Blown Away by OSHO

We had the yoga teacher training again this weekend and it was great, as it always is. I love the technology of yoga. It works, no matter who your teacher is.

I was flipping through The Science of the Soul, Vol. 1 by Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh yesterday and I got more into it today. He was so cool. He got a bad reputation and probably deserved it, but he was a powerful teacher and really "got" yoga. What we're teaching now doesn't have the depth of what he taught. I miss being in the presence of a master, and at the same time, I have been allowing the teachings of yoga come alive without the presence of an enlightened/awakened teacher handy.

Most teachers I know had their teacher around only for a short while anyways, although some were with their teachers for decades.

Anways, OSHO was able to make the teachings of yoga accessible to everyone, something I relate to. He described the mind as an action, like walking. So the cessation of the mind, which is the aim of yoga, is to have the mind stop doing its thing. When walking stops and you're sitting, no one says, "where did the walking go?" and he says the mind is like that - it's not a tangible thing rather it's an action.

And somehow, in reading what he wrote, I felt connected to the truth and felt inspired. I'm not in a place to pass that inspiriation on, but to just say I was inspired.

When I was in my first year of University I had a boyfriend for a short while who had been to Pune and who had been an OSHO devotee for sometime. My best friend was also dating someone who'd been to Pune and had some wild experiences there. At the time I wasn't doing yoga yet and it didn't mean much to me but it had an impact and stuck with me. My boyfriend gave me one of Rajneesh's books and I kept it for a long time before I read parts of it. I got into yoga the following year but that boyfriend was long gone... And now the teachings are still relevant, maybe even more so as I have more experience to draw from and relate to.

If you're looking for a book on Patanjali's yoga sutras with an insightful, direct, uncompromising interpretation, look no further. This is the book.