From Sex to Superconsciousness

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With complete frankness Osho discusses the three stages of sex - physical, psychological and spiritual - and provides guidance on how this raw energy can be transformed into the realization of ultimate consciousness. He explains that when we repress our basic nature, sex takes roots in the unconscious, creating an unnatural obsession. It is this psychic state that has produced much mental sickness and the widespread perversity of society today. "Sex is man's most vibrant energy," Osho says," but it should not be an end unto itself: sex should lead man to his soul."
translated from
Hindi : Sambhog Se Samadhi Ki Or (संभोग से समाधि की ओर)
Translated by V. Vora
notes
Read this book as PDF or create a free account at osho.com to read the book online.
Later published as part of Osho Books on CD-ROM.
Originally dictated (in Hindi) by Osho.
First discourse given at the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan Auditorium in Bombay on Aug 28, 1968.
Second discourse given at Gowalia Tank Maidan in Bombay on Sep 28, 1968.
Third discourse given at Gowalia Tank Maidan in Bombay on Sep 29, 1968.
Fourth discourse given at Gowalia Tank Maidan in Bombay on Sep 30, 1968.
Fifth discourse given at Gowalia Tank Maidan in Bombay on Oct 1, 1968.
Later also published in Sex Matters.
For an account of the editing-process (1979 edition) by Krishna Prem, see below "#About the editing by KP".
time period of Osho's original talks/writings
Aug 28, 1968 to Oct 1, 1968 : timeline
number of discourses/chapters
5   (see table of contents)


editions

From Sex to Superconsciousness

Year of publication : 1971.02
Publisher : Jeevan Jagruti Kendra
ISBN : none
Number of pages : 180
Hardcover / Paperback / Ebook : P
Edition notes : Edition: First, Copies: 3000, February 1971. © Jeevan Jagruti Kendra.
Author as Acharya Rajneesh
Publisher: I.N. Shah, Secretary, Jeevan Jagruti Kendra, 53, Empire Building, 146 Dr. D. N. Road, Bombay-1.
Printer: Naredra Bhargava, Bhargava Bhushan Press, Varanasi.
Preface (Excerpts from the PREFACE to the Hindi Edition)

From Sex to Superconsciousness

Year of publication : 1973
Publisher : Jeevan Jagruti Kendra
ISBN None
Number of pages : 180
Hardcover / Paperback / Ebook : P
Edition notes : Edition: 2nd, Copies: 5000, Oct. 1973. © Jeevan Jagruti Kendra.
Size : 212 x 137 x 8 mm
Author as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh
Publisher: I.N. Shah, Secretary, Jeevan Jagruti Kendra, 31, Israil Mohalla Bhagwean Nivas, Masjid Bunder Road, Bombay-9, Phone: 321085.
Printer: A.N. Malik, India Publishing House, Sidhpura Industrial Estate, 13, Masrani Lane, Hellow Pul, Kurla, Bombay-70.
Preface (Excerpts from the PREFACE to the Hindi Edition): Mahipal
Foreword: V. Vora

From Sex to Superconsciousness

Year of publication : 1975
Publisher : Ind-US Inc.
ISBN 0-89253-060-X (click ISBN to buy online)
Number of pages : 157
Hardcover / Paperback / Ebook : P
Edition notes :
Author as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh

From Sex to Superconsciousness

Year of publication : 1976
Publisher : Orient Paperbacks
ISBN None
Number of pages : 156
Hardcover / Paperback / Ebook : P
Edition notes : Shown here is the scan of a badly damaged book
Author as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh

From Sex to Superconsciousness

Year of publication : 1979
Publisher : Rajneesh Foundation
ISBN 0-88050-064-6 (click ISBN to buy online)
Number of pages : 230
Hardcover / Paperback / Ebook : H
Edition notes : First edition July 1979, 5,000 copies. © Copyright 1979 Rajneesh Foundation.
Size : 222 x 150 x 23 mm
Author as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh
Published by Ma Yoga Laxmi
Editor: Sw Krishna Prem
Design: Sw Anand Subhadra
Cover design: Sw Govinddas
Coordination: Ma Yoga Pratima, Ma Deva Ritambhara
Production: Ma Deva Weechee, Ma Prem Upasana, Ma Deva Layo, Sw Devaprem, Sw Anand Satyam and Sw Anand Prashanta
Photography: Sw Krishna Bharti
Phototypeset by Spads Phototype Setting Industries (P) Ltd. Worli, Bombay
Printed by Usha Offset Printers Bombay
Introduction: Sw Krishna Prem

From Sex to Superconsciousness

Year of publication : 1988
Publisher : Orient Paperbacks
ISBN 81-222-0079-6 ? (No printed ISBN in the book) (click ISBN to buy online)
Number of pages : 157
Hardcover / Paperback / Ebook : P
Edition notes : Copyright Rajneeshdham, Poona, 1988
Size : 183 x 119 x 11 mm
Author as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh
Printed in India at New Madan Half-Tone Co., Delhi-110 006
Cover printed at Ravindra Printing Press, Delhi-110 006
Preface: Mahipal
Foreword: V. Vora

From Sex to Superconsciousness

Year of publication : 1989
Publisher : The Rebel Publishing House, Germany
ISBN 3-89338-062-0 (click ISBN to buy online)
Number of pages : 172
Hardcover / Paperback / Ebook : H
Edition notes : Third edition. Copyright © Neo-Sannyas International
Size : 208 x 147 x 18 mm
Author as Osho Rajneesh
Editing by Sw Krishna Prem, Sw Anand Burt
Design by Sw Deva Anugito, B.Arch.
Typesetting by Ma Alok Pashyo, Ma Prem Arya
Cover painting by Ma Anand Meera (Kasué Hashimoto), B.F.A. (Musashino Art Univerity, Tokyo)
Production by Sw Prem Visarjan, Ma Shivam Suvarna, B.Sc., Sw Prem Prabodh
Cover photograph by Sw Swatantra Sarjano
Printing by Mohndruck, Gütersloh, West Germany
Introduction: Amrita Pritam, World Famous Poetess, Writer, and Member of Parliament New Delhi, India

From Sex to Superconsciousness

Year of publication : 1989
Reprint : 1990
Publisher : Orient Paperbacks
ISBN 81-222-0079-6 (click ISBN to buy online)
Number of pages : 157
Hardcover / Paperback / Ebook : P
Edition notes : 1st Published 1989, Reprinted 1990. © Sadhana Foundation, 1989.
Size : 181 x 122 x 10 mm
Author as Osho Rajneesh
Printed in India at Gopsons Papers Pvt. Ltd, Noida
Cover printed at Ravindra Printing Press, Delhi-110 006
Preface: Mahipal
Foreword: V. Vora

From Sex to Superconsciousness

Year of publication : 1997
Publisher : HarperCollins India
ISBN 81-7223-255-1 (click ISBN to buy online)
Number of pages : 173
Hardcover / Paperback / Ebook : P
Edition notes : Possible reprint in 2000.

From Sex to Superconsciousness

Year of publication : 1999
Reprint 2006
Publisher : Rebel Publishing House, India
ISBN 81-7261-010-6 (click ISBN to buy online)
Number of pages : 248
Hardcover / Paperback / Ebook : H
Edition notes : Fifth edition.

From Sex to Superconsciousness

Year of publication : 2003
Publisher : Full Circle / Hind Pocket Books
ISBN 81-7621-133-8 (click ISBN to buy online)
Number of pages : 155
Hardcover / Paperback / Ebook : P
Edition notes :

From Sex to Superconsciousness

Year of publication : 2003
Publisher : Full Circle / Hind Pocket Books
ISBN 81-7621-133-8 (click ISBN to buy online)
Number of pages : 168
Hardcover / Paperback / Ebook : P
Edition notes :

From Sex to Superconsciousness

Year of publication :
Publisher : Osho Tapoban, Nepal
ISBN
Number of pages :
Hardcover / Paperback / Ebook : P
Edition notes :

From Sex to Superconsciousness

Year of publication : 2011
Publisher : Osho Media International
ISBN 9788172610104 (click ISBN to buy online)
Number of pages : 280
Hardcover / Paperback / Ebook : H
Edition notes :

From Sex to Superconsciousness

Year of publication : 2014
Publisher : QFORD Books
ISBN 978-93-80494-40-1 (click ISBN to buy online)
Number of pages : 132
Hardcover / Paperback / Ebook : P
Edition notes :

table of contents

editions 1971.02 -- 1976, 1988
chapter titles
discourses
event location duration media
1 Sex: The Genesis of Love 28 Aug 1968 pm Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan Auditorium,
Bombay
1h 11min audio
2 From the Repression to the Emancipation 28 Sep 1968 pm Gowalia Tank Maidan, Bombay 1h 12min audio
3 The Pinnacle of Meditation 29 Sep 1968 pm Gowalia Tank Maidan, Bombay 1h 8min audio
4 Sex: The Super-Atom 30 Sep 1968 pm Gowalia Tank Maidan, Bombay 0h 57min audio
5 From the Lust to the Lord 1 Oct 1968 pm Gowalia Tank Maidan, Bombay 1h 27min audio
edition 1979.07
chapter titles
discourses
event location duration media
1 Sex, the Genesis of Love 28 Aug 1968 pm Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan Auditorium,
Bombay
1h 11min audio
2 From Repression to Emancipation 28 Sep 1968 pm Gowalia Tank Maidan, Bombay 1h 12min audio
3 The Pinnacle of Meditation 29 Sep 1968 pm Gowalia Tank Maidan, Bombay 1h 8min audio
4 Sex, the Super-Atom 30 Sep 1968 pm Gowalia Tank Maidan, Bombay 0h 57min audio
5 From Lust to the Lord 1 Oct 1968 pm Gowalia Tank Maidan, Bombay 1h 27min audio
edition 1989-Rebel
chapter titles
discourses
event location duration media
1 The First Discourse 28 Aug 1968 pm Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan Auditorium,
Bombay
1h 11min audio
2 The Second Discourse 28 Sep 1968 pm Gowalia Tank Maidan, Bombay 1h 12min audio
3 The Third Discourse 29 Sep 1968 pm Gowalia Tank Maidan, Bombay 1h 8min audio
4 The Fourth Discourse 30 Sep 1968 pm Gowalia Tank Maidan, Bombay 0h 57min audio
5 The Final Discourse 1 Oct 1968 pm Gowalia Tank Maidan, Bombay 1h 27min audio
edition 2006-Rebel
chapter titles
discourses
event location duration media
1 Sex, Lies and the Roots of Meditation 28 Aug 1968 pm Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan Auditorium,
Bombay
1h 11min audio
2 What's the Attraction? 28 Sep 1968 pm Gowalia Tank Maidan, Bombay 1h 12min audio
3 When Love Meets Meditation 29 Sep 1968 pm Gowalia Tank Maidan, Bombay 1h 8min audio
4 The Three Hour Hope for Humanity 30 Sep 1968 pm Gowalia Tank Maidan, Bombay 0h 57min audio
5 The Diamond Beyond Sex 1 Oct 1968 pm Gowalia Tank Maidan, Bombay 1h 27min audio

About the editing by KP

Here is a quote from Krishna Prem's book Osho, India and Me, p.156 ff., describing intimately the editing for the 1979 edition and his communication with Osho at the time.

Returning to the Green after a morning’s shopping I find a note to see Arup at the commune before darshan tonight. Groups! I am immediately convinced she’s going to tell me Osho wants me to do a whole series of horrific groups! But I give myself as little time as possible to freak. I grab the first rickshaw I can find and hightail it out to Koregaon Park.
“Here,” she says when I’m ushered in, holding a little volume in her hand,“Osho wants you to rewrite From Sex to Superconsciousness.”
I open my mouth to speak, but words won’t come. I’m relieved, I’m flattered,I’m surprised - I’m a dozen mixed emotions. I’m also speechless. Arup watches me,grinning. Then, with a laugh, she waves me out of the office with a sweep of her hand. “Thanks,” I manage at the door. She nods, still grinning. She understands.
On the way back to the Green, the compliment my Master is paying me begins to register. After being away for so long, without even seeing me yet, he’s trusting me with From Sex to Superconsciousness, with the one book of his that virtually every educated Indian has read! I don’t know what to say — not even to myself!
Laxmi had told me about From Sex to Superconsciousness. It contained a series of talks Osho had given in Hindi in Bombay in 1968. And they’d been real blockbusters.
Osho had been living in Jabalpur at the time, Laxmi said, and a group of Bombay admirers, mostly Jains, had invited him to come and give a series of talks on a specific topic: Love.
According to Laxmi, Osho literally blew them away. By the time he finished his first talk, not one of the organizers was to be found in the auditorium. Shocked and scared, they’d all split. What Osho had said that evening was that love was one rung on a ladder that began with sex and ended in samadhi, in superconsciousness. And in no uncertain terms he told them that before they could hope to know anything about love they first had to come to grips with its lowest form, with sex itself.
Laxmi laughed at the memory, of the scandal of Osho’s having mentioned sex in public. The talks had been cancelled and he’d gone back up north, to Jabalpur. But some people had wanted to hear more and a month later he’d returned to finish the series.
“It was before fifteen thousand people at Gowalia Tank Maidan in Bombay, Laxmi told me, her eyes shining. “One night, the rain started pouring like anything. People began getting up and moving about. Then came Osho’s thrilling voice, booming over the microphone, commanding like the thunder. ‘Don’t move!’ he said. ‘Just remain where you are and listen to what I am saying. What difference does it make if you become a little wet or not? I am ready to be wet! Just go inside yourselves and listen!’
“There was a pin-drop silence,” she said. “And people just stayed where they were. And his voice! Beautiful, musical, pouring, just like the birds singing!” 'Then she reached out and took my hand. “Ah, Krishna Prem,” she said, “those talks in Hindi were so, so beautiful.”
Nearing the Green, thumbing through the pages of the volume Arup has given me, I am amazed at the mess the Indian translator has made, at the terrible, stilted English he has produced. “Those talks in Hindi were so, so beautiful,” she said. And I vow, for Osho and for his little secretary Laxmi, to do my utmost to make them beautiful in English as well.


“What kind of darshan do you have?” the young lady with the clipboard inquires at Lao Tzu gate, checking her list for my name.
“Silent,” I reply.
Locating my name and checking it off, she motions me onward to where two other women stand, nostrils flared, ready to check whether or not I smell of any scent. It appears, while we’ve been away, Osho’s body has developed allergies. But I don’t smell, it seems, and I am passed on to yet another young woman who seats me on a bench to await the signal that darshan is about to begin.
A half hour later, seated cross-legged on the sleek mosaic floor of the new Chuang Tzu Auditorium, at the back of a crowd of at least two hundred sannyasins , I look around at what has happened during my absence to the tiny patio and barren yard I remember. An enormous, semi-circular lecture hall has been built, huge marble columns supporting a curving roof, in the centre of which, I observe with amusement, Laxmi has plonked another of her ghastly chandeliers.
Mukta’s touch is also apparent. Ringing the auditorium are tall, stately ashokas, Osho’s favourite tree, and spreading casuarina pines lean inwards, in the evening breeze, as if they too are expecting him at any moment.
As it has always been, he is suddenly just there, moving through the doorway, as white and shining as ever, gliding towards his chair. Seated, he turns to Mukta,nodding. She calls a name, the first person taking sannyas tonight. My old friend Vishnu, now the bodyguard, indicates where the young man should sit. Osho tells him to close his eyes. For a moment he looks at him intently and then, accepting a clipboard and a pen from Vivek, begins to rename him, as he’d done in Woodlands when I first came to him. He calls the young man close, telling him to look into his eyes. The mala is placed about his neck, his third eye is touched and then, directed gently by Vishnu, the young man moves back slightly. Osho begins to speak, explaining the meaning and potential of the young mans new name.
With the next several people the format is the same. And what strikes me is the formality of the affair. After the casual intimacy of earlier days, it all seems so structured. Yet, with so many people coming now, I can understand the need.Next, Mukta calls people who are leaving and those who have just come back.And for a moment I’m sad. This is where Mukta would have called for Divy,where she would have called for me. But it’s fine. I’m not sorry I didn’t wait a few more days. Just being here, just seeing him, even with twenty rows of sannyasins between us, is fine.
A few commune residents are called up to talk to him and then, suddenly it seems, darshan is over. Even before he turns to Mukta to see if there are any others for tonight and she shakes her head, I can tell it’s over. And then I think my heart is going to burst. I hear him say to Mukta, “Call Krishna Prem and Divyananda.”
Within seconds, even before Mukta finishes calling my name it seems, I am at his feet. But when I raise my eyes to him I am shocked. It’s as if he is hardly there at all. When I left Poona I had said goodbye to a man - to my Master, yes, but to a man. But now, looking at him, I can barely find a man at all. There is an overwhelming sense of transparency, of insubstantiality, as if he’s on the verge of dissolving. And in this moment I somehow understand. Concepts like flesh and spirit, form and formlessness fill my head, but something way down inside me really understands - I am standing at a gate, I am standing at a doorway, I am gazing on a window chat leads to the divine.
He simply looks at me for the longest while, saying nothing, at me, just loving me. And at last he speaks. “Do you have anything the asks softly.”
I can only shake my head. There are no words.
And for Divy, who follows me, what transpires is the same.


Apart from the afternoon shower of soot that floats down from the boiler exhaust on the hotel roof, smudging my typewriter, my manuscript and me with huge black flakes, the balcony of our second floor room at the back of the Green is the perfect place to work on the book.
Spoken, Indian-English is difficult enough to follow at the best of times; written, it is virtually impossible. The translation is atrocious. It is stilted, a strain to read. Subjects don’t match verbs, prepositions don’t relate, sentences are incomplete, ideas belonging to one paragraph spill over into the next. At times the text borders on gibberish.
Yet, underlying the translator’s abortive but, I’m certain, well-intentioned attempt, I can still find Osho - and it’s obvious to me I’ll have to wade through this book, phrase by phrase, sentence by sentence, digging into myself to render as faithful and accurate a rewrite as I possibly can.
Its slow going at first. Coupled with the garbled, convoluted and almost infantile English is my own nervousness at the responsibility of bringing real sense and meaning to Osho’s words. But he obviously trusts my abilities, or I wouldn’t be doing this at all. And soon I begin to relax, the work falling into an easy rhythm, into a daily flow I enjoy more and more as each one dawns.
And a kind of pattern to the work unfolds. Each sentence is considered, restructured and then set down, part of a continuous, uninterrupted stream. Finally, when a chapter is complete, I go back over it, querying, refining, polishing, breaking it down into paragraphs, making sure it’s clear and concise and easy to read.
But the more deeply I move into the book, the more disturbed I become. And I begin to understand, or at least I think I do, why he’s given me this particular volume to edit. What’s happening to me is dissatisfaction with myself, a tremendous frustration with my own sexuality. (...)


So, for the next several days, from dawn to dusk, From Sex to Superconsciousness is pretty much all that exists. And the moment its finished I deliver it to Laxmi, introduction and all. “What’s next?” I ask.
“Come tomorrow,” she instructs. “Tonight, asking will happen.
The following afternoon she passes me another Indian-English gem, The Path to Self Realization. “His first camp,” is all she says. “1964. In the hills of Rajasthan.”