Margins
The Empty Boat book cover
The Empty Boat
Encounters with Nothingness
Osho
2013
First Published
4.20
Average Rating
284
Number of Pages
How can words convey a message which is wordless? What can be said about an enlightened master? The essence of the message beyond words is paradox, and Osho and Chuang Tzu ask us to accept paradox, set aside mind and logic, and become empty. Only when empty of our conditionings, ideas and expectations - our egos - can their enlightenment become our own. Chuang Tzu millennia ago, and Osho today, conspire to make us nobodies, empty vessels who can receive the wordless, the eternal, which they embody. In these discourses Osho makes obvious that in our present state of being/doing, there is no room for the wordless to enter us and rest. It is there waiting for empty space in us; preoccupations, plans, close the door and we miss it But any effort to attain this emptiness reveals the paradox—effort and ambitions build ego and doom us to ultimate failure. So what can we do? Osho tells us there is nothing to be done, all doing is of the ego. But we can be in a state of receptivity, we can be open and accepting of existence. Bypass the critical mind and his words sink into us, deep into us, and we become like empty boats. To ponder over the words, their meanings, is the road to confusion. Osho uses contradiction as a technique and through it addresses all types of personality. He knows every quirk and twist of the ego, every trick of the mind; he is many jumps ahead. Osho is not trying to turn us into slaves of his rules, he is not our enemy. He has so much love for our monkeyish nature that his whole effort is to help us to become aware of our enslavements, not more adjusted to them. He shocks, jolts us from our comfortable cages, so that through understanding and awareness we can transcend them.
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Author

Osho
Osho
Author · 307 books

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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