In these delightful and playful talks, Osho introduces the mystery, the wonder and the emptiness that is Zen, not comparable to anything else and a completely different approach to life. The chapters alternate between elaborating original excerpts by the 14th Zen master, Ikkyu, taking us into the world of Zen – and responding to personal questions, which brings the world of Zen into our lives, connects with our issues and questions.

In this extraordinary series, Zen: The Special Transmission, Osho introduces us in 10 talks to the world of Zen. In alternating chapters, he comments on Zen sutras and responds to questions of his audience.

Nirvana has become an idealized word associated with the juxtaposition of a cult rock celebrity who died before his time and a vague new age version of Eastern religion. An altered state to be hoped for but likely unattainable, reinforcing that all too familiar uneasiness associated with never being able to have what we truly desire in life.

Moving beyond the usual interpretations of this classic Chinese text - that of using it as an indicator of what to do next or attempting to predict the future - Osho is using the Tao Te Ching as Lao Tzu intended: to ignite the flame of individual awareness and insight. His commentaries on these seven verses burn through every idea we may hold about ourselves until we can see with the same crystal-clear light as Lao Tzu.

Wisdom, says Buddha, arises from within, and is the only true knowledge. In The Dhammapada Osho speaks on wisdom, which he calls knowing, and on the difference between knowing and knowledge. Knowing, he says, is spontaneous response: it comes from inner silence, it is our own truth, an existential experience. Knowledge is dependent on the past, it is mechanical, it is second-hand, it comes from another, and hides the truth from ourselves. Knowing gives us inner direction; knowledge only outer direction. And the key to the intuitive faculty of knowing is meditation.

Ecstasy: The Forgotten Language invites us to rediscover our natural state of ecstasy. We have lost touch with our intrinsic nature, says Osho, because we no longer live existential lives; we put our whole focus on our private lives. We have lost contact with the real and live almost entirely in our minds, in our imaginations. This makes us dull and unhappy and unavailable for what life is really offering us. Society and civilizations originally evolved to support and protect us, but now the situation has reversed and instead we find ourselves existing to sustain them.

Using the Upanishadic vision, Osho contrasts the teachings of Buddha, J. Krishnamurti, and the Vedas, and explains how these different teachings have relevance to the way we live today.

Written more than 25 centuries ago, the Diamond Sutra is the first text to record the Buddha's own teachings, and it remains one of the most popular. Osho comments in a series of talks on these sutras and brings Buddha's teachings into the 21st century. One day, after the Buddha finishes his daily walk to collect alms, a senior monk steps forth to ask how he can best help humanity. Buddha responds, and thus begins a dialogue regarding the nature of perception.

In The Secret, Osho introduces us to the world of love, and initiates us into the ways of love.

These discourses contain what Osho describes as the most significant statements ever made, which point to the whole secret of the mystic approach toward life. And the sutra that begins this series of discourses, he says, contains the very essence of the entire Upanishadic vision - that the universe is an indivisible totality, an organic whole. Osho illuminates these ancient texts with such clarity that their significance seems stunningly obvious.

Osho introduces the wild, dancing, sane-crazy world of the Bauls, the mystics of Bengal. With understanding, love, humor, and a touching clarity, he guides us through the songs of the Baul mystics, explaining their view of sex, their concept of the body as a temple, and their secret of surrender to the existential beloved.

In these talks, Osho introduces his audience to Zen, with its emphasis on being alert and attentive to the simplest acts of ordinary life as a way to experience meditation. Zen stories serve as starting points for several talks in the series, illuminating the nature of that rare human capacity to transcend the limits of the rational mind.

Commenting on the haunting songs of Kabir, Osho takes the listener to the very core of the human dilemma, to the simple cause of man's misery - that he thinks that he is separate from existence: his inability to comprehend why the fish in the sea is not thirsty. Osho also answers questions, speaking on emotions and being detached from them, aloneness and love, imitation, children and religion, rebellion, living in a balanced way, sex, the generation gap, and much more.

Do you see the meditativeness of the trees surrounding you? Such stillness! Just as you are listening to me, they are listening to me, not even a leaf moving. The birds are singing.

I love the statement that the "man of Zen walks in Zen and sits in Zen" for the simple reason that meditation cannot be just a part of your life. You cannot make a fragment of your life meditative.

Nirvana has become an idealized word associated with the juxtaposition of a cult rock celebrity who died before his time and a vague new age version of Eastern religion. An altered state to be hoped for but likely unattainable, reinforcing that all too familiar uneasiness associated with never being able to have what we truly desire in life.

Osho sees Zen not as a historical spiritual tradition but as the future spirituality of a humanity that has matured to the point that people no longer need religions controlled by priesthoods and based on fearful superstitions that cripple people's innate intelligence and divide them from one another. This series of talks offers a deeper understanding of the underlying differences between Eastern and Western approaches to religion and the nature of consciousness.

Written more than 25 centuries ago, the Diamond Sutra is the first text to record the Buddha's own teachings, and it remains one of the most popular. Osho comments in a series of talks on these sutras and brings Buddha's teachings into the 21st century. One day, after the Buddha finishes his daily walk to collect alms, a senior monk steps forth to ask how he can best help humanity. Buddha responds, and thus begins a dialogue regarding the nature of perception.

Moving beyond the usual interpretations of this classic Chinese text - that of using it as an indicator of what to do next or attempting to predict the future - Osho is using the Tao Te Ching as Lao Tzu intended: to ignite the flame of individual awareness and insight. His commentaries on these seven verses burn through every idea we may hold about ourselves until we can see with the same crystal-clear light as Lao Tzu.

Now, in a fascinating series of reflections, anecdotes, stories, and exercises, Ram Dass gives us a unique and accessible road map for experiencing divinity in everyday life. In the engaging, conversational style that has made his teachings so popular for decades, Ram Dass traces our journey of consciousness as it is reflected in one of Hinduism's most sacred texts. The Gita teaches a system of yogas, or "paths for coming to union with God."

This is the story of Tenzin Palmo, the daughter of a fishmonger from London's East End who became a Tibetan nun. After meditating for 12 years in a cave 13,000 feet up in the Himalayas, she became a world-renowned spiritual leader and champion of the right of women to achieve spiritual enlightenment.

At the beginning of his career, Joseph Campbell developed a lasting fascination with the cultures of the Far East, and explorations of Buddhist and Hindu philosophy later became recurring motifs in his vast body of work. However, Campbell had to wait until middle age to visit the lands that inspired him so deeply. In 1954, he took a sabbatical from his teaching position and embarked on a year-long voyage through India, Thailand, Cambodia, Burma, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and finally Japan.

Mark Watts compiled this work from his father's extensive journals and audiotapes of famous lectures he delivered, in his later years, across the country. In three parts Alan Watts explains the basic philosophy of meditation, how individuals can practice a variety of meditations, and how inner wisdom grows naturally.

We all sit on the edge of a mystery. We have only known this life, so dying scares us - and we are all dying. But what if dying were perfectly safe? What if you could approach dying with curiosity and love? What if dying were the ultimate spiritual practice? Walking Each Other Home: Conversations on Loving and Dying reunites lifelong friends Ram Dass and Mirabai Bush, who speak on the spiritual opportunities in the dying process. They share intimate personal experiences and timeless practices for every aspect of this journey.

The observations and insights of the Buddha are practical and eminently down to earth, dealing exclusively with awareness in the here and now. Buddhism Plain and Simple offers listeners these fundamental teachings, stripped of cultural trappings that have accumulated around Buddhism over the past 25 centuries.

How can we live our lives when everything seems to fall apart—when we are continually overcome by fear, anxiety, and pain? The answer, Pema Chödrön suggests, might be just the opposite of what you expect. Here, in her most beloved and acclaimed work, Pema shows that moving toward painful situations and becoming intimate with them can open up our hearts in ways we never before imagined. Drawing from traditional Buddhist wisdom, she offers life-changing tools for transforming suffering and negative patterns into habitual ease and boundless joy.

America has given birth to a wisdom tradition entirely its own, a spirituality that is as diverse as its people, and that respects the freedom and uniqueness of each individual. Judeo-Christian traditions and the meditation practices of Asia and India...modern science and Native American teachings...Sufism and transpersonal psychology - The New American Spirituality explores what happens when these and other traditions cohabitate our unique cultural landscape.

Uncover the core of goodness within. Love, compassion, meaning, hope, and freedom from fear are not qualities we need to acquire. We simply need to uncover what we already have. "Original goodness" is Eknath Easwaran’s phrase for this spark of divinity hidden in every one of us, regardless of our personal liabilities or past mistakes. Commenting on the Beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount, Easwaran shows how this spark of divinity can energize our lives - beginning with a simple method of meditation that gradually removes the conditioning that hides our native goodness.

With silence increasingly becoming a stranger to us, one man set out to become its intimate: Pablo d'Ors, a Catholic priest whose life was changed by Zen meditation. With disarming honesty and directness, as well as a striking clarity of language, d'Ors shares his struggles as a beginning meditator: the tedium, restlessness, and distraction. But, persevering, the author discovers not only a deep peace and understanding of his true nature, but also that silence, rather than being a retreat from life, offers us an intense engagement with life just as it is.

Whether you're a complete novice or you've "tried it before," veteran meditation teacher Dean Sluyter's relaxed, down-to-earth approach will help you test-drive a variety of meditative techniques, such as breath, sound, the senses, the sky, and the simple sense of "I" and discover which ones fit you best. You'll discover that the key to meditation is effortlessness and find all the practical tips you need for adapting these methods to your own life,as you live it, even for a few minutes a day.

In this very special series of questions and answers, Osho talks on the death and enlightenment of his own father, which occurred at this time. He also shines his unique light on subjects as diverse as science and meditation, personality and essence, homosexuality, witnessing, and silence.

Here, Osho introduces listeners to this extraordinary mystic and his songs, bringing both to light in such a way as to show how they are both timeless and utterly relevant to our time. The path of love, as described by Osho and though the songs of Kabir, is a journey that seeks out and celebrates the divine that is hidden in the ordinary, the love that becomes not just a feeling one has but ultimately a state of being that one is.

Most discussions on Tantra begin and end with sex; not so here. With his customary clarity and lucidity, Osho reveals in detail—and in a contemporary language—the real nature of Tantra, a way of life both natural and meditative, where inner transformation and outer practice meet. Learn about the mystical insights found in the ancient Tantric writings, and the many significant Tantric meditation techniques that are as relevant to the modern-day seeker as they were in earlier times.

What if Jesus were not a supernatural being conceived by a virgin but a real human being who had experienced the awakening of consciousness known as "enlightenment" in the East? This extraordinary line-by-line commentary on some of the best-known New Testament Gospels from Matthew and John tests the hypothesis that Jesus was a mystic, not a miracle worker of supernatural origin. Osho convincingly makes the case that the stories of Jesus' life were never meant to be a factual record of history but rather are teaching parables.

Humanity is divided in three types of persons: Believers, atheists and agnostics. For Osho, this last type, the agnostic is far above the first two and it is something intrinsic to the true seeker. Nevertheless, there is a fourth type of person, one that does not fit in any of these categories: The Gnostic, the one who knows. Listening to his direct and simple style, we rediscover the courage to doubt while we move into the unknown.

In these talks, Osho introduces his audience to Zen, with its emphasis on being alert and attentive to the simplest acts of ordinary life as a way to experience meditation. Zen stories serve as starting points for several talks in the series, illuminating the nature of that rare human capacity to transcend the limits of the rational mind.

This series of talks is on one of the most esoteric treatises in the world. It will show you the way to become more than the body and the way to bloom - how not to remain a seed but to become a golden flower. What, in India, they call the one thousand-petalled lotus, in China they call the golden flower. It is a symbol that represents perfection, totality. Moreover, the flower represents the actualization of the potential - the beauty, the grandeur, the splendor of being.

Humans have an inbuilt drive to search for their inner power and potentiality. This search is the search for life itself. We are here, we have life - but we don't know what life really is. We can feel our energy but don't know where this energy comes from and to what goal this energy is going. We are that energy; we have glimpses of its true source and our connection to it, and those glimpses keep us going even when it seems we will never find what we are seeking - but still we do not know what that energy is.

Sufism, also called “Islamic Mysticism” is a belief and practice in which Muslims seek to find the truth of divine love and knowledge through direct personal experience of God. Osho has spoken in a number of series on this beautiful tradition - which he compares with other spiritual and religious traditions - elaborating the underlying essence to an international audience. Osho brings the listener in contact with Sufism through his experiential sharing.

The Sutra of 42 Chapters is a scripture complied in the first century CE. Each saying comes from Buddha, but the whole work was a new anthology created especially for introducing Buddhism in a new country. That’s why it makes such a good, basic introduction to the world view of Gautam Buddha.