Osho Rajneesh
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Contents |
Osho’s methods
Exhaling With The Sound, Oooooo!
Osho, Nov 16, 2019: The Times of India
When you go to sleep tonight and every night following tonight, before going to sleep put off the light, sit on your bed, close your eyes and exhale deeply through the mouth with the sound ‘O – Ooooo.’ Go on exhaling with the sound O, as deeply as possible. Your stomach goes in, the air moves out, and you go on creating the sound O.
Remember, I am not saying Aum, I am saying simply O. It will become Aum automatically. You need not make it; then it is false. You simply create the sound O. When it becomes more harmonious and you are enjoying it, suddenly you will become aware it has become Aum. But don’t force it to become Aum, then it is false. When it becomes spontaneously Aum, then, it is something vibrating from within. And this sound Aum is the deepest sound, the most harmonious, the most basic.
When it happens and you enjoy and you flow in its music, your whole body and your brain relax. With the sound Aum, you will go on relaxing and your sleep will have a different quality, altogether. When you have exhaled completely and you feel that now no more exhalation is possible, the whole breath has gone out, stop for a single moment. Don’t inhale, don’t exhale – just stop. In that stop you are in the ocean.
Just remain so for a single moment and just look at what is happening. Be aware where you are: witness the whole situation that is there in that single stopped moment. Time is no more there, because time moves with breaths; breathing is the process of time. Because you breathe you feel time moving. When you don’t breathe, you are just like a dead man. Time has stopped, there is no process anywhere; everything has stopped…as if the whole existence has stopped with you. In that stopping, you can become aware of the deepest source of your being and energy. So for a single moment, stop. Then inhale through the nose, but don’t make any effort to inhale. Remember, make all the effort to exhale, but don’t make any effort to inhale; just let the body inhale. You simply relax your hold and let the body take the inhalation. You don’t do anything. That too is beautiful and works wonders. You will feel a deep silence surrounding you, because then you know your effort is not needed for life. Life breathes itself. It moves by itself of its own cause. It is a river; you unnecessarily go on pushing it. You will see that the body is taking the inhalation. Your effort is not needed, your ego is not needed – you are not needed. When the body has taken a full inhalation, stop for a single moment again. Again watch.
These two moments are totally different. When you have exhaled completely and stopped, that stopping is just like death. When you have inhaled totally and then stopped, that stopping is the climax of life. Remember, inhalation is equivalent to life, exhalation equivalent to death. That’s why the first thing a child does when born is to inhale, and the last thing the same child will do when old, dying, will be to exhale. On this earth, the first thing you did while entering life was inhalation, and the last thing you will do will be exhalation. (Vedanta: Seven steps to Samadhi, Osho Times International. Courtesy Osho International Foundation. www.osho.com)
Osho’s philosophy
Asamprikt Vyakti/ unaffiliated individual
Sumit Paul, Unalloyed Consciousness Far Beyond Godhood, January 19, 2019: The Times of India
While talking to a British professor of philosophy at Cambridge regarding Nietzsche’s radical idea of Ubermensch (beyond-man in German), he told me that only India’s Osho Rajneesh fully understood Friedrich Nietzsche and his iconoclastic philosophy. This had me thinking. When one reads Osho and burrows into his idea of a Superman, one realises that it’s more complete and comprehensive than that of Nietzsche.
Nietzsche’s Ubermensch is the opposite of Jesus Christ. But Rajneesh’s Superman is one and only. He’s not pitted against anyone. In philosophical parlance, Osho’s Ubermensch is beyond a-priori and post-priori and also a-posteriori. In Osho’s words, the future man would be Ek Asamprikt Vyakti, an unaffiliated individual.
This is the core of the future human, as envisaged by Rajneesh, that he’d be completely unaffiliated. Actually, this Ubermensch has its roots in Jainism, a predominantly atheistic faith. Incidentally, Rajneesh was born into a Jain household in central India. His name was Chandra Mohan Jain. Mahavira’s Kaivalya gave birth to an unclustered and uncluttered existence. This freeindividual will be his own god and he’ll create his own charter of morality.
While simplifying Mahavir Sutram for philosophy students of Sagar University, Rajneesh made it clear way back in the 50s that the Superman of Mahavira would be ‘godlessly godly’! This is an oxymoron. How’s it possible for a godless person to become god(ly)? Isn’t the very statement self-contradictory and theologically ironic?
Rajneesh clarified that god was the sum total of all that’s perceived as go(o)d. He’s beyond morality and superimposed divinity. It’s really strange and so revolutionary to know that Mahavira ideated more than 2,600 years ago that a human could go beyond the intangible idea of an imaginary god and reach a stage from where he could look down upon the god which is an idea of ‘spotless perfection’ – ‘binduheen sarvoparitam’ according to Jain agamas – conceived and concocted by the humans.
Kevalam Vykatitvam – the sole existence in the whole Universe – was the Superman of Mahavira and Rajneesh. This Ubermensch would be a completely realised soul and an evolved identity for whom nothing would matter or be of any concern. He’d be beyond moral conundrums and ethical doubts. He’d be ‘Perfection beyond perfection(s)’.
He’ll not be anyone’s slave. Neither will he ever be the master of anyone. In the words of Rajneesh, “He’ll have no religion, no god/s, no country, no caste, no class and no concerns.” Nietzsche defined the Ubermensch as the ‘Epitome of all humans’. Rajneesh went further and called him, ‘Unalloyed consciousness far beyond godhood’. J Krishnamurti defined the Supreme Human as ‘The Arbiter of His Own Self and Entity who would be answerable to none and none would be answerable to him’. Rajneesh visualised a totally unaligned evolution of human self.
The question is: Are we evolving to become Rajneesh’s Superman or Nietzsche’s Ubermensch? Are we in any way unaligned? We’re collectively devolving. When we’re still stuck in the pettiest issues of religions, racial discrimination, countries, nationalism and caste-based considerations, can we claim to have evolved even a bit since the first human being came into existence thousands of years ago? We’re neck-deep in a quagmire of extreme obscurantism and ignorance. To quote Urdu poet Shakeel Badayuni, “Apni hasti ka bhi insaan ko irfaan na hua” – Alas, man hasn’t yet realised the potential of his own self.
Women
Ma Anand Sheela
Kamini Mathai, Sep 19, 2023: The Times of India
From: Kamini Mathai, Sep 19, 2023: The Times of India
Ma Anand Sheela, former aide to ‘godman’ Rajneesh, popularly known as Osho, is a woman of few words. But she knows what she wants to convey, and gets her message across, in a voice that is both soft and firm, and with a smile that is both gentle and teasing.“Ask me anything you want,” she says softly, with a smile ever so gentle.After all these years, how has she managed to come to terms with the several allegations against her such as that of a bioterrorism attack in 1984, where she was accused of adding salmonella into salad bars in Oregon, USA, rendering about 750 people ill? Does it hang over her persona, does it make her feel guilty?“Let me put it this way. I still eat salad,” says Sheela, with a smile that is now firm yet teasing.
The attack in 1984 was one of the largest bioterrorism attacks in the US; it was claimed that the plan was to make regular voters sick so that Rajneesh’ own candidates would win the election for seats on the Wasco County Board of Commissioners, Oregon, to take place in November that year.Three years earlier, in 1981, several hundreds of Rajneesh followers has moved from Pune into a property in Wasco County, Oregon, and incorporated it as a city they named Rajneeshpuram. By 1984, the ashram was coming into increasing conflict with local residents and the Wasco County Board of Commissioners.In 1986, Sheela was sentenced to 20 years in US federal prison but paroled after 39 months and deported to West Germany. She later moved to Switzerland. Sheela was in Chennai last week, as part of her 15-day journey in India, keeping herself, as she says, “entertained for every single one of the days with discussions (including one at the Madras Management Association in collaboration with Sethu Foundation), interviews, talks on her book By My Own Rules , and podcasts. “Sightseeing,” says the 73-year-old, “is a luxury I cannot afford”.
“When I think of Bhagwan, I think of wild horses running on a beach”Sheela says she understood the concept of time in the 39 months that she spent in a US prison. “Till I went to prison in 1986, I never had time. I was busy working 16 hours a day, building roads, dams, setting up a township and doing administrative work at Rajneeshpuram. In prison, all I had was time. And that made me think about it,” says Sheela, who had a “laundry list of charges against her” that included arson and attempted murder, but pleaded guilty to only two — wiretapping and immigration fraud. “I never felt I was in prison because I was free to speak to anyone I wanted and make friends. It was the prison wardens who could not speak to anyone even if they wanted to. So, who really was in prison?”
Sheela, who was born in Vadodara, Gujarat, joined Rajneesh as his personal assistant in 1981. She helped him establish the Rajneeshpuram ashram on over 64,000 acres of land in Oregon, then worked closely with him for the next few years. “My heart melted when I first set eyes on him. Even now, when I think of Bhagwan, I think of wild horses running on a beach,” she says, her smile now wistful. “I would say I have lived an intense life,” she says.After her stint in prison, Sheela moved to Switzerland, where she currently lives, and runs two centres for people living with neurological and mental health conditions. She houses 30 people at her two homes (in which she lives as well).“People rejected me after I left Bhagwan and came out of prison. That opened my eyes to reality. I was living in a fairytale world, a beautiful one, but still a fairytale,” she says.Sheela says she chose to leave Rajneesh when she realised drugs had entered the commune. “When I found out that people were giving him drugs, I told him it was dangerous for him and the commune. He asked me to stay out of it. I couldn’t think of how to fight it and bring Bhagwan back, so I chose to leave. Drugs are something I do not have any tolerance for, even now, at my homes,” she says, a dash of displeasure in her smile. “There are certain rules I choose to live by.”As for the 18 rules that define her life, which she talks about in her book, Sheela says the most important one is to learn to live a life without judgment. “I don’t believe in spirituality, just that one must live a life of positivity.”Another one of the rules she has followed in life, she says, is “facing challenges with all you have”.
Sheela also refers to the book Rajneeshism . “I wrote the book of Rajneeshism in one sitting. I never imagined I would write a ‘Bible’ in my life,” she says. Sheela says Rajneesh dictated the book to her but did not allow her to take notes as he believed it would stop her from “using her brain”. “He spoke, I listened, I wrote. And turned it into a book overnight.” After Sheela left the commune, Rajneesh reportedly said that Sheela had written the book Rajneeshism and published it under his name.“I believe you have to learn to digest what life throws at you, whether good or bad. You need to mix metals, don’t you, to get a strong one? I still love him,” she says. “And … I still eat salad.”This time, her smile says it all.Also watch this interview of Ma Anand Sheela from 2021:
