Commentators in various places say that Osho did not talk about Islam or the Koran. A bit of a singular fact if true. Of course there are some bloggers here who seem to have access to enormous databases, and maybe he did so speak.
However at one well known point he explained why he had not spoken about Islam. (At least up to that time, etc!)
Here is what Osho said below, and SN feels that it is worthy of comment/discussion by our illustrious bloggers.
“Mohammed was an absolutely illiterate man, and the Koran, in which his sayings are collected, is ninety-nine percent rubbish. You can just open the book anywhere and read it, and you will be convinced of what I am saying. I am not saying on a certain page — anywhere. You just open the book accidentally, read the page and you will be convinced of what I am saying.
Whatsoever one percent truth there is here and there in the Koran is not Mohammed’s. It is just ordinary, ancient wisdom that uneducated people collect easily — more easily than the educated people, because educated people have far better sources of information — books, libraries, universities, scholars. The uneducated, simply by hearing the old people, collect a few words of wisdom here and there. And those words are significant, because for thousands of years they have been tested and found somehow true. So it is the wisdom of the ages that is scattered here and there; otherwise, it is the most ordinary book possible in the world.
Muslims have been asking me, “Why don’t you speak on the Koran? You have spoken on The Bible, on the Gita, this and that.” I could not say to them that it is all rubbish; I simply went on postponing. Even just before I went into silence, a Muslim scholar sent the latest English version of the Koran, praying me to speak on it. But now I have to say that it is all rubbish, that is why I have not spoken on it — because why unnecessarily waste time?”
- From Osho’s book, “Unconciousness to Consciousness”
Chapter 5:
Koran
kɔːˈrɑːn,kə-/
noun
The Islamic sacred book, believed to be the word of God as dictated to Muhammad by the archangel Gabriel and written down in Arabic. The Koran consists of 114 units of varying lengths, known as suras; the first sura is said as part of the ritual prayer. These touch upon all aspects of human existence, including matters of doctrine, social organization and legislation.
If this/that, Google search engine be trusted, Mohammed was not an illiterate, unless he dictated further to some literate person, which sounds more of a game we as children played!
Right now I found this link: http://www.quranexplorer.com/Quran/ .
Felt & thought I could share here.
Now this is more like my kind of stuff!
Sam Lucas, just saw your SN profile; was curious to know about your journey to this website. Do share, if it’s ok.
Yes, it is ok, Kavita.
One day I was doing my righteous work of knocking on people’s doors and handing out our JW magazines for everyone to read, when I came to a particular house.
There was loud reggae tune playing in the background.
“De heathen back dey, pon de wall, De heathen back yeah, pon de wall”, the music pumped out.
And then a tall, coloured man with dreadlocks and a strong Caribbean accent answered the door and said, “Wah Gwan”.*
“Good day!”, I said and told the man I was from the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
He said, “Me no come ya fi hear bout how horse dead an cow fat”.**
I didn’t understand what this meant, but he told me that he had read the Bible and said to me that, I should open my mind, mon, and check out ‘sannyasnews’. So, I looked it up online and found this religious forum!
There was an article from the Daily Mail here which I read and it educated me about ‘The Bhagwan’, aka ‘Swami Rajneesh’, and his teaching of ‘Osho’.
Meditation may be ‘fun’ and help alleviate stress, but it won’t show us the path to eternal life!
Only the Holy Scriptures can do that.
* “What’s up?”
**”Knock it off with the irrelevant details, pal “.
Thank you, SL, do put up your latest photo here. & what does the Bible say about clones? Anyway, Wah Gwan!
Lucas, can you imagine that man with Caribbean accent is more closer to God´s kingdom than JW.
It is his kindness that you have come closer to the people who say Hi to your Boss!
God Bless you, Boy!
sam Lucas, i have seen your profile at caravansarai. You seems to be a devout gentleman.
Can you explain the meaning of the verse:
“I am the way, and the truth, and the life: no one cometh unto the Father, but by me”?
I think it is in Bible, maybe in Koran or, who knows, Osho has spoken in 1978!
It’s a famous saying of Jesus, Shantam, that’s been almost universally misunderstood (not least by Christian priests, of course).
As I understand it (from others’ teachings and whatever ‘intuition’ or miniscule experience I might have had), “I” most definitely doesn’t refer to the ‘person’ Jesus, the personality, the self. It points to whatever it was he’d ‘realised’, which was presumably informing his entire being. IE, that ‘No-thing-containing-Everything’ (that seemed to permeate Osho, for example).
In other words, the Life behind the life, which is where all true masters apparently reside – and therefore, which is, it would seem, the Truth – and thus, if we can glimpse it, self-evidently the ‘Way’ we need to travel (if we so choose – a rather big ‘if’, eh, Shantam?!)….
Christian priests misunderstand Jesus, Hindus misunderstand Krishna, Buddhists misunderstand Buddha and our own line scholars understand everyone! Is it because of Berry Long books?
SD, don´t you think you are full with your scholarly knowledge. Do you think I am duffer enough who can find a quotation from Bible but does not know who has written it?
It is John 14:6.
If you read my post, question was directed to the new entrant, Sam Lucas, and it was written in a tease sense.
Anyway, thanks for telling where all true masters apparently reside. When I am in London, you can take me to the Life behind the life suburb for the taste of British tea!
“Do you think I am duffer enough who can find a quotation from Bible but does not know who has written it?”
From past experience of your often inarticulate bumbling, and confused, rather simple-minded misunderstanding here, Shantam, I’m afraid the answer is a resounding ‘yes’!
Moreover, as if to confirm my point, you overlook the simple fact that your original query was what Jesus’s saying actually means.
And despite your protest that it was all a bit of a joke (ha ha), from your response I doubt whether you ever had any idea, or have any more idea now.
Btw, I suggest, Shantam, that in future you indicate whether one of your posts is supposed to be ‘funny’ or a “tease”, eg by writing ‘THIS POST IS A JOKE!’ or ‘THIS POST IS MEANT TO ‘TEASE’!’ as an introduction. As too often it’s not clear what they’re supposed to be.
Meanwhile, as the saying goes, ‘Get (a) Life’….
As a former Muslim—Osho’s words are blunt yet true.
I thought so too Prem Kamal after going through this audio .
Something to take to HEART, if there is any, Sannyas News…as a response to the new thread issue, and I found it in a work of a mathematician and philosopher (his name is Norbert Froese) in his critical remarks on Plato’s parables and philosophy.
At the end of his script (about the many varieties Totalitarianism can take) one can find a quote of Goethe´s Mephisto in his Faust’:
“(Quite) ordinarily, man believes, when listening (reading) words, that it should be (could be) possible to think (ponder) about it”.*
That´s my most appropriate possible response to this virtual wave of stuff just now.
It is borrowed, you see, from Mister Froese´s intuitive compilation, but the truth of that hit me. As well as his inner work about totalitarianism and its cunningness-es.
Me – I am paining.
Madhu
* If moderators, administrators, thread issue inventors have a problem with that quote (I translated to my best capacity here), better to read the Mephisto talks yourself in the original (English version) of Faust and Goethe´s adaptation.
P.S:
And to answer your late question yesterday, moderators, about ´rainbows´,
I am sorry, I have nothing more to add just now, to what I tried to convey.
MOD: OK, MADHU, BUT THE PROBLEM IS IT’S NOT CLEAR ENOUGH TO MAKE MUCH SENSE.
Once the founder of a small start-up was poking fun on the big firms!
“The Koran is one of the most strange books, because it has not been written in a continuity—one verse today, one verse ten days after…because Mohammed was uneducated. He did not write it himself. He used to dictate whenever he found something worth dictating. So-called holy scriptures are written by self-styled prophets and messiahs—and they are called “holy”! I don’t see anything holy in them.
So many Mohammedan friends have asked me, “You have spoken on many religions, why don’t you speak on the Koran?”
I said, “Do you want me to be murdered?” I have something else to do meanwhile. Finally, when I think that it is time for me to leave the body, I will speak on the Koran. And I will manage to have one of my sannyasins kill me and get 2.6 million dollars for my work! While my work is incomplete, I am not going to speak on holy scriptures, because they are the most primitive kind of literature. ”
Osho
Source http://www.oshoworld.com/biography/innercontent.asp?FileName=biography10/10-56-mohammedans.txt
This is quite a lengthy link, the whole discourse spoken during the last months being in the body.
The spirit of the times can be seen and felt in the last paragraph. It shows how Osho was confident with the expansion of His work in Pune and he was eager to showcase to the world a better alternative.
“There was an article a few months ago in a German magazine, asking, “What is happening? German young people simply go to Poona and then they are never seen again.” It is only because of the difficulties created by the barriers of nations that you cannot stay more than three months, more than six months at the most, so you have to go and come back again. If these barriers disappear, Poona is going to become a country in itself. But it will be a foreign country to India; it will in itself be one of the most cosmopolitan worlds.
The intelligent young people have understood. My sannyasins…the greatest number are Germans, the second Japanese, the third Italians. These were the three countries together with Adolf Hitler. It is not a coincidence, it is simply intelligence. They have understood that they are living in a mad society; it is better to get out of it, find some place where no such stupid ideas are maintained.
Their coming to me is coming to a saner place, where no distinctions are maintained. Nobody is superior, nobody is inferior.”
In my opinion, Osho has all the right to give his judgement on everyone in his field. That right we don´t have, we have not earned it. Sannyasins as a collective have lost it.
The day that you, Shantam, realise and admit that YOU yourself have “lost it” (that’s if you ever had “it”, which I very much doubt) and that what you’re actually chronically moaning about is not the loss of a ‘spiritual community’ per se, but simply the loss of the opportunity to try your luck with young foreign women, will be the day all SN readers will be ‘enlightened’ = freed of the burden of reading your miserable, repetitious, self-ignorant, basically self-serving bollox.
A man who has spent a week around Bhagwan Shree 35-40 years ago writes with such an arrogance, I feel pity for all your teachers and masters.
Why cannot you accept, SD, Osho was never your cup of coffee? You seem to be like that customer who buys a coffee to go from Costa but wants to drink in the premises of Starbucks.
Your knowledge about Osho is not more than the people who read his books and become experts.
Let us say, Osho ashram gave the people chance to try their luck with young foreign women. It was not so, but let us presume it was like this. There must be Osho´s guidelines behind it. Osho must have encouraged it.
The thing is, Osho Was not Meera. Osho Was also not Raman or Punja or Huggy Huggy Amma. These people developed their establishment in their way, Osho did his own way.
My suggestion is during the twilight years of life, take notice of your life and ask, “Is there some religion or relation where I have invested my life whole hear-tidily?”
“Let us say, Osho ashram gave the people chance to try their luck with young foreign women. It was not so, but let us presume it was like this.”
“It was not so” – no, but of COURSE not, whoever could possibly begin to imagine such an abomination?!
Poor you, you were – and remain – as sweet and innocent as a little lamb…
As Hurree Singh (of ‘Billy Bunter’ fame) would say, “The Preposterousness is Terrific!”.
To coin another phrase, pull the other one, Shantam!
“My suggestion is during the twilight years of life, take notice of your life and ask, “Is there some religion or relation where I have invested my life whole hear-tidily?” ”
And Shantam, my suggestion is during the twilight years of life, take notice of your life and ask, “Is there some religion or relation where I have invested my life whole hear-tidily (sic!) – and gained, apparently, almost nothing of any significance?
“A man who has spent a week around Bhagwan Shree 35-40 years ago writes with such an arrogance, I feel pity for all your teachers and masters.”
Well, at least I met the man (and other teachers and masters). You appear to have met only your own lust and sentimental bullshine, Shantam, however long you spent in his ashram.
Which might be both symptom and cause of your transparent stupidity (not to mention envy).
Ohlala!
I met Osho.
And then?
I met Barry very Long.
And then?
I met Shyam Singha.
And then?
I could not make till Punja ji.
And then
I was with Ms. Meera
And then?
I was reading Eckhart Tolle.
And then?
Finally I got my salvation at sannyasnews.
Why it is so?
Everywhere else my ego was massaged. Here brutal people rip it off.
“Finally I got my salvation at sannyasnews. Why it is so?
Everywhere else my ego was massaged. Here brutal people rip it off.”
Well, that’s a pretty accurate self-description of your fate, Shantam. (As others have often suggested, have you looked up ‘projection’ in the dictionary yet?).
Otherwise, it’s the usual pile of laughable, reactive shite from you, just more pure anodyne stupidity.
Perhaps it’s no coincidence that ‘thick’ rhymes pretty well with ‘Sikh’ (not to mention ‘sick’!)….
So true, Shantam Prem, Kavita, and Sannyas News, Caravanserai Visitors as me just Now-Here:
´LIFE´ just loves to move on to saner places if IT´s exposed to insanities, fundamentalisms, war and terror and all this kind of stuff, and there is a source of LIFE in each and every one of us. That has been true in the sixties or seventies of last century and that is true today.
Nice that you found one of the myriads of possible historical quotes from the Master´s speech into that direction, Shantam Prem.
However, He was very clear about that, that He didn´t like parrots in human forms (although He might have loved the birds?) – and the essential message ´BE YOURSELF´ remains as a truly challenging, ever-fresh and ever-new-born reminder for us and anybody – and on the move.
In other words, what has been a ´more sane´ space today may not be a ´more sane space´ tomorrow: a constant craving…evolving in the ´Art of Being´, as one of our former fellow-travellers puts it in his school nowadays. (Uuups, is it a trade market? Hope I am allowed to quote this for the meaning?). Sure, I am, I guess.
To come back to the topic (and living in quite insane surroundings and circumstances and quite often having to stand (face) all kinds of fundamentalistic attacks, be they just energetic or be they even hardcore to be experienced as a target of criminal actions, I can say that the urge of reaching inside-outside ´saner places as spaces´ is as strong as ever it was, maybe as time has gone by has even increased a lot, while the possibilities of recreation diminished, at least in my life.
Sometimes, though, I am in wonder, when out of pain, in the midst of feelings of being abandoned or betrayed even, or being misused as human female being like an algorithm for insane players (GAMERS) – a GAP shows up… like we had that old Sannyas Song: When Life takes you on its shoulders…(can´t just now quote the whole of it, but it’s one of the songs which touch ´eternity´ when eternity passes ´time´).
And then, after that, there happens some space to feel the Gratefulness again, about the many glimpses of sanity/SANITY – also enjoying that with others in the rivers of Life.
Sometimes also Artists share with us their Gaps and what they brought up into appearance from unknowable sources, after their diving deep.
Such a one is according to the topic issue here – besides remembering the Master inside – a piece of art (a book as a movie) composed by a Franco/Belgian writer and poet, Eric Emannuel Schmitt.
It’s called: ´Monsieur Ibrahim and the Flowers of Islam´. (2004).
My experience is that whenever I am relieved from a too narrow armour or cabin or stuff that feels like torture because of its narrowness; tears of gratitude and breathing into the just next step of LIFE.
May your hearts also be touched by gaps and the river of LIFE.
With love.
Madhu
P.S:
(And my recommendations also for this enchanting work of PEACE and ART of Mister Schmitt).