Talk:Hindi Subtitles – A Story

From The Sannyas Wiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Four areas of background material deemed too much for the article page will be noted here:

The March 1989 "recent publications" list

This list (image right, click to enlarge) was found in several books published in that month: Bahutere Hain Ghat (बहुतेरे हैं घाट), Chal Hansa Us Des (चल हंसा उस देस), Mahaveer Ya Mahavinash (महावीर या महाविनाश) and Hari Om Tatsat (हरि ॐ तत्सत्). The wiki's interpretation of "recent" has been somewhat arbitrarliy put at one year, ie Mar '88 to Mar '89. That may be expanded or shrunk as more informed information becomes available. This estimate has been combined with other factoids in some cases to yield a narrower range; for example Main Kahta Aankhan Dekhi (मैं कहता आंखन देखी) is known to have been published some time in 1988, so its range has been rendered as Mar 1988 to Dec 1988.

श्री रजनीश के प्रवचनों के नवीनतम प्रकाशन (Latest publications of Shree Rajneesh's discourses)
note the name change: "Bhagwan" is gone, but "Osho" not yet adopted
and note: books marked with ** are also in Shailendra's list of books with subtitles
विशेष राज संस्करण (special deluxe editions)
पद घुंघरू बांध (Pad Ghunghru Bandh, apparently the Meera twofer, not the letters book of the same name) **
कहै कबीर दीवाना (Kahai Kabir Diwana) **
कहै कबीर मैं पूरा पाया (Kahai Kabir Main Pura Paya) **
सुनो भई साधो (Suno Bhai Sadho) **
भक्ति सूत्र (Bhakti Sutra) **
महावीर- वाणी भागः 1 (Mahaveer Vani Bhag 1) **
महावीर- वाणी भागः 2 (Mahaveer Vani Bhag 2) **
भजगोविंदम् मूढ़मते (Bhajgovindam Mudhmate) **
संभोग से समाधि की ओर Sambhog Se Samadhi Ki Or) **
स्वर्ण पाखी था जो कभी और अब है भिखारी जगत का (Swarn Pakhi Tha Jo Kabhi Aur Ab Hai Bhikhari Jagat Ka)
न कानों सुना न आंखों देखा (Na Kanon Suna Na Aankhon Dekha) **
जिन खोजा तिन पाइयां (Jin Khoja Tin Paiyan) **
शिव सूत्र (Shiv Sutra) **
देख कबीरा रोया (Dekh Kabira Roya) **
सर्वसार उपनिषद (Sarvasar Upanishad) **
मैं कहता आंखन देखी (Main Kahta Aankhan Dekhi) **
बिन घन परत फुहार (Bin Ghan Parat Phuhar) **
कैवल्य उपनिषद (Kaivalya Upanishad) **
नेति-नेति (Neti-Neti) **
पुस्तिकाएं (booklets)
रसौ वै सः (Raso Vai Sah)
झुक आई बदरिया सावन की (Jhuk Aayee Badariya Sawan Ki) **
मगन भया रसि लागा (Magan Bhaya Rasi Laga) **
घूंघट के पट खोल (Ghoonghat Ke Pat Khol) **
सच्चिदानंद (Sachchidanand)
महावीर वाणी (Mahaveer Vani) **
पंडित-पुरोहित और राजनेता (Pandit-Purohit Aur Rajneta)
एक-एक कदम (Ek Ek Kadam) **
ऊं मणे पद्मे हुम् (Om Mani Padme Hum)
चेति सकै तो चेति (Cheti Sake To Cheti) **
ऊं शांतिः शांतिः शांतिः (Om Shantih Shantih Shantih)
एक महान चुनौती (Ek Mahaan Chunauti)
The high preponderance of subtitled books in this group might indicate a number of things. We will explore that a bit here. In the "special deluxe edition" subset, all have the ** indicating subtitles. A small liberty was taken in this statement by including one special oddball, listed in the "recent pubs" list above as Swarn Pakhi Tha Jo Kabhi Aur Ab Hai Bhikhari Jagat Ka but in Shailendra's subtitled books list in the article page as Bharat Ke Jalte Prashna (भारत के जलते प्रश्न). In fact, they are one and the same book and edition. The wiki as of this writing has it as Swarn Pakhi, not Jalte Prashna, but that is partly the momentum of past nomenclature, compounded by Hindi Publications' own unclarity about the title. If one looks at the cover image, the whole nine yards are there: "Bharat Ke Jalte Prashna" on top, "Swarn Pakhi Tha Jo Kabhi" below it, and "Aur Ab Hai Bhikhari Jagat Ka" at 90º on the side, all in the most unreadable gold-letters-on-black-background ever created in the history of Osho's books.
Aside from this one anomaly, there are "booklets": six of them have subtitles and six do not. And there is a pattern. Of the six that don't have subtitles, all are translations. The other six are not translations. The translations are by definition not offering Osho's words as he spoke them and they are not re-issues of earlier Hindi discourses (or significant fragments). As we understand the subtitle process, they were given for books that were being brought back after being out of print.
So, whatever the rationale for subtitles / no subtitles, this is the pattern observed. -- doofus-9 07:20, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

March 1989 "upcoming publications"

Three of these same books mentioned above published in Mar 1989 (excluding Hari Om Tatsat) also featured short lists of upcoming publications. For the sake of this discussion, this has been interpreted / estimated to mean approx Mar - Apr of 1989. Three of them were indeed published in Mar, so "soon" likely did mean fairly soon. Only Chal Hansa's list is reproduced here, as it includes the other three, Bahutere, Mahavinash and Hari Om. (FWIW, Bahutere includes Mahavinash and Hari Om, while Mahavinash has only Hari Om and the other five left after it drops out, so there you have the exact order in which they were published, if it matters.)

Books marked with ** in this small collection are among those with subtitles, in fact seven of the eight are in that lot, with only Hari Om not among them. Hari Om is again a translation, so it fits the pattern observed above for the recent pubs of Mar 1989. Underlined titles (four out of the eight) are among Shailendra's special ten pointing to Osho's message. Note that none of those were in the "recent pubs" list, ie all were printed Mar 1989 or later.

(from Chal Hansa Us Des**:)
आगामी प्रकाशन (upcoming pubs)
कृष्ण-स्मृति (कृष्ण: मेरी दृष्टि में) (Krishna Smriti (Krishna: Meri Drishti Mein))**
शिक्षा में क्रांति (Shiksha Mein Kranti)**
सहज समाधी भली (Sahaj Samadhi Bhali)**
समाधि के सप्त द्वार (Samadhi Ke Sapt Dwar)**
हरी ॐ तत्सत् (Hari Om Tatsat)
ध्यान-सूत्र (Dhyan Sutra)**
बहुतेरे हैं घाट (Bahutere Hain Ghat)**
महावीर या महाविनाश (Mahaveer Ya Mahavinash)**

And note that the extra-long title of Krishna Smriti includes an alternate title, not a subtitle, but that alternate title was included in the published list.

"Urgency" survey, usage after Sep 1988

This survey will go into some detail, since the more is learned of Osho's usage of this word, the more can be seen how unusual and striking the pattern is from Sep 16 1988 to Apr 10 1989.

The basic theme Osho is sounding with "urgency" is our and his impermanence, the main implication in the contexts he uses it being that we "should" be making reaching our center our most important priority, since this opportunity will sooner or later disappear. Some totality and intensity of effort and/or longing is needed if we are not to miss out. If we put it off, it will not happen.

In some cases, there is a parallel "anti-theme" which makes relaxing as if we have all eternity to reach our center as the most appropriate path for certain types of people. And there are other occasions in which Osho's use of the word is what we might call "incidental", ie its use relates to neither of these themes and is not central in whatever he is expounding on at the time.

But his major use of the word is to emphasize the need for an intensity in this moment to cross the gap between sleep and wakefulness, at least for a few moments to have a taste. And where he uses it by far the most is this period we are considering, from Sep 16 1988 to Apr 10 1989, a period of 207 days, the last seven months or so of his year of Zen discourses.

The final year of Osho's public discourses consists only of talks on Zen masters and their methods and anecdotes. They began on Apr 22 1988, with Live Zen. Besides their focus on things Zen, another prominent and unusual feature was meditation periods led by him, the first such since the early 70s meditation camps.

The first tentative versions of these meditation periods had actually appeared in early April in YAA-HOO! The Mystic Rose, the series which preceded Live Zen. At that time, they took the form, with some variation and experiment, of two minutes of silent meditation, with Osho sometimes instructing his listeners to remain completely frozen and unmoving in that time, sometimes a "Let-Go", which was most frequently an allowed collapse into lying down. This general format continued through Live Zen #16, on May 7.

Following that, he did not come out for 18 days; then for Live Zen #17, on May 26, he introduced a new structured meditation, to be "done" after discourse and jokes. These meditations consisted of three parts, punctuated by Nivedano's drumbeats: the first part was two minutes of gibberish, the second part a freeze and silence, third part, "fall like a bag of rice" without control or plan. Aside from these instructions and some brief comments on his absence, there was no talk, no commentary, no "regular" discourse that night. The structure of post-discourse meditations continued in roughly this form until the end.

In mid-Sep, the theme of "urgency" entered, starting with a new focus on particular Zen masters. The first of them was Ma Tzu, whose series began Sep 16.

In the whole CD-ROM, there are only 288 instances ("hits") of Osho's use of the word "urgency". Fully 161 of them occurred in the 123 discourses starting Sep 16. Such a concentration occurring at this time suggests strongly that he could see the end coming. Now was the time to convey the message to his people, if not in so many words.

Prior to this time, his use of the word was sporadic, and as often as not referred to his own impermanence. Now, from Ma Tzu on, it was always the disciple's impermanence. The message was emphatically DO IT NOW, go to the center of your being, as if this were the last moment of your life. Only such an urgency will get you there and, unstated, the situation now really is urgent.

A few numbers: There were 207 days from Ma Tzu #1 to Zen Manifesto #11. Osho did not come out on 84 of those days, 24 during Isan, 19 between Kyozan and No-Mind, 39 during Manifesto and 2 single days, in Rinzai and No-Mind. So 207 - 84 = 123 discourses with their meditations. Of these 123 meditations, 114 of them have this "urgency" and a very similar message about the last moment of your life.

The "urgency" hit parade

The tables below show the incidence and distribution of this word's appearances over his whole period of public speaking (per the CD-ROM).

There are 18 books with a total of 22 instances of purely incidental usage of this word. 14 books have one each, the four that are underlined have two each. They are in no particular order:

The Art of Dying (#7) From Darkness to Light (#16) The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 5 (#4)
Sat Chit Anand (#18 & 21) The Grass Grows By Itself (#1) From Ignorance to Innocence (#7)
I Say Unto You, Vol 2 (#7) The Last Testament, Vol 1 (#23) Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2 (#22)
The Messiah, Vol 1 (#21) I Say Unto You, Vol 1 (2 in #3) Sufis: The People of the Path, Vol 2 (#5 & 9)
Take It Easy, Vol 1 (#1) The Sword and the Lotus (#22) Tantra: The Supreme Understanding (#4)
Until You Die (#4) The Last Testament, Vol 2 (#15) Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, Vol 3 (2 in #9)

There are eight books which have both some incidental hits and some that are on-theme or anti-theme. Among them are a total of ten incidental hits. It will be seen that most that are on-theme are "isolated" ie not part of a focused expounding on that theme. Only two of these books have such a focused expounding:

Dates Title incidental on- / anti-theme
Oct-Nov 72 Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 1 1 in #15 2 in #6, on-theme but isolated
Sep 75 Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, Vol 6 3 in #9 1 in #10, on-theme but isolated
Oct 75 The True Sage 1 in #1 1 in #2, on-theme but isolated
Jan 86 The Last Testament, Vol 5 1 in #21 1 in #22, on-theme but isolated
Sep 86 The Osho Upanishad 1 in #15 1 in #16 & 1 in #30, on-theme but isolated
Mar 87 The Hidden Splendor 1 in #14 6 in #25, anti-theme
Sep 87 The Great Pilgrimage: From Here to Here 1 in #14 3 in #10, q about urgency
Jan 88 Om Mani Padme Hum 1 in #24 1 in #21 on-theme but isolated

Another 19 books have purely on- or anti-theme hits:

Dates Title #, on- / anti-theme
Jan 74 Vedanta: Seven Steps to Samadhi 2 in #15, anti-theme
Jan 75 Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, Vol 2 4 in #2, on- AND anti-theme
Oct 75 Come Follow To You, Vol 1 2 in #7, 2 in #9, on-theme
Sep 76 The Discipline of Transcendence, Vol 2 1 in #11, on-theme but isolated
Oct 76 The Discipline of Transcendence, Vol 3 1 in #10, on-theme but isolated
Dec 76 Ecstasy - The Forgotten Language 3 in #1, 1 in #9, 1 in #10 all on-theme
Jan 77 The Divine Melody 1 in #2, on-theme but isolated
Jun 78 The Perfect Master, Vol 1 1 in #8, on-theme but isolated
Apr 79 The Fish in the Sea is Not Thirsty 2 in #5, on-theme
Jun 79 The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 1 5 in #4, q about urgency, on-theme
Aug 79 The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 4 1 in #3, on-theme but isolated
Jan 86 Light on the Path 1 in #25, on-theme but isolated
Feb 86 The Last Testament, Vol 6 1 in #4, on-theme but isolated
Nov 86 Sermons in Stones 1 in #25, on-theme but isolated
Feb 87 The Rebellious Spirit 1 in #14, on-theme but isolated
Nov 87 Satyam Shivam Sundram 3 in #2, on-theme, 10 in #24, anti-theme
Feb 3 88 Hari Om Tat Sat 1 in #17, explicitly re death of the master (a shot across the bow?)
Mar 88 Om Shantih Shantih Shantih 1 in #4 anti-theme, isolated,
Sep 13 88 The Buddha: The Emptiness of the Heart 6 in #6, integral part of sutra, not in meditations

Hari Om Tat Sat #17 above may be a special case in that it concerns the death of the master, but since it precedes the period in question by more than seven months, its relevance to this study can only be speculative. However, the last of the books above, Emptiness of the Heart, is begging to be included. It is only three days before Ma Tzu and has a focused consideration of this "urgency" matter, as it is part of the sutra Osho comments on.

Still, "urgency" does not become a regular part of the meditations until three days later. Then, suddenly, it is very regular. The table below details this. Of the 161 hits in this period, all but two are on-theme.

Dates Title discourse hits meditation hits total
Sep 16-25 88 Ma Tzu: The Empty Mirror 6: 1 in #2, incidental, 5 in #7 on-theme 9 (1 in each except #10, 9/10) 15
Sep 26 - Oct 4 88 Hyakujo: The Everest of Zen 6 (2 in #1, 2 in #2, 1 in #5, 1 in #6) 1 in each except #6 & 8 (7/9) 13
Oct 5-14 88 Nansen: The Point of Departure 1 in #1, on-theme 1 in each except #1 & 9 (8/10) 9
Oct 15-22 88 Joshu: The Lion's Roar 6 (3 in #1, 1 in #4, 2 in #7 1 in each except #4 (7/8) 13
Oct 23-31 88 Rinzai: Master of the Irrational none 1 in each (8/8) + 1 extra 9
Nov 1 - Dec 2 88 Isan: No Footprints in the Blue Sky 5 (1 each in #1, 3, 4, 6, 8) 6 (#4, 5, 6, & 8, 2 in #7) 11
Dec 3-6 88 Kyozan: A True Man of Zen none 1 in each (4/4) 4
Dec 26 88 - Jan 7 89 No Mind: The Flowers of Eternity none 1 in each (12/12) + 2 extras 14
Jan 8-12 89 Zen: The Mystery and The Poetry of the Beyond 4 in #1, on-theme 1 in each (5/5) 9
Jan 13-16 89 One Seed Makes the Whole Earth Green 3 on-theme 1 in each (4/4) 7
Jan 17-21 89 Yakusan: Straight to the Point of Enlightenment 1 in #4, on-theme 1 in each (5/5) 6
Jan 22-29 89 Christianity: The Deadliest Poison and Zen: The Antidote to All Poisons 2 on-theme 1 in each (8/8) 10
Jan 30 - Feb 5 89 Communism and Zen Fire, Zen Wind none 1 in each except #6 (6/7) + 5 extras (in #1, 4, 5 & 7) 11
Feb 6-12 89 God is Dead, Now Zen is the Only Living Truth 2 (1 on-theme + 1 incidental) 1 in each (7/7) 9
Feb 13-19 89 I Celebrate Myself: God Is No Where, Life Is Now Here none 1 in each (7/7) + 2 extras 9
Feb 20 - Apr 10 89 The Zen Manifesto: Freedom From Oneself 1 in #1, on-theme 1 in each (11/11) 12

Of the 27 remaining hits, 14 are in Darshan Diaries and 13 in Translations from Hindi. Most are incidental but one nice Darshan Diary entry is worth citing as it gives a good view of "the big picture" on this theme.

And this going away [back to the West] will be helpful, because here you are in too much of a hurry. You want to trust and your intelligence won't allow you to, so you are almost in a schizophrenic state, driven in two directions simultaneously. There there will be no hurry -- I will not be there and I will not create this urgency to trust, mm? Here you are continuously in a state of urgency.
That's my field I have to create that urgency, because only when something is urgent do people start jumping into it; otherwise they can't. If they can wait for tomorrow, they will wait for tomorrow. When they see that there is no possibility of tomorrow, only then do they take the jump. When they see that the house is on fire, really on fire, then they escape from it. And sannyas is an escape -- not escape from reality but escape into reality. So the urgency is bound to be there. If you are here, there is a continuous urgency and I go on creating the crescendo of it. That is making trouble for you.
Back in [the West] you will be far away from this field of urgency. You will be able to relax and there will be no hurry and I will not be driving you so hard. You will be able to see what your doubt is doing to you, where it is leading you. Alone, relaxed, meditating, contemplating on the doubt, you will soon be able to penetrate it. It will disappear, it will evaporate, and the West will be of great help.
~ from The Madman's Guide to Enlightenment, ch 22

And Now, And Here

More on and from the fascinating discourse -- again, And Now, And Here, Vol 2, ch 8 -- wherein Osho describes what happened to him when he first fell out of the tree while meditating. He refers to this experience as having happened 17 or 18 years previously, but as noted in the article page, this appears to be an incorrect translation of what he actually said in Hindi. See below for a consideration of this.

For much of this discourse, the first one back in Mumbai after the camp in Dwarka, "I Teach Death". Osho talks, unsurprisingly on life and death. He repeatedly asserts that there is no such thing as death, so the only question is about life. He says, also repeatedly, that the fear of death, this unreal thing, arises only because people do not live to their full capacity: if they would live fully, they would come to know from the inside that their real self is immortal. We come then to the part of the discourse where he talks about his own experience which led him to this understanding:

Let me tell you an incredible experience I had. It has just occurred to me; I have never told it before. About seventeen or eighteen years ago I used to meditate until late at night sitting in the top of a tree. I have often felt the body has a greater influence over you if you meditate sitting on the ground. The body is made of earth, and the forces of the body work very powerfully if one meditates sitting on the ground.
All this talk of the yogis moving up to the higher elevations -- to the mountains, to the Himalayas -- is not without reason; it's very scientific. The greater the distance between the body and the earth, the lesser the pull of the earthly element on the body. So I used to meditate every night sitting in a tree. One night... I don't know when I became immersed in deep meditation, and I don't know at what point my body fell from the tree, but when it did, I looked with a start to see what had happened.
I was still in the tree, but the body had fallen below. It's difficult to say how I felt at that time. I was still sitting in the tree and the body was below. Only a single silver cord connected me with the navel of my body -- a very shiny silver cord. What would happen next was beyond my comprehension. How would I return to my body?
I don't know how long this state lasted, but it was an exceptional experience. For the first time I saw my body from outside, and from that very day on the body ceased to exist. Since then I am finished with death, because I came to see another body different from this one -- I came to experience the subtle body. It's difficult to say how long this experience lasted.
With the breaking of dawn, two women from the nearby village passed, carrying milk pots on their heads. As they approached the tree they saw my body lying there. They came and sat next to the body. I was watching all this from above. It seems the women took the body to be dead. They placed their hands on my head, and in a moment, as if by a powerful force of attraction, I came back into the body and my eyes opened.
At that point I experienced something else too. I felt that a woman can create a chemical change in a man's body, and so can a man in a woman's body. I also wondered how the touch of that woman caused my return to the body. Subsequently, I had many more experiences of this kind. They explained why the tantrikas of India, who experimented extensively with samadhi and death, had linked themselves with women too.
During intensive experiences of samadhi, man's luminous body, his subtle body, cannot return without a woman's help if it has come out of the physical body. Similarly, a woman's luminous, subtle body, cannot be brought back without a man's assistance. As the male and female bodies connect, an electrical circuit is completed and the consciousness that has gone out returns swiftly to the body.

Following this part of his talk, Osho mentions, in the part already cited in the article page, that he had similar experiences about six more times in six months. One might think that once was enough, but evidently there was more to learn, and he certainly was not afraid!

He goes on to outline his understanding that a life-essential connection between the physical body and the subtle body gets disturbed in spiritual adventurers who experience their true nature. They can die very young, like Adi Shankara or Vivekananda, or have frailties and illnesses like Ramakrishna. He says that "yogis have always been ill, and have died at early ages. The sole reason for this is that the necessary adjustment between the two bodies becomes interrupted. Once the subtle body comes out of the physical body it never reenters fully and the adjustment is never completely restored. But then it is not needed. There is no reason for it; it has no meaning."

And he asserts that it is sufficient to harness good old "will power" in the service of an intense desire to return to one's center, a totality of effort and longing, to see the body from within and thereby come to the understanding of the inner body's immortality.(Which brings us back to "urgency".)

More might be quoted from this discourse but, unsure of the limits of "fair use", we'll leave it here.

When and where

This section concerns the dating given to the occasion when Osho first fell out of a tree while meditating. In the Hindi original, it is clearly 12 or 13 years before, not 17 or 18, those words underlined here:

एक अदभुत अनुभव मुझे हुआ, वह मैं कहूं। अब तक उसे कभी कहा नहीं। अचानक खयाल आ गया तो कहता हूं। कोई बारह साल पहले, तेरह साल पहले, बहुत रातों तक एक वृक्ष के ऊपर बैठकर ध्यान करता था।

The different dating places it in 1956 or '57, after his enlightenment, and in Sagar, where he "studied" for his master's degree. The English translation putting it at 17 or 18 years, ie before his enlightenment and in Jabalpur, was believable, especially given Osho's sometimes wild relationship with numbers and time, but Shailendra has looked into this story, told several times in various Hindi books, and his version is convincing. He says:

I have visited the place in Sagar where the old huge tree was; since the last 5-6 years it is no more. But still many people have pictures of it. Thousands of sannyasins have visited Sagar to see the tree. All local Osho-lovers know about it.
In 1971-72 Sw Chaitanya Bharti (official photographer at that time) was asked to go to Sagar with Niklank to get a picture of that tree. When Niklank said, "But I do not know which tree you have been talking about", Osho replied, "You just go to that particular hill in the university, and you will recognize it. That is the only tree in that area". Niklank knew the area, as he also studied at the same place, Sagar University.
So they went there and found it. Later on Osho saw the pictures and confirmed them, asking Chaitanya Bharti to get them printed in the magazine. 18:22, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

Sarlo love, from where would you like me to link to this fascinating page? Biography and Hindi books? --Rudra 07:11, 19 February 2018 (UTC)


I presume you mean the article page, not this talk page. Hindi books seems appropriate, perhaps in with the Hindi titles to be added listing. I'm not sure how relevant Bio is. Perhaps a "see also" from Shailendra's page? -- doofus-9 18:12, 19 February 2018 (UTC)