Updated on September 8th, 2024

Years ago, I had my first encounter with Osho books. I used to read books on different subjects in my college days, including literature, politics, and philosophy. One day my younger brother brought me a few books on Osho. Those were on different topics, and I started reading first, and that was related to Sikh thoughts. In fact, it was a commentary on Japuji Sahib titled Ik Onkar Satnam. I read it from page one to last, and I was so impressed with the way of explanation. I felt really close to Sikh Philosophy after reading that book.

Osho on Japuji Sahib: in three languages

View Point changed thereafter

But my experience thereafter was not the same when I started another book. I started, read a few pages and threw it aside. I started another book and felt the same. Ultimately, I got disturbed by all books and thoughts given in those books. I pushed aside all books, considering them meaningless and full of illogical thoughts. Why, can’t say but a few months later, I again picked the same books one by one and read all of them. I tried to absorb the ideas given in them. I read all books thoroughly. My impressions got changed about the ‘great thinker’ and his thoughts.

As I am from a Sikh family, my mind swallowed the first book on Sikh philosophy. Today I see nothing but ‘conditioning of mind’ behind my accepting one book while rejecting others. I started reading Osho’s thoughts regularly, like fiction books. Today I have an extensive collection of Osho in my personal library.

Our mindset is a collection of past

I am putting here that our thinking is mostly the result of our conditioned ‘mindset’. What we conclude every moment is what we already had collected in our minds. Our mind is the experience of our collective past. Based on our experience, we see things as good and bad. ‘Things familiar and known’ attract our mind, whereas ‘new and unknown’ is not easily welcomed. When some new situation or new idea is given, the mind doubts, and starts analyzing it, again based on the old mindset. Rationalizing is simply finding logical reasons from old experiences.

Today Osho Philosophy and thoughts are available in enormous volumes of books, perhaps over 600 books, but here I am sharing a single point that we have to drop the old one to receive new in life. To fill fresh raindrops, you need an empty vessel in your hands. Mind is always in the past as it lives with definitions, principles, beliefs, laws, and disciplines. Existence is always fresh, and we can touch it with pure hearts only. The reality and potential of here and now can only be experienced and appreciated if we dare to drop our tinted glasses. We need to see life as it is, without analysing and jumping to our normal conclusions. Read another write-up On Osho in Punjabi.

Few other books I read and liked

Over the years, I read so many books on different topics. Osho has written no book, he has only spoken the whole of his life and his discourses are transcribed into books. A brief excerpt from sutras or scripture selected from the world’s religions triggered most of his talks, with each book focussing on one set of religious texts. Mentioning some of his transcriptions that I have gone through.

Tao Upanishad / The Way of Tao 

Discourses on Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching, a book that will make you see reality upside down. “Good and evil are not separate. They are one, two sides of the same coin. Without one, the other will disappear.” Osho’s 127 discourses in Hindi on the Tao Teh Ching were given in the early ’70s over a period of several years and published in Hindi as a series of 6 volumes. Only the first two volumes have been translated into English as of August 2017.

From Sex to super-consciousness: 

A Book to make you understand that repression of sex does not make you free of sex but turns it into sexuality. You neither get free of sex by repression nor by indulgence but by understanding. “Become the witness of your sexual desires, too. Witnessing transforms sex into love.” With complete frankness, Osho (a disgraced cult leader) discusses the three stages of sex – physical, psychological and spiritual – and provides guidance on how this raw energy can be transformed into the realization of ultimate consciousness. 

Krishna: The man and his philosophy

Discourses on the colourful dancing god celebrating life in all its dimensions play with the entire universe. “Total surrender is the way to godliness, total acceptance is the key to wholeness.” The crux of this book says White contains all the colours of the spectrum, yet it seems to be colourless; it contains all these colours in a such synthesis that they all disappear

Awareness: The Key to Living in Balance

This book is an amazing compilation of Osho’s different talks and his answers to questions from seekers related to different aspects of awareness or consciousness. Once we can identify and understand what this quality of awareness is, we have the key to self-mastery in virtually every area of our lives. Awareness, says Osho, is the key to being self-directed, centred, and free in every aspect of our lives. In this book, Osho teaches how to live life more attentively, mindfully, and meditatively, with love, caring, and consciousness.

…… I will add a few more books here that I always refer to. Keep visiting again.