sannyasnews

The Publication Paradoxes of Osho International Foundation

(This contribution to the current debate is from Swami Dhanyam. Dhanyam has sold Osho books for some 25 years, and also laudably supported the community sannyas magazine based in California, “Viha Connection”, through all that time. )

Many people feel that it is important for OIF (Osho International Foundation) to own Osho trademarks and copyrights to protect the purity of Osho’s words and works from any distortion, dilution, and/or editing. However, this is happening all the time, and the biggest offender, in my opinion, is OIF.

Who is able to challenge OIF on their editing, dilution, and distortion of Osho’s work?

For example, OIF has produced 25 Osho compilation books (most of them were published by St. Martin’s Press, NY). These compilation books contain Osho’s words in some form, but they are not pure Osho books.

I remember that in the 1980s (when Osho was still alive) the “Rebel Press”, (the official publisher of Osho’s work) produced many popular compilation Osho books. When I later tried to order these titles, I was informed that Osho did not want His books produced as compilation books, and Rebel Press (at that time) stopped producing any compilations.

But there is another side to this story. The Osho compilation books produced (in the years since Osho’s death) by St. Martin’s Press and a few other publishers have sold worldwide in the millions, have made lots of royalty money for OIF, and have also brought lots of people to Osho. Due to good advertising and promotion, the compilations are very popular and outsell all original Osho titles.

I have been selling Osho books for 23 years and know that new people especially like the compilation books. When I went to Brazil a few years ago and visited the Brasilia airport bookstore I found eight Osho compilation books (in Portuguese) prominently displayed in the window. When I (currently) visit the local Barnes & Noble or Borders bookstores ( here in California) I see 10 to 20 Osho compilation books for sale.

OIF has done a great job in making Osho books available worldwide, but they are not pure Osho books.

In the past few years I have noticed an interesting trend: Some of my buyers insist on buying “Rajneesh” books as they know that these are pure, unedited books.

Love to you all,

Dhanyam

Tags: Discussion, Osho by sannyasnews
55 Comments »

Osho Foundation International - reaction to US decision on ‘Osho’ trademark

The Osho International Foundation (OIF) Zurich, that is largely run by the Pune Meditation Resort’s management team, have lost the trademark of the word Osho in the US, in a court case spanning almost a decade. The Trademark and Trial Appeal Board in the US, where the case was filed, to quote, has found that “the term Osho is generic for the meditations devised by the mystic Osho and the meditation and religious movement arising from there. As a result defendant OIF cannot foreclose others from utilising the term OSHO to describe their own goods and services based upon such meditations and movements.”
The decision is the result of an opposition lodged by “Osho Friends International” against “Osho International Foundation” in a case registered initially in 1999.

Osho International Meditation Resort, Pune, responded with a press release that emphasises that this ruling is applicable only in the US and not in any other country, including India. Amrit Sadhana, part of the management team at the meditation resort, said that this decision will have no effect on Osho’s copyright, which is a different issue to a trademark case. The copyright, according to her, is protected by international treaties around the world. She said that OIF intend to appeal against the ruling at the earliest. She continued, “for more than 40 years the Osho Foundation has always acted - on Osho’s request to protect his name, his copyright and his work, and will continue to do so”. Taking exception to the ruling, the OIF press release states that the US decision turns “Osho” into the same category as computers and nose tissues.”

Sannyasnews reporters
_____________________________________________________________

Tags: Discussion, News, Osho by sannyasnews
45 Comments »

Osho Trademark Decision in

Sannyasnews learn that the US trademark decision came in today.(January 14th).

Readers will remember that Osho Foundation International (OFI) wanted to stop people using the word Osho, and for OFI to have sole rights over it as a trademark. The US Courts decision went against OIF on every trademark contested. Osho International Foundation has until April,09 to appeal, but this only applies in the US. So this is a big start on establishing that the word “Osho” is free for all to use, something which sannyasnews support.

The basis for the decision was that the word Osho is generic and descriptive of meditation techniques and a movement that arose around the teachings of the person Osho. “Osho” isn’t an indicator of the products of only one company, OIF. The Court ruled that all people involved in Osho’s work have a need and a right to use His name, as He asked them to do.

Tags: News by sannyasnews
128 Comments »

Swami Anand Arun, Up Close and Personal

Swami Anand Arun, a 65 year-old-engineer first saw Osho in 1969 and was tantalized by his physical grace and firing speech. He began spreading Osho’s message in Nepal in 1970 opening a meditation centre at his own residence. Today, Swami Anand Arun is the Co-ordinator of Osho Tapoban International Commune in Nepal which has been spreading Osho’s message and helping seekers throughout the world since last 18 years. Through Swami Arun’s efforts Tapoban has already opened 22 Osho centres and communes in USA, Canada, Russia, UK and Germany and five communes and 60 centres only in Nepal. We sat down and talked with Swami Arun to know more about his experience with Osho and the ever-growing neo-sannyas movement. Here is what he had to say.

Would you please say something about Osho’s life and work?

Sw Arun: It’s very difficult to talk about Osho. He cannot be defined in words. The life of mystics and enlightened masters is like an iceberg. Only a small portion of their life is visible and the major portion remains hidden. He says that first you should know who you are. You should know your centre, your soul. Then you can understand at least a fragment of somebody like Osho who has become oceanic. An easier way is also to love him madly. If you are madly in love with him and you trust him totally, then you may be able to understand some of the mysteries of his life, what he is and what he wants to do for us. So, you either become self realized or fall madly in love with him. I can talk about him and his life endlessly, but it is completely unnecessary. It does not define who he is.

It’s been almost forty years since you met Osho and have been actively working to spread his message. What inspired you to give so much of your life for this movement?

Sw Arun: When I first met Osho forty years ago I was in a totally defeated state. There was no hope or zeal in life and I didn’t want to live. Before I met Osho there was a big question in my mind; What’s the purpose of living? But after I fell in love with him I found my answer. I should live to spread his message and to share his love with the world. I should live to meditate and to celebrate. He has given me this life, its meaning and the reason to live. I have surrendered my life to him and as his disciple I just want to become his medium. It’s not my life and therefore I don’t have any plans for it. He will keep me as long as he wants and I will continue with the same madness.

You have initiated more than fifty thousand people from all over the world and seventy five percent of them are below the age of thirty five. What attracts so many young people to Osho?

Sw Arun: I would like to correct you. I have not initiated anybody. Only a master can initiate. I only inspire people. It is their decision to take sannyas and its Osho’s energy and love that accepts them. I am just a medium. I can become an empty vessel and through me Osho initiates his disciples. You are asking why most of the people are young. Yes, when religion is alive, it attracts young people. All the great things done by great masters were done during their young age. Buddha left his palace at the age of 29 and became enlightened when he was 35. Shankaracharya became enlightened at the age of 16 and died at the age of 32. Vivekananda died at 39 and Jesus died at 33. They were young people and they have done miracles in the world. When you are young energy is alive and you are innocent. Old people become cunning and old minds become greedy. So when religion is young it always attracts young people. Only young people can create miracles. Only young people can be REALLY RELIGIOUS.

What is your opinion about the current global situation?

Sw Arun: The current global situation is very alarming. It looks like we are no more interested in life. We are heading towards total destruction. Global warming, over population, scarcity of water, rupture in the ozone layer are a few indicators to show that the world is moving towards destruction. Osho has said several times that it’s high time we corrected ourselves or we will have to vacate this beautiful planet. Enlightened masters have always been giving the indication but very few people listen to them. But now even sociologists, environmentalists and scientists have started saying that we are heading towards global suicide. It’s now very urgent to correct our mistakes. Osho is a messenger for this transformation; to show where we have made mistakes and how we can correct them.

Your efforts have culminated into numerous meditation centres and communes all over the world.
How do you manage so much?

Sw Arun: People can build houses but they can’t build temples. I have been to several temples built by rich people. Architecturally, they are well planned and well decorated but most of them have no spiritual energy because this energy cannot be created by money. Our meditation centres are Buddha fields where spiritual energy is alive. I would like to give you an example of the centre (Osho Sambodhi) that was recently opened in London. It is just an ordinary house but if you sit there for five minutes you will be charged by a divine energy. I cannot create this energy. Osho centres are created by existence and they are running because existence wants them to. Yes! We can become facilitators, we can become mediums, and I feel very lucky that existence has given me this opportunity.

What do these centres contribute to the society?

Their contribution to society is indirect. These centres make good and joyful individuals. A happy individual can make a happy society. If individuals are unhappy, stressed and angry then the whole society gets affected. So, these centres make people relaxed and joyful. At Tapoban you can see that people are happy even if they are not affluent. A new person can instantly realize that people here are always laughing and cracking jokes. Yes! We are happy people and we love to share happiness. These centres are like oases that radiate happiness in the world. And if the world needs anything, it’s happiness, love and freedom. These three most essential things in people’s life are all available in these centres. Osho centres are a free space, nobody interferes in anybody’s personal life. People have total liberty. It’s their life and they live according to their own intelligence. Centre coordinators or anybody in the centre does not have any right to interfere in anybody’s life. An individual’s right is highly respected. The centre attracts people who love Osho or who love humanity. You are here because you love Osho, because you love me and I am here because I love you. So, the basic ingredient is love. Freedom, love and happiness are a rare combination in the world. These centres provide the environment for love and life.

Being one of the pioneers of the Osho movement what would you to like to say to those involved with it today?

Sw Arun: I don’t consider myself a pioneer. I am only an ardent lover of Osho. I am not alone. Thousands of people are working for the master according to their understanding and I am one of them. I always work with the understanding that I could also be wrong. So, when I advise someone I also remind him that he is free to do what his intelligence tells him to. I have this experience that working for the master is the greatest pleasure of my life. Nothing can give me more happiness, more satisfaction. My experience says that if you want to be happy, if you want satisfaction then become a medium of the master. When the master starts working through you the whole existence will bless you, the whole existence will love you. Lots of people think that they will work for Osho after five years, after ten years, after they complete their studies, their service and so on.
NO! If you are postponing, it is never going to happen. It has to happen from this moment, from now. It is the greatest illusion of the mind. Right it down in your diary that if you are not doing it today, you are not doing it tomorrow either. If you are not meditating today, you are not meditating tomorrow. If you don’t love Osho and become his medium today, there is less chance that you’ll become his medium tomorrow. In fact there’s NO CHANCE.

Interviewed by: Swami Aatmo Neerav, December, 2008

Tags: News by sannyasnews
24 Comments »

Meditation through Movement: Pankaja’s reflections on her recent visit to Song Mountain in China.

San Huang Zhai monastery at Song Mountain

This article first appeared on the UK Osho site: Omweb where there are associated articles about this visit by Veena, and more details. The article is published with permission.

Buddha Grove at seven on a chilly January morning - I’d never miss a Tai Chi class with Yogendra while I was in Pune. That’s what really turned me on to Tai Chi, tho I had been doing it casually for a few years before that. I’ve been carrying on with another teacher in London for the past few years, so the BBC episode of The Extreme Pilgrim which took place in the Shaolin temple in China was particularly fascinating for me.

I really felt for this poor middle aged English vicar, (who fronted the Extreme Pilgrim series), as he struggled to keep up with these 17 year old martial artists who’d been training since childhood as acrobats and fighters. After a week of this self torture, the vicar visited the San Huang Zhai monastery which is in the process of construction up on the mountain behind. Everything for the monastery has to be carried up several thousand steps - bricks, concrete, tiles for building, plus all food for the monks and nuns who live there. Seeing the monks carrying heavy bags of flour and vegetables on their backs while walking up with beautiful, graceful, swaying steps struck me deep in the heart.

On the way up to the monastery

Osho teased and hit me many times for being ‘in my head,’ unable to divorce myself from my ideas, and I spent long years cleaning rooms and toilets in Pune 1. I was never a very good cleaner, never enjoyed it except the time spent scrubbing the toilets with a wonderful opera singer friend, our voices echoing off the white tiles. The first time I walked through Buddha hall carrying a mop and bucket I really had no idea what to do with those implements - though later it became a wonderful game, swirling the huge mops around. I was never remotely interested in learning Tai Chi then - I just wanted to sit or lie down in discourse and disappear into Osho’s energy field, forgetting all about this irritating vehicle, the body!

Monks Training

But as I get older meditation through movement, yeah, have to admit it - tai chi rather than dynamic or kundalini - has become more important to me, and the way these monks moved was meditation in everyday life - truly tai chi. It was the same in the half constructed buildings as the monks swept the floors (lots of dust!) and the two nuns, one young, one old, planted herbs in the garden.

Speaking to Veena on the phone several months later when she said she was going and wanted someone to go with her - I had an instant ‘yes’. And through her amazing networking skills we actually found ourselves, on the very first day we arrived, climbing those very steps and meeting that very monk. I had bought a camcorder the week before leaving and was busy filming while trying to figure out how to use it as we climbed the steps and Veena interviewed Wu Nanfang that first day. The reality was different from the documentary because it was a major public holiday and there were thousands of Chinese visitors and pilgrims thronging the steps. But the mountain was as extraordinary and the Buddhist and Taoist temples a revelation - was this the country where Maoist communism had done its best to destroy any vestige of religion?

Huge Buddha in the Longmen Caves

Veena had hurt her foot, but I spent every day climbing each side of beautiful Song mountain, passing through temple after temple tucked onto the edge of higher and higher gorges and precipices. The mountain itself is a Unesco World Geopark because of its geological uniqueness, but on this holiday week there were always throngs of pilgrims, young couples carrying their infants, ancient grannies in bedroom slippers, climbing these thousand upon thousand steps to make offerings or just have a day out. It was only at the Longmen caves, where endless statues of Buddha had been carved into the mountainside during the 6th & 7th centuries AD that it was impossible to miss this legacy. Osho often spoke about Mao, along with Stalin and Hitler, as one of the greatest criminals who ever lived. The destruction of most of these images was partly due to war and the greed of collectors, but the relentless and vicious defacement is also a reminder of the Cultural Revolution - well within the lifetime of many of the visitors.

Yet there is one huge head of the Buddha still radiating meditation above all the chaos, as Osho radiates above the chaos of today.

Tags: News, The World by sannyasnews
1 Comment »