Customer Reviews

Courage: The Joy of Living Dangerously

5 star:		(30)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book is "not for that faint at heart but the truly courageous." If you are content with conformity you need not stop here. As a Companion book I would recommend the book An Encounte with A Prophet another book not for the faint at heart but for the truly courageous.

Wow, what gem! This book is about the courage to love and to be yourself. Very inspiring, poetic and simply written. The Truth jumped out at me in every word. Definately a book for the serious seeker, for those desiring to know the truth about self and love. Clears up a lot of misconceptions on the subject matter in firm but gentle manner, enticing you to stretch your breadth of vision. A comfort to those of us who have always felt 'different' and uncomfortable about those differences while still being unable to conform. Says that self discovery and living in love are not for that faint at heart but the truly courageous and gives us a glimpse of what life will be like once courage becomes unneccessary.

The day this book came into my life, was a day where I was facing a challenge and could not seem to figure out exactly which path I should take. At times it feels as though an author is the only one listening to the cry of your soul and it is my strong belief that when you need a book, you will find it.

When Osho quoted Kahlil Gibran who said:

"I am just like a river which is going to fall into the ocean." I knew exactly what that meant. When I read this book, I cried, I laughed and then felt very calm. The beautiful way Osho writes was nurturing to my inner being.

To me, this is the type of book where you don't change your belief system, but you observe a thought process and can analyze it. Taking thoughts as you need them and those concepts then become very healing for you. He takes an idea and brings it to a full conclusion, complete with analysis of the initial thought. During that process it might be easy to just take a statement out of context.

So, that aspect is confusing to say the least. I tried to ignore that aspect as so many of the other thoughts made sense. Otherwise his thoughts are insightful, lucid and could not be more true in many regards. His keen observation of life must has been a delight for his family and friends to observe in person.

What I disagreed with was that he said God does not even know what will happen to you in life. I believe he does know our choices, before we even make them. And yet, he does not make those choices for us! Just as we can ask a friend for advice, we can ask God to help guide us or send us someone to help guide us.

Osho also has a subtle sense of humor. His comment on writing a book called: Peace of No mind was so funny in the context, it is worth buying the book for that sentence alone. He also explains the way of the heart as opposed to the way of the mind. While both are needed to survive, life can be more exotic when experienced through the dreams of the heart or viewed from the eye of the soul.

The main sections of the book deal mostly with what courage is, facing new challenges in your life, having enough courage to love unconditionally, finding your original face, listening to your inner self, living in the moment and searching for fearlessness.

Sometimes in life, we take the path we know we must and pay dearly for it. While we may loose a friendship or an opportunity in life, in the end....we find ourselves. And that is who we have to live with in the end.

"... because ultimately only your inner self remains with you." -Osho

Dedicated to a friend who I care deeply about because when you really love a person, you give them infinite space.

~The Rebecca Review

Osho's way of writing and the words he uses are breath taking as well as chilling. This book left me excited and ready to pursue a new found life of complete awareness, however it left me in more fear than I have experienced before. He calls on us to question our very existence and our belief in a supreme being namely God. I wasn't ready to read this book at the stage that I did, someday I will pick it up again however. Osho states that this book will leave you asking more questions and that he doesn't provide any ideals on how to live one's life. If this is what you are searching for I suggest you search for a different book. Osho's books however give us a different viewpoint on life and the way in which we should approach it.

'Books can changes lives'. Until I read this book, I didn't really believe much in this saying. The moment I finished this book, I was a totally different person. This book introduced me for the first time to my real self; as to what I really am, and what I really should be. Since then, 'Courage' has become my dictionary of life.
'Courage' could be a refuge of any depressed, frustrated, and lost individual and it has the ability to bring the individual out from the abyss of any downfall in life. Even if you are not frustrated or depressed, and/or are an individual without problems or difficulties, 'Courage' shall elevate you to heights that you never had imagined. 'Courage' shall give you an incredible insight into the workings of your own mind and shall provide you with tremendous courage to live a life of freedom and fearlessness.
Osho gets into your mind through this book and literally brings you out from the hypocrisy that surrounds you all the time. For the first time you shall realize that you are constantly living in a world of manipulations, double-standards, and falsity. I would sincerely recommend this 'masterpiece' to any person who has been seeking the 'Truth'.

I read a lot of self-help books. I had read that Osho is a contraversial figure, often accused of being a preachy spiritual quack. This may be true. He does ramble on and interject his teachings with stories (and even jokes!) that don't really support his points. He does seem to like to listen to himself talk.

In ancient Greece, he would be accused of sophistry, corrupting the innocent youth and threatening societal order. Osho reminds me of Socrates in his times. His critics think he was a self-serving quack who confounds the naive with tautological inspirational truisms that challenge the political and religious authorities. No doubt they both were eccentric, perhaps egotistical, men who saw something unique which resonated with a lot of discontented souls. They both taught individuals to think for themselves and inspired people to live different lives against the grain of the crowd. Socrates was a dangerous man. So is Osho.

I am not putting Osho on a pedestal with Socrates. Reading socrates woke me up in high school. Since then for fifteen years, no one has given me such a needed slap in the face as Osho has. His words are sharp, and his claims are outrageous. But I just couldn't help but see the truth.

This is not a "how to" self-help book. It's not an instructional manual. It's a much needed slap in the face.

For those of us who "work" for a living ;-) It is sometimes a test of sanity in attempting to feed our own souls as we feed the mouths of our family members. This style of Osho teaching is wonderful as it is like a Power Bar for the spirit! On a typical lunch break, I might have only 20 min to actually read. In even that short amount of time, I am able to return to work with some thought to chew for the remainder of the day.

Osho presents his teachings in a simple, matter-of-fact, easy to read, deep enough to quench the thirst but not so deep we drown format.

This particular book on Courage came to me at a time in my life when Courage was the exact thing I needed most. Osho shares with anyone who will listen very clear understanding of how to walk through life with Courage, Love, and Joy.

If you are looking for someone to just tell you the answers, this is not the book for you. However, if you are a willing and active participant in your own growth, Osho's books will assist you in your journey.

I have never read a book quite like this before. It is beautiful in its simplicity yet complex in it's ideas. I have read that certain people are turned off by what they perceive as "preachiness" by Osho, yet that could not be farther from reality. Osho makes you think about your life and thought patterns in a way that I personally have never come across before.

If you are looking for a book that will tell you exactly what to do tomorrow and how to do it, go get a "self-help" book (talk about "preachy"!). If on the other hand you are looking for a book that will open your mind and challenge your every way of viewing yourself, the world around you and life and death in general, read this book. Like nothing I've ever read before. Highly recommended.

Osho's words encourage us while at the same time lightening our burdens with humor. It's ok to be uncertain, he tells us; life is uncertain. It's ok to be insecure; nothing in life is secure. All is subject to change, and if we can be better at accepting reality, at being one with whatever happens, by being observers of life rather than constantly trying to control things, then life's ups and downs lose their hold on us and we achieve a joyful inner state. Here are some of his points to help us get to that state:

1) Courage means pushing ahead despite the fear you're feeling;

2) Listen to life, don't expect life to listen to you or your logic, and that means knowing when to yield in the face life's storms;

3) Go with your heart and gamble on the unknown rather than using your head to always play it safe;

4) Be open to spontaneity and the vulnerability that might come with it rather than operating through ready-made conclusions, especially when you have not even explored the possibilities.

5) You may have great doubts, but if you can forge ahead despite these doubts you must also have great trust. You have to learn to go with your experience of life rather than your analysis of it (i.e., with the eyes of your heart rather than with the legs of your intellect), and that's how your trust begins to overcome the doubts.

6)Foster innocence by dying to the past and being reborn to the future;

7)Open the door to the new by not imposing your decision on events in life but by acting in the moment;

8) Know that love is light and darkness is the absence of that light; to foster love don't force it into narrow places, because love is an infinite sky in which you don't force your ideals on others but are accepting of others as they are;

9) Go by your inner sense and not by following the crowd, by realizing that you're one with your universe / reality/ God, that you are known and have already been judged by that universe/reality/God that created you when you were born (i.e., such inner sense becoming possible when you're not burdened by the weight of your feelings of separateness from that universe/reality/God);

10) Live dangerously, not by settling for the mundane, but by risking bodily, psychologically, and spiritually for the new.

The final word is that meditation is the process of living the joyful life discussed in this book. One star less than five, because the discussion on this could have been better -- there are better books out there on meditation itself.

Otherwise, this work is full of good, kind-hearted, humorous, and loving advice.

This book deserves more than five stars. You can open any page in this marvellous book, and you will find something insightful, something joyously quotable. Osho, I am deeply grateful to you.

Starting with what is courage which is going into the unknown in spite of all the fears, Osho exhorts you to revel in insecurity. I just opened the book and I got the "Foreword" page, and on the top Osho says:
"Don't call it uncertainty -- call it wonder.
Don't call it insecurity -- call it freedom"

In the chapter on "The Courage of Love" Osho asserts rightly that there is no higher religion than love. I agree with this totally. Unless you drop all the "isms", you are not capable of pure love. "Love is a rare flowering and it can happen only when there is no fear, never before". I can go on and on, but it is better you find it for yourself through reading this fine book. It will transform you.

Love and best wishes.