Part 1 OSHO Evening Meeting: An Introduction
OK, Hello everybody.
So, to start with, we're just going to go
through the background of the
Evening Meeting. Then it gives you
a good sense of how it was created
and why it is so valuable and the
context in which it happened.
The story begins with Osho getting up from
his chair at the end of a talk, getting
into the car, and then explaining to
whoever was with him in the car, that he
had a strange dislocating sensation in
his center, and he wasn't going to be
talking again.
So for everybody that was really
shocking, because in a way that was the
center of everything that was happening.
But with Osho you didn't really know.
Not speaking again? This week? This month?
Forever?
So everybody was really in a gap.
And Osho really enjoys everybody
being in a gap and this was a very
successful gap.
Because.... Some of you are new to Osho?
Yes, well, contrary to what most people
tell you, you're very, very, lucky. And I'll
explain why.
And this is a good situation we're talking about.
So in those days the only Osho there was, was Osho out there
who speaks.
And when he says, I'm not
coming out anymore,
that was a huge gap in everyone's life.
Now, does anyone know what Osho means
when it relates to him?
Anyone know what it means?
So you can actually have fun with people
who look like they've been around a long
time and you can go up to them and say: "I hear you
use this word Osho a lot.
I was just
wondering what it meant when it referred
to him"?
And watch everybody kind of feel a little embarrassed,
because the least you could do is find out
what the word means.
So, you find everybody tends to sort of go "Ah...osh... osh... oshoey...?" Something-or-other, right?
And then you can make it even more embarrassing by
saying, "Because I actually heard he only
said one thing about it."
More discomfort.
Everyone sort of hoping... oshoio... oshi...
something, right?
And it's really an interesting story, because actually Osho
didn't want a name and then only
accepted a name, when everybody insisted.
And then basically, at a particular
point, when he'd done all his name changes and
confused everybody to the max, by then
the publications department had
produced tens of thousands of books all
with the wrong name on.
So, consequently, we had to spend all night sticking
stickers into English in English books,
Hindi in Hindi books, with a simple
explanation, which was a message from
Osho saying: the name "comes from
William James' 'oceanic'" – which most
people tend to remember.
Right?
And then he says; "comes from William James' ''oceanic',
which describes the experience."
And then the message goes on: "But what about the
experiencer?
For that we use the word osho."
So that was the only thing that was
ever actually explained from Osho
directly, about the meaning of Osho in
his context, not as a sound in
Dynamic or any other time, just as a name.
Right?
Which he didn't want, as I said.
So what you can see from this is that
we were left to the situation of Osho
being out there.
Now he's defining Osho as the experiencer, the watcher, the witness.
What he talks about every single night, yes.
So basically for you guys it's
really simple.
You want to get close to Osho,
show your love, show you're dedicated
to Osho, whatever, whatever, whatever.
Simple, find the watcher, find the witness.
It's nothing to do with anything out
there.
For us, we really didn't have
that advantage. We didn't know anything
about that.
So for us the only osho was kind of out
there somewhere.
That game you
don't have to play.
There is nothing out
there.
Osho spent his whole time explaining the
search was to look in. And now you see
the story goes full circle.
So it's really important you
understand that.
So all the people you
see doing rugby tackles in Chuang Tzu,
they're pointing in the wrong direction.
The direction is this way, not that way,
which makes your life really simple and
easy, and direct and clear.
Not cluttered with all the other stuff that
we ended up being cluttered up by.
So basically, Osho is not speaking, he's quite
sick and no one quite knew what was
going on. Then he had all these teeth
removed from the lower one side.
So now it was clear he's not speaking again.
Now what's going to happen?
And then
there's this long gap and then comes an
announcement there's going to be a new
evening meditation.
The first
announcement is, "everyone... we're all going
to wear white robes."
And everyone goes "white robes, what is
this?"
And it's going to be called the
Evening Meeting of the White Robe
Brotherhood.
So I'm like the Klu Klux Klan comes
to town? Now what joke is Osho up to
now?
Then he says, so I'll come and we'll
have a celebration at the beginning.
I'll sit in the chair and we'll have three
pieces of Indian music and three
drumbeats – just like now.
And then he says
and I will leave and then we're going to
play a video.
And everyone goes, "Play a video? No, no.
I came
here to be with youuu. I didn't come to watch
a video.
In any case, I was in the video."
So the first night Osho leaves,
and then half the population leaves.
So then the next day is the beginning of
a series of fairly intense messages.
The first of which is: "And anyone who
leaves early, Zareen – a fairly formidable
lady – she will be at the gate, she will take
your name and you'll never be allowed in
again."
So sudden"y this wasn't, "Try Nadabrahma and see if you like it,"
this was, "You need to be there." That
was then the message for the whole of
that period.
It was just Osho trying to get across to everybody the importance
of this process.
The announcement
came that it was the highlight of the
day, whether you were in the Multiversity, or
in the auditorium doing the meditations, or
in Work as Meditation, this was the peak of
the day. This was the highlight of the
day.
And of course, there are only three
things when nothing else is ever
sheduled at the same time: One is Dynamic,
one is Kundalini, and the other is the Evening
Meeting."
And during the Evening Meeting
everything is locked down, just to
emphasize this is the most important
part of the day, which was repeated by
Osho in different messages.
And then we got a message: At that time
Osho's idea was, it would be seven
o'clock local time all around the world.
We couldn't do streaming then, which we
can do now, but we got a message from
Amsterdam saying: "Would 6:30 be okay?"
We'll just check. I'm sure it's fine: seven
o'clock.
Right in the middle of your
social life, understood?
Right.
So this was, as actually we heard Osho recently
saying, this needs to be at the top of
your laundry list.
You know, you've been
mucking around doing meditation forever
and ever and really not really applying
yourself.
Now it's time.
That was the quality of the whole series of messages.
And he'd get in the car and say: "So where was so and so?"
Who would know?
And then at four o'clock in the
morning he'd call for a coke and say: "Did you
find where so-and-so was?"
Not about so-and-so, but just getting through
our thick heads this is really important.
And then of course we got
messages from the proverbial Swami Cleverhead
from the Multiversity who
writes and says: "Oh you know, I listened
to all your audio recordings and I have read all your books.
I read all your books.
You obviously don't mean me."
So out comes the baseball bat again.
What do you think these are?
Detective novels
you pick up, read and throw away?
Every time you go, your understanding gets
deeper and deeper.
"Yeah, but you know, I've seen this video
before."
There are many many layers.
So that was the kind of tenor of that period.
And interestingly, many years later we
discovered that many years earlier.... Osho
speaking about how people like him,
maybe everybody, but people like him
notice a strange dislocating sensation
in their center, exactly the same length
of time that they were in the womb,
before they're going to leave their
bodies.
Aha, anyway, go figure.
Nine months and nine days after
him leaving the auditorium and getting
in the car and saying,
"I'm not going to be speaking again,"
Osho is gone.
So now you look back and realize
that "nine months" – you see it in a
completely different way, particularly
understanding the importance of the
Evening Meeting.
And in particular then
you realize, that everything about this
campus... how it was organized,
everything about it was changed during
that period and then you go, "ah ha,
that figures, now I understand."
And what's particularly interesting is
there was a meeting in Buddha Grove where all
Osho's list for the new
campus was read out.
And you can hear on the recording, people
laughing, half disbelieving that
there's going to be an olympic-size
swimming pool, and a Jacuzzi, and a sauna,
and a gym, and a restaurant, and a cafe, and...
you know, disco, and a new meditation hall.
I mean, it's like shocking to everybody.
Plus, there's also a kind of slight
resistance you can hear in the process,
because we're not very good at change.
Right?
And this was going to be a big change.
Does anyone still hear the word "ashram" around?
Do you ever hear the word ashram? Yes.
You hear the word "ashram"?
So that's an interesting...
You too can join us in the slow learner's
club, because it was exactly at this time,
think how long ago that is, Osho
explains, "This is not an ashram."
We're dropping ashram, we're dropping
commune and the whole energy of this new
environment.
And he talked about a holiday resort, a kind of a resort energy,
resort atmosphere.
That's where we were
heading. Basically he was really
clear that this new place is going to
have the energy of Zorba the Buddha.
Now why do people like "ashram"?
And how does that cling on?
You think it's 25 years. That's
long enough to actually hear one simple
request from Osho and yet, do we listen?
No, why?
Because our conditioning
is from forever, that there's something
special about spiritual, right?
Spiritual is a little superior to that material stuff.
"Spiritual" is really where it's at.
Right?
And ashram is spiritual. That's why we like ashram.
Right?
And that idea of dividing existence into
spiritual and material, Osho regards as complete stupidity.
How do you cut existence into two?
To him the only holy thing, if anything is holy, it's
at least whole.
And ask yourself: when you have a really good poop in the morning,
is that spiritual or unspiritual?
How could you even possibly answer the question?
Maybe Kabir would say, if you are
present, it will be a spiritual poop, but come on.
It's such an insanity for Osho.
And the other lot of people who go "resort,"
"sniff sniff," means, it's not really
spiritual enough. It's just touristy... a bit commercial.
You see, it's all really our conditioning
showing.
Osho wants both – the spiritual and the material – to come together
as Zorba and Buddha. And rubs it really in
by explaining, that even if you have to
choose between Zorba and Buddha, always
choose Zorba. Because at least Zorba
might become Buddha.
Buddha is never going to become Zorba.
No escape, both together.
And it really goes against our
conditioning.
It's hard to accept and you
can see some people are still struggling
with it decades later.
Simple request... It's like pulling teeth.
Change?
A meditation resort?
Mmm! Uncomfortable.
As always, Osho really knows where our conditioning
is stuck and goes exactly to that point.
So that's really important to understand.
You look at the Evening Meeting:
It's not spiritual and holy and full of
meditation and serious.
It's very much this quality.
Every meditation is. The
whole place is.
And it's an integral, absolutely revolutionary part of Osho's
message.
So it's really important to understand this.
So nine months had gone, and
nine months and nine days had gone and
personally, I actually hadn't a clue.
I really didn't understand what is
the Evening Meeting.
Is this some sort of like sort of religious
spiritual something? A TEDTalk?
I wondered,
is it some kind of super professor's talk on....
You know, I was really
like, how to...? What is it?
And then I went and did a research project, because I
really wanted to understand.
And I looked for every single reference I could find of
Osho speaking on Osho speaking.
What's actually, what's the plot?
What's the play?
What's actually going on? Right?
And there are many many many references.
And I recommend you do exactly that. Go to osho.com/library and just
type in "listen*" – wildcard, asterisk – space
"me" and that will get you started with
maybe hundreds of references.
Where you can start to really dig down into what
is this all about.
And tonight I'll just give you a few
little snippets from that.
A few years ago, I was doing a session with
somebody and, like I normally would, I
asked him: "So the Evening Meeting is fine
and everything's going ok"
And I just got the feeling that the light
wasn't going on. He didn't seem to
respond at all.
So I said, "Well, I did all this research, for me, just try and
understand what Osho is explaining
about it, and I can share that with you
if you like?' He said, "Totally fine."
Which I did.
And then he came back a week later....
Now this guy had been involved in
Osho's work then about 40 years. A long time.
And he comes back a week later
and says, "You know, I meditated for the first
time three days ago." So, I really alert
you to how easy it is to miss the whole
plot.