Osho

India is a land of religions. It is also a land of holymen and fake-holymen. The later's tribe is ever increasing. Even a sooth-sayer or charlatan with a few hundred followers can pass off as a god-man or yoga-master. As it often happens,particularly in rural areas where illiteracy is rampant, once a crowd begins to gather around them, the crowd gets bigger and bigger. An act of a magic-trick or two is enough to mesmerise them. In the past these holymen ply their trade at a location near place of worship or beside an almond tree . Now with the advent of many spiritual TV-channels, they shifted their realm to the idiot-box . Many things they say may be regarded as unscientific and superstitious by many other parts of the world, but in India they are accepted with great veneration and without question. And due to fake-holymen , the reputation of the real holymen have are also at stake.

Speaking about real holymen, Osho is certainly one of them. What makes the teaching of Osho so time-tested and relevant today is because he has learned,and in-corporated various spiritual-traditions from all over the world. He was a prolific reader - the most prolific-reader of 20-th century with one of the largest personnel-collection of books in the world - on a vareity of subjects.He experimented with different meditation-techniques and picked the best from them to create his own. So a European can feel the traces of Gurdjieff as well as Greek/Roman mythology , an American feels home with the Red-Indian spiritual traditions, an East-Asian or Indian finds the traces of zen and tantra while an African or West-Asian will find the spirit of voodoo and sufi-whirling dance. All these elements forms the basis of his unique meditation system called Osho Dynamic Meditation.
I dont consider myself a disciple or follower of the Osho sect. But I have an open mind regarding religion and spirituality. When I read the books of Osho or listened to his discourses, I felt fascinated by his teachings. No amount of reading of the so-called, long-winded religious texts had the same effect. But the core of Osho'steachings derive from these texts. From Osho I learned to enjoy life - to live at the moment - ie. the zen way of life. In the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition, life is seen as mistake , something humans have to be apologistic about. There are certain duties and obligations to perform - but performing them to convince the society or community rather than God. (Orelse the society or community will write you off as evil!) Osho has always been blunt and outright in his criticism of all organised religions. Infact it has earned him many western-followers. But that also got him into trouble, esp. when he visited America. His followers still believe that Reagan administration, under pressure from right-wing groups unfairly targeted him, charging false cases against him. But it is also true that many of his high-profile, infamous disciples met an untimely end, mainly due to the wrong interpretation of Osho's teachings - ie. living to the moment, with drugs, alchohol and free-love. As the enlightened master himself has once said, "My Indian disciples meditate,but will not do anything for me. My Western disciples will do anything for me, but they will not meditate."

courtesy : Osho World -( www.oshoworld.com)