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Zen: Zest, Zip, Zap and Zing

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Book by Rajneesh, Bhagwan Shree

244 pages, Paperback

Published December 7, 1998

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About the author

Osho

4,286 books6,708 followers
Rajneesh (born Chandra Mohan Jain, 11 December 1931 – 19 January 1990) and latter rebranded as Osho was leader of the Rajneesh movement. During his lifetime he was viewed as a controversial new religious movement leader and mystic.

In the 1960s he traveled throughout India as a public speaker and was a vocal critic of socialism, Mahatma Gandhi, and Hindu religious orthodoxy.

Rajneesh emphasized the importance of meditation, mindfulness, love, celebration, courage, creativity and humor—qualities that he viewed as being suppressed by adherence to static belief systems, religious tradition and socialization.

In advocating a more open attitude to human sexuality he caused controversy in India during the late 1960s and became known as "the sex guru".

In 1970, Rajneesh spent time in Mumbai initiating followers known as "neo-sannyasins". During this period he expanded his spiritual teachings and commented extensively in discourses on the writings of religious traditions, mystics, and philosophers from around the world. In 1974 Rajneesh relocated to Pune, where an ashram was established and a variety of therapies, incorporating methods first developed by the Human Potential Movement, were offered to a growing Western following. By the late 1970s, the tension between the ruling Janata Party government of Morarji Desai and the movement led to a curbing of the ashram's development and a back taxes claim estimated at $5 million.

In 1981, the Rajneesh movement's efforts refocused on activities in the United States and Rajneesh relocated to a facility known as Rajneeshpuram in Wasco County, Oregon. Almost immediately the movement ran into conflict with county residents and the state government, and a succession of legal battles concerning the ashram's construction and continued development curtailed its success.

In 1985, in the wake of a series of serious crimes by his followers, including a mass food poisoning attack with Salmonella bacteria and an aborted assassination plot to murder U.S. Attorney Charles H. Turner, Rajneesh alleged that his personal secretary Ma Anand Sheela and her close supporters had been responsible. He was later deported from the United States in accordance with an Alford plea bargain.[

After his deportation, 21 countries denied him entry. He ultimately returned to India and a revived Pune ashram, where he died in 1990. Rajneesh's ashram, now known as OSHO International Meditation Resort and all associated intellectual property, is managed by the Zurich registered Osho International Foundation (formerly Rajneesh International Foundation). Rajneesh's teachings have had a notable impact on Western New Age thought, and their popularity has increased markedly since his death.

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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
Profile Image for Akhil Jain.
683 reviews46 followers
August 9, 2023
My fav quotes (not a review):
-Page 53 |"Sex is physical, love is psychological, compassion is spiritual. And let me remind you again that it is not ’having compassion’, it is being compassion. You can have sex, you can ’have’ love – though you ’have’ it less than sex – but you cannot have compassion. You become compassion, your very being is compassion. Walking, you are compassionate, sitting, you are compassionate, sleeping, you are compassionate. Whether anybody is there or not does not matter: your compassion is just like a flame – it goes on burning in absolute aloneness, radiating."
-Page 69 |"Moe: ’What do you call a person who is fed up with people?’ Joe: ’A cannibal.’"
There is never enough time to do it right, but there is always enough time to do it over.
Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn’t have to do it himself.
Toothaches tend to start on Saturday night.
A bird in the hand is safer than one overhead.
-Page 79 |"That’s the way the whole art of advertisement exists: just through repetition. When neon lights were discovered and advertisements were put in neon lights – ’Lux Toilet Soap’ or ’Hamam’ or something else – in the beginning it was a fixed light; you could read it once. Soon psychologists suggested ’Let it be flickering.’ It comes on, goes off, comes on, goes off, so by the time a person passes it he will have to read it at least twenty, thirty times, because it goes off, then again it comes on – you have to read it again."
A clever man tells a woman he understands her, a stupid man tries to prove
Marriage is a three-ringed circus: engagement ring, wedding ring and suffer-ring.
-Page 127 "The politician knew, just because he was a politician, that the word ’Guilty’ had been written on both slips of paper. He thought quickly. He selected one of the papers and quickly swallowed it."
-Page 129 "How many Adams does it take to screw in a light bulb? Almasto, one, but God has to tell him not to screw it in."
-Page 134 "possess her, dominate her, reduce her to a commodity, or renounce her; that is again the same."
-Page 140 "’Well, Papa,’ said Max, ’the other boys in my class are Nazis. They know I’m Jewish and they bother me so that I can’t study. That’s why I got such a bad report card.’ Mr Stein relented. ’All right, my son,’ he said. ’Anything for your future. I’m converting you into a Nazi, then you won’t have any more trouble.’ So Max had no more trouble in his class, but at the end of the next term he came home with another terrible report. Mr Stein was furious. ’What’s your excuse now?’ he yelled. ’Well,’ Max said, ’you know, Papa, we Nazis don’t learn as fast as those Jewish boys!’"
-Page 141 "’Little boy,’ repeats the old man, ’I say, you stop cutting your nails!’ Again the boy looks up at him and then continues cutting his nails. ’Little boy,’ exclaims the old man, ’why when I have told you to stop cutting your nails do you carry on?’ ’Because my neighbours beat their child,’ replies the boy. ’But what has that got to do with you cutting your nails?’ asked the old man. ’What has cutting my nails got to do with you?’"
-Page 143 "’It’s good to see you, Irv,’ said Sam. So how are you?’ Irv gave a shrug and replied, ’Ehhhhh...!’ Undaunted, Sam continued, ’And how’s your wife?’ Zen: Zest, Zip, Zap and Zing 97 Osho CHAPTER 8. WOMEN: FREE OF ALL THE CHAINS Irv shook his head from side to side, rolled his eyes sky-ward, and says, ’Eh-eh!’ ’And how is business?’ Sam persisted. Irv moved his arms up and down with an unsteady motion. ’Mm-mmmm,’ said he. ’Well, so long,’ said Sam, as he turned to leave. ’It’s been nice to see you. You know, there’s nothing like a good heart-to-heart talk between friends!’"
-Page 147 "I am not a supporter of dictatorship, I am for democracy, but democracy is possible only if we can prepare the ground for it. The parliamentary system that has been imposed upon India is so foreign to the Indian mind that it cannot function. You can see it in the Indian parliament – the behaviour of the members is so childish. They are continuously quarrelling, fighting. No work at all happens in Indian parliaments, simply unnecessary argumentation about pointless, meaningless things. Opposition for opposition’s sake. A sheer waste of time and energy. It will be better if India shifts to a presidential form of government which will be something between democracy and dic-tatorship. Democracy is needed so that no dictatorship becomes an absolute imprisonment for the country. So after each five or ten years you can change the government. But as far as the functioning of the government is concerned, during the period in which the government is in power it needs absolute control of the country."
-Page 158 "In Indian films kissing is not allowed, but murder is allowed. You can see the point! I will allow kissing, I will not allow murder."
-Page 178 "How many nuns does it take to screw in a light bulb? Almasto, two. One to screw in the bulb and one to make sure that that’s the only thing she’s screwing."
-Page 179 "How many drunks does it take to screw in a light bulb? Almasto, four. One to try to screw it in and three to keep the pink elephants away."
-Page 186 "In one way it feels like a great burden, this great responsibility of creating yourself, but on the other hand it is weightlessness, because then if something has gone wrong it can be changed. You can undo everything that you have done, you can again start afresh, you can cancel your past, you can begin anew."
-Page 218 "Every child is given directly and indirectly the impression that he is not really wanted, that his parents are tired, that he is being somehow tolerated, that he is a nuisance. This creates a deep wound in every person, and a rejection of oneself arises. To cover up that wound we expect admiration, admiration is a compensation."
-Page 242 "”Velop” means a veil, a cover; ”de-velop” means removing the veil, un-covering it; ”en-velope” means putting the veil on, covering it.’ Every child is being enveloped by the parents, by the society, by the teachers, by the priests, by all the vested interests – enveloped in many layers of conditioning."
Profile Image for Bella.
Author 5 books69 followers
August 7, 2015
Love it. Even the joke :)
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