Thursday, June 30, 2016

Book Review – The Book of Woman, Osho

The Book of Woman, Osho (Image Source - Google)
The one thing that I find disgusting about the publishing industry is that sometimes it tends to behave like music industry. If you are a lover of instrumental music, you might have come across those innumerable CDs and collections named ‘Music of the Earth’, ‘Music of the Water‘, ‘Music for Meditation’, ‘Music for Pregnant Women’ and other such myriad titles. According to many renowned musicians, these are nothing but a sham to sell music that couldn’t otherwise be easily sold. When a CD doesn’t have much prospects of being sold easily, they are bundled as music for this and music for that. Of course, there are some commendable exceptions but a majority of such packages are said to be nothing but a marketing trick.
 
Oftentimes, reading the works of Osho, I have felt similar emotions. No doubt this controversial monk (?) has some truly rebellious ideas and worthy advice for the young minds to follow. But most of the while, I find his words to be repetitive and of single dimension. Only with his eloquence that helped him convey the same idea in a variety of ways did his followers manage to have a flurry of books and CDs published against his name. Speaking of books, there is this fact that most of his ‘books’ are nothing but transcripts of his discourses to his disciples, domestic and international. Now, when you have a question-and-answer mode of conversation between a sage (!) and his followers, it becomes easy for you to pick and choose questions and publish them in various permutations and combinations.
 
With his having given thousands of such discourses, it becomes easier for his followers to publish ‘books’ on various topics with different combinations of such questions and answers. ‘The Book of Woman’ comes across as another such publication that helps the publisher mint money using that ever-attractive name of Osho. ‘The Book of Woman’ is just not what it claims to be. It is a bunch of questions by disciples and Osho’s answers to the same, gathered under various titles like Female, Sexuality, Family, Motherhood and such. But honestly, except for a chapter or two, the book  doesn’t directly deal with the woman or her uniqueness. The book doesn’t do justice to its title. Adding to the woes will be Osho’s now boring repetitions about women’s having multiple orgasms and men’s having only one and thus men having developed a sense of ‘inferiority complex’! Really?!
 
The book is filled with the same old ideas of Osho, about having an open mind about relationships (bordering on promiscuity), about both genders being unequal but unique, not repressing one’s emotions, sex being a brief glimpse into the vast awareness, women’s libbers being incorrect and the glory of meditation. If you haven’t read any book of Osho, this book can give you an idea about his way of thinking. If you’ve already, then this is a book that you can skip with much ease, without losing anything new at all. This is just old wine in an old bottle with a new label!

2 comments:

  1. So true Ashok.. you have put my thoughts down in words. when I was reading the book,I felt I am reading nothing new. it was more like reading the quotes in those few FB pages on life in a detailed manner. I wish I had invested that time in some other good one.

    Thanks
    Catherine

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Exactly! It's all marketing gimmicks these days. :-(

      Delete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.

Happy New Year 2024!

As the first Sun of 2024 went back home, I was busy preparing my new diary and journal, packing off the old ones to their crammed space insi...