A disorganized, but useful rumination on meditation.
There are few things you need to know before reading Meditation: The First and Last Freedom. First is that this is from Osho, who was the leader of the controversial commune made infamous by the Netflix documentary Wild, Wild Country. Though there are cultish undercurrents to his writing (just read the other comments), the bulk of his work is really good and works on its own separate from his commune stuff – I mean, hey, it was the 70s and early 80s when that stuff was pretty popular.
Second, this work seems to be mostly dictated from speech, so there are all the characteristics of speech: circular organization, conversational tone, tangents, and so forth. It also includes Osho’s own idiosyncrasies—his own unique terminologies for meditation such as “no-mind” for mindfulness, a term itself that would not catch on until much later.
What makes Osho a relevant writer on meditation—or mindfulness—is that he is able to so clearly articulate the connections between the traditional Eastern rhetoric about mediation with modern Western psychology.
In most readings about mediation, one gets either one or the other—Western or Eastern. Osho can infuse both so that, for example, the reader can understand the bond between the ego and what it means to achieve “oneness.” I’m not saying that this is the best way to understand meditation, just that Osho is the best I’ve seen in discussing both in one sitting. By reading Osho, one feels the lure of Eastern mysticism combined with logical reasonings.
Now for the book: it is a hot mess. I would not recommend this as anyone’s first book on meditation as it promises itself as a guide to meditation, but it does little in the way of introducing one to the fundamental concepts of meditation in any real organized way.
If I had to organize the book, I’d say that it’s organized into three parts.
The first part is dedicated to Osho’s own unique brand of meditation practice. In my opinion this is an extremely esoteric form that I would not recommend for new beginners (or at all) and was also made infamous in the Netflix documentary. But as Osho himself says, anything can be a mediation, so one shouldn’t feel compelled to do them.
The second and most useful part is Osho’s ruminations of the various forms of popular meditation practices such as sitting meditation, walking meditation, listening meditation. This is where the tome truly shines as a valuable work. Though Osho does recommend some good techniques, this part of the book is mostly where he describes the value in each of the different types of meditation and how each can lead a person to live in a more mindful state.
The third part seems to be taken from a live question and answer session which is interesting, but random.
Meditation has been around for thousands of years. Thinkers and writers of mediation have also been around for the same time. As an American, there is just a hard barrier at gaining all that knowledge that is wrapped in allegory, metaphor, and religious speak. What makes Osho a valuable source is that he works to bridge that gap by making all that mysticism palatable and understandable to Western society.