Media

Swami Chaitanya Keerti was initiated into Osho's Neo sannyas movement in 1971 and ever since has been dedicatedly associated with the world of meditation. He has been the spokesperson for Osho Commune International and also the founding editor of Osho Times International being published from Pune since 1975.

He is presently the spokesperson and the editor of osho world monthly magazines published from New Delhi.

He has been the editor-publisher of Osho books also. He is the author of three books on Osho: Allah to Zen, The Osho Way: In Romance with Life, and Osho Fragrance.

Swami Chaitanya Keerti regularly contributes articles on meditation and other subjects to several newspapers and magazines. He travels extensively to conduct meditation camps in different parts of the country and abroad.

Laughter is therapy; Let it Heal

The Times of India
1^st February 2008

Osho says : “Laughter is therapy. If you enjoy a belly laughter without restraint, to find your Buddha will be the easiest job, because you will be free of all seriousness, tensions, inhibitions, suppressions… And in this freedom only can one find Buddha. I want you to laugh as deeply as possible, so you are unburdened. Then meditation is very easy, for nothing inhibits you. My contribution to the world is to make sense of humour a part of spiritual growth. A man who cannot laugh is sick—sick unto death.”

And now a joke : Bernie comes racing into the emergency room of a hospital. “Excuse me,” he pants, to the receptionist. “Which ward is Miss Fitz in?” “Miss Fitz? The woman who got run over by a stream-roller today?” asks the receptionist.

“Right!” says Bernie. “Well,” explains the receptionist, “You’ll find her in wards eight, nine and ten!”

Research on laughter therapy supports Osho’s viewpoint. Enjoying a good laugh—even anticipating laughter—can boost your immunity and reduce stress, says new research from the University of California-Irvine. Laughing raise our levels of endorphin and other relaxation-including hormones while lowering the production of stress hormones. In other words, laugh a lot for better health. “This stuff is real,” says Lee Berk, leader of the study and researcher in complementary and alternative medicine. “It shows that even knowing that you will be involved in a humorous events days in advance reduces levels of stress hormones and increases levels of chemicals known to aid relaxation.”

This study is the first to show that anticipating a funny event has the same biological effect as participating in it. “You’ve been thinking about it all day, so you experience a change in biology even before you get there,” says Lee. “That is therapeutic.”

Osho discusses the mechanism of joke : “Laughter naturally come as thunder comes—suddenly. That is the very mechanism of a joke, any simple joke. Why does it make people laugh? What is the psychology of it? It builds up certain energy in you; your mind starts thinking in a certain way as you listen to the joke, and you are excited to know the punch line—how it ends. You start expecting some logical end—because the mind can’t expect anything but logic—and a joke is not logic. So when the end comes, it is so illogical and so ridiculous, but so fitting, that the energy you were holding in, waiting for the end, suddenly bursts forth into laughter. Whether the joke is great or small does not matter, the psychology is the same.”

In Sudden Clash of Thunder, Osho talks about laughter thus: “Laughter is the very essence of religion. Seriousness is never religions, cannot be religious. Seriousness is of the ego, part of the very disease. Laughter is egolessness. The whole drama of existence is so beautiful that laughter can be the real prayer, real gratitude.”

— Swami Chaitanya Keerti

Top

Romance in Shiva-Shakti’s Dance

The Times of India, New Delhi
8^th February 2008

Our head is mathematical, always calculating the pros and cons of responding to life. We open up a bit—as much as our mind allows—and then move back. We miss the vastness of life that is always available to nourish us, support us, give us wings. We miss out on the real romance.

A person who is really, really alive is not in romance with one person that he loves but with life as such—with children, with flowers and clouds, with rivers and oceans, with trees and nature. His style of romance means receptivity to all that life offers. He has a welcoming heart. He is at ease with strangers, for nobody is really a stranger on earth, or else everybody— wife, husband, child, sibling—is a stranger.

The heart can turn every stranger into a beloved but the mind can turn even kin into strangers. The heart has the courage to embrace everybody. The mind doubts.

What is it that really does belong to us and that we cannot let go of? What is this fear of losing? Deep down, we know that nothing belongs to us but to existence, to life. We simply enjoy it without possessing it. Life showers gifts on us whether we deserve them or not. Life isn’t miserly. But we are miserly not only in sharing but also in receiving! Why? We are suspicious, calculating. We fear we may lose what we possess. Enlightened mystics like Osho say: “Don’t be afraid. Existence is not your enemy. It mothers you. It will support you in every way. Trust and you will feel a new upsurge of energy in you—that energy is love.”

And this is not idealistic; it is realistic. We stay impoverished because we think of many things as idealistic and don’t venture into them. Otherwise, love and romance should be our norms of living.

They are not only for higher souls; they are the very nature of our soul. We are all soul mates. Yes, everybody is a soul mate because everybody is soul. There are two manifestation of one energy—male and female, Yin and Yang, Krishna and Radha, Shiva and Shakti. Existence is simply a play of these two diverse and complementary energies.

When we doubt, we create conflict. When we trust, we cooperate, celebrate, sing and dance. The dance of Shiva and Shakti symbolises the blending of the feminine and masculine energies within a person, as well as the world’s creation. Shiva without Shakti is just a shav (corpse). Shakti without Shiva, ‘the goodness’, becomes destructive.

Together they create Tantra, the inner science of transformation and eternal ecstasy. That’s the deepest union, unio mystica—the ultimate merging of feminine and masculine energies in a harmonious way. It’s not just a sexual union, as most people may think. Sex may be the starting point (indeed Tantra does not condemn sex) but it is not the end. This divine energy culminates into samadhi—the Supper Consciousness.

— Swami Chaitanya Keerti

Top

Be Angry—The Meditative Way

The Times of India, New Delhi
15^th February 2008

Pause and think—are you human or a machine? If you do everything unconsciously, you are a machine. Things happen to you—you react. Somebody insults you, you react in anger instantly, without thinking. Somebody praise you—you jump in joy, without pausing. In both cases, you’re a machine.

A husband and wife can become machines easily. Same repetitive situations, same reactions, day after day. Often, it is a mechanical outburst of anger. They cannot help it as they live together 24/7 and there’s no space for the individual to pause and see. They are at each other’s throats all the time! What should they do in such a stuffy situation—suppress their anger? No, says modern research. Don’t suppress anger—express it, advises a new study to married couples. (University of Michigan researchers; survey sample: 192 couples; period: 17 years.) be comfortable while expressing anger. The study revealed that in 14 per cent of the couples surveyed, both spouses suppressed anger and their death rate was almost twice as high during the study, compared to other couples!

Researcher Ernest Harburg says: “If you bury your anger, brood on it, don’t resolve it—then you’re in trouble.”

But how should coupes express their anger consciously? Osho explains: “When you’re anger with someone and throw your anger at him, you create a chain reaction. He too gets angry. This may continue for a lifetime and you will go on being enemies. How can you end it? There is only one possibility. You can end it only in meditation, because there you are not angry with someone—you are simply angry!”

This is the difference. You aren’t angry with someone; you’re simply angry and the anger is released into the cosmos. You are not hateful towards anyone. If hate comes, you are simply hateful and the hate is thrown out. In meditation, emotions are not addressed. They move into the cosmos, and the cosmos purifies them.

Says Osho : “It’s like a dirty river falling into the ocean; the ocean will purify it. Whenever your anger, hate or sexuality moves into the cosmos, into the ocean—it gets purified. If a dirty river falls into another river, the other river also gets dirty. When you are angry with someone, you throw your dirt at him. Then he will also throw your dirt at him. Then he will also throw his at you and this will become a mutual dirtying process. In meditation you throw yourself into the cosmos to be purifies. The cosmos is so vast, you can’t dirty it. In meditation, we are not related with persons, but directly with the cosmos.” (The Supreme Doctrine, Chapter 5)

Make it a conscious exercise. Create situations, master them. Osho says: “Make it a daily exercise; don’t wait for it to come. Jump, scream—bring it on. Once you can bring it for no reason, you will be very happy because now you have freedom. Otherwise even anger is dominated by situations. You are not a master of it. If you cannot bring it, how can you drop it?”

— Swami Chaitanya Keerti

Top