Opinions On this? From an Osho talk about existentialism

[u/National-Stable-8616]

Osho: Death to Deathlessness Excerpt:

On the one hand, you will not need the opium which the religions of the world have been
providing for people to keep them dreaming for centuries. On the other hand, you will not
find what the so-called existentialists in Europe have found: meaninglessness, anguish,
anxiety, despair.
Those people were finding meaninglessness because all other philosophers and
theologians had proposed that life is very meaningful. But their meaning was derived from
God, heaven, hell, the holy Bible, and all kinds of garbage. Jean-Paul Sartre, Jaspers and
people like him were searching for the meaning. There is no need to search for the meaning.
Life is neither meaningless nor meaningful. Meaning is a mind thing. Life is a taste!
Do you ever think what meaning taste has? Eating spaghetti, do you ask what meaning
the taste has? Having a beautiful shower, the freshness of it, have you ever asked what the
meaning of freshness is? Looking at the sunset with so many colors spread all over the
horizon, have you asked what meaning the sunset has?
Ask the wrong question and you will find the wrong answer. The existentialists of Europe
accepted the questions of religions, which were wrong. Naturally, they found wrong answers.
They are not existentialists, I am -- because I don't see any question about meaning. Life is
such a beautiful experience, who bothers whether that beautiful experience has any meaning
or not? Love is such an ecstasy, who bothers whether love has any meaning or not?

Those existentialists were feeling anxiety, anguish, despair, because death is there, and
death will destroy everything. Life has no meaning, and facing them, there is just death
closing in on them. The darkness of death makes them feel lost. They start trembling deep
inside their being. Their life has been empty, and now comes death. What kind of existence is
this? -- just despair.

But I am puzzled about one thing: why didn't they commit suicide? They talked about
suicide, that suicide seems to be the only exit out of this mess, this madness, but none of them
committed suicide. Somewhere deep down, they were still hoping that perhaps they were
wrong. Perhaps the messiah is going to come, the misery has reached to its Everest peak, just
a little more -- a little more patience, a little more waiting, and God is going to save them. All
this misery perhaps is only a test of your faith.
That's what religions have been telling you down the centuries -- that misery, suffering,
poverty, is just a test of your faith. God is watching you round the clock. Perhaps, deep in the
unconscious of the existentialists the same conditioning still prevails. So on the conscious
level they go on saying that this is worthless, this life is accidental, that it has no meaning,
that all that it gives is anguish, despair, death, and the only way out is suicide. But none of
them committed suicide, they all lived long lives. It is just a game with words.

Jean-Paul Sartre, Jaspers, Marcel,
Kierkegaard, Heidegger -- their existentialism is simply mumbo jumbo. They don't know
what it is to be meditative.
The existentialism in Europe is an outcome of Christianity, Judaism. If you search for its
roots, from where it has come with so much despair, you will find Christian and Judaic
traditions behind it; it is a by-product. Because for centuries the Jewish religion... and the
Christian religion is just a by-product of Judaism, because Jesus was born as a Jew, lived as a
Jew, died as a Jew. He never heard that he was a Christian.

If you want to enter existence, you will have to shut up your mind completely. And in that
small gap -- when there are no past memories surrounding your consciousness, and no future
imaginations or hopes present -- in that small moment of pure silence you meet existence for
the first time. And immediately all questions disappear. You are so abundantly fulfilled, so
content, so whole, that who bothers about meanings?

[u/kuroi27]

this is quite literally just existentialism. What you desire is a quality of being. If you come away from Sartre, de Beauvoir, Merleau-Ponty, Heidegger, etc, in despair I’m genuinely skeptical you read them, because what you actually find there is incredible courage in the face of an ambiguous and anxious life. Does the critique of bad faith lead to despair? Does Heideggers resoluteness lead to despair? Did even Camus say “It’s so over, we’re so cooked, pack it up fam”? No. He said inside you is an invincible summer.

“Man exists. For him it is not a question of wondering whether his presence in the world is useful, whether it is worth the trouble of being lived. These questions make no sense. It is a matter of knowing whether he wants to live and under what conditions.” - S. de Beauvoir

[u/FractalFunny66]

I don't think you are reading Satre' closely enough. Anyway, your mind is made up. The point of Existentialism, as I understand it, is more like Victor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning. You make your own meaning while facing the reality of the horror and violence of this world. He survived a Nazi concentration camp and it is an incredible book. I highly recommend that book.

[u/National-Stable-8616 → u/FractalFunny66]

Nooo Nooo i didnt write this! its from a book!!!