What Osho gave me
I will start this piece with a little disclaimer that I have a different opinions on cults now. The issues with cults or for that matter religion is that they become rigid and aggressive once organized. If you follow Osho, you have to follow in a prescribed way. If you have to pray to Lord Ganesha or the God of Christianity, there is a method. Although people like Osho used to claim that there is no method and just being or being aware is what it takes to be on a path of discovering your consciousness, their followers still create a “form” or a “methodology”. But of course these days Gurus are like brands and the followers would make sure that the brand continues and is marketed on all social media platforms. In Osho’s case, his bunch of followers also indulged in illegal acts while living in his Ashram in the United States.
Coming to Osho and how he inspired some of my internal brainstorming has a trigger to my upbringing. I used to be a shy reticent child, enjoying all the festivals, rituals and poojas. Looking back, I feel that I was immersed in all of that on an auto-pilot because my parents told me so. However, I guess I never really felt blissful or content in all of that. I used to enjoy the religiosity mostly for the food. Like Gujiyas (sweet refined wheat pastry) on Holi and assorted sweets on Diwali with pooris and potato curry. Or Ghee fried potatoes and fruit salads during Navratris. I used to see my parents reciting aartis or prayer songs praising different Gods. My mother even used to talk to the domestic help, in between her prayers. And that used to puzzle me often. If one is in a prayerful mode, how come one talk to someone in between? Few festivals were also interesting, including Basoda where basi or a day old food is consumed at home, after dedicating one portion to a local temple. I used to ask my mother that if we didn’t eat stale food, will God be unhappy. Or why were there few festivals where a flat pan or tawa could not be used for cooking. She could not understand my questions. People just get so much obsessed with religion and rituals that they do not understand what everything means. I also see during Ganesha festival people swirling on their own during a prayer. I always used to wonder if there was indeed any God, he would be having a good laugh.
During the time I was in late teens, I heard some elderly individual (perhaps a friend of my father, can’t recall as of now who he was) talk about Rajneesh (Referring to Osho’s earlier self-professed titles, Acharya Rajneesh and Bhagwan Sri Rajneesh) in a very harsh way, mentioning that he (Rajneesh) was a filthy man, a disgrace on Indian traditions and spoke mostly on sex. He also mentioned that in Rajneesh’s ashram, people have sex publicly. I was just overhearing the conversation and I became curious of this man. Finally, I got the courage to buy his book at a AH Wheeler stall at Agra Cantonment railway station, on a short journey, visiting one of my relatives. I faintly remember that the book was on Jesus and Christianity. The book, I believe was the collection of his discourses. There was no mention of sex but there were many jokes and they were funny and most of them attacked priests, maulvi and pandits and how they have fooled the world. He also mocked the Hindu way of prayer as “parroting” while mentioning that silently observing the bird in her rhythmic flight is a better prayer. He said the modern prayer, in the form of an “aarti” was like bribing the God (if He/She exists), for fulfillment of desires and reserving a place in Heaven. He also mentioned in his book that while science is one from all angles, all religions by nature are weird as they all talk different things. In a most beautiful way, he used the word, “Existence” instead of God or Universe and denied the existence of God completely. He said that God was just a “Hypothesis”
According to OSHO, “God is not a person at all. You cannot worship God. You can live in a godly way but you cannot worship God — there is nobody to worship. All your worship is sheer stupidity, all your images of God are your own creation. There is no God as such, but there is godliness, certainly — in the flowers, in the birds, in the stars, in the eyes of the people, when a song arises in the heart and poetry surrounds you… all this is God. Let us say `godliness` rather than using the word `God` — that word gives you the idea of a person, and God is not a person but a presence.”.
What Osho gave me was a transformation from a typical upbringing to a state of mind that was more conscious and aware. He made me ask questions to myself and my beliefs. This transformation has aided my thoughts to remain flexible. And I started reading on agnosticism. I cannot say that I am agnostic because even agnosticism is a western construct. I became more inclusive and spiritual at the same time. Spiritual, in the way of attuning myself to the life consciousness and finding the beauty in discovering newer aspects of life. I found some synergy with many aspects of Buddhism and Mindfulness which I am still in sync with. I also loved the way Osho “beautified” the entire notion of religion by asking people to “sing, dance and rejoice”. His philosophy of Zorba the Buddha or a materialistic life with balance of a Buddha resonates with me. Luxury can be found in the minimalist way of living as well when you create spaces of calm, beauty as well as little indulgence. On other fronts, I perhaps became selfish in not allowing many people to intrude my personal space of a conscious, almost Zen like living.
When I see so-called religious people, they are mostly cocooned to their own version of belief. In India, even Hinduism is practiced differently at different places. My parents, for example were skeptical of the Hindu belief systems in Maharashtra, the state of my in-laws, because the Maharashtrians were not following the western UP way of Hindu beliefs, fasting and prayers! Hence, all the definitions of compassion, inclusion and connected-ness that a religion talks about is all farce. The Vedas, ancient Hindu texts talk about the notions of, “Vasudhaiv Kutambakam” (the whole planet is my family) and “Sarve Bhavantu Sukhinah” (May all beings be happy) but on the other hand, my friends who are staunchly religious send me hateful messages about people following other religions almost on a daily basis, through platforms like WhatsApp. If you do not consider the whole planet and its’ inhabitants your own community, you cannot be a true Hindu. Same applies to other religions and their sects as well. They are so compartmentalized in narrowness of their respective faiths.
Osho, on the other hand clarified a lot of it for me. For him, a heartfelt love letter was also a prayer and so was the longing of a peacock waiting for the rain to happen. This whole existence has a certain beauty to it, certain Godliness to it. And that’s what matters to me. When I practice Mindfulness and focus on the present, it all narrows down to the key of it all: awareness. To sum it up, Osho gave me a small gateway to awareness about my own self and the world around me.
