The enlightened mystic: Osho

Personalities

An excerpt from the recently published book, ‘Spectrum of Mindfulness’ by Satya Vedant.

A rebel, an iconoclast, an enlightened mystic and an intellectual giant, Osho (also known as Acharya Rajneesh and Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh) is all this and more. He brought about a spiritual revolution in the lives of those who cared to grow as an aware, creative, and a loving human being. Osho has spoken fearlessly against orthodox religions, priests and politicians, outdated traditions and anything he finds is a hindrance to the path of self-realization. This has made him the most talked about and controversial spiritual mystic of the twentieth century. Understanding the phenomenon called “Osho” has proved strangely elusive. Perhaps that is inevitable because, at the root, Osho represents the greatest potential paradigm shift in the history of humanity.

Birth of New Man, Dali
Geopoliticus Child Watching the Birth of the New Man, Salvador Dali, 1943

Osho is essentially a rebel because he challenges the conventional ways and means of mankind by doing what is forbidden by the society, the religion, or the establishment – in his own way, in his own time, and at the place of his choosing. A rebel does not fear whether what he does is forbidden; because he does it in the interest of the future of mankind. In fact, a rebel shows, as Osho has shown through the power of his vision, that he is the future of mankind.

The Enlightened Visionary Osho and His Relevance for Today

What is the relevance of Osho today, one might ask. Well, the more you listen to what he is actually saying, the more you discover that he has carefully anticipated a time when his vision and words would basically become meaningful and applicable for the entire humanity. He, in a way, puts the humanity on the couch unraveling its every madness. He surgically describes all that is insane with the world around us and how those lunacies are simply expressions of our own inner schizophrenia. And vice versa, he takes all our inner distortions and shows how these create the outer barbarity that passes for ‘civilization’. And at every turn, he explains and demonstrates with his presence, the fundamental medicine for the disease, meditation.

Osho is not just a social or a political revolutionary. Rather, he is aiming at something which goes much beyond than that. While his vision and work have sown the seeds of social revolution, that is not his primary purpose. He is, in fact, aiming at changing, transforming the very nature of life and living as it exists today. He has indeed created a revolution in consciousness.

Osho has worked to create a New Man/New Woman for creating a New Society – not simply a changed society. He is not interested in a refurbished, extended, redesigned version of our present-indicesday society – but a totally new society. This premise has to go deep into our understanding else there is a strong possibility we may destroy humanity in coping with the challenges of tomorrow.

Osho Vision for Pathways to Personal Transformation

It is apparent that as a species we have, in our evolutionary process, made our genes work for us. We have shown that regardless of the environment or the social milieu, individuals such as Buddha have overcome the odds and gone beyond the biological and psychological barriers. Studies have also shown how aggressive and antisocial individual behavior is related to family and socio-cultural influences.

The critical factor is how well we are successful in channeling the energy, in transforming the energy of aggression and violence into love and compassion. Osho has shown the way toward materializing this change.

We urgently need to recognize that Osho has done pioneering work in designing a spiritual index that can show at which rate mankind is making or destroying lives. The spiritual index is that of Awareness – at all levels of human existence: the body, the thought, and the emotion. Such awareness then can be geared to measuring the social, political, and cultural manifestation of human energy. We in fact need indices of spirituality free from dogma, authority, control, and idolatry. Osho’s guidance on these issues in invaluable. By listening to him we can begin to give a new direction for creating what he calls ‘The New Man’. For this New Man, Osho has shown basic pathways: yoga, love, and meditation as seen in the practice of Yoga, Tantra and Zen to bring about a personal transformation.

Related review
Spectrum of Mindfulness

Available as paperback from oshoworldgalleria.com and oshoviha.org

Kindle edition available from amazon.comamazon.co.ukamazon.in

Satya VedantSatya Vedant is a regular contributor

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