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Announcement of Osho Ojas Meditation Center

On Freedom of Religion in Lithuania

While society evolves, new practices, technologies, new sciences and new religions are born. These are good signs. Those processes that really change life, bring something totally new, beautiful and straight in life, but contradict superstitions, habits and traditions meet most misunderstandings and resistance. Meditation not that much contradicts traditional religion, as overall frees a man and opens new horizons of spiritual freedom and responsibility. Though meditation has been known for a long time in the East, but due to narrowness of people’s consciousness, it reached the West only now: only now our consciousness has developed enough to embrace outer and inner worlds for us to become conscious and loving masters of both of them.

Repeated registration of new religious community – Osho Ojas Meditation Center has been continuing since 2003. A foundation of community’s spiritual activity is meditation which from its essence is a foundation of such religions as Jainism and Zen-Buddhism (meditative Buddhism). In Lithuania and in the West meditation and meditative religion are totally new phenomenon, hardly understandable even to an educated and intelligent man. Even Lithuanian religion researches appeared not to be ready for this. On the other hand, meditation and meditative religion are not only completely in tune with life and science but also opens new horizons for them. Meditation through examination and experience – rightly, more widely and deeply shows place and consequences of such new phenomena as genetics, in vitro fertilization, change of sex, cloning, artificial growing of organs, euthanasia and others, extends the possibilities of psychology and psychiatry. Soul’s meeting with body before birth and its separation from body after death and past lives can be examined using meditation. Meditation helps to penetrate to the very depths of existence and find the truth.

Religious community Osho Ojas Meditation Center submitted registration documents to The Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Lithuania on March 12, 2003. The Ministry of Justice without being acquainted with mentioned and other similar authentic meditative religions of the world, by its August 29, 2003 decision refused to register religious community Osho Ojas Meditation Center, by accepting as a basis a narrow Christian description and asserting that “the main characteristic” of religion and religious practice “would be establishment of the relation with God, gods or other form of deity”. Meditation and finding own inner source are the basis in meditative religion, its consequence – love; rituals, traditions and establishment of relations with saints, prophets, messiahs or gods – only a secondary matter.

The community appealed such tendentious and unconscious MJ decision to Vilnius District Administrative Court. In November 21, 2003 a panel of judges of Vilnius District Administrative Court by partly satisfying the claim, revoked MJ decision to refuse registration of Osho Ojas Meditation Center and obligated The Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Lithuania to examine anew the request regarding registration of religious community and to take a decision with respect to it.

While examining the claim, a panel of judges of Vilnius District Administrative Court determined that “Article 26 of the Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania declares freedom of religion of every person and the right to freely choose any religion or faith. A person’s right to profess and propagate a religion or faith, may be subject only to those limitations prescribed by law and only when it is necessary to protect the safety of society, public order, health and morals, as well as the other main freedoms and rights of a person. A Law on Religious Communities and Communes determines legal relations between religious communities and communes and state, implements a person’s freedom of faith that is established in the Constitution, other laws and international documents. The Law distinguishes religions into traditional religions and other religious communities and communes and establishes different procedure of granting of rights of legal personality (Art. 10 and 11 of the Law).

The claimant follows the requirements of Art. 11, that has to be complied by a community which seeks to obtain a status of legal personality. It is established in the case that the claimant gave the defendant all information about the community to be registered, i.e. fulfilled requirements of Art.11 of the Law. As it is seen from a content of August 29, 2003 decision in question, the defendant did not establish circumstances giving a basis to refuse registration of by-laws of religious community (Art. 12 of the Law).

The claimant’s request regarding registration was examined in other aspects – through a definition of religious community or commune. Part 2 of Art. 4 of the Law define religious community as a group of persons aiming at implementation of the goals of the same religion.<…> It is to be noted that provisions of the Law, defining the notion of religious community and a legal basis of registration of its by-laws are interdependent and have to be evaluated systematically. The claimant based the requests of his claim only by the Law requirements that are provided for the religious community intending to register its by-laws, however the defendant motivates its refusal to register the community by notion of religion and that much as it relates to meditation centre, leaded by the claimant”.

However, the last sentence of the panel is not full and at the same time true, because the claimant in its claim submitted and MJ did not find any defects or violations of requirements of Art. 11 of the Law that have to be complied by religious community, which aims at obtaining a status of legal personality. In the administrative court, the claimant explained verbally and presented to the court “Annex to Claimant’s Response to Defendant’s Response“ where the claimant justified the requirements for the religious community also by the other aspect – through the notion of religious community or commune provided by the Parts 1 and 2 of Art. 4 of the Law.

For those who want to know more about the steps of meditation and meditative religion in Lithuanian social consciousness and obstacles, we offer to visit Center’s website www.dhyan.eu. A Sanskrit word “dhyan” in center’s website address, when travelling from India, in China became a word “chan”, and later on in Japan – “Zen” and means meditation.


          A representative of Osho Ojas Meditation Center
         Mecislovas Vrubliauskas
         05.01.2004

Published through BNS (Baltic News Service) 05-01-2004

    Language of other authors and the court is not revised.







Ojas Meditation Center

21d Pavasario Str.   |   LT-10309 Vilnius, Lithuania, EU   |     phone: +370-5-2153398   |   mobile phone: +370-61911551  
Resort: Mishkiniu vil. 8, Nemenchine eld., Vilnius r.   |     mobile phone: +370-68511533  

We answer phone calls on Mon-Fri 9AM-12AM, Sat 2PM-5PM, except during meditation courses

e-mail:   |   website: https://www.ojasmc.eu

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