First Talk in English to Westerners*



First Talk in English to Westerners*

The first occasion Osho speaks publicly in English to a Western audience is in September 1969 at Pahalgam in Kashmir, where followers of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi invite Osho to talk to them. Maharishi teaches 'Transcendental Meditation', a 20-minute repetition of a mantra.

When I started using English, for two or three months I was thinking in Hindi and speaking in English. It was a double trouble. last413

I don't know English but I manage. I am surprised myself because English is such an unscientific language and I am not acquainted with it in any way, but when you have to say something, when you have something to say, then the language follows. If you have just a little bit of an acquaintance with the words they follow, they fall in line. dark14

I don't care. What does it matter if a word here and there is mispronounced? My whole life I have been mispronouncing. books07

I have met Maharishi Mahesh Yogi just by accident. I was having a camp in Pahalgam in Kashmir and he was also having a camp in Pahalgam. His disciples became very much interested and they wanted me to come to them and to talk to them, so I went there. We met. The man is simply ordinary, nothing special. And what he is teaching in the West is a very traditional thing in India; any stupid person knows about it. ggate208

Osho answers questions from disciples of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi:
Really, there can be no method as far as meditation is concerned. Meditation is not a method. Through technique, through method, you cannot go beyond mind. When you leave all methods, all techniques, you transcend mind. So meditation itself is not a method. Truth cannot be achieved through method.
Method is our own invention. We, who are ignorant, have achieved knowledge through methods constructed, created, projected, in our ignorance. Through method you can achieve a sort of self-hypnosis, a sort of auto-hypnosis. Any method, whatsoever it's name, can only give you an illusory kind of peace. Through method you cannot go beyond yourself, because the method is yours, and it will strengthen you, your ego, your state of mind. If you leave all methods and all paths, and all ways, and remain in a total vacuum, doing nothing, thinking nothing--only then what we call meditation can be achieved.
But if you are following some method. some path, some guru, then you are going nowhere because it cannot lead you anywhere. It can only lead you into an illusory state of auto-hypnosis....
The mind, through old habits and through old patterns, needs constant occupation.
The mind needs constant occupation. If you give it some occupation, then it is all right. You may be doing "jap" (chanting a mantra); that too is an occupation. If you don't do anything, and even for a single moment can remain without doing anything--not even a single thought, not even doing any mantra, if you can remain for a single moment alone, not doing anything, that very moment leads through into inner depths....
The person who thinks is a man of non-understanding. A person who knows doesn't think. It is not a question of thinking. He sees, he is aware, but not in thinking. Thoughts are not opening, thoughts are closing; they close your mind. The more you are in a thinking mood, the more you are closed and isolated from the whole. If you are not thinking, if you just are, if you are in a state of being, then something comes. That is not thinking, that is the realization. That is not thinking, you have not thought it. And the more you have thought about it, the less is the possibility for its coming. The known must go for the unknown to come. The thinking must go for the truth to be revealed.
One is to be aware of the mechanism of the mind, how the mind works, how the mind needs constantly occupation. Every moment mind needs to be occupied. It has become a mechanical tendency; you need occupation. Once you leave the so-called worldly occupations you become occupied in spiritual affairs, but you remain occupied. One is to be aware of this very process of the mind. That awareness of the mechanical process stops the process. Moments come--they break through--and you see something, that is not your thinking, not a by-product of your thought.... early07

I am against the so-called transcendental meditation of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. It is very destructive. It is a lullaby; it only gives you good sleep, at the most. It can't awaken you. It can cool you, it can give you a little calmness; it is good for people who are suffering from nervousness, tension, anxiety. It is a psychological device, it is a psychological drug--a non-medicinal tranquilizer. But it is not meditation, no. It is neither meditation nor transcendental; it is not at all. It simply soothes you, consoles you, helps you to go into good sleep.
And it is not accidental that America has become very much interested in the so-called transcendental meditation of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, because America is suffering tremendously from insomnia. People have lost their sleep. They want sleep at any cost; they are ready to try anything. And transcendental meditation can help you to have a good sleep.
But meditation is just the opposite. Meditation is waking up. It is not a lullaby, it is diametrically the opposite. It is a shock, it shatters your sleep and your dreams. If you are a beggar, you are no more a beggar; it shatters the idea of your beggarhood. If you are a prime minister, you are no more a prime minister; it shatters your illusion of being a prime minister. It shatters all identities. It simply reveals one fact, that you are God. It only reveals your reality and takes all illusions away. secret04

People come to me saying, "Maharishi Mahesh Yogi says that one who meditates will receive abundantly in that world and will receive in this world too. There will be worldly gain also. What do you say?"
If there were worldly gain from meditation then this country would be at the peak of prosperity. This country has meditated more than anyone else has. Buddha meditated, attained samadhi. The story says that flowers showered. I have not heard that dollar bills showered. Rewrite the story so that it can be related to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Rewrite the story.
But I understand Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's reasons. If you want to propagate something in America, the American craze is for money, not for meditation. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi is a shrewd salesman. He is ready to give whatever you want. He has to give whatever the customer wants--a businessman does not bother with what the customer needs. What the demand is--if something wrong is demanded, then the wrong is given. He agrees with whatever is asked. A shrewd businessman believes that the customer is always right. What he says is right, right exactly like he says it.
In America he is selling meditation--and sales are moving there--he is selling meditation. America says we want health, so they will get health. If money is needed they will get money. If professional skill needed they will get professional skill.
I cannot give support to this kind of idiotic nonsense. death06

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