Your Friendly Philosopher & Guide

Who was Osho?
Osho was born Rajneesh in Madhya Pradesh in 1932 in a Jain family, and grew at his grandparents? place. He was a rebel by birth, and had the guts to question everything and anything around him since childhood. He never wanted to get into his family business and live life like yet another businessman. He wanted to be successful in his life before he CHOSE to be a wanderer. He completed his formal education ? a MA in philosophy, worked as a college professor till 30, and later quit his job to start a meditation centre in Mumbai ? rest is history.

Osho?s meditation techniques
Osho Rajneesh formulated few fantastic meditational techniques to help people to go to a transcendental stage where MIND becomes still and reaches ZERO. Dynamic meditation was one of the famous techniques introduced by him followed by Natabrahma, Whirling & Kundalini meditation. Few years back Osho?s meditation methods were prescribed to the Indian cricket team to enhance their performance.

Osho?s Uniqueness
Osho Rajneesh was the first enlightened soul to explain that spirituality is not reserved for those who practice celibacy, leave their family and go on an exile to meditate. You could reach God even by living in the present fast paced society ? that remained his argument.

*He was the one of first to use modern music to help transcendental meditation.
*He was the first to sell meditation in packages.
*He was the first to activate his commune in Oregon and also in Pune.

Osho Rajneesh had an amazing Vaak Sidhi (blessing for good speech) and he could mesmerize 1000s with his words and logic.

Also he was the first spiritual guru to bring humour in his discourses and even sex jokes.

Any guru born after Osho ? like Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, or Isha Yoga Juggi Vasudev are just carbon copies.

The Controversy
No spiritual person ever spoke about sex so openly as Osho did..that too in the time when India was unaware about movies like Fire, Julie and Murder. He even argued that there was nothing wrong if parents stayed nude in front of their children.

Osho started to be known a as sex Guru, and also people started believing that people moved around nude in his ashram. This wasn?t true.

Osho believed that to meditate with a still mind you should get over with things, which blocks you from the process. If the blockade is due to sex, then go ahead, have as much you can and come back. Minds are cunning ? people started having enough sex and never came back to meditate. This in fact put Osho into one of the controversies.

Sex Therapy was one of the meditations that Osho used to help people who were sexually active. It wasn?t anything new. He just tried selling old wine in the new bottle - Tantrik Sex Indians was part of Indian civilization.

Osho also got into controversy because of his elite lifestyle. Oregon was a community completely created, and managed by his rich disciples. It included a five star hotel, huge recreational centers, and also an aerodrome. Osho had some 99 Rolls Royce and an aircraft of his own. Once a BBC reported asked him, why do you cater only to the riches? And Osho replied you have your Christian missionary to help the poor and the deprived. The rich need me more, and hence I am with them.

He also got into controversy by calling Pope a homosexual, Jesus an unfertilized egg. Gandhi a desperado..and also managed to release a book in America that said ?Dedicated to all human beings except Ronald Reagen? - when Reagen was the American President!

What Osho did & what people understood
Osho?s discourses were tailor made. His argument was applicable only to those who had those questions in their mind. Hence you could find him negating himself in many incidences. In one book he is all ga ga about Jesus?s love, and in another he would be abusing him to the core. But people thought whatever he spoke were his philosophies and that it is for everyone.

Secondly, he was against creation of all kinds of identities. He was called Rajneesh, then Bhagwan Rajneesh, then Osho Rajneesh, and finally just Osho ? that was because he wanted to lose his own identity. Hence he would change names of all those people who wanted to take sanyas under him. Men were prefixed with Swami and women were prefixed with Ma ? just to make them lose their identity first. Why do you need to lose your identity - it is again debatable.

He tried is level best to help people to get over things, and start meditating. But then people stopped meditation and started following him, enacting him and imitating him.

Like any other enlightened souls Osho Rajneesh also has failed miserably in his experiment - to change people.

God bless all!