The Art of Living

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About the Book

How many people can honestly say that they are really living? This book gives a glimpse into what it means to live totally and consciously, and how living can become an art.

Osho presents and explores five principles: non- violence, non-possessiveness, non-theft, non-desire, and non-unawareness. He shows how they can be applied to everyday life by bringing awareness to the simplest of actions and the minutest of details, as well as to the most powerful of human energies, sex. Through directly encountering the depths of the unconscious and aspects of our human nature that we most shy away from, we can rise to the highest peaks of consciousness.

Those familiar with the Jaina sages will recognize the five virtues as an echo of their central views. These talks were given in Mumbai at the request of Osho's Jaina friends during the Paryuchan Parva, their main religious fortnight of the year. The commentaries are beautifully illustrated with anecdotes from the lives of many great mystics, including Mahavira, the last Jaina sage.

Warning against the pitfalls of trying to imitate them, Osho invites the reader to begin his own, unique inner journey towards that state of ultimate liberation that is the potential of every human being.

About the Author

Osho defies categorization. His thousands of talks cover everything from the individual quest for meaning to the most urgent social and political issues facing society today. Osho's books are not written but are transcribed from audio and video recordings of his extemporaneous talks to international audiences. As he puts it, "So remember: whatever I am saying is not just for you. I am talking also for the future generations."

Osho has been described by The Sunday Times in London as one of the"1000 Makers of the 20th Century" and by American author Tom Robbins as "the most dangerous man since Jesus Christ." Sunday Mid-Day (India) has selected Osho as one of ten people - along with Gandhi, Nehru and Buddha - who have changed the destiny of India.

About his own work Osho has said that he is helping to create the conditions for the birth of a new kind of human being. He often characterizes this new human being as "Zorba the Buddha" -capable both of enjoying the earthy pleasures of a Zorba the Greek and the silent serenity of a Gautama the Buddha.

Running like a thread through all aspects of Osho's talks and meditations is a vision that encompasses both the timeless wisdom of all ages past and the highest potential of today's (and tomorrow's) science and technology.

Osho is known for his revolutionary contribution to the science of inner transformation, with an approach to meditation that acknowledges the accelerated pace of contemporary life. His unique OSHO Active Meditations are designed to first release the accumulated stresses of body and mind, so that it is then easier to take an experience of stillness and thought-free relaxation into daily life.

Preface

In the past, thousands of years would go by and then along came one person who blossomed into a buddha. But now there is no more time; you cannot postpone for tomorrow. Whatever you want to do must be done now!

For the first time, the present is becoming more and more important. Each day you are coming closer to choosing: either move toward becoming a buddha, or move toward becoming a corpse. I don't think anybody wants to die, particularly when all of life is at risk.

The third world war cannot happen. We are going to prevent it! Our ways are very different. That's why I love your expression for me, a "spiritual terrorist." I don't have any weapons, I don't have any nuclear missiles, but I have something greater and something far more effective. It is not to kill it is to bring life to those who are living almost as if they are dead. It is bringing awareness to those who are behaving like somnambulists, walking in their sleep, talking in their sleep, not knowing exactly what they are doing or why they are doing it.

I want people to be so awake that their whole consciousness goes to the deepest part of their being, and also to the highest peak. A vertical growth - just as a tree grows. Its roots go down into the earth and its branches spread towards the stars. Its blossoms flower into the sky, its nourishment comes from the deepest part of the earth. It is always balanced: the higher the tree, the deeper the roots. You cannot have a four or five hundred year old cedar of Lebanon, rising high into the sky, with small roots. It would fall immediately.

Life needs a balance between the depth and the height. I teach you both simultaneously. In entering the center in meditation, you are growing your roots deeper into the cosmos. And bringing the buddha out from the hidden center is bringing your fragrance, bringing your grace, bringing your ecstasy higher, where it can blossom in the sky.

Your ecstasy is a movement towards the height and your meditation is a movement towards the depth. And once you have both, your life becomes a celebration.

That is my work, to transform your life from a sad affair into a celebration.

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