Autobiography of a Spiritually Incorrect Mystic - Softcover

Osho

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312280718 ISBN 13: 9780312280710

Verlag: St. Martins Press-3PL, 2001

Inhaltsangabe

Understand the life and teachings of Osho, one of the twentieth century's most unusual gurus and philosophers, in Autobiography of a Spiritually Incorrect Mystic.

In 1990, Osho prepared for his departure from the body that had served him for fifty-nine years-in the words of his attending physician-"as calmly as though he were packing for a weekend in the country." Who was this man, known as the Sex Guru, the "self-appointed bhagwan" (Rajneesh), the Rolls-Royce Guru, the Rich Man's Guru, and simply the Master?

Drawn from nearly five thousand hours of Osho's recorded talks, this is the story of his youth and education, his life as a professor of philosophy and years of travel teaching the importance of meditation, and the true legacy he sought to leave behind: a religion-less religion centered on individual awareness and responsibility and the teaching of "Zorba the Buddha," a celebration of the whole human being.

Osho challenges readers to examine and break free of the conditioned belief systems and prejudices that limit their capacity to enjoy life in all its richness. He has been described by the Sunday Times of London as one of the "1000 Makers of the 20th Century" and by Sunday Mid-Day (India) as one of the ten people-along with Gandhi, Nehru, and Buddha-who have changed the destiny of India. Since his death in 1990, the influence of his teachings continues to expand, reaching seekers of all ages in virtually every country of the world.

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OSHO is one of the most provocative and inspiring spiritual teachers of our time. In the 1970s he captured the attention of young people from the West who wanted to experience meditation and transformation. More than twenty years after his death, the influence of his teachings continues to expand, reaching seekers around the world.

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Autobiography of a Spiritually Incorrect Mystic

PART ONE

Just an Ordinary Human Being: The History behind the Legend

Q: Who are you?

A: I am just myself. No prophet, no messiah, no Christ. Just an ordinary human being ... just like you.

Q: Well, not quite!

A: That's true ... not quite! You are still asleep--but that is not much of a difference. One day I was also asleep; one day you will be able to awaken. You can wake up this moment, nobody is preventing it. So the difference is just meaningless.

*from an interview with Roberta Green, Santa Ana Register, Orange County California

GLIMPSES OF A GOLDEN CHILDHOOD

I have never been spiritual in the sense that you understand the word. I have never gone to the temples or the churches, or read scriptures, or followed certain practices to find truth, or worshiped God or prayed to God. That has not been my way at all. So certainly you can say that I was not doing anything spiritual. But to me, spirituality has a totally different connotation. It needs an honest individuality. It does not allow any kind of dependence. It creates a freedom for itself, whatever the cost. It is never in the crowd but alone, because the crowd has never found any truth. The truth has been found only in people's aloneness.

So my spirituality has a different meaning from your idea of spirituality. My childhood stories, if you can understand them, will point to all these qualities in some way or other. Nobody can call them spiritual. I call them spiritual because to me, they have given all that man can aspire to.

While listening to my childhood stories you should try to look for some quality--not just the story but some intrinsic quality that runs like a thin thread through all of my memoirs. And that thin thread is spiritual.

Spiritual, to me, simply means finding oneself. I never allowed anybody to do this work on my behalf--because nobody can do this work on your behalf; you have to do it yourself.

1931-1939: KUCHWADA, MADHYA PRADESH, INDIA

I am reminded of the small village where I was born. Why existence should have chosen that small village in the first place is unexplainable. It is as it should be. The village was beautiful. I have traveled far and wide, but I have never come across that same beauty. One never comes again to the same. Things come and go, but it is never the same.

I can see that still, small village. Just a few huts near a pond, and a few tall trees where I used to play. There was no school in the village. That is of great importance, because I remained uneducated for almost nine years, and those are the most formative years. After that, even if you try, you cannot be educated. So in a way I am still uneducated, although I hold many degrees--and not just any degree, but a first-class master's degree. Any fool can do that; so many fools do it every year that it has no significance. What is significant is that for my first years I remained without education. There was no school, no road, no railway, no post office. What a blessing! That small village was a world unto itself. Even in my times away from that village I remained in that world, uneducated.

And I have come across millions of people, but the people of that village were more innocent than any, because they were very primitive. They knew nothing of the world. Not even a single newspaper had ever entered that village--you can now understand why there was no school. Not even a primary school--what a blessing! No modern child can afford it.

IN THE PAST THERE WERE CHILDREN MARRIED BEFORE THEY WERE TEN. Sometimes children were even married when they were still in their mother's womb. Just two friends would decide: "Our wives are pregnant, so if one gives birth to a boy and the other gives birth to a girl, then the marriage is settled, promised." The question of asking the boy and the girl does not arise at all; they are not even born yet! But if one is a boy and another is a girl, the marriage is settled. And people kept their word.

My own mother was married when she was seven years old. My father was not more than ten years old, and he had no understanding of what washappening. I used to ask him, "What was the most significant thing that you enjoyed in your wedding?"

He said, "Riding on the horse." Naturally! For the first time he was dressed like a king, with a knife hanging by his side, and he was sitting on the horse and everybody was walking around him. He enjoyed it tremendously. That was the thing he enjoyed most about his wedding. A honeymoon was out of the question. Where will you send a ten-year-old boy and a seven-year-old girl for a honeymoon? So in India the honeymoon never used to exist, and in the past, nowhere else in the world either.

When my father was ten years old and my mother was seven years old, my father's mother died. After the marriage, perhaps one or two years afterward, the whole responsibility fell on my mother, who was only nine years old. My father's mother had left two small daughters and two small boys. So there were four children, and the responsibility to care for them fell on a nine-year-old girl and a twelve-year-old son. My father's father never liked to live in the city where he had his shop. He loved the countryside, and when his wife died he was absolutely free. The government used to give land to people for free, because there was so much land and there were not so many people to cultivate it. So my grandfather got fifty acres of land from the government, and he left the whole shop in the hands of his children--my father and mother--who were only twelve and nine years old. He enjoyed creating a garden, creating a farm, and he loved to live there in the open air. He hated the city.

So my father never had any experience of the freedom of young people today. He never became a youth in that way. Before he could have become a youth he was already old, taking care of his younger brothers and sisters and the shop. And by the time he was twenty he had to arrange marriages for his sisters, marriages and education for his brothers.

I have never called my mother "Mother," because before I was born she was taking care of four children who used to call herbhabhi. Bhabhi means "brother's wife." And because four children were already calling my motherbhabhi, I also started calling her bhabhi. I learned it from the very beginning, when four other children were calling her that.

I WAS BROUGHT UP By My MATERNAL GRANDFATHER AND GRAND mother. Those two old people were alone and they wanted a child who wouldbe the joy of their last days. So my father and mother agreed: I was their eldest child, the firstborn; they sent me.

I don't remember any relationship with my father's family in the early years of my childhood. I spent my earliest years with two old men--my grandfather and his old servant, who was really a beautiful man--and my old grandmother. These three people ... and the gap was so big, I was absolutely alone. These old people were not company, could not be company for me. And I had nobody else, because in that small village my family was the richest; and it was such a small village--not more than two hundred people in all--and so poor that my grandparents would not allow me to mix with the village children. They were dirty, and of course they were almost beggars. So there was no way to have friends. That caused a great impact. In my whole life I have never known anybody to be a...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: St. Martins Press-3PL
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2001
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0312280718
• ISBN 13: 9780312280710
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 338
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: gpsr@libri.de; gpsr@libri.de; ; Europaallee 1; Bad Hersfeld; 36244; Deutschland