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15 Books That OSHO Has Loved (favourite list)

Osho is said to read over 1 lac books in his life. However, a very few of them (to be exact, 168) were really close to his heart.

osho in red clothes and his cap

Osho, during his various talks, had repeatedly mentioned the name of these few books that are being shortly described here.

 

Note- In case, you want to see books that are based upon Osho’s discourses then kindly go here.

 

1. The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran

Kahlil is one of the people whose work was very close to Osho’s heart. When it comes to Love, Osho never forgets to mention Kahlil’s work in poetry.

young kahlil gibran half black and white picture

His book ‘The Prophet’ is appreciated with open-heart by Osho. The book is written in prose-poetry style, and answers life’s deepest questions in an interesting way.

 

2. Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche

As Osho mentioned to Kahlil on the subject of Love; the leading man on the subject of Truth was Nietzsche for Osho. Nietzsche was a German Philosopher whose book named ‘Thus Spoke Zarathustra’ was very close to his heart.

fredrich nietzsche in black and white

Zarathustra deals with ideas about the Übermensch, the death of God, the will to power, and eternal recurrence.

 

3. Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Published in 1980, and written by Russian Philosopher Dostoyevsky, the book is a passionate philosophical novel that deeply enters into the questions of God, free will, and morality.

fyodor dostoevsky young black and white

This novel was very close to Osho’s heart, thus he recited some parts in several of his sermons.

 

4. The Book of Miradad by Mikhail Naimy

”The book of Miradad” was first published in 1948, and was very close to Osho’s heart.

mikhail-naimy old bald bald black white picture

The book is presented as a series of dialogues between Mirdad, the abbot of a monastery, and his disciples. This book is written in such a way that it draws on a variety of philosophies, including Sufi Islam’s, and that of Leo Tolstoy.

 

5. Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse

This 1922 novel is authored by German writer Hermann Hesse, and Osho has talked about this, in many of his talks.

hermann hesse smoking cigarette black and white picture

Written in a simple, lyrical style, the novel is based on the life of Siddhartha Gautham, better known as Gautam Buddha.

 

6. Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach

Osho has recited many of the stories from this book. This is how Wikipedia describes this book.

“The book tells the story of Jonathan Livingston Seagull, a seagull who is bored with daily squabbles over food. Seized by a passion for flight, he pushes himself and learns everything he can about flying. His increasing unwillingness to conform finally results in his expulsion from the flock. Now an outcast, he continues to learn, becoming increasingly pleased with his abilities while leading a peaceful and happy life. ”

 

richard-bach young black and white

 

7. Alice in Wonderland by Jane Carruth (Adapted By)

This seems more like a kids’ book than a book on Philosophy. However, this one is just a philosophical book in kids’ format.

 

8. The Rubiyat by Omar Khayyam

omar khayyam colorful paiting with beard

This book is a poetry work by Omar Khayyam, written in the form of Rubai (quatrains, four-line-poems), and is highly recommended by Osho.

 

9. Tao Te Ching (or The Book of the Way) by Lao Tzu

Lao’s way of love was extremely close to Osho’s heart.

This book is the most widely translated work in world literature after the Bible. Moreover, it is the classic text of Taoism, the ancient Chinese school of thought.

 

10. Gitanjali by Rabindranath Tagore

Rabindranath’s work was highly praised by Osho, especially that he did later in his life.

Rabindranath Thakur with beard long hair and white clothes
Courtesy- https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1913/tagore/facts/

Originally published in Bengali, in 1910, ”Gitanjali” (viz, Song Offering), is the collection of 103 prose poems. For this, Tagore got a Nobel Prize in Literature, in 1913.

 

11. Mulla Nasruddin by Michael Günther (Editor)

mulla nasruddin on the back of ass

Osho’s lectures are incomplete without Mulla Nasruddin’s tales and stories. All the people who love Osho, also love Mulla Nasruddin. This book is a collection of Nasruddin’s stories.

 

12. Meetings With Remarkable Men by G.I. Gurdjieff

george Gurdjieff in black coat and bald head

Gurdjieff was a man who Osho has talked a lot about. This book, autobiographical in nature, is based on the meetings of Gurdjieff with some special people, that impacted heavily on his life, starting with his father.

 

13. Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis

Osho liked himself to be called ”Zorba The Buddha”.

young Nikos Kazantzakis black and white

First published in 1946, it is the tale of a young Greek intellectual who ventures to escape his bookish life with the aid of the boisterous and mysterious Alexis Zorba.

The novel was adapted into the successful 1964 film of the same name directed by Michael Cacoyannis as well as a stage musical and a BBC radio play.

 

14. The Dhammapada by Anonymous

The Dhammapada is a collection of sayings of the Buddha in verse form and one of the most widely read and best-known Buddhist scriptures.

 

15. The First and Last Freedom by Jiddu Krishnamurti

Osho and Krishnamurthi were said to have clashing thoughts, however, Osho loved his book ”The First and Last Freedom”.

young j krishnamurthy in black suit black and white
Jiddu in his young days

 

 

READ- 10 Best Books on Spirituality (of all time)

 

More Titles That Were Very Close To Osho’s Heart-

The Parables of Chuang Tzu

The Sermon on the Mount

Bhagavad-Gita by Krishna

The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa

The Book of the Sufis

The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran

The Book of Lieh Tzu

Dialogue on Socrates by Plato

The Notes of the Disciples of Bodhidharma

The Rubaiyat by Omar Khayyam

Masnavi by Jalaluddin Rumi

The Isa Upanishad

All and Everything by George Gurdjieff

In Search of the Miraculous by P. D. Ouspensky

Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman

Hsin Hsin Ming by Sosan

Tertium Organum by P. D. Ouspensky

Geet Govinda by Jayadev

Samayasar by Kundkunda

The First and the Last Freedom by J. Krishnamurti

The Book/Teachings of Huang Po

The Book of Hui Hi

The Song of Solomon

The Fragments by Heraclitus

The Golden Verses by Pythagoras

The Royal Song by Saraha

Tilopa’s Song of Mahamudra

Zen and Japanese Culture by D. T. Suzuki

Let Go by Hubert Benoit

Ramakrishna’s Parables

The Fables of Aesop

Mula Madhyamika Karika by Nagarjuna

The Book of Marpa

Brahma Sutras by Badrayana

Bhakti Sutras by Narada

Yoga Sutras by Patanjali

The Songs of Kabir

The Secret Doctrine by Madame Blavatsky

The Songs of Meera

The Songs of Sahajo

The Book of Rabiya-al-Adabiya

The Songs of Nanak

Vivek Chudamani by Shankaracharya

The Koran – Hazrat Mohammed

The Dhammapada – Buddha

Jaina Sutras – Mahavira

Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis

The Declarations of Al-Hillaj Mansoor

The Fragments of Mahakashyapa

Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse

The Stories of Baal Shem Tov

The Songs of Farid

Vigyana Bhairava Tantra – Shiva

Tatva Sutra by Uma Swati

The Songs of Naropa

The Poetry of Malukdas

Guru Granth Sahib (the book of the Sikhs)

The Light on the Path by Mabel Collins

The Songs of Lalla

Words of Gorakh-Nath

The Supreme Doctrine by Hubert Benoit

Shiva Sutra

Message of Gaurang

The Songs of Dadu

The Statements of Sarmad

The Will to Power by Friedrich Nietzsche

A New Model of the Universe by P. D. Ouspensky

The Statements of Sanai

The Fragments of Dionysius

At the Feet of the Master by Jiddhu Krishnamurti

The Fragments of Junaid

God Speaks by Meher Baba

Maxims for a Revolutionary by George Bernard Shaw

The Teachings of Hui Neng

The Jokes of Mulla Nasruddin

The Destiny of the Mind by Haas

The Sayings of Eckhart

The Sayings of Boehme

The Sufis by Idries Shah

The Way of Zen by Alan Watts

The Sayings of Rinzai by Lin-Chi

The Lectures of Hazrat Inayat Khan

All of the books by Hazrat Ali Khan

Jesus, the Son of Man by Kahlil Gibran

The Madman by Kahlil Gibran

Being and Nothingness by Jean-Paul Sartre

Time and Being by Martin Heidegger

Tractatus Logico Philisophicus by Ludwig Wittgenstein

Nirdesh Sutra by Vimalkirti

Commentaries on Living by J. Krishnamurti

Commentaries by Maurice Nicoll

Our Life with Gurdjieff by Hartmann

Shree Pasha by Ramanuja

The Future Psychology of Man by P.D. Ouspensky

The Book of Bahauddin

The Outsider by Colin Wilson

The Analects by Confucius

The Garden of the Prophet by Kahlil Gibran

The Voice of the Master by Kahlil Gibran

Who am I by Maharshi Ramana

The Mind of India by Moorehead and Radhakrishnan

Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Alice Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll

The Wanderer by Kahlil Gibran

The Spiritual Sayings by Kahlil Gibran

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

Tales of Hassidism by Martin Buber

I and Thou by Martin Buber

Das Kapital by Karl Marx

Lectures on Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud

Meetings with Remarkable Men by Gurdjieff

The Grantha by a disciple of Kabir

The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

The Myth of Sisyphus by Marcel

The History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell

The Songs of Daya bai

Lust for Life by Irving Stone

The Agony and the Ecstasy by Irving Stone

Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy

Notes on Jesus by Thomas

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

The Mother by Maxim Gorky

Fathers and Sons by Turgenev

The Phoenix by D.H. Lawrence

Psychoanalysis and the Unconscious by D.H. Lawrence

Light of Asia by Arnold

Bijak by Kabir

One Dimensional Man by Herbert Marcuse

The I Ching

Nadi Ke Dvip (Islands of a River) by Sacchidanand Vatsayana

The Art of Living by Lin Yutang

The Wisdom of China by Lin Yutang

The Talmud

Shunya Svabhava by Taran Taran

Siddhi Svabhava by Taran Taran

Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Philosophical Investigations by Ludwig Wittgenstein

Psychosynthesis by Assagioli

Prose Poems by Kahlil Gibran

Thoughts and Meditations by Kahlil Gibran

My Experiments with Truth by Mahatma Gandhi

Confessions by Saint Augustine

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

The Art of Tantra by Ajit Mukherjee

The Tantra Paintings by Ajit Mukherjee

Bhaj Govindam moodh mate by Adi Shankaracharya

Philosophical Papers by Ludwig Wittgenstein

Zen Flesh Zen Bones – Paul Reps

Zen Buddhism by Christmas Humphries

The Songs of Chandidas

Shiva Puri Baba by Bennett

Listen Little Man by Wilhelm Reich

Principia Mathematica by Bertrand Russell and Whitehead

Poetics by Aristotle

Three Pillars of Zen by Ross

The Gospel of Ramakrishna by Mahendranath

The collected works of Ramatirtha

Principia Ethica by G.E. Moore

The Songs of Rahim by Rahim Khan Khana)

Divan by Mirza Ghalib

The Book by Alan Watts

zingu

I write about Osho. I'm available at navin@sochokuchnaya.com

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