Showing results by narrator "Osho" in All Categories

The Sutra of 42 Chapters is a scripture complied in the first century CE. Each saying comes from Buddha, but the whole work was a new anthology created especially for introducing Buddhism in a new country. That’s why it makes such a good, basic introduction to the world view of Gautam Buddha.

As the ultimate optimist, Osho starts a series “The Golden Future” in which he addresses in forty talks, the concerns and questions of his audience. “The Golden Future” – Part 3 includes talks #21 to #30 in this series. Osho intentionally and consciously invited a myriad of questions from an international audience of enquirers, seekers, and friends. In addressing these real problems with clarity, humor and insight born out of his own experiences, Osho reveals to his listeners the inner workings of the human mind, heart and soul.

Humanity is divided in three types of persons: Believers, atheists and agnostics. For Osho, this last type, the agnostic is far above the first two and it is something intrinsic to the true seeker. Nevertheless, there is a fourth type of person, one that does not fit in any of these categories: The Gnostic, the one who knows. Listening to his direct and simple style, we rediscover the courage to doubt while we move into the unknown.

Existentialist come to the conclusion, well no there is no meaning in life so what’s the point? Osho in his genius way again looks at the question put before him from a very different point of view. See for yourself…

In this meeting, Osho answers this question, asked by a visitor: More and more I see how my energy is either going very high or very low, how sometimes I get very excited, come down again and then feel embarrassed about what happened during this state of excitement.

What drives people like Napoleon Bonaparte, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, Silvio Berlusconi and everybody else for that matter? What do we have in common? Why this hankering for power over others?—Once again Osho has some astoundingly simple insights on the issue.

Most people know of hypnosis from entertainment; often in a negative context of being "hypnotized" to do things they would not do on their own. Lately hypnosis is being used in therapy with a much more positive connotation. Osho puts hypnosis in a different context, describing it as an art, and explains, in this talk mixed with his well-known humor, how hypnosis can benefit all of us. OSHO TALKS—from original recordings of live events with Osho and his audience of seekers and friends from around the world. Recorded at the Osho International Meditation Resort, Pune, India.

In Zen, Zest, Zip, Zap and Zing, Osho responds to questions on love, freedom, morality, women’s role in society, nostalgia, a child’s right to privacy, the purpose of life, and more. Again and again he nudges the listener back to the essential: Zen – awareness, being here and now. While responding to the concerns of the questioners, Osho also illustrates how nonessential their preoccupations are.

By now most people understand or are beginning to understand that this earth, this humanity is facing an enormous crisis. Stress created by a pandemic in addition to ongoing political issues, economic issues, and climate change issues are taking a toll on the minds and well-being of many people. Such times are dangerous for those who have no courage to explore new dimensions of life. But times of crisis are of tremendous significance for those daring souls who have never bothered about what others think about them but have in a certain way always been rebellious, individualistic.

When the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche talks about "will to power", it has nothing to do with the will to dominate. To understand a man like Nietzsche, you have to have at least the same standard of consciousness, if not higher.

Every child is born ecstatic - with a high level of happiness. Ecstasy is natural. It is something that everybody brings naturally into the world; everybody comes with it. It is part of being alive. Life is ecstasy. Every child brings it into the world, but then society jumps on the child, starts destroying every possibility of ecstasy, starts making the child miserable, starts conditioning the child, and the child comes to know that to be miserable is right, to be happy is wrong. That becomes the deep association.

Responding to a question about why there are not many women comediennes or jokes which do not have a male chauvinistic ring to them, Osho dives into the context and history of women in societies and the sense of humor coming into existence at a late stage of evolution. No animal other than humans have a sense of humor. The sense of humor can be called the criterion whether evolution has become conscious or not.

The word Christ came into existence 300 years after Jesus; and out of the word Christ developed Christian and Christianity. While Friedrich Nietzsche stated that Christ was the last Christian, according to Osho, Jesus was not only the last Christian, but he was also the first Christian–the first and the last Christian, because in this world no individual is ever repeated.

While in the world of literature and film, mad scientists create monsters like "Frankenstein” and almost all religions are promoting skepticism towards science and the fear of manipulating human beings, reality has bypassed such concerns long ago. Osho has a unique view – supporting science, specifically genetic science – but as a conscious science.

One of the most fascinating talks by Osho on meditation. We gain a deeper understanding and an actual experience about meditation by listening to this talk which brings us into a space of meditation. "Meditation is the very center of my whole effort. It is the very womb out of which you are going to be re-born. But it is very difficult to verbalize it. To say something about meditation is a contradiction in terms. It is something which you can have, which you can be, but by its very nature you cannot say what it is."

Communication as such is difficult. Of course, it is more difficult between lovers. But first you have to understand the general difficulty of communication. Each mind has been conditioned by different parents, different teachers, different priests, and different politicians. It is a different world in itself. And when two minds try to communicate, as far as the ordinary mundane things are concerned, there is no difficulty. But the moment they start moving beyond things into the world of concepts, communication starts becoming more and more difficult.

"Time is that in which we live - it is horizontal. It is from A to B to C to D; it is in a line. Eternity is vertical. It is not from A to B and from B to C. It is from A to more A to still more A. It goes on upwards. The moment is rare because it happens only when meditation has reached ripening, maturity, when you have touched your innermost core." The vertical line opens a door to eternity.

The qualities of a seeker of truth are the subject question of this talk by Osho. "Every child is born with an innate search for truth. It is not something learned or adopted later on in life. Truth simply means, 'I am, but I do not know who I am.' And the question is natural - 'I must know the reality of my being. It is not a curiosity.'"

Osho responds to a question addressing the fear of intelligence: "The first and the most important part of intelligence is innocence. That's why you felt terrible - because in the world innocence and intelligence have been divided, not only divided but put diametrically opposite to each other. If intelligence remains innocent it is the most beautiful thing possible, but if it is against innocence then it is simply cunningness and nothing else; it is not intelligence."

Zen is not a theology, it is a unique phenomenon. Not easy to understand for a Western mind. Most religions exist around the concept of God. For Zen, the individual human is the goal - an end unto himself. So there is no concept of God in Zen. Certainly those who have been brought up as Christians, Muslims, Hindus, or Jews, cannot conceive of what sort of religion Zen is. If there is no God, then it becomes atheism. It is not; it is theism to the very core - but without God. This is the first fundamental to be understood. Let it sink deep within you, then things will become clear.