whole psychology demands somebody to be your savior. You are ready to become sheep, some shepherd is needed – somebody to console you, “Don’t be worried. Just believe in me and I will save you. I will take care of you.” Some god is needed who is omnipotent; he has to be, otherwise how will he take care of billions of people? He has to be omnipotent, all-powerful; omniscient, all-knowing; omnipresent, everywhere available. This is our desire. And the priest certainly exploits humanity because of this dependence. Karl Marx was right when he said that religion is the opium of the people.The organized so-called religions are certainly the opium of the people. I will not call religiousness the opium of the people. That is a totally different phenomenon. No god, no fathers, no priest, no rabbi – you are standing on your own feet. Your trust is in existence itself – no mediator. My whole effort is that you should not be dependent on me, whether you are enlightened or not. If you are not enlightened, it is needed even more – no dependence – because a dependent person is spiritually a slave, and a slave has no right to become enlightened.You have to declare your independence, your freedom, even while you are not enlightened, because this freedom, this independence will pave the path towards enlightenment. Of course, after enlightenment there is no need to be dependent. Because there is no need to be dependent, you can be grateful, you can have compassion, and you can understand the compassion of the master.
It is difficult in your darkness, in your unconsciousness, to understand compassion and love. But that should not be your concern at this moment. At this moment, your sole concern is meditation. Go deeper into meditation and you will find compassion, and you will find understanding of compassion.You will find freedom, and you will find that freedom does not mean ungratefulness, unthankfulness. There is no need to show it; your heart will beat with it, your heart will continuously ring a bell of great blissfulness, benediction, and of gratitude for the master. But it is not dependence.
No master who is authentic will ask your surrender, your commitment. These are the frauds who ask your surrender, who ask your commitment.This is not a fold, this is purely a gathering of individuals. It is not a society, neither is it a club, nor a church. It is not an organization. I love to share! – and you are thirsty, and I have enough water to share with you. Because I know the secret, the more I share the more I have, so I am not a loser – and you will be gaining deeper and deeper insights into existence and its mysteries. But there is no question of any dependence on me. I am just your friend. It is your love if you call me your master.You are not commanded to call me your master.You can call me your friend, you can even ask the question without addressing me. The address is not the point.You are related to me in deep love, without any conditions – either from your side or from my side.
54 OSHO TIMES
I have to explain it to you. Whenever you make somebody dependent on you, you also become dependent on that person. Have you ever thought about it, that dependence is a mutual phenomenon? The master of a slave is also a slave of the slave. The leader of the people is also a follower of the people. The leader is continuously looking where the masses are going; he jumps ahead, to remain the leader. He goes on saying what the masses want to hear, and whether that is harmful or poisonous does not matter.Whatever the masses want to hear, he goes on saying it. Never make anybody dependent on you – your wife, your husband, your children – because the more you make them dependent on you, the more you are becoming dependent on them. Allow freedom to your wife, to your husband, to your children. Help them to be independent, and that will help you to be independent of them. And if we can teach independence and freedom to people, all fictions in religion will disappear. Excerpted from
Christianity:The Deadliest Poison and Zen: The Antidote to All Poisons, Osho
To listen to the complete talk go to
osho.com/audiobook
August 2008 55 OSHO International Foundation
56-57:56-57
7/18/2008
11:27 AM
Page 56
This Beautiful Earth It is a time either to destroy the whole earth or to destroy all these arbitrary conceptions of nation, race, religion, and make the whole earth one humanity. Either man has to die or man has to change. I cannot think that man will choose to die. The longing for life is so great...just think that the earth has become dead – no trees, no humanity, no birds, no animals, no sea animals.... It is such a great crisis, because in the whole universe…it is only an assumption of the scientists that there may be life on fifty thousand planets, but there is no absolute evidence. It is just a mathematical and logical conclusion, but there is no scientific proof. As far as we know, only this earth is green, has flowers, love; only this earth has produced people like Gautam Buddha; only this earth has birds which sing, people who dance, who love. This is the only place in the whole universe where people search and seek for truth. To destroy it is such utter stupidity that I don’t think that the third world war is going to happen. And if the third world war does not happen, that will mean a tidal change in human consciousness. We will see a new man who is not Christian, not Hindu, not a Jew, not a Chinese, not an American. If all these trees can exist without being Christians and Hindus; if all these birds can exist without any boundaries of nations.... 56 OSHO TIMES
Except for mankind, the earth is one. And it is only a question of raising human consciousness.... Nations can disappear, religions, discriminations can disappear – and with that, much crap will disappear. Politicians, priests, churches, temples and mosques will not be of any use. There are millions of people who don’t have homes, and god – who is just a lie – has millions of houses for himself. We have lived in an insane way, and now it is a choice between insanity and sanity. If insanity wins, there will be no life at all. If sanity wins, life will become for the first time free from all superstitions, all boundaries, all divisions – one humanity, one earth; freedom of expression, freedom of movement, freedom to choose where you want to live. It is our earth. Excerpted from The Rebellious Spirit, Osho
August 2008 57 OSHO International Foundation
58-59:58-59
7/18/2008
11:27 AM
Page 58
OSHO International Meditation Resort is a unique experiment, an opportunity for individuals to experience a radical approach to meditation and silence. It is a place for the evolution of Zorba the Buddha – someone whose feet can dance on the ground and whose hands can touch the stars – in an environment beyond nations, races and religions. The international language is laughter and silence. This is a place to be alone together, where each can learn from the other while respecting everyone’s unique individuality.
DAILY MEDITATION INTENSIVE in OSHO AUDITORIUM 6:00
OSHO Dynamic Meditation: Osho’s most popular active meditation
8:00
The Art of Listening: an OSHO talk on audiotape Vipassana: silent sitting, watching the breath A selected OSHO Meditation OSHO Nadabrahma Meditation: a meditation using breath and sound OSHO Kundalini Meditation: another potent active meditation technique to still the mind The Evening Meeting of the OSHO White Robe Brotherhood. This two-hour meditation meeting begins with dancing and celebration. This is followed by sitting silently, first to music and then to the sound of Osho speaking – a videotaped talk that provides an opportunity to experience silence with no effort.
10:30 12:00 14:45 16:15 18:45
Being Here
in OSHO CHUANG TZU
15:00
Silent sitting Silent sitting Silent sitting (sometimes with music)
21:30
A selected OSHO Meditation
7:30 13:45
for more information visit
Samudra came to the Meditation Resort for the first time last year together with his wife. He was impressed by its beauty, and the OSHO meditations affected him profoundly. After ten very intense days he needed to leave, expecting to return for vacations.
osho.com/meditation
OSHO International Meditation Resort Pune, India On Arrival
Children under 18
Nationals need to bring a valid photo ID such as driver’s license, voter’s card, PAN card, passport, college ID or credit card with photo. International visitors are required to have a valid visa. Every six months everyone needs to re-register with a valid photo ID. OSHO International Meditation Resort is an AIDS-free zone. On your arrival you will be required to take an AIDS (HIV) test in the resort.
The activities at the OSHO International Meditation Resort are designed for the benefit of adults; the environment is not geared towards children and minors. We recommend that parents come alone, without their children. If you are traveling with children, please note that: Children of school age are only allowed during their school holidays. Those under 12 can only come into the Meditation Resort between 1:00 and 2:00 pm. Minors between the ages of 12 and 18 will only be admitted if they are interested in and able to participate in the activities (meditations, growth programs and/or Work as Meditation program). All visitors under 18 need to be accompanied by a parent at all times. International visitors need to bring a passport and Nationals should present a birth or school certificate.
Welcome Morning: Daily This is an introduction to the Meditation Resort, including a step-by-step experience of OSHO Active Meditations and Evening Meeting. At this time you can ask any questions you may have, meet other participants from around the world, and get information that will assist you in making the most of your time here. You will also learn more about the process of personal and cultural conditioning and see how the Multiversity and the meditations in OSHO Auditorium support you to go beyond those limitations to a more authentic lifestyle.
● ●
●
●
Health Club Facilities
For more information please contact: OSHO International Meditation Resort 17 Koregaon Park, Pune 411001, MS, India Tel: +91 (0)20 6601 9999 Fax: +91 (0)20 6601 9990 website: www.osho.com/resort
The swimming pool, table tennis, volleyball and gym facilities are available at no cost to visitors to the Meditation Resort.
On our website you will also find information on how to get here and how to arrange accommodation.
58 OSHO TIMES
Back home I was overloaded with energy. I felt very strong mentally and physically. I started working again and did not feel bad about that, like I normally felt after holidays. I felt at the center of my being whether working or relaxing, and I enjoyed everything. As the months passed, that strong energy slowly disappeared. I did everything according to the book: I meditated every day and swam each morning before going to work. I had yoga lessons and practiced almost every day; I ate only vegetarian food and got enough sleep; I had a busy and responsible job, managed it well and was very successful. But I did not get back that same energy. What was I doing wrong? To find out, I decided to return to the Meditation Resort for a longer period. A short vacation wasn’t enough. For several years my partner and I had been doing trainings related to meditation, personal growth and yoga. We
felt that we needed to grow further before starting to teach others. So at the end of July 2007 we came back. Arriving here I immediately fell ill and had to take a course of antibiotics. I felt terrible about that because I had always taken care of myself in every possible way; I did not accept feeling down or physically tired or weak.When I became better I participated in the OSHO meditations. Then, in the Evening Meeting I heard Osho talking about total acceptance. “See it as a whole,” he says. “Make no separation. Accept life as it comes.” And suddenly I recognized what I still had to learn. I was so thankful for his words. It was new to me that life also means having moments of feeling down, and that I could look at that with full consciousness. Now I feel that those moments are the best to get to know myself better. By looking inside and meditating while they are happening, I see their roots, and I find the answer within. I am so thankful to existence to have come across Osho on my path, and that I can stay here and learn to enjoy whatever life brings. August 2008 59
OSHO International Foundation
60-61:60-61
7/18/2008
11:28 AM
Page 60
Moments of the Heart On June 1 Mumbai’s prestigious Nehru Auditorium witnessed a beautiful OSHO event – Moments of the Heart. Consisting of a slide show, meditation, and celebrities talking about Osho, the event was organized to celebrate the OSHO Times. Devendra from OSHO International Meditation Resort in Pune led a packed hall in Atisha’s Heart Meditation and talked about the OSHO Times. A subscription to the monthly magazine was included in the participation fee. Many more such events are being planned in other cities in India as part of the annual OT promotion drive every August.
Changes, Changes, Changes
Forthcoming Events: New Delhi Sunday, August 10
Basho wrote:
Let my name be traveler; First rains.
The Art of Relaxing in Daily Life (A guided meditation and methods to be used in daily life) Facilitated by: Devendra Bharti Timing: 10.30 am to 1.00 pm Venue: India Islamic Cultural Center 87-88 Lodhi Road, New Delhi 110003 Contact for booking: Bharat (Kalkaji) 9818912244 Sarita (Rohini) 9811424550 Full Circle (Jorbagh) 24620063 Full Circle (Khan Market) 24655641-43 Full Circle (Greater Kailash) 29245641-44 Full Circle (Saket) 40597541
The first rains have come. Forget my name because all our names are nothing but writings on the sand. The first rains have come and the names will disappear. Basho says, “Let my name just be traveler.” More than that is getting identified with the vehicle on which you are traveling.You may be in a car, you may be in a bullock cart, you may be in a bus, a train or an airplane. It does not matter what the vehicle is – you are the traveler. A thousand times you have changed at many junctions. In many forms you have appeared in the world – sometimes as a tree and sometimes as a rose bush and sometimes as an eagle. The eastern clarity arising out of enlightenment does not believe in evolution in the sense that is understood by Charles Darwin. It gives equality to all that is living in existence.You are not superior to the rose bush. But there are idiots, like the Shankaracharya of Puri, who think that Brahmins are superior. It is not only a question of humanity, who is superior and who is inferior.
Indore Sunday, August 23 & 24 Improving the Quality of Life A meditative workshop Facilitated by: Amrit Sadhana Contact for booking: Osho Samvet Meditation Center 9893430324, 9926490170, 9826630008, 9893199669
Excerpted from Zen:The Diamond Thunderbolt, Osho
Painting by Tulika
60 OSHO TIMES
In Subscription events in other cities: Bhopal Milarepa 31, Bhadhada Road, New Market Bhopal Tel: 4222589, 3042555 Gwalior OSHO Jagran Dhyan Kendra J 78, Patel Nagar, City Center, Cite No 2 Gwalior Tel: 9425114898 Jabalpur OSHO Gangotri Dhyan Kendra 19, Avadhpuri Colony, Gwarighat Road, Jabalpur Tel: 4917505, 9329830417 Jaipur Osho Utsav Dhyan Kendra U-4 Road no.-5, Ganapati Nagar Railway colony, Jaipur Tel: 2078912 Bhilwara, Chittor, Begun, Ganga Nagar, Vijay Nagar OSHO Geet Govind Harnimahadev Road, Bhilwara Tel: 9413057057 Dungarpur OSHO Manik Dhyan Kendra 2/97, Shivaji Nagar, Dungarpur Tel: 233277 Junagarh OSHO Sanatan Dhyan Kendra Premneed, Sant Rohidas Nagar Meghani Nagar, Junagarh
Pune Sunday, August 24
Porbander OSHO Abhinav Dhyan Kendra Arya Kunj, Harshad Road Porbander Tel: 2245501
The Art of Relaxing in Daily Life (A guided meditation and methods to be used in daily life) Facilitated by: Devendra Bharti Contact for booking: Sanjay 9371002982
Dehradun OSHO Resorts 111, Rajpur Road, Dehradun Tel: 2749522
To organize events in other cities contact: sanjay@osho.net August 2008 61 OSHO International Foundation
62-67:62-67
7/18/2008
11:28 AM
Page 62
OSHO INTERNATIONAL MEDITATION RESORT
WELLNESS
You will have to watch small things in your
Breath: The Natural Way to Start The many Opening Courses offered by the Multiversity expand our experience of ourselves in different ways. They can open our breathing, help us experience new aliveness, or rediscover our sensitivity and even our inner voice. Tameer, who facilitates many of these courses, works from a space of meditation. He loves to use OSHO breath work to help people free their emotions.
What is the difference between OSHO breath work and other ways of working with breath?
The approach. Often therapists feel they have to fix the client and actually, there’s no need to fix anything. Fixing is for cars, not people. People grow, transform and change. For me, it’s a space of being present and available for the person I’m working with. We use bioenergetics, a lot of music and dance, and we let the body tell its own story.The original being is allowed to come out and show that it’s okay to be whoever we are – not in words but through the actual practice of acceptance. A lot of stuff that people are ordinarily stuck in dissolves and through this, transformation happens. Where does meditation come in?
Meditation allows both participant and facilitator to be in a relaxed space – to be aware of themselves and not get lost in whatever is happening with the group or with the individual. As Osho says, therapy is just clearing the way towards meditation. We unburden the mind, and let the body be more relaxed through dissolving all the tensions and repressed emotions that live inside of us. Once we can
allow all this, we get unburdened and immediately become more quiet inside; the energy moves more freely and we can fall into meditation in a more relaxed and easy way.This works for both facilitatorstherapists and people taking individual sessions or courses. What courses and sessions do you give?
Opening to Feeling: Breath is a basic one, to connect people with their emotions.They learn that it’s okay to feel whatever they’re feeling. They will survive; only their emotions keep on changing moment to moment. I’m also doing Opening to the Inner Child to connect people with this beautiful child that lives inside each one of us. It’s very beautiful work that allows the inner child to recognize that there’s an adult now who can take care of his needs – and in this adult there’s a child that needs to be taken care of. In this dynamic there’s a third person at work: our inner judge. It’s the voice of the collective that we carry within ourselves which is continually judging us. We work basically with all three of these inner characters and the dynamics between them.
62 OSHO TIMES
life, and the breath is the most important. The breathing continuously changes with your emotions.When you are angry, your breathing is unrhythmic, asymmetrical. When you are in sexual lust, your breathing is almost insane. When you are calm and quiet, joyful, your breathing has a musical quality to it; your breathing is almost a song. When you are feeling at home in existence, when you have no desires and are feeling contented, suddenly breathing almost stops.When you are in a state of awe, of wonder, breathing stops for a moment. And those are the greatest moments of life, because only in those moments when breathing almost stops are you in utter tune with existence. You are in existence and existence is in you. Your experience of breathing has to be more and more profound, scrutinized, observed, watched, and analyzed. See how your breathing changes with your emotions, and vice versa, how your emotions change with your breathing. For example, when you are afraid, watch the change in your breath. And then one day try to change the breath to the same pattern as when you were afraid. You will be surprised that if you change your breath to exactly what it was when you were afraid, fear will arise in you immediately. Watch your breathing when you are deeply in love with somebody – holding his hand, hugging your beloved, watch your breathing. And then, one day, just sitting silently under a tree, watch yourself again breathing in the same way. Make the pattern, fall into the same gestalt again. Breathe in the same way as if you were hugging your beloved and you will be surprised; the whole existence becomes your beloved. Again there is great love arising in you. They go together. Hence in Yoga, in Tantra, in Tao – in all these three great systems and sciences of human consciousness and the expansion of human consciousness – breathing is one of the key phenomena. Excerpted from The Secret of Secrets, Osho
August 2008 63 OSHO International Foundation
62-67:62-67
7/18/2008
11:29 AM
Page 64
OSHO INTERNATIONAL MEDITATION RESORT
INDIV IDU OSHO SESS AL IONS
WELLNESS
Then there’s Opening to Intimacy – also a beautiful course about intimacy, which doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with sex. It is the first process, a beginning, because we’re not intimate, not truthful with ourselves.We don’t have a clue who we really are – and not only the nice part. Afterwards we move into relating with others. The better I relate to myself, the easier it is to relate to other people in a clear and honest way. The third issue in this course is how to set healthy boundaries in relating. We tend to get lost in a relationship or with friends, kind of disappear into the other – which is fine if you can also recognize your own space and come back to it. The mistake we make is that we tend to get lost in the other person and then start blaming them for it – “you are responsible for my happiness or unhappiness” – which is a bit outside of reality. In the course we see that it is okay to be your own person, and also melt into the other in an intimate way – without losing intimacy with yourself.
Opening Courses are available every month at the Multiversity. In Aug/Sep they are: Opening to Self-Love: 1 – 3 & 19 – 21 Aug Opening to Feeling: Breath: 3 – 5 Aug Opening to Intimacy: 23 – 25 Aug Opening to the Heart 27 – 29 Aug & 7 – 8 Sep Opening to Feeling 13 – 15 Sep Breath Courses: Tantra: Breath of Life: 20 – 22 Aug Pulsation: Neo-Reichian Breathing & Bodywork: 16 – 18 Jan Breath Trainings: Pulsation: Neo-Reichian Breathing & Bodywork: 27 Dec – 6 Jan Primal Breath Training: 2 – 8 Jan Alchemy of Breath: 11 – 15 Jan OSHO Rebalancing Intensive: Opening to Breath: 16 – 21 Jan Individual Breath Sessions are available throughout the year.
Do you use the breath work in these three Opening courses?
Absolutely – breath is about 50% of what I use.With breath and bodywork we move away from being controlled by our routine personality structure, and we explore the multi-layered being that we are. It’s a way to bypass our conscious mind and reach into our unconscious mind, energizing the body so that we can break its conditionings. It’s a very multidimensional kind of work. I’ve heard Osho talk about this. He says that there is a given breath pattern that relates to an emotion or feeling, and if at any moment you imitate that pattern you can go into that feeling. And the reverse is also true.You can move out of any emotion just by changing your breathing. It’s about waking up the energy, letting it move and dissolving body tensions that usually hide the emotions.
Individual sessions of 1 – 1 ½ hours each are available throughout the day. They cover a wide variety of approaches which fall under the general headings of Bodywork, Therapy and Counseling, and Energywork and the Esoteric.
Reiki This soft, non-intrusive healing method creates a meditative space. Reiki allows you to go deeper into your own healing energies and to expand in sensitivity, trust, and awareness.The session can be hands-on, in the aura, or a combination of both.
What do you do in your sessions?
Breath sessions are pretty much the same thing, but we look at specific issues. Usually we try to do a number of sessions so that the person can work through a whole issue. When they are working one-to-one, they really go straight to the point. If the person is open for it then it moves very quickly, allowing them to leave behind whatever is no longer needed. This brings clarity to the way that they look at themselves and a new way of looking at life. They learn to trust in existence, going from theory to realization, in many different aspects of life. We’re not offering people a story, we’re offering them an experience that they won’t forget.They can take it with them and relate and create it for themselves anywhere. We do this together so that the way toward meditation becomes easier. You work in many different countries. Is there any difference for you when you work In the Osho Multiversity?
The basic difference is that here I work with people from many cultures at the same time. That means multiple conditionings. And if people manage to come all the way to the Meditation Resort, they’re really looking for something. They’re open and want to use the opportunity, use the time, and have the experience of being here. Anuprada
64 OSHO TIMES
Japanese Facial Massage A deeply relaxing massage that can rejuvenate facial tissue and reduce the impact of the aging process. Stimulation of the nervous system improves blood circulation and lymphatic flow. Energy and stress locked in the facial, head and neck muscles is released, creating a deep relaxation of the body-mind.
Hypnosis for Meditation The creative use of hypnosis can deepen your meditation whether you are in the busy market place or alone. By expanding and nourishing whatever helps your meditation, unconscious objections or problems are dissolved with gentle, loving persuasion.
Aura-Soma Color-Care-System Consultation® As a tool for consciousness, the colors of Aura-Soma reflect who we are back to us. The colors that most attract us can reveal which life lessons we are learning now, as well as over our lifetime. They are a beautiful aid to meditation, helping to bring the light of consciousness into less conscious parts of ourselves.
These are only a few of the many sessions regularly available at the OSHO Multiversity. For more information on the full program see osho.com/multiversity. August 2008 65
OSHO International Foundation
62-67:62-67
7/18/2008
11:29 AM
Page 66
OSHO INTERNATIONAL MEDITATION RESORT
CO & TR URSES AININ GS
OSHO MULTIVERSITY
AUGUST HIGHLIGHTS
I N N E R A N D O U T E R T R A N S F O R M AT I O N
A SELECTION OF OSHO COURSES AND TRAININGS
Enhance your life inside and out with unique OSHO Courses and Trainings
Opening to Feeling: Breath
Finding Your Voice, Finding Your Song
In this course we gently and surely befriend the full range of our breathing again. We take its help to regain our capacity to feel the fullness of our lives.
This course is a lighthearted and playful invitation to everyone, however good or bad they feel about their voice, to connect with this unique musical instrument, explore its potential and create a song from the inside out.
3 – 5 August
22 – 25 August
OSHO No-Mind Training For people who love the OSHO No-Mind process, and who would like to deepen their own experience and learn to facilitate it. 3 – 9 August
Opening to Intimacy By playfully and honestly expressing ourselves, we lose our fear of love and open ourselves to new dimensions of intimacy. 23 – 25 August
Reliving Past Lives: Living the Present An amazingly effective way to transform your present life. 8 – 10 August
Tantric Meditation: Watching the Fire Learn and experience basic techniques from The Book of Secrets that use our vital, most fundamental life energy to find a key to our inner mysteries. 9 – 12 August
Primal Rebirth
11 – 15 August
Together with other women, rediscover the essence of your feminine energy. 28 – 30 August
Awareness Intensive: Who Is In? Based on traditional Zen techniques, this course focuses our total energy on the search for who we really are. Residential, in silence and isolation. 14 – 17 August
●
it is a very fundamental technique, fresh and unused it cuts away all the past repressions of humanity
11 – 31 Aug
This course introduces you to simple, practical techniques that you can use in your daily life to reconnect with the fact that you are lovable – just as you are.
OSHO Born Again Seven days, for two hours a day. The first hour is for entering your childhood. The second hour is sitting in silent meditation. ●
Com ing soon
●
a great experiment to achieve your lost childhood rediscovering the moments of wonder and joy
17 – 23 Aug
Awareness Intensive: Satori A powerful, residential process dedicated to the search of your innermost being.
OSHO No-Mind: Course and Training Seven days, two hours a day. Using gibberish – speaking in any language that you do not know – to empty out all the garbage of the mind. ●
Aura-Soma® Level I Course This foundation course is both a learning and an experience of Aura-Soma as a color system, a non-intrusive therapy and a support for meditation.
●
it’s crazy but will relieve you of much heat and steam after one hour you will feel tremendously quiet
3 – 9 Aug
OSHO Reminding Yourself of the Forgotten Language of Talking to Your BodyMind
19 – 25 September
Opening to Intimacy By playfully and honestly expressing ourselves, we lose our fear of love and open ourselves to new dimensions of intimacy. 15 –17 October
NLP Practitioner Training
Using hypnosis, you first connect and make friends with your body/mind; then you begin a healing process by communicating with your unconscious. ●
Vigorous, deep massage work combined with yoga stretches, which can relieve back and neck pain and other chronic holdings in the body. At the end of the training you will be able to give a full session. Prerequisite: interview.
Neurolinguistic Programming is a powerful tool for creating communication and effectiveness in whatever you do. It is used to great effect in areas such as therapy, personal development, education, business, sports and health. In this training you will learn the fundamental principles of NLP as well as acquire the skills to use them.
16 – 22 August
25 November – 10 December
Ayurvedic Yoga Massage Training: Basic Skills
Three weeks, three hours a day. The first week is laughter, the second crying, and the third is silent witnessing.
Loving Yourself
3 – 10 September
12 – 14 August
These courses take place on the same dates every month.
●
Tantra Experience This is an experiment with energy, an exploration of our body’s capacity to enjoy its own flowing vitality.
O S H O M E D I TAT I V E T H E R A P I E S OSHO Mystic Rose
Tantra for Women
31 August – 2 September
In the first seven years of our life the blueprint is formed for who we unconsciously decide to become as adults. A lot of our questions, difficulties, hurts and pain are related to that period of our life. In this course we find the way back to our true selves.
Every month the Multiversity offers processes designed by Osho for the contemporary man, to cut through layers of conditioning straight to the center of his being. The OSHO International Meditation Resort, with its unique blend of relaxation, meditation and celebration, is the ideal place to experience this transformation.
●
can be used for weight control or dealing with migraines and any other body aches and pains for anything out of natural balance in the body
24 – 30 Aug
OSHO Dynamic Meditation Booster Seven days: starts from the 25th of each month
66 OSHO TIMES OSHO International Foundation
1– 3 3– 5 3– 9 6– 8 8 – 10 9 – 12 10 –16 11 11 – 15 11 – 31 12 –14 14 –17 15 – 16 16 – 17 16 – 22 17 –19 17 – 23 19 – 21 19 –21 20 – 22 22 –25 23 23 –25 24 – 30
Aug Aug Aug Aug Aug Aug Aug Aug Aug Aug Aug Aug Aug Aug Aug Aug Aug Aug Aug Aug Aug Aug Aug Aug
25 – 27 Aug 26 – 27 Aug 26 – 28 Aug 27 Aug 27 –29 Aug 28 – 30 Aug 31 Aug – 2 Sep
Opening to Self-Love Opening to Feeling: Breath OSHO No-Mind: Course & Training Dehypnosis & Self-Hypnosis Reliving Past Lives: Living the Present Tantric Meditation: Watching the Fire Self-Hypnosis for Meditation A Day for the Body Primal Rebirth OSHO Mystic Rose Tantra Experience Awareness Intensive: Who Is In? Loving Yourself Intuitive Tarot Ayurvedic Yoga Massage: Back, Neck, Shoulders & Basic Skills True Feminine Nature OSHO Born Again Inner Skills for Work & Life Opening to Self-Love Tantra: Breath of Life Finding Your Voice, Finding Your Song MaleFemale Polarity Opening to Intimacy OSHO Reminding Yourself of the Forgotten Language of Talking to Your BodyMind Dehypnosis & Self-Hypnosis OSHO Reiki First Degree Demystifying Death Bringing Meditation in Your Daily Activities Opening to the Heart Tantra for Women Loving Yourself
PREVIEWS 3 – 10 Sep 4 – 5 Sep 9 Sep 10 –11 Sep 12 –14 Sep 18 –19 Sep 19 –25 Sep 20 –22 Sep 15 –17 Oct 25 Nov – 10 Dec
Awareness Intensive: Satori Biodanza: Dance Your Life Tantra Energy Aura-Soma & Body Care Intuitive Tarot Celebrating the New Woman Aura-Soma® Level 1 Course Sound to Silence, Silence to Song Opening to Intimacy NLP Practitioner Training
Dates and programs are subject to change. For an up-to-date listing of programs visit osho.com/multiversity.
email: multiversity@osho.net or write to: OSHO Multiversity OSHO International Meditation Resort 17 Koregaon Park, Pune 411001, India Tel: +91 (0)20 6601 9999, ext. 312
for full program visit
osho.com/multiversity August 2008 67
68-69:68-69
7/18/2008
11:29 AM
Page 68
IN THE NEWS Hypnotism Changes the Brain Hypnosis is more than just a party trick – it actually changes how the brain works, a new study has revealed. Researchers have found that when hypnosis is used to make people forget, it produces measurable changes in the brain which suggest that the effects are real and not simply people “letting themselves go,” The Daily Telegraph reported. According to lead researcher Professor Yadin Dudai, the insights into memory suppression and recall will help to understand the mechanisms underlying some forms of amnesia, along with “how we suppress distressing memories or things we would rather not dwell upon.” In fact, Prof Dudai and his colleagues at The Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel came to the conclusion after analyzing the effects of hypnosis on two groups of volunteers – those who were susceptible to hypnotic suggestions and those who were not – after they had shown a documentary depicting a day in the life of a young woman.
IN THE NEWS When the researchers analyzed brain scans of the subjects, they found distinctive differences in specific brain areas – namely, occipital, temporal, and prefrontal areas – among participants in the two groups. “The surprise for us was that activity was raised during memory suppression in one specific region in the frontal cortex,” the Telegraph quoted Dudai as saying. In effect, he added, it probably told the other brain regions “don’t even think about retrieving that memory.” Excerpted from The Times of India Hypnosis is healthy: It is not meditation, but it still somehow reflects meditation. It is like the moon reflected in the water; it is not the moon, but this is still a reflection of the moon.
The celebrated writer Jeffrey Archer visited the OSHO International Meditation Resort recently. Breaking into his busy schedule, his publisher, Landmark Publishing House, who also brings out OSHO books, arranged his visit en route to Bangalore. Amrito and Sadhana showed him around. When he entered the book shop where about four hundred OSHO titles in English and Hindi are displayed he exclaimed, visibly impressed, “More books than mine!” Lord Archer was intrigued by the concept of meditation in daily life, and that something like meditation or consciousness could happen without the trappings of religion.
He was attracted by the Olympicsize swimming pool and club meditation area, and interested in Osho’s concept of Zorba the Buddha. While leaving he remarked, “I am more puzzled than when I came here.” To which Amrito replied, “That is why it is called a Mystery School.” When a writer writes a novel it is, in a vicarious way,
his life story. Howsoever he tries, there is no way to hide it – just remove the superficial and you will find his heart beating there. Excerpted from
For Madmen Only (Price of Admission:Your Mind), Osho
Excerpted from
Beyond Psychology, Osho
OSHO Multiversity offers many Hypnosis and SelfHypnosis courses, trainings and sessions. For more information, see osho.com/multiversity.
Dial 911 for Bees Mobile phones could hasten mass starvation as the world’s harvests fail. Scientists are putting forward the theory that radiation given off by mobile phones and other hi-tech gadgets is a possible answer to one of the more bizarre mysteries ever to happen in the natural world – the abrupt disappearance of the bees that pollinate crops. Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) occurs when a hive’s inhabitants suddenly disappear, leaving only queens, eggs and a few immature workers. The vanished bees are never found, but thought to die singly far from home. The parasites, wildlife and other bees that normally raid the honey and pollen left behind when a colony dies, refuse to go anywhere near the abandoned hives.
Impressed by the Osho Vision
The alarm was first sounded last autumn, and has now hit half of all American states. The West Coast is thought to have lost 60 per cent of its commercial bee population, with 70 per cent missing on the East Coast. CCD has since spread to parts of Europe. John Chapple, one of London’s biggest bee-keepers, announced recently that 23 of his 40 hives have been abruptly abandoned. The implications of the spread are alarming. Most of the world’s crops depend on pollination by bees. Albert Einstein once said that if the bees disappeared, “man would have only four years of life left.” Excerpted from The Independent
The population is growing, the starvation is growing, sicknesses like AIDS are spreading, the nuclear weapons are piling up. It is enough for any man of intelligence to understand that we are very close on a global death. Some way or other this beautiful earth is going to be destroyed, unless something very drastic is done.
Want more News?
Excerpted from The Last Testament, Osho
Retail Therapy If you have shopaholic tendencies, particularly if you are a woman and depressed, chances are you may be suffering from a disorder called oniomania. It is marked by an obsessive desire to shop, and experts believe that out of ten oniomaniacs, six are women. What’s worse, it is a condition that remains mostly undiagnosed. “Oniomaniacs, or those suffering from the compulsive shopping disorder, encounter frequent shopping bouts. They spend fat packets of money that give a feeling of euphoria,” said Samir Parikh, chief of the Mental Health and Behavioral Science Department, Max Healthcare. Commenting on why women were the most likely sufferers, Sanjay Chugh, a leading psychiatrist and the founder chairman of the International Institute of Mental Health, said: “Shopping or buying plays a strong symbolic role for women compared to men.” “Often women resort to shopping as a distraction from their stressors or as a part of their leisure time activity, which is why the disorder is more prevalent in them. Men, however, seem to use sports or work as options to de-stress themselves,” explained Chugh. Parikh said: “Depression, boredom and emotional distress like anxiety, low self-esteem and peer pressure are some factors that trigger the shopping spree in people suffering from the disorder.” Radhika Bhirani Excerpted from www.indianews.mobi. Finally, Ronald Reagan is retired into private life.
After leaving the White House, he and Nancy return to living normal lives on their ranch in California, and are just as happy as little rats. One day, Ronald decides he wants to take Nancy shopping, so he gets her into the car and they drive to the local shopping mall.Then Reagan takes Nancy into the huge Dingbat’s Department Store.
As they walk in, Ronald looks up and sees a sign by the door that reads: “Please leave your bag outside.” “Gee, Nancy,” says Ronald, turning to his wife. “Sorry, but you will have to wait here!” Excerpted from Christianity: The Deadliest Poison and Zen:
The Antidote to All Poisons, Osho
OSHO DVDs Win over Mumbai Recently, two OSHO talks on DVD and VCD – How to Relax with Yourself and The Art of Loving – were launched by popular star Anaida and film director Karan Razdan in a spectacular event at the Tata Megastore Croma in Mumbai. In The Art of Loving Osho comments on the question: How can I love better? In How to Relax with Yourself: Why am I scared to accept myself as I am? They are published by Shemaroo Entertainment. The launch was enhanced with a short OSHO meditation, “The Art of Listening,” facilitated by Devendra, representing OSHO International Foundation. The place was packed with visitors as well as media. Mumbai media coverage was overwhelming. There were articles in The Times of India, Mumbai Mirror, Hindustan Times, DNA and Midday, and TV programs on Aaj Tak and ETV. The beautifully packaged OSHO titles are available in all the leading book and music stores in India. They are the first two in a series of twenty-five to be published by Shemaroo within a year.
Get a free subscript ion to our monthly Newsletter at OSHO.com/newsletter
68 OSHO TIMES
August 2008 69 OSHO International Foundation
70-71:70-71
7/18/2008
11:29 AM
Page 70
OSHO Meditation Weekends August – September 2008 Dindigul (Kodaikanal) 1 – 3 August 16 Mounspuram Second Street Dindigul Jeevan Naval: 09443023461 Chordia: 09443232465 Venue: S.V International Hotel Kodaikanal Facilitated by: Devendra Bharti
I HAVE HEARD…
in India
…But Not Understanding It happened one day that a monk was coming back and some bird dropped a piece of meat in his bowl. Now a great problem arose for him because Buddha had said, “Nothing should be rejected from the bowl. Whatsoever is in the bowl you have to eat it all.” And he had also said, “You should not eat meat, you should not kill for eating.” He came in front of Buddha, and in front of the whole commune he asked the question, “What am I supposed to do? Should I throw this piece of meat away or should I eat it?” Buddha closed his eyes and thought for a moment. It was really a difficult decision because there were dangers. If he says, “Throw it,” then he is giving an opportunity in the coming centuries for all the Buddhists to choose their food. Then whatsoever they like they will eat, and whatsoever they don’t like they will throw away. That would be a wastage of food and it is not respectful. And if he says, “Eat the meat,” there is no danger he thought, because birds will not do it every day – perhaps once in a century or perhaps not ever again. It is just an accident. So he said, “Whatsoever is in your begging bowl, you have to eat it.”
Trichy (Tamilnadu) 15 – 17 August Contact: OSHO Dharmateerth Meditation Resort Tanjore Road, Thuvakudi Trichy 620015 Mobile: 9443424065 Facilitated by: Mohan Bharti
Mehsana (Gujarat)
The end of, “Sorry, that OSHO Talk is out of stock. Shall we order it for you?”
3000 downloadable OSHO talks now instantly available in the comfort of your home or office. Simply select your talk and listen.
22 – 24 August Contact: OSHO Manan Neo-Sannyas Commune Near Railway Overbridge Palavasana, Mehsana Tel: 02762-251689, 242977 Mobile: 9426318601 Facilitated by: Anand Swabhav
Haridwar (Uttranchal) 12 – 14 September Contact: Lalit: 9997468842 Aman: 9319028869 Venue: Anandotsav Ashram Near Bharat Mata Mandir Haridwar Facilitated by: Anand Swabhav
That was the beginning of meat eating. That is how man’s
cunning mind works. The monks started sending messages to the householders, “You can start giving meat; there is no harm.” And finally, as time passed, all the Buddhists of the world have become meat eaters. This is what I say: following, but not understanding. Excerpted from The Sword and the Lotus, Osho
Mumbai
OSHO Meditation Events
Every Sunday and Every third Saturday of the month 5:30 – 8:30 pm OSHO International Foundation in association with Times Foundation Venue: Times of India Building, 2nd floor
osho.com/audiotalks
TALKS
Painting by Tulika
D.N. Road, Fort, Mumbai (MS)
Tel: 9323020611 Entry free 70 OSHO TIMES OSHO International Foundation
August 2008 71
72-73:72-73
7/18/2008
11:30 AM
Page 72
A Little Bit of Misunderstanding…. I have been telling so many jokes about the Italians, but not a single angry letter. They understand that jokes are jokes! If you understand too much you cannot joke. A little bit of misunderstanding is needed.
Osho
Joe Speak-Easy, the successful lawyer, is married to a woman who nags him constantly. She nags him about his appearance, about how much he drinks, about how little he loves her – about almost everything. So Joe starts staying later at his office to avoid her. One day, after weeks of defending a client called William Wright who is on trial for murder, Joe comes home very depressed. He has lost the case, and Wright is to be executed that night unless the governor pardons him. As Joe enters the house, his wife begins, “Where have you been? It’s after ten o’clock.” “Ah, nag, nag, nag,” he says in disgust, and goes to pour himself a drink. “The minute you come home,” snaps his wife, “you start drinking. Not even a hello for me!” “Ah, nag, nag, nag,” sighs Joe. Then he goes upstairs for a bath, telling his wife that he is expecting a phone call from the governor. While he is in the bath, the call comes –Wright has been pardoned. Joe’s wife decides to tell him the good news herself. As she enters the bathroom Joe is standing naked, bending over the tub. “Hey, Joe,” says his wife. “They’re not hanging Wright tonight.” Joe snaps back, “Ah, nag, nag, nag!”
All the elephants in Greece are ordered to evacuate the country. Behind the last one is a small mouse. The elephant turns,“Why are you running, my friend?” “Haven’t you heard the decree?” replies the mouse. “Yes, but you’re a mouse,” the elephant says. “Ah yes,” the mouse sighs, “but if they say I’m an elephant, then how will I prove that I’m not?”
The woman phones down to the hotel manager. “I’m up here in room 5110,” she shouts angrily, “and I want you to know there’s a man walking around in the room across the way with not one stitch of clothes on and his shades are up.” “I’ll send the house detective up right away, madam,” says the manager. The detective enters the woman’s room, peers across the way, and says, “You’re right, madam, the man hasn’t any clothes on. But his window sill covers him from the waist down no matter where he is in his room.” “Indeed?” yelps the lady. “Stand on the bed! Stand on the bed!”
JOKES
It seems there were two brothers by the name of Jones. John Jones was married and Jim Jones was the owner of an old dilapidated rowboat. It just so happened that John’s wife died on the same day that Jim’s boat filled with water and sank. A few days later, a kindly old lady saw Jim on the street, and mistaking him for John said, “Oh, Mr. Jones. I heard about your terrible catastrophe.You must feel heartbroken.” Replied Jim, “Why, I am not a bit sorry. She was a rotten old thing from the start. Her bottom was all chewed up and she smelled like old dead fish. She had a bad crack in back and a pretty bad hole in the front and every time I used her she started leaking all over the place. Oh, I could handle her all right, but when anybody else used her, she would go to pieces.Well, here is what finished her. Four guys came across town looking for a good time and asked me to rent out. I warned them she was not so hot, but they said they wanted to take a crack anyway. Well, the damn fools, all four of them tried to get inside at once and she split right up the middle.” The old woman fainted before he could finish.
The first divorce case in Calcutta has some funny sidelights. The attorney for the complainant puts his client on the stand and asks him,“Now, as I understand it, every night when you return from work, instead of having your wife alone and waiting for you, you find a different man hiding in the closet?” “Yes, that’s right.” “And this, of course, causes you untold anguish and unhappiness, does it not?” “Of course it does,” comes the hurt reply. “I never have any room to hang up my clothes!”
72 OSHO TIMES
A husband brings home a monkey and two rabbits to the one room in which he and his wife live. She looks dismayed. “What will they eat?” “The same food as we do,” says the husband. “Where will they sleep?” “At the foot of the bed.” “What about the smell?” she protests. “They’ll get used to it,” he answered,“as I did.”
The farm woman boards the bus with nine children and refuses to pay fares for any of them. “These three are seven,” she says, “these three are five, and these three are two years old.” The bus driver looks at her in astonishment. “You mean to tell me you get three every time?’ “Shucks, no. Sometimes we don’t get any.”
“Why won’t you, honey?” “I’m too tired.” “Ah, come on....” “Leave me alone!” “I won’t be able to sleep!” “Well, I can’t sleep now.” “Please.” “Why – in the middle of the night?” “Because I’m hot.” “You get hot at the damnedest times!” “You don’t love me!” “Yes, I do....” “If you loved me you would do it.” “Well, damn it – alright.” “What’s the matter?” “I can’t find it.” “That feels better.” “It should be – it’s all the way up.” “That’s enough; thanks, dear.” “Next time, open the damned window yourself!”
August 2008 73 OSHO International Foundation
74-75:74-75
7/18/2008
11:30 AM
Page 74
TIMES
THE MAGAZINE FOR CONSCIOUS LIVING
Stay Connected – Subscribe Now! Subscribe online:
osho.com/otsubscribe
Subscription Rates
1 year
2 years
Within India
Rs. 330 By ordinary mail
Rs. 620 By ordinary mail
Rs. 850 By ordinary mail
Rs. 650 Registered / courier
Rs. 1260 Registered / courier
Rs. 1810 Registered / courier
Rs. 1600 / $35
Rs. 2800 / $60
Rs. 3900 / $85
Other Countries
3 years
DDs/MOs/Cheques should be drawn in favour of OSHO Multimedia & Resorts Pvt. Ltd., payable at Pune, and should be sent to OSHO Multimedia & Resorts Pvt. Ltd., 17 Koregaon Park, Pune 411001 (MS) India. ■ For payments by non-Pune cheques, please add Rs.50/- to the subscription amount towards clearance charges. ■ All payments by demand drafts to OSHO Multimedia & Resorts Pvt. Ltd. payable at Mumbai. ■ In case of cheque payments, allow 4-6 weeks for processing. ■ To receive the upcoming issue, please make sure that your payment reaches us by the first week of the previous month. ■ Please fill in your name and address in capital letters and include the Zip/PIN code, tel. no. and email ID. ■ OSHO Multimedia & Resorts Pvt. Ltd. will not be responsible for any postal delays, transit losses or mutilation of the magazine. ■ For further information and inquiries, please contact our customer support number (020) 6601 9966 / 996; email: OTsubs@osho. net ■
Simply wonderful…
----------------------------------------------------------------------- Fill in this form and mail it with your DD/MO/CHQ ---------------------------------------------------------------Yes, I would like to
Subscribe
Renew my subscription to OSHO Times
1 Year (ordinary mail)
1 Year (regd. mail in India only)
2 Years (ordinary mail)
2 Years (regd. mail in India only)
3 Years (ordinary mail)
3 Years (regd. mail in India only)
Subscription no. for renewals: ___________________________________ Enclosed DD/MO/CHQ no. ____________________________ dated _______________________ on __________________________________ Bank payable at Pune, for Rs______________________ in favor of OSHO Multimedia & Resorts Pvt. Ltd. Name: _______________________________________________ Age: _____________ Profession: _______________________________________________ Address: ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ City: ______________________ State: ______________________ PIN code:
Country: __________________________________
email: ______________________________________________________Tel: ____________________________________________________________________
TIMES
THE MAGAZINE FOR CONSCIOUS LIVING
74 OSHO TIMES OSHO International Foundation
August 2008 75
76-77:76-77
7/18/2008
11:31 AM
Page 76
Sharing Love Since 1975 PARMARTHA MEDITATION CENTER
OSHO MEVLANA
MEDITATION CENTER In Hyderabad
Bookshops and Meditation Places Complete Range of Osho Books, Tapes, CDs, VCDs and DVDs
Complete OSHO books, CDs, DVDs etc. in Hindi, English and Telugu
MEDITATIVE CONSCIOUSNESS FOUNDATION
OSHO Dynamic Meditation 6:00 – 7:00 am (daily)
Regular activities
* * *
Meditations – Audio & Video Discourses Available OSHO English, Hindi, Kannada books OSHO Times, Audio Cassettes, CDs, VCDs for sale Circulating Library for Books and Cassettes Raj-Yog, 7–10A/15, Kumar Krupa Road, East, Opposite Chitrakala Parishath, Bangalore 560001 Tel: 080-22870394 (center) 22262418, 22258703 (office) / 22268215 (resi) Mobile: 9845024835, 9342612992, 9342199900
mail us at: celebration8@gmail.com
advertise in
OSHOTIMES
OSHO Kundalini Meditation 5:30 – 6:30 pm (daily except Sunday) Library facility available for books, CDs and cassettes
506 Mahavir House, Basheerbagh Rd., Hyderabad 500029 Tel: 040-66629311 email: oshomevlana@vsnl.net www.oshomevlana.com
R.B.I. Approved Money Changer
contact: otadvertising@osho.net Tel: 6601 9964
Recognised by Govt. of India Dept. of Tourism
Travel Masters (Mumbai) P. Ltd. India
Website: www.travelmastersonline.com
AHMEDABAD Contact: Jeevan Lalit 64, Nalanda Complex, Premchand Nagar Road, Satellite, Ahmedabad 380015 Tel: 26732126 Meditation Program: 10 am to 1 pm every Sunday
Mumbai 1 Floor, Dubash House, 15, J. N. Heredia Marg, Ballard Estate, Mumbai 400 001 Tel: +91-22-22641500 / 01 / 02 Fax: +91-22-22671285 email: trvlmast@vsnl.com st
OSHO DHARA
M E D I T A T I O N C E N T E R a beautiful stop-over on your way to Kulu, Manali or Simla
Pune 94/16, Butte Patil Classic Opp. Suvarnarekha Dining Hall, Prabhat Road, Pune 411 004 Tel: +91-20-25673550 / 51 / 52 25673584 / 85 Fax: +91-20-25673586
COCHIN Co-ordinator: Jeevan Vismay G-51, Panampilly Nagar, Cochin 630036 Tel: 0484-4011257
OSHO Counter OSHO International Meditation Resort, Pune
Tel: +91-20-6601 9999 Ext: 870
OSHO DHARA TRUST, 58, INDUSTRIAL AREA PHASE 1, PANCHKULA, HARYANA 134113 Tel: 0172-3252584, 2564562
International and Domestic Air Ticketing International and Domestic Hotel Reservation Assistance in Visa Foreign Exchange Tour Package Inbound / Outbound Trade Fair Packages
GWALIOR Prem Santosh Patel Nagar, City Center Site no.2 Gwalior M P Tel: 0751 2345428 mobile: 9425114898, 9926646118 Neelam Yadav: 9425116850
76 OSHO TIMES
MUMBAI 201 Bachubhai Building 187 Dr. D. N. Road Mumbai 400001 Tel: 022-22611156, 22611196 Fax: 022-22611208 Meditation Program: 10 am to 1 pm every Sunday Times of India Building, Opp. VT Station PORBUNDAR Pyramid Next to Sandipani Ashram, Porbundar 360575 Contact: Anand Atmaram Mobile: 9979657304 Meditation Program: Every Sunday ROHTAK Jhajjar Road, near 2nd Water Works Rohtak 124001 (Haryana) Contact: Krishnadev Bharti Tel: 01262-249440 mobile: 9416945839
VADODARA “Dhyan” 7 Vikramnagar Society, B/H, Aryakanaya Vidyalaya Karelibaug, Vadodara 390018 Contact: Dinoo Bhai Tel: 0265-2462837 Meditations: full day every day
Japan My Castle Center-Minami 1F 17-28 Chigasaki-Chuo, Tsuzuki-Ku, Yokohana-Shi, Kanagawa, Japan Tel/Fax: +81-(0)45-9484731 Contact: Sahasi mobile: 08011509187 www.oshoglimpsejapan.com Meditation Program: OSHO Kundalini Meditation 6: 30 pm every day except Sunday Sunday: 5:30 pm Kundalini, 7:00 pm Evening Meeting
August 2008 77 OSHO International Foundation
78-79:78-79
7/18/2008
11:32 AM
Page 78
The Roots of Violence In the September
OSHOTIMES
Organized religions and politicians have created wars and acts of terrorism all over our planet. Attempts to eradicate war by changing the structures of society have never succeeded. Until we look into ourselves, until we deal with our own accumulated anger, greed, lust for power; until we abandon false distinctions between people; until we become more conscious human beings, we will carry the roots of violence inside us.
Loving Rebels The revolutions of the past have all failed. One exploitative system has been replaced by another, and we are left with wars and more wars.There is something inherent in the nature of those who have chosen to rebel that has created this failure. Here is a vision for a new kind of rebel.
Non-Violent Rebellion Living a life of reverence for life itself means that rebellion can never be violent. How can we deal with our own aggression and rage so that we can finally create peace and not war?
No Nations, No War We can try to change the political structures to end violence and war. But it is the existence of these political structures that have created the problems. How did this happen?
Who Is Fit to Help? So often the people who say they want to create a better world have not yet come to a place in themselves where this is even remotely possible. How can aggressive people end war? How can greedy people end poverty?
In the coming months there will be
In a Few Words
features on:
These extracts from OSHO Books are glimpses of what it takes to live in peace.
Gratitude
Plus
Relating: Keeping Love Alive
Osho on… Facing Fear
Finding the Cosmic Ocean of Energy
Relating: Alone Together
Osho on… Human Consciousness
Meditation of the Month: STOP! Short ’n Sharp: Chocolates, Ice Cream and Sweets!
Stay Connected–Subscribe Now! On page 74 of this issue OSHO International Foundation
Subscribe online: osho.com/otsubscribe
August 2008 79
80-81:80-81
7/18/2008
11:32 AM
Page 80
Astrology August 2008
Astrology is the science of wholeness, unity, nonduality.
Osho
by Yogaraj
CAPRICORN (December 24 – January 20) Expansion and beauty provide an opportunity to break free from restriction, both self imposed and through others. Enjoy the freedom.
CANCER (June 22 – July 22) You may not recognize yourself as you will be feeling the urge to leave the security you often crave. Movement is above all else.
ARIES (March 21 – April 20) Sometimes creativity comes out of freedom and sometimes creativity comes out of confinement. Normally you prefer freedom, and for now you may feel confined. No need to fight. Be creative.
Be less efficient but more creative. Don’t be bothered too much about utilitarian ends. Constantly remember that you are not here in life to become a commodity, a utility; that is below dignity. You are not here just to become more and more efficient; you are here to become more alive, intelligent, more ecstatically happy. Osho
TAURUS (April 21 – May 21) Wounds can be doors in – and wounds more often than not are related to relating. Enter those doors, both past and present, with awareness and be healed.
If you can love so totally that love becomes your very being, then life is a benediction. All wounds are healed; they suddenly disappear as if they never existed. The same energy that was creating wounds starts blooming into flowers of infinity. All that is needed is to know how to redeem your love energy from wrong patterns of life that are destructive to it. Osho
GEMINI (May 22 – June 21) A time of fresh insight into you and your direction. You may find yourself attracted to new fields of interest, new people, new adventures. The operative word is new.
Act in the moment like a child. Utterly abandon yourself to the moment – and you will find every day new openings, new light, new insight. Those new insights will go on changing you. Suddenly you will see you are each moment new. The old no more lingers, no more hangs around you like a cloud.You are like a dewdrop, fresh and young. Osho
LIBRA (September 24 – October 23) A nice time to be alone in a crowd to feel the closeness without the intimacy – cool, not even warm; nothing sticky please.
Life is dangerous, but that is the beauty of it – it is insecure, because insecurity is the very nature of movement, aliveness, vitality. The more dead you are, the more secure.When you are alive you are vulnerable, you can be harmed. That is the beauty of life. Everything real will have to exist moment to moment. And there is insecurity; any moment it can disappear. The flower that blooms will fade; the sun that has arisen will set. Everything will change. Osho
Kabir says: Don’t escape from enjoyments. Remember, they are gifts. Don’t escape from worldly activities; remain passive. Move in the crowd and remain alone.The real thing is to be alone, not to be lonely. And one can be alone in the crowd, and you can be in a crowd when sitting in a Himalayan cave – it all depends on your mind. So the change has to be inner, not outer. Osho
AQUARIUS (January 21 – February 19) Watch the friction: it can support your stepping out of your ingrained ways into something fresh and new.
SCORPIO (October 24 – November 22) LEO (July 23 – August 23)
What do you value? A question that can take you closer to yourself. Negate, and eventually you will come to the only answer.
Confusion can reign here – fire and water…which way to turn? Your nature is fire and your being seeks something of water. Is it the feminine? Dive in to find out.
Lao Tzu says: Never try to go upwards, because then there is fight, because all are going upwards. Move to the valley where nobody is going. Don’t be like fire, be like water. Fire moves upwards, water moves low-wards; it always goes towards the ocean. Move, find the lowest place where nobody is to compete, because nobody wants to go there. Then you can relax, you can be yourself. If you can be yourself you will become a god. Osho
Buddha says: My search is for freedom.That word is immensely important: freedom from the ego, freedom from the mind, freedom from desires, freedom from all limitations. He is very scientific in his inward journey. He is saying if you can create a space in your being where your consciousness is totally free, then all is achieved: god is achieved, truth is achieved, beauty is achieved, bliss is achieved. But only in freedom anything becomes possible. Osho
You have heard that if you go inwards, you will find infinite light. That is only half the truth.You will find infinite light at the very center but before that is reached, darkness has to be passed through. The dark night is the price one has to pay for the morning. Unless you pay you cannot value it. If a morning is given to you without struggle, you will not be able to see it. Osho
You are feeling sad – start dancing. You will be surprised by the change that immediately comes to you. The sadness is there in one corner, and in another corner, just the opposite of it, a subtle joy starts arising. You will not be able to believe what is happening! When it happens for the first time that you are sad and yet joyous, and both are together, this is friction. Out of this friction, great energy is released, great fire arises in you – and that fire purifies. Osho
PISCES (February 20 – March 20) SAGITTARIUS (November 23 – December 23) A movement between work and play, tension and relaxation. There’s room for all. Through the space you will find your single-pointedness.
VIRGO (August 24 – September 23) Relaxing with the other, seeking out a friend. This is time to enjoy the company of others, and each is a mirror for your soul.
Be relaxed yet conscious. This moment of consciousness has to be brought in again and again, in a thousand and one ways: eating, talking, meeting a friend, listening to me, meditating, making love. In all situations try to become more and more alert. Slowly the dust will disappear and your mirror-like consciousness will reveal itself; you will become more intelligent. Osho
Bliss is a by-product of relaxation. Misery comes out of tension. And just the opposite is bliss. When there is no tension in your being, when all is at rest, when you are not worried about the past nor concerned about the future, when you are relaxed, utterly herenow, bliss arises on its own accord. It is not a goal. When the achieving mind ceases, bliss is. When the achieving mind functions, bliss is not.That’s the whole secret of all mysticism. Osho
Look outside and inside to see what is incomplete, for if you complete this, it is a time of fresh beginnings.
Never leave problems incomplete, that is how you become burdened. Always live a life which is moment to moment complete. Whatsoever you have to do, do it now.Whatsoever you have to say, say it now.Whatsoever you have to be, be it now. Don’t say tomorrow.That is the way stupidity goes on. If you can complete everything this moment you are always fresh for the next, there is no hangover. If death comes to such a person he is always ready and happy because he has never left anything incomplete. Osho
See also
osho.com/astrology
80 OSHO TIMES
August 2008 81 OSHO International Foundation
82-83:82-83
7/18/2008
11:33 AM
Page 82
Chillies Nothing Higher, Nothing Lower I am teaching you every day: there is nothing higher, nothing lower. It is simply man’s ego creating – if not money, if not politics, then meditation. The ego can exploit any situation, but it will play the same game. One is higher in meditation, the other is lower in meditation. One is an older sannyasin, senior – as if it is a government bureaucracy – and the other one is a new fellow. You can tolerate him, but he is not to be considered much, not to be taken seriously. It is the same ego, you just have to watch. Excerpted from The Last Testament, Osho
OSHO INTERNATIONAL MEDITATION RESORT
AMAZING WEEKENDS NATIONALS SINGLE 8000 COUPLE 12500
If you’ve been here before – please call for prices.
3 D AY S 2 NIGHTS 1 AMAZING PRICE
PRICE FOR FIRST TIME VISITORS:
INTERNATIONALS SINGLE 9000 COUPLE 14300
A package so simple ...and yet so unique
STAY FOOD INFORMATION & BOOKING guesthouse@osho.com Tel: 020-66019900
ROBES REGISTRATION MEDITATION PASS WELCOME MORNING
everything included
BOOK NOW!
82 OSHO TIMES
www.osho.com/guesthouse OSHO International Foundation
August 2008 83
84:84
7/18/2008
11:33 AM
Page 84
Postal Regn. No.: MH/MR/South-76/2006-08 RNI No.: MAHENG/1999/683 WPP Licence No.: South-08/06-08 Posted at Patrika Channel Sorting Office, Mumbai 400 001 on 20th of every previous month
INTERNATIONAL MEDITATION RESORT & GUESTHOUSE in Pune, India
osho.com/guesthouse guesthouse reservations: reservations@osho.com OSHO International Foundation