New Osho Chair established at SSCCM in Bhavnagar, Gujarat

Osho’s vision on education

Education should ignite curiosity in children. They should be encouraged to ask questions but their mind should not be filled with borrowed answers. If education can send the students on a great journey to discover the truth of life, then its task is complete. In my view, a teacher is the one who awakens latent problems, awakens curiosity, and fills children with courage and fearlessness for their own research.”

Osho, Revolution in Education, Ch 1

These are the words spoken by Osho in 1969, when he delivered a series of lectures, later to become his vision on education. His focus was on problem solving, lifelong learning skills, research and development, innovation, curiosity and creativity to ensure that a child has the ability to tackle his future challenges. It wasn’t easy for people to accept his transformative ideas 55 years ago, because the education system had become hostage to syllabus and rote learning.

Osho wanted a teacher to be rebellious, alert and conscious, when the school and higher educational institutions were seeing a teacher as someone who could keep teaching the same material year in and year out. But not any more. The fourth industrial revolution and an accelerated technological development have pushed the educational system to hit pause and rethink the entire educational model.

India, I would say, is fortunate enough to have a visionary Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, who rightly launched a new National Education Policy (NEP) in 2020 and implemented it across schools and higher educational institutions. The NEP reminds me of Osho’s vision which he gifted to us more than five decades ago. We could have gained the status of a global knowledge superpower if Osho’s ideas were implemented in the 1980s. But better late than never! His ideas are now shaping the education sector and many colleges are taking proactive steps to see that students are benefitted from this vision.

Osho Chair at Swami Sahajanand College of Commerce and Management in Bhavnagar, Gujarat

In order to achieve this goal, the Osho Sangham Trust USA has established an Osho Chair at Swami Sahajanand College of Commerce and Management (SSCCM) in Bhavnagar. This initiative is part of a broader effort to spread Osho’s educational vision and also to make meditation more accessible to students.

The event at Bhavnagar on 23 January 2025 witnessed the participation of more than 2000 students, 500 Osho disciples and many dignitaries other than the college management team. The establishment of this Osho Chair is a tribute to our Master, and with it another foundation has been laid for an international centre of excellence to research Osho’s vision.

It was also a unique event for a different reason. For the first time, two generations of Osho’s family appeared together in a public event. Swami Shailendra, Osho’s younger brother and my uncle, joined the event, though only virtually. But, most importantly, for both of us the holy pilgrimage is the same: Osho.

India’s legacy: balance between inner and outer – and the new demands on the educational system

In our ancient culture two things have been said explicitly. First, that there should be innovative growth in a person’s life and profession, including both knowledge and science. Visionaries have also called it a journey into the outer world. Secondly, that the inner journey should continue at the same time. There should be a readiness to immerse oneself in spirituality, which Osho has defined as the journey into the inner world. The right balance between the outer and inner world is the most important aspect of individual growth.

The establishment of a new Osho Chair can now be seen as the endeavour of sowing the seeds for a holistic being with a balanced growth of the inner and outer worlds.

Today there is gap between Industry’s demands and the human resource trained by educational institutions; because of rapid changes that take place on a global scale and the increased demands for new skills. Our educational system needs to fill that gap, and for that it is crucial that institutions like the Swami Sahajanand College should also focus on both aspects of life: science and spirituality. I feel that to face the twin challenge of future uncertainties and maintaining economic growth, we need individual personalities with the fragrance of both: Buddha and Einstein.

Wisdom / Knowledge

Osho has observed, as I mentioned earlier, that education’s prime objective is to ignite curiosity in a student and to fill his unique personality with courage and fearlessness for new research and new discovery. Osho knew that creativity and curiosity are the two most powerful elements of learning; they will ensure that the consciousness of the students is not filled with borrowed answers but that the student gets the opportunity to come up with original answers. It is also important to mention that over the years philosophers and authors have tried to define wisdom and differentiate it from the knowledge imparted in schools and colleges.

In this context, the message of the Bhagvad Gita, the Vedas and Upanishads is clear: that wisdom is the spring of life. Wisdom is life-nourishing. Whereas knowledge is basically a programme designed to accomplish certain goals, wisdom is the pure inner vision of a seeker. While knowledge is the storehouse of memories filled with information accumulated over the years, wisdom is born within the seeker; it has no connection with the outside. Whereas the roots of knowledge are not within, but in the outside world.

In simple words, every creative dimension of a seeker’s life is rooted in wisdom and not in knowledge. Various perspectives of education reveal that knowledge is based in a belief system, while wisdom teaches curiosity and doubt, in order to inspire new exploration, new ideas and innovation and new research.

It is indeed heart-warming to see that India’s new National Education Policy also encourages curiosity, creativity and innovation. It does not want to confine the students to the four walls of a classroom, but wants to provide them with an open sky for learning, so that they can keep their flame of curiosity burning. It wants to enhance the student’s unique personality and their lifelong learning.

Curiosity and scientific excellence

At the event ceremony in Bhavnagar, I reminded the students about the close friendship between Krishna and Arjuna, as mentioned in our epic Mahabharata. Their friendship was unique because of their deep relationship in the role of Guru and disciple. In Kurukshetra, Arjuna becomes curious about how the world changes, and whether the truth in the present is the same as it used to be in the past. It is difficult to find a more curious student than Arjuna and a more serene teacher than Krishna. From the times of the Mahabharata to the present era of artificial intelligence, one thing is true and that is: we do not need to store knowledge. Rather, curiosity to discover the unknown needs to be cultivated even more.

It is the result of curiosity and our pursuit of scientific excellence that India’s Chandrayaan has reached the South Pole region of the Moon, where no other country in the world has reached before. It’s the desire to explore the unknown that has led our scientists to launch this mission and provide humanity with an opportunity to peek inside the mystery of millions of years.

In my opinion, whether the subject is humanities, commerce, management or science, if we are not discovering something new in these subjects, then there is no purpose in teaching them in the classroom on a routine basis. You will get a degree from the university but you will miss out on real education!

Balance between wisdom and knowledge through meditation

Coming back to the dichotomy of wisdom and knowledge: how can we balance them? Knowledge is very important in the outer world. Without knowledge it is difficult to succeed in the outer world. Knowledge has a special role to play if we aspire for name, fame, reputation, power, prestige and money.

But then we might ponder whether we experience blissfulness after having achieved all these things. Have we ever seen powerful and rich people in a blissful state? I have not, because the second dimension of most people’s lives is missing; the inner world which cannot be found without meditation.

Osho has invented and suggested various methods for meditation. By adopting them we can achieve blissfulness. Just one hour of meditation daily is enough. But that one hour will change the quality of our work for the rest of the day. By meditating, we will become more aware, and will be able to do the work with totality.

As soon as there is a balance between the inner and outer world, the music of existence becomes available. Meditation is a great tool to know oneself, and I can say –from my own experience– that without knowing oneself all other knowledge is useless.

My new life: Living according to Osho’s vision

I have been living my entire life according to Osho’s vision. I have always felt that my life is a fine balance between the inner and the outer world. After working as a fashion designer for 15 years, I felt that the inner was missing somehow. Although there was a lot of creativity in fashion designing… but that was just a single dimension. I designed clothes for eminent people of the country, earned a lot of money, but I was not feeling contented.

Then I left fashion designing completely and started listening to Osho’s discourses. I never blindly followed his words: my body, mind, heart and soul became a lab. I started doing new experiments every day. When the truths spoken by Osho turned into my experience, then I started drawing Osho’s words on canvas. And my experiences took the shape of paintings. I started feeling an amazing joy, a state of blissfulness. As we grow into the outer world, the requirement to nourish the inner world increases manifold.
India’s Prime Minister, the President and other eminent people inaugurated my exhibitions. But while explaining some paintings, I realized that the beauty of the message needed to be explained, so I started writing for many publications in India and abroad. Sometimes people wondered what training I had received to become a designer, a painter and writer. None!

Blessings from Osho

I told my story during the event: That I was born into Osho’s family, came to Pune for the first time in 1975 with my grandparents from Madhya Pradesh, and that at the age of 11, I asked Osho for sannyas. Until then there were no other sannyasins in my family. I was the first!

After taking sannyas, when I touched Osho’s feet, the mala hit the ground because it was too long. It made a loud clang on the marble floor. Osho immediately told his secretary to take me to the mala shop the next day and have a small mala designed especially for children. The next day I designed a mala with small beads and a small locket. Since then Osho has given this mala, designed by me, to all the children when they took sannyas. Perhaps Osho had already seen in me that in the future I would play the role of a designer?

I used to go and meet Osho with my grandmother, his mother, when he was having lunch. When that day I had asked Osho to give me sannyas, he enquired if I had asked Mummy. I said, “No.” Immediately Osho asked his caretaker to bring pen and paper.

Osho then asked me to write a letter to Mummy. I told him that I didn’t like to write the way we have been taught in school, Respected Mother, I bow down to your feet, etc.

Osho asked, “What do you want to write?”

I said, “My dear Mummy, Lots of Love.”

And he said, “Write what you feel and not what you have been taught. Always follow your feelings.”

Osho must have also sowed the seeds of writing in me at that moment. Another blessing from Osho! And, today, I am trying to follow his hints by working as a designer, painter, columnist and author.

One of my coffee-table books, titled The Mystic and Her Colours, was published in 2018 and is available in 250 museums and libraries around the world. Everything in my life has Osho’s blessings – besides my having his blood and genes.

I remember another incident from my childhood. Osho gifted me 100 sketch pens and asked me to draw with them. Perhaps it was another indication about my future life, first as a fashion designer and then as a painter. There was a subtle meaning in everything he did. He encouraged me as a child to use my mind as an instrument only, and to go beyond the mind and let existence guide my journey.

While giving me the sketch pens, Osho asked me to also share them with my siblings and friends. It was a tiny message – but a very important one… to strengthen the foundation that sharing is essential to make humanity a little more loving, a little more beautiful, a little more joyful and compassionate.

With freedom comes responsibility

Nowadays every child talks about freedom, wants freedom, so I would like to talk about Osho’s vision on this also.

There is something beautiful about the word ‘freedom’. Our wings already exist, but we just need to realise they are there, and then fly.

In our family, the message from Osho was very clear: Let children be in total freedom and let them recognise freedom. Osho also told us that with freedom comes responsibility.

I will give you an example: Papa never gave us pocket money like other children; we got permission to take out money from Papa’s safe as per our need. If we wanted to buy something, we could go shopping without asking Mummy or Papa; and whatever money was left over after shopping, we used to put it back into the safe.

This was our first lesson about freedom with responsibility. We had all the freedom to take out the money, but needed to spend it responsibly.

At this point I would like to say to all parents and teachers that every child is unique. All we need to do is recognise their uniqueness and educate them accordingly – not to impose our ambitions on them. As far as I have seen, existence has given everything that is necessary for the growth of today’s generation. We must just mentor and nurture the young minds.

Related articles

• Osho Chair Inauguration Ceremony – News from the events in Gujarat in January: Starting with conference at the Shri M K S Bhavnagar University in Bhavnagar, meditation tasters at Govt. Arts College, Palitana and programme at the Shri Shamaldas Mehta Arts College, Bhavnagar (Jan 2024)
• Celebrating my 48th sannyas birthday – Pratiksha Apurv takes a dive into memory lane, and recalls her evening darshan on 18 October 1975 and her new birth (Oct 2023)
• The Mystic and Her Colours – Subhra Mazumdar reviews Pratiksha Apurv’s book, The Mystic and Her Colours. Published in ART&DEAL, India, in their December 2018 issue
• Book Review: Meditative Art – Editorial by Bhagawati with a review of Pratiksha Apurv’s recently-launched book, The Mystic and Her Colours. Published in The Speaking Tree on 17 November 2018

More links

• Video of the event (in Hindi) youtu.be
• More on Osho Chair on Osho News
• More on Osho Chair: www.oshochair.com