Zen Living the Fire of Life – Zest Zip Zap and Zing by Osho

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Osho responds to questions on everything from a child’s right to privacy to the purpose of life. But as he answers each question, he keeps nudging the reader back to the essential point of Zen: living here and now with total awareness. Questioners’ concerns are always addressed, but at the same time Osho skillfully shows us how these very preoccupations can keep us from simply being ourselves.

When it comes to responding to academic or pseudo-spiritual questions, heads are hit far harder, and such inquiries dismissed as games of the ego. “Holy cow dung”! Between the lines Osho offers a constant invitation to live life to the full, to take its challenges head – on with a sense of humor – which he himself demonstrates with superb style throughout this book.

From the Jacket

Paradise is now or never
“Zen is not a religion – drop that idea. Zen is not a church – drop that idea. Zen is a totally different approach. It is life: it is synonymous with life. It is living life with such intensity that your ego disappears in it, is burnt out; that you dissolve into life, that you are consumed by the fire of life. And only then can you know what a beautiful existence has been given to you as a gift. Each moment then is a sheer joy; each moment then is paradise. Paradise is now or never.”

Osho is one of the most provocative mystics of our time and continues to inspire millions of people worldwide in their individual search for meditation and transformation amidst the everyday challenges of contemporary life. His proposal that we celebrate the whole of our humanity – both our inner and outer worlds – encompasses both the timeless wisdom of the East and he highest potential of Western science and technology.

Zen is the only religion of life. Others are worshippers of the dead. Life contains millions of things, from very small trivia to the greatest sacred peaks of consciousness. Zen does not renounce anything but transforms it as a stepping stone toward the higher.

It is the only life-affirmative religion that has arisen during the past centuries. Its affirmation is total. All other religions are religions of denial: they escape from anything that seems to be a hindrance. Zen tries to turn it from a hindrance into a help – and it has succeeded. Its success is of profound interest for the coming new man.

The new man will not think of Christianity as a religion, or Hinduism or Mohammedanism or any other religion, because they are all carrying a dead past. Life has escaped from them long before. They have not laughed for centuries; they have not been in tune with the universal music. They have forgotten the language of dance.

Zen alone seems a possibility for the future man. It will survive – when all other religions are gone, Zen will be the only religion around the earth. In fact, all other religions are already dead. Just because of old habit, old conditioning, we go on carrying them, but they have not contributed anything to human consciousness. Rather than contributing they have destroyed much. They have enslaved man, they have oppressed man, they have put man against man; they have created immense violence, war, massacre.

Zen is a religion of flowers, is a religion of songs, is a religion of ecstasy. It has nothing in it which in any way tries to avoid life in any form. It lives life in its totality – and the miracle is that by living totally, each moment becomes so precious. There is no way to measure the beauty of the moment when a person is total, here now.

Osho defies categorization, reflecting everything from the individual quest for meaning to the most urgent social and political issues facing society today. His books are not written but are transcribed from recordings of extemporaneous talks given over a period of thirty-five years. Osho has been described by The Sunday Times in London as one of the “1000 Makes of the 20th Century” and by Sunday Mid – Day in India as one of the ten people – along with Gandhi, Nehru and Buddha – who have changed the destiny of India.

Osho has a stated aim of helping to create the conditions for the birth of a new kind of human being, characterized as “Zorba the Buddha” – one whose feet are firmly on the ground, yet whose hands can touch the stars. Running like a thread through all aspects of Osho is a vision that encompasses both the timeless wisdom of the East and the highest potential of Western science and technology.

He is synonymous with a revolutionary contribution to the science of inner transformation and an approach to meditation which specifically addresses the accelerated pace of contemporary life. The unique OSHO Active meditations are designed to allow the release of accumulated stress in the body and mind so that it is easier to be still and experience the thought – Free State of meditation.