{"product_id":"the-book-of-understanding-isbn-9780307336941","title":"The Book of Understanding","description":"The path to freedom is filled with questions and uncertainty. Is it possible to truly   know who we are? Do our lives have a purpose, or are we just accidental? What are   we meant to contribute? What are we meant to become, to create, and to share? In   \u003ci\u003eThe Book of Understanding\u003c\/i\u003e, Osho, one of the most provocative thinkers of our time,   challenges us to understand our world and ourselves in a new and radical way. The   first step toward understanding, he says, is to question and doubt all that we have   been taught to believe.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e All our lives we’ve been handed so-called truths by countless   others—beliefs we learned to accept without reason. It is only in questioning our   beliefs, assumptions, and prejudices that we can begin to uncover our own unique   voice and heal the divisions within us and without.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Once we discover our authentic   self, we can embrace all aspects of the human experience—from the earthy, pleasure-loving   qualities that characterize Zorba the Greek to the watchful, silent qualities of   Gautam the Buddha. We can become whole and live with integrity, able to respond with   creativity and compassion to the religious, political, and cultural divides that   currently plague our society.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e In this groundbreaking work, Osho identifies, loosens,   and ultimately helps to untie the knots of fear and misunderstanding that restrict   us—leaving us free to discover and create our own individual path to freedom.Osho, known for his revolutionary contribution to the science of inner transformation, continues to inspire millions of people worldwide in their search to define a new approach to individual spirituality that is self-directed and responsive to the everyday challenges of contemporary life. The \u003ci\u003eSunday Times\u003c\/i\u003e of London named him one of the “1,000 Makers of the Twentieth Century,” and novelist Tom Robbins called him “the most dangerous man since Jesus Christ.” For more information about Osho and his work, please visit osho.com.WORLDLY VS. OTHERWORLDLY\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Understanding the Great Divide\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I propose a new religiousness. It will not be Christianity and it   will not be Judaism and it will not be Hinduism; this religiousness   will not have any adjective to it. It will be purely a quality of   being whole.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Religion has failed. Science has failed. The East has failed, and the   West has failed. Something of a higher synthesis is needed in which   East and West can have a meeting, in which religion and science can   have a meeting.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The human being is like a tree, with its roots in the earth and the   potential to flower. Religion has failed because it was talking only   of the flowers--and those flowers remain philosophical, abstract;   they never materialize. They could not materialize because they were   not supported by the earth. And science has failed because it has   cared only about the roots. The roots are ugly, and there seems to be   no flowering. Religion has failed because it was otherworldly and it   neglected this world. And you cannot neglect this world--to neglect   this world is to neglect your own roots. Science has failed because   it neglected the other world, the inner, and you cannot neglect the   flowers. Once you neglect the flowers, the innermost core of being,   life loses all meaning.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Just as the tree needs roots, so does the human being need roots--and   the roots can only be in the earth. The tree needs an open sky to   grow into, to come to great foliage and to have thousands of flowers.   Then only is the tree fulfilled; then only does the tree feel   significance and meaning, and life becomes relevant.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The West is suffering from too much science, and the East has   suffered from too much religion. Now we need a new humanity in which   religion and science become two aspects of one humanity. And once we   have brought this new humanity into existence, the earth can become   for the first time what it is meant to become. It can become a   paradise: this very body the Buddha, this very earth the paradise.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Zorba the Buddha: A meeting of earth\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    and sky\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    My concept of a new human being is one that will be Zorba the Greek   and will also be Gautam the Buddha: the new human being will be   \"Zorba the Buddha\"--sensuous and spiritual. Physical, utterly   physical--in the body, in the senses, enjoying the body and all that   the body makes possible--and still a great consciousness, a great   witnessing will be there. Zorba the Buddha--it has never happened   before.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    That's what I'm talking about when I talk about a meeting of the East   and the West, the meeting of materialism and spirituality. That's my   idea of Zorba the Buddha: heaven and earth are united.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I want there to be no schizophrenia, no split between matter and   spirit, between the mundane and the sacred, between this-worldly and   that-worldly. I don't want any split, because every split is a split   in you. And any person, any humanity that is divided against itself   is going to be crazy and insane. We are living in a crazy and insane   world. It can be sane only if this split can be bridged.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Mankind has lived believing either in the reality of the soul and the   illusoriness of matter, or in the reality of matter and the   illusoriness of the soul. You can divide the humanity of the past   into those who are spiritual and those who are materialists. But   nobody has bothered to look at the reality of the human being. We are   both together. We are neither just spirituality--not just   consciousness--nor are we just matter. We are a tremendous harmony   between matter and consciousness. Or perhaps matter and consciousness   are not two things but only two aspects of one reality: Matter is the   outside of consciousness, and consciousness is the interiority of   matter. But there has not been a single philosopher, sage, or   religious mystic in the past who has declared this unity; they were   all in favor of dividing the human being, calling one side real and   the other side unreal. This has created an atmosphere of   schizophrenia all over the earth.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    You cannot live just as a body. That's what Jesus means when he says,   \"Man cannot live by bread alone\"--but this is only half the truth.   You need consciousness, you cannot live by bread alone, true--but you   cannot live without bread, either. You have both dimensions to your   being, and both dimensions have to be fulfilled, to be given equal   opportunity for growth. But the past has been either in favor of one   and against the other, or in favor of the other and against the   first. Man as a totality has not been accepted.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    This has created misery, anguish, and a tremendous darkness; a night   that has lasted for thousands of years and seems to have no end. If   you only listen to the body, you condemn yourself to a meaningless   existence. And if you don't listen to the body, you suffer--you are   hungry, you are poor, you are thirsty. If you listen only to   consciousness, your growth will be lopsided. Your consciousness will   grow, but your body will shrink and the balance will be lost. And in   the balance is your health, in the balance is your wholeness, in the   balance is your joy, your song, your dance.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The materialist has chosen to listen to the body and has become   completely deaf as far as the reality of consciousness is concerned.   The ultimate result is great science, great technology--an affluent   society, a richness of things that are mundane, worldly. And amidst   all this abundance there is a poor human being without a soul,   completely lost--not knowing who he is, not knowing why he is,   feeling almost like an accident or a freak of nature.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Unless consciousness grows along with the richness of the material   world, the body becomes too heavy and the soul becomes too weak. You   are burdened by your own inventions, your own discoveries. Rather   than creating a beautiful life for you, they create a life that is   felt by intelligent people to be not worth living.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The East in the past has chosen consciousness and has condemned   matter and everything material, the body included, as maya. They have   called it illusory, a mirage in a desert that only appears to exist   but has no reality in itself. The East has created a Gautam Buddha, a   Mahavira, a Patanjali, a Kabir, a Farid, a Raidas--a long line of   people with great consciousness, with great awareness. But it has   also created millions of poor people, hungry, starving, dying like   dogs--with not enough food, no pure water to drink, not enough   clothes, not enough shelter.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    A strange situation. . . . In the developed countries every six   months they have to drown millions and millions of dollars' worth of   foodstuffs in the ocean, because it is surplus. They don't want to   overload their warehouses, they don't want to lower their prices and   destroy their economic structure. On the one hand, in Ethiopia a   thousand people are dying every day, and on the other hand the   European Common Market is destroying so much food that the cost of   destroying it is in the millions of dollars. That is not the cost of   the food; it is the cost of taking it and throwing it into the ocean.   Who is responsible for this situation?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The richest man in the West is searching for his soul and finding   himself hollow--without any love, only lust; without any prayer, only   parrotlike words that he has been taught in the Sunday schools. He   has no sense of spirituality, no feeling for other human beings, no   reverence for life, for birds, for trees, for animals. Destruction is   so easy--Hiroshima and Nagasaki would never have happened if people   were not thought to be just things. So many nuclear weapons would not   have been piled up if the human being had been considered to be a   hidden god, a hidden splendor--not to be destroyed but to be   discovered, not to be destroyed but to be brought into the light,   with the body as a temple for the spirit. But if a human being is   just matter--just chemistry, physics, a skeleton covered with   skin--then with death everything dies, nothing remains. That's why it   becomes possible for an Adolf Hitler to kill six million people--if   people are just matter, there is no question of even thinking twice.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The West, in its pursuit of material abundance, lost its soul, its   interiority. Surrounded by meaninglessness, boredom, anguish, it   cannot find its own humanity. All the success of science proves to be   of no use--because the house is full of things, but the master of the   house is missing. In the East, the end result of centuries of   considering matter to be illusory and only consciousness to be real   has been that the master is alive but the house is empty. It is   difficult to rejoice with hungry stomachs, with sick bodies, with   death surrounding you; it is impossible to meditate. So,   unnecessarily, they have been losers.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    All the saints and all the philosophers--the spiritual and the   materialist both--are responsible for this immense crime against   humanity.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Zorba the Buddha is the answer. It is the synthesis of matter and   soul. It is a declaration that there is no conflict between matter   and consciousness, that we can be rich on both sides. We can have   everything that the world can provide, everything that science and   technology can produce, and we can still have everything that a   Buddha, a Kabir, a Nanak finds in his inner being--the flowers of   ecstasy, the fragrance of godliness, the wings of ultimate freedom.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Zorba the Buddha is the new human being, is the rebel. The rebellion   consists of destroying the schizophrenia of humanity, destroying the   dividedness--destroying the idea that spirituality is against   materialism and materialism is against spirituality. It is a   manifesto that body and soul are together. Existence is full of   spirituality--even mountains are alive, even trees are sensitive. It   is a declaration that the whole of existence is both material and   spiritual--or perhaps just one energy expressing itself in two ways,   as matter and as consciousness. When energy is purified, it expresses   itself as consciousness; when energy is crude, unpurified, dense, it   appears as matter. But the whole of existence is nothing but an   energy field. This is my experience, it is not my philosophy. And it   is supported by modern physics and its research: Existence is energy.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    We can allow ourselves to have both the worlds together. We need not   renounce this world to get the other world; neither have we to deny   the other world to enjoy this world. In fact, to have only one world   while you are capable of having both is to be unnecessarily poor.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Zorba the Buddha is the richest possibility. We will live our nature   to its utmost and we will sing songs of this earth. We will not   betray the earth, and we will not betray the sky either. We will   claim all that this earth has--all the flowers, all the   pleasures--and we will also claim all the stars of the sky. We will   claim the whole existence as our home.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    All that existence contains is for us, and we have to use it in every   possible way--without any guilt, without any conflict, without any   choice. Choicelessly enjoy all that matter is capable of, and rejoice   in all that consciousness is capable of.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    There is an ancient story. . . .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    In a forest near a city there lived two beggars. Naturally they were   enemies to each other, as all professionals are--two doctors, two   professors, two saints. One beggar was blind and one was lame, and   they were very competitive; the whole day they were competing with   each other in the city.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    But one night their huts caught fire, because the whole forest was on   fire. The blind man could run out, but he could not see where to go.   He could not see the places where the fire had not yet spread. The   lame man could see where there were still possibilities of escaping   from the fire, but he could not run. The fire was spreading fast, so   the lame man could only see his death coming.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    They realized that they needed each other. The lame man had a sudden   realization: \"The other man can run, the blind man can run and I can   see.\" They forgot all their competition. In such a critical moment,   when both were facing death, each necessarily forgot all stupid   enmities. They created a great synthesis; they agreed that the blind   man would carry the lame man on his shoulders and they would function   as one person--the lame man could see, and the blind man could run,   and in this way they saved their lives. And because they saved each   other's lives they became friends; for the first time they dropped   their antagonism.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Zorba is blind--he cannot see, but he can dance, he can sing, he can   rejoice. The Buddha can see, but he can only see. He is pure eyes,   just clarity and perception--but he cannot dance. He is crippled, he   cannot sing, he cannot rejoice.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    It is time. The world is on fire and everybody's life is in danger.   The meeting of Zorba and Buddha can save the whole of humanity. Their   meeting is the only hope. Buddha can contribute consciousness,   clarity, the eyes to see beyond, the eyes to see that which is almost   invisible. Zorba can give his whole being to Buddha's vision--and his   participation will make sure that it does not remain just a dry   vision but a dancing, rejoicing, ecstatic way of life.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    ?Is the meeting of Zorba and the Buddha really possible? If it is,   then why have other religious leaders never thought about it?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The first thing to be understood: I am not a religious leader. A   religious leader cannot think of things, cannot see things the way I   can, for the simple reason that he has an immense investment in   religion; I have none.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Religions are necessarily splitting people, creating a duality in the   human mind. That is their way of exploiting you. If you are whole,   you are beyond their control. If you are cut in fragments, then all   your strength is destroyed, all your power, your dignity abolished.   Then you can be a Christian, a Hindu, a Mohammedan. If you are left   just the way you are born--natural, without any interference from the   so-called religious leaders, you will have freedom, independence,   integrity. You cannot be enslaved. And all your old religions are   doing nothing but enslaving you.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    To enslave you, they have to create a conflict within you so you   start fighting with yourself.one of the most inspiring spiritual teachers of our time","brand":"Harmony","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46301884547301,"sku":"NP9780307336941","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780307336941.jpg?v=1767738485","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/the-book-of-understanding-isbn-9780307336941","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}