Books I Have Loved

Tears are the only words the unknown can speak, the language of silence





It is in between his dental treatment that Osho talks about the books which he has loved. According to Osho he has read more than 100000 books. He talks about as many as 168 books , of which Friedrich Nietzsche’s ‘ Thus spake Zarathustra ‘ tops the list of his most loved books. The second is Brothers Karamazov by Dostovesky followed by The Book of Mirdad by Mikhail Namy, Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach, Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu, The Parables of Chuang Tzu, The Sermon on the Mount ( from The Bible ), Bhagavadgita ( The Divine Song Of Krishna ), Gitanjali by Rabindranath Tagore and the tenth is The One Thousand Songs of Milarepa.
Osho talks about the book , talks about the author, talks about why he likes or dislikes a particular book, why he included a particular book in the list etc.etc. His comments and observations on those books are interesting as well as thought provoking. For eg. Osho says while talking on Being and Nothingness by Jean Paul Sartre ‘If you can read ten pages of Being and Nothingness, either you will become sane or insane. But to read ten pages is a difficult task’. Yet he included the book in his love list saying that ‘it is one of the most monumental books ever written, with such skill, such logic.’
About Das Capital by Karl Marx , Osho says “ ‘Thousands of pages , and all rubbish, written neither logically nor rationally, but as if someone had gone insane. This is the worst-written book ever\. It is a calamity. But in a way it is a great book , because it dominates millions of people..but I still mention the book - not that you should read it , but so that you do not. Do not read it.’
Regarding Tolstoy’s Resurrection, Osho says that he was continuously carrying the book with him when he was young . The whole village knew about it that he was continuously carrying a certain book called Resurrection with him Osho says that The book was with him not only during the day , but during the night too it was with him by his bed... Osho says “ I loved it..the way Leo Tolstoy reflects the whole message of Jesus.”

Osho’s list of his loved books also includes books like Tolstoy’s War and Peace & Anna Karenina, Maxim Gorky’s Mother, Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett, Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazanzakis, Siddhartha by Herman Hesse, The outsider by Colin Wilson, etc etc.
This book is about books which Osho has loved. A very special book indeed.