Osho FAQs – Frequently Asked Questions

• How can Osho’s teachings help me today?
  Osho’s ideas can widen the horizons of your mind, provide answers to most questions about life and its mysteries, and add a new and positive outlook in today’s dizzying, stress-filled pace of life. In addition, Osho’s unique meditation techniques help one to release the suppressed emotions and bring back joy and peace. Thus one can experience Osho’s most famous saying: Live, Love, Laugh.
  
  
• What is his basic message for today’s tension-filled living?
  To realize one’s total potential in all spheres of one’s life with inner growth that happens with his meditations. He also makes one fully responsible for all problems and blessings; and this leads to looking at one self as an outsider. As one moves inwards with mediation, one’s being begins to notice positive changes of anger into understanding, confusion into clarity, violence into love and so on.
  
  
• How can Osho’s Meditations enable me to face the problems of today’s stressed lifestyles?
  Osho’s basic meditations have music specially composed for them and involve a lot of activity before inactivity. First, a lot of activity releases hidden and buried tensions and negative feelings like anger. Then they bring joy, usually by dancing with abandon; and they end with silence and calmness. All this results in providing one with new and fresh energy that enables one to face life playfully.
  
  
• What are these meditations?
  The four basic ones are: Dynamic, Nataraj, Kundalini and Nadbrahma. One usually starts with Dynamic Meditation in the morning, Natraj or dancing is for mid-morning or afternoon, Kundilini or shaking meditation is for the afternoon and Nadbrahma or humming is for the evening.
  
  
• How do they reduce tension and help me relax?
  Osho’s meditations work at different levels. At the physical level, they provide informal activity that energizes the body; at the mental level, they bring calmness and silence and at a spiritual level they provide a taste of bliss that is our real nature.
  
  
• How do I select the right meditation for my problems?
  Try the basic four meditations for at least three times each. Then see which one suits you best by bringing you the highest energy, the most joy and the greatest silence. For somebody spending a lot of time before a computer screen, Kundilini can be very helpful to relieve pain in the spine and wrists, in addition to reducing tension. You are the only judge.
  
  
• Can these meditations be done at the workplace?
  Yes, Osho meditations such as Kundalini, Nadbrahma, Laughter and Gibberish can be done at work places. In addition, there are short meditations that do not disturb anyone else and do not require a special area or music.
  
  
• Will I leave my religion if I follow him?
  No. In fact you will become a better Christian, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Muslim or Jew if you listen to Osho’s insights on these religions and their enlightened masters. In very simple words, Osho explains the deepest meanings of these spiritual paths. Osho does not teach religion but religiousness.
  
  
• Will I leave my religion if I follow him?
  No. In fact you will become a better Christian, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Muslim or Jew if you listen to Osho’s insights on these religions and their enlightened masters. In very simple words, Osho explains the deepest meanings of these spiritual paths. Osho does not teach religion but religiousness.

• Will I leave my religion if I follow him?
  No. In fact you will become a better Christian, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Muslim or Jew if you listen to Osho’s insights on these religions and their enlightened masters. In very simple words, Osho explains the deepest meanings of these spiritual paths. Osho does not teach religion but religiousness.
  
  
• Why are Osho’s ideas so important today?
  Because they are most relevant for today’s lifestyle and what is happening around us now. As one reads Osho, one discovers a fresh new way of looking at life as it is today. One says, “Yes, this is happening to me!” and “Yes, this is the answer to my question/problem.” Osho puts the situations in terms of new developments in psychology
  
• Why do more and more people read Osho these days?
  To find the answers to the questions that have always bothered them deep inside. To get comfort for their personal crisis in times of emotional trials. To expand their mental horizons; for example one may not know about Tao or Zen; Hassidism or Heraclitius but be reading Osho’s books, one discovers new worlds and vast horizons for understanding the mysteries of life.
  
  
• What is so new about Osho’s ideas?
  The blend of festivity with spirituality and science with spirituality. Combining joy and laughter with the silence and stillness of meditation. Blending science with spirituality.
  
  
• How are they relevant today – 14 years after he passed away?
  The lifestyles have become – and indeed, are increasingly becoming – more hectic. The rate race gathers speed daily. In all this rush, one has no time to go inwards for finding all the answers to the questions that hound one’s mind. In his easy to appreciate and simple language, Osho provides all the answers. Plus, his meditations recharge one’s ‘batteries’. So both in ideas and active solutions, Osho is becoming more relevant – everyday.
  
  
• People who have read a lot of Osho books say that he contradicts himself very often? If so, why?
  Yes he does because he is talking about different paths to inner growth and these paths are quite opposite in many cases. For example, one become very silent in Buddhism but dances in joy if one follows the emotions of Mirabai. Moreover, Osho includes everything in life - light and darkness, day and night, struggle and peace. These opposites complement each other enriching fabric of life, making it more colourful.
  
  
• Which religion does he preach or promote?
  None and all. Osho promotes ‘religiousness’ of all religions – the pure core of religion when it started. Osho goes to the source and explains it as it is.
  
  
• What is Osho’s unique input to mankind’s thinking?
  Zorba the Buddha. Osho says one has to live like the Greek hero of the novel ‘Zorba the Greek’ and live fully with joy, song and dance. At the same time, one has to be totally calm and silent inside like the Buddha. In other words, the silent centre of the storm. Osho has also refined this idea with another concept - ‘Einstein the Buddha’ that combines science with spirituality. Both are unique and most suitable for today and tomorrow’s world.
  
  
• Why don’t Osho’s meditations follow normal patterns?
  Because they do not work so well today. One cannot sit and become very silent at once as the clock of the mind goes on ticking inside. Or the mind keeps chattering at many tracks or wavelengths. In Osho meditations, one tires the body/mind with activity, so that the mind also becomes still. Then one experiences a lot of new energy and joy. These mediations bring positive results right there and then.

• What is the basic difference between Osho and other gurus?
  Osho is not a Guru. He is a rebel who does not follow the normal patterns of thinking or lifestyle. Osho does not ask one to become his follower but rather be an individual: He challenges you to realize your total potential. Why be a Buddhist when you can become Buddha yourself? Why be a Christian when you can be a Christ? Osho says, “ I am the gate. Pass through me to realize your true and total potential.”
  
  
• Why is Osho sometimes called ‘the Master of Masters’?
  There are three type of masters: one who has realized and become silent; one who has realized and can explain the happening and, finally, one who has realized, can explain the happening and also guide others to realize it. Osho has explained all major spiritual paths and masters and he has devised his unique meditations to guide individuals to realize it. That is why he is called ‘the master of masters’ – a very rare happening that comes after many, many centuries.
  
  
• How come Osho has made laughter central in meditation - a serious practice?
  Man has made religion a very serious affair. Osho says the most serious disease or dis-ease is seriousness. It causes many health problems. So when one laughs, one gets rid of many potential diseases and energizes his being. Osho says,” Laughter has a very human quality. No animal laughs. No computer laughs.”
  
  
• Why was Osho called ‘the sex guru’ in the 1970s?
  Because had he was the only spiritual leader who had the courage to talk openly about sex in a very stern society of that time. Sex was taboo at that time. He was the first to shake society with his talks on ‘From Sex to Superconsciousness’ in 1968. Osho says, “The book is not about sex. It is the only book in the whole existence against sex. It says that there is a way to go beyond sex. You can transcend sex. You are at the stage of sex while you should be at the stage of superconsciousness.” Today his views have become very acceptable and he is respected for daring to express them over 30 years ago.
  
  
• Why was Osho called ‘the rich man’s guru’ in 1980s?
  Because Osho embraces life in all its riches - both inner and outer - of the mind, emotions, soul or money. He does not deny anything. Following one’s path of inner growth is the ultimate luxury. He did not reject luxury as he enjoyed driving/riding Rolls Royces, wearing designer clothes but he was not attached to them either. The best example is when he just left his city of Rajneeshpuram in USA without looking back.
  
  
• Why did he change his name from Rajneesh Chander Mohan Jain to Acharya Rajneesh to Bhagwan Shee Rajneesh and finally to Osho?
  At birth, he was given the name Rajneesh Chander Mohan Jain. After he became a Professor and began to give his discourses that attracted a great deal of attention with his rebellious thinking and conducting meditation camps all over India, he came to be known as ‘Acharya’ or teacher Rajneesh. When he started to initiate people into ‘Neo-sannyas’, people started calling him ‘Bhagwan’ Shree Rajneesh as they experienced his godliness. Finally, when he delivered many talks on Zen in the late 1980s, he began to be known as a Zen Master and people gave him the name Osho. In Japanese language, it means unlimited or oceanic consciousness and one on whom existence showers its blessings. Osho has shown that the name is not important but the message and the techniques.
  
  
• Which the best Osho book to get to know his thinking?
  Life’s Mysteries (Penguin). With an interesting introduction to Osho and his work by the well known writer and journalist, Khushwant Singh, the book presents Osho’s insights on most of the questions that come to one’s mind while trying to get to know Osho. In this way, the book presents his basic ideas and concepts in an easy to understand and appreciate him.
  
  
• From here on, which are the best full-length Osho books?
  Osho has over 650 books that reflect his teaching. One cannot say which is best, this would depend upon the individual’s interest. One of his better books might be ‘A Cup of Tea’ because he wrote the book. Almost all the others are recordings of his discourses. From Osho’s booklist, here are half a dozen:

• Ancient Music in the Pines
• My Way: The Way of the White Cloud
• Meditation The First and the Last Freedom
• Tantra: The Supreme Understanding
• The Book of Secrets
• Zen Manifesto: Freedom From Oneself (The very last discourses before he stopped speaking).