Osho‘s syncretic teachings emphasise the importance of meditation, Love, Awareness, celebration, courage, creativity, and humor – qualities that he viewed as being suppressed by adherence to static belief systems, religious tradition, and socialisation.
Osho‘s teachings have had a notable impact on Western New Age thought, and their popularity has increased markedly since his death.
In the 1960’s he travelled throughout India as a controversial mystic, guru, and spiritual teacher. In 1974 an ashram and a foundation was established in Pune to offer a transformational tools for both Indian and international visitors.
In 1981 efforts refocused on activities in the USA but almost immediately the movement ran into conflict with county residents and the state government.
After his deportation from the USA in 1985, 21 countries denied him entry, and he ultimately returned to India, and a revived Pune ashram, where he died in 1990.
The official cause of death was heart failure, but a statement released by his commune claimed that he had died because living in the body had become a hell.
The epitaph reads: Osho / Never Born / Never Died / Only Visited this Planet Earth between / Dec 11 1931 – Jan 19 1990
Osho presented meditation not just as a practice but as a state of Awareness to be maintained in every moment, a total Awareness that awakens the individual from the sleep of mechanical responses conditioned by beliefs and expectations.
He employed Western psychotherapy in the preparatory stages of meditation to create Awareness of mental and emotional patterns.
Live your Life, accept Yourself, experience Love and Loneliness, Heaven and Hell and be ready to Die.
The 10 Just for Fun Commandment’s
- Never obey anyone’s command unless it is coming from within you also.
- There is no God other than life itself.
- Truth is within you, do not search for it elsewhere.
- Love is prayer.
- To become a nothingness is the door to truth. Nothingness itself is the means, the goal and attainment.
- Life is now and here.
- Live wakefully.
- Do not swim – float.
- Die each moment so that you can be new each moment.
- Do not search. That which is, is. Stop and see.