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

Wisdom, says Buddha, arises from within, and is the only true knowledge. In The Dhammapada Osho speaks on wisdom, which he calls knowing, and on the difference between knowing and knowledge. Knowing, he says, is spontaneous response: it comes from inner silence, it is our own truth, an existential experience. Knowledge is dependent on the past, it is mechanical, it is second-hand, it comes from another, and hides the truth from ourselves. Knowing gives us inner direction; knowledge only outer direction. And the key to the intuitive faculty of knowing is meditation.

Osho explains that these sutras are concerned with aspects of man's unawareness and that Buddha's whole message is concerned with the raising of our consciousness. These sutras were compiled by Buddha's disciples to contain the essence of all his teachings. This was the last turning of the Wheel of Dharma, 2,500 years ago. At the beginning of his commentaries on these sutras, Osho says he is setting the Wheel of Dharma in motion again.

"The World Is on Fire" is the title of the first chapter in this new fifth volume of The Dhammapada, Osho’s contemporary presentation of the sayings of Buddha. What does Buddha mean by fire? He means anguish, anxiety, despair, misery; that's what Buddha means by fire. It is a symbol. Everybody is on fire because everybody is divided, split, schizophrenic. Everybody is on fire because there is great anxiety in the world, the anxiety of: “Am I going to make it this time or not?” Does this sound familiar to you?

More than 2,500 years ago, Gautama the Buddha walked the earth, teaching to all who would listen. Buddhist lore has it that shortly after he passed away, his disciples met to recall all that they were able of the truths that Buddha had spoken. These sayings were compiled into The Dhammapada, an anthology of 423 verses containing the essence of his principles.