About OSHO
Osho, known also as Rajneesh ή Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh is one of the most outspoken and controversial mystics and spiritual teachers this planet has seen since Jesus and Buddha.
He was born in India in 1931 and became enlightened at the early age of 21. Starting his career as a young professor of philosophy, he went on to become a spiritual guide for millions of people around the globe.
A mystic and a scientist, a revolutionary spirit whose sole interest is to awaken humanity to the urgent need for discovering a new way of living. His core message is that only by transforming ourselves, one individual at a time, can the collective result of all these “selves” — our societies, our cultures, our beliefs, our world — truly change.
Osho is known for his revolutionary contribution to the science of inner transformation, with an approach to meditation that acknowledges the accelerated pace of contemporary life. He gave practical tools such as the unique OSHO Active Meditations, and guidance through his talks on how to live in a new state of new consciousness – a consciousness that transcends personal, national, and religious boundaries and conditionings, a consciousness that brings us as one humanity into the new era of living in a state of authenticity and awareness of the true nature of the ever-present Cosmic Joy within us.
Speaking on all spiritual paths and masters with tremendous love, depth of understanding, and respect, Osho emphasizes the bringing together of the paths of love (outer devotion) and meditation (inner discipline). He teaches that taking one path would lead to the other and, ultimately, to self-realization, but living them together would enrich one’s life even more. He teaches that a life of devotion without the awareness and discipline of meditation is shallow, and a life of meditation without the heart of devotion is selfish.
His vision for the new man is “Zorba the Buddha”, capable both of enjoying the earthly pleasures of a Zorba the Greek and the silent serenity of a Gautama the Buddha. In essence, he encourages us to live life fully and consciously without repression, preconceived ideologies, judgments, and conditionings, emphasizing the ultimate truth that lies within our inner silence.
“Osho
Can you say who you are?
I am an invitation for all those who are seeking, searching, and have a deep longing in their hearts to find their home. I am an answer to the question that everybody is, but cannot formulate – a question that is more a quest than a question, more a thirst than a verbal, mental inquiry; a thirst that one feels in every cell and fiber of his being, but has no way to bring to words and ask. I am an answer for that question which you cannot ask and you cannot expect that it could be answered.
When I say I am the answer, I don’t mean that I can give you the answer…yes, if you are ready, you can take it. I am just like a well, ready for you to throw your bucket and draw the water for yourself. I have it but I cannot reach to you without your efforts. Only you can reach to me. It is a strange invitation. It will take you on a long pilgrimage and it will end only where you already are. You will have to move many steps and on many paths just to come to yourself, because you have gone far away from yourself. You have completely forgotten the way back. I am a reminder, a remembrance, of the lost home…
Hence, in one word I can say I am an invitation, of course just for those who have a deep longing in their hearts that they are missing themselves – a deep urge, that unless they find themselves, everything else is meaningless…. There are thousands of desires, but as far as longing is concerned there is only one: to come back home, to find your reality. And in that very finding, you have found all that is of any value – blissfulness, truth, ecstasy.
I am an effort to provoke the dormant in you, to wake up the asleep. The fire is there, but is burning very low because you have never taken any care of it.
My invitation is to make you aflame, and unless you know a life which is luminous and aflame all your knowledge is just a deception. You are gathering it to help you forget that the real knowledge is missing. But however great is your accumulation of the other, the objective, the world, it is not going to become a substitute for your self-knowing. With self-knowing suddenly all darkness disappears, and all separation from existence.
I am an invitation to take a courageous jump into the ocean of life.
Lose yourself, because that is the only way to find yourself.”
Osho, The Invitation
