The Buddha Said

Osho is known around the world for his pioneering contribution to meditation - the science of inner transformation - with the unique approach of his "Osho Active Meditations" acknowledging the accelerated pace of the contemporary world and bringing meditation into modern life. Based on the Seven Points of Mind Training by the 11th-century Buddhist mystic Atisha, The Book of Wisdom removes the dust of tradition that has gathered around meditation, conveying the essential science and methodology of the practice with a freshness and spontaneity that is rarely found in contemporary spiritual works.

This series of talks is on one of the most esoteric treatises in the world. It will show you the way to become more than the body and the way to bloom - how not to remain a seed but to become a golden flower. What, in India, they call the one thousand-petalled lotus, in China they call the golden flower. It is a symbol that represents perfection, totality. Moreover, the flower represents the actualization of the potential - the beauty, the grandeur, the splendor of being.

Moving beyond the usual interpretations of this classic Chinese text - that of using it as an indicator of what to do next or attempting to predict the future - Osho is using the Tao Te Ching as Lao Tzu intended: to ignite the flame of individual awareness and insight. His commentaries on these seven verses burn through every idea we may hold about ourselves until we can see with the same crystal-clear light as Lao Tzu.

The Magic of Self-Respect is the second volume in a series titled Authentic Living. So much of the experience of everyday life, says Osho in this insightful guide, is shaped by religious and social conditioning - and we are not even aware of the fact.

Humans have an inbuilt drive to search for their inner power and potentiality. This search is the search for life itself. We are here, we have life - but we don't know what life really is. We can feel our energy but don't know where this energy comes from and to what goal this energy is going. We are that energy; we have glimpses of its true source and our connection to it, and those glimpses keep us going even when it seems we will never find what we are seeking - but still we do not know what that energy is.

Written more than 25 centuries ago, the Diamond Sutra is the first text to record the Buddha's own teachings, and it remains one of the most popular. Osho comments in a series of talks on these sutras and brings Buddha's teachings into the 21st century. One day, after the Buddha finishes his daily walk to collect alms, a senior monk steps forth to ask how he can best help humanity. Buddha responds, and thus begins a dialogue regarding the nature of perception.

We have lost touch with who we are and how we want to live. It started at birth. From birth we are molded according to the beliefs and ideals of others, and our own potential is ignored. It needs immense courage to go your own way, leaving the crowd behind. The moment you do it you are taking responsibility for your life in your own hands. Osho reminds us that it is a step worth taking.

These discourses contain what Osho describes as the most significant statements ever made, which point to the whole secret of the mystic approach toward life. And the sutra that begins this series of discourses, he says, contains the very essence of the entire Upanishadic vision - that the universe is an indivisible totality, an organic whole. Osho illuminates these ancient texts with such clarity that their significance seems stunningly obvious.

Commenting on the haunting songs of Kabir, Osho takes the listener to the very core of the human dilemma, to the simple cause of man's misery - that he thinks that he is separate from existence: his inability to comprehend why the fish in the sea is not thirsty. Osho also answers questions, speaking on emotions and being detached from them, aloneness and love, imitation, children and religion, rebellion, living in a balanced way, sex, the generation gap, and much more.

This life is a gift from existence, to be lived and enjoyed. But with the seemingly impossible and conflicting demands of society, morality, and culture, people struggle with feelings of unfulfilled potential, frustration, and guilt rather than living full lives. The world of tantra has no division between higher and lower. The simple, ordinary things of life are transformed into great things when we enter into them totally - be it car fixing, floor cleaning or lovemaking. Osho shows how, by living this vision, new heights of consciousness and freedom are realized.

Here, Osho introduces listeners to this extraordinary mystic and his songs, bringing both to light in such a way as to show how they are both timeless and utterly relevant to our time. The path of love, as described by Osho and though the songs of Kabir, is a journey that seeks out and celebrates the divine that is hidden in the ordinary, the love that becomes not just a feeling one has but ultimately a state of being that one is.

Not believing, but only experiencing, says Osho in this inspiring series of talks, is a way of finding truth and meaning. While Nietzsche's declaration that "God is dead, therefore man is free" was an incredible step in understanding, he argues, it is in itself a negative solution and does not bring freedom. Simply removing God is not enough. Osho is no atheist by far and not in favor of any "anti-believe" system either. "It is meditation that fulfills your inner being and takes away the vacuum that used to be filled by a great lie, God."

The Vedanta was an inseparable part of Swami Vivekananda’s personality. He lived and breathed this philosophy while preaching it to India and the West. While Vivekananda’s landmark address at the Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893 established him as modern India’s great spiritual leader, his popularity and appeal is attributed to his ability to integrate his human side with his profound spiritual side.

It is an undoubted fact that the message of Vivekananda has influenced, inspired, and transformed thousands of lives. Here are some quotations from the great spiritual leader for the benefit of those who do not have time to go through his voluminous writings and speeches so that they may get at least a partial glimpse of the strength and sublimity of his teachings. Listeners should be aware that Vivekananda spoke to a wide variety of students and followers, whose religions, cultures, and national origins differed widely. 

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