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 OshoLife-style...
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The
Feminizing of YOGA
Let
Yoga be a kind of dance; keep that quality in mind.
Don’t be rigid and don’t try to force forms
on people. Rather, help them to find their own dance.
Each one has a different kind of body, and when you
start forcing a certain form on everybody this is a
regimentation. The form has to be used just as a jumping-board
and then everybody has to find his own way to use it.
Make your Yoga more feminine and you will be of great
help to people. That is a need that has to be fulfilled:
Yoga has to be taken from the rigid people.
Help
the person to become aware of the mysteries of the body.
There are infinite mysteries. Somewhere in your body
a buddha is hidden — he has to be discovered.
From the lowest to the highest, all is hidden in the
body; the body is a ladder. You can find hell in it
and you can find heaven in it. Help people to search,
to seek, become more aware and alert about their bodies,
about their health, their well-being, their wholeness.
This is true Yoga. Form is immaterial; form is only
a formality. Start teaching from the form but soon help
them to go beyond form. And when they transcend form
they will have infinite joy and freedom available to
them.
I
am very happy that Yoga is getting out of this country,
moving into new cultures. There it is bound to take
new forms — less rigid, more exploratory. The
West has much to contribute to Yoga, as yoga has much
to contribute to the West. It is very good that many
things that have remained stuck and dormant in India
are moving out. It will be good, because new people
will start trying new things. New postures can be developed,
new body rhythms, new breathing processes.
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MEDITATION
What
Meditation Is -- and What It Is Not
There are many different, even contradictory ideas,
about what meditation is. Primary to the Osho approach
is the need for the meditator to understand the nature
of the mind, rather than fight with it.
Most
of us most of the time are run by, dominated by our
thoughts or feelings. It follows that we tend to think
we are those thoughts and feeling. Meditation is the
state of simply being, just pure experiencing, with
no interference from the body or mind. It’s a
natural state but one which we have forgotten how to
access.
The
word meditation is also used for what is, more accurately,
a meditation method. Meditative methods, techniques
or devices are means by which to create an inner ambience
that facilitates disconnecting from the bodymind so
one can simply be. While initially it is helpful to
put time aside to practice a structured meditation method,
there are many techniques that are practiced within
the context of one’s everyday life – at
work, at leisure, alone and with others.
Methods
are needed only until the state of meditation –
of relaxed awareness, of consciousness and centering
– has become not just a passing experience but
as intrinsic to one as, say, breathing.
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Getting Started...
Close
your eyes, then focus both of them just in the middle
of the two eyebrows, as if you are looking there with
your two eyes. Give total attention to it.At the right
point, suddenly your eyes will become fixed. And if
your attention is there, you will experience a strange
phenomenon: for the first time you will see thoughts
running before you; you will become the witness.
It
is just like a film screen: thoughts are running and
you are a witness.Ordinarily you are not the witness,
you are identified with thoughts. If anger is there,
you become anger. If a thought moves you are not the
witness; you become one with the thought, identified,
and you move with it. You become the thought; you take
the form of the thought. But focused at the third eye,
suddenly you become a witness. Through the third eye
you can see thoughts running like clouds in the sky,
or people moving on the street
Beliefs
and Prctices...
Osho
developed new forms of active meditation. The best known
is Dynamic Meditation which often starts
with strenuous physical activity followed by silence
and celebration. These were expected to lead the individual
to overcome repression, lower their personal inhibitions,
develop a "state of emptiness",
and attain enlightenment.
The
person then would have "no past, no future, no
attachment, no mind, no ego, no self." Prior to
1985, the disciples wore red robes, and a necklace of
108 beads which had an attached picture of Rajneesh.
Osho assigned a new name to each of the disciples. Men
were given the title "Swami"; women were called
"Ma". Although most members lived a frugal,
simple lifestyle, Rajneesh himself lived in luxury.
His collection 27 Rolls Royces, given to him by his
followers, was well known. (Some sources say he had
as many as 100 cars).
Anti-cult
groups claimed that he urged his disciples to sever
their connection to their families of origin. It is
true that he felt that the institution of the family
was out of date and that it should be replaced with
alternate forms of community and ways of caring for
children. However, he actually encouraged individual
disciples to make peace with their families. Many became
disciples themselves, including Osho's own parents.
He taught a form of Monism, that God
was in everything and everyone. There is no division
between "God" and "not-God". People,
even at their worse, are divine. He recognized Jesus
Christ as having attained enlightenment, and believed
that he survived his crucifixion and moved to India
where he died at the age of 112. Osho was noted for
reading very offensive jokes; some were anti-Semitic;
others were anti-Roman Catholicism; others insulted
just about every ethnic and religious group in the world.
He explained that the purpose of these jokes was to
shock people and to encourage them to examine their
identification with and attachment to their ethnic or
religious beliefs. His contention was that national,
religious, gender and racial divisions are destructive.
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