Osho

Wiseman, clever man, rich man, fool?

Who is Osho?

Osho was born Chandra Mohan Jain but became known as the  famous or infamous sybaritic BHAGWAN SHREE RAJNEESH who established Rajneeshpuram in Oregon near Antelope for a while with thousands of followers wearing orange robes, carrying his picture, beads, and inscrutable ideas. He was also famous for his fleet of 90 Rolls Royce for his personal use and Air Rajneesh consisting of a Convair 240 and Douglas DC-3 and several million dollars worth of Rolex wristwatches.

Because of his tantric self indulgence and the promiscuous license it offered his supporters and followers he some times called himself "Zorba the Budddha" but three months before his death when his life was ebbing from years dissipating abuse, he changed his name again to a "healing," Zen-sounding name, "Osho."

His meditation therapy might be best described by a quote from Ray Bradbury's Farenheit 451 “But everyone I know is either shouting or dancing around like wild or beating up one another. Do you notice how people hurt each other nowadays?”

• "People ask me why the society is against me. The society is not against me - I am anti-social. But I can't help it - I have to do my thing. I have to share what has happened to me, and in that very sharing I go against the society." - Osho

He was not so much antisocial but he was anti “social norms” and “moral restrictions”. He opposed modern religion and often with some truth but he did not understand the great prophets any better than modern religions. He wanted to remove many standards of morality. He may have been a sociopath who attracted other sociopaths following the non moral code of men like Wilhelm Reich and Friedrich Nietzsche.

Whatever he was or was to become the man was a product of his choices. He was given power and license to do what he wanted by people who wanted to be empowered to do what they wanted.

These followers fed on each other often violently beating and imprisoning members. Some even poisoned those who might know to much or threaten the status quo of their power over the people and their money. Over over 50 million dollars would be embezzled to say nothing of the squandering of fortunes and the wrecking of lives.

His tantric philosophy attracted thousands of followers who supported him to the tune of over a hundred million dollars which was used to support his lavish lifestyle, severe drug addition and countless sexual exploits with young women. He was a master at manipulation having begun as a philosophy professor with a self-indulgent spirit that was overcome by the power people readily gave him because if he was “enlightened” they were free to do what ever they wanted, since that was the foundation of his teachings.

Chandra-Rajneesh-Osho was said by many to be a compulsive liar. He "violently disapproved" of marriage, and instead advocated abortion and sterilization. Rajneesh felt that teaching ethics was unnecessary because meditation would automatically lead to good behavior.

Well it did not seemed to work with Osho and his followers. He became a drug addict of both legal and illegal drugs and his "personal secretary"  was awarded three twenty year jail sentences, on charges of the attempted murder of Swami Devaraj and on immigration fraud involving more than 400 sham marriages.

The poisoning of Judge Hulse was another legal point, and likewise the 1984 bioterrorist episode. She was obsessed with numerous murder plots and attempted murder, fraud, theft, drug running. She had been incarcerated in California with three twenty year sentences and there were plans for more prosecutions. She was released in 1988 with only a few years in jail because of "good behavior". 

Upon her release with her close accomplice Diane Onang they fled to Europe again.

Osho died at 58 years of age from heart failure brought on by years of physical abuse.

Not from serving the needy in love but from extreme self serving drug addiction and a being chronic user of  nitrous oxide, years of meaningless promiscuity and undoubtedly a futile attempt to flee a suppressed guilty conscience.

The Saul Syndrome always leads to self destruction.   Osho has hundreds of quotes floating around the internet and in books that may sound good by themselves but often seem to contradict each other or even contain contradictions.

He loved to shock people and spoke for years enticing followers but what one says is always in the context of their lives.   He claimed all other religious movements having been "false," "sick," "failures" but his life ambition was to promote his movement as the "first true religion" when in fact he did not even know what the word Religion meant. 

Teacher

What can the life of Osho teach us?

How could thousands of people be fooled by his religion much less the thousands of denominations and sects of religion all over the world that billions of dollars from their followers use them and abandon them when the word religion use to mean how you preformed your duty to God and your fellow man?

Chandra-Rajneesh-Osho said at one time in reference to meditation “It is simply sitting silently, witnessing the thoughts, passing before you. Just witnessing, not interfering not even judging, because the moment you judge you have lost the pure witness. The moment you say “this is good, this is bad,” you have already jumped onto the thought process.” But how can you be a witness in a drug induced state?

He went on to say concerning this process of meditation that “And this process of watching is the very alchemy of real religion. Because as you become more and more deeply rooted in witnessing, thoughts start disappearing. You are, but the mind is utterly empty.”

But once empty have we opened a door, a habitation for others compatible with our own hearts and minds?

He imagines when we are empty “That’s the moment of enlightenment. That is the moment that you become for the first time an unconditioned, sane, really free human being.” except that moment never exists. We are made in the image of the creator of life and the universe or some other creator or personality.

Chandra-Rajneesh-Osho also said, “You feel good, you feel bad, and these feelings are bubbling from your own unconsciousness, from your own past. Nobody is responsible except you. Nobody can make you angry, and nobody can make you happy.” From one point of view this is true but all the conscience of mankind is not born out of his own imagination. There is a God of creation, master of a divine plan of intelligent design that we are not the authors of.

We are not God and we are not self creating and therefore we may align with God or something less than God. Religious leaders like Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and even Buddha before the Christ try to point a way to seek an alignment with the Creator of life. Religionists are often revisionists who come after the prophets of truth and took their words trying to align people with themselves and their private interpretation of what was said or went before.

How do you know the true disciple and prophets of the truth from those who have their own self interest at heart?

Jesus said it best in Matthew 7:16 Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?

• Proverbs 5:6 Lest thou shouldest ponder the path of life, her ways are moveable, [that] thou canst not know [them].

Idolatry

Idolatry is the “extreme admiration, love, or reverence for something or someone.”

Pedestals

Another way of saying “extreme admiration” is raising some one on a pedestal. Putting people is on a pedestal is making them “god” over your thinking or understanding.

People you put on a pedestal are given a position of superiority and power. Power corrupts.

You are injuring or at least tempting others to become corrupt when you raise them to a position of extreme admiration or reverence.

Stop putting other people on a pedestal including yourself.

Judging

Putting people on a pedestal is the act of someone who is judging others as better and is no different than looking down on others as if they are your inferior. You are playing God. You are judging rank and as a god maker you play god yourself.

Stop putting people up or down and try to see yourself as you really are in relationship to others.

Love

There are two kinds of love.

One love is one of sacrifice and sharing and the other is a love of desire and wantonness, of self gratification and power over others.

There is love that gives life and love that takes life.

Love your neighbor as yourself.

There is a good self-love and bad self-love.

Of course you must love your self but how do you give life to yourself or take life from yourself?

• John 15:13 Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

If you love yourself more than others that is evidence of you putting yourself up on a pedestal.

If you love others more than your self that may mean you are putting others on a pedestal.

If you make idols of others or put them on pedestals you are also lowering yourself in your relationship to them.

Is your love of self the result of a self centered approach or is it love and appreciation of the life you are given. Do you see life as a gift endowed upon you for the purposes of being a giver of life or do you just see life as your opportunity to get more life from others?

The Moment

Be in the moment but know that you enter the moment with the spirit you call to yourself with all that you have not let go of in the past. Every one or everything you have not forgiven comes with you into each moment of your life.

Forgiveness

Forgive others there trespasses and shortcomings, errors and failings.

Forgiving is not absolution it is simply not convicting others of being less or more than they are or should be.

Forgiving is letting go of the chains of the past. You cannot enter the moment clean without forgiveness and you cannot forgive without the love of the Creator.

Attitude

While you should not judge others or yourself do not imagine affirmations will conform you or release you from what is in you. Mental affirmations or accusations take place in 5 to 10 percent of your consciousness. You do not even know what is in most of it and you are not self creating.

We are not perfect but we can seek to be made perfected by the Creator.

We are not the source of life and beauty but we may seek that which is.

We can become a part of something with a nature greater than us.

We must let go to take hold but it is our choice as to the direction we reach. Values

Seek values and beliefs that bear fruit, grant life and serves others equally as you might hope others to do to you. Forgive them when they don't and remember patience is a valuable virtue. When you fail to be patient forgive and when you fail to forgive forgive yourself.

The longest journey begins with the first step. Repentance is about forgiveness and turning around and moving in the other direction.