In order to keep going for another year we need to pay the web host £240 very soon, ie within a week from today.
If you’re willing to contribute please send an email to edit@sannyasnews.org and we’ll let you know how to do it.
If you’ve supported SN financially before then the ways to do it again remain the same, ie via Clive’s bank a/c or his pay pal a/c.
Apologies for the short notice.
Hello to you all,
I’m sorry to hear that once again new money is needed to keep the site alive.
I have provided some funds in the past, and rather than keep silent and avoid the issue, I felt it necessary to explain why I won’t fund again.
As we have all realised over the past year or so, there has been a steep decline in readership on the site.
As a result we must surely acknowledge that there is no point in just a few commentators and readers discussing that which is of interest only to themselves and very few others.
Even though I’ve participated less and less in the site over the past year, sometimes irritated at the lack of real dialogue and exploration, the site has had its place in my heart. Those involved in both adding articles, to Satydeva and those others who have kept it alive, particularly since Parmartha’s death, I say thank you, and thank you again. You’ve shown great passion for the site, for its history, and it’s with a certain sadness that we say goodbye.
As dear Osho reminded us time and time again, death is to be accepted and understood, as far as we ever can do so. Death brings new life again and again and we shouldn’t hold on or resist.
The problem with SN is that it allows just about anything to be published. On one level that is fine, on another it is not.
Letting idiots scribble their nonsense on the SN wall is one of the main reasons that interest in the site has declined. Regular smart writers left the site because they tired of the foolish nature of some of the new commentators and no longer wished to participate in such a low-brow activity. Newcomers have doubtless been put off the site when reading some of the bullshit posted here…as in…can someone really be that stupid?
I brought the matter up with SD and suggested the site needed moderating, and, although he understood the nature of the problem, he decided to just let things continue to roll. I have to respect that decision. And thus the site may well disappear due to a lack of good writers, intelligent dialogue and no monitoring of some of the rubbish that now passes for normal on SN.
Simond’s ayahuasca article was a good and heartfelt read, but alas, the comments soon eroded into the same old crap that has been going on here for the last couple of years. That is a pity because SN really has provided an alternative to more Catholic sannyasin websites.
I mentioned recently that I have it in me to publish a second book based on articles and comments from this site. This will not happen if the site closes because it needs a lot of time and work to create such a publication. At present, I am preoccupied with more important matters closer to home. It might be interesting to mention that the material I would use in such a project would mostly come from articles published years ago when there was real juice and creativity running through SN’s veins. Of late, there has not been much noteworthy apart from Simond’s recent article. A sure sign of the times.
Lokesh, during the entire span of SN’s existence it has never been editorial policy to pick and choose which posts to publish, the idea being that “nuggets of gold” (to quote Parmartha) would emerge even if many posts were not all that interesting, or otherwise flawed.
Yes, I agree with the sentiment, although it must be taken into account that on SN nuggets of shit far outweigh nuggets of gold from time to time.
SD, you know my thoughts on this and we can simply agree to disagree on this point.
In the Beedie Wallah’s ‘I Am that’ the maestro fielded some pretty mundane questions and turned them into gold nuggets, that’s for sure. Unfortunately, SN is host to some comments more fitting for a book titled ‘I Am Twat’.
As far as donations for what I see as an almost lost cause, I’d foot the bill if you showed up in Ibiza to collect the donation from me.
There are people who always complain:
This is not good, that is not good, the past was much better.
Certainly the site is not perfect, we are not perfect. But the site is worth that it goes on.
So I will donate 60 euros so that it can go on.
And I hope others have the same idea.
Yahoo!
“And thus the site may well disappear due to a lack of good writers, intelligent dialogue and no monitoring of some of the rubbish that now passes for normal on SN.”
I think a lot of writers did disappear (Arpana, Veet) because Lokesh called what they write “rubbish”.
This is also the truth that needs to be told.
Monitoring the rubbish? Why not be honest and call it “censoring”?
Satchit, the last time I slammed the door behind me it wasn’t because Lokesh criticized what I wrote but because someone secretly changed the text of what I had written, and he did it during one of the usual clashes with Lokesh or one of his gang.
I believe that if they had never committed to such incorrectness it means that the SN gang began to feel difficulty in finding the arguments to support the validity of their existential attitude, at least the virtual one shown here in all these years.
The knots come home to roost, in fact losing your hair with age is not a sign of wisdom.
Evidently cynicism doesn’t pay, and if it’s true that some Osho lovers (perhaps Arpana) have left the chat, perhaps tired of the verbal fights and low blows received with impunity, many on the opposing front also seem to have exhausted the resources for their cold action of compulsive nihilism, their only cold passion.
I feel sorry for them, perhaps the vaccines, welcomed into their bodies with faith in science learned on television from gurus of good intentions, have produced the adverse event of extinguishing their smirk of arrogance.
Veet F, do you really believe there’s an “SN gang”? I think you tend to have a rather lurid imagination, perceiving conspiracies where there are none.
SD, I don’t want to stimulate your lurid conspiracy imagination again by asking you the same question (to which you already answered that you didn’t know) about the authors of that post editing.
What makes you react like this when I use the word “gang” when you don’t raise an eyebrow when the word “sangha” is mocked here?
From Majid’s blog I received an article written by him and you can get there from here (and then translate the article that talks about Luc Montagnier, where Majid wonders if the conspiracy theorist is the one who creates conspiracies, small or large, or who denounces them):
https ://majidvalcarenghi.it/blog/
Veet, someone has been altering some of the comments as we observed with yours and mine, and a couple of weeks ago we observed that someone has changed one of Satchit’s comments into Chinese, although that doesn’t necessarily mean whoever did that was Chinese, and whoever did that clearly wanted to be noticed unlike the other changes which would have gone unnoticed unless noticed.
Also, I have noticed that some of my older comments have disappeared, as well as one of Parmartha’s criticisms of an American Catholic, very large online media influencer, also anti-Osho disinformation writer who also uses links to this site.
And a comment from SD where he mentioned that Barry Long had five girlfriends on the go at the same time has disappeared.
I have also demonstrated that the text of an online book about Nisargadatta Maharaj, ‘A Day with Maharaj’, written by Milo Clark, has had the text altered on several online sites including the American Roman Cantholic ‘anti-cult’ site and a Facebook page, to remove a passage which indicated that he used course language of a beedie seller, and sexual innuendos and swearwords in his daily speech to visitors.
What he said was passed through Marathi translators so visiting Westerners , who were mainly American, would have missed some things. And Milo Clark and other visitors such as David Godman have explained that.
That was after the original uncensored version of the text by Milo Clark used on the Facebook page had been featured on a particular Qoura answer about Nisargaddata Maharaj which has since been deleted but could be potentially restored.
The original uncensored book can still be found only by someone who knows what they’re looking for, but it takes some searching.
Nisargaddata Maharaj, like Ramana, is popular in the US and viewed as a ‘model saint’, whereas a lot of effort is being put in to portray Osho as a devil, or a ‘fallen guru’.
Apparently, Poonjaji, (HWL Poonja), another Indian guru viewed by some as a saint, was also having sex with some of his disciples, and of course this would also not be seen as acceptable by those with the more uptight Christian conditioning who have made the anticult sites with their judgments of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ guru’s.
More recently, in India Ma Anand Sheela is bizarrely being promoted as a kind of hero and her book and interviews are being used in some quarters of social media to portray Osho as a guru corrupted by Westerners.
Many younger Indian sannyasins have been led to believe that Sheela wasn’t involved in any poisoning, yet there were several sannyasins who reported becoming sick, sometimes mildly, sometimes violently and dangerously ill, after visiting Sheela’s residence at Jesus Grove and being offered a cup of tea or a cookie. Apparently she grew jealous of some people, according to various reports.
Some of those people are still alive today. Accounts of those kinds of things are not only present in books such as ‘Osho: The Buddha for the Future’ by Maneesha. Ma Anand Bhagawati recalls becoming ill one night after being offered a coffee with Ma Anand Sheela at Jesus Grove in this piece:
‘The Road To Twinkiehood’, part two: https://www.oshonews.com/2020/08/22/return-to-the-ranch/
There is no longer any security on this site either but it is also possible that this kind of thing was happening even before Parmartha passed away.
Swamishanti, imagining that these episodes of abusive post editing could have a coherent direction could make SD raise his eyebrows, a Pavlovian reflex that makes his mouth salivate before accusing someone of conspiracy (about this I’ll put a link below, it’s an article by Majid where he writes that the Nobel Prize winner Luc Montagnier wasn’t a stoned old man with a filthy imagination when he claimed that the Covid virus had been created in a laboratory, specifying that the conspiracy theorists are the ones who do the conspiracies and not those who denounce them: https://majidvalcarenghi.it/blog/).
I have already responded to SD, observing the excessiveness of his reaction to the hypothesis that an anti-Osho “gang” may exist (“lurid imagination”) since he seems to elude the possibility that the episodes we are talking about are not sporadic and isolated actions of some hacker, without any particular aversion against Osho.
I also pointed out the asymmetry of his judgment in defending those I put in the “gang” framework (anti-Osho), compared to the way he approaches those who have been mocked here for years using the “sangha” framework.
Hi Satyadeva
I just wondered if you’re able to contact some of the more regular visitors from old, indicating that this money is needed or the site will close down. I guess the suggestion is to widen the appeal … do you have email addresses you could use to make contact?
Good idea, Simon, I’ll look into this, thanks.
Be a joke unto yourself.
(Osho)
Why have you mentioned this now, Satchit?
Why, SD? No special reason.
SN SURVIVAL CONTRIBUTIONS UPDATE
First, I haven’t been online over much of the weekend as my system’s been down, hence this late news.
Up to now we’re about £60 short of the amount required (an estimate as one contributor hasn’t specified how much he’ll be sending). Exactly where we stand will be clear later when Clive/Jitendra (who is still responsible for making the payments) checks his a/c. So far the web host company hasn’t asked to be paid but they surely will very soon.
Does this mean now we should transfer money to Clive or still wait?
Transfer to Clive asap, please, Satchit. Otherwise we can’t be sure where we stand.
Ok, the bill is not £240 but $240, so around £180, which will be covered by our contributions as long as everyone pays what they’ve said they would.
Did you get any response from the old timers ?
Yes, Simon, there have been positive responses from one or two, including from people I didn’t recognise as correspondents but who have generously contributed before.
Thanks to everyone for keeping this show on the road.
And a new article will be put up by tomorrow.