Friday, December 11, 2009

Osho's "Death: The Greatest Fiction"


We just received a small shipment of this book from India. This classic Osho compilation was out of print for several years, so I am very pleased to have in back in our stock.

This is a compilation of talks in which Osho explores the myths, fictions, and fears surrounding this inevitable event. “Life and death are one...in reality there is no such thing as death – life is eternal.” The book opens on a very personal note, Osho’s recollections of witnessing his beloved grandfather’s death when he (Osho) was only seven years old.

Price: $13.95 (Californians add $1.33 sales tax); shipping $4 for the US, $8 for out of the country.

http://oshoviha.org/oshohereandnow/advanced_search_result.php?keywords=death+the+greatest&osCsid=8517e7facbc76a2b1b0b6b02646b5343&x=0&y=0

Here is a beautiful excerpt from the book:


BELOVED OSHO,
I FEEL A STRONG CONNECTION BETWEEN DEATH AND MEDITATION, A FASCINATION AND A FEAR. WHEN I SIT WITH YOU, IT IS SOMEHOW SAFE TO CLOSE MY EYES AND MEDITATE; WHEN I AM ALONE, IT IS FRIGHTENING. PLEASE COMMENT.

Dhyan Sagar, there is not only a strong connection between meditation and death, but they are almost the same thing – just two ways of looking at the same experience.

Death separates you from your body, from your mind, from all that is not you. But it separates you against your will. You are resisting, you don't want to be separated; you are not willing, you are not in a state of let-go.

Meditation also separates all that is not you from your being and reality – but the resistance is not there; that is the only difference. Instead of resistance, there is a tremendous willingness, a longing, a passionate welcome. You want it; you desire it from the very depth of your heart.

The experience is the same – the separation between the false and the real – but because of your resistance in death, you become unconscious, you fall into a coma. You cling too much in death; you don't allow it to happen, you close all the doors, all the windows. Your lust for life is at the optimum. The very idea of dying frightens you from the very roots.

But death is a natural phenomenon and absolutely necessary too – it has to happen. If the leaves don't become yellow and don't fall, the new leaves, the fresh and young will not come. If one goes on living in the old body, he will not be moving into a better house, fresher, newer, with more possibilities of a new beginning. Perhaps he may not take the same route as he has taken in his past life, getting in a desert. He may move into a new sky of consciousness.

Each death is an end and a beginning.

Don't pay too much attention to the end. It is an end to an old, rotten, miserable life style, and it is a great opportunity to begin a new life, not to commit the old mistakes. It is a beginning of an adventure. But because you cling to life and you don't want to leave it – and it has to happen by the very nature of things – you fall unconscious.

Almost everyone, except those few people who have become enlightened, dies unconsciously; hence they don't know what death is, they don't know its new beginning, the new dawn.

Meditation is your own exploration.

You are searching to know exactly what constitutes you: what is false in you and what is real in you. It is a tremendous journey from the false to the real, from the mortal to the immortal, from darkness to light. But when you come to the point of seeing the separation from the mind and the body, and yourself just as a witness, the experience of death is the same. You are not dying... a man who has meditated will die joyfully because he knows there is no death; the death was in his clinging with life.

You say, Sagar, I FEEL A STRONG CONNECTION BETWEEN DEATH AND MEDITATION. There is. In the ancient scriptures of this land, even the master is defined as death because his whole function, his whole work is to teach you meditation. In other words, he is teaching you to die without dying – to pass through the experience of death, surprised that you are still alive; death was like a cloud that has passed; it has not even scratched you. Hence the fascination, and the fear. The fascination is to know the mysterious experience everybody has to pass through, has passed through many times, but became unconscious. And the fear – that perhaps death is only the end and not another beginning. […]

You say," WHEN I SIT WITH YOU, IT IS SOMEHOW SAFE." There is really no difference whether you sit with me or you sit alone – it is just a mind security, the idea that the master is present so there is no harm to take the jump. If something goes wrong, somebody is there to take care of it.

In meditation, nothing goes wrong – ever.

Without meditation, everything is going wrong.

Nothing goes right without meditation; your whole life is going wrong. You live only in hope, but your hopes are never fulfilled. Your life is a long, long tragedy. And the reason is your unawareness, your unmeditativeness.

Meditation looks like death, and the experience is exactly the same. But the attitude and the approach is different, and the difference is so vast that it can be said that meditation is life and death is just a dream.

But this is the function of a mystery school, where many people are meditating, where a master is present. You feel safe, you are not alone. If something goes wrong, help will be available immediately. But nothing goes wrong.

So meditate while you are sitting with me, and meditate in your aloneness. Meditation is the only thing with an absolute guarantee that nothing goes wrong with it. It only reveals your existence to yourself – how can anything go wrong? And you are not doing anything; you are really stopping doing everything. You are stopping thinking, feeling, doing – a full stop to all your actions. Only consciousness remains, because that is not your action, it is you.

Once you have tasted your being, all fear disappears, and life becomes a totally new dimension – no longer mundane, no longer ordinary. For the first time you see the sacredness and the divineness not only of yourself, but of all that exists. Everything becomes mysterious, and to live in this mystery is the only way to live blissfully; to live in this mystery is to live under blessings showering on you like rain. Each moment brings more and more, deeper and more profound blessings to you. Not that you deserve them, but because life gives them out of its abundance – it is burdened, it shares with whomsoever is receptive to it.

But don't get the idea that meditation is death-like, because death has no good associations in your mind. That will prevent you experiencing consciousness – "It is death-like." In fact, it is a real death. The ordinary death is not a real death, because you will be again joined with another structure, another body. The meditator dies in a great way; he never again becomes imprisoned in a body. […]

There are misunderstandings piled upon misunderstandings in you. Some misunderstandings can be tremendously harmful. Getting the association of meditation and death identified in your mind is one of the greatest harms that you can do to yourself. Although you are not wrong, your associations with the meaning of death are such that they will prevent you from getting into meditation.

That is one of the reasons I want to make death more and more associated with celebration rather than with mourning, more and more associated with a change, a new beginning, rather than just a full stop, an end. I want to change the association. That will clear the way for meditativeness.

And if you are feeling, here with me, silent and meditative – still alive, more alive than ever – then there is no need to be afraid. Try it in different situations, and you will always find it a source of great healing, a source of great well-being, a source of great wisdom...a source of great insight into life and its mysteries.



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Sourced from Osho Viha Connection Magazine

Sunday, December 6, 2009

Osho Viha News Early December 2009


This has been another busy and fun week here at Osho Viha.

We just finished proofreading the January/February 2010 issue of our Viha Connection magazine. The topic of the Special Section is "Love & Aloneness: The Relationship Koan," with very juicy articles by Anasha, Avinash, Chinmaya, Devapath, Garimo & Neerava, and Tara, all discussing the ins and outs of their relationships. Definitely not to be missed!

On Saturday, the members of the editorial board came for a meeting here at Viha. It was once again time to find a topic – for the May/June issue, if you can believe it. (We have to plan much in advance!) The working title for that section is "Spreading the Fire," and we will invite some center leaders, therapists, and other folks who we feel present Osho and his message in ways that bring new people to our Master.

We also received a shipment of a new Tarot Deck, just in time for the holidays:
53 Meditations to Meet the Buddha Within
53 Meditation Cards and Booklet

The 52 cards in this deck together comprise a thoughtful guide to understanding the Buddha’s important contribution to human enlightenment. Each card contains a sutra, a commentary by Osho, and a beautiful image of a Buddha statue. Readers can first enjoy the words as poetry and allow them to evoke an intuitive, emotional response; they can then read Osho's corresponding entry in the book to create meaning. A 53rd card, called Sammasati, represents the last word spoken by the Buddha and an inspiring reminder of the reader’s own buddhahood. Individual sutras include Only Love Dispels Hate; Beyond Judgments; Neither Praise Nor Blame; Conquer Yourself; Beyond Sorrow; Awake Forever; and The Shining Way.

This will make a lovely holiday gift, either for yourself or a loved one. Please go to

http://oshoviha.org/oshohereandnow/product_info.php?cPath=142&products_id=1111&osCsid=d4a0d3920924f2bd394214eff9f9b131

to order it.

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Why I Think the Resort Should Cancel the Evening Meditations in Buddha Hall


by Dhanyam

Last month I read a short piece in the New York Times about a terrorist being arrested in Chicago and didn’t pay too much attention to it. But in the middle of November this terrorist story pretty much exploded, especially in the Indian media, all the way to the Osho Resort in Pune.

Turns out that the Pakistan-born terrorist David Coleman Headley (originally Daoog Gilani) traveled to India every year since 2007 – on his US passport – and not only stayed at the Taj Hotel in Mumbai before it was attacked by terrorists, but also visited the Osho Resort in Pune twice, for one day at a time.

I think it is safe to assume that Mr. Headley did not visit the Resort to meditate.

With a few thousand people going to the evening meditation in Buddha Hall every night, I have to ask whether the Resort security is adequate to protect sannyasins and other Osho lovers from a terrorist attack. To me the answer is clear: No!

I am convinced that Mr. Headley was scouting targets for future terrorist attacks, and because of this situation, I believe the only possible and responsible policy is to cancel the evening meditation in Buddha Hall until the Resort can adequately protect everyone attending.

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Sourced from Osho Viha Connection Magazine

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Deva Premal & Miten news


We are always happy to receive news of our friends Deva Premal and Miten. These beloved sannyasin musicians are always traveling around the world and delighting their audiences with their wonderful singing. And they are wonderful ambassadors for Osho! I still fondly (and with goosebumps) remember their last concert in San Francisco, during which suddenly Osho's voice filled the magnificent Grace Cathedral.

Recently Nirvesha emailed us with the news that Ed and Deb Shapiro, authors of Be The Change, wrote about Deva and Miten in a new blog at the Huffington Post:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ed-and-deb-shapiro/do-mantras-really-work_b_324820.html

"The room was filled with melodious voices. We were at a concert with the fabulous Deva Premal and Miten. They are masters at chanting, and at getting the audience to participate. Spending a few hours singing a foreign language (many chants are in Sanskrit) may not sound like a lot of fun, yet it has a remarkable effect. It really does uplift the spirit.

"...Apart from calming the mind and reducing friction, chanting can also be powerfully healing. Miten shared the moving story of a woman who had been deeply depressed for two years, sleeping on the couch as she could not climb the stairs, waking up each morning hoping she would die, and gaining a lot of weight. A friend played her Deva and Miten's chanting and she began to sob, followed by a huge release. She played their music constantly and one morning, when she woke up, for the first time she was able to appreciate the sun filling her room. She had thoughts of how she could share love, instead of longing to die.

"Deva and Miten hear such stories constantly, especially from people who know nothing of the meaning of the chant but who are feeling a lack of shared spirituality in their lives and who experience a deep and joyful resonance with the sound...." Read the full blog here .

Nice, huh?

Now Deva Premal's latest offering has just reached here: A CD titled "Mantras for Precarious Times."

Accompanied by Miten (voice), Manose (bansuri flute), and Kamal (keyboard drone, bells), Deva sings a selection of seven mantras chosen specifically as a support during these challenging times.

Each mantra is chanted for an entire mala – 108 beads.

The CD includes notes on useful applications for each mantra.

This CD and others by the duo are available at

http://oshoviha.org/oshohereandnow/index.php?cPath=101_105&osCsid=87a4b77545842d92a494a5b85e0a2099

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Sourced from Osho Viha Connection Magazine

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Original, unedited Osho ("Rajneeesh") books

Over the past years I have noticed that the demand for original, unedited Osho books is huge. Many of our book buyers do not want the compilation books produced by mainstream publishers and request the original books, many of which are out of print.

I am always on the lookout for such books and was recently able to buy a small collection. Book collectors know that prices for such books are skyrocketing on sites like abebooks.com or on ebay.

I am excited to be able to offer the following “Rajneesh” books, all of them out of print. I have only one copy per title, so please email us soonest with your interest. oshoviha@oshoviha.org

Title publication date price
Take It Easy Vol. 2 1979 37.95
Discipline of Transcendence Vol. 2 1978 36.95
Ecstasy: The Forgotten Language 1978 36.95
Rajneesh Upanishad 1987 28.95
The Ultimate Alchemy Vol. 1 1976 37.95
The Book of Secrets Vol. 4 1976 29.95
The Book of Secrets Vol. 5 1976 35.95
Zarathustra: Laughing Prophet app.1989 36.95
Ta Hui: Great Zen Master app.1989 36.95
Gold Nuggets app.1989 22.95
More Gold Nuggets app.1989 22.95
Come Follow Me, Vol. 1 1976 37.95
Come Follow Me, Vol. 2 1976 37.95
The Razor’s Edge app. 1989 36.95
From the False to the Truth app. 1989 35.95
The Sword and the Lotus app. 1988 35.95

Books about Osho:
The Awakened One
(by Satya Vedant) 1982 22.95
The Rajneesh Papers
(by Palmer & Sharma) app. 1987 23.95

Dhanyam
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Sourced from Osho Viha Connection Magazine

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Special Sale! Osho's Yaa-Hoo: The Mystic Rose



Yaa-Hoo: The Mystic Rose

In March and April of 1988 Osho gave a series of discourses that have remained favorites with many of his sannyasins. This was a particular “juicy” and joyful time in Poona, with Osho delighting his people with often hilarious discourses and some of his most outrageous jokes.

Have you ever wondered how the Yaa-Hoo! mantra evolved? Or what triggered the creation of the Mystic Rose meditation? Or what made Osho walk out of discourse at the height of a monsoon storm?

“I wanted you to know that I am not an old-style Zen Master, but I also hit – in my own way, more sophisticatedly... One day suddenly I will be gone, just like the storm. Before I am gone I would like you to blossom into the biggest roses possible.”

It’s all here, in this big, elegantly designed book of questions and answers. Complete with many beautiful photos, this is a collector’s item!

This very special Osho book is now on special sale for only $14.95 plus shipping.

You can order it at http://oshoviha.org/oshohereandnow/product_info.php?products_id=1020

To get a really good taste of the electric energy in Buddha Hall during these discourses, why not also get a video or DVD at the same time. We are selling off our entire HUGE video collection for only $5.95 per video (plus shipping), and our DVDs are only $10.95. To order a video or DVD please contact us at oshoviha@oshoviha.org

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Sourced from Osho Viha Connection Magazine

Sunday, November 8, 2009

Osho's The Golden Future



Osho's discourse series "The Golden Future" is the most comprehensive and explicit collection of discourses available on Osho’s vision for the future. The book was out of print for many years and has now been reprinted in two volumes:

Vol. 1: Meditation: The Only Way

In these discourses Osho indicates how many of the difficulties facing modern humanity can be traced to a simple fact: We don’t know who were are. Once we recognize our own individuality, a golden future – one in which every human being can live joyously, according to his own nature – becomes available to each and every one of us.


Vol. 2: Freedom from the Past

In these talks Osho reveals more of his vision for a new man and a new world. He shows us how the current global crisis ahs created a sense of urgency that can help usher in a totally new way of living. According to Osho, the coming of the new man and the new world is unavoidable, just as unavoidable as the demise of the old.

The two books together cost $18.95 and can be ordered at http://oshoviha.org/oshohereandnow/product_info.php?cPath=46_146&products_id=1109&osCsid=2ed1b1ad68c8db5b5b882a02c72d306d

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Sourced from Osho Viha Connection Magazine

Friday, November 6, 2009

Meditation Is a Death


Meditation Is a Death

Our Beloved Master,
Our love for music, poetry, dance, our love for love itself – doesn't that suggest an urge in us to disappear?
If that is so, why does meditation, the art of disappearing, not come more naturally to us?

Maneesha, music, poetry, dance, love are only half way. You disappear for a moment, then you are back. And the moment is so small...
Just as a great dancer, Nijinsky, said, "When my dance comes to its crescendo, I am no more. Only dance is." But that happens only for a small fragment of time; then again you are back.
According to me, all these – poetry, music, dance, love – are poor substitutes for meditation. They are good, beautiful, but they are not meditation. And meditation does not come naturally to you, because in meditation you will have to disappear forever. There is no coming back. That creates fear.
Meditation is a death – death of all that you are now. Of course there will be a resurrection, but that will be a totally new, fresh original being which you are not even aware is hidden in you.
It happens in poetry, in music, in dance, only for a small moment that you slip out of your personality and touch your individuality. But only because it happens for a small moment, you are not afraid; you always come back.
In meditation, once you are gone in, you are gone in. Then, even when you resurrect you are a totally different person. The old personality is nowhere to be found. You have to start your life again from ABC. You have to learn everything with fresh eyes, with a totally new heart. That's why meditation creates fear.
The Upanishads say that the master is a death. It is an incomplete sentence. The master is a death but also a rebirth, a resurrection. A master is nothing but meditation. A master simply gives you a meditation; he cannot do anything else. He gives you the meditation to die and to be reborn.
A meditator can play music and it will have a totally different significance. A meditator can write poetry, but then the poetry will not be only a composition of words. It will express something inexpressible. A meditator can do anything, but he will bring to it a new grace, a new beauty, a new significance.
Music, poetry, dance or love can become hindrances to meditation if you stop at them. First comes meditation, and then you can create great poetry and great music. But you will not be the creator; you will be just a hollow bamboo flute. The universe will sing songs through you, will dance dances through you. You will be only an address – c/o you. Existence will express itself, and you will be just a hollow bamboo.
Meditation makes you a hollow bamboo; then whatever happens through that hollowness, that empty heart belongs to existence itself.
Then Existence sings songs.

Rinzai: Master of the Irrational, Discourse 1

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Sourced from Osho Viha Connection Magazine

Vasumati's comments on: "Therapy and Meditation in the World of Osho"

Here some parts from Vasumati's article, on the same topic:

Vasumati "For me meditation alone has never been enough. If we take meditation to be witnessing and going beyond the ego, then I have always needed more. I’ve needed love, celebration, creativity, and different forms of expression to create the full panorama of human experience that solves life’s problems and makes its joys more profound. [...]

In my case meditation was not higher or more mature than therapy or inquiry. Both grew simultaneously. Originally my journey into meditation was a personal love affair with Osho. I was not looking to go beyond the mind or the ego. I was in love, and the Being I was in love with also happened to be my Master. It was far more than just the impersonal space of meditation. In the years after Osho left the body new ground as a seeker had to be developed that put the onus for awakening on me and not on someone who would do it for me. There was no external Master and no lover.

Therapy helped unearth the patterns, and meditation helped me be with it and find the inner space necessary to allow the shifts to take place and the understandings to integrate. Therapy has been of tremendous help to me, and I will never feel that I should not need it. Meditation is the greatest gift I have received this lifetime. I will carry it with me through all the stages of life, love, aging, and death."

website: www.creatinglove.com.au

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Sourced from Osho Viha Connection Magazine

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

What's new at Osho Viha in early November?


Osho Viha is having a super sale of Osho discourse VHS videos:

Only $5.95 per video (plus shipping) or 10 videos for $49.95 (plus shipping).

We have more than 500 videos: discourses and documentaries from Poona One, the Ranch, Osho’s World Tour, and Poona Two. You name it, we (probably) have it!

The selection is too vast to put it up on our websites, so please contact us with your interest.

A note for our customers outside of the US: The videos are in the
American NTSC format, so before placing your order, please check that your VCR can play this format.

Please email us at oshoviha@oshoviha.org with your inquiries.

Also, we have just mailed out the November/December issue of our Viha Connection http://www.oshoviha.org/connection (see the cover above) and it is getting rave reviews. Readers seem to really enjoy the Special Section on Therapy and Meditation. Now we are starting the editing of our January/February 2010 issue. The special topic of that issue is "Loving and Relating in Osho's Sangha," which promises to be very juicy. Make sure you don't miss it.

This past Sunday (November 1), we had satsang here in our house. Afterward several people mentioned that they wanted to know the "20 difficult things" that Osho spoke about in the quote that we played during satsang. So I am posting the list below. The discourse is from The Discipline of Transcendence, Vol. 2, Chapter 2. Enjoy!

THE BUDDHA SAID:
THERE ARE TWENTY DIFFICULT THINGS TO ATTAIN OR ACCOMPLISH IN THIS WORLD.
1. IT IS DIFFICULT FOR THE POOR TO PRACTISE CHARITY.
2. IT IS DIFFICULT FOR THE STRONG AND RICH TO OBSERVE THE WAY.
3. IT IS DIFFICULT TO DISREGARD LIFE AND GO TO CERTAIN DEATH.
4. IT IS ONLY A FAVOURED FEW THAT GET AQUAINTED WITH A BUDDHIST SUTRA.
5. IT IS BY RARE OPPORTUNITY THAT A PERSON IS BORN IN THE AGE OF A BUDDHA.
6. IT IS DIFFICULT TO CONQUER THE PASSIONS, TO SUPPRESS SELFISH DESIRES.
7. IT IS DIFFICULT NOT TO HANKER AFTER THAT WHICH IS AGREEABLE.
8. IT IS DIFFICULT NOT TO GET INTO A PASSION WHEN SLIGHTED.
9. IT IS DIFFICULT NOT TO ABUSE ONE'S AUTHORITY.
10. IT IS DIFFICULT TO BE EVEN-MINDED AND SIMPLE-HEARTED IN ALL ONE'S DEALINGS WITH OTHERS.
11. IT IS DIFFICULT TO BE THOROUGH IN LEARNING AND EXHAUSTIVE IN INVESTIGATION.
12. IT IS DIFFICULT TO SUBDUE SELFISH PRIDE.
13. IT IS DIFFICULT NOT TO FEEL CONTEMPT TOWARD THE UNLEARNED.
14. IT IS DIFFICULT TO BE ONE IN KNOWLEDGE AND PRACTISE.
15. IT IS DIFFICULT NOT TO EXPRESS AN OPINION ABOUT OTHERS.
16. IT IS BY RARE OPPORTUNITY THAT ONE IS INTRODUCED TO A TRUE SPIRITUAL TEACHER.
17. IT IS DIFFICULT TO GAIN AN INSIGHT INTO THE NATURE OF BEING, AND TO PRACTISE THE WAY.
18. IT IS DIFFICULT TO FOLLOW THE STEPS OF A SAVIOUR.
19. IT IS DIFFICULT TO BE ALWAYS THE MASTER OF ONESELF.
20. IT IS DIFFICULT TO UNDERSTAND THOROUGHLY THE WAYS OF BUDDHA.


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Sourced from
Osho Viha Connection Magazine

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Therapy and Meditation in the World of Osho













This week here at Osho Viha, we are busy with the mailing of our Viha Connection magazine. The topic of the Special Section is "Clearing the Ground: Therapy and Meditation." Osho’s insights into our minds and beings have been an incredible gift for us all. His guidance on how to use meditation and therapy together to heal, to go deep, and ultimately to go beyond the mind has been priceless. For the November/December 2009 issue of the Viha Connection magazine we asked six writers, several of them Osho therapists, to share their unique experiences with meditation and therapy as they’ve used both to clear the ground for something precious in their lives. Below is one of the articles, followed by Osho quote on the topic.


There Is No Separation

by Satyarthi

This topic brought up many memories for me. It was 1968, and I was 16 years old, growing up in Marin County, California. Flower power was in full bloom, and Indian gurus were coming to the Bay Area, leading meditations, giving talks and shaktipat, and opening ashrams. I was meeting people who were doing Transcendental Meditation, and, with a written note from my parents (who were communists and did not want me involved in anything religious but finally said yes), I hitchhiked two hours to Berkeley and was initiated into Indian spirituality.

I did TM every day for 20 minutes in the morning and evening. I was more relaxed and had a longing to find more of myself, so I became a TM teacher, completing a nine-month retreat with Maharishi. During that retreat I was reading The Primal Scream by Janov and questioning the TM leaders. I felt that therapy was also needed for growth. They disagreed, which ended my relationship with the TM movement.

In the next three years I learned a form of deep structural bodywork called Postural Integration (P.I.), and kept studying different forms of healing, such as shiatsu and acupuncture. By 1975 I was living in San Diego and had a thriving practice. Many orange-clad people were coming to me for sessions and workshops. These were disciples of Osho – wild, fun, and wonderful dancers.

I started to read and listen to Osho. Needless to say, I fell in love with two beautiful sannyasin women, and most of all, with Osho. In a couple of months I was flying to Pune to meet the Master in His commune.

Once there I did all the group therapies that Osho told me to do. The last one was the Encounter group with Teertha, who was the top therapist in the commune at the time. This group changed my life; it was the first time I was confronted with my narcissism in a big way. I had an inflated image of myself, and at the very beginning of the group Teertha told me he was going to make me the lowest person in the group. I was shattered, but by the end of the group he found a way to put me back together. Something had shifted in me: I was more vulnerable and open.

At Osho’s suggestion I soon joined the group department, leading groups in dance and body awareness and doing P.I. sessions. At this time the ashram had one of the best group departments on the planet; there were therapist and healers from all over the world. Around 1978 Osho said that all meditators should have deep bodywork. I was one of the practitioners of such work in the ashram. We were fully booked; everyone wanted sessions. He said this because He saw that meditation could not release the deep holding pattern in the body.

The same is true with many of the deep holding patterns in our hearts and minds. Therapy can help us understand and release these patterns in ways that meditation cannot. So for me there was never any separation between therapy and meditation

Sitting with Osho every day, I was learning how to be with myself, sit still, and slow down my mind. It had always been difficult for me to contain my energy; I felt compelled to express it and was always “out.” So with meditation I was learning to contain this energy within myself. Osho was blowing our minds. He was a living example of what He was speaking about. He pointed to the spiritual core of life and embodied in truth as an example of someone living in freedom and grace. He included therapy in all its forms for a reason: He knew we needed it!

We Western seekers have problems around early childhood abuse, difficulties with relating and sexuality, to name a few of our problems, and often need outside intervention from a therapist. I never thought of choosing: I meditated and received therapy. Therapy has been valuable for me in my process of staying sane and growing. Therapy brings self-inquiry into areas I do not know how to contact on my own. My deep personal work and my spiritual work seem to unfold together.

As my body, mind, heart, and spirit open, new layers of depth and self-love appear, and new layers of resignation and ego are revealed. Just through meditation I do not see my protection so clearly. I need the eyes of a good healer to point out my subtle and not-so-subtle layers of defense, to untangle the past from the present. This can be in the form of bodywork to release the holding patterns in the body and open the pathways of energy, or through individual or group therapy to explore my old wounds of grief and abandonment, to learn how to communication better in my relationships. Here therapy seems much quicker and more successful than meditation.

It has been a belief that meditation leads us to higher truths and therapy works with our lower self, our problems and issues. Ultimately this is true, but in my day-to-day life, it seems to me that there is no separation. As I meditate I open to more consciousness and come across pain that has been stored in my body, emotional pain felt as body sensation. This pain is there because I feel frustrated with work or stuck in some pattern. Meditation can help, but in my life I have found that therapy is much more specific and supports me to move deeper into my awareness to undo these patterns.

I think this is unique for each of us. Living with Osho for many years I saw how He treated each person individually: For some He would recommend therapy, for others He would say it was not needed. I have a personal story about this. At one point I gave Osho Rebalancing sessions every day for almost three months, which was one of the most amazing times in my life. Then suddenly He was finished having sessions with me. After some time I started feeling insecure and abandoned and had the feeling that I needed to do Primal. So I wrote Osho telling Him I wanted to do the Primal group. He sent me a message saying no need to do the group. I was stubborn and wrote back that I really wanted to do it. He said, Okay, then do it. I did the group, and it was the only time I did a group that felt like I was definitely in the wrong place. I felt lost in the group and did not get much from it. It was a wake-up call to take Osho’s guidance seriously. There is a time for therapy and a time for meditation. This was a time I needed to go deeper in meditation, not therapy.

Osho saw that to have true transformation we have to practice and live in meditation. Moment to moment He formed the sangha, the spiritual community. For me, much of His teaching and my self-discovery happened while living in the community.

Now that Osho is no longer in the body giving me guidance and answering questions, I need more outside help. When I am stuck in some love story or with work, I meditate, which helps, but if I go beyond my pride I see that I need help from someone. This is where a good healer or therapist can support me finding more clarity and awareness to discover a way through my difficulty. I am also aware that to keep my longing for truth burning, which is always uncomfortable, I need outside help. Here the Path of Love work has helped me a lot. Osho was stoking the fire of my longing. Now I need to keep it burning without Him. It is too easy to get lost in the desires and survival needs in the world without a living Master and His commune. So I look for help from therapists and different healers to keep this fire burning. My name means “seeker of truth,” so for me to stay true to that name I need both therapy and meditation.

coreintegration@yahoo.com

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Sourced from Osho Viha Connection Magazine



A Synthesis Between Therapy and Meditation

Beloved Osho,

Is that true that you have declared your therapists to be the best in the world? And what makes the difference between them and the famous therapists of the Esalen Institute?

Yes, my therapists are the best in the world, for the simple reason that other therapists are only therapists; they are not meditators. My therapists are meditators too.

Therapy is a superficial thing. It can help to clean the ground, but just to have a clean ground is not to have a garden.

You will need something more. Therapy is negative; it simply takes away the weeds from the ground, removes the stones from the ground, prepares the soil for the garden. But there its work ends.

Western therapy is still in its very primitive stage. It has to go a long way. And unless it becomes associated with meditation, it may help a little bit superficially, but it cannot really help the person to grow. […]

So I repeat: My therapists are the best in the world. And any therapist in the West, if he wants to become a real therapist, has to come to me. He has to come to meditations, and he has to create a synthesis between therapy and meditation. Then only will he be a real therapist; otherwise he is just doing half a job – which is very dangerous.

It is like doing partial surgery on a person and leaving him with an open wound. It would have been better if you had not touched him. If you have opened his wound, it is better you do it completely. And that's what is happening in the West: The psychotherapists and other therapists are opening people's wounds and leaving them incomplete. They are creating a very dangerous situation for the person. He will find himself in more anguish than he had ever been.

Now is the time that psychoanalysis should come to meet with meditative methods. East and West, unless they meet and merge with each other, will remain half and half. They are not complete in themselves. Together they can be complete – and completion of anything has a beauty of its own.

Light on the Path, Chapter 16

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Sourced from Osho Viha Connection Magazine

Friday, October 16, 2009

Welcome to the new Osho Viha blog. We are excited about exploring this new way to connect with Osho's friends worldwide. We envision this blog to become a juicy mixture of Osho Viha news, discussions about anything related to Osho, inspiring Osho quotes, and much more. We will also offer excerpts from our Viha Connection, the magazine we put out every second month. This magazine started out as a one-page newsletter for the local community and has grown into a beautifully laid-out publication (usually around 36 pages) with a full-color cover. The magazine has subscribers not only all over the US but in more than 35 countries worldwide.