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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

All of the Osho audiobooks are created from his extemporaneous talks, and in this volume reflect the intimate setting in which they were given, with small audiences of those gathered in the Oregon commune around him. Everything is on the table - belief in God, the meaning of compassion, what happens when we die.

In the past, science and meditation were considered poles apart, if not adversarial. In this talk, Osho shows science and meditation as complimentary, one the science of the outer, the other the science of the inner. For example he explains the esoteric science of rebirth using analogies of general science opening our minds to the possibilities of what is and what can be. Einstein meets Buddha in a love fest!

Only once in the history of human consciousness, says Osho, has a thing like Zen come into being. In Zen: Its History and Teachings, the noted mystic explains that Zen has no rituals, no chanting, no mantras, no scriptures - only short, evocative parables and teachings that make it ideal for the modern man. Using his characteristic humorous, encouraging style, Osho guides through the origins and development of this seminal spiritual tradition that is neither religion nor dogma nor creed.

The Heart Sutra, originally a very short set of verses, was given in privacy as a message to one of Buddha's close disciples, Sariputra, specifically addressed to him. Over time the Heart Sutra became one of Buddhism's core teachings. In these 10 talks, Osho presents the powerful message of these ancient words and brings them to a modern audience - one with different minds and needs than the original audiences of Buddha more than 2,500 years ago.

The Dhammapada is a collection of sayings of the Gautama the Buddha in verse form and one of the most widely read and best known Buddhist scriptures. This is volume one of a 12-volume series of Osho Talks, where Osho brings Buddha's Dhammapada into the 21st century, opening them for a new understanding for contemporary mankind.