Osho Om Bodhisattva Commune/Osho- the Alpha and the Omega1

	Be a drunkard, drunk with life, with the wine of existence. Don't remain sober. The sober person remains dead. Drink the wine of life. It has so much poetry and so much love and so much juice. You can bring the spring any moment. Just give a call to the spring and let the sun and the wind and the rain enter into you... I tell you, you are born and you will certainly die but something in you was before your birth, and something in you is there which will remain after your death. And that something is life. Life eternal.









	."Ais dhammo sanantano", Gautam the Buddha has said: this is the way things are. Whenever people used to ask him, "How we can improve upon things?" He would always say "Ais dhammo sanantano". There is no need to improve, there is no way to improve..." Unless this is understood... Buddha calls it tathata, suchness.









	This is the first thing: a deep, total acceptance of things as they are. Then life enters into a different dimension-- the dimension of joy, celebration-- because then the whole energy is available to dance, to sing, to be.









	Life has no meaning. Rejoice! It has no meaning. Dance, sing, enjoy! It has no meaning. You need not be serious. It is a cosmic joke! What is there to get? But the achieving mind is always trying to get something, even out of a joke!









	Life is a wandering, it is not a home. It is a search for the home, but it itself is not the home. It is an enquiry, an adventure. You will not necessarily succeed, success is very rare-- because the search is very complex and there are a thousand and one difficulties on the way... Jesus also says: "The world is to be treated as a bridge, not as a stopping place." Use it as a bridge; it can bridge you to God. And when life becomes a bridge to God, it is divine. But if you don't use it as a bridge towards God it remains mundane, illusory, imaginary, fictitious.









	Man lives in a world of choice, hence man has to decide what life he wants to live. He can fall below the animals, he can rise above the angels. He can exist accidentally or he can exist with decisiveness ...This is man's privilege, his prerogative, and also his danger-- very few people will choose the life of choice, commitment, involvement, because it is dangerous, because the sea is uncharted and you don't have any map, and you have very small boat and the sea is very stormy. And who knows whether the other shore exists or not? Why leave the shelter on this shore? Remain here.









	Buddha says millions of people simply go up and down on this shore, running hither and thither, just creating an appearance that their life is a pilgrimage--and they are simply running up and down on the same shore. It is not a pilgrimage; it is mere occupation, befooling others and befooling yourself.









	The pilgrimage begins when you leave this shore-- its shelter, its security, its convenience, its comfort, its respectability, power, prestige. You leave your small boat to the mercy of the storms, to the mercy of the ocean, trusting that if this shore exists the other must exist, because one shore cannot exist alone.









	Moving towards the other shore with this trust, risking all, real life begins. And real life is religious life. Real life is what I mean by sannyas.









	Life is an adventure. Life is in constant enquiry. Life is not a belief but a deep exploration for truth. And life knows no confinement, no limitation. It constantly goes on beyond. It breaks all the boundaries and all the limitations. Then there is ecstasy.

Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh is now known simply as Osho. Osho has explained that His name is derived from William James word 'oceanic' which means dissolving into the ocean. Oceanic describes the experience. He says, what about the experiencer? For that we use the word 'Osho'. Later He came to find out that 'Osho' has been used historically in the far East meaning "The Blessed One, on whom the Sky Showers Flowers."

Most of us lived out our lives in the world of time, in memories of the past and anticipation of the future. Only rarely do we touch the timeless dimension of the present -- in moments of sudden beauty, of sudden danger, in meeting with a lover or with the surprise of the unexpected. Very few people step out of the world of time and mind, its ambitions and competitiveness, and begin to live in the world of the timeless. And of those who do, only a few have attempted to share their experience.

Lao Tzu, Gautama Buddha, Bodhidharma. . . or more recently, George Gurdjieff, Ramana Maharshi, J. Krishnamurti -- they are thought by their contemporaries to be eccentrics or madmen; after their death they are called "philosophers". And in time they become legends -- not flesh-and-blood human beings, but perhaps mythological representations of our collective wish to grow beyond the smallness and trivia, the meaninglessness of our everyday lives.

Osho is one who has discovered the door to living His live in the timeless dimension of the present -- He has called Himself a "true existentialist"-- and He has devoted His life to provoking others to seek this same door, to step out of the world of past and future and discover for themselves the world of eternity.

DECEMBER 11, 1931

Osho was born in kuchwada, Madhya Pradesh , India , on December 11,1931 ; where His maternal grandparents live.

1932-1939, KUCHWADA

Following the death of his paternal grandmother, the care of her youngest children and of the family business falls to Osho's young parents. Osho goes to live with his maternal grandparents, who proved for him an extraordinary atmosphere of freedom and respect.

According to his own accounts, and the accounts of others, who knew him during his childhood, he was a daredevil and mischief-maker, never missing an opportunity to test his own physical limits and to and to challenge self-importance or hypocrisy wherever he found it. He was a rebellious and independent spirit, insisting on experiencing the truth for himself rather than acquiring knowledge and beliefs given by others.

After His enlightenment at the twenty one, Osho completed His academic studies and spent several years teaching philosophy at the University of Jabalpur . Meanwhile, He traveled throughout India giving talks, challenging orthodox religious leaders in public debate, questioning traditional beliefs, and meeting people from all walks of life. He read extensively, everything He could find to broaden His understanding of the belief systems and psychology of contemporary man.

1938-1951, GADARWADA

After the death of his maternal grandfather, Osho and his grandmother both move to Gadarwada, the town where his parents live. There he is enrolled in school for the first time. Where he was creating mischief and challenging his teachers, Osho continues the adventurous and often solitary approach to life that characterized his first years with his grandparents.

In 1945, at the age of fourteen, he undertakes a seven-day experiment in waiting for death, provoked in part by an unusual prediction by an astrologer who was commissioned to calculate his birth chart. (...My mother's father used to tell me that when I was born he consulted one of the best known astrologers of those days. The astrologer was to make my birth chart, but he studied it and he said, " If this child survives after seven years, only then will I make the chart.

It seems impossible that he can survive for more than seven years, so if child going to die it is useless to make the chart; it will be of no use... It is almost certain that this child is going to die at the age of twenty-one. Every seven year he will have to face death."

So my parents, my family, were always worried about my death. Whenever I would come to the end of a seven-year cycle, they would become afraid. And he was right. At the age seven I survived, but I had a deep experience of death--not of my own, but of the death of my maternal grandfather. And I was so much attached to him that his death appeared to be my own death...

...When I reached the age of fourteen, my family again became disturbed that I would die. I survived, but then I again tried it consciously. I said to them, " If death is going to occur as the astrologer has said, then it is better to be prepared. And why give a chance to death? Why should I not go and meet it halfway? If I am going to die, then it is better to die consciously." ... I went to a temple just outside of my village. I arranged with the priest that he should not disturb me. It was a very lonely, unvisited temple -- old, in ruins.

No one ever came to it. So I told him," I will remain in the temple. You just give me something to eat and something to drink once a day, and the whole day I will be lying there waiting for death.

" For seven days I waited. Those seven days became a beautiful experience. Death never came, But on my part I tried in every way to be dead. Strange, weird feelings happened. Many things happened, but the basic note was this-- that if you are feeling you are going to die, you become calm and silent. Nothing creates any worry then, because all worries are concerned with life.

Life is the basis of all worries. When you are going to die anyway one day, why worry? ... Then again at age of twenty-one, my family was waiting. So I told them, "Why do you go on waiting? Do not wait. Now I am not going to die." Physically, someday I will die, of course. However, this prediction of the astrologer helped me very much because he made me aware very early about death. I could meditate and could accept that it was coming.

MARCH 21, 1953, ENLIGHTENMENT

The Maulshree tree, under which Osho became Enlightened.

1951-1956: UNIVERSITY STUDENT

Osho majors in philosophy and wins numerous awards in debating competitions. He graduates with honors from D.N. Jain College and invited by Professor S. S. Roy to do his postgraduate study at Sagar University.

1957--1970: PROFESSOR AND PUBLIC SPEAKER

Osho accepts a position first at Sanskrit College in Raipur and later at the University of Jabalpur , where he teaches philosophy. His unorthodox and challenging approach to teaching draws many students to his classes, regardless of whether they have actually enrolled for credit. As the years pass he begins to spend more and more time away from his teaching duties and begins traveling to public speaking engagements throghout India .

1962: THE FIRST MEDITATION CENTERS

During his travels and speaking engagements, Osho often conducts guided meditations at end of his talks. The first meditation centers to emerge around his teaching are known as Jivan Jagruti Kendras (Life Awakening Centers), and his movement is called Jivan Jagruti Andolan (Life Awakening Movement).

1962 - 1974: MEDITATION CAMPS

In addition to his speaking engagements, Osho begins to hold 3 to 10-day "meditation camps" in the countryside, where he gives daily talks and personally guides the participants in meditation.

JUNE 1964: RANAKPUR MEDITATION CAMP

Ranakpur Meditation Camp became a landmark in Osho's work because for the first time his discourses and meditations were recorded and published in a book, "Path to Self-Realization", which was widely acclaimed in India . Osho later said that this book contains his whole teaching, which has never altered.

The first maxim is: live in the present.

The second maxim is: live naturally.

The Third maxim is: live alone.

JUNE 1966: JYOTI SIKHA (LIFE AWAKENING) MAGAZINE

A quarterly magazine in Hindi is published by Jivan Jagruti Kendra of Bombay, which also becomes the official publisher of books transcribed from Osho's talks.

By this time, he widely known as "Acharya Rajneesh."