True spirit of hedonism 
Swami Keerti (New Delhi) 

Osho shared his vision of the New Man for the current millennium before leaving earth. One expression he used frequently was ‘Zorba the Buddha’. Zorba is a character from the novel, Zorba the Greek, written by Nikos Kazantzakis. 
In the novel, Zorba’s whole life is a life of simple, physical enjoyment without any anxiety, guilt or preoccupation about sin and virtue. He represents a life of worldly joys. Buddha represents the life of inner joys. 
Osho brings the two together in his vision of the New Man. For him, the inner and the outer are not two. The inner is the inner of the outer, and the outer is the outer of the inner. He says: “The body has to be enjoyed as much as your soul. Matter has its own beauty, its own power, just as consciousness has its own world, its own silence, its own peace, its own ecstasy. And between the two is the area of the mind – something of matter and something of the spirit. The poet is just in the middle, between the materialist and the spiritualist; his poetry touches both extremes. I would like all three points – the two extremes and the middle – to become one unity.” 
Osho defines the New Man as the holy man: one who is whole and not divided or schizophrenic. He exhorts his followers to spread this new vision of a New Man: “We have to propagate the idea to everyone who have ears to hear and eyes to see, and any intelligence to understand the clear-cut alternative. You create a new kind of religiousness that has never existed before - earthly, physical; not against the spirit but in tune with the spiritual. That’s what I mean by Zorba the Buddha.” 
A man who rejoices in his body and the wisdom of the body, a man who uses his mind as a tremendously significant mechanism that evolution has brought, and a man who does not stop at mind but goes on searching beyond, into the realms of divineness, into the realms of godliness – to produce this man should be the effort of all those who are in some way concerned with educating the new generation. “The educationalists, the journalists, the spiritual teachers – all people who are involved in some way in creating a better human being than has been possible in the past – have to accept the totality of man without rejecting anything,” says Osho. 
Zorba the Buddha heralds a new consciousness for a brave new world and seeks an end to all the conflicts that have been dividing the humanity. Osho’s Zorba the Buddha, on the one hand, is the end of the old man – his religions, his politics, his nations, his racial discriminations, and all kinds of stupidities. On the other hand, Zorba the Buddha is the beginning of a new man – a man totally free to be himself, allowing his nature to blossom. 
There is no conflict between Zorba and Buddha. The conflict has been created by the so-called religions. Is there any conflict between your body and your soul? Is there any conflict between your life and your consciousness? Is there any conflict between your right hand and your left hand? They are all one in an organic unity. 
Your body is not something to be condemned but something to be grateful for, because it is the greatest thing in existence, the most miraculous; its workings are just unbelievable. It has no conflict and moves in some inner synchronicity, always together. And your soul is not something opposed to your body. If your body is the house, the soul is your guest. And there is no need for the guest and the host to continuously fight. But religions could not exist without you fighting with yourself. 
“My insistence on your organic unity, so that your materialism is no longer opposed to spiritualism, is basically to demolish all religions from the earth. Once your body and soul start moving hand in hand, dancing together, you have become Zorba the Buddha. Then you can enjoy everything of this life, everything that is outside you, and you can also enjoy everything that is within you,” says Osho. 
Osho’s New Man has a totally new approach towards life. He lives an undivided life of love and laughter, meditation and transformation, creativity and compassion. He lives moment to moment with awareness and bliss. He squeezes the juice from each moment in life. 
Osho adds a new dimension to spirituality. “Allow me to coin the term ‘spiritual hedonism’, because ordinarily you think of hedonism as very earthy. ‘Eat, drink, be merry’ – that is earthy hedonism. In spiritual hedonism that is there, and more also. ‘Eat, drink, be merry’ is there , plus God. A spiritual hedonism is always there when religion is alive. When the religion becomes dead, hedonism disappears completely and the religion becomes antagonistic to everything that man can enjoy. Only a new religion – just born, fresh, original – can celebrate. Then celebration fits with it. It can love, can trust, can enjoy. 
The writer is the editor of Osho World, Delhi

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