Osho and the idea of ‘Zorba the Buddha’
Zorba the Greek is the protagonist from celebrated novelist Nikos Kazantzakis’s novel of the same title. He is Greek personification of the spirit of life. He indulges in sensual pleasures, he dances and plays the santuri, and he does not hesitate in his exhilarated enjoyment of life. Zorba exemplifies the Dionysian passion for living as seen in his enthusiasm for women, wine,and hard work.
Zorba is not the bookish, thinking type. He embraces a more visceral way of being, he is a down-to-earth personality. He does not waste time conceptualizing the purpose of life and God. On the contrary, he would rather discover the meaning of life by just living it in full.
On the other hand, when we think of Buddha we like to associate him with meditation, contemplation, awareness, and awakened somber personality. Buddha’s four noble truths teach us that life is full of suffering and suffering ceases when attachment to desire ceases.
By combining these two ideas Osho brought to us the idea of ‘Zorba the Buddha’.
‘Awareness is the essence of meditation.’
Zorba the buddha espouses the spirited life with full awareness. Contrary to the traditional enlightenment where the enlightened person becomes enlightened at the cost of life, spirit, laughter and enjoyment. The enlightened becomes lifeless, zombie-like character who may be enlightened but lost all his Dionysian spirit and desire. I have read somewhere that,
“Do not follow your guru if he/she does not like to dance.”
It’s not that guru has to literally like to dance to become a guru. It just means that in the spiritual quest if there are only prescribed rules and austerity but no room for fun then maybe it is not the right path to follow. Life is already full of misery, it is not wise to bring more misery just to become enlightened. Especially in enlightenment when there is no goal, nothing to achieve, nowhere to go.
“There is really nothing you must be.
And there is nothing you must do.
There is really nothing you must have.
And there is nothing you must know.
There is really nothing you must become.
However, it helps to understand that fire burns,
and when it rains, the earth gets wet.” — Japanese Zen scroll
Therefore, the point is to have the initial life force intact even after the enlightenment. Not denying it, but accepting what life has to offer with perfect awareness. Otherwise enlightenment becomes less meaningful, loses its purpose.
In alchemy there is an analogy of a joint bird, the top one wants to get liberated but the bottom one is static, heavy, desirous. Initially it may seem to be a hindrance for liberation. But without it life is not fulfilled. It’s not the denial of desire, but the awareness of desire and every process of the mind. The hope is by just following the mind you are not actively participating in the process rather witness the process. Thereby your awareness isolates yourself from the process. If you can watch something that means you are separate from it, it does not touch you.
In the scientific, materialist community the word ‘soul’ is an anathema, and there is a reason for that. It is not wise to use the word ‘soul’ just because people have different notions for the word and it is highly charged. Instead scientists prefer ‘consciousness’. In the scientific community there is an unsolved problem called ‘hard problem of consciousness’. It is hard because science cannot measure consciousness as it is just a tool of consciousness.
Osho was attacked by both materialists and spiritual practitioners. Materialists were complaining why he was talking about spiritual mumbo-jumbo when all those claims are just illusions and projections of weak human minds. On the other hand spiritualists were saying he was diluting, corrupting spiritual practices for the masses. People were really mad at him when he combined the idea of Buddha with profane Zorba.
But, Osho was not stopped by either group. It is true that he said, ‘thank god that he does not exist”. But that does not mean that we stop asking fundamental questions, ignoring the wonder/mystery of life and and reduce us to just material existence.
Osho tells us, to watch our mind, and after watching for a while we may find a space between the ocean of existence and our self. You will see that you are not your mind and ego. In fact, he claimed that when you yourself is totally present then you don’t need the mind. Ego is a substitute for Self, when you are fully present then you don’t need the ego, and the mind becomes quieter. That is true liberation, liberation from the continuous chattering of mind, the monkey mind.
But once you are liberated you should have those original desires, wishes, and ideas that you were trying to accomplish before enlightenment. That is where beauty lies, and life becomes full. Osho asked us to become spiritually like Buddha but at the same time live intensely, enjoy, and be blissful along the way. Life is full of bliss, we need to remove the sheath to awaken the blissful nature of life.
Finally, if nature does not want us to enjoy life, then why do we have endocannabinoid system in our body? Why does our body produce chemicals called anandamide, that produces anand (sanskrit for joy, bliss), joy, and bliss.
So we just need to be mindful at what we are doing, enjoy and follow our bliss!
