Sadhana
Can a book be danced? Why not? This is the age of multimedia which means one medium can be converted into many other media. Music can be painted, and words can be danced.
This multidimensional creativity has inspired Kiran Ratna, the founder of INDIA Dance Wales to choreograph a multi art production "Life" combining engaging dance, live music and spellbinding narration.
The County Times writes, "This production, "Life," is inspired by the controversial writings of Osho, an Indian mystic and spiritual teacher who spoke and wrote much on the subject of human behaviour and modern day life, will take the audience through all the stages of life a human being encounters.
"From the womb, through relationships, family, career, religion, old age and finally back to the meditative state, these themes will be explored through dance, live music and narration."
I became curious and wrote to this company 's email address. And lo! Kiran Ratna herself replied saying, this dance was inspired by Osho's book on Maturity.
By the way what is the book on maturity?
Here is a glimpse :
About Maturity: The Responsibility of Being Oneself
In a culture infatuated with youth, and determined to avoid old age at all costs, this book dares to raise a question that has been all but forgotten in the age of Viagra and cosmetic surgery. What benefits might lie in accepting the aging process as natural, rather than trying to hold on to youth and its pleasures all the way to the grave? Osho takes us back to the roots of what it means to grow up rather than just to grow old. Both in our relationships with others, and in the fulfillment of our own individual destinies, he reminds us of the pleasures that only true maturity can bring He outlines the ten major growth cycles in human life, from the self-centered universe of the pre-schooler to the flowering of wisdom and compassion in old age. A unique sense of humor runs like a thread through the book, along with a profound compassion and understanding of how easy it is to be distracted from the deeper meaning and purpose of our lives - which is, ultimately, to flower into our own individual uniqueness and maturity with an attitude of celebration and joy.
Copyright Osho International Foundation/www.osho.com/
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Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Friday, July 31, 2009
Investment in Unhappiness
Sadhana
Osho says: ' Happiness is a learned skill. Basically every child is born happy and blissful.'
"Happiness is a choice you make in each moment about how you experience that moment, not a state you one day achieve. " says Barbara DeAngelis the foremost American author on human relationships .
Happiness appears to be like the horizon, the more we chase it, the more it recedes further. But it is worth remembering that the horizon is an illusion and happiness is reality. It eludes human beings because the human mind is trained to be negative, miserable, competitive, ambitious, complaining. The seeds of unhappiness are sown in the very childhood.
You may not agree that happiness is our natural state of being. Every child is born happy and blissful. Look at an infant chuckling and playing with itself, it is in a complete bliss. But as it grows older, the people around it conditions it to be serious, miserable putting lot of pressure.
We are taught to be ambitious, to be competitive, and in order to achieve it we sacrifice happiness. When we spend our lives preparing for the future rather than enjoying the present, we end up postponing happiness. Ask yourself: is my present career best described as preparing for the future, figuring that one day I will be happy?
I have a Swedish friend here at the Osho Meditation Resort, Pune, called Sucheta. A middle aged lively, bubbly woman. We all suffer from arrogant auto riksha drivers. Pune is no exception. Here the auto-rikshaw drivers demand exhorbitant money from the western passangers. When everyone is freaking out about it, Sucheta pays them more than they ask for, and is chirping happy! She says, "I bought peace for ten rupees. This is my antidote to their greed."
But we let these opportunities slip away because we are never present in the moment.
Osho has made an insightful observation on human investment in unhappiness: " People have a morbid liking for illness and people have a morbid attachment with unhappiness. That's why you are always ready for unhappiness. No preparation is needed, everybody is ready to jump. Nobody comes to me and asks how to be unhappy. Nobody has been teaching you unhappiness. You know it by instinct.
"There must be some deep investment in it. They want to be happy, but they cling to unhappiness. When you are unhappy it is easy to condemn the whole world, it is easy to throw responsibility on everybody else. When you are unhappy you can manipulate others who are near you -- because you are unhappy, and they have a responsibility to make you happy. When you are unhappy you can demand attention: 'I am ill; I am unhappy'
"Everybody goes on playing the game of being unhappy. You want to be happy, but unless you cut the investment in unhappiness you cannot be happy. And happiness is not somebody else's responsibility towards you, remember. Nobody else can make you happy. It is your own growth, your own awareness, your own moving energy -- higher and higher -- that gives you bliss."
www.osho.com/library
Osho says: ' Happiness is a learned skill. Basically every child is born happy and blissful.'
"Happiness is a choice you make in each moment about how you experience that moment, not a state you one day achieve. " says Barbara DeAngelis the foremost American author on human relationships .
Happiness appears to be like the horizon, the more we chase it, the more it recedes further. But it is worth remembering that the horizon is an illusion and happiness is reality. It eludes human beings because the human mind is trained to be negative, miserable, competitive, ambitious, complaining. The seeds of unhappiness are sown in the very childhood.
You may not agree that happiness is our natural state of being. Every child is born happy and blissful. Look at an infant chuckling and playing with itself, it is in a complete bliss. But as it grows older, the people around it conditions it to be serious, miserable putting lot of pressure.
We are taught to be ambitious, to be competitive, and in order to achieve it we sacrifice happiness. When we spend our lives preparing for the future rather than enjoying the present, we end up postponing happiness. Ask yourself: is my present career best described as preparing for the future, figuring that one day I will be happy?
I have a Swedish friend here at the Osho Meditation Resort, Pune, called Sucheta. A middle aged lively, bubbly woman. We all suffer from arrogant auto riksha drivers. Pune is no exception. Here the auto-rikshaw drivers demand exhorbitant money from the western passangers. When everyone is freaking out about it, Sucheta pays them more than they ask for, and is chirping happy! She says, "I bought peace for ten rupees. This is my antidote to their greed."
But we let these opportunities slip away because we are never present in the moment.
Osho has made an insightful observation on human investment in unhappiness: " People have a morbid liking for illness and people have a morbid attachment with unhappiness. That's why you are always ready for unhappiness. No preparation is needed, everybody is ready to jump. Nobody comes to me and asks how to be unhappy. Nobody has been teaching you unhappiness. You know it by instinct.
"There must be some deep investment in it. They want to be happy, but they cling to unhappiness. When you are unhappy it is easy to condemn the whole world, it is easy to throw responsibility on everybody else. When you are unhappy you can manipulate others who are near you -- because you are unhappy, and they have a responsibility to make you happy. When you are unhappy you can demand attention: 'I am ill; I am unhappy'
"Everybody goes on playing the game of being unhappy. You want to be happy, but unless you cut the investment in unhappiness you cannot be happy. And happiness is not somebody else's responsibility towards you, remember. Nobody else can make you happy. It is your own growth, your own awareness, your own moving energy -- higher and higher -- that gives you bliss."
www.osho.com/library
Saturday, June 27, 2009
A Genius In Search Of His Original Face
Sadhana
Osho talks about the deep human longing for finding one's original face. In view of the sudden demise of Michael Jackson the Osho wisdom gives a great insight into the inner life of geniuses. No amount of plastic surgery to alter the face can satisfy a person who is basically searching for his faceless being, his consciousness.
" Nobody is ever satisfied with their face; even the most beautiful people are not satisfied. Even Cleopatra was worried that her nose was a little longer than it should be. Marilyn Monroe committed suicide -- a beautiful woman, but not satisfied, not contented. There is something in it. All faces are false. Deep down, your being is faceless.
That's what Zen people call the original face. When a disciple comes to a Zen master, the master says, "Go and meditate upon your original face." And what is the original face? The face that you had before you were born and the face that you will have again when you are dead: find out that original face. It is not a face at all.
Have you ever thought about it? The shape of your face is given by the body. It can be changed by plastic surgery. And you will not be changed by the change of the face: your nose can be longer, shorter, your eyes can be different, eyebrows can be different -- much can be done now.
And you will remain the same.
Have you got any face? Sometimes with closed eyes go deep into it... and you will be surprised to see you don't have any face.
That's why one is never contented. One can never be contented with this face, howsoever beautiful. This face is not going to satisfy you unless you come to the original face, the facelessness of your being: purity with no shape, the formless, the attributeless."
The Divine Melody/www.osho.com/library
Osho talks about the deep human longing for finding one's original face. In view of the sudden demise of Michael Jackson the Osho wisdom gives a great insight into the inner life of geniuses. No amount of plastic surgery to alter the face can satisfy a person who is basically searching for his faceless being, his consciousness.
" Nobody is ever satisfied with their face; even the most beautiful people are not satisfied. Even Cleopatra was worried that her nose was a little longer than it should be. Marilyn Monroe committed suicide -- a beautiful woman, but not satisfied, not contented. There is something in it. All faces are false. Deep down, your being is faceless.
That's what Zen people call the original face. When a disciple comes to a Zen master, the master says, "Go and meditate upon your original face." And what is the original face? The face that you had before you were born and the face that you will have again when you are dead: find out that original face. It is not a face at all.
Have you ever thought about it? The shape of your face is given by the body. It can be changed by plastic surgery. And you will not be changed by the change of the face: your nose can be longer, shorter, your eyes can be different, eyebrows can be different -- much can be done now.
And you will remain the same.
Have you got any face? Sometimes with closed eyes go deep into it... and you will be surprised to see you don't have any face.
That's why one is never contented. One can never be contented with this face, howsoever beautiful. This face is not going to satisfy you unless you come to the original face, the facelessness of your being: purity with no shape, the formless, the attributeless."
The Divine Melody/www.osho.com/library
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Silent OSHO Explosion in India
Sadhana
Osho International Foundation has been working silently and diligently to make Osho available in India. I am very happy to share it with everybody.
* Every year, approximately twenty-thousand people come to the OSHO International Meditation Resort for meditation, out of which 54% are Indian nationals. There is a discounted price for entry for Indians corresponding to their economic situation.
* OSHO International Foundation has currently 712 Osho titles licensed to 28 leading publishers in India in 12 Indian languages: Hindi, English, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Punjabi, Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali, Sindhi, and Urdu. There may be no other author in history whose works have been so widely distributed in India.
* OSHO International Foundation has licensed a large number of audio and video titles with major publishers: Music Today, SONY Music, Shemaroo, in process with Moser Baer.
* Osho quotes are available via sms on mobile phones throughout the country, including test and audio options in English and Hindi.
* The total number of units sold in all formats throughout India is around one million - excluding the pirated copies!
* The press office of Osho International Meditation Resort sends Osho content in the form of articles on current topics to all the top newspapers of India in three languages - Hindi, English and Marathi. As a ripple effect, other papers in other languages such as Gujarati, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada and so on, publish Osho articles in their periodicals. As a result Osho content is read by some100 million people from India every month.
* On www.osho.com visitors can find thousands of pages of Osho content in both English and Hindi, including an online magazine, a full description of all the Osho meditations, a presentation of the Osho International Meditation Resort, an online shop where visitors can find all the books, ebooks, and audiobooks currently available, and an online Library of the Osho archives in text format in English and Hindi.
* In the audiobook section of osho.com, there are 2861 Osho Talks in the English audiobook catalog on osho.com and 1344 Osho Talks in the Hindi audiobook catalog. In addition there is a special price for downloading these talks within in India.
* In the online Library on osho.com, visitors can find the complete text archive of Osho Talks which can be read and searched online in both English and Hindi. The Hindi archive is free of charge. In addition, this Hindi archive has been made available in such a way that it can be read in six different Indian scripts.
* The Osho International Meditation Resort has helped open 11 exclusive Osho bookshops called OSHO Glimpse all over India. This chain is growing as people enjoy being able to see the full collection of Osho Titles available in one place, including the music for the Osho Meditations, and the DVDs of the Osho Talks.
*The meditation resort also sends trained facilitators to OSHO Meditation Events around the country. Hundreds of participants thought the country enjoy Osho meditations in this way.
For more information www.osho.com
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Co-existence? No, one existence, says Osho
We are a word drunken societey. We live in ideas and words without checking whether these ideas make any sense, or are we misguided by our own creations? One such word is co-existence -- most common in the modern world. All the nations and politicians advocate it thinking it is a great ideal to live for.
Here is Osho's take on it -- totally different, as usual .
"A woman journalist asked me in America -- I was addressing a world press conference and she was the first one to ask a question. She asked, "Can't you live in coexistence with America?"I said, "No."The woman may not have thought that anybody would say no. She was so stunned that she left the microphone. Later on she met me again and I told her, "You did not listen to my whole answer, why I said `no.' You must have misunderstood, because I could see it on your face, but you moved away and another questioner came."She said, "Can `no' have many meanings?"I said, "Every word can have many meanings, many implications. What did you understand?"She said, "I understood simply that you cannot accept coexistence."
I said, "You misunderstood me completely. I was saying that coexistence is still war. Coexistence means we will tolerate each other. Coexistence means, `What else to do? -- we have to live together.'
All husbands and wives are living in coexistence. All nations are living in coexistence. All religions are living in coexistence. But this coexistence is not a joyful, celebrating experience. I was going to say to you, I want one existence, not coexistence.Why divide?"
She said, "My god, I reported your answer on the television and I have done an injustice to you. Because that `no' is resounding all over America, and naturally with the same meaning."
Words are delicate people, and as you become deeper, you start giving new meanings to words. By saying no to coexistence I was saying that the whole idea of coexistence is ugly. It means we cannot be one -- that we will remain enemies. We will not fight, but the antagonism is absolutely implied in the word `coexistence'. And this is the situation with the whole language. "
Excerpted from Om Mani Padme Hum/courtesy Osho International Foundation/www.osho.com
Here is Osho's take on it -- totally different, as usual .
"A woman journalist asked me in America -- I was addressing a world press conference and she was the first one to ask a question. She asked, "Can't you live in coexistence with America?"I said, "No."The woman may not have thought that anybody would say no. She was so stunned that she left the microphone. Later on she met me again and I told her, "You did not listen to my whole answer, why I said `no.' You must have misunderstood, because I could see it on your face, but you moved away and another questioner came."She said, "Can `no' have many meanings?"I said, "Every word can have many meanings, many implications. What did you understand?"She said, "I understood simply that you cannot accept coexistence."
I said, "You misunderstood me completely. I was saying that coexistence is still war. Coexistence means we will tolerate each other. Coexistence means, `What else to do? -- we have to live together.'
All husbands and wives are living in coexistence. All nations are living in coexistence. All religions are living in coexistence. But this coexistence is not a joyful, celebrating experience. I was going to say to you, I want one existence, not coexistence.Why divide?"
She said, "My god, I reported your answer on the television and I have done an injustice to you. Because that `no' is resounding all over America, and naturally with the same meaning."
Words are delicate people, and as you become deeper, you start giving new meanings to words. By saying no to coexistence I was saying that the whole idea of coexistence is ugly. It means we cannot be one -- that we will remain enemies. We will not fight, but the antagonism is absolutely implied in the word `coexistence'. And this is the situation with the whole language. "
Excerpted from Om Mani Padme Hum/courtesy Osho International Foundation/www.osho.com
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Love is not sex, it is related to meditation
Osho says: "Love is a by-product of a meditative mind. It is not related to sex; it is related to meditation. The more silent you become, the more at ease with yourself you will be, the more fulfilled you will feel, and the more a new expression of your being will be there. You will begin to love. Not anyone in particular. It may happen with someone in particular, but that is another thing. You begin to love. This loving becomes your way of existing. It can never turn into repulsion because it is not an attraction.You must understand the distinction clearly. Ordinarily when you fall in love with someone, the real feeling is how to get love from him. It is not that love is going from you to him. Rather it is an expectation that love will come to you from him. That is why love becomes possessive. You possess someone so that you can get something out of him.
But the love I am talking about is neither possessive nor does it have any expectations. It is just how you behave. You have become so silent, so loving, that your silence goes to others now.When you are angry, your anger goes to others. When you hate, your hate goes to others. When you are in love, you feel that your love is going out to others, but you are not dependable. One moment there is love, and the next moment there will be hate. Hate is not opposite to love; it is part and parcel of it, a continuity.If you have loved someone, then you will hate him. You may not be courageous enough to admit it, but you will hate him.
Lovers are always in conflict when they are together. When they are not together they may sing songs of love to each other, but when they are together they are always fighting. They cannot live alone, and they cannot live together. When the other is not there, infatuation is created; the two again feel love for one another. But when the other is present, infatuation goes and hatred is felt again.The love I am talking about means that you have become so silent that now there is neither anger nor attraction nor repulsion. Really, now there is no love and no hate. You are not other-oriented at all.
" To ask for love from the other is always ugly. To depend on the other, to ask for something from the other, always creates bondage, suffering, conflict. A person should be sufficient unto himself. What I mean by meditation is a state of being where a person is sufficient unto himself. You have become a circle, alone. The mandala is complete."
The Psychology of the Esotericcourtesy Osho International Foundation
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Osho: don't kill mosuitoes, improve immune system
At the moment the whole world is terrified by the Swine Flu. Whenever a new pandemic erupts, everyone tries to find medicines to suppress it. This is a destructive method. The Osho approach is to find out why new diseases come up in the first place. Instead of panicking, isn't it intelligent to nurture a more constructive attitude?
While speaking about the wisdom of the Chinese mystic Lao Tzu, Osho comments:
"The Aristotalean Science says, exterminate the mosquito if you want to be rid of malaria. This is the language of destruction. But it is very likely that there is something that is conducive to life that comes with the mosquitoes. If the mosquitos are destroyed, this will stop coming. Mosquitoes can be useful to life in other respects also but this we can only know after their complete annihilation. Then perhaps we shall have to try and replace them again!
If Lao Tzu was faced with the problem of eradicating Malaria, he would never think in terms of destroying the mosquitoes. He would have suggested two methods. He would have suggested a change of attitude towards the mosquitoes or a change in man's physical system to make him immune to Malaria. There is no need whatsoever of destroying the mosquito. It is also possible to change the composition of the mosquitoes' body system by which it would not be an enemy of man but rather a friend. Either or both of these methods can be implemented.
If we had followed the Lao Tzu method, we would have worked out an accord between the two."
The Way of Tao, Vol 1/Courtesy Osho International Foundation
While speaking about the wisdom of the Chinese mystic Lao Tzu, Osho comments:
"The Aristotalean Science says, exterminate the mosquito if you want to be rid of malaria. This is the language of destruction. But it is very likely that there is something that is conducive to life that comes with the mosquitoes. If the mosquitos are destroyed, this will stop coming. Mosquitoes can be useful to life in other respects also but this we can only know after their complete annihilation. Then perhaps we shall have to try and replace them again!
If Lao Tzu was faced with the problem of eradicating Malaria, he would never think in terms of destroying the mosquitoes. He would have suggested two methods. He would have suggested a change of attitude towards the mosquitoes or a change in man's physical system to make him immune to Malaria. There is no need whatsoever of destroying the mosquito. It is also possible to change the composition of the mosquitoes' body system by which it would not be an enemy of man but rather a friend. Either or both of these methods can be implemented.
If we had followed the Lao Tzu method, we would have worked out an accord between the two."
The Way of Tao, Vol 1/Courtesy Osho International Foundation
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