No Direction is Best! : Osho

At one Point,  the fact that Sannyasins were using the title “The four directions’ caused some Germans to write to the ashram saying we had stolen that name from them.   Below is Osho’s reply…. .. . even more interesting in terms of the current debates re copyright and trademarks….

Osho in discourse

Just today a letter has arrived from Germany. Our sannyasins are doing a meditation called The Four Directions. The letter says, “In your commune people are doing a meditation called The Four Directions, and we have the copyright over it.”

I have told Neelam, my secretary, to write to them, “Things can be copyrighted, thoughts cannot be copyrighted, and certainly meditations cannot be copyrighted. They are not things of the marketplace.”

Nobody can monopolize anything. But perhaps the West cannot understand the difference between an objective commodity and an inner experience.

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi has copyrighted transcendental meditation and just underneath in a small circle you will find written TM – that means trademark!

For ten thousand years the East has been meditating and nobody has put trademarks upon meditations. And above all, that transcendental meditation is neither transcendental nor meditation… just a trademark.

I have told Neelam to reply to these people, “You don’t understand what meditation is. It is nobody’s belonging, possession. You cannot have any copyright. Perhaps if your country gives you trademarks and copyrights on things like meditation, then it will be good to have a copyright on stupidity. That will help the whole world to be relieved… Only you will be stupid and nobody else can be stupid; it will be illegal.”

I am going to direct my people here that they do the meditation called The Four Directions. But there are eight directions not four! Start doing the meditation Eight Directions – and certainly under eight directions, their four directions also come in.

But apart from their stupid letters and their stupid government which gives copyrights for such inner experiences, the truth is that consciousness cannot be either four directions or eight directions.

Consciousness is a circle: no directions. It is neither directing to the north nor directing to the south.

It simply is a circle. So my suggestion to you is that the best will be to call it ‘No Directions’.

We are going to sue those idiots who think they have a copyright over consciousness, in the courts in Germany. Then we can get a copyright over enlightenment. Then nobody can become enlightened, unless we license him.

Osho, Om Shantih Shantih Shantih, Ch 26 (excerpt)

This entry was posted in Discussion, Osho. Bookmark the permalink.

27 Responses to No Direction is Best! : Osho

  1. shantam prem says:

    Copyright on words: thank God, breakthroughs in information technology have taken the hollowness away from the words. Words are simply Data.

    Just yesterday, one friend has shared a whatsapp mail, there is a group which offers all Osho Talks for free to download.

    Does it mean millions of people will listen to them every day, that millions of dollars of revenue is lost by the copyright holders?

    When we look at the history of mankind, whenever religious pride and power becomes too much, Nature creates alternatives to bring the fever down.

  2. Lokesh says:

    Osho declares, “Things can be copyrighted, thoughts cannot be copyrighted, and certainly meditations cannot be copyrighted. They are not things of the marketplace.”

    Were Osho alive and someone started marketing his dynamic meditation under the name ‘Pulsation Release’ you could be sure Osho would have instructed his lawyers to sue.

    Osho, more than any guru, apart from perhaps the Maharishi with his TM, was the one who brought meditation to the marketplace and made a lot of money from it. There were no flies on Osho when it came to making an extra buck. I do not see anything wrong with that. To be in denial about such a thing is only an indication of stupidity.

  3. preetam says:

    More than 30 years have gone since Osho wrote the book. Unfortunately, idiots are in majority and have now all worldly power. With any possible meanness those people will hinder human consciousness growing. As our here and now proves. Even our universities are sponsored by the same gang.

    • Lokesh says:

      Consciousness does not grow. It is already there, always has been, always will be. In fact, consciousness is the foundation of all human suffering. If we were not conscious of living in a human body and having to deal with the complex mind that is part of the package deal there would not be a problem.

      Problems arise because consciousness has become identified with the human form and become hooked on the concept of being an individual, with all of the pitfalls that accompany that state of limitation.

      If someone wants to make a business out of growth in consciousness that is their business. Ultimately, none of it matters, because this is just one of the myriad forms consciousness plays with and manifests, meanwhile still remaining consciousness, which in its purest form is unlimited and impersonal. It simply is.

      This is why true sages do not make a business out of consciousness. Because it is a fraud, an illusion, maya. Osho made a business out of the growth business and now some of his disciples follow in his footsteps. I don’t have a problem with that and do not for a moment take any of it seriously, because I see it for what it is. A play of consciousness.

      Remember Krishna saying to Arjuna on the battlefield, “Shoot down the enemy with your bow and arrow.” He instructed Arjuna to do this because he saw the world for what it is. An illusion. We do not live in the world, the world lives in us. When this human form dies the world will disappear. That should be interesting, to say the least.

      • shantam prem says:

        Lokesh, if Osho has not made a business out of growth business, think about your life how it would have been.

        For fun sake, it is no harm to imagine what I would have been without presence of Osho* in my life.
        *For me, Osho is not just a name for late Mr. Jain the Bhagwan, but a founder of a complete way of life, a new religious stream of Buddha, Sangha, Dhamma.

      • satchit says:

        “This is why true sages do not make a business out of consciousness. Because it is a fraud, an illusion, maya. Osho made a business out of the growth business and now some of his disciples follow in his footsteps.”

        Do you think Osho is not a “true sage” because he made a business out of consciousness, Lokesh?

        The question is WHY did he make a business out of it? If the reason is to spread the Message on a larger scale, then compassion is the background, I would say. Or should he have stayed in some cave, celebrating his enlightenment?

      • swamishanti says:

        Osho’s like:
        “You say you want a revolution, well, you know…we all want to change the world.”

        Krishna’s more like:
        “You see all these men with their heads cut off? This is all Me. There is no life or death and everything exists in Me. It is all my leela.”

        Beedie Baba’s position is more like:
        “I am the Ultimate Reality but everything else is unreal. Even my beedies.”

        • Lokesh says:

          SS, when Beedie Wallah was asked if there was anything that was real, he replied, “Yes, love.”

          • frank says:

            “Yes, love.”
            That`s amazing. That`s what the girl at the checkout at Tesco said when I asked her if she had any scratch cards.

            Just goes to show that there are a lot of hidden jnanis and enlightened ones embedded out there in ‘the world’.

            • Lokesh says:

              Yes, Frank, I have to agree. If Rab Shree Nesbit can make it to the top, so can we. That is why he is such a source of inspiration to seekers all over Scotland.

              • frank says:

                Absolutely.
                It`s well known that Rab practised the spiritual discipline of nedi-nedi in his youth. And I`m sure that when he launched an empty broken bottle of Buckie wine into the lion`s third eye he would have initiated some self-enquiry by shouting zen-like, “Hoo d`ye think yir lookin’ at? An` hoo the fock d`ye think ye are?”

          • shantam prem says:

            When asked, what is your religion, Acharya Bhagwan Osho Jain replied, “Love is my religion, let it be yours too.”

            When my elder son was 11, he visited me in Pune. Summer holidays in Germany means monsoon season in India. During one of the rainy days we have seen a cat shivering near the staircase. He asked me, “Can we fetch the milk for her?” We brought milk in a plastic bowl.

            Around half an hour later we went to look and take the empty bowl.
            It is engrained in my brain, “Cat was sitting like a mother and her baby was licking the milk.”

            Must be love!
            Must be love which is more than the words in any scripture.

  4. frank says:

    Lokesh, you say:”consciousness is a fraud, an illusion, maya.”
    Maybe, but how would one come to know that this was so without the existence of consciousness?

    And if one comes to realise that consciousness is a fraud through employing consciousness itself, how do you know that you haven`t been duped?!

    • Kavita says:

      Frank, when I read your question I thought Lokesh would say, “Who is the one who is asking this question?”!

      • frank says:

        K, I thought he might use the old advaita shuffle,too.

        Mind you, it can come in pretty handy, the old “who is it?” “There is nobody…” thing.

        I remember a wild night trawling the Bombay red-light area for the ultimate medicine with a few of the advaita skins – back in the 70s. LBW Poonjaji, Rambone Ballsache and Maharaj himself, all tanked up on ganja bidis, paan and bhang. Got into a few scuffles, ended up in a whorehouse.

        In the morning the madam came in and said, “Who`s paying?” Maharaj said, “There is nobody here to pay” and legged it out of the door.

        He was a card!

  5. Lokesh says:

    Hi Frank,
    Good questions.
    Truth is, I might have been duped. I just fired my previous comment off for the fun of it. I have been told that behind consciousness sits the absolute principle. Please do not ask me what that is, because I haven’t a clue.

    Of late I have been delving a lot into the world of the Beedie Wallah. I read one book called The Nectar of Immortality. Very profound indeed. Half of what the man is saying is beyond my comprehension. Nonetheless, what is said is so profound and powerful it has an effect upon me that changes my perception of life.

    The second book is the last talks the baba gave before dying of cancer. Very intense and also very moving because these talks were given by a dying guru who had to deal with a lot of pain in a very enlightened way. So, I have to blame my spiritual hero for turning me on to the idea of how consciousness helps create the maya.

    I think my favourite passage from the two books is the one describing a pseudo-guru who tells Maharaj that if confronted by a lion one is left with only two choices. Those choices are to run away or be eaten alive. Mahatma says there is a third alternative. You can stand up, be courageous and knock a few of the lion’s teeth out. I love that sort of thing.

  6. swamishanti says:

    I prefer reading the words and absolute jargon of one the Beedie Wallah’s contemporaries, Ranjit Maharaj. They both shared the same Master in Mumbai. He used to visit the Beedie Baba, who said he was a jnani but wasn’t teaching anyone.

    Nevertheless, he started sharing after Nisargadatta died.

    Different flowers have different scents and flavours.

  7. preetam says:

    Nevertheless, first all our real heroes need self-realisation. Are you really sure that you wanna face truth? Truth only invites if energy is sufficient enough – to watch our whole drama with devotion and respect.

  8. dominic says:

    Ideology is a helluva drug, like heroin or facebook, and we are all hypocrites and flawed. It just gets magnified behind the idealised spiritual persona of a guru or the hero worship of an artist/celebrity. The Beatles sang “all you need is love”, while John Lennon was a “hitter” and Nicotinadatta sat on animal skins, pedalled beedies, knowing it harmed health, and rumour has it visited prossies. So words are cheap, and quickly become banal and cliche, when read on the page.

    I groan inwardly or make fun if I hear “everything is an illusion” and all the non-dual blah blah. There may be a genuine experience behind that, but when swallowed as an ideology it becomes toxic, dissociative and nihilistic.

    The mood at the moment in these circles (if you keep tabs) is towards integration, catching up with Osho’s tantric approach, but also with a more ethical base and less of the crazy wisdom bullshit (Trungpa, Adi Da, Osho etc).

    Same with the flower power hippie BS of the 60s, ‘we are all one’, which prepared the ground to morph into the globalist, multiculti EU freak show, but with countries and people now fighting back.

    This constant swinging from balance to extreme to balance to extreme etc, seems to be the way it works.

    • madhu dagmar frantzen says:

      You say, Dominic:
      “I groan inwardly or make fun if I hear “everything is an illusion” and all the non-dual blah blah. There may be a genuine experience behind that, but when swallowed as an ideology it becomes toxic, dissociative and nihilistic.”

      True!

      But don´t you forget, please, your own role you´re playing – at least here-now at your virtual keyboard and quite anonymous, I´d say – like with your hate speech towards the “hippie era” and “flower power time of the 60s” or speaking of a “multiculti EU freak show” in hindsight.

      The latter is a loveless and also stupid and very contemptuous stance, and I don´t know your age, but such a stance then could be made by some of the right-wing, dumpheaded and very stupid gangs which I have to deal with in everyday reality here at my place.

      You also say, Dominic:
      “This constant swinging from balance to extreme to balance to extreme etc. seems to be the way it works.”

      Could well be – something like Foucault´s Pendulum (read Umberto Eco if you want). But Umberto´s literary version, shedding some light on the enhanced utter madness of people who are in greed for power is an intelligent one. He also was an angry old man about all the stupid and very, very cruel approaches so-called humans are able to show up with.

      When I came home late, Dominic, I saw that the next thread topic is already on the way, and I’m asking myself if I am landing in a forensic asylum these last days, where a bunch of British and associated people calling themselves sannyasins or friends of Sannyas have lost more than just their common sense.

      Greedy for what? is the question.

      And what you are up to I also don´t have a clue, but what I know is that you are a very angry man and you are not speaking about YOUR anger.

      Madhu

  9. Lokesh says:

    Here is the master on his way to give satsang to a multitude gathered on Glasgow Green. Here he gives some pointers as to the true nature of Advaita Vedanta. Really quite remarkable and funny as fuck.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4yeqSgNxiE

Leave a Reply to frank Cancel reply