Author Guide · Spirituality & Meditation
Books Written by
In late September 1968, on the Kranti Maidan at Gowalia Tank in Bombay, between 25,000 and 30,000 people came to hear a former philosophy lecturer, then called Acharya Rajneesh, speak about sex, religion and life. Those talks, given in Hindi, became From Sex to Superconsciousness, and made him one of the most argued-about teachers in India. He did not write books: he spoke, in Hindi and in English, and his followers recorded, transcribed and edited the talks into hundreds of titles that are still being compiled more than thirty years after his death in 1990. This guide covers the key books in order, where to start, why there are so many, and the history, including Rajneeshpuram in Oregon, that any reader of his books should know.
By Lisanne Swart · 14 key books · 1974–2023 · Updated October 2026
ClickTap a spine to jump to that book below.
Quick answer
This guide follows 14 key books in English, from The Book of Secrets (1974) to Happiness (2023), and lists 5 more below them. They are a small selection from several hundred titles: talk series on scriptures and masters, meditation manuals, and the themed books compiled after his death. Read on for where to begin and why the number of his books is so hard to pin down.
Where to Start with Osho
If you want one short book to begin with
→ Courage (1999).
If you want to try the meditations themselves
→ Meditation (1988).
If you want his life, in his own words
→ Autobiography of a Spiritually Incorrect Mystic (2000).
If you want the talks that made him famous in India
→ From Sex to Superconsciousness (1979).
If you want the long classic his followers return to
→ The Book of Secrets (1974).
14 Key Osho Books, in Order
The Book of Secrets
Talks on the Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, an old Sanskrit text in which Shiva answers Devi’s questions with 112 methods of meditation, taken one or a few at a time and followed by questions from listeners. The Rajneesh Foundation in Poona began publishing it in 1974 as a set of volumes, compiled by Ma Yoga Astha and edited by Ma Ananda Prem and Swami Ananda Teerth. Thames & Hudson brought out a London edition in 1976.
The Mustard Seed
Commentaries on the sayings of Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas, given in talks between 21 August and 10 September 1974. Each talk takes one saying, such as the parable of the mustard seed that gives the book its name, and reads it as a teaching about meditation rather than belief. First published in 1975, it was reissued by Element in Shaftesbury in 1994.
Tantra
Talks on the Song of Mahamudra, the verses the Indian tantric master Tilopa is said to have sung to his disciple Naropa. Its full subtitle, Discourses on the Tantric Way of Tilopa’s Song of Mahamudra, sums up the method: a few lines of the song, then a long talk on them. First published in 1975, it went into a second edition from Rajneesh Foundation International at Rajneeshpuram, Oregon, in 1984.
From Sex to Superconsciousness
Five talks given in Hindi in Bombay in 1968: one on 28 August at the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, at the end of a Jain lecture series where he had been asked to speak about love, then four evenings between 28 September and 2 October on the Kranti Maidan at Gowalia Tank, where some 25,000 to 30,000 people came and rain cancelled one night. The talks treated sex as a possible starting point for meditation rather than something to suppress, and the Jain organisers of the first one were deeply upset. The Rajneesh Foundation published the English edition in 1979; St. Martin’s later reissued it as Sex Matters.
The Orange Book
A practical handbook, not a talk series: instructions for the meditations practised at the Poona ashram, among them Dynamic Meditation, which he first presented at a public meditation event in early 1970. The Rajneesh Foundation published it in 1980, and Rajneesh Foundation International issued a second edition in Oregon in 1983.
Meditation
Published by the Rebel Publishing House in Cologne, then West Germany, its first edition carried the subtitle A Practical Guide to Meditation. Where most of his books follow a talk series, this one is arranged by method: it gathers his instructions for the meditations, with his explanations of why and how to do them, into one practical reference. A later edition came from St. Martin’s in New York.
Courage
The first book in the Insights for a New Way of Living series, published by St. Martin’s Griffin in New York on 20 November 1999: 208 pages on where fear comes from and how to meet it. It treats courage as an everyday need — to change, to trust one’s own sense of what is true, to step into the unknown — and ends with meditations for working with fear.
Creativity
Published ten days after Courage, on 30 November 1999. In the foreword he points out that for most of history the creative person has been all but forced into rebellion against society; the book argues that responding freshly to new situations is now asked of everyone, not only of artists. It is meant as a handbook for bringing more playfulness and flexibility into daily life.
Maturity
The third title in the series, also published by St. Martin’s Griffin on 30 November 1999. It separates growing old from growing up, and treats maturity as taking responsibility for being oneself rather than living by what parents, teachers or society expect. Like the other books in the series it runs to 208 pages.
Autobiography of a Spiritually Incorrect Mystic
Published by St. Martin’s Press ten years after his death. He never wrote a memoir, so the editors assembled this one from nearly five thousand hours of recorded talks, letting him tell his own story: a childhood in Madhya Pradesh, the years as a philosophy professor, the speaking tours across India, the communes in Poona and Oregon. It opens in 1990, with him preparing for death “as calmly as though he were packing for a weekend in the country,” in the words of his physician.
Awareness
Published by St. Martin’s Griffin on 10 December 2001, alongside Intimacy and Intuition. Awareness, or watchfulness, is the thread through nearly all his talks on meditation; this 208-page book gathers what he said about it in one place and presents it as the key to living in balance, in ordinary daily life as much as in meditation.
Intimacy
A 192-page book on why people long for closeness and also fear it, published by St. Martin’s Griffin in December 2001. It contrasts quick, “hit-and-run” relationships with intimacy, which it describes as a matter of emotional openness more than of physical nearness, and argues that the ability to trust another person depends on being at ease with oneself first.
The Book of Understanding
Published by Harmony Books in New York on 14 February 2006. It asks readers to set aside the beliefs they were handed in order to find their own, and returns to his favourite pairing of Zorba the Greek, who enjoys the world, and Gautam the Buddha, who sees through it, as the picture of a whole human being. Its chapters turn on questions of identity, purpose and freedom.
Happiness
The twelfth book in the Insights series and the first new title since 2017, published by St. Martin’s Essentials on 17 October 2023, the same day as Forgiveness. Its starting point is a single line: “Happiness is not an achievement. It is your nature.” It was published thirty-three years after his death.
How Many Books Has Osho Written?
There is no single number. Nearly every Osho book is an edited transcript of a series of talks, given in Hindi and in English between the 1960s and 1990: reference works count more than a hundred books in Hindi and almost as many in English, and other tallies run past six hundred once translations, multi-volume sets and later compilations are counted. New titles still appear, put together from nearly five thousand hours of recordings, so the count keeps rising.
- Talk series on scriptures and masters — The Book of Secrets, The Mustard Seed, Tantra: The Supreme Understanding Read the entries →
- Early talks and meditation guides — From Sex to Superconsciousness, The Orange Book, Meditation: The First and Last Freedom Read the entries →
- Insights for a New Way of Living — Courage, Creativity, Maturity, Awareness, Intimacy, Happiness Read the entries →
- Compiled after his death — Autobiography of a Spiritually Incorrect Mystic, The Book of Understanding Read the entries →
- Other titles — Intuition, Trust, Forgiveness, Osho Zen Tarot and more See the list →
In What Order to Read Osho
There is no reading order in the usual sense: the books are not a sequence, and each talk series stands on its own. The dates also mislead, because many of the books published after 1990 are new compilations of talks given in the 1970s and 1980s. The simplest way in is the short themed books of the Insights for a New Way of Living series, such as Courage or Awareness, which can be read in an evening, followed by Autobiography of a Spiritually Incorrect Mystic for the story of his life.
Because meditation is at the centre of his teaching, Meditation: The First and Last Freedom belongs next to whatever else you read. The long talk series — The Book of Secrets, Tantra: The Supreme Understanding, The Mustard Seed — are best kept for later, and are easier to read a talk at a time than straight through.
A reading path
1. Courage (1999), one evening, 208 pages
2. Autobiography of a Spiritually Incorrect Mystic (2000), his life, from his own talks
3. Meditation: The First and Last Freedom (1988), the methods themselves
4. Tantra: The Supreme Understanding (1975), a whole talk series
5. The Book of Secrets (1974), 112 techniques, to read slowly
Everything Else Osho Published: The Full List
Beyond the 14 key books: 5 more titles, grouped by form.
Open a form with the + to see every book in it.
More in the Insights series
3
3 books · 2001–2023
- 2001Intuitionknowing beyond logic; published four days after Awareness
- 2017Trustliving spontaneously and embracing life, 240 pages
- 2023Forgivenesspublished on the same day as Happiness, the thirteenth title in the series
Other books
2
2 books · 1983–1994
- 1983Don’t Look Before You Leaptalks published at Rajneeshpuram, Oregon, by Rajneesh Foundation International, 450 pages
- 1994Osho Zen Tarota deck of 79 cards painted by his disciple Ma Deva Padma, with a 176-page guide
The years · 1931–2023
Quick facts about Osho
- Known for
- He taught meditation together with a full enjoyment of life to followers from around the world, his talks became hundreds of books still in print, and the commune his movement built in Oregon ended with its leaders convicted of serious crimes
- 1931
- Born in Kuchwada, Madhya Pradesh
- 1966
- Leaves his university post to teach full-time
- 1981
- Moves to Oregon, where Rajneeshpuram is built
- 1999
- Courage
- 2023
- Happiness
- Born
- Chandra Mohan Jain, 11 December 1931, Kuchwada, Raisen district, Madhya Pradesh, India
- Died
- 19 January 1990, at his ashram in Pune, India, aged 58
- Also known as
- Acharya Rajneesh, then Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh; Osho from September 1989
- Studied
- BA in philosophy in Jabalpur (1955), MA at the University of Sagar (1957)
- Taught
- Philosophy at Jabalpur University from 1958; resigned in 1966
- Communities
- Pune ashram from 1974; Rajneeshpuram, Oregon, 1981–1985; now the Osho International Meditation Resort
- Books
- Hundreds of titles, nearly all transcribed and edited from talks in Hindi and English
The red mark is 1999: Courage, the short book to begin with. Nearly everything published after 1990 was edited from his recorded talks.
How Osho Taught: Talks Turned into Books
From the 1970s the ashram in Poona recorded his discourses, first on audio and later on video, and his sannyasins transcribed, edited and printed them, usually as one book per series. A series might take one text — the Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Tilopa’s Song of Mahamudra, the Gospel of Thomas — and spend weeks on it: the talks for The Mustard Seed ran from 21 August to 10 September 1974. Until 1981 series in Hindi alternated with series in English. The only books made differently are three he dictated at Rajneeshpuram in Oregon in the early 1980s, among them Glimpses of a Golden Childhood and Books I Have Loved; editors after his death went the other way, assembling themed books such as the Insights series from the existing recordings.
The same ideas run through all of it. Meditation comes first, including active methods such as Dynamic Meditation, which he first presented in 1970. His thinking starts from Buddhism, and his talks also range over Tantra, Zen and Tao, Jesus and Muhammad, and Western psychology including Carl Jung, and his ideal was “Zorba the Buddha”: someone who enjoys the world as fully as Zorba the Greek and is as awake as the Buddha. He also spoke openly about sex, which is what the 1968 Bombay talks were remembered for.
The movement around him has a history readers should know. In 1981 his followers bought a 64,229-acre ranch in Oregon and built the city of Rajneeshpuram; in 1984 members led by his chief lieutenant Ma Anand Sheela contaminated restaurant salad bars in The Dalles with salmonella to sway a county election, making 751 people ill. Osho himself denounced Sheela in September 1985 after she left for Europe, and he was never charged over the attack; Sheela was convicted and served 29 months. Arrested in October 1985, he entered an Alford plea to two federal immigration charges, was fined US$400,000, given a ten-year suspended sentence and five years’ probation, and agreed to leave the United States. Back in India, he took the name Osho in 1989 and died there on 19 January 1990. His publishers point to the Indian newspaper Sunday Mid-Day naming him among ten people who changed India’s destiny, alongside Mahatma Gandhi; critics have written at length about the communes, for example Hugh Milne in Bhagwan: The God That Failed (1986).
Frequently asked questions about Osho’s books
How many books did Osho write?
He did not write them in the usual sense: nearly all of the several hundred books under his name are edited transcripts of talks he gave in Hindi and English between the 1960s and 1990. Reference works count more than a hundred books in Hindi and almost as many in English, and other tallies exceed six hundred; new compilations, such as Happiness and Forgiveness in 2023, are still being published.
What was Osho’s first book?
His earliest books were in Hindi and are hard to date precisely. Among the key English titles, The Book of Secrets, talks on the Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, began appearing from the Rajneesh Foundation in Poona in 1974. From Sex to Superconsciousness comes from talks he gave in Hindi in 1968; its English edition appeared in 1979.
What is the newest Osho book?
Happiness and Forgiveness, both published by St. Martin’s Essentials on 17 October 2023 as the twelfth and thirteenth titles in the Insights for a New Way of Living series. Both are compiled from talks he gave before his death in 1990.
What is Osho’s most famous book?
From Sex to Superconsciousness, from his 1968 talks in Bombay, made him notorious in India, and The Book of Secrets, his talks on 112 meditation techniques, is the long work most often recommended by his followers.
Where should I start reading Osho?
With one of the short Insights for a New Way of Living books, such as Courage (1999), then Autobiography of a Spiritually Incorrect Mystic (2000) for his life and Meditation: The First and Last Freedom (1988) for the meditations. The long talk series, such as The Book of Secrets, are easier once you know how he speaks.
Did Osho write an autobiography?
Not himself. Autobiography of a Spiritually Incorrect Mystic, published by St. Martin’s Press in 2000, ten years after his death, was assembled by editors from nearly five thousand hours of his recorded talks. Earlier, at Rajneeshpuram, he dictated Glimpses of a Golden Childhood about his early years.
What happened at Rajneeshpuram?
In 1981 Osho’s followers built a commune city, Rajneeshpuram, on a ranch in Oregon. In 1984 members led by his chief lieutenant Ma Anand Sheela poisoned salad bars in The Dalles with salmonella, sickening 751 people; Sheela was convicted, and Osho was never charged over the attack. In 1985 he entered an Alford plea to two immigration charges, was fined US$400,000 and left the United States.
Who was Osho?
Osho (1931–1990), born Chandra Mohan Jain and earlier known as Acharya Rajneesh and Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, was an Indian philosophy lecturer turned spiritual teacher. From ashrams in Bombay and Pune and the commune of Rajneeshpuram in Oregon he taught meditation to followers from around the world, and his talks were published as hundreds of books. He died in Pune on 19 January 1990.
Footnotes
- Rajneesh — Wikipedia
- 1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attack — Wikipedia
- Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (1931–1990) — Encyclopedia.com
- Sex, Religion and Life — Osho News
- The Book of the Secrets, Rajneesh Foundation, 1974 — Penn Libraries catalogue
- The Mustard Seed (first published 1975) — Applied Buddhism library
- Tantra, the Supreme Understanding — NTU Digital Library of Buddhist Studies
- From Sex to Superconsciousness, editions — Open Library
- The Orange Book, editions — Open Library
- Meditation: The First and Last Freedom, Rebel Publishing House — WorldCat
- Courage — Pan Macmillan India
- Creativity — Pan Macmillan India
- Autobiography of a Spiritually Incorrect Mystic — Publishers Weekly
- The Book of Understanding — Penguin Random House
- Happiness — Pan Macmillan India
- Osho and the Rajneesh movement — Integral World
Bibliography last verified 7 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“Happiness is not an achievement. It is your nature.”
— Osho, Happiness
If this shelf interested you, the full bookshelf has more: reading lists by theme, author guides, and notes on what is actually worth your time.
Browse the full bookshelf Get book recommendations