How to understand Osho Zen Tarot and tarot card reading reading.
Osho tarot is another subset of tarot itself and is a part of Osho Zen. The Osho Zen Tarot is inspired by the work of Osho,
a teacher from India.
Osho might be best described as a "spiritual movement." According to information on the religioustolerance.org website, Osho's founder, Rajneesh Chandra Mohan, a.k.a. Acharya Rajneesh, a.k.a. Chandra Mohan Jain, "never subscribed to any religious faith during his lifetime."
Originally a philosophy instructor at the University of Jabalpur, Rajneesh eventually changed his name to Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and dedicated his life to teaching his disciples, called sannya, and to developing the organization devoted to promoting his spiritual philosophy. Originally referred to as the "Neo-Sannyas International Movement" or "Rajneeshism," the movement later adopted the name "Osho" shortly before its founder's death.
Osho presented meditation not only as a practice but as a state of awareness to be maintained in every moment, a total awareness awakening the individual from the sleep of mechanical responses conditioned by beliefs and expectations. He employed Western psychotherapy in the preparatory stages of meditation to create an awareness of mental and emotional patterns.
The artist Ma Deva Padma is a meditative artist and disciple of Osho. The goal of this deck is awareness. It is presented as "a transcendental game of Zen ... a wake-up call to tune in to sensitivity, intuition, compassion, receptivity, courage and individuality."
Osho Zen Tarot focuses on gaining an understanding of the here and now. It is a system based on the wisdom of Zen - a wisdom that says events in the outer world simply reflect our own thoughts and feelings.
Based on the transcendental game of Zen, the Osho Zen Tarot is a non-traditional deck of 79 cards. There are many changes that suit the Zen theme, including one extra major arcana card for Osho, and four suits of fire, clouds, water, and rainbows. The cards span the range of human experience, from the stunningly beautiful to the ridiculous and mundane.
The Osho Zen Tarot is divided into the standard major and minor arcana, but the usual identifiers on each card are absent. The cards are distinguished through the color and numbering/symbol in a small diamond at the bottom of each card. There is also a keyword meaning associated with each card. The court cards are not always pictured as people. They are identified by a direction arrow in the diamond.
Each Osho Zen Tarot card is different from the other types of Tarot cards previously stated and come with their own teachings and philosophies that coexist with Osho as a whole.
