Heinous Atrocities: An Osho Take

Osho declares, “If we examine the course of human thinking in the last 300 years, we find a steep increase in doctrines of humanity and justice. But never, in all the history of the world, has mankind indulged in such terrible warfares or committed such heinous atrocities.”

This is a translation from a Hindi lecture

Osho walking 35

On one hand we have evolved great doctrines on humanity, and on the other hand we have thrown atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. On one side we clamour for justice and humanity and on the other side we involve a weaker country in endless wars. It is those who talk loudest about humanity who wage those wars. If we have become so conscious of humanity, wars should have stopped long ago. But this is not so.

We are so conscious of justice, and there is no end to injustice anywhere. Whenever we make new changes in order to ensure greater justice, a new arrangement of injustice is created – with the result that there is no change for the better. Our whole revolution in the field of medicine does not destroy disease; it only helps new diseases to be created. All the improvements we bring about merely increase our hopes, without bearing results.

Rather, we find the results to be the contrary of our expectations. We think that if we increase our laws and the number of courts, we shall be able to bring down the incidence of crime. But the figures of crime tell a different story: the number of criminals has increased equally. If we look at the history of crime over the last two thousand years, we shall find that crime has increased in the same ratio as the institutions of law. When crime increases, the government feels there are not enough laws. So they add more laws.

Man’s mind revolves around some illusory logic. When crime increases we bring in more laws. This seems to prove a deep relationship between the judge and the criminal. The thief and the policeman seem to be two sides of the same coin. They are not two separate things; rather, they are interlocked somewhere within. When one increases, the other also increases. When the growth of one implies the growth of another, the root must be the same. Therefore the same sap that feeds one feeds the other, the same energy flows through one as the other.

Lao Tzu’s viewpoint is entirely different. He says that it is the evil within you that is the root of all your moral codes and moral concepts. Humanity and justice emerged only on the decline of Tao. […]

America is the most educated country in the world today. We look upon it as the custodian of man’s future. If all countries are thus educated, they will become like America. But what has been the outcome of all this education? Crime has not decreased, it has increased. Dishonesty is rampant. All this has increased in the same ratio as education. What does this mean? This means we cannot wipe out the opposite. By increasing the one, we cannot decrease the other, much less destroy it. We can only increase it. Let us see this from different aspects.

Today we have innumerable cures for all kinds of illnesses – but illnesses have not lessened. Rather, they have increased. The fact is that many new illnesses have come into being which were never there before. Not only have we invented new medicines; we have also invented new diseases. What is the reason behind this? If medicines have increased, diseases should be less – this is simple logic. But cures have increased and so have illnesses! What is this! What law is working?

Actually, as cures increase, your ability to fall ill also increases. You no longer have faith in yourself; you have faith in the medicine. You do not have to fight the illness; that work is now taken over by the medicine. You are now out of it. When the medicine fights the disease, your resistance, your body’s ability to fight the illness, goes down. As you depend more and more on medicines, your resistance gets less and less and you get weaker and weaker.

And as you get weaker and weaker, you need more and more medicines. This shows how weak your body has become. Then you find yourself confronted by a very major illness. And this goes on – the fight between illnesses and medicines. You are not even a part of it. You are merely the battleground, the Kurukshetra where the Pandavas and the Kauravas fight. The germs of the medicines fight the germs of the disease. You get knocked around in the process. The medicines, however, keep you sufficiently alive so that the fight goes on. There is all interconnection between the cure and the illness somewhere.

If we question Lao Tzu on this, he will say that illness will end the day medicines are no more. This however, is beyond our understanding. His logic is this: when there is no medicine, you yourself will have to fight the illness. Your strength of resistance can only develop then. To rely on medicines is not to rely on oneself. We can see for ourselves how we have filled ourselves with medicines.

But there is no way out because our whole logic is based on this kind of thinking. It is like this: The more we try to protect ourselves, the more insecure we become. The more insecure we become, the more means for security we contrive. What is the meaning of this riddle? It means that the more we are protected the weaker we become.

You are sitting in an air-conditioned room. You watch a worker walking in the burning sun and you say to yourself. “Poor man, to walk in all this heat!” But you do not know that this man may be totally oblivious to the heat. This thought of the burning sun is yours. But it is true that if you were to step outside to walk with him, the heat would be overbearing for you.

The heat is not the same for every person on the road. Each person experiences it differently. The heat does not depend entirely on the sun; it also depends on you. When you walk on the road and sweat profusely, you think, “The poor worker!” but the worker is almost unaware of it, because in order to experience the heat of the sun, air-conditioning is absolutely necessary.

The more air-conditioning there is, the greater will be the heat. The more we try to cool the world, the hotter it will become. This seems contrary, but there is a deep-seated connection. The more you remain in an air-conditioned room, the less will become your power to fight the heat.

It is only natural that that energy which we do not put to use should get less and less. The air-conditioner does for you what normally your body should be doing – fighting the heat. Therefore, when you suddenly stand in the sun, your body becomes totally unprotected. It will not be able to bear the heat and you will feel very very uncomfortable. This discomfort did not exist before air-conditioning was discovered.

Now Russia is thinking of air-conditioning the whole continent. But when people are born and die in air-conditioned places all mankind will have to go underground. There are stories about cultures reaching to the peak. But those that reached the ultimate height eventually had to go underground.

There is a lake named Titicaca in South America. It is a unique lake. It has puzzled scientists, because a river falls into this lake. Millions of gallons of water fall daily into this lake and there is no way for it to flow out of the lake. Yet not an inch of water rises in the lake. Scientists are confounded. Where does all this water go? The lake has been observed for hundreds of years. It is said that beneath the lake there are the ruins of the ancient civilisation of the Incas. This lake is supposed to have been its reservoir. The Incas are no more, but their arrangement for collecting water still remains. Scientists now think that this was the water supply of a people who lived beneath the lake. A lot of research is going on to discover this lost civilisation.

The more developed a society becomes, the more it goes underground. In Mohenjodaro and Harappa, there are seven tiers of townships. This cannot be because of earthquakes or any other calamity. The greater possibility is that the civilisation had moved underground. Scientists and archaeologists have maintained up to now that Mohenjodaro was built seven times and destroyed seven times by earthquakes. This does not seem plausible: that seven cultures could disappear in the same place, one after the other. It seems more plausible that the culture must have reached such a peak where it became absolutely necessary to go more and more underground. Man must have lost all his power to bear the conditions above the ground.

If air-conditioning is spread all over the world, man will have to go underground within the next two hundred years. Then, to step outside in the light of the sun may become fatal. A child born and brought up in an air-conditioned place will not be able to bear sunlight. Up till now the sun has been the source of life; tomorrow, it may be the cause of death.

The more we increase our means of protection, the more vulnerable we become. The more we arrange to protect ourselves, the more we expose ourselves to danger.

Osho, The Way of Tao Vol 2, Ch 18 (excerpt, translation from Hindi)

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92 Responses to Heinous Atrocities: An Osho Take

  1. Arpana says:

    I wonder (I don’t wonder at all really. It is because of all we repress eventually coming out), because the more we try to live by these wonderful ideas the more self-control and repression we must exercise, but what we repress will come out. (The pressure on a damn finds the weakest spot and eventually a hole appears and a damn will burst).

    “If we question Lao Tzu on this, he will say that illness will end the day medicines are no more. This however, is beyond our understanding. His logic is this: when there is no medicine, you yourself will have to fight the illness. Your strength of resistance can only develop then. To rely on medicines is not to rely on oneself. We can see for ourselves how we have filled ourselves with medicines.”

    See Iatrogenics, ‘Medical Nemesis’, by Ivan Illich.

    • Parmartha says:

      I am just in shock in the last weeks. The terrorist atrocities seem on such a larger scale.

      And to someone like me who lives in London, and where these things come into daily consciousness on the tube and bus…

      If any of these people get nuclear stuff, then…

      I like the translator’s choice of words, “Heinous Atrocities” really sums it up; though they are from some time ago, sums up today for me.

      • shantam prem says:

        “The terrorist atrocities seem on such a larger scale.”

        Not at all, not at all. Their media coverage is billion times more than the time of Buddha and millions times more than the time of Osho.

        • satyadeva says:

          Sheer denial, Shantam. It’s as clear as daylight that the threat of terror here in the West is far greater now than ever before in our lifetimes. Not just the actual, successful attacks, but the many more that have been thwarted by the security people who, btw, are admitting they lack the resources to monitor all possible suspects, the numbers of whom are growing almost exponentially, apparently.

          If you resist accepting this then just wait and see what the next few years has in store….

      • Arpana says:

        I remember hearing someone or other saying London is the locus of centuries of unresolved ‘Karma’, and obviously major cities are the focus of attention, and have been for thousands of years, with such a diversity of people and interests.

        One of the more bloody awful aspects of the dreadful events happening is that no sooner has one awful event occurred, then another one comes along, and it all starts to feel normal, and this is what happens in war zones; awful becomes normal, the parameters of what is awful shift upwards. We become inured. (During an interview on the Beeb* some years ago, a young African woman said, “Today was a good day. Only two people were killed.”). I feel like blubbing now. Holy fucking moly.

        *BBC

        • satyadeva says:

          “One of the more bloody awful aspects of the dreadful events happening is that no sooner has one awful event occurred, then another one comes along, and it all starts to feel normal, and this is what happens in war zones; awful becomes normal, the parameters of what is awful shift upwards. We become inured.”

          Absolutely, Arps, and that’s what comes of being in a media-dominated world where we’re exposed to horrors so regularly. BL went into this quite a lot, including in his ‘End of the World’ discourse, saying the media “will carry the contamination”, the people becoming more and more emotionally hyped-up, fearful, aggressive (which now, of course, we can see so easily in growing right-wing movements in Europe and the US, let alone online conflicts and radio phone-ins, for example).

          Just an after-thought:
          As within, so without (and vice-versa)…Isn’t all this mirrored by environmental crises – climate change, the rise in global temperatures, the destruction and contamination of natural resources etc. etc?

  2. Tan says:

    What a beautiful photo of Osho!
    I can’t see what he is carrying, looks like a phone! Lol!

    • madhu dagmar frantzen says:

      Yes, Tan,
      This Beauty of that photo, black-and-white and all the shades in between (and NOT photo-shopped distorted!) has some strengths, you bet!

      We see younger Osho, called Archarya then (and btw, how I see it, in His left hand carrying the little clean cloth He – for a long time – took with Him, even in Pune I, when He came for the lecture).

      All the seven men we see on the photo are rooted in themselves and the moment caught by the photographer it´s kind of looking like a Vipassana walk.

      The lecture part presented here then provides us in and for the here-now we´re living in with such a lot of aspects of disturbing actuality in particular about His statement: “But never, in all the history of the world, has mankind indulged in such terrible warfare or committed such heinous atrocities.”

      And just for now the photo reminds me of the quest: ´How can we, you, me, everybody regain, restore in these times of very big changes
      (technology/ science etc.) our human, pretty much lost dignity to deal with all the technical progress and challenges we´re in? To cope with it a HUMAN way, I mean.

      Yes, the photo is not only beautiful, Tan, but maybe gives a hint in a mysterious way.

      Madhu

      • Parmartha says:

        I like the picture too, the early Osho walking in a park with some children’s swings in the background. Anyone who can locate and context it exactly?

        Looks like a bunch of Jains to me, but I could be wrong.

        • swami anand anubodh says:

          If I did not know better, I would put the location and context of the photo as Osho and his friends leaving the Emirates Stadium.

        • Prem Masto says:

          It appears this picture must be taken in Bombay when OSHO used to live in Woodland. On left side of OSHO is Yati Shree, I know him personally as he was my Dad’s friend and used to come to our house. He used to live in Chembur in Bombay (now Mumbai). He had some miracle power which I have witnessed. And yes, Yati Shree was Jain.

          • Tan says:

            Thanks for sharing, Prem Masto. Could you share more? I guess you have/had very interesting relationships that somehow relate to Osho, and to hear about them would be a delight!
            Cheers!

          • Parmartha says:

            Thank you, Prem Masto.

            Anything else you want to tell us about those times, etc. would be welcome. I think this picture predates 1970 myself, as the first sannyasins were initiated in 1970, and Osho’s Jain admirers began to drift away after then.

            To get Yatri Shree to relate his remembrances would be very welcome also.

            • Prem Masto says:

              Yati Shree Rajchandraji was raised by a Jain monk from after his parents died. He was trained in Mantra Vidya since age of 7. He achieved Mantra Siddhi.

              He would put vermilion (red powder) on piece of paper and covered it with the cloth. If you have any question or issue in life he would utter the mantras (not loudly) and after a while remove the cloth and you could see your answer written on the paper as the red powder became the words.

              On another instance we were guests in someone’s house and I was sitting next to him. He just rubbed his thumb and other fingers and fragrant powder start falling from his hand. This fragrant powder, I forgot the name, they use in Jain temples.

              He was one of the OSHO lovers. At the time and age when to be associated with OSHO and also being a Jain, Yati was very courageous and revolutionary.

      • madhu dagmar frantzen says:

        And – as P.S., dear friends, as ´I´ have been ´looking´ for (not deliberately – it just happened) some stuff* of ´nowadays´ to cheer me up a bit.

        William Ury (US), negotiator, mediator, dealing with atrocities and warring parties and their individuals, was inspired recently to share and initiated for practising his idea of ‘Abraham’s Walk’, under the title, ‘Going from Hostility to Hospitality’.

        Whoever here wants to be more informed can google it or use another search machine or youtube too.

        And don´t be irritated as this Human, deserving capital letters, is so far distanced from any fundamentalist approach, that some of us, including me, can be inspired to adopt some of his modesty. William Ury has a Buddhist background, more a Dao´ist way, as far as I was able to understand it.

        I only know how my heartbeat responded with a Heart Beat of Joy when I read, heard, listened to and finally saw some youtube clips about people daring worldwide, but especially in war zones of the Near East, to go for an ‘Abraham Walk for Peace’, unarmed, in union (chatting and exchanging – and as a multinational tribe, so to say).

        Some heartbeat of joy is a very uncorruptible signal, I´d say.

        Otherwise I also know about ´my´ heartbeat of sorrow (or drama) and the worst of such is the heartbeat, I´d say, which is simply taken for granted like a proper working, pumping kind of a machine (similar to a comatose/unconscious happening).

        During the very last decades the latter version unfortunately took much (much too much) space in my life.

        That´s why these moments which really make a Difference have been becoming very precious for me , and I´m trying all I´m able to, to shed more awareness/focus on that issue and the happening contexts then.

        With a loving suggestion for peace-walks of all kinds,

        Madhu

        * re the lines from the topic theme I quoted in my first response.

      • Tan says:

        Yes, Madhu, this photo speaks for itself!

        You may be right, he is carrying his cloth, but the way he looks at it is more than beautiful!

        I trust you can see what a distorted photo of Osho means, and the one we saw here, in SN, was more than disgusting. It shouldn’t be allowed, where are the OIF guys?

        Cheers! XX

  3. Kavita says:

    Seems Osho used air-conditioning to go underground and needed to be underground. No wonder he asked to keep the air-conditioners on even after he was gone physically!

  4. shantam prem says:

    Just this idea makes me desire NO Human anymore that I become religious again in the next life and spend years adoring Jesus on Cross or Osho in the photos. Beloved God, have Mercy!

    • satyadeva says:

      Shantam, as someone suggested here a few weeks ago, isn’t the underlying reason for this and your other habitual complaints basically just sheer loneliness, feeling you don’t belong anywhere anymore, that hardly anyone cares about you (least of all, of course, those OIF blackguards)?

      And the rest, the idea that you’re someone who’s valiantly fighting for Spiritual Truth, the true, uncorrupted ‘Osho Vision’, against its greedy, selfish, misguided usurpers is, essentially, just self-aggrandising ‘propaganda’?

      • shantam prem says:

        Satyadeva, do you have wife, children, some respectful job? Is there anyone on this blog who is not a sucker of other people´s work, has some healthy family life, some social standing? SD, can you write something about your life? Please.

        P.S:
        I can write a complete article over the Life of Swamis and Mas post master´s demise. The article will be like a mirror. Question is if editor has the wish to refine and integrity to publish.

        • satyadeva says:

          As usual, Shantam, you avoid the issue by producing another ‘red herring’. People’s personal circumstances, status, respectability (or its absence) do not matter in the slightest – as long as they’re not unhappy in them.

          Apart from not seeming to understand this basic point, by bringing these up you actually reveal what disturbs you about your situation, what you yourself lack and would very much like to have, don’t you?

          But rather than admit this (probably, I imagine, even to yourself) you console yourself by thinking that, not only the SN bloggers but large numbers of your fellow-sannyasins are also suffering in what you regard as the same unhappy boat – furthermore, implying that it’s all the fault of ‘the Sannyas authorities’.

          I suggest you’re mistaken on all three counts, and that, as invariably is the case, your perception is distorted by your unhappiness.

  5. Lokesh says:

    Frustration across the nation, the news is always bad. Why is that? Psychologists have discovered that hearing, reading and seeing bad news stimulates a part of our brain that is linked to human survival instinct. Bad news gives us a kick. Kim Jong Dung is going to start World War Three! The president of the country that has the most powerful military machine in the history of mankind is a head case! Here comes hurricane Fart, it’s a category 8 stinker! Wildfires rage across the country! Could be a financial collapse next week! The new flu is deadly! Aliens that look like crocodile handbags are preparing to invade our planet! A huge meteorite is heading our way sometime soon! Yellowstone Park is going to erupt soon and wipe out mankind! The list is endless and the news companies are mining the golden seam of bad news, because bad news sells like nothing else.

    As far as the excerpt from an old Hindi discourse goes, it does not rank as being one of Osho’s most inspired. A bit of warped logic, a slice of doom and gloom, a wee touch of Lao Tzu, an air-conditioned Russia etc. Where did he get that from?

    Osho declares, “Never, in all the history of the world, has mankind indulged in such terrible warfares or committed such heinous atrocities.”

    That is an untrue statement, grossly exaggerated. Hiroshima was nothing compared to the likes of Genghis Khan. That power-mad bastard was responsible for the deaths of over 200,000,000 people, during a time when the world’s population was a lot less than it is now. And Genghis Khan was just one of many mass murderers who existed more than 300 years ago.

    Sorry to disappoint all the sad fucks who have managed to convince themselves that the world is a terrible place, but the truth is we are currently enjoying one of the most peaceful eras in our troubled planet’s violent history. Of course, if you happen to be living in Aleppo it might not seem to be very peaceful. Nonetheless, if you want to see war and destruction you might have a job getting an airline ticket to Mogadishu.

    During one episode, Osho embarked on a doom and gloom campaign. That was when he was rattling on about AIDS, Mount Fuji blowing its top and California falling into the Pacific. Rumour has it that he said all these things because a top PR consultant advised him to do so in order to attract more recruits for the orange brigade. Apparently,m it worked. During that phase people were flocking to Poona in droves.

    I have been told that the truth is never contradictory. Contradiction is an indication of the false. The truth contains no contradictions. Make what you want of that in relation to Osho’s contradictory statements, apparently made because they were true to life, life being full of contradictions. It definitely appears like that some days.

    I have also been told that this world has always been full of war and violence. Remember that scene at the beginning of Kubrick’s 2001, when an ape gets hip to the fact that he can clobber other apes on the head with a mammoth’s thigh bone. Whack! Whack! Next thing you know Club Ape is head honcho of the watering hole. Run, lads! Here comes a sabre toothed tiger. Things have not really changed much down here since then. We have just replaced clubs for nuclear weapons.

    As I write, Louis Armstrong sings ‘What a Wonderful World’ in the background. That’s more like it.

    This very world the lotus paradise. This body the Buddha.

    I see trees of green, red roses too
    I see them bloom for me and you
    And I think to myself what a wonderful world.

    I see skies of blue and clouds of white
    The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night
    And I think to myself what a wonderful world.

    The colors of the rainbow so pretty in the sky
    Are also on the faces of people going by
    I see friends shaking hands saying how do you do?
    But they’re really saying I love you.

    I hear babies cry, and I watched them grow
    They’ll learn much more than I’ll ever know 
    And I think to myself what a wonderful world.
    Yes, I think to myself what a wonderful world.”

    • shantam prem says:

      Lokesh, thanks God, you are one of those rare seekers who are not affiliated with the cultish mind any more. Cultish mind means live a very cowardly life yet sing the praise of cult´s founder with all the hype.

      My personal impression is it is crime against nature to make some man even as Avatara so superior as if that is the ultimate.

      • satyadeva says:

        You might have a point there, Shantam, although I don’t trust where you’re coming from, which is basically a great deal of personal discontent that is, in effect, continually pleading most stridently, “What about ME?”

        Such desperation doesn’t usually perceive things clearly (despite thinking it does and angrily refuting any suggestions to the contrary).

    • Tan says:

      Lokesh, the doom and gloom we hear here, at least, is work of Murdoch & affiliates. They want to cover the horrendous crimes going on right now: Libya, Syria, Iraq, and the list goes on…

      Genghis Khan? What about Tony Blair?

      I agree, it is still a wonderful world! Pity is that it is not for everybody.

      Cheers!

    • Arpana says:

      Lokesh,

      I’m sure everyone who’s been blown apart, had their homes and lives destroyed by terrorism and natural disaster in the last few years, will be feeling thoroughly ashamed of themselves for feeling bad about what’s going on in their lives, knowing what an utter bastard Genghis Khan was.

    • Parmartha says:

      Thanks for the post, Lokesh.

      I suppose I just take things personally.
      I like some country music – (now I can see you gasp) – when that madman killed all those country music-loving people in Vegas a fortnight ago I thought this is all too much.

      Then a few days later, the biggest atrocity experienced in Mogadishu. As it happens, I know a few people personally, originally from that place, so it makes it a sort of keener despair.

    • simond says:

      Sometimes, you are such a romantic, Lokesh. Listening to Ol’ Louis and dancin’ in your lovely villa, happy as a sandboy.

      As you say, the news is always bad – that’s how the media works, instilling us with fear, keeping us bunkered down and powerless.

      The world has always been at war, and whether it is worse now than ever before is pretty academic, isnt it? It depends not so much on any historical objectivity but rather on our own experience.

      For many in the UK in our age group, we have only known relative peace, so these past years and recent waves of terrorism is a shock to our system. We’ve been so protected and have forgotten that the history of humanity is pretty much sodden with violence and hatred and wars. Now it’s time for us collectively to face up to our own past.

      Karma, as Arpana put it.

      But for the individual who has come to terms with his or her own violence or has looked at themselves with any honest self-examination, it’s not such a shock, albeit there is always some element of surprise; partly because we have largely been kept immune from the consequences of our ravaging greed and destruction of the planet.

      It is horrific, when you look out or use your mind to project out, but for most of us the reality is only on a tv screen, or images on the internet and newspapers. It’s only with the benefit of the media that we even know what is happening on the other side of the world.

      I try and keep a sense of perspective. I can only deal with what’s around me. If each of us takes as much responsibility as we are able to, for our own actions, for our own environment, then we discover a degree of contentment. And let the world do its thing. Isn’t that all we can do?

      • Lokesh says:

        Simond, seeing as how you are asking some questions, I will give you some personal answers. I am not saying how it really is, but rather how it really is for me.

        The very best we can do is work on our being. In order to do that one has to be clear about what actually needs to be worked upon. Primarily, I would say that is negativity in all its myriad forms. Most people mechanically indulge non-stop in entertaining and projecting their negative emotions. Hence the need to hook into all the negative shite the media broadcasts. This reinforces the masses’ belief that the world is a negative place.

        The truth is that we do not live in the world, but quite the opposite, the world lives in us. We can change how the world appears by changing our level of being. Most people will not understand this, or say it is a preposterous notion. For me, it is an immutable truth, confirmed by the fact that I can see through experience that by working on myself the apparently ‘outside world’ did indeed change.

        I do not believe that humanity is evolving at any speed worthy of note. It is the same old, same old, wherever I look. I do see that individuals are evolving. I think that is the nature of human life on this planet.

        I think wars and catastrophes happen because that is in the nature of things. If you are looking for compassion do not look towards Mother Nature. This was imprinted on my mind when I had a narrow escape from the tsunami in Sri Lanka. Mother Nature takes human life indiscriminately, sometimes on a massive scale. You can worry about Donald Trump or Kim Jong Dung causing World War three, meanwhile Mother Nature goes about her daily business of giving and taking life. If she shrugs her shoulders, as she occasionally does, millions can die.

        Worried about the plastic in the oceans? For all we know, Mother Nature might have created us because she needs loads of plastic for the next planetary leap in Earth’s evolution.

        Something I picked up from George Carlin. We are not going to save the planet, because she does not need saving. It’s us who need saving – from our selves. Which closes the circle. We have it within our power to save our selves by a conscious effort to rise above our purely mechanical and destructive nature.

        • frank says:

          It`s good to remember that life itself, as in Mother Nature, is indiscriminately violent and we are part of that. Even the goings-on of an English country rose garden, on closer inspection, are like a Tarantino movie and Hannibal Lecter is quite tame compared to an average robin or pussy cat!

          It`s too easy to be taken in by the old-time preacher style raps that are hellbent on blaming and shaming humanity (particularly the audience and not the speaker, who is implicitly ‘enlightened’ or whatever).

          There was Osho banging on about how aircon was going to destroy humanity and civilisation, but as soon as he hit the big time he himself spent years in an aircon room! He was just as much part of it as anyone else.

          Ok, the idea of masters talking about Armageddon and the end of the world is supposed to give a sense of urgency to the punters/disciples.
          But if the punters are so dim that they haven`t figured out that we`re all going to kick the bucket sooner or later, that they have to be intimidated, then, really, what`s the point?

          • satchit says:

            Yes – Armageddon!

            Osho said already “the world is a device created by God.”
            So what can you do? You can encounter and watch your fear of dying in this threat of terror. And not create a drama out of it.

            We don’t live in a war situation and the probability to die in an accident is still much higher than to die in a terror-attack.

          • Arpana says:

            Frank said,
            “It`s too easy to be taken in by the old-time preacher style raps that are hellbent on blaming and shaming humanity (particularly the audience and not the speaker, who is implicitly ‘enlightened’ or whatever).”

            Interesting comment in the context of sannyas news. The self-anointed higher preaching to the lower.

          • Lokesh says:

            Good post, Frank. Watched a great movie last night, ‘Jungle’. Save the rain forest, but whatever you do don’t get lost in it, because it will eat you alive. Those worms that burrow into the skin are particularly nasty.

          • shantam prem says:

            Faceless Frank, you have got wisdom to see the true colours of oratory of Indian gurus by wasting your life.

            I can relate with this very well. Wisdom is not free, it asks for much prize.

            At the end of the show, one sees magician in his true clothes!

          • madhu dagmar frantzen says:

            Hi Frank,
            Whenever it’s getting quite bizarre here in the Chat, I`m looking for ´ antidotes and there are some – besides going into silence.

            One amongst those is the take of Dr. Robert Jay Lifton on the
            ‘Destructivness of Cults; and cultish behaviour’, which you can watch on youtube (edited on youtube by Marc Bunker on June 6th, 2008). Reading your post, I remembered that; and maybe you´d like it.

            The very last decades here in Munich, every now and then I visited the website of Robert Jay Lifton, to balance my PTSD.

            Mr Lipton did do thorough research not only about the Nazi Doctors and fascist tendencies nowadays, but is also involved in discussions about spiritual or so-called spiritual groups: their gurus, their disciples and the surrounding society.

            As you asked (last line): “…really, what is the point?” I felt to share that with you.

            Sincerely,

            Madhu

        • simond says:

          Yes, George Carlin is very clear on plastic. One of the funniest and clearest-thinking comedians.
          Nice post, Lokesh.

        • madhu dagmar frantzen says:

          Hi Lokesh,
          If I hadn’t had some opportunity to get a bit acquainted with some of your life experience stories, according to your sannyas time and also otherwise, which you have shared here at this virtual place – growing understanding of where you come from, so to say, when relating – if I hadn’t had that possibility of information, I would just completely freeze when reading stuff like: “I think wars and catastrophes happen because that is in the nature of things.” Or: “Worried about the plastic in the oceans? For all we know, Mother Nature might have created us because she needs loads of plastic for the next planetary leap in Earth’s evolution.”

          And when then reading your third and more takes on the wider topic in further inter-relating to buddhies (Parmartha, Frank), buddhies you obviously feel for, it seems it makes it easier for me to let go of my freeze and take the chance to contradict your apparent stance, like:

          “I have been told that the truth is never contradictory. Contradiction is an indication of the false”, which you shared in your first take on the topic (at 12.56 pm, yesterday).You insist here to speak of an ´immutable truth´.

          That doesn´t meet my experiencing of a moment-to-moment and interdependent relating to a living circumference I am exposed to or confronted with.

          Being asked to respond, or being told to shut up and sod off, being sometimes misinformed or not informed at all and more so of an even much wider range of possible social and/or climate conditions to cope with.

          No human, nobody is an island, you neither.

          Neither the Master was, as you rightly state and stated it, but quite often in a way to degrade Him in His ongoing decades (paradox) of responding moment-to moment to the changing circumference, His bodily health, the Sannyas-Sangha changes, the energy of the field happening, so to say.

          Change is all that is and truth in big letters is simply unspeakable, not to speak of any rating, I´d say.

          The issue of inter-dependence is not favoured here at this website, I feel.

          But for me, growing awareness of interdependence, as long as we are embodied, provides the space and by chance, a growing spaciousness amongst each other, where love and meeting in creativity instead of the destructiveness you mentioned, can happen.

          Madhu

          • Lokesh says:

            Madhu, I read your above comment a couple of times. I could comment on a couple of things you say, but it is not important enough for me to do so, because it would involve a long response. I also do not feel the need to try and prove I am somehow right. I write on SN for my own entertainment. If someone else enjoys what I say fine, if not that is also fine.

            I see at points you misinterpret what I have to communicate, easy to do if you quote me out out of context. If you isolate a sentence and do not include the concluding sentence or sentences, what I say can come across as quite the opposite of what was intended.

            You write well in English. Your problem on this level is that you get too elaborate and hence it is often the case that you can’t see the woods for the trees. Sometimes you do this to such an extent that I have not a clue what you are talking about.

            It is often the case that a 10 cent word will get your point across better than a 20 dollar one. Then again, I am sure you enjoy playing around with words that form your second language. German is my second language, but what you do with English leaves me in the shadows.

            No man is an island, indeed. It’s an old chestnut, a cliche and in certain instances it can come across as patronising and trite. Which is not to say it is not, of course, true.

            • madhu dagmar frantzen says:

              You say, Lokesh:
              “Madhu, I read your above comment a couple of times. I could comment on a couple of things you say, but it is not important enough for me to do so, because it would involve a long response. I also do not feel the need to try and prove I am somehow right. I write on SN for my own entertainment. If someone else enjoys what I say fine, if not that is also fine.”

              Other than you, Lokesh, I don´t write and read in this Chat “for my own entertainment” (your own words). I read and write here @ SN/UK caravanserai to relate with others, preferably with sannyasins or friends of Sannyas and Osho-related. And about topics and issues in the topics which are related to Osho and His people and history of the Sangha, or maybe better now to say, Mystery School.

              If you say in your response to me that it´s okay with you if one contradicts one of your stances re one of the topics (like this one), I’m finding out (once again) that´s not the case; you simply don´t let it in or touch your heart.

              And sure enough, the latter is okay too.

              Madhu

              • Lokesh says:

                Madhu, you say, “you simply don´t let it in or touch your heart.”

                Who are you to judge such a thing? It may at times be true, at others certainly not. Besides, I lead a full life, friends, friends I work with, living and working in nature, family, a grandson, daily swims with my wife in the deep blue sea etc. All of which provide me with multiple opportunities to open my heart, something which I take full advantage of.

                SN is fun, but it is not exactly a place where I go to open my heart. That sounds ridiculous to me. It might be the case that you are taking SN and yourself far too seriously, and it might be the case that you need to get out more and meet real people. None of my business really. Every time you point a finger, three fingers point back at you.

                You continue by saying, “I read and write here @ SN/UK caravanserai to relate with others, preferably with sannyasins or friends of Sannyas and Osho-related. And about topics and issues in the topics which are related to Osho and His people and history of the Sangha, or maybe better now to say, Mystery School.”

                Bully for you. You also write about a lot of other things that have nothing to do with any of those subjects. You also write mumbo jumbo that I am quite certain nobody reading what you say understands. There is something holier-than-thou about your statement. Like you want to display what a deep, thoughtful and sincere person you are. Maybe you are, maybe you are not.

                You are, at times, speaking from what appears to me a ball of confusion. Maybe you are, perhaps you are not. In my experience, people who are clear, deep, thoughtful and sincere do not need to prove it.

  6. shantam prem says:

    I was thinking to post this Osho walking photo on facebook and ask friends about its location.

    Because my main profile with my five years of posts and articles was blown into pieces at the complaint of Osho International, I felt it is more dignified not to put photo of copyrighted O any more.

    Even from my altar I have removed his photo. On this level, I am in tune with the Resort, no display of photos of late mystic.

  7. shantam prem says:

    ‘The Clash of Civilisations and the Remaking of the World Order’ is an interesting book. Those who think West has become a dangerous place to live should think why it is so. In my opinion, it is because of the western people, who have lost will to live.

    When you follow Buddhism, Buddha virus enters in your system. The idea of non-violence destroyed India´s soul. Same Buddhists are now spreading their toffees in the West.

    My son was asking me the other week, “Do you still feel impressed by Donald Trump?”
    My answer was, “Not that much anymore but much more than all other political leaders.”

    In between, 31 years wunderkind is going to be Austria´s next boss. Thanks God, he is rightist and wants to fix his country.

    • satyadeva says:

      Thank you, Shantam, for revealing your sympathies for unsophisticated, unintelligent, highly divisive, extremely dangerous politicians, who see complex issues in naively simplistic, ‘black-and-white’ terms and so appeal to their simple-minded, ‘lowest common denominator’ constituents, whose profound anxiety, with its implicit incipient violence, thereby finds some relief, some hope.

      All manner of evils, including Fascism itself, are rooted in such proposals and the responses from the angry, despairing dispossessed (of which you are one, according to you).

      • shantam prem says:

        Yes, I also love to support Britain´s exit from European Union and looking forward for Catalonia and Scotland to become independent countries.

        I am also looking forward for end of monarchies in rest of the European countries.

        One of my deepest wishes is to see western citizens rising against the Muslim invasion of western shores. They have 52 countries in their disposition, let they live there peacefully under the Sharia law or any form.

        As I wrote before,m western civilization is on the suicide mode because of too much influence of Indian spiritual blah blah. This blah destroyed the self-worth of India and it hurts me as a human being and father of my European children with Indian heart to see too much naive goodness. It is unintelligent.

        • satyadeva says:

          The place for churning out such ill-informed, undigested, so-called ‘opinions’ is on some radio phone-in, Shantam, where you could argue yourself silly with others who are equally clearly over-exposed to the news media and therefore likewise almost inevitably more part of the problem than the solution.

  8. Arpana says:

    Nowadays, ‘martyr’ is usually used in the sarcastic sense: someone who is putting on a wonderful act of suffering in order to get sympathy.

    “Don’t be a martyr” means don’t act like you’re being tortured and killed when your problem is really a very small one.

  9. Prem says:

    Also…never have there been so many gurus – yet very few of them are authentically enlightened.

    Never have there been so many people who read and talk about meditation – yet the people who actually meditate are very few.

  10. preetam says:

    Meanwhile, not only medicine has been poisoned – even water, food and air. Today we can count different, every dead human being killed by a weapon is a free white nose for the ruling order.

    So, who has interest to instal such intrigues which split and weaken humanity for lower interests against truth? Something had been brought into the world which naturally does not exist. Just for the reason to hinder development of compassion and respect. Truth is oneness.

    Needy people incline to a neurotic intelligence – demonic means of violence hide humanity’s understanding – against itself. Through mean scheming came deep fear into human consciousness and this does control by fear of possible violence.

    What is good is brought into the periphery…also meditation becomes more and more something off the outer world. Maybe Mindfulness is such new meditation. We are upside–down, the bull of fear allows us to be ruled by lie and violence.

    Yes, perhaps the spiritual illness ends if love and awareness again is boss. Nevertheless, our meditation succeeds and opens slowly scheming nodes with understanding.

    MOD:
    Preetam, WHAT DOES THIS MEAN, PLEASE?
    “Today we can count different, every dead human being killed by a weapon is a free white nose for the ruling order.”

    • preetam says:

      Sarcasm – just an allusion.

      But I guess soon old Egypt monarch mummies will recreated with ‘Bio-3D printers’.

      • preetam says:

        More sarcasm…money decadence is allowed to make their profits by killing – even children. Because they are officially authorised, producing weapons to kill and profit.

        Just to our best – obey – 5000 years experience in fabricating wars.

        • preetam says:

          Actually, stock trading changes people into accomplices. They all agree unconsciously – without knowing where all the money comes from.

          Ignorance causes collective ‘Karma’? In the Middle Ages that would have been called ‘The Devil’.

          • shantam prem says:

            This is one five star post, Preetam, both the points are wise and penetrative.

            Neo-sannyasins are also carrying their collective ‘karma’; the more I point about it, more I am ridiculed!

            • satyadeva says:

              There’s nothing particularly “wise and penetrating” about Preetam’s post (or his previously posted half-baked ‘conspiracy theories’), nor about your response, Shantam. He just highlights a single area, investment in stocks, implying it’s the tip of an “evil” iceberg, the entire economic system, saying we’re all responsible for it, and therefore, by implication, guilty and subject to whatever horrors ‘collective karma’ might have in store for us.

              A pretty far-fetched conclusion in my view, perceiving things in such ‘black-and’white’ terms, for a start leaving out vast amounts of good that have arisen from such wealth-generation, even when the wealth has been derived from invasion, exploitation, greed and selfishness.

              And anyway, Shantam, to liken the activities of the OIF/Resort powers-that-be to perpetrators of ‘financial evil’ and its effects is really just laughable. Although in your situation, as I understand it, you appear to experience yourself as one of the ‘dispossessed-in-exile’, as if your very ‘culture’ (Pune ashram-based Sannyas) has been invaded and, for you, to all intents and purposes, destroyed, together with your hopes, dreams and plans, based on certain assumptions that have proven false.

              It seems you’re angry and disillusioned to the degree to which you feel you’ve been ‘sold down the river’, washed up on an alien shore (despite being very well taken care of by the natives), but I suggest that depending for your contentment upon a particular set of external circumstances enduring for the rest of your life is asking for trouble, whether it’s an ashram community, a living master, a marriage, a job, whatever, however much you think you can justifiably blame others for what you perceive to be your extreme misfortune. A harsh lesson indeed, but one that many, even perhaps most, in one way or another, have to face.

              In other words, your suffering is not ‘special’, neither does it make you ‘special’. And if you disown your own part in it, the choices you’ve made, the actions you’ve taken to create a set of circumstances for yourself that you once wanted but later found wanting, then that’s not going to help either, it’ll merely make you more self-ignorant, the basis of stupidity and suffering.

    • Kavita says:

      Preetam, what is your view on mutual funds?!

  11. madhu dagmar frantzen says:

    When meditating about the topic, I´d like to add something in general:
    “As above”, a wise man said, “so below”. It was Paracelsus, wasn´t it?

  12. madhu dagmar frantzen says:

    Your ‘bullying’ arrived, Lokesh, your ‘bullying’ received.
    After all, it´s yours, and your own entertainment – it´s as you say it.

    Madhu

  13. swamishanti says:

    Interesting to hear your story of the wee rabbit, Lokesh. During a brief walk by the river today I saw a lot of white feathers in the grass, which led to a swan’s carcass. Caught by a fox, I expect.

    I also came across some small silver canisters peppered around under the bridge. At first I thought they were bullets and then I realised they were empty nitrous oxide canisters and I thought of Osho. There were also some balloons and old beer cans lying around.

    An interesting walk down by the river.

  14. shantam prem says:

    Lokesh, on the basis of your above post, maybe you can create a string, something like, ‘Neo-Sannyasins: From the dream of commune to the reality of family.’

    Many times I ponder upon the assertion of Osho, “Families are dead, communes are the future”.

    • satchit says:

      “Many times I ponder upon the assertion of Osho, “Families are dead, communes are the future”.”

      This password was the one before Rajneeshpuram. The new password is: “Communes are dead, families are the future”.

      • madhu dagmar frantzen says:

        You say, Satchit: “This password was the one before Rajneeshpuram. The new password is: “Communes are dead, families are the future”.”

        I´d say ´Small families and tribal unions of small ´blood-related´
        families´, and not rare – sometimes with a ´chief´ on top as a top dog who does not deserve to claim to be a wise man. And the conflicts as bloodshed amongst tribal unions – not only in Afghanistan – have been and still are legendary.

        However, the daring inner project to strive for a consciousness to live as a universal citizen, being able to live with trust on the Dignity of Human Rights still survives in more than some nooks and corners.

        Madhu

    • Lokesh says:

      Well, Shantam, I learned the hard way that when it all boils down if anyone is going to be there for you it will be family or friends. Most of my close friends are sannyasins, but certainly not all of them. I believe the heart sees no social distinctions. That is, if it is open.

  15. Lokesh says:

    Madhu, this has nothing to do with bullying. It has little to do with entertainment either. I wrote an honest response to a comment you directed at me. I find myself questioning why I bother to do so.

    To continue in an honest vein, I thought to delete my comments in relation to you. I sometimes suspect that you are playing with a few cards short of a full deck and really do not seek to be involved with you even on a superficial level.

    You can write all you want on SN, but from my experience I would say you do not really get to know people by doing so. Meeting Shantam showed this to me very clearly. He was nothing like I imagined. PM and Martyn were easier to gauge from their writings.

    Point is, not to believe in your imagination. I remain completely open to the idea that on SN nobody is who you imagine them to be. Which, of course, means that there is a possibility, Madhu, that you are not who I imagine you to be.

    MOD:
    POST EDITED.

    • satchit says:

      “But entertainment is another thing. It does not change you. It does not make you more conscious; on the contrary, it helps you to remain unconscious for two, three hours, so that you can forget all your worries, concerns, anxieties — so that you can get lost in the entertainment. You can note it: as man has passed through the centuries, he has managed to create more and more entertainments, because he needs more and more to be unconscious. He is afraid of being conscious, because being conscious means to go through a metamorphosis.” (Osho)

      • Lokesh says:

        Yeah, right, Satchit. Tell me, did Osho deliver those words of wisdom during his TV period on the Ranch? You know, when he watched Patton fifty times and thought ‘The Good, The Bad and The Ugly’ was a movie inspired by Taoism?

        • satchit says:

          Oh, Loco! You know it’s all imagination. Which, of course, means that there is a possibility that you are not the addicted pretender I imagine you to be.

          I remain completely open.

          • Lokesh says:

            Sidetracking, Satchit. You posted an Osho quote that really had no relation to the fact that Osho enjoyed a good bit of entertainment himself.

            • satchit says:

              Lokesh, you should not compare yourself with Osho. You are neither a Master nor are you enlightened. So how can your way of entertainment be the same as his way?

              • shantam prem says:

                Satchit,
                Let us presume Lokesh declares himself as enlightened and master; do you have some neurological test to check, is he or is he not?
                If so, do you have test report about someone alive or dead?

                • satchit says:

                  Yes Shantam, I have test report – it is the heart. If you fall in love, the Master chooses you.

                • shantam prem says:

                  This is such a cliche.

                  Do you know famous rapist guru Ram Rahim has magnetised millions of hearts; in a way without writing a single book, he attracted a lot more than academically inclined gurus, so much so, followers were calling the dickhead ‘PITA JI’ (PapaJi, DaddyJi).

                  Bloody Indian Spiritual Industry and its followers have used enough heart talk to exploit the Heart!

                • satchit says:

                  “This is such a cliche.”

                  If the heart is such a cliche for you, what were your reasons then to become a sannyasin,
                  Shantam?

                • Lokesh says:

                  Shantam, I can’t see myself declaring that I am enlightened or a master, because I am neither.

                  Satchit’s repertoire is composed entirely of tired cliches because he does not really have anything original to say for himself. And even the cliches he uses he does not appear to understand very well.

                  He chucks in his twopence worth that does not hold the value of one pence. Trying to communicate with him is a waste of time, and his arguments are based in, once again, tired cliches.

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