Yoga

Osho

Description

Liberation,' says Osho, 'means coming back home.' According to Osho, 'Life is nothing but an expression of silence.' We come out of silence, but then lose our way. In order to experience this silence again and attain liberation, we need to rediscover the path back to our pure being. Only then can the cycle be complete; then will we be able to reach kaivalya, a state which Osho tells us is higher than either moksha or nirvana. The key is simple: we must not identify with our bodies and minds, as all identification is outwards, and we are going on an inner journey. And Osho emphasizes, as always, the importance of combining intelligence, awareness and humour on this journey. In addition to speaking on the Yoga sutras of Patanjali, Osho addresses questions about life and how to live it without fear of pain, old age or death. Osho's answers are never the same, for he doesn't answer-he responds. As he has often said himself, 'Your questions may be the same, but the answers of a Buddha always have a new nuance to them, a new flavour, a new fragrance.

Sujets

• Mind
• Body

Informations

• Publié par: Penguin Books Ltd
• Date de parution: 26 septembre 2005
• Nombre de lectures: 10
• EAN13: 9789351184188
• Langue: English

Extrait

OSHO

Yoga: The Path to Liberation

PENGUIN BOOKS
Contents
About the Author
By the Same Author
Preface
1. Mastery over the Five Elements
2. Choice Is Hell
3. About Your Wilder Being
4. Miracles Don t Happen
5. The Seed of Liberation
6. Your Problems Are All Bogus
7. The Eternal Now
8. Life Lives for Itself
9. Absolute Aloneness, Absolute Liberation
10. Silence Is the Answer
Copyright
PENGUIN BOOKS
YOGA: THE PATH TO LIBERATION
Osho defies categorization, reflecting everything from the individual quest for meaning to the most urgent social and political issues facing society today. His books are not written but are transcribed from recordings of extemporaneous talks given over a period of thirty-five years. Osho has been described by the Sunday Times in London as one of the 1000 Makers of the 20th Century and by Sunday Mid-Day in India as one of the ten people-along with Gandhi, Nehru and Buddha-who have changed the destiny of India.
Osho has a stated aim of helping to create the conditions for the birth of a new kind of human being, characterized as Zorba the Buddha -one whose feet are firmly on the ground, yet whose hands can touch the stars. Running like a thread through all aspects of Osho is a vision that encompasses both the timeless wisdom of the East and the highest potential of Western science and technology.
He is synonymous with a revolutionary contribution to the science of inner transformation and an approach to meditation which specifically addresses the accelerated pace of contemporary life. The unique Osho Active Meditations are designed to allow the release of accumulated stress in the body and mind so that it is easier to be still and experience the thought-free state of meditation.
Other Books by Osho in Penguin The Book of Man The Book of Woman Yoga: The Science of Living The Essence of Yoga Little Book of Relationships Little Book of Osho Osho: New Man for the New Millennium The Inner Journey: Spontaneous Talks Given by Osho to Disciples and Friends at a Meditation Camp in Ajol, Gujarat, in India Life s Mysteries: An Introduction to the Teaching of Osho
Preface
Every few thousand years an individual appears who irrevocably changes the world around them in ways that are never immediately apparent, except to the most perceptive.
Osho is one such individual: his spoken words will resonate for centuries to come.
All those words have been recorded and transcribed into books like this one, written words that can carry a transforming message to the reader.
For Osho, all change is individual. There is no society to change-it can only happen to each one of us, one at a time.
So, no matter what the subject matter of the book, the thread that runs through all Osho s words is like a love song that we can suddenly, mysteriously, hear at just the right moment. And strangely, no matter what the words seem to be referring to, they are really only referring to us.
And this is no ordinary love song, but more of an invitation to open our hearts to hear something beyond the words, beyond the heart . . . a silence beyond all understanding . . . where we all belong.
1 Mastery over the Five Elements
The power of contacting the state of consciousness which is outside the mental body and therefore inconceivable is called mahavideha. Through this power the covering of the light is destroyed.
Performing samyama on their gross, constant, subtle, all-pervading, and functional state brings mastery over the panchabhutas -the five elements.
From this follows the attainment of anima, perfection of the body, and the removal of the elements power to obstruct the body.
Beauty, grace, strength, and adamantine hardness constitute the perfect body.
T HE YOGA SYSTEM of Patanjali is not a philosophical system. It is empirical; it is a tool to work with-but still it has a philosophy. It is just to give an intellectual understanding of where you are moving, what you are seeking. The philosophy is arbitrary, utilitarian, just to give a comprehensive picture of the territory you are going to discover-but the philosophy has to be understood.
The first thing about the philosophy of Patanjali: he divides human personality into five seeds, five bodies. He says you don t have one body, you have several layers of bodies, and there are five layers.
The first body he calls annamay kosh -the food body, the earth body, which is made of earth and is constantly to be nourished by food. Food comes from earth. If you stop taking food, your annamay kosh will wither away. So one has to be very alert to what one is eating because that makes you and it will affect you in millions of ways. Sooner or later your food is not just food-it becomes your blood, your bones, your very marrow. It circulates in your being and goes on affecting you. So the purity of food creates a pure annamay kosh -the pure food body.
And if the first body is pure and light, not heavy, then it is easy to enter into the second body; otherwise it will be difficult, you will be loaded. Have you noticed when you have eaten too much, and heavy foods? Immediately you start feeling a sort of sleep, a sort of lethargy. You would like to go to sleep; awareness immediately starts disappearing. When the first body is loaded it is difficult to create great awareness. Hence fasting became so important in all the religions. But fasting is a science and one should not fool around with it.
Just the other night one sanyasin came and she told me that she has been fasting and now her whole body, her whole being, is disturbed-tremendously disturbed. The stomach is not functioning well, and when the stomach is not functioning well, everything is weakened, the vitality is lost, and you cannot be alive. You become more and more insensitive and dead.
But fasting is important. It should be done very carefully, and only when one has understood the functioning of the annamay kosh . And it should be done under proper guidance, of one who has moved through all the phases of his annamay kosh . Not only that, one who has gone beyond it and who can look at the annamay kosh as a witness. Otherwise fasting can be dangerous . . . then, just the right amount of food and the right quality of food has to be practised; fasting is not needed.
But this is important because this is your first body and, more or less, people cling to their first body; they never move to the second. Millions of people are not even aware that they have a second body, a deeper body, hidden behind the first sheath. The first covering is very gross.
The second body Patanjali calls pranamay kosh -energy body, electric body. It consists of electric fields. That is what acupuncture is all about. This second body is more subtle than the first, and people who start moving from the first body to the second become fields of energy, tremendously attractive, magnetic, hypnotic. If you go near them, you will feel vitalized, charged.
If you go near a man who lives only in his food body, you will be depleted-he will suck you. Many times you come across people and you feel that they suck you. After they have left, you feel depleted, dissipated, as if somebody has exploited your energy. The first body is a sucker, and the first body is very gross. So if you live too much with first body-oriented people, you will always feel burdened, tense, bored, sleepy, with no energy, always at the point of the lowest rung of your energy; you will not have any amount of energy which can be used for higher growth.
The annamay kosh -oriented person lives for food. He eats and eats and eats, and that is his whole life. He remains, in a way, childish. The first thing that the child does in the world is to suck air, and then to suck milk. The first thing the child has to do in the world is to help the food body, and if a person remains addicted to food, he remains childish; his growth suffers.
The second body, pranamay kosh , gives you a new freedom, gives you more space. The second body is bigger than the first; it is not confined to your physical body. It is inside the physical body and it is also outside the physical body; it surrounds you like a subtle climate, an aura of energy. In Russia they have now discovered that photographs can be taken of this energy body. They call it bioplasma , but it exactly means prana -the energy, lan vital, or what Taoists call chi . It can be photographed now; it has become almost scientific.
Another great discovery that has been made in Russia is that when you suffer some illness, the energy body feels it six months before it happens to the physical body. If you are going to have tuberculosis, or cancer, or any illness, your energy body starts showing indications of it six months before it actually happens. No examination, no testing of the physical body shows anything, but the electric body starts showing it. First it appears in the pranamay kosh , and then it enters into the annamay kosh .
So now they say that it has become possible to treat a person before he has fallen ill. Once it becomes so, then there is no need for humanity to fall ill. Before you become ill, your photographs by Kirlian methods will show that some illness is going to happen to your physical body-and it can be prevented in the pranamay kosh .
That is why yoga insists on the purity of breathing. The pranamay kosh is made of a subtle energy that travels inside you through breathing. If you breathe rightly, your pranamay kosh remains healthy and whole and alive. Such a person never feels tired; such a person is always available to do anything. Such a person is always responsive, always ready to respond to the moment, ready to take the challenge. He is always ready. You will never find him unprepared for any moment. Not that he plans for the future, no-but he has so much energy that whatsoever happens he is ready to respond. He has overflowing energy. T ai-chi works on pranamay kosh . Pranayam works on pr