Osho and his story.

born Rajneesh Chandra Mohan in Kuchwara, a small town in central India.
His parents' were Jains, but Osho never subscribed to any religious faith.
Important for his development was a strong connection with his grandfather, whom he adored and who encouraged him to go his own way.

In March 1953 he received "samadhi" or enlightenment at the age of 21.

In 1957 he obtained a masters degree in philosophy from the University of Saugar and served for 9 years until 1966 as philosophy professor at the University of Jabalpur

By 1964 Osho started to hold discourses and meditation camps all over India

In 1966 he left his teaching post to give his full attention to his sannyasins In the beginning he taught in Mumbay, where he acted as a spiritual teacher, guide and friend. During this time most of his Sannyasins came from India and Europe.

In 1974 Osho moved from Bombay to Pune, to establish his own Ashram The Koragaon Park Ashram became a thriving center of New Age activity. His western disciples, many of them renowned psychotherapists and artists, included many western therapies to the eastern meditation techniques created by Osho

Osho had his first brush with notoriety when lectures titled “From Sex to Super consciousness” combined with tantric group exercises scandalized the Indian public and earned him the title 'Sex Guru'.

Since 1979 he saw his movement as the route to the preservation of the human race. For him a 'new man' had to be created in the next 20 years, if humanity should have a chance

In 1980, he was the victim of a knife attack by a Hindu fundamentalist, who was never indicted, which may have been one of the reasons why he left in 1981 India. But the official reasons were health problems. Other rumors of income tax evasion, and insurance fraud have never been proven.

In US the small group which followed him from Pune settled on a 65,000acre ranch near Antelope, Oregon, which Sannyasins had bought for him. This ranch “Rajneeshpuram” had at its peak 7,000 residents supplied with an 88,000 square foot meeting hall and an own airport.

As it often happens anywhere in the world when newcomers with new ideas arrive at a backward settlement, many of the local folks were against the new group. And Sannyasins also did not belong to people to carve in easily. To solve problems with the locals some Sannyasins elected themselves to the city council and the town of Antelope was renamed City of Rajneesh.

Rajneeshpuram went out of control, when the tensions with the people of Antelope became too much and even spread into the media world in Oregon. Top aides of Osho were charged with a number of crimes. Two were eventually convicted of conspiracy to murder local lawyer Charles Turner in an attempt to prevent closure of the ranch.

In the end Osho was accused of having gone against US immigration laws, when he arranged a number of phony marriages between some of his Indian followers and American citizens to allow them to stay in the country. For this he was given a suspended sentence on condition that he left the country.

After an odyssey through 21 countries he finally was able to return to Pune, India in 1987, Here he abandoned the name “Rajneesh” and adopted "Osho". an ancient Japanese word for “master”.

He died in Pune in 1990.

Beliefs and Practices

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His teachings in Hindi and English combined many elements from Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, Zen, Taoism, Christianity, ancient Greek philosophy, Hassid, Sufism and many other religious and philosophic traditions, humanistic psychology, new forms of therapy and meditation etc. His lectures were mixed with wit and jokes. His discourses have been printed in hundreds of books and are available in audio and video recordings.

He became famous for using often very offensive jokes; some were anti-Semitic; others anti-Roman Catholicism; others insulted just about every ethnic and religious group in the world. He explained that the purpose of these jokes was to shock people and to encourage them to examine their identification with and attachment to their ethnic or religious beliefs.

What did he preach?

Family
Marriage is only valuable, when both can develop their spiritual way together. Sex or sex based love can not be the sole basis for marriage. But it’s extremely rare to find a couple matured enough to be able to go for the spiritual way.
So as alternative he targets alternate forms of community and ways of caring for children. However, he encouraged individual disciples to make peace with their families.
Education
It has to be targeted to the “potentiality” of children. If a child receives recognition and support for his/her abilities, it is more obedient to his parents and the relations between child and parents can be excellent. If the parents ignore the child's individuality, the child will in turn ignore them.

Life
It can only be in the here and now. “Yesterday is gone, tomorrow is not yet there and nobody can tell you what will be tomorrow” Be grateful to god / existence for this life and enjoy whatever god / existence is giving you.

God
is in everything and everyone and people, even at their worse, are divine. He was teaching Tantra, for which everything is holy and nothing is unholy.

Tolerance to other religions and movements
In Christianity Jesus has attained enlightenment. But there are many other enlightened masters in Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, Zen, Taoism, ancient Greek philosophy, Hassid, Sufism and many other religious and philosophic traditions as well.

Unity
National, religious, gender and racial divisions are destructive.

Values
The greatest values are love, meditation and laughter

Meditation
He developed new forms of active meditation. These were expected to lead the individual to develop a "state of emptiness", and attain enlightenment
For him the only way to enlightenment goes via full “awareness”.Once you are fully “aware” and “conscious”, all around you is godliness. Meditation is a state beyond mind. It is not concentration. It is not about spiritual thoughts; it is a state of “thoughtlessness” not of controlled thought..
Meditation is a state that one can be in, not something that one can do.

Preparation for meditation
He developed active meditation techniques which naturally take you into meditation. These techniques allow a person to unburden by expressing whatever is repressed in him.
Some of these preparatory exercises can also be found in western psychological therapies (i.e. gestalt therapy), such as altered breathing, gibberish, laughing or crying. To name only a few of his active meditations "Dynamic Meditation", "Kundalini", "Nadabrama", "Nataraj", “Mystic rose” etc .
He reactivated several traditional meditations, reducing them to their most minimal expression, stripping them off of ritual and tradition and only retaining the most therapeutic parts.
He introduced a “working” meditation, new for westerner especially, in which the meditative state can be achieved and maintained while performing everyday tasks.
Religion
Be beware of religious institutions and try instead to rediscover the contents of the original teachings. Most of the contents have been covered by dust spread onto by institutionalized teachings and these changes are seldom for the better.

Enlightenment
The sole goal of human life is to reach spiritual enlightenment. It is nothing but being continuously in a meditative state. He appreciates especially the Buddhist concept that enlightenment is a condition that can come naturally to anyone, just as to himself while meditation is the best path to reach there. .

What is left of his teachings?

Fourteen years after he passed away, Osho’s popularity continues to grow. But what is his enduring contribution and what will be the fate of his legacy, with the Pune Commune trying to transcend him and some prominent followers breaking away?

One of Osho's unique contributions, most agree, has been the creation of a whole menu of 'active meditations' oriented on the needs of the modern man Many of these meditations are cathartic dancing or shaking before relaxing into silence and stillness.

Osho’s life has been a roller coaster of astonishing proportions. As he remarked once jauntily: "It has never happened in history that the whole world should be against one man."

Why was he such a controversial figure? Why were opinions about him so sharply polarized? Was he a saint or was he a sinner?

Osho does not fall into any category. Unlike Ramana Maharshi, whom he appreciated, he is not consistently good. Like Lord Krishna he defies labels. There can be no mistaking the profundity of his message, which holds that the creator and creation are one. But he also encourages his followers to find themselves first. "Once you are established in your being, you are established in the whole, because your being is part of the whole."

For many the depth of his analytical abilities or his eloquence is great. His books are testimony to his brilliant mind as he refers with brilliant insight on the whole range of masters from Jesus to Lao Tzu to Buddha to Mahavira to Krishna, to Shankaracharya
and if you want more.
Yet there is an irrepressible streak in him, which often let him make statements that could be misunderstood. “From Sex to Superconsciousness” is a plea for the need to confront sex and all the feelings that it arouses, rather than resorting to the old habit of repression. It’s a valuable message, as we have seen repeatedly the damage caused to the psyche by the suppression of natural instincts and the very unhealthy consequences out of it.

Osho was undoubtedly brash, given to provoking his followers by dismissing all religions and masters, and maybe foolhardy in his zeal to take on the world. Yet he has influenced many for the better and created an awareness of the spirit in man, which few others have done.

How alive is Osho’s commune nowadays?
Currently there are centers in 50 countries in Europe and Asia, including Iran
Nepalese disciples led by the founder of the “amazing beauty” Tapoban near Kathmandu Swami Anand Arun are eyeing now Russia to help spread the movement. And so amazingly it sounds it isn’t.
Russians became first interested in Osho’s teachings in the late 70s, when they started coming to Pune. In 1979 the first Russians were initiated. However with all religious activities banned in the former Sowjetunion the first center set up in Moscow in 1980 could never operate openly. After Osho’s shift to the US it became practically impossible for Russian followers to keep in touch with him.
Later after the Ashram in Tapoban came to live, some of them started coming to Kathmandu. Today Osho's Nepalese disciples encouraged and invited by their Russian friends are propagating his teachings in Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev and Tashkent, as in 9.05, when Swami Anand Arun held lecture camps in those places, leading to hundreds of Russians taking Sannyas.

How is Osho seen by his disciples 14 years after his death?
Some excerpts

“Osho was unadulterated wisdom, the purest and whole form of spirituality. Although some parts of him were like Krishna freaky, Osho showed you the sky of freedom, pure being, without judgement”.

“He was both a Vivekananda and a Ramakrishna capable not only of being enlightened, but of making others enlightened as well. He broke the taboo on sex, which especially in India but also in the US required great courage.”

“He made spirituality a matter of joy. He encouraged to live in the wholeness of life, not to reject anything but to do everything in consciousness. His love was so intense that he magnetized people the way Krishna did”.

“He was the complete master. Others have one path to enlightenment, but he had many ways ready tantra, bhakti (devotion), jnana (knowledge), zen, whatsoever.

“He was a supreme integrator, bringing together East and the West, spirituality and materialism, science and spirituality, the old and the new, in an over-arching vision of giving rise to the new man, a new humanity.”

“Osho loved 'Zorba the Buddha'. The body has to be enjoyed as much as your soul. Matter has its own beauty, its own power just as consciousness has its own world, its own silence, its own peace, its own ecstasy.”

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