According to those who study the texts, a whole Chapter, Chapter four, of Osho’s ‘The Book of Wisdom’ was deleted in the most recently published edition. We just read it, it seems okay to us (SN). Here are the last paras of the Chapter for punters to get a taste. Suggestions welcome as to why whoever last edited this book found the chapter so bad.
Osho :
The Upanishads say, “God is, and you are that: tat tvam asi.” The Upanishads say, “God is, and I am God.” These are assertions arising out of ecstasy. They have no ethics, no morality, no reference even. The Christian mind, the Mohammedan mind, the Jewish mind, cannot understand why these books are thought to be religious. They may be good literature, but why are they thought to be religious?
And if you ask one who has reached the same ecstasy as the Upanishadic seers, he will say The Bible, the Talmud, the Koran, they are ethical, moral, but what do they have to do with religion? They are good, because they make a society move smoothly, but they have nothing religious in them — or maybe only a few statements here and there. The major part is ethical; the religious part seems to be so small that it can be neglected, ignored. And it has been ignored.
To come to know that nothing is good, nothing is bad, is a turning point; it is a conversion. You start looking in; the outside reality loses meaning. The social reality is a fiction, a beautiful drama; you can participate in it, but then you don’t take it seriously. It is just a role to be played; play it as beautifully, as efficiently, as possible. But don’t take it seriously, it has nothing of the ultimate in it.
The ultimate is the inner; the indivisible soul knows it. And, to come to that soul, this is a good turning-point.
You say: “Good and bad have ceased to exist.” This is the right moment to take sannyas, this is what sannyas is all about. Now there is no need to wait, now there is no need even to ask my permission. Sannyas is already happening. Enter into this buddhafield. Long you have waited — too long, really.
I have heard: An old couple reached the divorce court. They were really ancient, ninety-five years old, and they had been married for seventy-five years. The judge could not believe his eyes. He said, “So you are thinking of divorce now, after seventy-five years of married life? Why NOW?”
They looked at each other, and then the old man said, “Well, we waited till all the children were dead.”
People go on waiting and waiting and waiting…. Now, what a hope! There is no need to wait any more. You are welcome, you are ready. Even people who are not ready, I welcome them — because those who are not ready today may be ready tomorrow. Those who are not ready when they take sannyas, may be ready after they have taken sannyas. And who am I to refuse you if God accepts you? I am nobody to refuse you.
That’s why nobody is refused, no condition is made, nobody is thought to be unworthy. If God thinks you worthy of being alive, that’s enough proof that you are also worthy of becoming a sannyasin.
You say: “I am neither proud nor ashamed and yet I am both.” That’s the state of confusion. You will find everything like that – neither this nor that, yet both.
“Whatever I have achieved seems lost in a fog” — you are really blessed — “resolved together with my failures.”
Many should feel jealous of you. To know that all has failed is the beginning of a new journey. To know that “All that I have achieved is lost” is the beginning of a new search for something that cannot be lost. When one is utterly disillusioned with the world and all its successes, only then does one become spiritual.
“Like smoke I feel, but through the smoke a tremendous sadness arises like a sharp rock with a velvet covering.” It is bound to be so. When life has been lived through illusions and one day one suddenly feels all has been meaningless, useless – “I was chasing shadows” – a great sadness arises.
But I can see your perceptiveness. Sadness is there, but “with a velvet covering.” Yes, sadness is there because of the past, and the velvet covering is what is possible; it only becomes possible now. Out of all this confusion is sadness; but because of this confusion and its utterness, deep down a new stirring is happening. You may not yet be aware of it, but something is stirring, a new joy is arising behind the curtain of sadness – a joy of a new search, of a new adventure, of a new life, of a new way to be.
“Osho, I can’t perceive the end of it – or is there no end?” There is a beginning of the mind and there is an end of the mind, there is a beginning of the ego and there is an end of the ego, but there is no beginning to you and no end to you. And there is no beginning to the mystery of Existence and no end to you. It is an ongoing process. Mysteries upon mysteries are waiting for you, hence the thrill and the ecstasy.
Feel ecstatic that there is no end to life, that when you have reached one peak, suddenly another peak starts giving you challenges – a higher one, a more arduous climb, a more dangerous reach. And when you have reached the other peak, there will be another peak; peaks upon peaks. It is an eternal Himalayas of life.
Just think of a point where you arrive, and now there is nothing else left. You will be utterly bored then; boredom will be your only fate then! And life is not boredom, it is a dance. Life is not boredom, it is exultation, exuberance.
Many, many things are going to happen, and many, many things will always remain to happen. The mystery never ends, it cannot end. That’s why it is called a mystery, it cannot even be known. It will never become knowledge, that’s why it is called a mystery; something in it is eternally elusive. And that’s the whole joy of life. The great splendour of life is that it keeps you eternally engaged, searching, exploring. Life is exploration, life is adventure.
You ask: “Osho, I can’t perceive the end of it or is there no end?” There is an end to you, but there is no end to the real you.
“Is it ecstasy carrying the weight of impurity?” There is no impurity anywhere. All is pure. Impurity is just a shadow of the confusion that you are feeling right now. When the confusion and the confusing mind are dropped, the shadows will disappear of their own accord.
Your innermost core has always been pure; purity is intrinsic to you, it cannot be taken away. Your virginity is eternal; you cannot lose it, there is no way to lose it. You can only forget about it or remember it. If you forget about it, you live in confusion; if you remember it, all is clear. Again, I will not say “certain,” but just “clear.” All is transparent. That transparency is freedom, that transparency is wisdom. This transparency is your birthright; if you are not claiming it, nobody else is responsible except you. Claim it! It is yours. It is yours just for the asking.
Sannyas is an effort to reclaim that which is yours and to drop that which is not yours. Sannyas is an effort to drop that which you really don’t have, and to claim that which you always had with you all along.
Ecstasy is our very nature; not to be ecstatic is simply unnecessary. To be ecstatic is natural, spontaneous. It needs no effort to be ecstatic, it needs great effort to be miserable. That’s why you look so tired, because misery is really hard work; to maintain it is really difficult, because you are doing something against nature. You are going upstream — that’s what misery is.
And what is bliss? Going with the river – so much so that the distinction between you and the river is simply lost. You are the river. How can it be difficult? To go with the river no swimming is needed; you simply float with the river and the river takes you to the ocean. The river is already going to the ocean.
Life is a river. Don’t push it and you will not be miserable. The art of not pushing the river of life is sannyas.
Ronald, you are ready. This moment of confusion, this moment of chaos in your life, can open a new door, can turn a new leaf. Don’t wait any more.
Enough for today.
“To come to know that nothing is good, nothing is bad.”
If that’s the case, then removing a chapter from a book is neither good nor bad. Hmm!
Wasn’t the chapter removed because the discourse series was huge and the western publishers weren’t prepared to publish so large a book?
Not sure, to be honest, where I got that from. Feeling it’s been reported here at SN by a ma who was part of the editing team.
People who lived with the master and felt the effect of collective around him are discussing the books and deleted paragraphs; I feel afraid to be born again and falling in the traps of his books.
Many people are going to spend their lives in discussing and remembering the title of the books. New class of pandits are going to ascend the Earth soon.
Please God, if you send me again as human being, I will prefer to be a Christian. One book and very liberal way of life. Everywhere else is too serious.
P.S:
For the benefit of Lokesh kind, I must write disclaimer:
Above post is a satire written in first person form! It should not be treated as writer´s statement ready for notary´s seal and signature.
El Chudo wishes for, and I quote, “One book and very liberal way of life.”
“Never trust man who only reads one book.” (Billy Connolly).
A new vision for a truly safe and wealthy humanity, co-sponsored, starting in India – surely a vision of in commune-ity living which we have inspiringly participated in ourselves and fostered, Osho-wise.
So you too can spread the word of inspiration and bliss on the planet…as if we truly belong here. What a surprising thought and antidote to survivalism and thanatos as being definitive for our identity.
Common sense and fairness – what a great vision.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vnB16E36EQ
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25415501
http://vimeo.com/32156441
This way of life / concept has been around ever since the first-ever joint family came into existence, but I guess we cannot expect any kind of global uniformity in one given time-frame – although I may be wrong about this.
“People who lived with the master and felt the effect of collective around him are discussing the books and deleted paragraphs; I feel afraid to be born again and falling in the traps of his books.”
So agree with you on this one & decided not to be born again in any case. Hope my decision is granted! (Existence, are you listening?).
On second reading, not only books, also audios, videos or any form of future technology!
I can’t make any suggestions as to why it has been edited, but I can say that for me, this is a real gem:
“Your innermost core has always been pure; purity is intrinsic to you, it cannot be taken away. Your virginity is eternal; you cannot lose it, there is no way to lose it. You can only forget about it or remember it. If you forget about it, you live in confusion; if you remember it, all is clear. Again, I will not say “certain,” but just “clear.” All is transparent. That transparency is freedom, that transparency is wisdom. This transparency is your birthright; if you are not claiming it, nobody else is responsible except you. Claim it! It is yours. It is yours just for the asking.”
To me, he captures the essence of his teaching in these words.
Yes, there are references to the taking of Sannyas, which are now irrelevant (surely you can’t still take Sannyas, can you?), but the spirit and love of life, the desire to share, the sense of mystery – the heart of his teaching, comes through to me in this piece. I tingle with pleasure when I read it.
Thanks, Simond.
You can still ‘take sannyas’, though it is a rather different affair to what it was. Someone told me that at the Resort, “you dance around and nominate your own name.” However, Resort goers, please post if this is wrong and you want to correct.
In the UK, Osho Leela still have sannyas ceremonies, and I think someone who ‘gives’ sannyas.
In Nepal and in India, certainly Arun and Keerti ‘give’ sannyas.
My own view is what you intimate, which is that this chapter may have been deleted as it was felt to be ‘old fashioned’ and referred to taking sannyas as when Osho was alive.
However, I completely agree with you, which is what I felt last night when reading the whole chapter, that this was still Osho ‘transmitting’ at the height of his powers.
Parmartha,
Let us presume, you have not read Osho. By chance, you stumble upon one title. You buy it. You read it.
Then?
Anyway, when was the last time you purchased some Osho book? And when was the last time, you gave it to someone as present?
And what about you, Shantam? You spent all that time in Pune – now what? If you’re as hopelessly ‘lost’ as you appear to be, what good has it done you, apart from an unending capacity to complain?
Does your well-being depend upon whether or not the Pune ashram etc. is being run according to your personal preferences? It certainly appears that way.
And if you think you need a vast crowd of sannyasins around you in order to make your life worthwhile then I suggest you’ve learned nothing from all those years, nothing at all.
Anyway, as I’ve said, I don’t trust where you’re coming from, your personal life situation seems too problematic for you to see straight, your personal discontent is too mixed up with your ‘ashram etc.’ concerns.
Do you know where each begins and ends? I doubt it very much. No wonder you don’t want to meditate – how can you, in your situation?
Well, Shantam,
In answer to your first question: in the old days, one went to Poona!
On the second question: I purchased an Osho book last month from Viha Connection (who provide a very good postal service, by the way): an ‘old fashioned’ ‘Darshan Diary’.
In the UK, I act as an informal point for ‘inheriting’ Osho books and recycling them. I sent 20 to Prague for the Centre there with a Czech friend just last month.
Now Shantam, what exactly is your point?
Anyway, the way Osho disciples have evolved and the way they project, Osho is no more a spiriual master in the league of Jesus, Buddha, Mahavira.
Osho is a genius motivational and inspirational orator, just like Deepak Chopra, Eckhart Tolle, Paulo Coelho.
When disciple’s mind is puffed like a balloon, and he thinks it is ‘no mind’, such things happen. Therefore who cares when few paragraphs are added or deleted?
In any bookshop, one can go and feel the reality. Why just the complete bookshop, the shelves with spiritual books are enough? Osho title may shine like a single chewing gum in a petrol pump shop!
P.S:
In the automatic dictionary in the computer, word Osho does not exist. Must not have been used so often. Soho, Oslo, Osco exist.
Eckhart Tolle merely a “motivational and inspirational orator”? Poor judgment, Shantam.
As for your P.S. – a pure irrelevance.
Some time ago, Satyadeva, I made a suggestion to you. Please allow me to make it again and please don’t take my word for it, and forgive me if I offend you. I only wish to help.
Debating with fools and people who are lost is an endless task. Some people are so confused and lost that to mix with them just hurts you. There is no point, no end, and no resolution to debates like this.
You just wind yourself up, become angry or disappointed, or depressed.
You don’t need to do this. Just let it go, don’t involve yourself in meaningless correspondence. In time, as you stay resolved in this, the person and the problem disappears.
Try it out or chuck my advice in the bin, if it makes no sense.
I might add that I’m undertaking this process in my own life. Past friends and relationships that are old and stale have made me stuck too.
The desire and hope for resolution with people or the idea that we should not reject people or that we should embrace everyone and everything is a powerful idea. A legacy of our Christian and liberal values that are so deeply instilled in us.
But in doing so, we reduce the possibility of new people and new energies coming into our lives. Whilst we stick with the old, how can the new enter?
Thanks, Simond, these are wise words for practical (in)action.
“Eckhart Tolle merely a “motivational and inspirational orator”?”
Oh yes, he has also a photogenic face!
Anyone who can have erection can have enlightenment too (lols).
So simple is like this nowadays!
P.S:
Dear SD, once in a while write something of your own. It is creative then. You respond like a duck in the pond waiting for the breadcrumbs.
If you think your outpourings are “creative”, Shantam, then you’re even more stuck than I imagined.
99.9% of your posts are just knee-jerk reactions, arising, as I said, from your purely personal, deep discontent – like the one I’m responding to right now.
The very fact that that you clearly think otherwise is further evidence of your apparent incapacity most of the time for anything but the most shallow self-reflection.
Apart from all that, you’re a (mostly unintentional) good laugh now and then, who, sure, has answered a call from within and who certainly has ‘a story to tell’ and, more to the point, has pressing problems to deal with and a life to live – if only you could get off this obsessiveness that’s apparently dominating your life – and getting you absolutely nowhere.
This video from CNN about London will show how life has moved on.
Again and again I say, why people should go to Pune?
What they get there is available over all.
http://edition.cnn.com/videos/world/2014/12/05/pkg-soares-uk-early-morning-rave.cnn/video/playlists/trending-video/
Good clip, Shantam.
Yeah, there are some good things happening in London.
BUT please note, though popular this morning, drug-free rave (conscious clubbing) is at present only once a month.
Profound regret and outrage at the mass killings of the 12 who were killed today at France’s newspaper the satirical , radical and socially conscientious magazine ‘Charlie Hebdo’ .
I personally hope that the magazine continues its life as soon as possible and others step quickly into the shoes of those lost, without recklessness but with determination. It is a reminder of the Pune bombings which targeted our own community’s ethics and vision. The resort overcame the threat, and flourishes. I wish that the fearless spirit of that goes out to Charlie Hebdo’s readership and friends.
I believe Osho stopped talk of ayatollahs and such after their loony followers attacked the ashram in the eighties, but only because he was not interested in that audience and their recidivism.
I wish for the triumph of a psychologically insightful communicative ethic instead of tribal male repressed barbarism , capital-colonial oil-wars and phoney suppressive fearful civic pc’ism which positively disturbs the whole of our respective civic agreements into new collective arrangements and language a la Osho … for which each of us is responsible for declaring.
France has been here before in revolutionary terms, so should not balk at showing revolutionary qualities of liberty , fraternity and equality even when under threat, with the best of its humanist intelligentsia, on the street, in all schools and for broadcast.Those ideas are not the privilege of the State but the heritage of an attitude to civic freedoms that we take for granted and must use not for the State’s integrity but for our own.
My dear Shantam Prem,
Your statement that Osho is “a genius motivational and inspirational orator, like Deepak Chopra” is like saying that trees are black; but yes, trees are black, if you are blind.
So, a warm welcome to the ‘blind men’s club’, which is…humanity at large.
But maybe you suffer from a special case of blindness, associated with latent aggression! You say, “Who cares if a few paragraphs are added or deleted?” (from Osho’s books). Reading this question, I don’t think you ever sat with Osho, and if you did you were probably snoring. But for sure, you did not sit with Buddha and Mahavira whom you mention. So how can you compare Osho with them? I don’t think you are talking out of your own experience.
Do you want to join the new religion of the Cocoritos? It is a new religion which is based on parroting other people, without ever having any experience of your own. Sounds good, no? What do you know about Buddha and Mahavira, let alone Osho?
Chidananda and Videh
Dear Chidananda and Videh,
Please leave Shantam Prem alone, he is SN’s mascot and we do not want him to change in the slightest. Brain-damaged as a baby in the Punjab he has made remarkable progress in his life and begun to string sentences together – who cares if they do not make any sense?
Only mindy people like yourselves, who are completely unsurrendered and not following their feelings could miss Shantamji’s generous heart, which is all clogged up with cholesterol due to eating too much cheap hamburgers from Lidl’s past sell-by date really cheap box.
Your stony hearts miss the wonderful being that poor Shantam is. He loves Osho, even though he never met him, and the master is working upon his soul from the asstroll plane so that next time Shantamji is reborn he will be able to speak normally and maybe, In’shallah, he might reach a level where someone might be able to understand what he is talking about. So hands off our beloved village idiot, right now!
V&C or C&V,
It is not me who thinks Osho in the same catoagory as Eckhart Tolle and Deepak Chopra, it is the hand-picked bosses at Osho Foundation International who are projecting the master in this light.
It may piss many people, but here at Sannyas News and facebook I am the only one who persistently writes against the misadventures of two or three people who have sidelined all the disciples. I am not one of those who in private talk about commune and before the managers, sing the praise of Resort.
Please look at my facebook wall, I think my page is the only one where Buddha Hall photo is the towering light.
And one request: I am not a guru or inspirational writer, but if you read my posts, try to figure out whether they are ironical satires or personal statements. It will be more fun.
“It may piss many people, but here at Sannyas News and facebook I am the only one who persistently writes against the misadventures of two or three people who have sidelined all the disciples. I am not one of those who in private talk about commune and before the managers, sing the praise of Resort.”
A minority of one, eh, Shantam? Wonder why that is – ever given it some thought? (Silly question, you interpret others’ absolute indifference as your own personal ‘heroism’).
“Please look at my facebook wall, I think my page is the only one where Buddha Hall photo is the towering light.”
Just like your contributions here, Shantam, whose quality ‘towers’ above all others?
‘I, Shantam Prem, the greatest disciple of them all’.
The level of delusion you operate at is seriously laughable!
El Chudo declares, “I am not a guru or inspirational writer.”
This is a sensational revelation. It is bound to shock the civilised world.
“To me, he captures the essence of his teaching in these words”
Yes, Simond, as you refer to His words alive, another way than Arpana did (the way he did it, also in a remarkable way). And you, Simond, end up with: “I tingle with pleasure when I read it.”
Quite another thing is to live what here is spoken. And to live it in a time where even the slightest misunderstanding can by now evoke consequences, for example in the ever so transparent ´NET´of mixed and also imbecile correspondence, as you rightly stated re another point here.
However, the kind of NET-transparency is truly mostly none, and it not what here is spoken in your quote! As a possibility can also evoke imbecile actions by people who just pop in ´by chance´.
I want to share that out of my experience throughout the decades, the Truth here conveyed IS nearer as the nearest to everybody, because we ARE it.
But yet this does ask for committment described with the so famous term,´effortless effort´, to embody THIS.
And to embody it in every day´s challenge in every day´s nowadays world.
These days, there is no day without some fresh news of the terror-stricken world by people taking others with them into death by living up to megalomaniac fantasies of fights for THEIR truth. And others forced to counterfight and their convictions also take lots of innocent lives, besides maybe one man who could be guilty of a terrorist action.
Always, there is spoken about ´truths´ these days. As in ´transparency´.
So one of the most predominant tasks may be to take care of what to confer, with whom and when; especially when talking about ancient wisdom of wisdom seekers. Their way to teach about ´transparency`and what is meant by this has out of my understanding no correlation to the post-modern communication industry (including the wellness-industry).
However, Masters of Meditation share. At all times they did that.
I love that parable (or real story?) of Gertrude Stein. She is said to always have had a bunch of seeds in her pocket, when travelling, and threw them out of the window. When asked why she did that, instead of thoroughly looking for the best spot of ´good´ earth, she is said to have expressed her conviction that something good will come out of it anyway. One never knows.
Osho also mentioned that story once, and I guess He really knew about that kind of – should we call it TRUST? The LOVE of LIFE? Or no label at all; that would be the best for it, I feel.
When sitting with the Master, my heart so often tingling that I cannot count, Simond. In living the tingling in everyday terms – always a beginner and lots of failures on my side, Simond.
Yet haunted by the ´tingling´, that´s reminding me, ever alive.
Madhu
And thank you for posting.
Madhu,
In your posts I always sense a good heart, a person who truly wishes to communicate a passion and love of life.
Sometimes your English confuses me – it being your second language. The way your Mind works can also be difficult as it wanders from point to point. The result is that your posts are not so simple and straightforward as they could be.
This is a direct result of too much thinking, so my advice is as follows:
Try not to think and worry so much about other people and the world too much. There is no need to engage with fools or madmen, no need to put your point across to others unless it feels truly important.
Try to relax more, and as you notice yourself thinking and reflecting, see if you can remind yourself that it all means absolutely nothing.
Be a lot kinder and gentler in yourself. Remind yourself about this as often as you can.
You may find as you do this, you won’t look out so much, seeking justice or the need to change the world or even offer an opinion.
You are already perfect, there is no journey and all is good now.
There is no secret to this, no spiritual or psychological journey, no need for future or past.
Just the simple experience of living in this moment is enough. So you can truly discern and delight in your own beauty – the real beauty that you are.
Simond, did no one ever tell you that there is nothing more unwelcome than unasked for advice? You’re starting to sound like Marjorie Proops.
Seems like once in a while I have no problem to agree with Lokesh.
‘Delight in your beauty, inner beauty is in you. You just need to discover it…Blah, blah, blah.’
Simond, you are welcome to learn something here, but not preach. Lokesh is the headmaster. I am only an over-qualified janitor!
Shantam, the ‘advice’ you so insensitively denigrate is, I reckon, relevant to more than a few people, including me – and even would-be ‘man-of-the-world know-it-alls’ like yourself, who so relishes the opportunity to parade such crass ignorance.
An all-consuming obsession with newspapers, the public domain of everlasting conflict – politics, hatred and its consequences – is that what your life, your ‘sannyas’ has degenerated into?
My presumption is, Satyadeva, you were Indian Brahmin for many, many lives.
Such people destroyed India by their loop-sided wisdom. Now such souls are on Mission West!
But dear Lokesh, you are tireless with your advice, some “asked for” and others perhaps less welcome.
Don’t you ever read your own posts? They are full of words of wit, wisdom and the occasional diatribe against one or more of the commentators here.
If I sound like old Marjorie, you often sound like a grumpy old man!
Sticks and stones, Marjorie.
On the subject of advice, I always think Francois (Frank) De La Rochefoucauld had it pretty well nailed…
“Good advice is something that a man gives when he is too old to set a bad example.”
“Men give away nothing as liberally as their advice.”
“Those who live without folly are not as wise as they think.”
Motherfucker, asshole, dickhead belong to the era of religions.
Unconscious, blind, non-meditator are the cool words in the urban dictionary of spiritual hot potatoes!
Chudo, the only hot potatoes round here are the ones decomposing in your rubber chuddies.
Hi Campers!
Yours truly is back on the block after an enforced leave of absence.
From what I can see it pretty much looks like business as usual on the SN site i.e. the usual culprits are once again trying to spank the living daylights out of the Right Hon. Prem Shantam (the future Director of the OIF, Pune)!
Have you girls not got anything else better to do than to keep swallowing the bait he regularly serves up to tantalise you with? On second thoughts, well, never mind! Keep it up Shantam!
Now let me address the thread topic in a more serious frame of mind. Having worked in the editing dept. of the OIF, for a thankfully short period of time, I would venture to say that they may have a made a cock-up in missing out the chapter mentioned. It was hardly the most professional set-up I have encountered in the publishing world, and several cock-ups occured whilst I was there!
Of course, the latter might have had something to do with me? However, I do not claim ownership for the Chapter 4 omission, as I did not work on it.
P´haps it all came down to having enough money for the reprint, and a few pages needed to be taken out so as to stay within budget?
From my own point of view, I would hardly describe the excerpt quoted as being the most inspiring piece of writing I have come across, and therefore do not feel any loss at its omission. In fact, it could be the start of a very welcome trend!
Cock-ups and emissions. Ashok, are you trying to steal El Chudo’s crown of crude innuendo? Have you no shame?
Hi Lokesh!
I think you already know that the answer to both of your questions is…NO!
With regard to the first, one really has to admire the creative use of language and stubborn fight, frequently displayed by Shantam, right?
Secondly, as far as shame is concerned, I had that knocked out of me when I went to Pune. As the therapists say, perhaps it is something I need to look at?
Greetings, Ashok,
Phew, what a relief. Don’t want to upset El Chudo by stealing his crown, now do we? Yes, I can dig it.
I have done a few things in life that on reflection I could have given a miss. But there is little I feel ashamed of. I took the therapists’ advice and took many a much needed look at it all. Nine times out of ten they were right. It was a most beneficial process. Live and learn.
To be honest, Lokesh, Shantam would be a pretty hard act to follow, I believe, and I don´t think my creative powers stretch that far! So I would not even attempt to match his rather unique style. Could be, however, as Arpana indicated, that I need to take Prozac to reach the required levels of proficiency?
Somewhere else you mentioned the CULT word, Lokesh, and interestingly I have had a recent run-in with some of that nonsense:
I spent several weeks at the Pachamama community in Costa Rica, set up by a self-mad(e) man called Tyohar, from Israel.
Things were not going too badly IMHO, as the place has a distinctively Osho flavour e.g. groups, meditation and there are quite a few (old-time) Osho sannyasins living there, who were generally interesting to talk to, albeit a little odd at times. However, the Beast would shortly reveal itself. Please read on.
Tyohar himself claims to be an Osho disciple (as well as awakened!), and consequently has named the main meditation hall on-site, Osho Hall, replete with a few large photos of the Master himself.
Once a week, a sharing meeting is held in the the grand hall with anything from 50 punters upwards. At one of these, yours truly decided to communicate that I thought that further sharing opportunities in smaller groups would be welcomed. A suggestion that was supported by some others present also.
Anyhow, a few days later one of Tyohar´s side-kicks requested a conflab in which he said that he and Tyohar had been discussing my request for more sharing and Tyohar had proclaimed that if that were the case I should take the ‘Who´s In?’ group (total cost app. 300 quid) starting that week or failing that, pack my bags and leave!
Needless to say, as one who does not take well to any kind of bullying, blackmail etc. I decided to take the latter option whilst delivering a little diatribe to the unfortunate messenger-boy, and was out of the hole the following morning.
Please note, they had tried to throw me out immediately, but yours truly put up a fight and was therefore allowed stay longer on the condition that I did not communicate the circumstances of my leaving to others…which of course I did! I wonder what the sensitive little ducklings were afraid of?
Tyohar, by the way, also dishes out his own version of sannyas with names etc. with many former Osho-ites becoming Tyro-rites.
Ashok,
What motivated you to go to Tyohar Ashok?
Well, Arpana, I did not go to be with Tyohar Ashok, or Tyohar for that matter, as I had been assured by a sannyasin friend that the latter was very laid back and did not play a particularly overbearing role in the day-to-day affairs of the community…The bastardo was wrong! Which just goes to show that you cannot trust what a lot of sannyasins say, dunnit?
What I really went for was to be in a beautiful place in tropical Costa Rica, to which I had never been before, and where there were a few meditations, groups etc. going on.
As Lokesh said earlier, YOU LIVE AND LEARN.
Oh, right. You’re a travellin’ man ( ͡^ ͜ʖ ͡^ ).
Ashok, next time you want someone to advise you on life and sharing, do write in first here…the first comment is free, after that you’ll pay for it.
Ok, PM, sounds like a good idea. Where do I go from here?
Please advise freely.
Our resident Heads of Searching this term are the new masters from Brazennose College and Maudling College, Oxbridge, Messrs Satya Devila M.A.,DPhil, StD., and Mr Simon Dee, BA, BA, BA.
They’ll have you looking within very early on, even before you know it. Leaving you feeling terrifically pleased with themselves.
Good luck and let us know when you’ve paid for it.
See my earlier post (today, 11.27am), Martyn, first parag.
“With regard to the first, one really has to admire the creative use of language and stubborn fight, frequently displayed by Shantam, right?”
He’s on Prozac.
Did you realize, friends,
friends of free speech and sharing, that yesterday in Paris, twelve humans were shot and more heavily injured in an editorial team of a satirical magazine?
35,000 humans gathered in Paris to light candles and hold pencils up in the air; and in London, as I saw it, many gathered in the streets as well.
Doesn´t belong to the thread? Oh yes, it does.
And does as well belong to the urge of conscious effort to leave all small-minded ways in fighting against each other. And in realizing in what world we are living in, instead of making up a ´world´ according to our wont.
Good morning, everybody.
Madhu
Yesterday was the editorial staff weekly meeting of ‘Charlie Hebdo’.
The magazine’s very funny libertarian output of cartoons and satire directed at its readership’s intelligence, pokes fun at the whole spectrum of authoritarian society and militarism of all types, ideologies and all religions.
‘Charlie Hebdo’ is also dedicated to sponsoring animal rights and welfare. It has a full section in every edition which illuminates animal abuse and violation, especially from the meat-industrial sectors and furriers.
The next edition will continue to be published, according to reports in the media.
My heartfelt thanks to all those individuals murdered, now lost, and to those grievously wounded yesterday, to all their families and friends. A big heartwarming embrace and solidarity for the future.
Laugh all violators back into the darkness where they come from. We are all ‘Charlie Hebdo’.
http://www.charliehebdo.fr/index.html
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/sense-of-humour-vital-to-survival-of-human-race-2015010894181
http://iheartar.com/2013/06/12/a-thousand-year-old-vegan-poem/
Al-Ma’arri’s skepticism of all religions reminds us of Xenophanes, Carvaka, and Lucretius, and does not re-appear in Western thought until the Enlightenment. He was equally sarcastic towards the religions of Muslims, Jews, and Christians. Al-Ma’arri remarked that monks in their cloisters or devotees in their mosques were blindly following the beliefs of their locality: if they were born among Magians or Sabians they would have become Magians or Sabians. Al-Ma’arri was a rationalist who valued reason above tradition or revelation. Like Carvaka he saw religion in general as a human institution invented as a source of power and income for its founders and priesthood, who pursued worldly ends with forged documents attributed to divine inspiration. Like Vardhamana and the Jains, al-Ma’arri believed in the sanctity of life, urging that no living creature should be harmed. He became a vegetarian and opposed all killing of animals, and the use of animal skins for clothing.
Al-Ma’arri passed judgments with a freedom that must have offended the privileged members of his society. In Reynold Nicholson’s words “Amidst his meditations on the human tragedy, a fierce hatred of injustice, hypocrisy, and superstition blazes out.” Many of the extracts below are taken from Nicholson’s translation.
http://www.humanistictexts.org/al_ma%27arri.htm
Good links, Martyn, but not anything to do with the topic!
http://www.newsbiscuit.com/2015/01/07/twelve-amused-and-four-left-laughing-in-satirical-attack-on-is-headquarters/
At SN,
nous sommes Charlie
Nous sommes Charlie
Nous sommes Charlie
Nous sommes Charlie
Nous sommes Charlie.
Had a vigil here last night. Organised by a French student. Big crowd, and a real mixture of people.
Being that in the vigil together is the generosity of what the laughter in ‘Charlie Hebdo’ spreads so well.
Mutuality.
Absence of Threat.
Willingness.
Clarity.
Playfulness.
Removal of Justification.
Invitation.
Across the spectrum of abuse, casting a rainbow.
These joyful legacies are as crucial to our evolution and our collective state as the conformities which are not, but would wish us to be.
That joyful egalitarian tease is the litmus of how we advance and counter the panic that serves only the marionetteers awaiting backstage.
Freedom of speech and criticising in the world of Osho organisations can be a topic worthy of discussion, specially in the light of world events taking place around us.
Let us leave aside political change, even disciples’ wishes are not respected just with publication of books.
Chairman Mr. Ja decides everything with his hand-picked group, follow it or leave it is given as choice.
For example, it seems Videh and Chidananda have spent decades in the ashram in publication department. When westerns give their time free of cost is it a lesser contribution? If these people´s voice is not respected then hell with meritocracy!
One more spiritual movement has fallen flat because too much sand and too little steel and cement.
When starts the next one?
There is no “next one”. Unless you want to join IS.
All ‘religious’ organisations thwart free speech with greater or less force. What`s new?
That is what the Charlie Hebdo guys were presenting before they were called upon to prove it in spectacular fashion.
And look at sannyasins:
Fighting about the words of their prophet!
Anyone with even half a brain still functioning will distance him/herself from this pathetic madness.
To all Sunni-asins and Oshi’ites…
Have a lovely jihad!
And may the words of your prophet make a profit!
Osho Akbar.
Satyadeva, this I call creative writing by taking the thought and sentence from the previous blogger.
But I must acknowledge, satire is not your genre.
In psycho-analysis you are quite creative. And for this, my regards.
Thank you and goodnight.
No one thought Osho´s creation, His spiritual movement will become religious organisation, a cult, a sect, a clan, a loose network of tribal lords so soon.
Maybe I should add the word of hotelier industry, Resort too, in the list of synonymous with Cult.
When your own life is so unsatisfactory, seemingly even ‘falling apart’, I suppose this sort of obsession is just another common-or-garden escape route…
One day, Shantam, you’ll realise how much time and energy you’re utterly wasting – as I have utterly wasted on you.
With sincere wishes for your recovery,
Goodbye.
“No one thought Osho’s creation will become a religious organisation”
Never underestimate the power of denial, dear boy.
By your own account, you yourself swapped the turban and holy underwear for a mala and robe, never for even a few minutes inhabiting something like a ‘secular’ reality of which you remain almost completely oblivious today.
Now that the blanket and milk bottle of religion has finally been torn away from you, you are understandably screaming like a baby.
What can you do?
Go back to the Gurudwara?
I suspect you will not be happy there, nor will the elders think much of your heavily-dishonoured chuddies!
Dream about the past?
Or there’s always hope for the future…
Do you think there are white-skinned virgins in the Sannyas heaven?
Or maybe in your next life you will pass your law exams and become a guardian of Osho`s work…
Good luck.
I suspect you will need it.
As far as the term ‘cult’ goes, Sannyas pretty much ticks every box.
Never underestimate the obedience of the masses. Just think, Satyadeva, you are in North Korea or China or Cuba. I am sure, you will be equally satisfied and contented with your life as now in UK. I will not.
So what someone like you will do? They will psychoanalyse the citizen like me, but not their dictator. One needs to rise high to get enemies of height.
And let me tell you and other Brahmins, even an elephant with one leg fallen has more weight than thousands of chickens in the farm.
Look at simple fact, you idiot, I am one of those who have revealed more facts about my life than all of you together. It means how happy and proud and contented I am about my wounds. They are warrior’s wounds and not syphilis of a hand-packed husband!
“Now that the blanket and milk bottle of religion has finally been torn away from you, you are understandably screaming like a baby.”
Poor Shantam is crying like baby and those who have grown up are either hooked with the bra of their wife or get a regular boobie massage from their lady therapist.
I wish Osho is born again, simply to see His own people, “my People, my rebels my people, salt of this earth”… They simply went their way when the director of the circus died!
Frank, I don´t know old you are. 60, 70 or on death bed happy to get last meal every evening.
As I see from your posts, most of your years you have spent in India and around Osho and His people. Was it a circus show for you? Were you a consumer of Osho products?
I don´t see a single sentence which shows you as shareholder in Osho Sannyas. Therefore there is no sense of remorse or pain at the decline of only place where sick and tired and poisoned Osho gave His all.
You were there all the time. Parmartha was not, Satya Deva and Lokesh too were not. Are you so thankless bastard not to miss that loss of milk bottle?
Have you given anything to anybody in your whole life?
Have you ever stood with someone at the time of their need?
Is sucker a new name for sannyasin?
Hi Shantam Prem,
Are you a Sardarji by birth? Did you know Sardar Gurudayal Singh, the man whose laughter you can hear in almost all old (and more recent) Osho discourses?
Just wondering….
Videh and Chidananda,
Demographically, Sikhs are only 2 % of Indian population but around 20% of the Indians who came to Osho during his lifetime were Sikhs or Punjabis.
Yes, I knew Sardar ji from the very first week in the ashram. He was quite protective with the younger generation.
I think once I need to write an essay, ‘Why I criticise Osho leaders and policy makers so obsessively, assertively.’ By analysing motivation of the self as truthfully as possible, written in first person form, it can be a reflection on last 25 years of Osho´s permanent absence.
Surely, piece will be dedicated to Satyadeva, our in-house psychoanalysis freak.
I notice in the ‘Book of Wisdom’ they didn`t delete Chapter 20: ‘Diogenes and his Dog’, where Osho expands the story by having the dog lording it on the beach and laughing at Alexander.
That`s one of my favourites.
Btw, I was watching a program about how to train dogs. The dogs were going wacko, acting neurotic, doing stuff like jumping up and down, doing endless repetitive actions, chasing their own tails, barking, trying to force themselves onto other dogs and humans etc.
The dog psychologists recommended the owners to ignore all these behaviours as they were simply desperate attempts to get attention.
It worked.
Frank,
Will it work on the attention seekers on this site? Would there be anyone left?
Give the dog a bone.
Fran my dear, bullseye baby! XX
“As far as the term ‘cult’ goes, Sannyas pretty much ticks every box” – Lokesh
Cult is a positive term if you go to its roots. Words associated with the stem ‘cult’ indicate its positive nature: cultivate, culture, etc.
In the negative sense, cults are associated with ‘mind control’ and here are Robert Jay Lifton’s eight characteristics of that:
1. Milieu Control – No. Osho regularly sent sannyasins ‘back to the West’ and to their families to test their awareness.
2. Mystical Manipulation – No. Osho always stood for freedom and that sannyasins should find their own way, not imitate anyone.
3. Demand for Purity – No. Osho never asked sannyasins to strive for perfection.
4. Confession – No. Since Osho did not believe in sin, there was really nothing to confess.
5. Sacred Science – No. Osho continuously said his Neo-Sannyas was not to be taken as doctrine or ideology or considered to be the ultimate Truth, beyond all questioning or dispute. Osho encouraged questioning and getting rid of societal programming…not to be replaced by another type of programming.
6. Loading the Language – Yes. The Neo-Sannyas movement could be accused of interpreting or using words and phrases in new ways so that often the outside world does not understand. In this sense, sannyas may qualify as cult-ish.
7. Doctrine over person – No. Osho said we were to trust our own organism, and not to deny or reinterpret to fit group ideology. Osho valued rebels.
8. Dispensing of existence – No. Osho did not believe the group has the prerogative to decide who has the right to exist and who does not. Osho always exalted the individual. He did believe in self-defence, but not in missionary work that led to violation of others, or violence against others.
Of course, I could be wrong. I only speak from what I heard Osho say and what I saw Osho do, and my perspective is, of course, limited.
Legend, a devotee in the mask.
I hope you know the difference between past and the present.
What was a spiritual movement attracting people from around the world has become something else than it was supposed to be.
When in organisation where change was the only permanency, some guy sticks to his position with the idea only death can remove me from my chairmanship, that is enough indication to show river has been frozen.
Legend says, “Osho said…”
Whenever there exists a situation involving power, it is more importsnt to pay attention to what people are doing rather than what they are saying.
Legend admits, “My perspective is, of course, limited.”
I cannot disagree with that.
To which I’d add that yes, Osho didn’t intend to create a ‘cult’ – but that’s not really the point. The issue is whether, in various ways, a sort of cult mentality arose, leading to various forms of ‘cultish behaviour’.
And I’d say the answer to that is most definitely ‘yes’.
Legend’s is an ‘ideal’ version of Sannyas, the ‘official’ one, if you like!
The reality was at times often enough rather different, in various ways, minor and major.
Not a bad contribution, Legend. Maybe we will give it a string sometime.
I don’t agree with a number of your ‘Nos’, but then the timing seems important.
I would say 1981 to 1985 the Sannyas movement (from which many left and then returned later) was cultish during that period. Did you live through that, and if so, were you a commune membert or not?
I think on Osho´s 25th leaving the body anniversary, Osho Foundation International or Osho foundation Indian Multinational can introduce a new mantra to recite:
Osho Says
Osho Says
Osho says….
“Everywhere, everything is wrong but not around my holy daddy.”
“I disobey every command, but not of my clergy.”
“Words written in my books are timeless. Time moves according to them.”
“All are stuck in the mud, we float in the open sky like a dead fish in the mouth of an eagle!”
One does not need to have 100 million-plus members to be classified as religion. More than one person is enough sometimes.
“I would say 1981 to 1985, the Sannyas movement from which many left and then returned later was cultish during that period. Did you live through that, and if so, were you a commune membert or not?” – Parmartha.
I agree that time period was most cultish. I went to the Ranch. After my first run-in with Sheela I left. What was important for me was the heart-to-heart communion with Osho, which does not require being in physical proximity (though I loved seeing Osho in person, too).
I did go back to the commune in Pune 2 when Hasya became secretary. I liked Hasya.