Osho: Avatar of Insurrection
A critical homage to the pope of esotericism pop. (1)
A rebel is not someone who does react against society, is someone who comprehends the whole game and simply gets out from it. The game starts to no make sense to him. He is not against the game. This is the beauty of rebellion: It is all about freedom. The revolutionary man is not free; he spends his whole time fighting against something. – How could there be freedom in reaction? Liberty means comprehension. The person comprehends the game and, when realizes that the game is a way to stop the soul from improving, a way of not allow someone to be what it is, just abandons it, not letting it to leave signs in its soul. The person forgives and forgets, going on without been attached to society in the name of love or hate. Society simply disappears for the rebel. He can live in the world or leave it, but does not belong to it any longer, he is an outsider. (OSHO 2006d, 63)
The night of January 19th 1990, night of Saint Sebastian, the same in which African- Brazilian Candomblé celebrates the cult to Oxossi, Orisha who is the master of the forest, had a great significance for my spiritual life.
First, due to the death of Sebastião Mota, leader of the Santo Daime wing of which I participate up to this day, in the city of São Sebastião do Rio de Janeiro. The very same day, with a difference of a few hours, in the city of Puna, in India, another great spiritual leader was to expire: Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, the Osho.
In the occasion I had a dream in which, inside a checkered circular room, there was a polarity between the figures of Padrinho Sebastião, using a white Daime uniform and with a black beard, and Osho using a black tunic and with a white beard – both impassible, into deep meditation. The room started to become oval, similar to the Chinese symbol of Yin/Yang and took off, taking both to the distant sky.
But let me open a small parenthesis to better explain who Sebastião Mota is. The Padrinho Sebastião I met was a person of multiple contrast: very serious and also very joyful and playful: calm and patient at the same time that stubborn and perseverant; a man of great knowledge, but yet a very humble student and diligent on the subject related to spirituality.
He was born in Eirunepé, in the state of the Amazon, in the rubber extraction reserve of Monte Ligia in the 1920; he started to work as a healer in the Juruá Valley, yet in the Kardecist doctrine. He moved to Rio Branco with his family approximately in 1957, seven years later he met Raimundo Irineu Serra and the Santo Daime. He worked also together with the “Esoteric Circle of Thought Communion” with Mestre Irineu and always kept on the wall of his room his diploma on a frame. He founded the 5000 colony, emphasizing communitarian life in his doctrine’s proposal. In 1980 he transferred the community, which was in the surroundings of Rio Branco, to a virgin area in the deep forest, called rubber extraction reserve of Rio do Ouro. In 1982 he also founded, on the state of Amazonas, the village Céu do Mapiá; headquarter of his religious and philanthropical organization, called Cefluris.
He was also a key person on many spiritual services in various countries of every continent on earth. However, for me, the greater contribution of Mota was not the international expansion, the communal life, or even the polemic adoption of other plants in the ceremonies of Santo Daime, but really a certain relation with the idea of urgency and with the end of times. And that is expressed in his hymn book: The Justice Maker. A hymn book reflects the training of the person that received it and expresses his spiritual biography, with the tests and experiences that he faced during his life. When begin in the doctrine, I did not like the hymn book of the Padrinho (2). I found it was full of "whip" and of "sinners come to regret" and so on. Until the day when I had a dream with a friend (Luis Fernando Nobre) in which he said "You only get hit because you feel guilty and sorry for yourself. Sing the hymns as a justice maker and not as a justice defendant." That was a key to me. I uncovered that, in the first person of the present tense ( I ), The Justice Maker is a weapon against everything that really oppressed and injured me. But the years passed and I saw also another side: People singing the Padrinho’s hymn book to put the 'peia' (3) over others, without examining their conscience. I discovered, then, a second secret: Not be punished and neither to want to correct the others. One should love the others like themselves. To love yourself a lot or to love others more than oneself, is a way of getting out of the razor’s edge of the hymn book.
Thus the teaching of the Justice Maker is a very fine study, in between those two mistaken opposite interpretations (masochist and sadistic). Today, after many services to Padrinho’s hymn books and years of spiritual work, I notice that the idea that "ceremony without punishment nobody knows what is going to do" (excluded all the guilt and auto-punishment mechanisms of the Christian ideology and considering only with aspect of discipline) drifts from of the idea of irreversible time - one of the main signs of the philosophy and the spiritual practice of Sebastião Mota. It is common among the Santo Daime followers that search to follow exclusively the teachings of Mestre Irineu a certain way to understand time in which everything is perpetual, with an emphasis in calmness and spiritual security. The punishment, in this understanding, it is only a clean up, necessary to syntonize with the universal and to find you within the Divine. (4)
On the other side, the conception of the Padrinho Sebastião followers is more warlike, emphasizing the end of world and of the possibility of the perpetual death (or that only who deserves reincarnates). In this perspective, "substance is on the edge" - as it affirms one of the last hymns of his son Alfredo. In this conception, it is necessary to pay attention to the instant and to the detail. There is a "feeling of emergency" that impels us to the Master’s Eternity (a promise of the hymn book). And this ‘urgency’ on constructing a better world it must be considered his greater contribution. The discipline, in this chronological context (that count time backwards), is a conscientious and constant effort of adapting to the immediate present. Padrinho Sebastião was a man who learned to read singing his own hymn book. He was a coherent man (that fought to place his ideas in his life and to place his life in his ideas) and died as a warrior battling for what he believed. Sebastião Mota de Melo passed away of cardiac problems in 20th of January 1990, day of Saint Sebastian, in the city of São Sebastião do Rio de Janeiro, doing what he wanted and what he liked to do most, singing his own hymn book during a spiritual work - in the same day of Rajneesh.
This said, we come back to Osho.
Despite having already have read some books of Rajneesh and liking it, my dream (then interpreted in a tendentious way, as if being a war between good and evil) caused me to nourish, for many years, certain dislike by the teachings of Osho. Today, I realize that Rajneesh "is not evil"; on the contrary, he is someone that should be respected, not just as a singular spiritual leader, but, especially, as one of the most important personalities of our time. I comprehend, also, that the polarity between him and Padrinho Sebastião is complementary, representing the contradiction between discipline and surrender. What is to say: While the Padrinho (re-interpreting the Christian tradition) prescribes the sacrifice, the firmness and renunciation as forms of ethical improvement, the main message of Osho is the vulnerability and the pleasurable surrender to life. In fact, always I liked the texts and the ideas of Rajneesh; however, always felt something, a gap between his words and his spiritual practices, that leaded me to suspect of the seriousness of his teachings.
In order to practice the theory of the Avatars, according to which a enlightened being was born to save the spirit of humanity every two thousand years, as described in the Secret Doctrine of Lady Blavatsky, its main disciple and successor in the direction of the Theosophical Order, Annie Besant assigned herself with the mission of locating and preparing the person that would be new Avatar. She found an Indian young man and took him to study in England. That fact had as immediate consequence the dissension opened by Steiner: the Anthroposophy.
However, few months before assuming the direction of real empire organized for his return, Krisnamurti gave up to carry out the destination for which he had been educated, and initiated a crusade in favor of meditation and the development of the conscience above any system of beliefs or rituals. For Rajneesh, Krisnamurti was weak and did not receive the solar spirit he was destined to incorporate. Thus, he had the incumbency of fulfilling the mission of being the Avatar, starting to be called Osho, originally a title of reverence given to certain masters in the tradition of the Zen Buddhism. Even he not being a Buddhist or a master pertaining the Zen tradition, from a certain moment in the 80’s Rajneesh passed to call himself Osho.
In another work (GOMES, 2001), without entering in merit of the ideas of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (in fact, Rajneesh Chandra Mohan Jain) nor of his pretension on calling himself Osho and consider himself the Avatar of the New Age, I affirmed that one of its most important contributions was his net organization marketing – what generally passes disregarded to his critics, as well as to his defenders. Beyond Tantra as head car (of which we will speak ahead), Rajneesh had re-launched a series of esoteric products of other chains and traditions with his brand (Osho’s tarot, Osho’s massage, Osho’s dances, Osho’s Reike and so on). But, instead of a new synthesis of these practical techniques, Rajneesh created a `spiritual surmounting' in decentralized nets, as a transnational identity of planetary extension: the Osho brand.
Actually, Rajneesh formulated a synthesis “Buddha-Zorba”, a spirituality that congregates the meditating aspect of Buddhism and the joy of living, the dancing and to right to be amused by the Zorba personage, the Greek. (OSHO, 2004, 214; 1999, 15).
In the media, Osho was known as the guru of sex and of the rich people – due to his attitude against sexual repression and to his fleet of 93 Rolls-Royces that existed in his commune in the United States, called 'Rajneeshpuram' that received, in the beginning of the 80’s, thousands of visitors from everywhere. Osho was accused, by the state government of Oregon of perversion, brainwashing and fiscal evasion; his disciples were involved in a case of poisoning and of electoral fraud. He was arrested and subsequently deported of the United States. In July of 1986, Osho goes back to India and install himself once again in Puna and founds a Multiversity (not a University) of Spiritual Studies (5). In November of 1987, his doctors diagnosed him with generalized deterioration of his physical condition, due to poisoning by thallium, a heavy metal whose effect is slow, progressive, and deadly. During a public speech, Osho affirmed that The U.S.A. government had slowly poisoned him during the 12 days when he was in jail.
The reasoning of Rajneesh is displayed in more than 1000 books, although he had never wrote a single one. His books are transcriptions of recorded excerpts from lectures made in different moments and for different public. Texts that, after time elapse, started being rewritten by his followers (6). Suspect, however, that the Osho is not only a person, but an institution. In that sense, the posthumous compilation ‘Autobiography of a spiritually incorrect mystic’ (2000) allows a clear glimpse, even it being a text edited in a way to conceal the differences, of three phases of Osho: before, during and after his passage by the U.S.A. In his last years, he improved his meditations and central ideas. That’s when he got to the optimum point of his production.
Furthermore, different transversal reading strategies are possible over these three phases of the work of Osho. One can, for example, observe his discourse about different traditions (Buddhism (s), Zen, Taoism, Christianity, and Muslimism). Another interesting strategy would be to analyze his books on meditative and therapeutical practices (as ‘The Book Orange’ or ‘Pharmacy of Soul’) or still study his interpretations of stories, narratives, anecdotes, legends and cases that he frequently uses to explain his ideas.
Would it be possible, from the point of the discursive analysis of his main books, to reconstitute a conception of world, a doctrine or even a coherent set of teachings and ways of thinking? Yes, clearly. There are recurrent subjects and a proper philosophy with constant characteristics: anarchy, relativism, hedonism and anti-rationalism with emphasis for instinct and intuition.
We choose, for the purpose of study, the `sanniasi ideology' the ‘moral’ texts of Osho. For `moral' understand prescriptive texts organized in ten books of the collection `Tips for a new way of living' on different ethical subjects: freedom, intuition, creativity, joy, maturity, courage, intimacy, intelligence, compassion and conscience. Clearly Osho would not like his prescriptive texts to be called moral, therefore he is not a moralist in the normative sense, which is, does not establishes rules for behavior (2004, 127). Nevertheless, these texts suggest ethical behavioral procedures to the ones who aim spiritual freedom. E this could also can be considered ‘moral'.
Initially it is necessary to observe that Osho is part of an international context and time, guarding several points in common with others contemporary esoteric thinkers, such as Castaneda and Gurdjieff, as well as with critical authors, adept of the libertarian philosophy of the 60’s. Ken Wilber (2000, 33) is the one who better characterizes the philosophy of the counterculture movement as relativist pluralism.
In this way of thinking there are no reasoning rules that transcend what is accepted by a society or epoch. The value of something is the value that the people attribute to it and each person has the legitimate right to attribute value differently. The human thought and action are inherently local, rooted in variable facts of nature and human history. For Wilber, the main characteristic of the counterculture’s relativist pluralism is that it can not perceive or admit that its form of think is also relative to a historical and social context (being inserted in a chart of universal references) and that, by excluding universalisms and radically affirming relativeness, it is being absolute.
In the academic field of post-modern deconstructivism, which believes every behavior to be culturally relative and socially built; he is the main representative relativist pluralism. And, in the esoteric field, besides Osho, there are also thinkers as Gurdjieff and Castaneda, whose characteristics are very keen to post-modern thought, mainly in the radical refusal to 'New Gnosis', Platonism and on the adoption of an experimental and empirical perspective, in opposition to the beliefs imposed by social conditioning (2004, 79). Relativism here is perceptive (and not merely discursive): there is not an objective reality and we are conditioned to believe it as in a collective mirage, a matrix out of which we should escape, a dream out of which we should wake up.
That rebellious character before society is the main common feature between Osho and the anti-Gnostic esoterism, but there are also other important similarities mainly in relation to Gurdjieff, who is very cited by Osho. For Osho, for example, we are all sleeping in a state of unconsciousness and automatism; we need to take a shock in order to awake our conscience (OSHO, 2001, 11). Ours multiple ‘selves’ are like ‘dampers’ that stop the shocks of life to wake us up. The ‘selves' waste our energy (OSHO, 2004, 75), preventing us to become more complete and conscientious. The idea that it is necessary to reorganize and to save our proper energy, mainly the sexual energy, is also common to Osho, Gurdjieff and Castaneda. There are also minor similarities as not celebrating birthdays and festive days. For Osho, life is a celebration (2004, 35).
In this sense, Osho as well as Gurdjieff and Castaneda are skeptical and hyper-realistic, focusing almost exclusively in the social unconditioning of the individual conscience. They, then thought to escape the system of beliefs. But their beliefs are what forge their experiences, and these, on its turn forms and strengthens the beliefs. In the case of Osho, the refusal in admitting his beliefs (as also the beliefs of the ones who worship the concrete experience in general) resulted in a subjectivist relativism in which everything is matter of opinion. And perhaps this may be the main problem to undertake a systematic critic of Osho.
This due to two reasons. One, the form how he places his ideas; especially before being banish from U.S.A., Osho speaks in the condition of illuminated, of someone that had already reached nirvana and it is guiding those who desire to be where he had already arrived. The ontological superiority, this privileged place of speech and of the enunciator, of someone who already experienced the lighting is what gives Osho a discursive authority to be radically subjective.
Another difficulty, connected to the empirical subjectivism of Osho, is that he advocates his right to have his opinion just as his critics have the right to discord of him. He gives himself the right of, by example, to say that Nietzsche drove crazy because he envied Jesus Christ (2006d, 114) or to say that the parents destroy their kids’ intelligence in order to enslave them (2007b, 123). It is possible to make a long inventory of pure opinions and rhetorical silliness.
Controversial? More: provocative. Osho is always against consensus and common sense, makes an issue about swimming against the flow and show the other side of everything: he is against Christianity and in favor of Jesus; he is against all the religions and in favor of all the forms of spirituality, etc.
In fact, Osho has his own vocabulary, nevertheless there is a compilation called Osho from A to Z – a dictionary of the Here and Now (OSHO, 2004), in which several words are redefined according to his way of thinking, some being over-rated, while others are disqualified. For example, Osho strongly avoids the words 'Absolute' and 'Abstract' (2004, 11); ‘Abstinence', for him, is a perversion; never uses the word 'renunciation' (2001.11; 2004, 154) do not like the word 'friend', and neither 'friendship' (2006d, 84). There is also various themes – such as fear, compassion, meditation and liberty – that penetrate every text and that is why they are difficult to be precised. Others, secondary, need redefinition – as is the case of the notions of responsibility, discipline, intelligence and maturity. Still, there are also paradoxical themes.
But, it is Osho himself who points out some key concepts, as in the case of the 3 C’s (1999, 13): Conscience (regarding existence and opposing mind and ego), Compassion (referring to feeling e generally opposed to fear) and Creativity (referring to the action field and opposing to political activity)
“The world is the rainbow; the mind, the prism; and the being the light ray”. (2006c, 168). The mind is like a package of the conscience; one is peripheral, the other one is in the center (2001, 60). We are like an onion with overlapping rinds and different levels of conscience: of the body, the thoughts, the feelings and the conscience of conscience, or `the observer' (2001, 13). In another book (2006c), the onion has six layers: the senses (2006c, 111), the conditionings of the systems of beliefs (P. 117), rationalizations, sentimentalism, the repression and the corrupted intuition.
“The mind is the memory, you are the conscience” (2001, 112). For Osho, the mind is in the past and conscience is a synonym of present perception. Conscience is `reminding one self' (Gurdjieff) and the mind is forgetfulness. “The mind is a deposit of bitterness” (2004, 86), it collects wounds and insults. According to Osho: “The only sin that exists is unconsciousness, the only virtue is conscience” (2001, 164).
By the way, for Osho, `the empty mind is not the Devil’s office', but actually the holy cradle of creativity (1999, 21; 2004, 130). Meditation and silence are the methods to keep the mind silent and reach conscience (2005, 155). And according to Osho (2001, 182), the mystic Mahavira affirms that forty-eight minutes of perfect Vipassana meditation, plain of continuous attention (of conscience) on the breathing lead to illumination. Actually, one of its more repetitive fixed ideas is that one should not try to be a better person nor make any effort in the sense of improvement.
"Be yourself instead of trying to be what you are not. Live the gratitude of being and not the neurosis of should be" – affirms, without explaining the contradiction of prescribing to persons that 'want to be' to just ‘be’. This is an important point. It is necessary to Be and not to Become. For Osho, 'to be a better person' is a disgraceful desire (2004, 169; 1999, 42). One have to be total in every act, try to be integer, spontaneous, intense, authentic – immediately and every second.
There is, therefore, two paths (2004, 30): the path of instant illumination, the awakening of conscience to the present in one only shock (is the 'way with no way’ - idea taken from the Zen that Osho repeats constantly) and the path of self improvement, that happens through several shocks from which the person starts changing its energy standards and evolving, until it comes to the absence of unconscious desires. Osho speaks very little and nearly always on a negative form about the self improvement path. For him, what is important is the immediate presentification of conscience. To the ones who do not achieve the instant illumination (personally, I had never heard of anyone), remains the expectation:
Expectation must be pure. Enjoy expectation itself, without wanting anything more. Don’t you see the beauty of only expect? The purity, the blessing, the innocence? Just to expect, without even knowing what will come up. [...] On realizing that there is not how to imagine the future, there is not how to imagine the unknown, then what is known ceases and all the ideas inside the mind disappear: the ideas about God, the ideas about Samadhi, illumination, all of them disappear. This disappearance is where illumination occurs [...] But one thing is certain: to wait is infinitely beautiful, the expectation is infinitely flooding with joy. (OSHO, 2004, 69-70)
There are many illnesses, but one only remedy: conscience. “My entire message is summarized in this: you need conscience, you do not need principles” (2001, 166). By the way, there are two words in English to assign the conscience: consciousness and conscience (2001, 171). Thus, `conscience' for Osho is not the moral or mental conscience, but the immediate perception of the present, without taking in account the values that contextualizes it (2001, 175).
At other moments, the conscience is opposed to the ego, to the intellect and the rational activity. For such, also the idea of Intelligence is redefined. According to Osho, `Intelligence' is not the capacity of survival of the most adapted, but the capacity to solve new problems. It is not acquired culturally, on the opposite, the human being is born intelligent, is the society that numbs it (2007b, 33). Intelligence is a gift of nature, is innate and intrinsic to life. Only mankind is stupid, the universe is intelligent. We are born without ego, the ego is a mirror for us to see ourselves through the others because we fear to look ourselves face-to-face (2004, 62).
True intelligence is intuitive and comes from heart (2007b, 27). It is naturally rebellious, won’t accept training. Alternatively, the mind is external and collective, a set of beliefs acquired by the ego that, on its turn, was structuralized socially. The Knowledge (intellectual) it is not Realization (experiential) of the conscience. However, Osho’s rationalism sometimes incur in exaggeration.
For example: "Intuition cannot be explained scientifically because is irrational" (2006c, 09). Intuition nowadays is seen by the neuron sciences as a cognitive shortcut between neurons, as a creative synapse. Nowadays we explain intuition scientifically, even confirming the ideas of Osho about the cognitive activity.
Several others examples of irrationalism exaggerations could be given, used for disqualify other forms of thinking. That is another of the contradictions of Osho: he is a thinker that disqualifies thought. On the other hand, Osho is enough condescending with the use of drugs by the youth (2006a, 138; 2006c, 81-82; 1999,124-125), when he says that he sees it like a wild attempt of the youth to destruct the ego and to enter spirituality, and considers that the computers are 'artificial minds', that could replace the human mind with several advantages. "The computer allows man to meditate. The computer can be a big quantum jump, a split with many of the conditionings of the past" (2007b, 156). For him, the psychological memory will disappear (2007b, 177) and the factual memory will become more precise (1999, 151). Furthermore, Osho believes that the "unconsciousness is not innate"; it is a sub-product of the civilization (2007b, 143). What leads us to a second pair of opposite concepts.
The theme of fear (2004, 123) surpasses Osho’s entire discourse. One can find it as the opposite of love (of the love-blessing as well as of the love-need that for times he refuses to even call love) (7) or as a natural instinct to be respected, as a society mechanism of control over the person, as a challenge to the overcoming its limits, among others. For Osho, 'courage' is the inclination to live in uncertainty; confidence is the disposal to live in the unreliability. “Do not call it uncertainty – call it amazement; do not call unreliability, call it freedom” (OSHO, 1999). Courage is to face the unknown despite the fear. Counter -phobic bravery is not fearlessness. The man becomes fearless accepting his fears. (1999, 153), risking what is known for what is unknown. Plus: a fearless man not only ‘do not fear anyone', but also is not feared by anyone.
In this logic, the fear, when accepted, becomes freedom, the denied fear becomes guilt. Then, the only way to transcend the fear of the death is to accept it. Then, the energy spent with fear turns into liberty. “Everyone have fear. But why? Nobody has nothing to lose” (1999, 87). According to Osho, the fear acts in the mind keeping all under the control of the system of beliefs, preventing the natural development of man. On the other hand, he believes also that, the greater the risk, the greater is the possibility of personal and spiritual growth.
E in this sense, the biggest fear of the world is the opinion of the others (1999, 113). On one way everybody fears intimacy. We are strange to ourselves and the intimacy reveals us. Yet, everybody wants intimacy. Having nothing to hide is to accept oneself. Unpretentious simplicity inspires confidence (2006b, 11-12). Osho calls this `Vulnerability' (2004, 209). We are born free of conditionings, intuitive and we naturally trust the people and ourselves. And to this innate spontaneity, the he calls ‘Innocence'. To be innocent is to remain ignorant despite knowledge and to trust. “Not to act for the sake of the past, to remain willing to learn and look for happiness in small things" (1999, 119). But, so that the innocence and the vulnerability do not deteriorate into ingenuity and in irresponsibility, Osho develops the notion of Maturity (2004, 120), which is to accept the responsibility of being (8). Society destroys our self-confidence and it teaches us to trust the institutions (the beliefs). And once one does not trust himself, and also do not trust anyone it starts to believe in abstract ideas, shaping him into the social configurations. Society itself is nothing more than a belief that depends on others and all its structure is self-hypnotic. (2006b, 43) Together with socialization, there is loss of confidence, adoption of beliefs and elaboration of masks to conceal our intimacy from others. Now, "everything that is concealed grows bigger; and everything that is exposed, if it is wrong, disappears" (1999, 163). Osho believes that the vulnerability put an end to falsehood of ego and allows a return to the original innocence with maturity. To be sincere is to be authentic (2006b, 31); it is to be truthful with oneself, "there is no other responsibility" (2006b, 41). In the moment in which you accept yourself you become open, vulnerable and receptive. To trust became an intransitive verb. "Start trusting yourself, then trust others and one day you will trust a stranger" (2006b, 49). "I don’t need to improve myself anymore" (2006b 125).
Other ethical themes constantly opposing the matter of fear imposed the conditioning to the system of beliefs in the speech of Osho are Joy and Compassion. Joy, for Osho, is above pleasure and happiness (2004, 15). For him, the pleasure is biological; happiness, psychological; and joy, spiritual. Joy is spiritual transcendence, it is beyond time and space. To accept Joy is to follow the stream of the events, being grateful for life, challenges and opportunities, to desist of impose conditions and demands. It is to fearlessly live the adventure of the present.
And joy, self-acceptance, vulnerability and innocence overflows to the feelings of compassion. The Compassion (2004, 39) is the higher form of love. Thus compassion should not be called com -passion (9), but instead counter-passion, therefore, for Osho, Compassion is the quality for where the energy goes when desire ceases. Compassion is to give love to all the beings, but without feeling sorry of them. Osho defends compassion without mercy, which helps others for proper benefit. For him the idea of charity is a delusion (2004, 32). And true compassion is a form of universal not-altruist love (2007a, 147-154).
Observe that Osho proceeds to a re-interpretation of many important Buddhist concepts: happiness, which becomes more psychological; compassion, that is impersonal and becomes less merciful; and acceptance, which starts to not be so conformist but actually puts on rebellious way “to give the other cheek”. Osho distinguishes reacting (mechanically) from answering (conscientiously). In various moments, he affirms that total acceptance of oneself and life does not imply in conforming to the inequalities of the world (2004, 23). By the way, the word ‘Responsibility' in Osho´s spelling book, means the capacity to answer creatively to reality and not to respect the obligations imposed by society (2006b, 173; 2004, 158).
Life itself is meaningless, it is necessary to provide life with a meaning, that is creativity (1999, 193). And if you do not to use your energy in a creative manner, you will use in a destructive way. In relation to you and in relation to nature. Nature gives creative energy to all us, and it only becomes destructive when obstructed. The creativity is the higher form of rebelliousness. To create it is necessary to breach with the conditioning of the past. The ones that sleep are mechanical, act on collective behavior, do not create. The creative one is solitary and non conformist. Osho considers the emergency of intuition and creativity a resultant of the development process in which the person becomes more and more individual, singular and free of the collective social identities. Everything begins with the relaxation that leads to energy saving and to a change of standards from the destructive to the creative standards. The instinct is to the body what intuition is to the soul (2006c, 27-28): "When a person is completely creative, she transcends sex without repressing it" (2004, 172).
There is not exactly repression to sexuality, but the obstruction of the energy that should be used creatively. The question is not sex itself, but the use it is given to it (10). A very important point that Osho constantly makes, throughout his work, is a structural analogy between orgasm and nirvana, in several levels of speech. As far as contents are concerned, one can achieve illumination through catharsis, and the orgasm is treated in a sacred way. But, the analogy has also a subtler aspect in the form the speech of Osho treats the whole process of development of the conscience. "Do you want to be an unhappy person? Then ignore the needs of your body and follow your mind desires". Do you want to be happy? Answer your biological requests and silence your mind, just observe your desires, whereas they are aversion or greed. You become more and more intuitive, more creative. And, continuing like this, one day, illumination will blast inside you.
Said like this it may seem easy. To fast, to sleep little, not to keep sexual relations, not to speak, to be in static position - not to mention mortification - are common practices among Christians, Buddhists, Jewish, and Muslims mystics. And how come every religious tradition always preferred ascese, which is the privation from the senses and necessities? And organized religions had transformed the voluntary ascese of the mystics into sexual repression to the masses, losing the holiness of sexuality and instituting guilt as a form of social control.
Re-inserting sacred sex as a spiritual practice in the Occidental person during the counterculture context of liberation of the customs, Osho re-invented the ‘art erotica' of the East as one new catharsis therapy (something quite different from traditional Tantra) - what it is, without a doubt, something really creative.
Original Tantra is a mystical, vertical path, in which the main goal is to higher the apprentice to transcendence and to the Divine Unity. Osho’s Tantra (2004, 186) gives much emphasis to affectivity, to horizontal relation with the Other, the overcoming obstructed emotions and psychological problems. The masculine homossexuality in the traditional context is condemned, once that the energy poles are essential. For Osho, the sex between tantric partners is secondary before the feeling and the affection necessary to develop the kundalini. Therefore, there are many different approaches, resultant from various historical contexts.
Actually, this transformation of spiritual practices in therapies of catharsis (or he would be the opposite?) is a characteristic of the techniques prescribed by Osho, such as the dancing meditations - the chaotic, dynamic, kundalini meditations, the meditation of gossip (to chatter until silence) an others less known - and the initiating process known as Mistic Rose (a week of laughers, a week of crying and a week of full attention). All of them aim to put an end to body tension, and the relaxation allows conscience: "It is necessary to put outside the big gorilla within you" (2001,105).
And in straight opposition to the re-direction of sexual energy to creativity and intuition is the matter of the spiritual liberty in opposition to politics and the dissociation between the mechanical activities and conscious action (1999, 26).
"Enjoy life to celebrate, do not waste time fighting or battling for anything to change" (2006d, 112). For Osho, we are born free, but the society redefined with rules the individual liberty. According to him, no society up to this day helped a human to be realized as a person.
And only the humans need rules; the others animals do not follow them. Osho believes that the social rules are contrary to the natural evolution of the individuals and those new forms of collectiveness will arise from the developing of the individuals. Actually, to Osho, the society does not exist (2006d, 11-28; 2004, 178), it is only a word. Tor him, the collectivity is an abstraction made by concrete individuals.
It is not suitable to doubt of the uprightness of this opinion, which is, if Osho really believes this insanity (that contradicts all sociology’s history) of individuals (that only began to exist really after the French revolution ) being less (or more) abstract that the society. The important thing is to observe that Osho makes politics when seems to condemn it.
“I am an Anarchist of a very different dimension. First, let the people to prepare, and then the governments will disappear on their own. I am not in favor of ending up with governments; they are filling a necessity. The man is so barbarian, so vile, that, if he was not stopped by force, all society would be in chaos.” [...] “The governments will evaporate as dew drops under the morning sun” [...] “I am not against the government, I am against the need for a government.” (2006d 96-98).
Another controversial opinion is of that the family is the cause of all our problems (2006d, 28) and it is obsolete (2006d, 24). It appeared with the private property (as Plato and Marx sais) but it will be replaced by the commune (P.25). Osho never voted (2004, 63), he said “what exists today is no democracy” (2006c, 105) and is in favor of a world-wide government (2007b, 43). For him, the difference between authority and authoritarianism is that in the first decision comes from who obeys as in the second it is imposed (2006d, 35).
One of the most important ideas of Osho is that “the time is horizontal and the eternity is vertical” (2005, 100-101; 2004, 202). Horizontally, we are all equal, we are graded even by death; however, some people are closer to eternity than others. E this verticalization has two equally important consequences to understand the ideas of Osho: 1) Makes us singular as individuals in the spiritual evolution process; it is the experience of eternity that brings the development of the conscience; and 2) it establishes a spiritual (and political) hierarchy; there are ones that are closer to the eternity (they are more responsible) and the ones that still are distant. According to Osho, the man who moves vertically is a mirror (2005, 103), in which other men (that move exclusively horizontally) see themselves. And that, at the same time that confers a natural authority to indistinct men, generates also greater loneliness and singularity.
In another text, Osho says that the animals live their lives horizontally, and only mankind, upon getting in touch with eternity acquires a soul (2006d, 64). Thus he approaches the theory defended by Castaneda and Gurdjieff, for whom there is not an eternal soul and only with a strong effort may escape from the second death.
In others moments, however, Osho affirms that "we are immortal" (2004, 99) and the eternity exists (2004, 75). The Eternity and the Transcendence of Osho regarding those thinkers is not reduced to this aspect, but puts in discussion, even though partially, the perceptive relativism and the Universal.
Osho thinks through paradoxes (Koans Zen): He is said to be against the moral and prescribes how a person should live; he is a thinker that disqualifies thought; is a snappish critic of the traditions and of the political authorities who presents as solution the radical individualism (the end of the family) and the theocratic commune, based in the consensual recognition of the more spiritualized. Defends the hyper-realism of the conscience fighting against the conditioning beliefs and an defends an instant illumination that no one had ever saw. But, the greater contradiction, the one that, according to Osho himself, summarizes all the other, is the paradoxical ideal of master-rebel: the image of Zorba, the Buda.
Let’s Imagine we are in a closed room, where there is only one toilet and all the people present suddenly have the urge to use it. In a first paradigm that we’ll call pre-conventional or natural, the criterion for choice of the first to use the bathroom would be ‘the strongest, the faster, and/or the smarter’. On a second moment, in a paradigm which we’ll name conventional or cultural, there would be rules: “ the oldest, women and children first’. Still, a third paradigm is possible, where the choice would be made through quiet looks and would take in account the specific situation of each.
In the scope of improvement psychology, Wilber (2000, 33) defined these behaviors: the pre-conventional are those behaviors egocentric that refuse to submit to the social rules and the post-conventional are the behaviors that rebel against the rules that discipline them, that ‘break the rules from the inside’.
I believe that we are making the transition from the conventional paradigm to the third level, based on a not arbitrary coordination of the relations, in which it is possible a deregulation, where the differences and pluralities could be integrated on natural interdependent flows.
The conventional level is democratic, communitarian, ecological. It comes to the decisions through the consensus in interminable debates. Strongly equalitarian , anti-hierarchic and pluralists values, social construction of reality, diversity, subjectivism, multi-culture, systems of relativists values; this vision of the world is called by Wilber of ‘relative pluralism'. In the post-conventional level, the equalitarism is complemented with natural degrees of hierarchy and excellence. Knowledge and capability must take over power, statute or group sensitivity. The main priorities are flexibility, spontaneousness and functionality.
The major difficulty passing from the level of conventional to the post-conventional relationship is the issue of authority. In the
conventional paradigm, the authority is elected and, in the post-conventional paradigm, It is natural and technical (although recognized by everyone). The difficulty to distinguish the imposed social hierarchies from the natural hierarchies (or holarchies, as Wilber calls it) is what prevents us to live in a post-conventional paradigm - what would be equal to say in our example: our incapacity to give the key to the toilet to the elderly person so she would coordinate the entrance.
"Leave society as it is. Do not fight with it" (2006d, 27). Osho calls us to be a silent transformer and not a revolutionary. In the revolutionary, there is dissociation between 'from' and 'for'. In the rebel, destruction and creativity walk together. He was able to define insurrections as disobedience to the constituted authority, to the imposed social hierarchies, as well as defining it as not observance of negotiated and consensually accepted rules. The first one is a vertical rebelliousness that brings the desire of a liberty 'from' who oblige us to do things we don’t want to. The second is insurrection 'for' the others and for ourselves, horizontally, and puts on us the matter of discipline.
If someone establish a difference between the rebelliousness against the social institutions (in fact, against the conditioning of the system of beliefs) and insurrection as personal indiscipline, indolence or incapacity of achieving one’s own goals will then be demarcating a clear border between Osho and Sebastião Mota. To Osho, insurrection is synonym of intelligence. "It is necessary to learn how to say no definitely, therefore it is the only way to reach the point from which one is able to say yes" (2004,152). And Discipline "stands more for a methodology to make us more centered, more alert, more receptive [...]” (2004, 58). The word `discipline' comes from the word `disciple' (1999, 129) and means ‘capacity to learn' (2005, 167- 168). To Osho, obedience castrates the creativity progress (2004, P. 133) and it easies the burden of responsibility, keeping people in unconsciousness. The machines obey consciencelessly. “Everything that is made on behalf of the duty (and not of the joy) is ugly” (2004, 55). The notion of `responsibility', as we saw, is redefined as the “capacity to answer”, being dismissed of any content close to ideas of duty and obligation.
It is clearly that Osho and Sebastião Mota had lived in different contexts and had spoken before much different public. Osho spoke for rich and stressed Europeans, in its majority in a post-conventional stage of development; Padrinho Sebastião spoke for ‘ayahuascerians’ and poor rubber extractors of Acre, in their majority on pre - conventional stage of development. But, even taking in account these context differences, it is possible to discern that the speech of Osho confuses social revolt with spiritual indiscipline. For Osho, the true men do not have ideals (2006b, 39); to live in uncertainty is to live in simplicity; it is to live without ideals (2007b, 141-142; 2004, 176). But, sometimes, there comes certain confusion between simplicity and simplification. Simplicity is profound; the simplification, superficial. The excessive emphasis on the present time (and the inconsideration of historical and social realities) leads to not go on deeper study of the conditions that structuralize the person in the world. E radical acceptance of oneself (not provided with social responsibility social with others and summed to the lack of effort on ethical improvement) leads to the accommodation of some of his readers in pre-conventional stage. But, even with all these small objections, it is impossible to not recognize the importance of the ideas of Osho for the contemporary esoteric thought, to such point that several of his ideas and subjects still are unconsciously blended with the form of thinking of the present spiritualist generations.
Besides, I feel, considered the proportions, in a similar situation to the one described by Carlos Castaneda, when he had his perception divided in two by Don Juan and Don Genaro: while one called its first attention to the tonal-horizontal, the material world; the other fixed his second attention of the nagual-vertical one, the eternity.
In my case, however, the situation is imaginary and the polarity between Padrinho Sebastião and Osho, lived in the dream I told in the beginning of this text, influenced me for many years without me consciously noticing.
Therefore, here it is the critical homage of this applied, let say, anti-disciple of the Osho. As a proof of my gratitude and of my recognition to his priceless contribution to the our growth and, especially, to our liberty.
The night of January 19th 1990, night of Saint Sebastian, the same in which African- Brazilian Candomblé celebrates the cult to Oxossi, Orisha who is the master of the forest, had a great significance for my spiritual life.
First, due to the death of Sebastião Mota, leader of the Santo Daime wing of which I participate up to this day, in the city of São Sebastião do Rio de Janeiro. The very same day, with a difference of a few hours, in the city of Puna, in India, another great spiritual leader was to expire: Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, the Osho.
In the occasion I had a dream in which, inside a checkered circular room, there was a polarity between the figures of Padrinho Sebastião, using a white Daime uniform and with a black beard, and Osho using a black tunic and with a white beard – both impassible, into deep meditation. The room started to become oval, similar to the Chinese symbol of Yin/Yang and took off, taking both to the distant sky.
But let me open a small parenthesis to better explain who Sebastião Mota is. The Padrinho Sebastião I met was a person of multiple contrast: very serious and also very joyful and playful: calm and patient at the same time that stubborn and perseverant; a man of great knowledge, but yet a very humble student and diligent on the subject related to spirituality.
He was born in Eirunepé, in the state of the Amazon, in the rubber extraction reserve of Monte Ligia in the 1920; he started to work as a healer in the Juruá Valley, yet in the Kardecist doctrine. He moved to Rio Branco with his family approximately in 1957, seven years later he met Raimundo Irineu Serra and the Santo Daime. He worked also together with the “Esoteric Circle of Thought Communion” with Mestre Irineu and always kept on the wall of his room his diploma on a frame. He founded the 5000 colony, emphasizing communitarian life in his doctrine’s proposal. In 1980 he transferred the community, which was in the surroundings of Rio Branco, to a virgin area in the deep forest, called rubber extraction reserve of Rio do Ouro. In 1982 he also founded, on the state of Amazonas, the village Céu do Mapiá; headquarter of his religious and philanthropical organization, called Cefluris.
He was also a key person on many spiritual services in various countries of every continent on earth. However, for me, the greater contribution of Mota was not the international expansion, the communal life, or even the polemic adoption of other plants in the ceremonies of Santo Daime, but really a certain relation with the idea of urgency and with the end of times. And that is expressed in his hymn book: The Justice Maker. A hymn book reflects the training of the person that received it and expresses his spiritual biography, with the tests and experiences that he faced during his life. When begin in the doctrine, I did not like the hymn book of the Padrinho (2). I found it was full of "whip" and of "sinners come to regret" and so on. Until the day when I had a dream with a friend (Luis Fernando Nobre) in which he said "You only get hit because you feel guilty and sorry for yourself. Sing the hymns as a justice maker and not as a justice defendant." That was a key to me. I uncovered that, in the first person of the present tense ( I ), The Justice Maker is a weapon against everything that really oppressed and injured me. But the years passed and I saw also another side: People singing the Padrinho’s hymn book to put the 'peia' (3) over others, without examining their conscience. I discovered, then, a second secret: Not be punished and neither to want to correct the others. One should love the others like themselves. To love yourself a lot or to love others more than oneself, is a way of getting out of the razor’s edge of the hymn book.
Thus the teaching of the Justice Maker is a very fine study, in between those two mistaken opposite interpretations (masochist and sadistic). Today, after many services to Padrinho’s hymn books and years of spiritual work, I notice that the idea that "ceremony without punishment nobody knows what is going to do" (excluded all the guilt and auto-punishment mechanisms of the Christian ideology and considering only with aspect of discipline) drifts from of the idea of irreversible time - one of the main signs of the philosophy and the spiritual practice of Sebastião Mota. It is common among the Santo Daime followers that search to follow exclusively the teachings of Mestre Irineu a certain way to understand time in which everything is perpetual, with an emphasis in calmness and spiritual security. The punishment, in this understanding, it is only a clean up, necessary to syntonize with the universal and to find you within the Divine. (4)
On the other side, the conception of the Padrinho Sebastião followers is more warlike, emphasizing the end of world and of the possibility of the perpetual death (or that only who deserves reincarnates). In this perspective, "substance is on the edge" - as it affirms one of the last hymns of his son Alfredo. In this conception, it is necessary to pay attention to the instant and to the detail. There is a "feeling of emergency" that impels us to the Master’s Eternity (a promise of the hymn book). And this ‘urgency’ on constructing a better world it must be considered his greater contribution. The discipline, in this chronological context (that count time backwards), is a conscientious and constant effort of adapting to the immediate present. Padrinho Sebastião was a man who learned to read singing his own hymn book. He was a coherent man (that fought to place his ideas in his life and to place his life in his ideas) and died as a warrior battling for what he believed. Sebastião Mota de Melo passed away of cardiac problems in 20th of January 1990, day of Saint Sebastian, in the city of São Sebastião do Rio de Janeiro, doing what he wanted and what he liked to do most, singing his own hymn book during a spiritual work - in the same day of Rajneesh.
This said, we come back to Osho.
Despite having already have read some books of Rajneesh and liking it, my dream (then interpreted in a tendentious way, as if being a war between good and evil) caused me to nourish, for many years, certain dislike by the teachings of Osho. Today, I realize that Rajneesh "is not evil"; on the contrary, he is someone that should be respected, not just as a singular spiritual leader, but, especially, as one of the most important personalities of our time. I comprehend, also, that the polarity between him and Padrinho Sebastião is complementary, representing the contradiction between discipline and surrender. What is to say: While the Padrinho (re-interpreting the Christian tradition) prescribes the sacrifice, the firmness and renunciation as forms of ethical improvement, the main message of Osho is the vulnerability and the pleasurable surrender to life. In fact, always I liked the texts and the ideas of Rajneesh; however, always felt something, a gap between his words and his spiritual practices, that leaded me to suspect of the seriousness of his teachings.
In order to practice the theory of the Avatars, according to which a enlightened being was born to save the spirit of humanity every two thousand years, as described in the Secret Doctrine of Lady Blavatsky, its main disciple and successor in the direction of the Theosophical Order, Annie Besant assigned herself with the mission of locating and preparing the person that would be new Avatar. She found an Indian young man and took him to study in England. That fact had as immediate consequence the dissension opened by Steiner: the Anthroposophy.
However, few months before assuming the direction of real empire organized for his return, Krisnamurti gave up to carry out the destination for which he had been educated, and initiated a crusade in favor of meditation and the development of the conscience above any system of beliefs or rituals. For Rajneesh, Krisnamurti was weak and did not receive the solar spirit he was destined to incorporate. Thus, he had the incumbency of fulfilling the mission of being the Avatar, starting to be called Osho, originally a title of reverence given to certain masters in the tradition of the Zen Buddhism. Even he not being a Buddhist or a master pertaining the Zen tradition, from a certain moment in the 80’s Rajneesh passed to call himself Osho.
In another work (GOMES, 2001), without entering in merit of the ideas of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (in fact, Rajneesh Chandra Mohan Jain) nor of his pretension on calling himself Osho and consider himself the Avatar of the New Age, I affirmed that one of its most important contributions was his net organization marketing – what generally passes disregarded to his critics, as well as to his defenders. Beyond Tantra as head car (of which we will speak ahead), Rajneesh had re-launched a series of esoteric products of other chains and traditions with his brand (Osho’s tarot, Osho’s massage, Osho’s dances, Osho’s Reike and so on). But, instead of a new synthesis of these practical techniques, Rajneesh created a `spiritual surmounting' in decentralized nets, as a transnational identity of planetary extension: the Osho brand.
Actually, Rajneesh formulated a synthesis “Buddha-Zorba”, a spirituality that congregates the meditating aspect of Buddhism and the joy of living, the dancing and to right to be amused by the Zorba personage, the Greek. (OSHO, 2004, 214; 1999, 15).
In the media, Osho was known as the guru of sex and of the rich people – due to his attitude against sexual repression and to his fleet of 93 Rolls-Royces that existed in his commune in the United States, called 'Rajneeshpuram' that received, in the beginning of the 80’s, thousands of visitors from everywhere. Osho was accused, by the state government of Oregon of perversion, brainwashing and fiscal evasion; his disciples were involved in a case of poisoning and of electoral fraud. He was arrested and subsequently deported of the United States. In July of 1986, Osho goes back to India and install himself once again in Puna and founds a Multiversity (not a University) of Spiritual Studies (5). In November of 1987, his doctors diagnosed him with generalized deterioration of his physical condition, due to poisoning by thallium, a heavy metal whose effect is slow, progressive, and deadly. During a public speech, Osho affirmed that The U.S.A. government had slowly poisoned him during the 12 days when he was in jail.
The reasoning of Rajneesh is displayed in more than 1000 books, although he had never wrote a single one. His books are transcriptions of recorded excerpts from lectures made in different moments and for different public. Texts that, after time elapse, started being rewritten by his followers (6). Suspect, however, that the Osho is not only a person, but an institution. In that sense, the posthumous compilation ‘Autobiography of a spiritually incorrect mystic’ (2000) allows a clear glimpse, even it being a text edited in a way to conceal the differences, of three phases of Osho: before, during and after his passage by the U.S.A. In his last years, he improved his meditations and central ideas. That’s when he got to the optimum point of his production.
Furthermore, different transversal reading strategies are possible over these three phases of the work of Osho. One can, for example, observe his discourse about different traditions (Buddhism (s), Zen, Taoism, Christianity, and Muslimism). Another interesting strategy would be to analyze his books on meditative and therapeutical practices (as ‘The Book Orange’ or ‘Pharmacy of Soul’) or still study his interpretations of stories, narratives, anecdotes, legends and cases that he frequently uses to explain his ideas.
Would it be possible, from the point of the discursive analysis of his main books, to reconstitute a conception of world, a doctrine or even a coherent set of teachings and ways of thinking? Yes, clearly. There are recurrent subjects and a proper philosophy with constant characteristics: anarchy, relativism, hedonism and anti-rationalism with emphasis for instinct and intuition.
We choose, for the purpose of study, the `sanniasi ideology' the ‘moral’ texts of Osho. For `moral' understand prescriptive texts organized in ten books of the collection `Tips for a new way of living' on different ethical subjects: freedom, intuition, creativity, joy, maturity, courage, intimacy, intelligence, compassion and conscience. Clearly Osho would not like his prescriptive texts to be called moral, therefore he is not a moralist in the normative sense, which is, does not establishes rules for behavior (2004, 127). Nevertheless, these texts suggest ethical behavioral procedures to the ones who aim spiritual freedom. E this could also can be considered ‘moral'.
Initially it is necessary to observe that Osho is part of an international context and time, guarding several points in common with others contemporary esoteric thinkers, such as Castaneda and Gurdjieff, as well as with critical authors, adept of the libertarian philosophy of the 60’s. Ken Wilber (2000, 33) is the one who better characterizes the philosophy of the counterculture movement as relativist pluralism.
In this way of thinking there are no reasoning rules that transcend what is accepted by a society or epoch. The value of something is the value that the people attribute to it and each person has the legitimate right to attribute value differently. The human thought and action are inherently local, rooted in variable facts of nature and human history. For Wilber, the main characteristic of the counterculture’s relativist pluralism is that it can not perceive or admit that its form of think is also relative to a historical and social context (being inserted in a chart of universal references) and that, by excluding universalisms and radically affirming relativeness, it is being absolute.
In the academic field of post-modern deconstructivism, which believes every behavior to be culturally relative and socially built; he is the main representative relativist pluralism. And, in the esoteric field, besides Osho, there are also thinkers as Gurdjieff and Castaneda, whose characteristics are very keen to post-modern thought, mainly in the radical refusal to 'New Gnosis', Platonism and on the adoption of an experimental and empirical perspective, in opposition to the beliefs imposed by social conditioning (2004, 79). Relativism here is perceptive (and not merely discursive): there is not an objective reality and we are conditioned to believe it as in a collective mirage, a matrix out of which we should escape, a dream out of which we should wake up.
That rebellious character before society is the main common feature between Osho and the anti-Gnostic esoterism, but there are also other important similarities mainly in relation to Gurdjieff, who is very cited by Osho. For Osho, for example, we are all sleeping in a state of unconsciousness and automatism; we need to take a shock in order to awake our conscience (OSHO, 2001, 11). Ours multiple ‘selves’ are like ‘dampers’ that stop the shocks of life to wake us up. The ‘selves' waste our energy (OSHO, 2004, 75), preventing us to become more complete and conscientious. The idea that it is necessary to reorganize and to save our proper energy, mainly the sexual energy, is also common to Osho, Gurdjieff and Castaneda. There are also minor similarities as not celebrating birthdays and festive days. For Osho, life is a celebration (2004, 35).
In this sense, Osho as well as Gurdjieff and Castaneda are skeptical and hyper-realistic, focusing almost exclusively in the social unconditioning of the individual conscience. They, then thought to escape the system of beliefs. But their beliefs are what forge their experiences, and these, on its turn forms and strengthens the beliefs. In the case of Osho, the refusal in admitting his beliefs (as also the beliefs of the ones who worship the concrete experience in general) resulted in a subjectivist relativism in which everything is matter of opinion. And perhaps this may be the main problem to undertake a systematic critic of Osho.
This due to two reasons. One, the form how he places his ideas; especially before being banish from U.S.A., Osho speaks in the condition of illuminated, of someone that had already reached nirvana and it is guiding those who desire to be where he had already arrived. The ontological superiority, this privileged place of speech and of the enunciator, of someone who already experienced the lighting is what gives Osho a discursive authority to be radically subjective.
Another difficulty, connected to the empirical subjectivism of Osho, is that he advocates his right to have his opinion just as his critics have the right to discord of him. He gives himself the right of, by example, to say that Nietzsche drove crazy because he envied Jesus Christ (2006d, 114) or to say that the parents destroy their kids’ intelligence in order to enslave them (2007b, 123). It is possible to make a long inventory of pure opinions and rhetorical silliness.
Controversial? More: provocative. Osho is always against consensus and common sense, makes an issue about swimming against the flow and show the other side of everything: he is against Christianity and in favor of Jesus; he is against all the religions and in favor of all the forms of spirituality, etc.
In fact, Osho has his own vocabulary, nevertheless there is a compilation called Osho from A to Z – a dictionary of the Here and Now (OSHO, 2004), in which several words are redefined according to his way of thinking, some being over-rated, while others are disqualified. For example, Osho strongly avoids the words 'Absolute' and 'Abstract' (2004, 11); ‘Abstinence', for him, is a perversion; never uses the word 'renunciation' (2001.11; 2004, 154) do not like the word 'friend', and neither 'friendship' (2006d, 84). There is also various themes – such as fear, compassion, meditation and liberty – that penetrate every text and that is why they are difficult to be precised. Others, secondary, need redefinition – as is the case of the notions of responsibility, discipline, intelligence and maturity. Still, there are also paradoxical themes.
But, it is Osho himself who points out some key concepts, as in the case of the 3 C’s (1999, 13): Conscience (regarding existence and opposing mind and ego), Compassion (referring to feeling e generally opposed to fear) and Creativity (referring to the action field and opposing to political activity)
“The world is the rainbow; the mind, the prism; and the being the light ray”. (2006c, 168). The mind is like a package of the conscience; one is peripheral, the other one is in the center (2001, 60). We are like an onion with overlapping rinds and different levels of conscience: of the body, the thoughts, the feelings and the conscience of conscience, or `the observer' (2001, 13). In another book (2006c), the onion has six layers: the senses (2006c, 111), the conditionings of the systems of beliefs (P. 117), rationalizations, sentimentalism, the repression and the corrupted intuition.
“The mind is the memory, you are the conscience” (2001, 112). For Osho, the mind is in the past and conscience is a synonym of present perception. Conscience is `reminding one self' (Gurdjieff) and the mind is forgetfulness. “The mind is a deposit of bitterness” (2004, 86), it collects wounds and insults. According to Osho: “The only sin that exists is unconsciousness, the only virtue is conscience” (2001, 164).
By the way, for Osho, `the empty mind is not the Devil’s office', but actually the holy cradle of creativity (1999, 21; 2004, 130). Meditation and silence are the methods to keep the mind silent and reach conscience (2005, 155). And according to Osho (2001, 182), the mystic Mahavira affirms that forty-eight minutes of perfect Vipassana meditation, plain of continuous attention (of conscience) on the breathing lead to illumination. Actually, one of its more repetitive fixed ideas is that one should not try to be a better person nor make any effort in the sense of improvement.
"Be yourself instead of trying to be what you are not. Live the gratitude of being and not the neurosis of should be" – affirms, without explaining the contradiction of prescribing to persons that 'want to be' to just ‘be’. This is an important point. It is necessary to Be and not to Become. For Osho, 'to be a better person' is a disgraceful desire (2004, 169; 1999, 42). One have to be total in every act, try to be integer, spontaneous, intense, authentic – immediately and every second.
There is, therefore, two paths (2004, 30): the path of instant illumination, the awakening of conscience to the present in one only shock (is the 'way with no way’ - idea taken from the Zen that Osho repeats constantly) and the path of self improvement, that happens through several shocks from which the person starts changing its energy standards and evolving, until it comes to the absence of unconscious desires. Osho speaks very little and nearly always on a negative form about the self improvement path. For him, what is important is the immediate presentification of conscience. To the ones who do not achieve the instant illumination (personally, I had never heard of anyone), remains the expectation:
Expectation must be pure. Enjoy expectation itself, without wanting anything more. Don’t you see the beauty of only expect? The purity, the blessing, the innocence? Just to expect, without even knowing what will come up. [...] On realizing that there is not how to imagine the future, there is not how to imagine the unknown, then what is known ceases and all the ideas inside the mind disappear: the ideas about God, the ideas about Samadhi, illumination, all of them disappear. This disappearance is where illumination occurs [...] But one thing is certain: to wait is infinitely beautiful, the expectation is infinitely flooding with joy. (OSHO, 2004, 69-70)
There are many illnesses, but one only remedy: conscience. “My entire message is summarized in this: you need conscience, you do not need principles” (2001, 166). By the way, there are two words in English to assign the conscience: consciousness and conscience (2001, 171). Thus, `conscience' for Osho is not the moral or mental conscience, but the immediate perception of the present, without taking in account the values that contextualizes it (2001, 175).
At other moments, the conscience is opposed to the ego, to the intellect and the rational activity. For such, also the idea of Intelligence is redefined. According to Osho, `Intelligence' is not the capacity of survival of the most adapted, but the capacity to solve new problems. It is not acquired culturally, on the opposite, the human being is born intelligent, is the society that numbs it (2007b, 33). Intelligence is a gift of nature, is innate and intrinsic to life. Only mankind is stupid, the universe is intelligent. We are born without ego, the ego is a mirror for us to see ourselves through the others because we fear to look ourselves face-to-face (2004, 62).
True intelligence is intuitive and comes from heart (2007b, 27). It is naturally rebellious, won’t accept training. Alternatively, the mind is external and collective, a set of beliefs acquired by the ego that, on its turn, was structuralized socially. The Knowledge (intellectual) it is not Realization (experiential) of the conscience. However, Osho’s rationalism sometimes incur in exaggeration.
For example: "Intuition cannot be explained scientifically because is irrational" (2006c, 09). Intuition nowadays is seen by the neuron sciences as a cognitive shortcut between neurons, as a creative synapse. Nowadays we explain intuition scientifically, even confirming the ideas of Osho about the cognitive activity.
Several others examples of irrationalism exaggerations could be given, used for disqualify other forms of thinking. That is another of the contradictions of Osho: he is a thinker that disqualifies thought. On the other hand, Osho is enough condescending with the use of drugs by the youth (2006a, 138; 2006c, 81-82; 1999,124-125), when he says that he sees it like a wild attempt of the youth to destruct the ego and to enter spirituality, and considers that the computers are 'artificial minds', that could replace the human mind with several advantages. "The computer allows man to meditate. The computer can be a big quantum jump, a split with many of the conditionings of the past" (2007b, 156). For him, the psychological memory will disappear (2007b, 177) and the factual memory will become more precise (1999, 151). Furthermore, Osho believes that the "unconsciousness is not innate"; it is a sub-product of the civilization (2007b, 143). What leads us to a second pair of opposite concepts.
The theme of fear (2004, 123) surpasses Osho’s entire discourse. One can find it as the opposite of love (of the love-blessing as well as of the love-need that for times he refuses to even call love) (7) or as a natural instinct to be respected, as a society mechanism of control over the person, as a challenge to the overcoming its limits, among others. For Osho, 'courage' is the inclination to live in uncertainty; confidence is the disposal to live in the unreliability. “Do not call it uncertainty – call it amazement; do not call unreliability, call it freedom” (OSHO, 1999). Courage is to face the unknown despite the fear. Counter -phobic bravery is not fearlessness. The man becomes fearless accepting his fears. (1999, 153), risking what is known for what is unknown. Plus: a fearless man not only ‘do not fear anyone', but also is not feared by anyone.
In this logic, the fear, when accepted, becomes freedom, the denied fear becomes guilt. Then, the only way to transcend the fear of the death is to accept it. Then, the energy spent with fear turns into liberty. “Everyone have fear. But why? Nobody has nothing to lose” (1999, 87). According to Osho, the fear acts in the mind keeping all under the control of the system of beliefs, preventing the natural development of man. On the other hand, he believes also that, the greater the risk, the greater is the possibility of personal and spiritual growth.
E in this sense, the biggest fear of the world is the opinion of the others (1999, 113). On one way everybody fears intimacy. We are strange to ourselves and the intimacy reveals us. Yet, everybody wants intimacy. Having nothing to hide is to accept oneself. Unpretentious simplicity inspires confidence (2006b, 11-12). Osho calls this `Vulnerability' (2004, 209). We are born free of conditionings, intuitive and we naturally trust the people and ourselves. And to this innate spontaneity, the he calls ‘Innocence'. To be innocent is to remain ignorant despite knowledge and to trust. “Not to act for the sake of the past, to remain willing to learn and look for happiness in small things" (1999, 119). But, so that the innocence and the vulnerability do not deteriorate into ingenuity and in irresponsibility, Osho develops the notion of Maturity (2004, 120), which is to accept the responsibility of being (8). Society destroys our self-confidence and it teaches us to trust the institutions (the beliefs). And once one does not trust himself, and also do not trust anyone it starts to believe in abstract ideas, shaping him into the social configurations. Society itself is nothing more than a belief that depends on others and all its structure is self-hypnotic. (2006b, 43) Together with socialization, there is loss of confidence, adoption of beliefs and elaboration of masks to conceal our intimacy from others. Now, "everything that is concealed grows bigger; and everything that is exposed, if it is wrong, disappears" (1999, 163). Osho believes that the vulnerability put an end to falsehood of ego and allows a return to the original innocence with maturity. To be sincere is to be authentic (2006b, 31); it is to be truthful with oneself, "there is no other responsibility" (2006b, 41). In the moment in which you accept yourself you become open, vulnerable and receptive. To trust became an intransitive verb. "Start trusting yourself, then trust others and one day you will trust a stranger" (2006b, 49). "I don’t need to improve myself anymore" (2006b 125).
Other ethical themes constantly opposing the matter of fear imposed the conditioning to the system of beliefs in the speech of Osho are Joy and Compassion. Joy, for Osho, is above pleasure and happiness (2004, 15). For him, the pleasure is biological; happiness, psychological; and joy, spiritual. Joy is spiritual transcendence, it is beyond time and space. To accept Joy is to follow the stream of the events, being grateful for life, challenges and opportunities, to desist of impose conditions and demands. It is to fearlessly live the adventure of the present.
And joy, self-acceptance, vulnerability and innocence overflows to the feelings of compassion. The Compassion (2004, 39) is the higher form of love. Thus compassion should not be called com -passion (9), but instead counter-passion, therefore, for Osho, Compassion is the quality for where the energy goes when desire ceases. Compassion is to give love to all the beings, but without feeling sorry of them. Osho defends compassion without mercy, which helps others for proper benefit. For him the idea of charity is a delusion (2004, 32). And true compassion is a form of universal not-altruist love (2007a, 147-154).
Observe that Osho proceeds to a re-interpretation of many important Buddhist concepts: happiness, which becomes more psychological; compassion, that is impersonal and becomes less merciful; and acceptance, which starts to not be so conformist but actually puts on rebellious way “to give the other cheek”. Osho distinguishes reacting (mechanically) from answering (conscientiously). In various moments, he affirms that total acceptance of oneself and life does not imply in conforming to the inequalities of the world (2004, 23). By the way, the word ‘Responsibility' in Osho´s spelling book, means the capacity to answer creatively to reality and not to respect the obligations imposed by society (2006b, 173; 2004, 158).
Life itself is meaningless, it is necessary to provide life with a meaning, that is creativity (1999, 193). And if you do not to use your energy in a creative manner, you will use in a destructive way. In relation to you and in relation to nature. Nature gives creative energy to all us, and it only becomes destructive when obstructed. The creativity is the higher form of rebelliousness. To create it is necessary to breach with the conditioning of the past. The ones that sleep are mechanical, act on collective behavior, do not create. The creative one is solitary and non conformist. Osho considers the emergency of intuition and creativity a resultant of the development process in which the person becomes more and more individual, singular and free of the collective social identities. Everything begins with the relaxation that leads to energy saving and to a change of standards from the destructive to the creative standards. The instinct is to the body what intuition is to the soul (2006c, 27-28): "When a person is completely creative, she transcends sex without repressing it" (2004, 172).
There is not exactly repression to sexuality, but the obstruction of the energy that should be used creatively. The question is not sex itself, but the use it is given to it (10). A very important point that Osho constantly makes, throughout his work, is a structural analogy between orgasm and nirvana, in several levels of speech. As far as contents are concerned, one can achieve illumination through catharsis, and the orgasm is treated in a sacred way. But, the analogy has also a subtler aspect in the form the speech of Osho treats the whole process of development of the conscience. "Do you want to be an unhappy person? Then ignore the needs of your body and follow your mind desires". Do you want to be happy? Answer your biological requests and silence your mind, just observe your desires, whereas they are aversion or greed. You become more and more intuitive, more creative. And, continuing like this, one day, illumination will blast inside you.
Said like this it may seem easy. To fast, to sleep little, not to keep sexual relations, not to speak, to be in static position - not to mention mortification - are common practices among Christians, Buddhists, Jewish, and Muslims mystics. And how come every religious tradition always preferred ascese, which is the privation from the senses and necessities? And organized religions had transformed the voluntary ascese of the mystics into sexual repression to the masses, losing the holiness of sexuality and instituting guilt as a form of social control.
Re-inserting sacred sex as a spiritual practice in the Occidental person during the counterculture context of liberation of the customs, Osho re-invented the ‘art erotica' of the East as one new catharsis therapy (something quite different from traditional Tantra) - what it is, without a doubt, something really creative.
Original Tantra is a mystical, vertical path, in which the main goal is to higher the apprentice to transcendence and to the Divine Unity. Osho’s Tantra (2004, 186) gives much emphasis to affectivity, to horizontal relation with the Other, the overcoming obstructed emotions and psychological problems. The masculine homossexuality in the traditional context is condemned, once that the energy poles are essential. For Osho, the sex between tantric partners is secondary before the feeling and the affection necessary to develop the kundalini. Therefore, there are many different approaches, resultant from various historical contexts.
Actually, this transformation of spiritual practices in therapies of catharsis (or he would be the opposite?) is a characteristic of the techniques prescribed by Osho, such as the dancing meditations - the chaotic, dynamic, kundalini meditations, the meditation of gossip (to chatter until silence) an others less known - and the initiating process known as Mistic Rose (a week of laughers, a week of crying and a week of full attention). All of them aim to put an end to body tension, and the relaxation allows conscience: "It is necessary to put outside the big gorilla within you" (2001,105).
And in straight opposition to the re-direction of sexual energy to creativity and intuition is the matter of the spiritual liberty in opposition to politics and the dissociation between the mechanical activities and conscious action (1999, 26).
"Enjoy life to celebrate, do not waste time fighting or battling for anything to change" (2006d, 112). For Osho, we are born free, but the society redefined with rules the individual liberty. According to him, no society up to this day helped a human to be realized as a person.
And only the humans need rules; the others animals do not follow them. Osho believes that the social rules are contrary to the natural evolution of the individuals and those new forms of collectiveness will arise from the developing of the individuals. Actually, to Osho, the society does not exist (2006d, 11-28; 2004, 178), it is only a word. Tor him, the collectivity is an abstraction made by concrete individuals.
It is not suitable to doubt of the uprightness of this opinion, which is, if Osho really believes this insanity (that contradicts all sociology’s history) of individuals (that only began to exist really after the French revolution ) being less (or more) abstract that the society. The important thing is to observe that Osho makes politics when seems to condemn it.
“I am an Anarchist of a very different dimension. First, let the people to prepare, and then the governments will disappear on their own. I am not in favor of ending up with governments; they are filling a necessity. The man is so barbarian, so vile, that, if he was not stopped by force, all society would be in chaos.” [...] “The governments will evaporate as dew drops under the morning sun” [...] “I am not against the government, I am against the need for a government.” (2006d 96-98).
Another controversial opinion is of that the family is the cause of all our problems (2006d, 28) and it is obsolete (2006d, 24). It appeared with the private property (as Plato and Marx sais) but it will be replaced by the commune (P.25). Osho never voted (2004, 63), he said “what exists today is no democracy” (2006c, 105) and is in favor of a world-wide government (2007b, 43). For him, the difference between authority and authoritarianism is that in the first decision comes from who obeys as in the second it is imposed (2006d, 35).
One of the most important ideas of Osho is that “the time is horizontal and the eternity is vertical” (2005, 100-101; 2004, 202). Horizontally, we are all equal, we are graded even by death; however, some people are closer to eternity than others. E this verticalization has two equally important consequences to understand the ideas of Osho: 1) Makes us singular as individuals in the spiritual evolution process; it is the experience of eternity that brings the development of the conscience; and 2) it establishes a spiritual (and political) hierarchy; there are ones that are closer to the eternity (they are more responsible) and the ones that still are distant. According to Osho, the man who moves vertically is a mirror (2005, 103), in which other men (that move exclusively horizontally) see themselves. And that, at the same time that confers a natural authority to indistinct men, generates also greater loneliness and singularity.
In another text, Osho says that the animals live their lives horizontally, and only mankind, upon getting in touch with eternity acquires a soul (2006d, 64). Thus he approaches the theory defended by Castaneda and Gurdjieff, for whom there is not an eternal soul and only with a strong effort may escape from the second death.
In others moments, however, Osho affirms that "we are immortal" (2004, 99) and the eternity exists (2004, 75). The Eternity and the Transcendence of Osho regarding those thinkers is not reduced to this aspect, but puts in discussion, even though partially, the perceptive relativism and the Universal.
Osho thinks through paradoxes (Koans Zen): He is said to be against the moral and prescribes how a person should live; he is a thinker that disqualifies thought; is a snappish critic of the traditions and of the political authorities who presents as solution the radical individualism (the end of the family) and the theocratic commune, based in the consensual recognition of the more spiritualized. Defends the hyper-realism of the conscience fighting against the conditioning beliefs and an defends an instant illumination that no one had ever saw. But, the greater contradiction, the one that, according to Osho himself, summarizes all the other, is the paradoxical ideal of master-rebel: the image of Zorba, the Buda.
Let’s Imagine we are in a closed room, where there is only one toilet and all the people present suddenly have the urge to use it. In a first paradigm that we’ll call pre-conventional or natural, the criterion for choice of the first to use the bathroom would be ‘the strongest, the faster, and/or the smarter’. On a second moment, in a paradigm which we’ll name conventional or cultural, there would be rules: “ the oldest, women and children first’. Still, a third paradigm is possible, where the choice would be made through quiet looks and would take in account the specific situation of each.
In the scope of improvement psychology, Wilber (2000, 33) defined these behaviors: the pre-conventional are those behaviors egocentric that refuse to submit to the social rules and the post-conventional are the behaviors that rebel against the rules that discipline them, that ‘break the rules from the inside’.
I believe that we are making the transition from the conventional paradigm to the third level, based on a not arbitrary coordination of the relations, in which it is possible a deregulation, where the differences and pluralities could be integrated on natural interdependent flows.
The conventional level is democratic, communitarian, ecological. It comes to the decisions through the consensus in interminable debates. Strongly equalitarian , anti-hierarchic and pluralists values, social construction of reality, diversity, subjectivism, multi-culture, systems of relativists values; this vision of the world is called by Wilber of ‘relative pluralism'. In the post-conventional level, the equalitarism is complemented with natural degrees of hierarchy and excellence. Knowledge and capability must take over power, statute or group sensitivity. The main priorities are flexibility, spontaneousness and functionality.
The major difficulty passing from the level of conventional to the post-conventional relationship is the issue of authority. In the
conventional paradigm, the authority is elected and, in the post-conventional paradigm, It is natural and technical (although recognized by everyone). The difficulty to distinguish the imposed social hierarchies from the natural hierarchies (or holarchies, as Wilber calls it) is what prevents us to live in a post-conventional paradigm - what would be equal to say in our example: our incapacity to give the key to the toilet to the elderly person so she would coordinate the entrance.
"Leave society as it is. Do not fight with it" (2006d, 27). Osho calls us to be a silent transformer and not a revolutionary. In the revolutionary, there is dissociation between 'from' and 'for'. In the rebel, destruction and creativity walk together. He was able to define insurrections as disobedience to the constituted authority, to the imposed social hierarchies, as well as defining it as not observance of negotiated and consensually accepted rules. The first one is a vertical rebelliousness that brings the desire of a liberty 'from' who oblige us to do things we don’t want to. The second is insurrection 'for' the others and for ourselves, horizontally, and puts on us the matter of discipline.
If someone establish a difference between the rebelliousness against the social institutions (in fact, against the conditioning of the system of beliefs) and insurrection as personal indiscipline, indolence or incapacity of achieving one’s own goals will then be demarcating a clear border between Osho and Sebastião Mota. To Osho, insurrection is synonym of intelligence. "It is necessary to learn how to say no definitely, therefore it is the only way to reach the point from which one is able to say yes" (2004,152). And Discipline "stands more for a methodology to make us more centered, more alert, more receptive [...]” (2004, 58). The word `discipline' comes from the word `disciple' (1999, 129) and means ‘capacity to learn' (2005, 167- 168). To Osho, obedience castrates the creativity progress (2004, P. 133) and it easies the burden of responsibility, keeping people in unconsciousness. The machines obey consciencelessly. “Everything that is made on behalf of the duty (and not of the joy) is ugly” (2004, 55). The notion of `responsibility', as we saw, is redefined as the “capacity to answer”, being dismissed of any content close to ideas of duty and obligation.
It is clearly that Osho and Sebastião Mota had lived in different contexts and had spoken before much different public. Osho spoke for rich and stressed Europeans, in its majority in a post-conventional stage of development; Padrinho Sebastião spoke for ‘ayahuascerians’ and poor rubber extractors of Acre, in their majority on pre - conventional stage of development. But, even taking in account these context differences, it is possible to discern that the speech of Osho confuses social revolt with spiritual indiscipline. For Osho, the true men do not have ideals (2006b, 39); to live in uncertainty is to live in simplicity; it is to live without ideals (2007b, 141-142; 2004, 176). But, sometimes, there comes certain confusion between simplicity and simplification. Simplicity is profound; the simplification, superficial. The excessive emphasis on the present time (and the inconsideration of historical and social realities) leads to not go on deeper study of the conditions that structuralize the person in the world. E radical acceptance of oneself (not provided with social responsibility social with others and summed to the lack of effort on ethical improvement) leads to the accommodation of some of his readers in pre-conventional stage. But, even with all these small objections, it is impossible to not recognize the importance of the ideas of Osho for the contemporary esoteric thought, to such point that several of his ideas and subjects still are unconsciously blended with the form of thinking of the present spiritualist generations.
Besides, I feel, considered the proportions, in a similar situation to the one described by Carlos Castaneda, when he had his perception divided in two by Don Juan and Don Genaro: while one called its first attention to the tonal-horizontal, the material world; the other fixed his second attention of the nagual-vertical one, the eternity.
In my case, however, the situation is imaginary and the polarity between Padrinho Sebastião and Osho, lived in the dream I told in the beginning of this text, influenced me for many years without me consciously noticing.
Therefore, here it is the critical homage of this applied, let say, anti-disciple of the Osho. As a proof of my gratitude and of my recognition to his priceless contribution to the our growth and, especially, to our liberty.
NOTES
[1] Also a reverence to Deepech (Stefan Lauschner), dear friend.
[2] Literally Godfather to Brazilians a respectful and yet very familiar term.
[3] Peia is the word given to a ‘bad trip’ when the ‘lesson’ of Santo Daime is too much to take.
[4] There is a general tendency to oppose “peia” (the punishment) to “miração” (the excellence) giving an moral idea of training of the ego, a brainwash where the hymns are self-hypnotic and the Daime becomes a chemical facilitator. For a more complex approach of the subject, there is an excellent scientific work of Leandro Okamoto Da Silva, published in the NEIP website: Marachimbé veio foi para apurar. Estudo sobre o Castigo simbólico, ou peia, no culto do Santo Daime. < http://www.neip.info/downloads/t_lea2.pdf >
[5] http://www.osho.com/
[6] http://www.oshobrasil.com.br/livros.htm
[7] “love is a subtle type of servitude” (2005, 87).
[8] Osho summarizes the biographical theory of the seven years cycles proposed by Anthroposophy (2005, 41)
[9] ‘Com’ in portuguese means ‘with’
[10] Osho has a similar position about the wealth "It is necessary to resign the mentality driven by money and not to money itself" (2004, 57).
[2] Literally Godfather to Brazilians a respectful and yet very familiar term.
[3] Peia is the word given to a ‘bad trip’ when the ‘lesson’ of Santo Daime is too much to take.
[4] There is a general tendency to oppose “peia” (the punishment) to “miração” (the excellence) giving an moral idea of training of the ego, a brainwash where the hymns are self-hypnotic and the Daime becomes a chemical facilitator. For a more complex approach of the subject, there is an excellent scientific work of Leandro Okamoto Da Silva, published in the NEIP website: Marachimbé veio foi para apurar. Estudo sobre o Castigo simbólico, ou peia, no culto do Santo Daime. < http://www.neip.info/downloads/t_lea2.pdf >
[5] http://www.osho.com/
[6] http://www.oshobrasil.com.br/livros.htm
[7] “love is a subtle type of servitude” (2005, 87).
[8] Osho summarizes the biographical theory of the seven years cycles proposed by Anthroposophy (2005, 41)
[9] ‘Com’ in portuguese means ‘with’
[10] Osho has a similar position about the wealth "It is necessary to resign the mentality driven by money and not to money itself" (2004, 57).
References
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