Communism and Zen Fire Zen Wind

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In the last century people increasingly turned away from established religions towards political and social ideologies as they searched meaning and solutions to the very challenging social and economic problems of the time. Initially communism believed that by changing people’s outer circumstances, humanity would take a quantum leap in brotherhood and consciousness. At the time of this discourse series, and in the presence of a TV crew from Soviet Russia, the Communist bloc is rapidly disintegrating.

Osho discusses the details and context with beautiful clarity and explains that all political ideologies have failed so far because they have started tr.om the wrong end, the collective. The first step has to be the growth,of individual consciousness. Osho proposes stepping onto the path of Zen a path that will the individual to a pure, authentic “spiritual communism which can truly uplift humanity.

Throughout the book, his radical vision is subtly entwined with wonderful Zen anecdotes and a dazzling selection of jokes and haikus.

This very body the Buddha this very earth the lotus paradise. But it will happen only not according to Marx but according to me it will happen only when the whole world is full of buddhas. There is no other way. It is not an economic revolution neither is it a social revolution it is a spiritual revolution an individual to individual rebellion every heart starts blossoming. When millions of hearts start blossoming it becomes a chain reaction this I call Zen fir Zen wind.

Osho is a revolution that helps the birth of each individual. I am trying in every possible way to drop all those things which in the past have been barriers for the revolution to continue and grow. I don’t want anybody to stand between the individual and existence no prayer no priest you alone are enough to face the sunrise. You don’t need somebody to interpret for you what a beautiful sunrise it is.

Osho Rajneesh was born in Kuchwada, Madhya Pradesh, India, on December 11, 1931. From his earliest childhood, his was a rebellious and independent spirit, challenging all accepted religious, social and political traditions and insisting on experiencing the truth for himself rather than acquiring knowledge and beliefs given by others.

At the age of twenty-one, on March 21, 1953, Rajneesh became enlightened. He says about himself “I am no longer seeking, searching for anything. Existence has opened all its doors to me, I cannot even say that I belong to existence, because I am just a part of it... When a flower blossoms, I blossom with it. When the sun rises, I rise with it. The ego in me, which keeps people separate, is no longer there. My body is part of nature, my being is part of the whole. I am not a separate entity.

He graduated from the University of Sagar with First Class Honors in philosophy. While a student he was All-India Debating Champion and the Gold Medal winner. After a nine- year stint as professor of philosophy at the University of Jabalpur, he left to travel around the country giving talks, challenging orthodox religious leaders in public debate, upsetting traditional beliefs, and shocking the status quo.

In the course of his work, Rajneesh has spoken on virtually every aspect of the development of human consciousness. From Sigmund Freud to Chuang Tzu, from George Gurdjieff to Gautam Buddha, fromjesus Christ to Rabindranath Tagore. He has distilled from each the essence of what is significant to the spiritual quest of contemporary man, based not on intellectual understanding but tested against his own existential experience.

He belongs to no tradition I am the beginning of a totally new religious consciousness,” he says. “Please don’t connect me with the past it is not even worth remembering.

His talks to disciples and seekers from all over the world have been published in more than six hundred fifty volumes, and translated into over thirty languages. And he says, “My message is not a doctrine, not a philosophy. My message is a certain alchemy a science of transformation, so only those who are willing to die as they are and be born again into something so new that they cannot even imagine it right now.. .only those few courageous people will be ready to listen, because listening is going to be risky. Listening, you have taken the first step towards being reborn. So it is not a philosophy that you can just make an overcoat of and go bragging about. It is not a doctrine where you can find consolation for harassing questions... No, my message is not some verbal communication. It is far more risky. It is nothing less than death and rebirth.

Osho Rajneesh is now residing at Rajneeshdham in Poona, India, where thousands of disciples and seekers gather throughout the year to participate in the meditations and other programs offered there.

October 1917 what a moment in history What high hopes rent the air. Workers of the world unite! you have nothing to lose but your chains, and a world to gain. As the dust sealed and the Winter Palace fell to the Bolsheviks’ bicycle regiment, the real battle of the century began between Christianity and Communism.

Who would have thought that two nice Jewish boys, Jesus and Marx, would have left such a titanic struggle in their wake? For centuries the Christians had been offering love to their neighbors, and now suddenly, with an impudence that drove the Christians wild with anger, the Communists offered them something to eat and a shelter for the night instead!

There was a price of course, but now, with cries of perestroika and glasnost, it seems that price might have been worth it. Suddenly the “evil empire” is looking positively benign as Gorbachev makes one intelligent decision after another, while the Great Democracy, knee deep in Latin American blood, guns and drugs, looks disturbingly unsettled.

A drama as incredible as that 1917 revolution is unfolding before our eyes, and as each of these two giants appears to have enough nuclear clout to wipe out half the solar system, the outcome is pretty important.

Enter Osho Rajneesh. In this book, this incredible man covers the history of the Soviet Union, the role of Stalin, Trotsky, Lenin and the rest. More importantly he talks directly to Mikhail Gorbachev, about what is happening to his country and what direction he now needs to take.

As usual Osho Rajneesh seems to come out of some plane no one else on the planet occupies. While everyone is busy telling themselves what a monster Stalin was, Osho is pointing out that without Stalin crimes and all no Gorbachev. While everyone is congratulating Gorbachev on allowing the traditional religions back into the Soviet Union, Osho is telling him, don’t.

Fifteen percent of U.S. citizens are below the poverty line, and twenty percent of Russians are below the poverty line are - you going to destroy communism for just five percent of the population? Mr. Gorbachev, don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater, Osho seems to be saying.

Osho’s analysis is brilliant, and of course, totally unique. And what is his prescription? Another revolution! This time, a spiritual revolution. And where will that come from? Zen.

The brilliant Japanese, who are forever importing an idea, improving it, refining it, and then re-exporting it, have done it again. Suddenly, the Buddhism that left India and went to China with Bodhidharma fourteen centuries ago and then spread to the rest of Asia has returned from Japan to India, and in Osho Rajneesh has found its most sublime expression.

The Zen that unfolds from these discourses is a most delicate flower of pure religiousness no God, no heaven, no hell, no priests, no organization just the pure no-mind of the mystic geniuses of centuries, transformed into a real human perspective, ephemeral yet palpable, extraordinary yet ordinary, earthy yet sacred, natural yet divine.

Here is the missing link, the ingredient that Marx could never have guessed at. Here is the golden key that poor Kropotkin and Bakunin never understood was at the root of their conflict with Marx and Engels.

The world is at a watershed. Capitalism creates wealth at a cost. Communism provides the square meals at a cost. Is this the only choice we have: rich, violent, competitive USA or poor, old-fashioned, inefficient USSR?

Russia, China, and the whole of the communist bloc is caught at this very moment on the horns of this dilemma, and none of them understands how to escape this false dichotomy. Read on, Comrade. Here it is. Osho Rajneesh is not the bête noir of the Western power elites for nothing. You want to know how to synthesize the best of capitalism with the best of communism? So did we, and we asked Osho.

Here, in this incredible book, are the answers. I won’t spoil the punchline, you will just have to read through to the end to find out that’s if you really want to lose your chains and gain the world. Not just that, but gain a civilized world for once, a world fit for human beings it’s time already; as those two nice Jewish boys might have said.