Acharya Rajneesh (1931-1990), also known as 'Osho', was an Indian spiritual man, mystic and founder of the Rajneesh Movement. He emphasised the importance of meditation, mindfulness, love, celebration, courage, creativity, and humour — qualities he viewed as being suppressed by adherence to static belief systems, religious tradition, and socialisation. His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama described Osho as "an enlightened master who is working with all possibilities to help humanity overcome a difficult phase in developing consciousness." //

“Unfortunately, Tibet has fallen into a darkness. Its monasteries have been closed, its seekers of truth have been forced to work in labour camps. The only country in the world which was working — a one-pointed genius, all its intelligence in the search of one’s own interior and its treasures has been stopped by the communist invasion of Tibet.”
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AND it is such an ugly world that nobody has objected to it. On the contrary, because China is big and powerful, even countries which are more powerful than China can ever be, like America, have accepted that Tibet belongs to China. That is sheer nonsense — just because China is powerful and everybody wants China to be on its side. Neither have the Soviets denied the claim of China aside — even India has not objected. It was such a beautiful experiment, and Tibet had no weapons to fight, they had no army to fight; they had never thought about it. Their whole thing was an introvert pilgrimage.

Nowhere has such concentrated effort been made to discover man's being. Every family in Tibet used to give their eldest son to some monastery where he was to meditate and grow closer to awakening. It was a joy to every family that at least one of them was wholeheartedly, twenty-four hours a day, working on the inner being. They were also working but they could not give all their time; they had to create food and clothes and shelter, an in Tibet it is a difficult matter. The climate is not very helpful; to live in Tibet is a tremendous trouble. But still every family used to give their first-born child to the monastery.

There were hundreds of monasteries... and these monasteries should not be compared with any Catholic monasteries. These monasteries have no comparison in the whole world. These monasteries were concerned only with one thing — to make you aware of yourself.

Thousands of devices have been created down the centuries so that your lotus can blossom and you can find your ultimate treasure, the diamond. These are just symbolic words, but the destruction of Tibet should be known in history, particularly man becomes a little more aware and humanity a little more humane... This is the greatest calamity of the twentieth century that Tibet has fallen into the hands of materialists who don’t believe that you have anything inside you. They believe that you are only matter and your consciousness is only a by-product of matter. And all this is simply without any experience of the inner — just logical, rational philosophising.

Not a single communist in the world has meditated, but it is strange — they all deny the inner. Nobody thinks about how the outer can exist if there is no inner. They exist together, they are inseparable. And the outer is only a protection for the inner, because the inner is very delicate and soft. But the outer is accepted and the inner is denied. And even if sometimes it is accepted, the world is dominated by such dirty politicians that they use even the inner experiences for ugly ends.

Just the other day, I came to know that America is now training its soldiers in meditation so that they can fight without any nervous breakdown, without going mad, without feeling any fear so they can lie down in their ditches silently, calm and cool and collected. No meditator may have ever thought that meditation can also be used for fighting wars, but in the hands of politicians everything becomes ugly — even meditation. Now the army camps in America are teaching meditation so that their soldiers can be more calm and quiet while killing people. But I want to warn America: you are playing with fire. You don’t understand exactly what meditation will do. Your soldiers will become so calm and quiet that they will throw away their weapons and they will simply refuse to kill. A meditator cannot kill; a meditator cannot be destructive. So they are going to be surprised one day that their soldiers are no longer interested in fighting. War, violence, murder, massacre of millions of people — this is not possible if a man knows something of meditation. Then he knows the other whom he is killing. He is his brother. They all belong to the same oceanic existence.

If humanity were a little more aware, Tibet should be made free because it is the only country which has devoted almost two thousand years to doing nothing but going deeper into meditation. And it can teach the whole world something which is immensely needed.

But communist China is trying to destroy everything that has been created in two thousand years. All their devices, all their whole spiritual climate is being polluted, poisoned. But they are simple people; they cannot defend themselves. They don’t have anything to defend themselves with — no tanks, no bombs, no airplanes, no army. An innocent race which lived without any war for two thousand years... It disturbs everybody — even to reach there is a difficult task. They live on the very roof of the world. The highest mountains, eternal snow, is their home. Leave them alone! China will not lose anything, but the whole world will be benefited by their experience.

Tibet should be left as an experimental lab for man’s inner search. But not a single nation in the world has raised its voice against this ugly attack on Tibet. And China has not only attacked it, they have amalgamated it into their map. Now, on the modern Chinese map, Tibet is their territory.

And we think the world is civilised, where innocent people who are not doing any harm to anybody are simply destroyed. And with them, something of great importance to all humanity is also destroyed. If there were something civilised in man, every nation would have stood against the invasion of Tibet by China. It is the invasion of matter against consciousness. It is invasion of materialism against spiritual heights. ◼

From "Om Mani Padme Hum: The Sound of Silence, The Diamond in the Lotus" talk given by Osho in 1988 at the Gautam the Buddha Auditorium, Pune, India

“This Very Body The Buddha” by Osho
Talks on Hakuin’s Song of Meditation (Dec 11-20, 1977)

Of the "song" of the 17th-century mystic, Hakuin, Osho comments: "It is a very small song, but a great gift. This is a song of meditation. If meditation is without a song, it is dull and dead. You will find this song and its meaning only when you are singing and dancing when the music of life has overtaken you."

The first words of this book: "My beloved ones. I love you. Love is my message — let it be your message too. Love is my colour and my climate. To me, love is the only religion. All else is just rubbish, all else is nothing but mind-churning dreams. Love is the only substantial thing in life, all else is an illusion. Let love grow in you and God will be growing on its own accord. If you miss love you will miss God and all. There is no way to God without love. God can be forgotten — if love is remembered, God will happen as a consequence. It happens as a consequence. It is the fragrance of love and nothing else. In fact, there is no God but only godliness. There is no person like God anywhere. Drop all childish attitudes, don’t go on searching for a father. Divineness is, God is not. When I say divineness is, I mean whatsoever is, is full of God. The green of the trees, and the red and the golden — all is divine. This crow crying, and a bird on the wing. and a child giggling, and a dog barking — all is divine. Nothing else exists." ◼

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