Customer Reviews

The Book of Secrets: 112 Keys to the Mystery Within

5 star:		(77)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I cannot say enough about this book. After reading merely 1/10th of it and practcing the techniques it is more than enough feel how amazing this book really is. Really, if you have come far enough to read a review, or even to look up this book, you should buy it. YOu must buy it unless you want to miss out. It is the next step.

Osho is the greatest spiritual teacher of our time. Tantra is the greatest wisdom of all of time. I had, before I read this book, a great split in the philosophy I was attracted to. On one hand I was entranced by things such as Buddhism and Taoism, things that are, to a degree ascetic, denying... they were clear, concise, purely rational systems of thought, I could not say no to something I knew to be steeped in both rational truth and experiental truth (insight& knowledge from my own experience). At the same time though I was blown away by Friedrich Nietzsche and Jean-Paul Sartre, western philosophers grouped as existentialists who seemed to advocate a life filled with passion. These two opposing systems, I realized, came from the same sort of outlook on the world, but were, in their practices, very very different. I could not reconcile the two.

I mention this split in my thinking because many of my friends have it as well, perhaps not with the same philosophers, but they have this split too. You too may have it. It is the split between this world and a transcendental realm. Between having Nirvana and having a nice t-shirt. Between having bliss and having a family. It seems, hitherto, one has been unable to have both.

Osho lets you have both. He says you already have this world. But instead of denying this world Osho teaches you to use this world as a sort of catapult, a ladder, to get to higher states of awareness. Here is an example: When you get angry, he says, do not supress your anger because it created more anger; instead, he says become fully angry and then become aware of your anger, and then anger will have no power over you. He says the same of all emotions. He has meditative techniques for all sorts of personalities. This is how he says "yes" to life. Osho teaches that ALL situations, ALL emotions, everything, really, can be used as a tool to teach you, to help you increase awareness.

Lastly, Osho does not discriminate between religious traditions. Our world is one of splits between different religions, not one of love, it is a world where in areas like the middle-east people are killed for believing in this god or not believing in that one; where at places like my workplace a manager of mine told me I was going to Hell for practicing tantra & meditation and not following christ as the one & only savior; a world where a certain president elected in they year 2000 discriminately gives money to faith-based organizations... in this world the splits between religious faiths becomes hazardous. Osho speaks from his own knowledge and wisdom and love but uses at the same time, like any great teacher, ALL faiths, ALL beliefs, and ALL religious figures as examples, as illustrations, as ways to elaborate his point. Unifying divergent beliefs is really a great feat, and osho does it magnificently.

Really, after coming this far you ought to buy the book. Osho teaches how to say "yes" to life and enjoy it to its fullest. If you don't buy it Osho and I will come to your house and beat you up. That was a joke. I forgot to mention Osho has an awesome sense of humor. He tells you to laugh.

This is a great book covering many areas of spirituality. I liked his treatment of sex. This book and An Encounter With A Prophet removed my guilt about sex and helped me get closer to God at the same time.

The book, one of the ancient texts on Tantra, contains a masterful commentary on 112 techniques of meditation by the enlightened mystic, Osho. He brings into focus the central point that, such as the physical science shows techniques to transform matter, Tantra shows techniques to transform the spirit. Tantra, as Osho explains, does not condemn sex, nor does it ask to indulge into it. Tantra merely shows ways to raise sex energy for experiencing the higher states of consciousness.

The book is perhaps the first in acknowledging a woman's status as an independent inquirer. Parvati, the consort of Lord Shiva, asks him some of the most quintessential questions for unraveling the secrets of how meditation can bring about a complete mutation in human consciousness. Sex being the strongest desire there is, Shiva explains how the way of Tantra helps in understanding this desire and transcending it. Osho's insight is: "Tantra says, be aware of the desire; do not create any fight. Move into desire with full consciousness, and when you move into desire with full consciousness you transcend it."

Osho has provided an in-depth understanding of the differences between sex and Tantra, Tantra and Yoga, the views about sex in the East and the West, male and female polarity and how both can become mutually nourishing.

The core message of this incredible text on meditation is that, sex is essentially a mystery, it is a creative energy manifested in the entire universe. Tantra is helpful in the understanding of this energy and showing how to live a healthy and natural life with love and awareness. Osho's observation is: "...the days of tantra are coming. Sooner or later tantra will explode for the first time in the masses, because for the first time the time is ripe -- ripe to take sex naturally. It is possible that the explosion may come from the West, because Freud, Jung, Reich they have prepared the background. They did not know anything about tantra, but they have made the basic !ground for tantra to evolve."

Vigyan Bhairav Tantra is much older than Osho, and definitely worth 5 stars. To be perfectly honest with you, I could care less about Osho and all the controversy that surrounds him, his life and his followers and the many misguided actions that took place in his name. What I do care about is the Vigyan Bhairav Tantra text itself. A text consisting entirely of meditation techniques written in India 5000 years ago in another language is nearly impossible for an average modern midwestern caucasion with no secondary language skills to decipher.

Making sense of these 112 techniques is exactly what Osho has done. He has taken these techniques and explained them in laymens terms. If you can read between the lines and extract the "Osho" out of what he is saying (and there is remarkably little to extract) and simply leave the techniques you are left with an extraordinary amount of information on meditation. Osho reccomends that you take each technique and try it for three days wholeheartedly. If you find that it seems to work for you or you feel better or different then try it for three weeks.

One thing I have found is that this book can be hard to read. It is basically a transcription of lectures given in person in 1972-1973 going through the Vigyan Bhairav Tantra one Sutra (passage) at a time. Four or five Sutras are examined and Osho explains the mechanics (so to speak) of each one. This comprises a chapter. Then the next chapter consists of a few questions asked by his audience about the previous Sutras and his answers to those questions.

The whole book is aranged according to the general type of meditation technique being described as is the Vigyan Bhairav Tantra. I've found that the book can be picked up and opened to any sutra and tons of information about that technique is immediately at ones fingertips. In this sense the book does not have to be read front to back. You can scan through the techniques until you find one that interests you, read about it, and try it for three days. And that is what truly makes the Vigyan Bhairav Tantra text remarkable.

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112 Meditation techniques for us who do not know how to surrender, otherwise we need no techniques. And so, here is from a 5,000 year old text the most amazing techniques, so simple and yet so profound. Ultimately, it is Osho's commentary of over 1100 pages that make this book one I just could not put down.

You only need one or two techniques, whichever one works for you. You are an intellectual, you perceive life with the mind, you use one type of technique. You are a person of feelings, of the heart; you use another type of technique.

There's just too much profound information to write a review here. I can relate how the mind is not you, thoughts are not you, just as the body is not you, but rather instruments used by our consciousness. To get a glimpse of our consciousness, of our real selves apart from our minds; that is where true peace lies, where the center of the present moment resides. The mind is a process like walking, it is only the movement of thoughts, of waves of energy, stop thinking and we have no mind. The question is how to stop thinking, even for a moment. And so 112 mediation techniques to allow the mind to cease to gain a fleeting glimpse of the consciousness and you will never walk away as the same person ever again. You will be changed, both mentally and physically. The seed can flower, only when it is in touch with itself.

The mind accumulates which ultimately allows it to commit intellectual suicide in childlike awareness. Not childish ignorance, but like a child the mind is dropped, only this time it transcends the intellect that has been acquired.

This is the best book I have ever encountered on meditation and I can see why Gurdjeff and so many others practiced many of the different techniques. Ultimately the Tao is simply surrendering, you do not need techniques, but the paradox is effort is at first needed to obtain the ability to trash effort: that is the paradox.

All the stars in the world, if they were available for this rating! There are no words to describe. Osho talks about body, mind, soul, personal transformation, lies around you and reality deep within you. He explains Tantra sutras as no one has done it before. And if you think Tantra is all about sex, drop this, Tantra is about understanding yourself and the Universe, and if sex is part of it, then it's exactly what it is - part of it.

Osho refers to Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, he doesn't judge, he doesn't say someone is right or wrong, he just shows the depth behind their words, depth of an ocean behind one drop of water that words could describe. Osho is outside of all the religions, all dogmas, outside yoga, zen, occult and everything else.

I've read Osho before, and could understand some of what he said, I'm re-reading him, and I can understand so much more! I will re-read him again in the future, and I'm sure that I will find a new layer of depth. This book is enormous!

I'm no new to esoterics, I've read hundreds of books, and followed many different practices at various stages of my life. But after reading Osho's Book of Secrets, I feel like THIS IS IT. No more searching outside for answers.

I've read several negative reviews here, and they amazed me. I respect people's right to have a different point of view, but I feel like these people are either not ready yet, they may not understand what he is saying, or they are simply scared, afraid of the Truth.

You just have to read the book itself, don't read the reviews, read the Book! Whether you understand some of it to begin with or the whole of it, agree or disagree, practice for a day or for the rest of your life - there is one thing you can be sure of - you'll never regret the money you've spent on it. It's just one heck of a Book.

This book, more than any other that I have found, provides simple practical techniques (112 of them) for breaking through the veil of illusion and entering truth. While the techniques are simple and profound, the author has written over 1,100 pages of commentary that provide context and insight. This is a very readable book. It is the right book for me now. Interestingly, many of its techniques are ones that I had practiced on my own without knowing from whence they came or why I was practicing them. You do not need to believe anything in particular for this book to work for you. It is both practical and insightful. All 112 techniques are listed in the back of the book with page references. Pick the technique that most calls to you and practice it for a while or follow the book sequentially from page 1. I highly recommend this book for those who are seeking transformation and a new consciousness. Enter into peace and love and joy...and be peace and love and joy

Yes, Osho got in big trouble sexually and financially here in the US, but that doesn't mean that the principles he advocated in his books were flawed. Enlightenment isn't always portable. American society is known for its ability to produce trance states more related to materialism than spirituality and this is especially true of immigrants unused to its seductive power. For an amusing look at the impact of Americans going to India in the 60's read Gita Mehta's "Karma Cola".

You certainly can't compare OSHO to someone like the Dali Lama, but the fact that he didn't maintain a lifestyle in keeping with third world spirituality is perhaps his greatest contribution to the American understanding of eastern principles. His was able to write in a clear and concise American style about principles which are antithetical to the American reality. He wrote with a full knowledge and compassion of how seductive life here can be...In this way The Book of Secrets is not just another tome delivered by someone looking down from a position of study and fasting...but a useful life manual delivered from a position of immersion.

I am an avid, wide-ranging reader interested in all subjects. If I lost my personal library with the exception of one book, this is the one book I would not want to lose. Osho is erudite and compassionate, and this book a valuable life-long reference.

The Book of Secrets is both deeply profound and highly accessible, a tribute to the patient practical genius of the author. The 112 techniques for self-discovery could be printed on about 10 pages, and the remaining 1,130 pages are the author's commentary plus questions and answers from a live audience. Whatever life and personal issues you may have, they are addressed by Osho in this book.

The only shortcoming of this book, especially in light of its length, is the absence of an index. Readers may create their own as they read the book the first time.

This is the book that changed my life, or turned it around. Brought a whole new synthesis. I started w/ the 3rd volume (included here) at first, but it's all great. Work your way past the first hundred or so pages with patience if you want the more purely philosophical stuff. Or as Osho would say, "philosia" -- love of seeing (not of sophistry). He knows the rituals, the chakras, the whole bit, but this is the breath of conceptual tantra. Many lives probably led him to this wisdom. This is where the modern-day tantra craze should have remained. Now it's gone on to yoga, yoga, yoga -- what, people got fed up with sex? Most likely repression reared its ugly (sometimes necessary) head. Don't go for the abridged cassettes, buy the book. It's something you may want to reread too. It's all about self-acceptance... and THESE ARE LIVE TRANSCRIBED DISCOURSES, to correct some other reviewers who are saying he wrote this stuff.