OSHO Meditation advice

[jignyAsu]

...assuming Osho actually practiced those meditations himself. I don't seem to recall Osho's "awakening" being the result of practicing any particularly distinctive Osho-type meditation.

That is correct. I don't think that he would claim that "awakening" will result from the meditation, either.

But do you think that his meditation affected his thinking at all?

[philosoraptor]

Does anyone find milk touched by the lips of a serpent to be appetizing?

[Necromancer]

Pranams,

Here is what I found on wiki:

"In mid 1981, Osho relocated to the United States and his followers established an intentional community, later known as Rajneeshpuram, in the state of Oregon. Within a year, the leadership of the commune became embroiled in a conflict with local residents, primarily over land use, which was marked by hostility on both sides. The large collection of Rolls-Royce automobiles purchased for his use by his followers also attracted criticism. The Oregon commune collapsed in 1985 when Osho revealed that the commune leadership had committed a number of serious crimes, including a bioterror attack (food contamination) on the citizens of The Dalles.[6] He was arrested shortly afterwards and charged with immigration violations. Osho was deported from the United States in accordance with a plea bargain.[7][8][9] Twenty-one countries denied him entry, causing Osho to travel the world before returning to Poona, where he died in 1990."

Admittedly, immigration law, like many laws criminalizing non-aggressive behavior, is often used to punish those deemed as detractors by society. But being denied entry by 21 countries strikes me as a real accomplishment just for speaking out against Christianity. This is a man who, by all accounts, lived a live of great opulence and sexual indulgence even while talking about things like meditation. I'm baffled that anyone would think that a mleccha like him worth listening to when you evaluate his teachings in the context of the life he lead. Simply gratifying your senses with indulgence is hardly very original as far as philosophy is concerned. It seems to me that his main appeal is that he pontificates on some flowery points of philosophy, but these appear to be extracted from older religions.

"In questioning how the total corpus of Osho's work might be summarised, Bob Mullan, a sociologist from the University of East Anglia, stated in 1983: "It certainly is eclectic, a borrowing of truths, half-truths and occasional misrepresentations from the great traditions. It is also often bland, inaccurate, spurious and extremely contradictory."[216] He also acknowledged that Osho's range and imagination were second to none,[216] and that many of his statements were quite insightful and moving, perhaps even profound at times,[217] but what remained was essentially "a potpourri of counter-culturalist and post-counter-culturalist ideas" focusing on love and freedom, the need to live for the moment, the importance of self, the feeling of "being okay", the mysteriousness of life, the fun ethic, the individual's responsibility for their own destiny, and the need to drop the ego, along with fear and guilt.[218]
Uday Mehta, in summing up an appraisal of Osho's teachings, particularly errors regarding his interpretation of Zen, Mahayana Buddhism and how they relate to the proto-materialist nature of Tantric philosophy, suggests that: "It is not surprising to find that Rajneesh could get away with several gross contradictions and inconsistencies in his teachings. This was possible for the simple reason that an average Indian (or for that matter even western) listener knows so little about religious scriptures or various schools of thought that it hardly requires much effort to exploit his ignorance and gullibility."[219] According to Mehta, Osho's appeal to his Western disciples was based on his social experiments, which established a philosophical connection between the Eastern guru tradition and the Western growth movement.[210]
Writing in 1996, Hugh B. Urban (Assistant Professor of Religion and Comparative Studies at Ohio State University), like Mullan, found Osho's teaching neither original nor especially profound, noting that most of its content had been borrowed from various Eastern and Western philosophies.[160] What he found most original about Osho was his keen commercial instinct or marketing strategy, by which he was able to adapt his teachings to meet the changing desires of his audience,[160] a theme also picked up on by Gita Mehta in her book Karma Cola: Marketing the Mystic East.[220] In 2005, Urban observed that Osho had undergone a "remarkable apotheosis" after his return to India, and especially in the years since his death, going on to describe him as a powerful illustration of what F. Max Müller, over a century ago, called "that world-wide circle through which, like an electric current, Oriental thought could run to the West and Western thought return to the East."[221] By negating the dichotomy between spiritual and material desires, and reflecting the preoccupation with the body and sexuality characteristic of late capitalist consumer culture, Osho had apparently been able to create a spiritual path that was remarkably in tune with the socio-economic conditions of his time.[221]"

Namaste.

That is very interesting.

I have been doing my own research...mainly into the circumstances surrounding his death (which I knew nothing about).

He passed away at a relatively young age and amid the allegations of thallium poisoning, there were also those who said that Osho was a regular user of Nitrous Oxide (laughing gas) for a jaw condition (he was a dentist).

He also had diabetes and heart problems, so I think that a cocktail of 'any/all of the above' could have done it.

I will provide links for the above upon request.

Aum Namah Shivaya

[Jogesh]

Osho was a criminal fraud IMO....

http://www.oregonlive.com/rajneesh/i...e_than_we.html

https://www.documentcloud.org/docume...ent/p53/a14420

[Eastern Mind]

Vannakkam: When we deal with committees in real life, and some of the people we are working with have a long standing tradition of generally proposing 'dumb' ideas, sometimes they might proposes a wonderful idea, and then because of the previous stuff, we all discard it, missing out on an opportunity. So when this happens, the more wise people involved work hard to separate the messenger form the message.

Suppose this teacher had written under a pen name, or sheets of paper fell from the sky with no name attached. A searcher could pick up the paper and read only the message, not realising where it came from. That would , IMO, be a much better way of deciding on whether or not any particular teacher suits you.

Back in adolescence, two people would tell the exact same joke. We'd all laugh at the cool guy's joke, but just stare rudely when the not so cool guy told the same joke. Are we that distorted about image?

So who cares where the message came from, as long as its a good message?

Aum Namasivaya

[Jetavan]

That is correct. I don't think that he would claim that "awakening" will result from the meditation, either.

But do you think that his meditation affected his thinking at all?

I'm not sure exactly what sort of meditation Osho practiced himself. I remember him saying something about spending his previous life as a yogi engaged in intense sadhana in the Himalayas.

[IcyCosmic]

Vannakkam: When we deal with committees in real life, and some of the people we are working with have a long standing tradition of generally proposing 'dumb' ideas, sometimes they might proposes a wonderful idea, and then because of the previous stuff, we all discard it, missing out on an opportunity. So when this happens, the more wise people involved work hard to separate the messenger form the message.

Suppose this teacher had written under a pen name, or sheets of paper fell from the sky with no name attached. A searcher could pick up the paper and read only the message, not realising where it came from. That would , IMO, be a much better way of deciding on whether or not any particular teacher suits you.

Back in adolescence, two people would tell the exact same joke. We'd all laugh at the cool guy's joke, but just stare rudely when the not so cool guy told the same joke. Are we that distorted about image?

So who cares where the message came from, as long as its a good message?

Aum Namasivaya

Exactly. I'm honestly not interested whether OSHO practiced the meditation I linked or not. I want to know if it is effective and fruitive. Forget that it is associated with OSHO.

Thankyou.

[jignyAsu]

Vannakkam: When we deal with committees in real life, and some of the people we are working with have a long standing tradition of generally proposing 'dumb' ideas, sometimes they might proposes a wonderful idea, and then because of the previous stuff, we all discard it, missing out on an opportunity. So when this happens, the more wise people involved work hard to separate the messenger form the message.

Dumb but not dangerous ideas. And you are assuming here that everyone can rightly separate the good from the bad ideas. This is clearly not true for newbies. Even for experienced ones, a thought can just creep in without us
notising and can influence us for years.

So who cares where the message came from, as long as its a good message?

Now, I am not suggesting that we search out only for Rishis in this age..but isn't it very practical to expect atleast minimum moral standards and sense control from who you are listening to? This has been the tradition and
this makes sense.

If you find that a teacher is caught in molestation, would you still listen to him? I bring this up because nowadays we have a few popular teachers (especially the distorted Advaita propounders) that clearly lack moral standards and in defense say that we should focus on the thought and not the person.

I am not trying to put down anyone here but I honestly think that the thought: "Focus on the thought and not the person" is very dangerous. I wouldn't teach that to my son/daughter..so I wouldn't advice that to any aspirant.

[Eastern Mind]

Vannakkam jignyAsu: I don't really want to derail this thread. But I've worked with temple building committees. You'd be amazed at how some ideas are discounted immediately, not because of the idea, but because of the person. Equally likely is the opposite. Some ideas ate agreed to right away, if it comes from a certain person.

The same thing happens at labour-management negotiating tables, which I've also sat at. If it comes from the other side of the table, it must be a bad idea. Same too withj partisan politics. If they said it, then it must be bad.

Having said all that, I would certainly proceed with a lot more caution if reading words from someone who's behaviour didn't match.

Aum Namasivaya

[Necromancer]

Vannakkam jignyAsu: I don't really want to derail this thread. But I've worked with temple building committees. You'd be amazed at how some ideas are discounted immediately, not because of the idea, but because of the person. Equally likely is the opposite. Some ideas ate agreed to right away, if it comes from a certain person.

The same thing happens at labour-management negotiating tables, which I've also sat at. If it comes from the other side of the table, it must be a bad idea. Same too withj partisan politics. If they said it, then it must be bad.

Having said all that, I would certainly proceed with a lot more caution if reading words from someone who's behaviour didn't match.

Aum Namasivaya

Namaste.

The whole line of thought involved there, equates to 'ad hominem' or 'to the man' and the human psyche is rather notorious for it.

I am a constant victim of it myself. Some can be so because their characters are quite controversial. Others, because they are not controversial enough.

Sometimes, we are persecuted for our beliefs, yet our retaliation justifies that persecution.

When it comes down to spiritual matters, it's very difficult to judge who is being the 'bigger hypocrite'.

We surround ourselves with our own 'versions of the truth' yet we wouldn't recognise it, even if spoken by a backstreet rapper somewhere.

In that regard, it's entirely subjective and experiential.

So, do that Osho meditation thing, dear OP and kindly tell us what you got out of it.

Aum Namah Shivaya