Liberation of Man: A Study of Marx, Freud and Osho

My recent interest in Osho, I may say, inspired me to brows through the pages of history to dig out the concepts, of the three great men of the 20th century, about Liberation of Man, who came up with some original thoughts to change the already cherished ideas. It proved to be the catalytic ideas and had the capabilities to shake the whole facade of once scared believes. A blasphemous blow to wrong notions that just helped to promote hatred, intolerance and bigotry for others view point and promoted tyrannous man. Reading Swami Brahmeshananda, who discussed in detail The Nature of Man according to Hinduism, was a feast for me. Swami Brahmeshananda is a senior monk of the Ramakrishna Mission, a world-wide religio-spiritual Hindu organization, founded by Sri Ramakrishna, a great man of God, and his chief disciple Swami Vivekananda who preached the philosophy of Vedas (Vedanta) all over the world. Swami Brahmeshananda has been trained as a medical doctor and has served the sick people considering them as God for more than two decades in the hospital of the Ramakrishna Mission in Varanasi, India. At present he is the editor of the Ramakrishna Mission’s English monthly journal, Vedanta Kesari. He has written four books on religious and philosophical subjects. According to Swami Vivekananda, the greatest exponent of the philosophy of the Vedas, which is also called Vedanta, man is Divine. By defining the concept of dharma (which is restraint by moral rules) without dharma men are no better than beasts.’ According to Shankaracharya in Hinduism Dharma is of two types: pravritti-lakshana and nivritti-lakshana. When one, observing the moral codes of conduct applicable to one’s station in life and society performs actions for enjoyment (kama) and acquisition of wealth (artha), one is said to be following pravritti dharma. A time comes, however, when one gets disgusted with sense-enjoyments and acquisition of wealth and aspires for final emancipation (moksha). The one embraces what is called nivritti dharma, characterized by renunciation of all worldly desires and selfish actions, and resorting to spiritual practice to attain liberation. Man rises from animal to human level by accepting pravritti dharma i.e. by observing social injunctions. He ascends to godhead and becomes divine by embracing the nivritti dharma. This Hindu concept of liberation, in turn, is based upon another concept of an ever pure, ever free, ever perfect, ever conscious spiritual entity in man called Atman. According to Swami Vivekananda this Atman is the Real Man as against the body-mind complex which is only the apparent man. The Hindus have further elaborated this concept by stating that the real man or Atman is conscious, ever free, blissful and immortal. The apparent man consists of five sheaths which cover the soul or atman. These are (1) the physical body or the physical sheath, (2) the vital sheath or the sheath life forces, (3) the mental sheath (4) the ego sheaths, and (5) the Blissful sheath. According to another concept, the real man or the conscious soul or Atman has three bodies: (1) the gross physical body, (2) the subtle mental body and (3) the causal body which is made up of pure ignorance. At the time of death, the physical body dies, but the subtle mental body and the causal body remain and together with the conscious soul or real man, transmigrate to another physical body to be born again.