Courage: The Joy of Living Dangerously by Osho is just a beautiful book to the core. Full of wisdom and insight and also some of the ‘only with Osho’ things that many readers might find otherwise. Insight of the emptiness and hollowness of mind where all our fears travel from one end to another – isn’t that just beautiful and mindfulness in the truest sense? Fears which are baseless and unnecessary; fears which stop our growth; fears which don’t allow us to walk on the path of awareness… there is fear all the way that engulfs our wisdom in different forms. And it is only possible by walking on the path of awareness that we may enter the state of meditation. And this is where the coward mind has to disappear. The book is all about learning the art of renouncing fear, accepting the unknown and freeing oneself from the prison of the mind itself.

I will try to summarize the essence of the book with an example. Let’s try to recall our life five months ago, exactly before the outbreak of novel coronavirus. We all were busy with our routine. I should rather say, years’ old and monotonous routine which we only set, rather imposed, on ourselves. Everything was going at a normal pace. Suddenly, the coronavirus induced pandemic has changed everything. Our life has turned up-side-down. We began to feel afraid, afraid of the uncertainties and insecurities the virus brought along with it. What will happen to our job? How would we survive? How would we spend our time staying inside the four walls? How would we manage things? What if we get the infection? All these thoughts started to haunt us every now and then. We felt knots in the stomach. In short, the fear of what will happen tomorrow instantly began to grow at a dramatic speed. Because mind thinks, it is mad. The mind thinks it is not rational to leave the old. However, as the ice melts in the summer, all your fears started dissipating as time passed. And all of us, almost, have welcomed, this or that way, a new routine, a new life-style and eventually got accustomed to it. As such human beings have an immense capacity to adjust themselves in any situation. Isn’t that powerful?

Coming to the book by Osho, a philosopher who thought out of the box and much contrary to the common sense of things, Courage: The Joy of Living Dangerously is the book that teaches you the lesson of how to free oneself from the burden of more and more fears and choosing or embracing the unknown. It explains that even if you suffer, it is worth it – it always pays off. You always come out of it more grown-up, maturer, more intelligent and more prepared to take on anything that strikes in the future. It is important to forgo the old. Osho says: God is always new. That’s why we cannot use past tense or future tense for God. We cannot say “God was,” we cannot say “God will be.” We can only use the present: “God is.” Fear, of any kind, is like the highest peak of a mountain which, tilting your neck up, you’re seeing from the ground. It definitely scares you until you climb and reach on the top and hoist the flag of your courage.

Related reviews: Osho’s Vision on Education

Osho’s messages are immense in the book. He declares this wonderful fact about love – a love that knows no fear of limits. Osho writes:

“Love is an opening into a world of no boundaries, into a world that ends nowhere. Love begins but ends never; it has a beginning but no end.”

Isn’t that beautiful? He opens the new world of relationships with no boundaries but infinite for the lovers. Osho has wonderful ideas about many different things, including love, war, friends, bravery, silence, meditation and many other things in the world.

Life is not to get afraid of unfounded fears, it is a game and you need to play it courageously. I totally loved reading it. And this was the second time I read it. This is like a booster shot that will help you in conquering the ongoing battle against the coronavirus. Though the ideas and concepts scribed in the book are not new, but they are certainly effective. I will surely recommend this book to all those readers who are ready to play the game of life, filled with wonders and surprises, not with the uncertainties and insecurities.

However, critically, one has to admit that Osho’s ideas in his book can only be applied or analysed, for that sake, in the context of an individual. We cannot expect society to go entirely dangerous and live everything open to anyone who ‘knocks’. We cannot expect a country to go entirely joyous and open everything up for the unknown and unfriendly to come and enjoy. There have been many philosophers who believed and there are many who believe and many will come who will believe that one should plan (yes, the individual too) for the rainy days to come. So, though Osho’s ideas look romantic and contagious, it becomes difficult to act upon those on the face value. It’s all, at the end, up to the readers where they want to enjoy the ideas for the sake of temporal joy or execute those in real life and act upon Osho’s idea of living in and loving the romance with wilderness!

You can get the book from Amazon India in Ebook or paperback format and enjoy reading the book. Though ideas are open to being accepted and acted or just enjoyed, the book is certainly more than just wonderful!

Buy the book from Amazon India – click here to buy now

Review by Nidhi for Egoistic Readers Book Reviews