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OSHOS VISION: GROWN LIKE A TREE FROM SEED TO FLOWERING

Most of the people, who read Osho's books or listen to His discourses, are of the opinion that there are many contradictions in what He says. Almost same is the opinion of many of Osho's disciples, even with those who claim to have better understanding of His ideas. In fact there are no contradictions because Osho's vision has grown like a tree. It has progressed from seed to the flowering and fragrance. There should not be any contradiction in a seed and a full grown tree, its flowers and fragrance. When we see a seed of flower, it is not easy to perceive the vast potential it contains unless we have actually seen the flower and tasted its fragrance. Nevertheless, it will be impossible to communicate this experience to those who have seen only the seed and not the flower. Same is the case with man's inner flowering: his growth and development of consciousness.

It is the case of man's journey from unconsciousness to the super consciousness and beyond. The person who has reached to his highest potential always has found it almost impossible to motivate others to go on such a journey. In expounding his vision he has to take the other person with him from the state he is and walk a little ahead on the path trodden by him. By and by as the other person progresses towards his potential, higher secrets are revealed to him giving higher goals. This is because people, as they are in the state of unconsciousness and living in lies, are not ready even to listen, not to speak of understanding the Truth of such a man who has reached in the state of enlightenment. Under such circumstances, sometimes a man of Truth has to quote the pills of Truth with sugar of lies during the course of his work upon us. Osho is not an exception to face this dilemma. In one of His discourses on 08-06-1979 He first time revealed that His views on various points were going through a change. In 1986 Osho again confirmed that there has been great change in His views because He is not a rotten pond but a flowing Ganges:-


Question:- Osho, From What you have experienced in the past thirty-two years, after living both in India and abroad, is there any significant change in your thoughts about India, America, religion, sex, and the problems of India and their solutions?


"Great change has come, because I am not a rotten stagnant pond. I am flowing Ganges. I am moving forward each moment. …

The seed is the same – it has become the tree, foliaged more and more. So I will certainly not say the same – it has become the tree, the foliage and the blossoming flowers. In my life I have not grown in opposition to anything. Rather whatever I have said, I have only refined it more and more. So I will certainly not say the same things that I was saying thirty years ago.

Thirty years ago I was talking of the seeds; now I am showering the flowers."

(The Diamond Sword )

In many occasions Osho had stated that while speaking on Krishna He allowed Krishna to speak through Him and same was the case with other Masters He has been speaking. During His series of discourses on Dhammapada, sutras of Buddha, one of the disciples asked a question on 09-06-1979 that he had noticed some change in His ideas --- that Osho seemed to be standing apart from Buddha and seemed not in love with his work. He asked whether his perception of the same was true. The reply given below also confirms that there has been change in what He has been saying earlier:-


Question:-"Every time you have spoken on a master, I have felt You to be in love with that master and You flowing through his sutras. In this series through, I feel you standing apart from the Buddha and not really in love with his work. Is something changing or am I imagining things?

Osho: "Nishant, you are not imagining things. With me, you will have to be always on the move—things will be changing. As you grow up I will be telling you the things which I could not tell you before. It is not that my love for Buddha is less—my love cannot be less or more; my love is just love, it is a quality, it has no quantitative dimension to it. It can never be less or more – it simply is. ………….

"I am preparing for the new phase. The work has to take a quantum leap, and much preparation is needed. The work has to take on a totally different quality now. Now I have people with me of great trust, of love, people who are committed and surrendered. In the beginning I was talking to the masses. It was a totally different kind of work: I was in search of disciples. Talking to the masses I was using their language; talking to the masses was talking to the primary class. You can't go very deep; you have to talk superficially. You have to look to whom you are talking".


"Then slowly ,slowly, a few people started turning from students to disciples. Then my approach changed. Now I have got enough sannyasins…. the work will have to move deeper. I was talking about Buddha before, and I was talking as if I was simply allowing him to flow through me. Now this is not going to be the case. This series is the beginning of a new phase. ……………..

"Nishant, wait a little more, because I have to tell you the whole truth--- the whole truth as it is whatsoever the consequences. I will appreciate whatever is appreciating and I will condemn whatsoever needs to be condemned…………………."

"My work is going into a new phase. I am entering into a new phase. Before the new commune happens, I am preparing for it."


The above fact about his changing vision was again revealed by Osho in His discourse delivered on 25-12-1980:-

"IT IS A LONG STORY. The moment I became capable of seeing I started talking about truth as it is -- naked. But nobody was ready even to listen to it. I was puzzled: I had found the original face, I had seen it, I wanted to share with those who were searching for it, but they were not ready to listen to it. For a few years I struggled hard, but then I saw that they were not wrong, I was wrong. They could not digest truth raw and naked; when you have been eating cooked food for many many lives you cannot digest raw food. I was wrong, they were not wrong."

" Then I started cooking things! Then I started saying things which they could digest. I became less and less concerned about truth and more and more concerned about the people who were to digest it; I had to see how much they could digest. And I had to prepare the food in such a way that it was sweet, not bitter, that it tasted good, it looked good. Whether it was nutritious or not, that was secondary. Who bothers whether Deeksha's cakes are nutritious or not? whether the ice cream is going to make you healthy or ill? Who bothers about these things? It TASTES good. It may destroy you finally... And I was amazed -- when I started serving cooked food people became very much interested and excited. That was a device: that's how I have been able to hook you all! Otherwise I was sitting on the riverbank day in, day out -- not a single fish! Once I started serving cooked food -- cooked according to your desires, not according to your needs.... I didn't need to think at all about the truth in the beginning days, I forgot all about it. I stopped going to the river -- the fish started coming to me on their own, walking long distances.

"So don't be too bothered about what I have said in my earlier works. I have said many things which I don't mean! What I am saying today is closer to truth than what I said yesterday, and every day it will become closer and closer to the truth. Before I am gone I will again have told you the naked truth."

"I had to take such a long route because there was no other way; I had to be very indirect. The moment I became enlightened I started telling people that there is no God -- and they were shocked! Then I cooked it. I said, "There is God, but God is not a person, only a presence." This is cooked food. I am simply saying there IS NO God. But now it tastes sweet -- no person, only a presence. But what else can you do? If people are foolish you have to be careful with them. So I have certainly said, Ajai Krishn Lakhanpal, that no saint is against any other saint – but that is absolutely wrong".

"I am going to say whatsoever I feel is the truth, and every day I will go on sharpening the truth. I have spoken so much for all kinds of people -- three hundred books are there. Now I have to create three hundred more books to get rid of all that I have said! But I am capable of doing it -- I have planned it already. For seven years I have been speaking non-stop, just seven years more speaking non-stop and I can put you in a real jam!"

On journey with Osho the seeker has to travel on different types of terrains, facing various difficulties and overcoming them. This journey was not on a well defined path. There was no chart marking the directions on this inner space because this journey is not in time and space but beyond both. Every seeker has to make his path by walking through it. As the things were changing on every step, facing new challenges so was changing the vision of Osho. Similar was the position with the people to whom Osho was addressing during earlier years. He revealed this again in His discourse on 07-08-1985. In reply to a question He replied in the following words:-

"When I came into this world, somebody is a Mohammedan, somebody is a Christian, and somebody is a Hindu -- no customer available! And I have to do my business, too. I have every right. So, how to get customers? I had to plan devices. And the natural way was -- the simpler way – that anything that is wrong in Jesus, throw it on his disciples. And anything that can be seen as good, can be polished, given a more contemporary ring, bring it above and give the credit to Jesus."


"Now I have got my people -- from all sources I have caught them, I caught them from Buddhists, from Hindus, from Christians, from Jews. From every land, from every country, from every race, I have caught hold of those who can now listen to me directly, and I don't need any Jesus, any Buddha, any Mohammed to stand between me and my disciples. So I am kicking them out" "For three years I remained silent, just to give a gap so people forget all about what I said before those three years, and I can start from the very beginning again. So don't quote anything from my books. Those days are dead – those books are dead."

The seekers who knowing or unknowingly, were not keeping pace with Osho and were lagging behind, were inevitably finding it difficult to adapt to the changing circumstances and continuous growth in Osho Vision. Most of them stuck to what Osho had said prior to His period of silence. By doing so they tend to be orthodox and conservative and find it convenient to maintain hierarchy and pose themselves to be more experienced and qualified to guide others on the path and thus nourish their ego by being leaders and guides of others. This of course was against the new version of Osho Vision. However, this problem was only with those who were old-timers and claimed to be closely associated with Osho. But Osho was more concerned with the people who were walking with Him than those who were lagging behind. He was also concerned with the new people who were joining the caravan and those who were going to join it. About this change He again made clear in His discourse on 17-09-1985 in the following words:-


But I had to speak. Just for one person I cannot hold back from one million sannyasins, and for those sannyasins who will be coming later on, my heartfelt feelings, truths, experiences. And there is too much to say. As you get prepared only then I can say it." "Those three and a half years prepared you, and now you can see the difference between the way I am speaking now and the way I was speaking three and a half years before. As you mature, as you graduate, I can tell you more naked truths, trusting that you will be able to understand them."

At another occasion when Osho was asked that what He was saying now was against to what He had said in His earlier discourses. Why it was so?. Osho made His stand clear in the following words:-

"I don't know what I have said on the yesterdays stretching backwards thirty years. I know only what I am saying to you now. This has given me freedom to tell you the truth even if it goes against my past. I am not confined by my yesterdays. I have never read any of my books and I don't know what kind of things I have been saying. But whatever has been said was true for that moment, and exactly the same is the case now." "Never compare my statements with the past statements; otherwise instead of getting enlightened you will find yourself in an insane asylum. I have contradicted myself so many times, that anybody working for a Ph.D. thesis on me will go crazy. He will never get the Ph.D."

From Death To Deathlessness # 10)

On the inner journey there come many stages through which the seeker has to pass. In Osho's vision, which is the only holistic vision at present , all the spiritual seekers have to pass through four layers i.e. Body, Mind and Heart to the state of Being and then from the Being to the Beyond. Every higher state reveals its secrets and showers its blessings; therefore the mind tends to stick to one state or the other. This has also been the case with many of disciples of Osho. Some were stick to their mind and turned out to be scholars of His vision. Rather than devoting more and more time for going deeper in their inner search they started giving discourses or writing books by repeating words of the Master as their own. This is of course very nourishing to the ego –( the same game they were supposed to have left behind).
Those who were stuck to the heart i.e. to feelings, sentiments and emotions and had developed a certain relationship with Osho were not ready to transcend them. Their position has been better explained by Mr. Dhiren in OSHO Times International, Spring issue, 2000 in the following lines:-

"Some of us who have considered ourselves as being in touch with Osho's vision take it as an "article of faith" that it is based in the heart, that melting and living in the heart is the ultimate goal of any real meditators."

"However, Osho was not only speaking about the path of love but the path of awareness or witnessing also. 'There are two paths and there are only two paths. Either one has to follow awareness or one has to follow love. Both reach the same goal but they move through different territories."

"With infinite compassion, over a period of next several years Osho responded to all of our age-old questions about love, relationship and sex. Then—perhaps when we were perceived as being ready to hear it—the bombshell! He revealed that even our deepest attachments and most intimate feelings are also part of the mind!"
"Your heart is just a pumping station." He explained a necessary stopover to being but just an "overnight stay." Love is essential for spiritual growth, yet it is not the goal, and we were learning how easy it is to stuck there."

"I have to break your heart", Osho declared. " I have destroyed your mind—the first step has been taken. The second step is harder because the heart is closer to being than the head. It is very easy to see the rubbish of the mind; it is very difficult to see the rubbish of the heart…. The greater work starts when you start disidentifying yourself from your heart."


"And if we still had not got the angle of that particular dangle, he spelled out clearly when he addressed a question from Coleman Barks, a well known authority on Rumi, when he visited the commune."

"Osho told Coleman that Sufism is beautiful, that he – like Coleman—loved Rumi, but that Sufism is based on the duality of devotee-god and that the way lay beyond lover and beloved, subject and object. He suggested that Coleman move from his lifelong study of Sufism to Zen-no mind."

"In fact back in the early Pune Years Osho has told us, " The beloved is within you, the worshipper is the worshipped The beloved is within you; you just need to go to the very core of your being. Descend from the head to the heart and from the heart to the being. Move from thinking to feeling and from feeling to being. Just be, and that is the meeting with the beloved. The meeting has already been happening, you are just not aware, you are just unconscious."

"How could I have missed that? As with so much else Osho says, it seems we hear what we chose to or are able to hear."
" Never forget the way. It is very simple: From mind to heart and from heart to being and from being to pure space. This pure space is the buddha."

Then there was a change from Osho as man to Osho as a Vision.This change must have been the insight of a man of meditation and rare understanding of Osho's Vision.Those sannyasins who were stuck with the heart and had developed certain emotional relationship were shocked. They became restless and uncomfortable with what Osho has said after His silence of more than three years. Those whose ego was puffed up considering themselves as old sannyasins, more near to Osho and being more meditative ( the same old game), and were on the road of being Gurus, wished: Osho should have not said that.

During the period of world tour and subsequently Osho was very much specific in His discourses about dangers of ego entering from the back door. Therefore, he was destroying all the roots and leaving no scope for being leaders, higher than thou, posing more meditative than others, superior and more experienced than others. He has left no scope for his sannyasins to make religion out of his vision or give birth to Gurudom and hierarchy whatsoever. Because of such sannyasins Osho withdrew all outer symbols of his sannyasins and Sannyas initiation. It was intolerable to the orthodox sannyasins. These were some of the reasons which brought differences among members of the Inner Circle and other so called old sannyasins. Incidentally almost all of them were Indians. Those who were conservative and orthodox: who wanted to stick to many things which otherwise had become out of date in Osho's vision, opted to leave Pune Osho Commune. They went their own way and started platforms to raise their voice against Osho International, Pune. They formed Osho World Foundation at New Delhi. They developed oshoworld.com and also started publishing Osho World Magazine etc. to spread selected teachings of Osho which suited to their ideas. This Osho World Group is doing good work to spread the message of Osho, but their intentions are bad.

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