An Interview With Carol Neiman, Editor-in-Chief of Osho International - Page 3
© Elizabeth Bissette
the rules, it's about each individual experimenting and exploring to see what works, based on his or her own experience -- knowing that true understanding can only come from experience.
Q: The Osho Zen is a spiritual Tarot. Can the Osho Zen Tarot help us in our own paths to self- discovery?
A: Absolutely, that's its primary purpose and one of the qualities that sets it apart. It's basically a provocation to explore and experiment, plus a few tools that can be used along the way of creating and walking your own path. Each person is unique, and hopefully each person will find just the right hints and indications they need to further that uniqueness.
Q: The instructions for using this Tarot describe Tarot as a mirror. Can you explain what is meant by that? Do you think the concept applies to all Tarots or just the Osho Zen?
A: I think it applies to all Tarots, even though this is a reality that's not much recognized, even by many experienced Tarot readers. The cards are not some independent force outside you; you shuffle them, you spread them out, you are either focused on what you're doing or distracted by what's in your mind or what's happening around you when you choose them. Ultimately, in any given reading you choose what to see and take in, and what not to. So in that sense, the cards "mirror" your state of mind or your state of meditativeness when you play with them. There's not some holy ghost somewhere directing your hand. Or if there is, he lives inside you! Sometimes people call up and want to know what it means if a card in a reading is "reversed." I tell them it means that at some point they must not have been paying attention to how the cards were facing as they put them away, took them out, or shuffled them.
Q: What is the Source? Why is this card important?
A: The source is really another name for life energy, or what's called "ch'i" in the Chinese understanding, or sometimes prajna in the Indian understanding. The Japanese locate "the source" in the body at the hara, the point just about two inches below the navel -- hence "hara kiri" -- if you plunge a sword into that place, your life energy leaves you instantly and therefore painlessly.
Q: The Osho Zen is a spiritual Tarot. Can the Osho Zen Tarot help us in our own paths to self- discovery?
A: Absolutely, that's its primary purpose and one of the qualities that sets it apart. It's basically a provocation to explore and experiment, plus a few tools that can be used along the way of creating and walking your own path. Each person is unique, and hopefully each person will find just the right hints and indications they need to further that uniqueness.
Q: The instructions for using this Tarot describe Tarot as a mirror. Can you explain what is meant by that? Do you think the concept applies to all Tarots or just the Osho Zen?
A: I think it applies to all Tarots, even though this is a reality that's not much recognized, even by many experienced Tarot readers. The cards are not some independent force outside you; you shuffle them, you spread them out, you are either focused on what you're doing or distracted by what's in your mind or what's happening around you when you choose them. Ultimately, in any given reading you choose what to see and take in, and what not to. So in that sense, the cards "mirror" your state of mind or your state of meditativeness when you play with them. There's not some holy ghost somewhere directing your hand. Or if there is, he lives inside you! Sometimes people call up and want to know what it means if a card in a reading is "reversed." I tell them it means that at some point they must not have been paying attention to how the cards were facing as they put them away, took them out, or shuffled them.
Q: What is the Source? Why is this card important?
A: The source is really another name for life energy, or what's called "ch'i" in the Chinese understanding, or sometimes prajna in the Indian understanding. The Japanese locate "the source" in the body at the hara, the point just about two inches below the navel -- hence "hara kiri" -- if you plunge a sword into that place, your life energy leaves you instantly and therefore painlessly.
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