It took me a while to decide to write this, but in the end I thought it’s worth talking about honestly and clearly. Many of the older sannyasins still clearly remember what it was like while Osho was alive, and appreciate the deep marks that he left on our lives. In a way the pages of SannyasNews are littered with people trying to make sense of their existence without Osho, and what we see here is a range of attitudes, I’m sure some enterprising scholar could make an article out of it.
Some sannyasins at the time went directly to find a new ‘living source’ of the word and ended up with Papaji in Lucknow. I know him only from reading his books and a few documentaries (such as this noteworthy one, titled ‘Call Off The Search’: https://youtu.be/dBIK-VFvDhA ) but I’ve come to appreciate the direct style of his teaching. I’d say these sannyasins were lucky, such figures do not come along that often.
Many of the sannyasins I know did not do this, but rather stayed with Osho’s teachings, to live with creativity and awareness, making a living as a mathematics teacher or illustrator or photographer or candle maker. Talks I’ve had with them were of the nature that Osho was their guru, the one, the Master. Now each of us walks his own path, but I feel that while I live I can investigate other sources of spiritual wisdom.
In a way, Osho himself taught us to cast the net widely, by talking about Sufism, Tao, Zen, Buddhism, everything from the Gospel of Thomas to the Bauls. Of course he had a unique viewpoint on the topics he discussed, his own interpretation of the stories and the teachings. So I choose to go further afield, I’ve investigated Buddhism, Thich Nhat Hanh, Adyashanti, UG Krishnamurti, and am now digging into non-dual teachers.
Probably this is an oft-walked path, reading the works of other teachers and finding out what amongst their teachings is wise. Yet I choose to be ‘a light unto myself’ and try not to get dragged along by a persuasive telling of ‘how the world is supposed to be’. So I return every so often, at regular intervals, to Osho’s books, in order to refresh my view through the lens of sannyas. It’s like a cleansing of the palate, to keep an eye on Osho’s unique vision.
The thing is, as long as you can keep from getting dragged away into other teachers’ views, and can take on board their fragments of wisdom without just falling into ‘acceptance mode’ and absorbing a whole book, you will still be able to keep what Osho tried to impart to us in your being.
For me, these new teachers inject a fresh approach every once in a while… I don’t know when my seeking will end. I thought UG was the end, but it seems there is still something unanswered, some aspect of living a spiritual life which has left me unsatisfied. I know that the focus of my search has shifted, from looking at what is beyond death and what gets left behind in this world, to just the living itself.
Yahoo! There I meet Osho again, he comes on my path once more.
You’re a genuine fellow, Nityaprem, with a warmth and sincerity that shines through your writing. You’ve clearly read much and studied the words of many teachers. You’re also generous in your sentiments to others, which is always a great trait.
The problem, as I see it, is that reading the words is, as you have implied, somewhat different from living. Here you say much less about your circumstances or your understanding, but I’d say it’s here where, what you have read and digested comes alive. It’s here where the theories of masters or teachers is made real.
What are your living circumstances? Do you relate to women? How is your sex life? Are you shy? What makes you afraid? What do you do well? How do you take criticism, personally, in your everyday situations?
These are the real spiritual questions, largely ignored by teachers of the past. They are too intimate, too direct and in many cases too real to be dealt with by many spiritual people, who instead focus on how deep or long they can meditate for.
Those who teach silence or Kundalini or breath work are often afraid to speak on these subjects, but it’s here real authentic people are willing to explore, and it’s here that you might find the answers you’re seeking.
That’s my experience, anyway. Teachers like Barry Long, who spoke of awkward subjects others don’t explore with any intensity at all. You don’t mention him yet he offers great insights into subjects that the spiritual types ignore.
Finally, trust your instinct; as you say, no master or teacher knows all the answers, most are dead anyway and therefore can’t answer the questions of your generation. The only answers are to be found now, moment to moment and are never in books.
Thanks for the kind words, Simond. Nityaprem means ‘eternal love’ and I’ve often wondered whether Osho saw that in me or whether he meant it as a pointer.
My life is humble, yet comfy. I won’t go into too much detail because of the privacy of others, but these days I don’t live alone. I’m good with computers, I read a lot, I sometimes walk in the woods, I used to be shy but am not so much anymore. Women…well my contact with them has always been good, but I’ve spent a lot of time on my own. Now I spend time caring for others. And I sometimes make music on my iMac.
I’m still recovering from a long career spent as a computer game developer. It was fun, playing and making games, but ultimately they are illusions, the dreams of other people which become an extension of your samsara and which you can get lost in. I’ve come to realise it runs counter to the spiritual impulse. Maybe I’ll talk more about that in another article.
But I ended up realising that at heart I am a spiritual being. I don’t really know why I search or what I search for anymore. It’s like the search has become a habit, and the stirring of the pot with new spiritual views occasionally breathes new life into me. Otherwise things go very still, my creativity drains away, and the circle of my life becomes small…
I’ll have a look at Barry Long when I’ve finished my non-dual investigation, which I occasionally take breaks from anyway
Yes, second lives and words mostly do inspire the spiritual mind. What really happens towards others or the www mostly is just another thing:
Some beautiful pics of Osho here at the Ranch and later, looking as jolly as ever.
https://youtu.be/VDB8_ug05TQ?si=dN_fuZ88G590qbqR
Nice song, wamishanti. It carries the vibe of Osho very well.
In a way, what I wanted to say in the article is that Osho doesn’t stand on his own. In a way, he is a turning point, someone who reinterpreted all the stories and myths of the past, but he also draws on them.
Great, isn’t it? I love the photos and videos from that phase and Osho was having so much fun and expressing himself with so much joy.
Here’s another one , ‘I Keep on Loving You’, sung by Mutribo. (1997).
https://youtu.be/d_SJ0LMGpy4?si=KnWaAFhkB6THOprC
I guess Osho is a turning point like you say, reinterpreting and invigorating many old spiritual stories and mystics with his own wisdom as well as releasing us from some of the limitations of the old religious ways, and certain denials. In short, more freedom.
An acceptance of the outer as well as the inner. Freeing us from some of the ‘cult’ mentality of ‘the old man’, as it were. He has his place as one of the greatest buddhas.
Yes, that’s right. This morning I was reading the story of a casual friend who is my age, so about 50, but he was brought up as a Catholic. He has a spiritual side so in his twenties he visited a Benedictine monastery to see if he wanted to become a monk. Ultimately he decided he didn’t want to, because the monks were being educated like priests. He started looking into mysticism instead.
That goes to show what a strong grip the Christian religion has on the spiritual experience in Europe, that someone with a spiritual quality almost gets bent into being a monk. Osho did many people like my parents a big favour by showing them the many other paths.
Thanks for sharing. Do you know what kind of mysticism your friend pursued? Was it Christian mysticism or something else?
The mention of Catholicism reminds me again of ‘The Burning Times’ sung here by Jean Morning Star:
https://youtu.be/yQKuSU0f8B4?si=kHIOmJ8ADjLdeBR-
In Europe, during the inquisitions, many millions of pagan women were tortured in cruel ways, drowned and burnt by Catholics. Sometimes women were accused of having sex with the devil and then given traction, stretched on racks until they confessed or their legs were pulled out of their bodies.
Hmm, he mentions an inner reflection practice called The Ten Stations of the Cross, the Jesus prayer and a couple of books, ‘The Cloud of Unknowing’ and ‘The Way of the Pilgrim’, if that is of any help. It all sounded a bit more modern than Meister Eckhart, and he thought it was profound.
So yes, definitely Christian mysticism.
Ah yes, no-one expects the Spanish Inquisition!
https://youtu.be/D5Df191WJ3o
NP, speaking of monasteries, there are some lovely ones within 50 km of where I live. A few weeks ago I accompanied my mother to visit a couple of them, belonging to the order of San Benedetto da Norcia, fifth/sixth century AD:
https://monasterosanbenedettosubiaco.it/
https://abbaziamontecassino.it/galleria-fotografica/
The choice of places to build these hermitages, regardless of the effort involved in transporting and installing the building materials (paradigm of the Oregonian desert), shows something about the inspiration of a new sense of community that must support such undertakings: the contagious enthusiasm of those pursuing new religious possibilities.
In the case of San Benedetto it seems that it was the cultural shock suffered in contact with the worldliness of the decadent city of the Popes, Rome, that pushed him into what was originally a cave.
But what happens when over the centuries those places of sincere religious research in turn become institutions, hierarchies and centers of power themselves? Many little Romes…
The former abbot of Montecassino, the 191st descendant of Saint Benedict, died not long ago. In 2015 he was accused of spending money donated to the abbey by the faithful on parties and luxury hotels, an accusation that was later dropped. However, the gay chats with dirty language and the use of drugs that emerged from the investigation remained and forced him to resign.
https://www.dagospia.com/rubrica-29/cronache/altro-che-pecorelle-smarrite-io-vado-cerca-cazzi-whatsapp-112874.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benedict_of_Nursia#Rule_of_Saint_Benedict
A few days ago the general manager of the Osho Resort in Pune, Mr. Michael Byrne (Jayesh), died. In his case no scandal (imv, sannyasins do not tend towards moralism, rather they love, when possible, and they get a little indignant when this is not possible, then they get tired and forget, often forgive) in the way of managing the cultural/spiritual heritage left by Osho.
Unlike San Benedetto, Osho left no rules, at least not explicitly, I don’t know if this was a reason for greater or lesser pressure in carrying out what seems to me to be such a demanding role.
It is said that sowing is judged by the fruits, even the architectural ones have their own weight, Montecassino continues to attract visitors, such majesty seems regardless of the falls of the abbots who reigned there, but this does not also apply to papier-mâché playgrounds like Disneyland?
And speaking of the original spirit that made these places possible, how much does it bring us closer to that spirit if we insist on looking for it right there, now that over the decades it has hosted a sense of community that is very different from the beginning?
I worked for a few years in one of the most prestigious palaces in Rome, which first belonged to the popes, then to the kings and then/today houses the presidents of the Republic.
Having no nostalgia for theocracy and monarchy, I was much more in tune with the democratic spirit of the community I felt I was part of, although often on critical positions with respect to the political choices that occurred in that place.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quirinal_Palace
In the case of the physical places linked to Osho, I believe that what He said about his physical body applies to them, after his death it would no longer have confined His awareness of him to those who loved him.
The koan that could concern those who feel the responsibility of sharing the mystical body of the Master (the sense of community, before places, books, images) for me would sound like this:
The geese came out from the Pune bottle without breaking it, why should they be in a hurry to break it now?
I hadn’t heard of Jayesh’s death, I hope they gave him a grand send-off. While not everyone agreed with the decisions he made, he nonetheless kept the ship of the Resort sailing.
In a way, the Resort in Pune is like one of these monasteries, perhaps not quite so filled with art, but still a place with a spiritual legacy. Of the other places where Osho lived I only know about the Ranch, and that turned into a Christian summer camp!
Certainly here in the Netherlands there is nothing so covered in marble as the Resort, haha. I haven’t been back to the Stad Rajneesh, in the Veluwe forest, since I lived there in the early 1980s. And the commune in Amsterdam was housed in the old city jail…
@Nityaprem, coming back to the topic, here’s a freshly discovered meeting and exchange between two masters who could be said to be of Osho’s lineage, his bodyguard Vasant Swaha and Vishrant – ‘Osho Never Died’:
https://youtu.be/Kgz1EyZ_3Ak?si=ySyDTp3nPamfM6RS
Two Osho lovers and Zorba the Buddhas.
Nityaprem, I like your articles.
Yes, one can easily become a failure in this world even if other people think differently about oneself.
And then one hopes that at least one will not become a failure in the spiritual world. But there is no hope.
Only acceptance helps.
Thanks, Satchit.
Success and failure is difficult to determine, I think. Is a candle-making sannyasin or a musician less successful than a therapist? We play the game of status, but it’s ultimately an illusion, and if you aim yourself at freedom maybe you will be happier than someone like Somendra or Jayesh.
I think there is no way for a sannyasin to be a spiritual failure. After all, aren’t we all Buddhas? I seem to recall during Osho’s gibberish meditation he said something like that….
Failure belongs to the world because of its transience. Did not Buddha start his search
because of seeing transience everywhere?
“I think there is no way for a sannyasin to be a spiritual failure.”
I am not so sure about this.
If Sannyas would be enough why search for other Gurus? Some even say that Sannyas belongs to the last century.
“Why search for other gurus?” is a good question. Some sannyasins do and others do not; I don’t think that continuing to search makes you better. It is something of the heart, whether you want a living master or whether Osho was the one and only for you.
I think it depends on whether you feel deep inside that your search was incomplete in some way. For me, I was a teenage sannyasin while Osho was alive, and didn’t really return to the search until my 40th year. Naturally, new questions had arisen in the intervening time. So I went looking for new answers.
Was it your decision or your parents’ decision when you took Sannyas?
What were the reasons that you took Sannyas?
How old were you at those times?
It was my decision; they told me they were going to take sannyas and asked me if I wanted to as well. Of course I didn’t really know what it meant, for me it was a question of belonging with the family. I was seven years old at the time.
It still makes me smile, my mother sent a really dopey smiling photo of me with my sannyas letter. It was a few months later that we actually all went to Poona with the whole family, and ended up having one of the last family darshans.
I can understand you, Nityaprem.
It is a difference if one takes Sannyas at 7 years or, as in my case, at 26.
With me it was part of my search, with you it cannot be.
So you started your search later, at 40.
Part of the search is also that you become a kind of rebel, in your case also against your Sannyas family. Have you been?
Well spotted, Satchit! Maybe in my Buddhist wandering there was something of the rebel, some desire to see what was there independent of Osho, but I think it is more about following my own unique path. Jiddu K said, “truth is a pathless land” and so with each teacher I take on board those things that resonate with me.
“…some desire to see what was there independent of Osho, but I think it is more about following my own unique path.”
Yes, we create our path by walking.
Makes me curious:
How many of your relatives did take Sannyas?
My father and mother took sannyas, but my grandparents stayed with the Dutch reformed church. Only one of my uncles experimented with taking groups and doing Osho meditations, the rest of my parents’ generation slowly moved away from religion like much of the Netherlands did. It is now a majority non-religious country.
One for Lokesh, perhaps? This long audiobook of Nisargadatta sayings was mentioned in the comments to be “the most important video on YouTube” and it certainly has some impact…
https://youtu.be/0e6fRVQ0UcM
Whoever was responsible for that comment at youtube should have made it clear that it was “the most important” for him/her, rather than for everyone. And anyway, haven’t other teachers/masters/gurus said the same or similar in different ways?
In my reading, most of the well-known gurus have had their own shtick, their own particular way of saying things. There are some that I connect with, some that do nothing for me, but Nisargadatta makes me sit up and take notice. So I can understand the YouTube comment….
It is only rarely that I really get a ‘wow’ moment from spiritual books, but that is what you read those books for. That odd moment of revelation. With Osho it usually takes the form of some of your expectations being thrown out the window instead.
Yes, I get your point, NP, amd I don’t doubt the video is hugely significant for you and for the one who made that comment, but as we well know, people are different, what works for one doesn’t necessarily work for another, and I’m simply pointing out that it’s misleading to make such a grandiose public declaration that almost certainly doesn’t apply to everyone.
I came across this beautiful quote by Nisargadatta about his method:
“By focussing the mind on ‘I am’, on the sense of being, ‘I am so-and-so’ dissolves; ‘I am a witness only’ remains and that too submerges in ‘I am all’. Then the all becomes the One and the One — yourself, not to be separate from me.”
It reminded me of Ramana’s saying about “who am I?” that the question was meant to dissolve the questioner. It seems to function in the same way, although I think I prefer Nisargadatta’s phrasing. Focussing on the sense of being just immediately made sense to me. It’s funny how these things come on your path.
That’s great if you’re ready for it, NP.
Barry Long also taught along similar lines but stressed the importance of ‘getting your life right’, within and without, in terms appropriate for us contemporary westerners, getting right down to the nitty-gritty, as it were, as simond recently highlighted. Little ‘Eastern glamour’, but down-to-earth and practical, encouraging us to face up honestly to our problematic selves.
Mind you, he could ‘do esoteric’ if necessary, eg his book, ‘The Origins of Man and the Universe’, a remarkable work “written”, as he said, “on a cosmic mindwave”, its purpose being to raise the reader’s consciousness. I reckon you might enjoy it.
Yes, you’re right, you have to be ready for it. But after connecting with that quote I came across this Mooji satsang video, in which he gives an exercise of ‘just Being’…almost the same thing, very synchronous! I found it very gentle, and beautiful.
https://youtu.be/ftRwpnBsam4
I will have a look at Barry Long when I get through with the current lot of things on my plate.
Interesting write-up by NP. Actually, I have been off SN, as somehow since some time this website says it’s unavailable in my country (India) so I have to find some other way to open this website, which means I have to risk my web protection temporarily.
NP, just saw your 11 November, 2023 at 10:59 am comment. I felt the same (like the YT commentator) about Gurdjieff as it was the beginning of exposure to such a topic after I saw the movie ‘Meetings With Remarkable Men’ in the Poona Commune some 30-plus years ago ,was highly impressed, if I may use this word. Recently came across this youtube video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eXZScF26Dc .
After reading SD’s following comments, made me think how some of us sometimes get attracted to the conditioning of the opposite side of the globe at the beginning of our journey! Probably truth is beyond all conditionings!
Welcome back again, Kavita. I read Ouspensky’s book about his time with Gurdjieff, ‘In Search of the Miraculous’ a few years ago — I had asked my parents what were the most significant books of their lives and they both mentioned this one. So you can definitely say Gurdjieff made an impact on the family. I will pass on your documentary to them, I am sure they will enjoy it, and I thought it looked interesting too.
I think truth is like freedom, the meaning of the word changes over the course of our search. Conditioning is definitely not a good thing, it makes one unable to see clearly. Luckily, Osho’s books are quite good at allowing one to pierce through conditioning!
NP, as for me, my father & his elder brother were with J. Krishnamurti from their youth. I was brought by my father & his parents (joint family) as my mother had to give all her time to my younger brother who was a special child .
As a child I was taken to JK every year when he visited Bombay. At that time I thought he was my grandfather’s brother so I called him “Grandpa”! In May 1992 in the Osho Commune Bookshop I saw grandpa’s photo & was wondering why they had my grandpa’s photo here. On asking the staff, they said it was JK’s birthday
(Immediately I called my uncle in Bombay, he said he would talk to me when I would visit him in Bombay as I had shifted to Poona a month before).
Would like to share this too since you mentioned freedom!
While guarding at Lao Tzu Gate I got to have some beautiful moments with (Yoga) Mukta
(liberation/freedom):
Once she was sharing how when after she bought Lao Tzu property for Osho, He asked her which room she liked the most, so she told him which one, to which Osho said, “Then that is your room.” To which her response was that she wanted this room for Him. Osho then said, “You will live exactly above my room!” And she did. (Maybe I have shared this earlier on SN).
Funny story, Kavita. When I was last at the ashram I made friends with this German DJ and musician, we connected over music carrying emotion. I remember turning him onto Mark Morrison’s ‘Return of the Mack’ which he didn’t rate at all at first.
https://youtu.be/uB1D9wWxd2w
I’ve never been particularly good with names, it’s no wonder I don’t recall his.
As for me, NP, too, I mostly don’t have a good memory of person’s name I have met casually/briefly!
These days I am not into any music with words, I like instrumentals!
Thanks anyway, the videography is fabulous though!
Oh, do you know Nils Frahm? I came across a track of his which was all ambient sounds, it was great…just found it again, it was called ‘The Dog with a Thousand Faces’.
https://youtu.be/ADVoF_h8ufc
For when you next feel adventurous!
No, dear. Actually, I hardly know Western musicians compared to Indian musicians, though love listening to Beethoven & Bach, which happens rarely!
Thanks, shall watch & listen to this link when it happens.
Love dogs!
the link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eXZScF26Dc
As a boy I leafed through the encyclopedia ‘Il Milione’ (published in 1970), curious about the faces and cultures of distant peoples; the photos in black/white or colour that struck me most were sadhus, on the gaths of Varanasi.
What were they waiting for, sitting in front of that great river?
Maybe something different from those who were sitting at Osho’s feet in the same years?
For me, if sannyas has a meaning, beyond that of surrendering to the flow of that river when the Master is still in the body, it is precisely that of internalizing that flow, because when he is no longer in the body his disciples will become one of the two banks where that river will continue to flow, the other bank being his words, gestures, laughter…
I thank all the sannyasins who encouraged me to get on that boat, it is for them that today I sit on one of the two banks and enjoy the flow…sometimes distracted/annoyed by the noise of some desperate pickaxe trying to change direction to the river.
Naturally, the banks of the river need constant and ordinary maintenance. To this end, a shared sense of community in the Sangha would help fuel the common vision about Sannyas, the invitation to enter the “Garden of the Beloved” once the weeds have been removed.
For this reason there must be someone who has the legitimate role to decide on editorial choices or the selection of people, those who are welcome or not at the Ashram/Commune/Resort.
Sannyas (Osho’s way) is trust in the gardeners’ inner sense of excellence, learned from the Master.
Officially, before his death, Osho left his “Dream” to a Canadian gardener; this was said by a friend of his who was the only witness with him at the time of this investiture by the dying Master.
Sannyas trusts in what the ears of the same Sangha have heard.
For years in the Sangha this gardener has chosen to make the inherited place more and more luxurious, inevitably the costs have increased; some have no longer been able to afford to spend a couple of weeks in Pune, where the heart of the world once beat, with the consequence that the sense of celebration that radiated from there has stopped flowing, hampered by personal and legal struggles.
Sannyas trusts in the expression of emotions, even in a court of law, if only that place remains.
All this in the compassionate world of ten thousand Buddhas is absolutely understandable, including the zen beatings on the teeth of those who do not share the level and the costs of that luxury; all this has its own didactic dignity.
In Zorba’s world the logic is completely different, compassion is not the norm, and luxury and power often chase each other compulsively, like a dog with its tail.
The greediest people even pretend to be philanthropists to pay less taxes or gain positions of further power with such social/media credit.
There are many ways to protect money from taxes, and many to launder money of illicit origin, all based on the difference between the declared price of goods or service and the one actually paid for them, when those who sell and those who buy are of agreement on how to split that difference.
For example, you can buy/sell precious objects (gold, diamonds, jewels, paintings…) or pretend to pay absurd sums for consultancy or services (a Champion’s League football player).
A widespread understanding in Zorba’s world is that those who have a lot of money and love to live and show off luxury tend not to be squanderers, otherwise they would not be able to afford to live in luxury for a long time. Indeed, luxury could often even be a facade, a tool to get even more business; for example, when a gardener seems to pay absurd prices for a hotel room rented all year round, even when the garden is hundreds of kilometres away from the gardener’s suite.
Such a rich gardener must be a Buddha if he does not identify himself with luxury, being compassionate towards those who instead live and lose themselves in luxury, preferring to make room for them in the enchanted Garden, beating the lucky less wealthy with the prices of luxury, because he knows that the kingdom of heaven belongs to the poor…wait, I’m getting confused, that was the renegade Palestinian Jew who chased the merchants out of the temple.
A poor Zorba like me wonders who will be the next gardener, which eyewitness will point to him, whether it will be a rich gardener or a gardener who aspires to live in luxury. One thing is for sure, there has never been a problem of shortage of resources to meet the increase in management costs of the Garden, judging by the luxury in which the previous gardener lived.
Maybe Jayesh and company did go overboard on the luxury aspect of the Pune Meditation Resort, I haven’t been there for many years. When last I was there I stayed in a small flat near the ghats, and it was still possible to visit the ashram on a modest budget.
But I’m looking at the profile of Sannyas, and here in the West it hasn’t felt like a growing movement for a while, rather it has felt like a declining one as the sannyasins get older and begin to leave this life. Young sannyasins are a relative rarity.
I think that to breathe new life into the movement Osho should be returned to the people. Make some of the books available free of copyright, get rid of the trademarks which are just stifling the natural growth, make media packages freely available for rights-free use, make an Osho AI chatbot with an AI simulated voice.
A new gardener in the Osho garden could make some exciting changes. The current course leads to a slow death of the movement, and it is no surprise that in places where Sannyas seems to be doing the best there is the most freedom.
NP, to be honest I don’t know whether in 33 years of gardening Jayesh has done everything by himself or has delegated power and responsibility to collaborators, and how, if any, these choices (sharing decision-making power) were made, that is, whether from the bottom (democratic method) or from the top (oligarchic method).
The problem, seen from the outside, is that even if shared choices had been made (by Inner Circle) this would not be much less oligarchic than if Jayesh had done everything by himself, being the IC, however numerically not representative of the entire sannyasin movement, and although the provisions given by Osho were: “The Inner Circle is not a club to discuss philosophy. It is a pragmatic and practical way to decide things.”
What I know is that in the early 90s the founders of the OMC of Miasto argued with each other until the breakdown of friendships united for years by the love for the Master.
What I remember from sharing with those friends is that two groups were formed with respect to Pune’s request to decide/supervise programmes, therapists and ultimately the vibration of that incredible place: freedom/rebels’ vibe.
The faction that wanted to oppose Pune’s will left and I never met them again.
It seems to me that the Inner Circle, in addition to the method of unanimous choices, has a secrecy constraint, so I don’t know if the activities are carried out with a voluntary spirit or if salaries or/and bonuses are distributed, over the years they could have decided whatever thing on the subject.
I don’t even know what the president’s prerogatives are with respect to the other members of the Circle, if technically a second Sheela in that role could be stopped, before turning the rest of the group into a gang.
I believe that a management group with these characteristics that has been making decisions secretly for 33 years, therefore without any constraints of accountability with respect to the rest of the sannyasin movement, can have a decisive impact (positively or negatively) on the fate of sharing the existential vision proposed by Osho: Zorba the Buddha.
The interesting thing about this story is that it trains me in suspending judgment.
Well, the main thing I am getting at is that sannyasins should be encouraged to celebrate Osho, not have all kinds of hindrances placed in their way.
The Meditation Resort shouldn’t be there to make money, it should make Osho and his teachings more generally known.
NP declares, ‘”The Meditation Resort shouldn’t be there to make money, it should make Osho and his teachings more generally known.”
There is a deep contradiction in this statement.
Osho taught that people do not really appreciate things unless they pay for them. His ashram charged money for everything: discourses, meditations, groups, overpriced chai in the restaurant etc. Osho himself enjoyed making money and the luxury trappings that come with accumulating wealth: Rolls Royces, diamond-encrusted watches, fancy get-ups and expensive houses to live in. Osho taught his sannyasins to live in the marketplace and make their own money, without the need to fall back on social security benefits. He taught financial independence and for that money is needed.
Now NP comes along and says, “The Meditation Resort shouldn’t be there to make money.” Why not? There is absolutely nothing wrong with making money. Osho’s whole concept was based on wealth in all its manifestations and was dead against poverty.
NP, perhaps it might be a good idea for you to do your homework before posting misconceptions about ‘shoulds’ and ‘should nots’ and half-baked, moralistic principles that have nothing whatsoever to do with the sannyas movement.
Lokesh, you could also do some more homework.
Because you left after Poona One, you missed a lot of the later talks. You can find places where Osho talks about living without money.
“I am all for richness – but the richness will be of the commune. As the commune becomes richer, every individual will become richer. I am against poverty, I am not a worshiper of poverty. I don’t see anything spiritual in being poor; it is sheer stupidity. Neither poverty is spiritual, nor sickness is spiritual, nor hunger is spiritual. A commune should live in such a way that it becomes richer and richer, in such a way that it does not produce too many children, that it does not overproduce people, because overproduction of people is bound to create beggars, is bound to create orphans. And once there are orphans there are Mother Teresas to convert them into Catholicism.
All the communes should be interdependent, but they will not exchange money. Money should be dissolved. It has done tremendous harm to humanity – now it is time to say goodbye to it, because money can be accumulated. And if one commune becomes richer than the other communes, then comes from the back door the poverty and the richness and the whole nightmare of capitalism, and the classes of the poor and the rich, and the desire to dominate. Because you are rich, you can enslave other communes. Money is one of the enemies of man. “
Osho: ‘The Golden Future’ (1987)
On the idea of purchasing Marlon Brando’s island in 1986 and creating a new commune there:
“Then the ocean is unlimited; then there is no problem about it.
Why bother about land? Just a small piece of land will be enough for the functional things – the hotel, the airport.
Otherwise we can go on spreading on the ocean.
And about the ocean the laws are such that around any island or land, two hundred miles of ocean is yours. So around the island for two hundred miles we can spread as much as…And it will be a more mobile society. All those boats can move, all those houses can move.
It will be more alive; it will not be a dead society, fixed, where everything remains where it is.
Man has not tried to live…otherwise water can be a far more beautiful place to live.
Freedom to move – otherwise you become attached to the house, to the land. And I know of methods in Japan:
they float gardens on the water. They mix straw with earth and float it, and then you can put any seeds on it; you can have roses and you can have all kinds of flowers. Japan has tried floating gardens for thousands of years; it is a perfect science…
Osho: `Light on the Path` #3, 1986
“And in the commune in Oregon I became aware of a simple method to do it: just remove money from the commune.
Anybody can donate to the commune but nobody can purchase anything with money. Yes, whatever is anybody’s need, the commune should fulfil it: each according to his need.
And if you just remove money as a method of exchange, a miracle happens.
You may have millions of dollars, and I may not have a single dollar; but you are not richer and I am not poorer – because you cannot use your millions of dollars.
In fact I am freer than you. You are carrying a load, a burden, unnecessarily; and I am not carrying the load of a single dollar. And my needs are fulfilled by the commune as much as your needs are.
There are still islands which are absolutely without any control by any government. A few are very undeveloped, so it will be a difficult job to develop them. But there are three islands which are fully developed; one has even an airport – it belongs to an individual (Marlon Brando) who is willing to sell it.
The situation is such – there are five miles of land which is lush green with big trees…immense beauty. It is almost an oval-shaped island. One part is above sea level. It has the greenery and on it the owner has made small houses.
From the outside they look like the houses ancient, primitive people used to live in, so they do not stand apart from the trees and from the greenery; they are part of it. But from inside they are air-conditioned and with all modern equipment. The island has twelve bungalows, one hotel for eighty persons, one airport where, morning and evening, the plane comes; we can have our own planes.
And the other part of the island is five, six feet under the sea. The owner has not done anything on that part, and to me that part seems to be the most important, because we can make a five-mile row of houseboats – like Kashmir – on that. And it will look far better than Kashmir because on Kashmir you can see the land; the boat is attached to the land, the land is underneath the boat.
You can see water all around and there can be boats for five miles. We can accommodate thousands of sannyasins in those houses. They are beautiful houses, and we can improve upon them. And between the two – the forest in front, the houseboats at the back – between the two is a big lake.
So small boats can move in the lake to provide small things for people on the boats. It is something absolutely ideal.
And the person is in a hurry to sell it. Perhaps he is financially broke, perhaps he is too old and now he has no energy for it. So most probably we will get it.
And the most historical thing will be…Communism and anarchism have remained enemies, because anarchism says no government, and communism says a very strict government is needed; otherwise you cannot destroy the divisions between classes of the rich and the poor.
So communism says, “We need a dictatorship; even democracy will not do. We need an absolute totalitarian dictatorship.” On this point these two beautiful philosophies have such a disagreement that there is no possibility of agreement: “Government is the evil and you are making the evil more evil – you are making it a dictatorship. Even democracy is an evil. No government is the only way for humanity,” according to the anarchist.
But we can manage very easily because for seventy years, although communism has tried, it has failed: it has not been able to create a classless society. Yes, the rich have disappeared – they destroyed them. They killed one million people after the revolution, so the rich have disappeared.
Only the poor are still poor. But the poor feel a certain satisfaction because now there is nobody to compare themselves with. There is nobody who is richer than them: everybody is equally poor.
This was not the idea; everybody should be equally rich. Then only there is some point; otherwise this is sheer stupidity. These people were poor before; a few people were rich and were enjoying the riches. You have not evolved the society; you have destroyed those people – their culture, their music, their literature, their dances – and you have created a society which is equally poor.
And to keep them equally poor…because there are people who are creative, and if the government pressure is removed, soon you will see, within four years, there will be richer people and there will be poor people in Russia.
For seventy years they have been repressing and within four years all their repression will be gone:
the rich will be rich and the poor will be poor….Because richness is also an art….
…In my conception we can, for the first time, manage anarchism and communism both together.
Just remove currency within the commune, and without any enforcement, without forcing people to be equal, we have brought a classless society.
They will remain unequal; they will remain unique; they will remain themselves. And the commune’s function is to fulfil their needs. Their needs are different: somebody who plays on a flute needs a flute, and somebody who wants to play on a guitar needs a guitar.
In every dimension people should remain themselves, but the dignity of humanity will be equal because they have equal opportunity – and no government, because government is not needed.
There can be only a functional organization, just like the post office. Nobody knows who is the head postmaster of India – there is no need and the post office is working perfectly well. It is a functional organization. The railways – now, who knows who is the chief of the board of the railways? It is a functional organization. So we can have functional organizations without having any government.
There will be no need for any visas for anybody to come for as long as he wants to stay; there will be no need for any passport. At least we can create one place in the world where no nationality is recognized, no religion is recognized, no political boundaries are recognized. And perhaps that may give the idea to other people, that it is possible – and these are the same human beings, they have come from us. Just an absolutely clear-cut model is needed.
So there is no need to be worried. It is only a question of a few weeks….
And soon we will have our own place, and I will call all my people to start working. And we can absorb as many people as we want, because we are not thinking of making houses, we are thinking of making houseboats.“
Osho: ‘Light on the Path’
If that plan, on his World Tour, had come to fruition there would have been no return to India for Osho. His commune would have been located in the Pacific Ocean.
Marlon Brando’s Island?
You seem to be a Sannyas historian, Shanti.
Yes indeed.
Actually Marlon Brando’s place was an ‘atoll’, a group of islands. The idea was to expand it as well as using houseboats and underwater houses. But the idea was abandoned when visiting sannyasins realised that the ideas may be impractical and there had been a hurricane in the area.
“And maybe Marlon Brando
Will be there by the fire
We’ll sit and talk of Hollywood
And the good things there for hire
And the Astrodome
And the first teepee
Marlon Brando, Pocahontas and me
Marlon Brando, Pocahontas and me
Pocahontas….”
Neil Young & Crazy Horse:‘Pocahontas’
https://youtu.be/p13gx9wnNBc?si=fpD2MbJtOEHg-bsA
I always liked U.G. Krishnamurti’s take on money: “a man does not need more than shelter, food and clothes.” He was of the opinion that to want more was a symptom of the unnatural mind, and so he lived a very simple life.
In that context I feel that the wealth of the commune could be a good thing, but if the wealth of the commune translates to luxury for those at its head then I find it a piece of great hypocrisy, greed and desire for luxury disguised as spiritual teaching.
As everyone knows, talk is cheap. Osho talked about going beyond money but he never actually managed to do it. Osho was so wealthy he never needed to touch money. He let others do that for him. A sure sign of very big bucks.
Osho might have talked about the “nightmare of capitalism”. But somewhere else he says, “Capitalism is a state of freedom; that’s exactly why I am in support of it. It allows you all kinds of freedom.”
I think it is a huge mistake to try and make some kind of gospel out of Osho’s words, because his statements are full of contradictions. This, of course, was intentional because Osho understood how fools would one day try and make a gospel out of his words and in the end all they have succeeded in doing is exposing themselves for the fools they are.
“As everyone knows, talk is cheap. Osho talked about going beyond money but he never actually managed to do it.”
‘Talk is cheap’ but the establishment in many places were very afraid of Osho’s talk and his ability to influence people.
If his plan for the island had gone ahead, and been successful, it could have provided some kind of model for the future.
That was his idea at that time when he spoke about that.
But with Osho we don’t have a gospel or a dogma, which is also refreshing.
“Capitalism gives you the freedom to be yourself; that’s why I support it. My support has reasons behind it. I am not supporting it as an economic phenomenon; there is much more involved in my support. And to my understanding, capitalism will bring a socialism of its own kind as a by-product.”
‘Come, Come, Come, Yet Again Come’ (1980)
Yes, Shanti, ‘the establishment’, the vested interests, the extremely powerful are threatened by charismatic people who can influence many to oppose and change the status quo, and they often ruthlessly get rid of such threats, eg the fates of Martin Luther King, JFK, even, arguably, John Lennon – not forgetting Jesus Christ and, of course, Osho. That’s been the way of the world for thousands of years.
And talk about any situation is certainly cheap when one doesn’t have enough facts about the situation. Dreams are beautiful but if over-grandiose, ungrounded in realities, they mostly tend to remain just dreams, fantasies. Osho’s dream of a Pacific island commune, for instance.
And how close is capitalism to morphing naturally into any kind of socialism? Seems we’re far more likely to endure another, this time almost universally fatal, world conflict.
The idea that Osho was a massive threat to the status quo has been blown out of proportion for decades. It is a complete exaggeration, that is partly due to things Osho said about Ronald Reagan back in the day.
It is kind of symptomatic with “my guru is the best guru” mindset. In this case “my guru was a threat to the status quo and therefore I am a great spiritual rebel” type bullshit.
The truth is closer to the fact that Osho did a lot of great positive things and had a positive impact upon the lives of many people, with a bit of hanky panky chucked in. He wasn’t a great threat to anything other than people’s egos and he also did not control a nuclear arsenal. He was a gentle and peace-loving man.
Seems you’re overlooking the Oregon Ranch saga and its consequences, Lokesh, where the US authorities wanted to destroy the place almost from the start and which was regarded by the powers-that-be as a socio-political threat.
Sure, Sheela and the rest didn’t exactly help (a massive understatement) but having closed down the place and banished Osho from the States forever, why did the US government use economic threats to deter countries from allowing Osho & co. to stay in their lands if they didn’t view him and his movement as threats? (Not to mention the strong suspicion that he was poisoned while in US prisons, thus significantly reducing his life).
That said, such a time has long gone of course and it can not be seriously maintained that the Sannyas movement is any sort of potential threat to the various status quos of this benighted world.
However, I believe Osho did not live in vain. Through his influence on his people, notably the effect and transmission of his Being, his extraordinary presence, compassion, emanating from a remarkable, pristine consciousness, and through his books, cds and videos (also enjoyed by many who never met him or even knew of him when he was alive) plus his clarity regarding the essence of freedom, shining light on the various ways in which we are ‘imprisoned’ by our conditioning, while providing ways and means to go deeper towards our essence, into a new, more joyful way of living, he has had and will have far-reaching effects on the collective human psyche.
As both he and Barry Long pointed out, that’s the cumulative effect of reaching deeply inside enough people with ‘the Truth’ and Love, which, mysteriously (to the mind) and wonder-fully becomes a significant psycho-spiritual resource for the human race to draw upon now and in the future, potentially fostering a most significant evolutionary (and essentially, revolutionary) advance.
However, whether such efforts and consequences will be enough to avert a world catastrophe within the next decade or two appears to remain in the balance, while some (or many?) of us older ones are also working hard these days to counter a possible or actual uncomfortable personal physical decline. I guess it’s up to each individual to nourish and use what we’ve been fortunate to have been given, help others if and when we can, and hope for the best for ‘the human experiment’.
I think you are fast asleep about Osho not having been a threat for decades, Lokesh.
Although he has become widely respected in some areas of the world, he still considered very much a threat to some of the status quo and also some of the vested interests and old organised religions it appears, mainly some Christians.
If he had conformed to the expectations of the older religious mindset and the society he would not have been considered a threat at all.
And that would have meant less undercover agents.
I have witnessed enough evidence of how important he is to those who wish to discredit him and pull him down, to see that myself. I mean there has even been hacking, editing and removing of comments on this little site, comments which featured criticism of two large online anti-Osho writers who use links to the site have been removed, I noticed a comment describing innacuracies in a book written by ex-sannyasin turned US agent dissapeared. And I noticed other comments I can no longer find.
I have also witnessed certain comments being hidden or parts of posts edited without permission on social media for very obvious reasons.
Powerful forces are still against him.
Okay, Shanti, seeing as how you are wide awake to the threat that Osho poses to the status quo, could you be so kind as to give a concise description of what form this takes?
“sannyasins should be encouraged to celebrate Osho”
Maybe, NP, you can explain what it means for you “to celebrate Osho”?
I’m celebrating Osho by putting a few comments on this SannyasNews site!
But seriously, I think if there wasn’t a copyright and trademark thing there might be a lot more Zorba the Buddha or Osho coffeeshops or restaurants, that kind of thing. That’s a celebration. Or websites like O-meditation. That’s a celebration.
More of those places in the Netherlands and Germany, perhaps, NP, but probably not in the UK. I may be wrong but that’s my impression.
It’s true that the UK seems very much in the grip of money, class and being British. But then I only read The Guardian!
Thank you, Satyadeva, for your sharing, you don’t seem so old and frail at all, judging by the compassion that animates you in these words, even if arguing with Lokesh can be exhausting.
I agree with you that the establishment status quo is not only threatened by ballistic missiles. Maybe you should try drawings with him;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_and_superstructure#/media/File:Base-superstructure_Dialectic.png
In fact it also seems to me that Sannyas today does not represent a big threat for those in charge, Osho is quite ridiculed in the media here, you can get an idea of that spirit from the useful idiots who in this forum claim to love him by pissing on his grave, one day yes and another too.
But if what you say about the wealth of spiritual experiences that men like Osho have left in the collective consciousness is true, then potentially Osho’s persecution is not complete.
Of course, the US empire (essentially, financial system + academic/media system + military industrial complex), as our unwitting undercover agent says, does not like disrespect but cannot unleash a daily hunt for troublemakers, whether they be Native Americans, emancipated blacks, North American or Vietnam communists, sincere non-warmongering democrats, Islamic fundamentalists around the world, or citizens not available to act as guinea pigs for big pharma.
Sometimes a warning is enough to convince the reluctant ones to implement the plan to discredit Osho, such as blowing up a German bakery frequented by sannyasins.
If the Resort’s entry prices weren’t enough to empty it, why not try the good old, hard ways?
If there are threats to the status quo then perhaps there is also something that supports it, that is something that prevents or counters the revolution, where the violent act is only the culmination of a process of awareness of trampled human dignity.
Only if we know how beautiful a human being can be does rebellion against all ugliness arise, otherwise the resignation of slaves or the frustration of criminals prevails.
Therefore what prevents the change of the status quo is everything that conditions human beings to believe they are not worthy of love.
“The problem, seen from the outside, is that even if shared choices had been made (by Inner Circle) this would not be much less oligarchic than if Jayesh had done everything by himself, being the IC, however numerically not representative of the entire sannyasin movement, and although the provisions given by Osho were: “The Inner Circle is not a club to discuss philosophy. It is a pragmatic and practical way to decide things.”
Yes, the Catholic Church has also an Inner Circle where decisions have to be made. Is there any difference, Veet?
Satchit, the first difference that comes to mind is that the Catholic Church is part of a sovereign State (Città del Vaticano), which has now become the smallest and richest in the world, with its own absolute monarch (he decides everything, apart from the plot that would kill him, and then his successor).
Then there is an organization that has been structured over 2000 years, with the college of cardinals who collaborate with the Pope on theological and canon law issues.
Then come the bishops with the dioceses who administer the churches scattered around the world, with the priests and deacons.
The bishops in the various countries constitute an episcopal conference with the aim of relating to the political institutions for the (official) purpose of spreading the word of the renegade Jew from Palestine.
The boss of the conference of bishops, only in Italy, is appointed by the Pope.
It took wars and agreements to limit the temporal power of the Church.
In the case of our Sangha, between Osho’s message and the rest of humanity, however, there is only a custodian institution of the publishing and real estate rights inherited by him.
It seems to me quite inevitable for someone who wanted to delve into the nature of a controversial master like Osho sooner or later to come into contact with the Pune Resort, or from its more or less direct emanation, any Osho Meditation Centre around the world, returning from there disappointed or enthusiastic.
Another difference is that the Palestinian guy crucified by the Jews left a little book of a few parables transcribed by four disciples (with some copyright disputes for different versions by rebel disciples) on which a philosophical castle has been built over the centuries, for arguing that that man was the son of God and, implicitly, that God exists.
In the case of Osho, however, his speeches recorded in video and audio or transcribed in books are many and sold all over the world, although the words are often used to create a gap in the identification process of someone who had asked a question or who interacted in presence with the Master, in order to convey a compassionate love that invited celebration.
Making Osho look like an idiot by editing a book with a collage of his sentences is the simplest thing in the world.
There are, however, relatively few books by those with hearts as hard as porphyry who claim that Osho was a madman, a drug addict, an egomaniac, an abuser and a criminal.
Fewer and fewer those who write against Osho in the forums, trying to demonstrate that his disciples were/are idiots, incapable of seeing the true nature of the guru.
Maybe in the next few years we will also find out if there is at least one thing in common between the two “churches”, I’m thinking of the Catholic Church founded by Peter the renegade, cockadoodledo!
SD, I am not overlooking what happened on the Ranch at all. I just do not view what happened there as a major threat to the status quo. In the eyes of the American government I daresay they viewed the whole carry-on as a public nuisance. Just imagine a bunch of crazy people dressed up in orange dancing around an Indian guru and starting to build a city on farmland designated for a few inhabitants in the UK or Spain, where you have to be granted permission to build a garden wall. You would not get very far.
Then when the sannyasins do not get their way they start poisoning the locals and trying to manipulate local election results by importing homeless people. Then they turn on each other and start doing all manner of crazy shit.
None of that adds up to some rogue state firing ballistic missiles into international air space. What it amounts to is being a major nuisance and being socially unacceptable, breaking the law and acting a bit dangerous and nuts. Tough titties! The USA can be particularly vindictive when it feels disrespected. Osho and the gang disrespected the laws of the USA and were made to pay for it. Relatively lightly if you ask me.
Nobody really knows if Osho was poisoned by the American government or not. Osho knew how to manipulate situations to suit his purposes. Making out you were poisoned like Socrates for being an emissary of truth looks a lot better than being someone who had an appetite for brain damage caused by inhaling so much nitrous oxide it should hold a record in the Guinness Book of Stupid Things to Do.
I just do not see Osho as a big threat to anyone or anything, unless you have an inflated ego. Plenty of those around. Even on SN. Osho did his Zorba the Buddha dance and disappeared like we all must one day. The organized religions just carry on as usual and people are still killing each other because of them. Osho did not even put a dent in all that shite. Maybe a scratch and that is no small accomplishment.
Why not simply acknowledge that Osho was a wonderful man without having to make out like he was a big threat to the status quo or the master of masters, or Moses? For fuck’s sake! Load of hype! My guru is special and therefore I must be also. Whatever happened to being nobody? Or was that something you just go through? You know, “Don’t be a hero. Be a zero!” Try it. You’ll be surprised.
I really don’t think Osho was that dangerous a spiritual gangster. Nixon called Tim Leary the most dangerous man in the world. I do not know if that was true or not. Certainly it was not a title that would have befitted Osho while alive. Certainly not now that he is dead and dissolved into the One. Om mani padmi hum!
Lokesh, I am not a fanatical Osho fan who views Osho as the “master of masters” who never made a mistake etc. etc. but I do believe that as well as the Ranch and him being regarded as a “public nuisance” by the US authorities, his obvious intellectual and personal stature, together with his fearlessly publically proclaimed, radical, anti-establishment views offending both political and religious elites, were not only anathema to the US powers-that-be but also almost certainly caused them to fear his potential influence on the people, particularly the young, well educated, adventurous types that were so prevalent in the Sannyas movement.
After all, look at how successful his people were in creating something extraordinary (the Ranch) from nothing, and importantly, it was a pretty wealthy, prosperous enterprise attracting much attention in a land where wealth and success is worshipped. They knew they’d be no match for him in any (admittedly highly unlikely) debate, and that he wasn’t afraid of ridiculing them in discourses, which of course they must have profoundly hated.
I suspect that, as I noted previously, he qualified rather well in this respect, in a similar category to others assassinated in our times and earlier.
Also, I’m not sure if you get what I meant by mentioning Osho and BL’s similar comments on the enduring value of their work, of its worth and influence not being limited to the generation they were among, not only via the records of their talks and writing but also in making an indelible imprint within the human psyche through the people who accepted and absorbed their presence and teachings, thereby creating a new psychic (if that’s the right word) resource for future people to draw upon, whether or not these people actually access such teachings and whether or not a movement called ‘Sannyas’ or an organisation called ‘The Barry Long Foundation’ still exists. The Truth of consciousness has its own ways to get through, thankfully, which is refreshing, heartening to know.
Yes, that is all well and good. I have said enough on the matter and it is not important for me to try and prove a point. The point being that there always existed a level of hype around Osho, which I saw as unnecessary because he was more than enough as he was, without making him out to be a huge threat to the status quo, or being the master of masters, or an incarnation of Moses etc.
I decided to write a couple of comments to stir the pot a bit because some of the recent posts sounded like they had been copy and pasted from an international pen friends club.
SD, you say, “The Truth of consciousness has its own ways to get through, thankfully, which is refreshing, heartening to know.” I don’t know about that. What I have come to understand is that consciousness is quantifiable. It is not unlimited. There is only so much to go around. Everyone can have their own wee bit of consciousness. The strange thing is most people do not want their share and prefer to live in an unconscious state, which means that there is more than enough consciousness for those who wish it.
I reckon there are writers and teachers in every era who have their own things to say about consciousness. At the moment non-duality seems to be a hot topic, the likes of Darryl Bailey and Tony Parsons are doing their thing.
The idea of consciousness as a finite quantity is a bit strange, though I think that everyone experiences moments of low consciousness and high consciousness during the day.
NP says, “The idea of consciousness as a finite quantity is a bit strange.”
Strange or not this does not prevent him giving an example of consciousness being quantifiable by saying “low consciousness and high consciousness”.
Quantifiable means able to be expressed or measured as a quantity. Low and high are measurements. What is strange about that?
Well, you have 8 billion people on the Earth, many more now than at any previous time in history. If consciousness was somehow finite, how come that there is enough to go around?
Low and high consciousness are just matters of our perception, the blinkers that you put on. Consciousness itself appears to be as limitless as space.
NP asks, “If consciousness was somehow finite, how come that there is enough to go around?”
Because most people do not want their share of consciousness.
I don’t think you get to make that choice — you have consciousness whether you want it or not. At most you can dim the light a little, or live life on automatic.
NP says, “I don’t think you get to make that choice — you have consciousness whether you want it or not.”
That could be interpreted as a fatalistic approach to life. After all, people embark on spiritual quests to become more conscious. Others want to raise their level of consciousness. Some flock to the feet of gurus like Osho because they are seen as embodiments of higher consciousness, who might be able to help one gain a more developed level of consciousness by following their teachings or simply by being in their presence.
Yet, NP has concluded one does not have a choice in the matter.
Osho certainly thought one has a choice: “The more conscious man becomes, the more his choices will lead him toward happiness; the more unconscious he is, the closer he will move toward misery.”
I tend to agree with Osho on that one and I conclude that NP has not a clue what he is talking about.
Lokesh, Osho himself agreed every one of us has Buddha nature and all you can do is become conscious of it. Consciousness is not some ‘stuff’ that you can have more or less of. You can try and raise its level but even then what you’re really doing is not much different from raising your eyes from the mud under your feet to the unblemished sky. Hence I conclude I agree with Osho and Lokesh doesn’t know what he is talking about.
NP says, “Osho himself agreed every one of us has Buddha nature.”
Yeah, but he might have been making it up.
Well, I reckon that if Osho said it and the Buddha said it, then it is fairly reasonable to accept that it is so. There are also a lot of non-dual teachers pointing the way.
Tony Parsons has been operating for a very long time, NP.
Yes, I know. I’m just referencing him because he seems to be enduringly popular, his message is still being heard.
I think Osho is now being absorbed into the Zeitgeist, that via YouTube and OshoWorld his words are becoming a part of the current heritage and are doing their work breaking down the mainstream religions and also the reputations of the political establishment. Did you know that in America there is now an organisation called The Clergy Project for ex-clergy who no longer wish to proclaim what they know to be false?
There are a few Western countries now which are majority non-religious, like Sweden, the Netherlands, the UK, New Zealand and Australia, and in many other places a more secular view is also gaining more and more adherents. Germany, the USA, Denmark, many places. There aren’t so many New Age bookshops anymore, instead the counter-culture has moved online.
Certainly I think Tim Leary was at least as dangerous as Osho, but the real work in the movement opposing the War on Drugs is being done by people like Hamilton Morris and Michael Pollan and the now deceased Terence McKenna. It’s years later and public attitudes are shifting, especially now that people are wising up a little to government tactics with respect to untraceable revenue sources. People like McKenna noticed that when the CIA wanted to support the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan in the late 1980s suddenly the American market was flooded with large quantities of excellent quality Afghani hashish, and when that political motive disappeared there were a series of interlocking big drug busts and the whole thing was torn down. These kinds of stories are now becoming available in the form of McKenna talks on YouTube, and people notice it makes a lot of sense.
I think Osho was a historical turning point, he was the place where the whole ‘flower power’ movement got into meditation and therapy, and with that came a whole aesthetic which extended from paintings to jewellery to interior design. It was all built upon, absorbed, repurposed.
The problem, NP, is that the king does not like to appear naked, stripped of all the ideological wiles behind which to hide his lust for power.
What you say is true to the extent that in political elections the party of non-voters triumphs everywhere, people who no longer believe the mainstream narrative of politicians, priests, journalists, scientists and doctors, all on the king’s payroll.
It seems inevitable to me that this collective process of unveiling the deception, to which mystics, philosophers, patriots and rebellious spirits have contributed, will have to induce a reaction in those who feel their social position threatened, accustomed to standing over the heads of the people with their fly unbuttoned.
Usually a war is the establishment’s way of getting out of these situations by creating a casus belli, like two steel towers melted by jet fuel or some other false flag operation against a rave party gathering.
They have done this for centuries, putting us against each other, with different excuses, today they use the poor people of the third world with the NGOs financed by Soros, welcomed with the rhetoric of the right to the ‘global world’ opportunities, they are then abandoned to themselves, at the mercy of black or criminal work.
This aggravates the already existing tension, with the locals struggling after a decades-long economic and social decline, the drugs that run freely complete the picture, the chaos is served, it is difficult to find a sense of community to attempt resistance.
The spirit of the time seems to me to be that of endless war, a continuous tension that wears us out and makes us predictable and controllable, like now that I write alone, like those who will read me.
But if through an oversight of bad fortune there was finally a showdown in a battlefield what would be your response in harmony with your Sannyas, NP?
I think if I asked Osho he would tell me to stay at home and meditate while cooking spaghetti, maybe you would be luckier:
“More or less the same situation is occurring on a global scale and in twenty years a total replica of the Mahabharat scenario will descend upon us. On the one hand there will be all the forces of materialism and on the other there will be the weaker forces of goodness and justice.
Goodness suffers from a fundamental weakness: it wants to keep away from conflicts and wars. Arjuna of Mahabharat is a good man. The same word arjuna in Sanskrit means the simple, the honest, the pure. Arjuna means that which is not corrupted. Arjuna is a simple and good man, a man with a clean mind and a kind heart. He doesn’t want to be involved in any conflict or war: he wants to retreat.
Krishna is even simpler and good-hearted; his simplicity and goodness know no limits. But his simplicity and goodness do not allow any weakness or escape from reality. His feet are firmly planted on the ground: he is a realist and he will not allow Arjuna to escape from the battlefield.
Perhaps the world is once again divided into two factions, into two camps. It happens quite often that there comes a crucial moment when war becomes inevitable. Men like Gandhi and Russell are of no use in this eventuality. In a certain sense they are all Arjunas. They will say that war must be avoided at all costs, that it is better to be killed than to kill.
It will take a Krishna, someone who can clearly say that the forces of good must fight, that they must have the courage to take up a weapon and go to war. And when goodness does the fighting, only goodness can come from it. He will not be able to harm anyone. Even when he fights a war, in his hands it becomes a just war. Goodness does not fight for the sake of fighting, but simply to prevent evil from winning.
The world will soon be divided into two camps. One camp will stand for materialism and all that it entails and the other will stand for freedom and democracy, for the sovereignty of the individual and the other higher values of life. But is it possible that this field that represents good will find a leader like Krishna?
It’s possible. When the state of human affairs, when the destiny of man, reaches a point where a decisive event becomes imminent, destiny itself summons and sends the intelligence, the genius necessary to guide it. And the right person, a Krishna, appears on the scene. The decisive event also brings with it the decisive man.
This is also why I say that Krishna has great significance for the future.
There are times when the voices of those who are good, simple and kind cease to have any effectiveness, because people inclined towards evil do not listen to them, do not fear them, they blindly go their own way. Indeed, when good people back down in the name of goodness, to the same extent the creators of evil become bolder.”
(Osho, Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy #1)
In the same year that Osho spoke of Arjuna the soldier, the North American status quo felt threatened by students marching against the war in Vietnam, the national guard shot into the crowd, to kill.
Among the many witnesses of those events there was a student who would become a member of the Devo (band) and as I write I am watching the documentary ‘Devolution, a Devo theory’. Jerry Casale after the initial shock realized that the so-called civil society and democracy was just a fiction.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings
You shouldn’t ask me these questions, Veet, I am a registered conscientious objector from the days when National Service still existed in the Netherlands. I would have been the kind of man that Krishna was exhorting, although now that I am over 50 they are unlikely to come calling.
In a sense a kind of community is hard to find these days, but it’s still there…Here in the Netherlands some sannyasins are putting together small social housing initiatives, with the goal of living together in the later stages of life, I heard.
I have heard a little about so-called ‘false flag operations’ but I know just enough to make me highly sceptical of what governments get up to, not enough to believe in any conspiracy theories.
NP, no one likes to become a martyr or a slave, not even you, who are also a sannyasin, generally not a conformist, that is, someone docile towards authority..
I wasn’t asking you if you would invade Poland, I was asking you if you would defend the things you love in a defensive war.
If those who attack sadistically are pathological, then so are those who prefer to defend an ideal or an angelic image of themselves rather than the people/things they love.
The conspiracy when enacted by a democratic government is the use of covert power, technically an abuse of power, where the only exceptions to the use of covert power (however authorized by governments and only in certain matters) are granted to secret services.
If you are skeptical about governments, perhaps it is because you have seen that they have not made good use of the power that citizens have placed in their hands, that is, they have acted to favour themselves or their friends, damaging the general interest of the country of which you are part.
If you declare yourself skeptical of your government it is because you allude to the possibility of being harmed, in a deceptive way (178 doses of vaccine?), by your government, that is, a victim of a conspiracy.
Denying the conspiracy would perhaps help you to be more trusting and less skeptical towards authority.
Best wishes.
Those who “sadistically and pathologically attack” are usually miscast by some kind of propaganda, and that propaganda is what I choose to disbelieve.
Rutger Bregman wrote a book, ‘Humankind: A Hopeful History’, which is about why the vast majority of people are fundamentally good, and strive towards goodness. It is only the psychopathic few that need to be kept watch for.
That is why I choose not to participate in wars or warlike thinking.
NP, you may not believe it but I asked the question and I didn’t mention any “propaganda” because that wasn’t my intention, “sadistically and pathologically attack” was to give the sense of a threat with no way out, not even that of trying to redeem your enemy (he is the one who perceives you as easy prey).
The limit of “warlike thinking” is no different from that of “positive thinking” or “Buddhist thinking”, and during any of the bloody regimes the ruler of the day never bothered to ask his subjects if their system of beliefs was compatible to participate in his crimes.
For me too, every human being, having experienced all the possibilities, would choose the one that allows him to give the best of himself, for himself and for others, but believe it or not, adverse external circumstances exist.
Veet Francesco, I would like to ask you in what precise way(s) you yourself are the victim of “adverse external circumstances”.
And if indeed you qualify for the state of victimhood what practical options are open to you apart from thinking about and writing analyses demonstrating how bad ‘the external problem’ is.
“Adverse external circumstances” do exist, but whether you contribute to the situation that allows those attitudes to persist is the question.
When you carry the idea of ‘enemies’ and ‘statehood’ to an extreme, you get the Israeli-Palestine conflict. What I believe in is peace, tolerance and people living side by side.
Here in Western Europe the only problem we have is excess immigration; so many people want to come here because it is seen as being a good place.
A video about what happened with COVID deaths in Sweden, which never followed a lockdown strategy. You guessed it, deaths half of what was predicted with lockdowns, and the lowest excess deaths in Europe.
https://youtu.be/NQiAOeDoZY4
Satyadeva, what I wrote to Nityaprem why shouldn’t it apply to me too? (in particular here: “If those who attack sadistically are pathological, then so are those who prefer to defend an ideal or an angelic image of themselves rather than the people/things they love”).
Faced with a battlefield described by the Mahabharat, and analyzed by Osho, as an unavoidable invitation to express one’s humanity towards the things one loves, I think I would hesitate like all sane people before the possibility of killing or being killed but I don’t believe I have a “warlike thought” if I agree with Krishna or Osho about “adverse external circumstances”, putting into crisis the “religious thought” which internally tends to see united what externally conflicts.
It is not being stated that war is always beautiful (cynicism/sadism/narcissism) nor that it is always preferable to avoid the front of the battle (saviour/redemptive thinking).
I believe you should distinguish not only between the soft green daisy fields of your soul and the frozen mud dug by tanks but also between the concrete political analysis of the concrete situation and the hormone-modulated survival instinct, between fighting and fleeing.
I didn’t write that I am Superman, there are battles lost from the start, strategic sacrifice for the victory of the war and…”Lord, take this cup away from me!”.
Veet F, you haven’t really answered my questions. What I’m asking is in what specific ways you view yourself as a victim (if in fact that is the case), ideally narrowing it right down to your day-to-day experience in the world.
Or are you in fact, despite the ideas, concepts and theories with which you decry the state of the world, enjoying a pretty good life (not ‘perfect’, but good nevertheless)?
While the fight-or-flight response happens automatically, that doesn’t mean that it is always accurate. Sometimes we respond in this way even when there is no real threat.
This is because the fight-or-flight response can be triggered by both real and imaginary threats. Phobias are good examples of how the fight-or-flight response might be falsely triggered in the face of a perceived threat.
Perhaps Veet is suffering from various phobias, in which he imagines he has to defend himself against imagined attackers. In due course this tendency has extended into the need to defend Osho from imagined non-believers and their relentless onslaught on his beloved spiritual master.
It has crossed my mind that Veet is borderline schizophrenic. I have met people who were diagnosed schizophrenic. Some of them were friends. Often they were very articulate and intellectually developed and, more importantly, they had a tendency to get so caught up in verbalization and explanations that nobody could understand what on earth they were talking about. Veet raves on a lot, uses flamboyant and flowery language and I often haven’t a clue what he is talking about or any idea as to the identity of the forces he feels threatened by.
Take his latest rant about vaccines with two links that will be incomprehensible to non-Italian readers as an example. After reading Veet’s comment, it is difficult to ascertain if he is pro or anti vaxx. Is he being ironic or is he talking straight? I have no idea and I doubt anyone else has, if they are honest about it. Or am I missing something?
Over the years, I have noticed that there always exists a lunatic fringe around gurus and spiritual cults. Sannyas has always had more than its fair share of nutters in its ranks.
Twenty-first century schizoid man delivers the following conclussion. ‘Satyadeva,I hope you don’t make it an occasion for victimization but that you wear your helmet and get on Anjuna’s bandwagon and not on the Scottish clown’s one.’
The narcissistic Scottish clown rests his case. Meow!
Veet a borderline schizophrenic? Well I’ve talked to a few and to me he merely seems very Italian and quite normal.
Anyway, what’s wrong with borderline schizophrenics? It reminds me of this article I came across some time ago, about the African shaman Malidoma Patrice Somé visiting a psychiatric ward in the USA…
https://umaincertaantropologia.org/2016/03/08/what-a-shaman-sees-in-a-mental-hospital-waking-times/
Definite shades of ‘One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest’, where the patients are more human than the caretakers.
NP, what does this anti-scientific, no vax propaganda have to do with Sannyas?
I remind you that sannyas is freedom, like the vaccine.
“The vaccine is freedom, the vaccine is freedom because this word – freedom – has been used inappropriately many, too many times; the vaccine is freedom to go to school; the vaccine is freedom to work, to earn; the vaccine is freedom to meet others, the vaccine is freedom to travel; the vaccine is freedom to have fun, the vaccine is freedom to play sports; the vaccine is freedom to enjoy shows, to enjoy the resumption of cultural activities. Those who do not want to be vaccinated are against the freedom of others and cannot be rewarded, and those who are ambiguous about green passes and vaccinations are against the health of Italians and those who are ambiguous against green passes and vaccinations are against businesses, against workers and against entrepreneurs, and it is useless for those who are ambiguous about vaccines and green passes to parade in front of business associations to promise who knows what. The most important thing is this and so we, we are proudly the party of workers and entrepreneurs because we have always been consistent on the most important thing today: that is, the vaccine is freedom, it is the vaccine that is freedom”.
Enrico Letta (politician skilled in creating the circumstances so that at least one front of the battlefield cannot be avoided).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpzSdnFRYtA
Woman on the battlefield facing a mercenary:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eI4YZ7t864
Satyadeva, old mangy cat who likes to play with the mouse while sipping a tea, I was talking to NP about inevitable wars and battlefields, stating that war causes victims, regardless of whether they want to be on the battlefield front or hidden in the asshole of a mountain reciting the mantra of peace.
Then you intervene to shift the attention from the general and analytical speech I was making to move it to the personal and refer to my alleged victimism, just a pretext to provide an assist to the narcissist from Ibiza to diagnose me with schizophrenia.
Maybe I should ask you what happened to those who wrote here before the mass vaccination, are they all well or were they victims of propaganda?
I have already answered other times to the question of what I do in practice to change adverse circumstances, today I am very satisfied to have contributed to the recent battle against coercive healthcare treatment. Many people, vaccinated like you, are recognizing that they have been victims of a global conspiracy. I hope you don’t make it an occasion for victimization but that you wear your helmet and get on Arjuna’s bandwagon and not on the Scottish clown’s one.
Not at all “a pretext” for anything, Veet F. I was simply wondering about the effect of what often appears like an obsession with outer circumstances, the heavy (and arguably currently insoluble) problems of the world.
You often come across as a guy whose main concerns are primarily socio-political preoccupations, with Osho and Sannyas used selectively as a sort of back-up, lending, for you, the worldly concerns an extra source of legitimacy.
In all this you tend towards self-dramatisation, presenting yourself as a heroic warrior determined to fight your perceived enemies to the end.
I was inquiring as to whether this self-glorifying focus on the negative tends to interfere with the simple enjoyment of your life although you certainly seem to relish and even look for conflict, judging by the fluency of your violent responses to any hints of criticism.
“NP, what does this anti-scientific, no vax propaganda have to do with Sannyas?
I remind you that sannyas is freedom, like the vaccine.”
Consciousness is unlimited.
Vaccine is freedom,
No Vax too.
Sannyas is freedom,
No Sannyas too.
It isn’t anti-scientific, it is part of a scientific examination of the outcomes of the virus. It makes perfect sense to do that now a few years after the fact.
I don’t believe in politics. It encourages the wearing of masks and arguing wrong points of view. I’m a believer in simplicity, in truth, in freedom, in nature.
You are living in total la-la land, Lokesh. And it’s wishful thinking on your part.
There are many others like yourself to whom Osho is still very important, yet dislike him looking too good and spend a lot of energy over it.
I don’t think there is much chance that Osho will ever “look too good” because there has been so much focus on the plain human aspects of his behaviour: the jewelled watches, the Rolls-Royces, the sex life…The press loved to talk about these things.
It’s just like with politicians and celebrities, they are put under a microscope to find anything that can be held against them. I personally don’t find it very interesting anymore, you take note of it, your internal picture of who he was undergoes an adjustment, and that is that.
In the end the positive things he did, all the talk about love, about removing the old conditioning of politicians and priests, about true religiousness, all that says much more about him than the rest.
Yes, NP, the press and many people were interested by, and put off by the Rolls Royces and watches.
“The fool can come to a master but will remain unbenefited because he will see only the outer. He will not be able to see the essential, he will not be able to see the core. The fool comes here too, but he listens only to the words – and he goes on interpreting those words according to his own ideas. He goes perfectly satisfied that he knows what is happening.
There are many fools who don’t come here – they don’t feel the need. They simply depend on other fools’ reports. That’s enough. Just one fool can convince thousands of fools, because their language is the same, their prejudices are the same, their conceptions are the same…there is no problem! One fool has seen, and all the other fools are convinced. One fool reports in the newspaper and all the other fools read it early in the morning, and are convinced.”
(Osho, The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 2, Ch 7)
Below a photo of Osho shortly after being arrested in North Carolina in 1985. His face, his eyes show it all.
NP says, “It’s just like with politicians and celebrities, they are put under a microscope to find anything that can be held against them.”
I disagree with that statement. There was no need of a microscope when it came to investigating Osho. It was blatantly obvious on many levels that Osho’s public image was at odds with who he actually was and how he lived his life.
That said, I tend to agree with NP when he says, “I personally don’t find it very interesting anymore, you take note of it, your internal picture of who he was undergoes an adjustment, and that is that.”
“The fool can come to a master but will remain unbenefited because he will see only the outer.”
Can’t argue with that.
But then, in what way is the intelligent man benefitted when he comes before a master? Also not so easy to answer, because it comes in several layers…
What died in that photo?
Osho’s gaze reminds me of someone, as if he had come into contact with something monstrous, an infernal and well-oiled device, the furthest from a democracy, where fundamental rights should not be negotiable, just the opposite of what some asshole claimed in Italy during the pandemic, blathering about vaccines and freedom (no, Satchit, if all is freedom then nothing is freedom).
15 years earlier the same moral violence had struck the Kennedy brothers, when to avoid nuclear war they had to negotiate with Krushchev, also the retirement of the psychopathic Nazi at the CIA (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Dulles), author of the attempted invasion of Cuba, the bros had just signed their death warrant:
https://www.wbur.org/radioboston/2017/05/23/kennedy-brothers
Years later, in the case of Osho, the North American deep state was too developed and autonomous from political will to worry about having to justify the non-application of the principle of individual responsibility, replacing it with collective responsibility, i.e. the one that applies in case of war, therefore a reprisal.
This criminal agency, with various departments, within the most hegemonic nation in the world may have had a proactive role in collecting/creating information on what revolved around Osho, in an attempt to blackmail him, sending or bribing someone close to him .
“The conspiracy theory” turned 60 a few days ago, it coincides with the anniversary of the killing of President Kennedy, the commission of inquiry called to shed light on that murder (the fourth of an American President, plus another 16 attempts), officially named it and one of the members was Dulles himself.
The events at the Ranch could still reserve surprises, perhaps it will take years or decades, perhaps on the verge of death, as happened in Italy due to another magic trick of the agency (Gladio), killing Aldo Moro, someone will want to clear their conscience and explain by whom and why was that American job commissioned.
I believe that then someone in this forum should be ashamed, but if they continued to sneer it would mean that the infiltrator (or infiltrators) to neutralize Osho’s anti-establishment work (which continues through Sannyas) is precisely him/her, and the last remaining option is that he/she is a useful idiot blinded by his own narcissism.
https://scheerpost.com/2023/11/22/patrick-lawrence-what-died-60-years-ago/
It is a very human trait to imagine that merely wishing to believe in a thing makes it true.
“(no, Satchit, if all is freedom then nothing is freedom).”
No, Veet, if all is freedom then “freedom” has no opposite.
Then there is no identification and no bondage.
Does “Veet” not mean ‘going beyond’?
“No, Veet, if all is freedom then “freedom” has no opposite.
Does ‘Veet’ not mean ‘going beyond’?”
My name is Beyond, James Beyond.
Satchit, to recognize what is opposed to something else you have to use adjectives, to qualify or quantify; you use “all” which is vague as an adjective and which is also a noun, ending up creating a semantic short circuit with the other noun, “freedom”, which is equally vague.
Based on the field, territory, sector, domain, calculation, etc. of reality taken into consideration we find the polarities (much/little, black/white, high/low, internal/external, material/spiritual, healthy/ill, stupid/intelligent, man/woman, guru/disciple, forward/backward, before /after, logical/illogical, transcendent/immanent, etc.).
So, to make me understand what you are referring to with “freedom is all, then has no opposite”, you have to identify what is the opposite of something else and why it is so, that is, according to which analytical criterion (every aspect/territory of reality has its own), valid only if it is shared between those who observe/describe/communicate.
To go beyond something I first have to know how to identify it, otherwise how can I understand if I haven’t already done it and if I want to do it?
Imagine a prisoner who dreams of freedom and wants to go beyond the prison wall and just outside he meets someone who wants to go beyond the same wall but in a different direction…
If you say that “freedom is all” then you cannot admit that something other than freedom can exist, but to be able to recognize something as different from it then it means that you already have an idea of how freedom should appear, otherwise I could say that “slavery is all” without knowing if we are talking about the same thing, the same “all”.
This is why I was ironic about the Italian politician’s phrase “the vaccine is freedom” (I translated his speech and posted the link, yet some old stoner managed not to connect the three dots and complain about my incomprehensibility).
When you say “everything is freedom” that politician would agree with you, replying that in fact even “the vaccine is freedom”, but he is talking about slavery, you about transcendence, both of you floundering in the sea of contradictions, each of you trying to float with your head out of the water, pulling your hair by yourself, but since all is freedom you are free to breathe underwater.
You sound very sophisticated, Veet.
Have you studied philosophy?
“Below a photo of Osho shortly after being arrested in North Carolina in 1985. His face, his eyes show it all.”
What does it show?
It says: “Thy will be done”.
Beautiful photo…Osho is just following his bliss, aware that what will happen is exactly what needs to happen.
Satyadeva, if you also tried to base your existence on something that does not change with external circumstances then you would realize that responding to them is absolutely in balance with respect to the energy that flows, and not only in a violent or dramatic way, between the world that you bring inside and what you find outside.
For this reason you should not ignore the effect between Sannyas and the external circumstances of Zorbaland, when Osho called us “my beloved misfits”, but if you are well integrated into this obsessively violent world then I understand that the mainstream narrative about Osho allows you to sleep a little better.
It’s not my fault if the world outside is dramatically in conflict with what I discovered thanks to the guidance of the “Master of Masters” (don’t be afraid of being bullied by Lokesh in calling Osho this way). it comes naturally to me to love and when I meet walls that imprison me or separate me from those I love I try to knock them down.
If this is an obsession, however, I live it with passion, and I don’t mind burning with it.
You, or whoever you know, didn’t publish a comment of mine in response to the violent one by Lokesh who allusively accused Osho of hypocrisy, you evidently judged my allusions to the moral virtues of his mother and his wife to be too violent. I don’t agree with you, there was instead a lot of compassion in my pushing myself to the point of insulting, or rather spitting, “I who spit love, I who never spit” (Francesco de Gregori “Ciao Ciao”).
Much more violent would be if you allowed yourself or others to attack the mystical body of the one who was once your beloved Master.
MOD:
Your deleted comment has no place at SN, Veet Francesco, neither do your self-serving rationalisations for writing it.
“… it comes naturally to me to love and when I meet walls that imprison me or separate me from those I love I try to knock them down.”
Can you provide examples of such “walls” please, Veet F? As at present I’m inclined to think that you’re someone who quite often likes to throw his weight around, especially when he can’t easily get his own way, viewing such circumstances as akin to being ‘imprisoned’ by ‘enemies’. A kind of bullying but all in the name of ‘freedom’, therefore further signs of ‘heroism’, of course. Or have I got you completely wrong?
You mention the “violence” of the world while seemingly oblivious of your own tendecies, exhibited fairly regularly on these pages, albeit ‘only’ in words.
SD, it doesn’t surprise me that I’m too heavy for you, you who live immersed in ethereal things like astrology or tarot, things that don’t tend to favor a certain grounding.
Good for you, no one can trap hot air, a gas leak is part of your ordinariness.
In reality, you would have had many opportunities to take a stand and oppose your pen pals, who in words are much more violent and bullies than me, for many years;
The most recent, the allusion to Osho’s private life, which by making him a hypocrite (character assassination) would dismantle the hypothesis that he could represent a threat to the status quo, therefore no hypothesis of an attempt at violent elimination.
You don’t care about the weight of this propaganda that this Forum has been throwing around since its foundation.
I’m starting to think that you are not a useful idiot but that you take money to represent the idiocy of the sannyasins and neutralize Osho, thus completing the American job after prison and thallium.
This game is coming to an end, the scheme is all too evident, even to someone who tends to trust Osho’s world like me, it is no coincidence that the one who has the role of street thug, after having contemplated with satisfaction the desert that he helped to create, and announced several times to abandon the field, come back as soon as the Forum seems to revive, his work cannot end as long as there is someone who is celebrating the Master of Masters, he seems very annoyed to hear millions of people around the world shouting in ecstasy: OSHO OSHO OSHOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!
SD, you are approaching Veet in a rational way and I do not see how that will work as he is totally irrational. Reading his latest rant I conclude that the guy is a complete nutter.
That someone like him can imagine that he is somehow representative of Osho’s vision is ridiculous. As I mentioned in an earlier post, gurus and spiritual cults always attract an element of the lunatic fringe. Veet is a perfect example. Veet never met Osho, never felt his presence, never talked to the man, yet here he is making out like he is a true and heroic disciple, combatting imagined enemies, who are out to destroy Osho’s vision.
It can take many years to assess what effects were created upon meeting a powerful spiritual master. Even at a distance, it would seem, a million volts can damage a one volt light bulb. Osho appears to have blown Veet’s fuse box. Pop! Osho was well aware of the power he exuded and it was therefore that work of some kind was needed to keep his disciples grounded. I saw a few people go off the rails in Poona One in one form or another.
It would be cool to imagine Veet waking up one day, realizing he’d lost the plot and saying to himself. ‘What a fool I have made of myself.’ Unfortunately, he is probably too far gone for that to happen any day soon and will continue on his madcap way, ranting and raving in his self-righteous way, as he fights and struggles with the hallucinations produced by the warped mirror of his mind.
Veet is not alone in his madness. He is not the first religious fanatic I have run into and maybe he won’t be the last. How do people like him end up? I can’t really say for certain. Nothing much good ever comes from falling into such a dark and delusional place. What to do? Live and learn from your mistakes and by observing the mistakes of others…well, ultimately there are no others. I am sure you catch my transcendental drift.
I feel it is best to approach these things with some tolerance. You don’t know what mental tortures other people undergo that cause them to lash out in pain. So I ignore some of what Veet writes, and respond to what makes sense to me…He is very Italian after all
“SD, you are approaching Veet rationally and I don’t see how this will work as he is totally irrational. Reading his latest outburst I conclude that the guy is a total lunatic.”
Thus spoke the man who believed in the rationality of science and the market, sick with Covid, to the point of feeling like shit, after 3 doses of the vaccine.
I wonder if the problems of the lunatic fringe, mostly due to neurological damage by LSD, who have reached Osho’s feet, have improved or worsened their condition. Just an idiot or a dishonest intellectual (as is typical of narcissists who always want to prevail and by all means, over others) would neglect to relate the before to the after, as Zorbaland’s rationality would require.
This would invite me to be careful with someone with a head full of shit who complains to Osho because he does not meet the expectations set by his standards regarding “the perfect ascetic life of the Master when the most intelligent of his disciples does not have his tongue attached at his beloved feet.”
When I worked at the Humaniversity, a Dutch sannyasin of my age who I often saw on weekends, the father of a daughter, apparently committed suicide during the Christmas holidays (if I remember correctly). In these cases the first question that comes to mind is how it is possible that the love for life, creativity, friendship that I experienced in Osho’s world, together with many others, can become a distant memory among others in people’s hearts.
Then and today I couldn’t say what kind of initiation and path that man had, if he had just arrived at Veeresh to do the therapy groups, therefore uninterested in meditation and Veeresh’s stories about Osho.
No surprise, years before I had already met young Indians during a satsang with Dolano in Pune, who had never set foot in the place where Dolano, now banned, had celebrated with the Master of Masters.
In those days, for reasons that were not only practical for someone like me who lived/worked in that place and after all my journey between Pune and Miasto, I often found myself in controversy/conflict with some friend from there regarding the vision of Veeresh. In my eyes it favoured therapy too much over meditation, thus modulating the relationships within that community, very limited spaces for celebration, all aspects of community life being subordinated to the therapeutic activity, even the disco in the evening.
Even Nirvano’s alleged suicide lends itself to very cautious considerations on my part: crazy? moody? schizophrenic? obsessed? violent? addicted to medicine? Was it Osho’s fault? Was it the fault of someone who put it in her head that a Master is a hypocrite if he has a vigorous erection for one of his beautiful disciples?
Here if there is one thing for which I am grateful to Osho regarding my Catholic conditioning it is the joyful and playful evaluation he gives of sex, although I realize that in this geriatric context it could be a superfluous teaching: “we know that the people give good advice, feeling like Jesus in the temple, we know that people give good advice if they can no longer give a bad example” (Bocca di rosa, Faber)
I don’t know…”only fools rush in” judging, they usually have big heads, proportionate to their prostate.
What would they say about their friends with the same anti-cult obsession who commit suicide? Is it still a failure attributable to the guru, whether people love him or hate him?
Wouldn’t it perhaps help to look at Osho also in his human dimension, his fragility and loneliness in particular? This aspect evidently not visible to the majority of those who continue to fight him with such determination and acrimony 33 years after his death, in the meantime who knows how many other false prophets will be born and they could have been put on the cross.
@MOD
penultimate paragraph, i did write “suicide”:
“What would they say about their friends with the same anti-cult obsession who commit suicide?”
MOD:
Veet, when you want to make a correction please provide the date and time of the post as it can be time-consuming to search for it.
As far as suicide is concerned, I make no judgments on those who do it. There is often an element of unbearable suffering in it, for which in the Netherlands you would be able to get euthanasia, an assisted voluntary death.
It is very painful for those who knew this person, often there is the question “was there something I could have done?” I have a friend whose life was marked by the suicide of her father at a young age, she has been unable to get past it despite writing about it and therapy.
A Netflix version on controversial events and people is not denied to anyone, as long as there is a target audience on the subject and/or that there is money from the client.
It will certainly be exciting to discover what happened to the precious watch collection of the master of spherical creativity (football), Francesco Totti (famous Italian player).
The Netflix version of Ilary will be released soon about the reasons for the end of her marriage with Totti, and all the consequences linked to the contentious division of the family assets accumulated in about 20 years of relationship.
https://www.vanityfair.it/article/ilary-blasi-netflix-unica-docufilm-rolex-francesco-totti-anticipazioni
“Sheela’s version” of the events at the Ranch seems to satisfy not only the tastes of gossip-loving old Scottish ladies.
The ‘Wild Wild Country’ series has had a global success, but not everyone draws the same conclusions on how those events are represented, there are very different ones. I have read a couple of opinions among many others (the first two below ) which for example conflict on the causes of Osho’s death, and where in one of the two articles the person interviewed makes a collage of Osho’s words (pastime of renegades) just to support “his own” point of view:
https://www.oshonews.com/2018/11/13/wild-wild-italy/
https://www.oshonews.com/2018/04/26/bhagwans-doctor-gives-his-take-on-wild-wild-country/
https://www.oshonews.com/category/wild-wild-country/
I just wanted to further comment on Lokesh’s borderline schizophrenics comment with a documentary I feel everyone should see, which is Phil Borges’ beautiful film ‘Crazywise’ about two people with mental health challenges in the USA who though wounded grow through the experience, alongside a lot of straight talking about the stigma and mental health treatment in the western world…
https://centrumpuur.nl/crazy-wise/
(Scroll down and the password is CWDUTCH in all caps)
(It’s in English but subtitled in Dutch)
It’s one of my favourite films this, and I’m so happy it is still freely available to watch. It has moved the needle in terms of understanding the challenges posed to this group.
There is a yearly conference here in the Netherlands which was inspired by the ‘Crazywise’ film and has the same name, where people who have experience of mental health conditions but want to connect with alternative modes of treatment get together. There are usually a few friendly psychiatrists, the conference is a bit of a melting pot.
In a way the whole concept of “shamanic illness”, which corresponds closely to certain mental health difficulties and that those who suffer it are called to mediate between this world and the other world for the rest of humanity, is a very mythic thing. Maybe it is an idea whose time will come again.
It’s interesting that as many as 40% of all people have some brush with mental health in their lives, be it depression, anxiety, or something more serious. Most of this is treated with medication which has many side-effects and is difficult to get off again. But in older cultures like the indigenous tribes of the Amazon, these things are said to be part of one’s contact with the spirit world and are treated with Ayahuasca ceremonies.
I’ve done some volunteer work in the past, working with those who don’t so easily get out of their homes and minds anymore. It’s interesting what you encounter, people who stay at home for ten years, people who combat loneliness by playing the online game ‘Second Life’, and so on.
There is a lot of loneliness in this area, a lot of people who don’t connect with working life and so are not so much part of the community anymore. They are cared for and receive money from the state but it’s not a very fulfilling life. It’s very different from life in third world countries where there are certain group activities for the village I hear.
NP enquires, “Veet a borderline schizophrenic?”
I doubt that is true and tend to agree with NP when he describes his holiness as being very Italian and quite normal. I suppose this schizo episode is a failed attempt on my part to make Veet more interesting. You can’t win them all.
We’ll put it down to being a literary device then, eh, Lokesh, in your long-standing attempt to liven up the forum
.
Aye, that about sums it up, NP.
I am housebound at the moment due to a nasty ‘flu. Man ‘flu! I feel like shit and SN is providing a welcome distraction from my physical condition.
It’s the time of year when GPs come calling with ‘flu shots and all kinds of people come down with a bout of the lurgy. I think that’s what it’s called anyway.
I have been enjoying a dive into comparative mythology the last few days, it seems to be a kind of over-arching and connecting fabric of thought on spiritual and religious thinking.
For me the giants are not a legend, while Christopher Columbus discovering America could be such.
https://www.esonet.org/i-giganti-sono-esistiti/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nan_Madol
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_Hilman_Natawidjaja
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jo%C3%A3o_Gon%C3%A7alves_Zarco
https://www.ruggeromarino-cristoforocolombo.com/curiosita/254-un-indio-americano-a-firenze-volto-prima-del-1492.html
https://www.meer.com/it/62770-la-mascapaicha-inca
NP, somewhere you wrote about taking care of elderly people, perhaps with the ‘flu, and who, to make themselves more interesting, behave like shit. I think you could liven up the forum by consulting ‘The Instruction Booklet Of The Good Sannyasin’, between one diaper change and another, and tell us how to apply what Osho quotes from St. Thomas (“The seed of rebellion”?): “let the dead bury the dead.”
Don’t you think it’s wise to relate to them based on how they lived their lives, that is, based on how much they tried or not to realize their buddha nature?
Do you too, like Satchit, move in the phenomenal world as if there were no walls?
How is it possible to go beyond a limit if you don’t first recognize it as such?
What difference is there between a Nazi considered in his youth and then in his old age if he remains the same narcissist proud of his crimes?
“Let the dead bury the dead”? All very well for the dead, but what about the living who may still have a few years to go but can’t take care of themselves anymore? Would you let them lie in piss-and shit-filled beds while they developed sores and infections, eventually sepsis which will kill you? It seems a massively undignified and inhumane way to go.
The elderly – even old sannyasins – get a bit obstreperous and sometimes lose control of their temper. But wouldn’t you be if you were woken up hours before you were inclined to get up and put under the shower by well-meaning thirty-somethings? The doctors then advise the caretakers, give them some daily Lorazepam tablets (a calming and sleeping agent which also happens to be addictive in the long run) and that will keep them quiet.
My grandmother was in the same position in the last stages of her life, she suffered from delirium which she got from a hospital visit, and in the care home where she stayed she was given Haldol, the same antipsychotic with which Sheela and co dosed the beer of the Share-a-Homes on the Ranch. She lasted about nine months in that care home.
In terms of relating to them as sannyasins, there is a certain pure human compassion that arises, irrespective of whether they meditated or did groups. Dementia and Alzheimer’s rob many of their memories anyway, whether they managed to attain something or not.
I think it’s worth doing what we can so that the people we care about can avoid the indignities involved in the dying process. I’m sorry if that sounds rather bleak as a future, but death is a tough process if you live to an old age.
Well said, NP, So much for Veet F’s “compassion”.
Nityaprem, evidently your grandmother was worthy of your care, the compassion was well founded. I was giving a different example, an old narcissistic Nazi, proud of his crimes, but you didn’t understand my reference; or perhaps I should have given you more clues or made a little drawing, starting from the kilt.
Personally I am in favour of a living will in cases of lack of autonomy, it offends my dignity to have to burden someone with my excretory functions. Then if it were to happen that on a transitory basis someone wants me to stay a little longer I could grant a short extension in the take care of me, compassion issue, both ways.
This is why the question you ask me about taking care in general and in any case of someone who, if left to himself, would die naturally and probably peacefully if he had lived and loved totally, betrays a somewhat bigoted approach, like those who contradict the principle of proximity and go to seek Christian glory in India, deluding themselves into emptying the sea with a spoon, while they want external circumstances to be left intact. No compassion for those damaged, near and far, through such negligence.
I’m not really in favour of rhetorical situations, I think we have enough to deal with in the here-and-now. Otherwise where would you stop, the imagination is endlessly inventive, if your Nazi was not extreme enough why not go to Hitler or Genghis Khan? Best to leave the imagination out of it, live simply and behave in a way that is of benefit to your beloveds in the present moment.
The mind is not always usefully employed when one chooses to make projections or fantasies of a possible future. You merely end up making choices about what you want to do, and what you actually will do is an entirely different matter. The Buddha also had topics on which he would not speak.
Living wills are all very well, but when the moment comes the vast majority choose to extend their lives as long as possible. It is something that experience teaches.
I just heard from a good sannyasin friend that her (non-sannyasin) elder brother broke a hip and is now confined to a closed ward with delirium, it can happen to you! Delirium as it happened to my grandmother was a kind of unseating of her mind from one day to the next, physically she was still quite good but she started wandering the halls of her apartment building naked at night.
Most of these stories are kept confined to the care homes where the old folks end up, but it’s difficult to hear them. The staff don’t always attend with the necessary compassion, and it’s not always possible to allow people to stay at home because they’re a fire hazard with a stove or a heater.
NP, it’s a difficult world, while you are worried about protecting the elderly from the lack of care and compassion the young people are at the mercy of synthetic opiates and the bombs of Gaza.
Luckily you have found a pure gallus (cheeky) master who will teach you how to apply a healthy pragmatism to never feel like a glaikit (silly), actually earning some dough from such mess.
It is Scottish slang, this is the Forum of Lokesh.
When you have doubt ask the boss.
https://www.visitscotland.com/it-it/inspiration/culture/scots-words-meaning
While you wander around with your golden spoon, trying to empty the sea from the materialism plastic that is suffocating the planet, what had been proposed as a possible alternative is dispersed and polluted.
And don’t confuse the underlying vision proposed by Osho with attempts to find application models by his lovers.
Do you ever think that the disease-mongering that you see on television and that you carry on the forums, in addition to selling drugs, distracts people from having the overall picture and understanding the real causes of a rotten world, in which only rotten people are happy to share its rationality?
@MOD
gallus/cheeky and glaikit/silly
It is Scottish slang, this is the Forum of Lokesh.
When you have doubt ask the boss.
https://www.visitscotland.com/it-it/inspiration/culture/scots-words-meanings
A song by F. De Gregori, about projections and the melancholy of never having enough time and space for authentic relationships, too much distance and obstacles that have accumulated between human beings over the years:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ff-sA7rme8
“Look, it’s not me
What are you looking for
The one who knows time
And who explains the world to you
The one who forgives you and understands you
Who doesn’t leave you alone and who doesn’t betray you
Look, it’s not me
The one sitting next to you
That takes your hand
And that dries your tears
I walk down the street
Someone sees me
And he calls me by name
He stops and thanks me
He wants to know something
Of an old song
And I tell him
Sorry but I don’t know what you’re talking about
I’m here with my shopping bags
You see I’m running away
If you think you know me
It’s not my problem
And look, I’m not joking
Look how it’s raining
Look, you’re getting wet
Look, you’re wrong
Look, it’s not me
Look, it’s not me
The one who looks like me
The barefoot angel
Or the devil in a bottle
The Tramp on the Wagon
Peace between the olive trees and the revolution
Look, it’s not me
My photography
Which is worth nothing
And that you take away
I walk down the street
Someone sees me
And he calls me by name
He stops and wants to know
And he asks me something
Of an old song
And I tell him
Sorry but I don’t know what you’re talking about
I’m here with my shopping bags
You see I’m running away
If you think you know me
It’s not my problem
And look, I’m not joking
Look how it’s raining
Look, you’re getting wet
Look, you’re wrong
Look, it’s not me.”
Here is a poem by Thich Nhat Hanh to illuminate your day:
Please Call Me by My True Names
——————————————
Don’t say that I will depart tomorrow —
even today I am still arriving.
Look deeply: every second I am arriving
to be a bud on a Spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.
I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
to fear and to hope.
The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death
of all that is alive.
I am the mayfly metamorphosing
on the surface of the river.
And I am the bird
that swoops down to swallow the mayfly.
I am the frog swimming happily
in the clear water of a pond.
And I am the grass-snake
that silently feeds itself on the frog.
I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks.
And I am the arms merchant,
selling deadly weapons to Uganda.
I am the twelve-year-old girl,
refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean
after being raped by a sea pirate.
And I am the pirate,
my heart not yet capable
of seeing and loving.
I am a member of the politburo,
with plenty of power in my hands.
And I am the man who has to pay
his “debt of blood” to my people
dying slowly in a forced-labor camp.
My joy is like Spring, so warm
it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth.
My pain is like a river of tears,
so vast it fills the four oceans.
Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and my laughter at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.
Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up,
and so the door of my heart
can be left open,
the door of compassion.
https://plumvillage.org/articles/please-call-me-by-my-true-names-song-poem
Ehm…
When you do not distinguish what the quote you share in a post refers to, confusing reality with its rhetorical representation, you appear like a parrot.
Pretending that there are no cultural differences does not cancel them and does not help to overcome them, rather this could breed violence.
Imagine a Scottish guy in Saudi Arabia that under the effect of alcohol, to the traffic police who want to bring him to jail (before cutting his head, in public square, the next day), to appease them showed him the bahokie (ass, in Scottish) under the kilt, in an attempt to play the card of universal humour (beyond political and religious differences) for which the Scots are famous throughout the world.
You can have the identity of a sannyasin.
But you can also have the identity of a non-sannyasin, who believes he is better, because he has dropped it already.
Not forgetting the identity of a non-sannyasin who has simply moved on, according to his inner voice and needs.
And the identity of a sannyasin for the sake of the ‘image’, both to (hopefully) impress others and him/herself
And finally…
“Followers do not like themselves, of course; that’s why they crawl. And masters have nothing but contempt for their subservants, which is why they impose such colourful embarrassments upon them.”
TIMOTHY LEARY
Pushers do not like themselves, of course; that’s why they crawl.
And the traffickers of chemical happiness, on the CIA payroll, have nothing but contempt for their subservants, which is why they impose such colourful embarrassments, side-effects of their drugs.
https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP88-01350R000200160001-6.pdf
I think you have to make a distinction between things like opiates and heroin, which are “chemical feel-good juice” but destructive to the body, and psychedelics, which are medicine for exploring our own mind.
The drug laws do not distinguish, they will punish you just as heavily for possessing a few magic mushrooms as for holding methamphetamine. But in reality the War on Drugs has been a huge disaster, costing a lot of taxpayer money and ruining many lives to no great benefit.
The more I look at ancient cultures with their shamans and their ceremonies, the more I get the feeling that Terence McKenna was right in saying that these substances have played an important part in the formation of the human mind.
“If the words ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’ don’t include the right to experiment with your own consciousness, then the Declaration of Independence isn’t worth the hemp it was written on.”
― Terence McKenna
I like this one better…
“The fact of the matter is that all apparent forms of matter and body are momentary clusters of energy. We are little more than flickers on a multidimensional television screen. This realization directly experienced can be delightful. You suddenly wake up from the delusion of separate form and hook up to the cosmic dance. Consciousness slides along the wave matrices, silently at the speed of light.”
― Timothy Leary
NP, do you also take drugs?
I’ve been tempted, but only for psychedelics — it seems the era of entheogens has come again. There is an excellent book by Michael Pollan, titled ‘How to Change Your Mind’, in which he talks about the medical and religious uses of different psychedelic substances. It seems that these substances are very safe when handled with respect, non-toxic, and are very good at treating, for example, depression and addiction.
In religious circles a lot of native cultures use these substances, like the Amazon tribes use Ayahuasca or the Native Americans use the Peyote cactus. I find it a fascinating area and have done a lot of research into it.
So far I haven’t had a good opportunity to try taking some, instead I have been listening to Terence McKenna’s stories on YouTube, to get a bit of a ‘feel’ for what it’s like.
NP, I know headbangers who are in favour of chemistry in the hope of overcoming their limits, in fact it works, now they have become big-head-bangers.
Yes, that is a danger. McKenna was also rather enthusiastic about the things he encountered in his sessions, while ideas inspired by psychedelics such as the I Ching-based novelty view of history and the 2012 singularity were in hindsight not exactly earth-shaking.
But I wouldn’t advise all chemicals as a route to enlightenment. That will just turn you into a rather worn and distant personage if the interviews of Hamilton Morris are to be believed. Perhaps a better fate than some others, though.
In relating to someone you know taking their own life, NP says, “Often there is the question, ‘was there something I could have done?’”
During the mid-seventies, I lived in a kind of loose-knit sannyas communal scene. One of my friends there I knew from back in the sixties Scottish hippy scene when we dropped acid together on several occasions. ‘X’ was a lovely guy and in many ways ahead of the times. He talked about Gurdjieff long before anyone else I knew did, and created an insider newspaper called ‘Metanoia’. X was a good-looking young man with a guileless smile and the girls adored him.
X had a big problem. His family background had chronic schizophrenia on both sides. NP asks, ‘What’s wrong with borderline schizophrenics?’ Read on…
As the years passed, X’s internal turmoil increased and manifested in strange ways…sitting down to dinner with friends he would suddenly drop to the floor and begin performing complex yoga asanas and, towards the end, he began talking a load of extreme nonsense and nobody could understand a word the poor man was saying. One evening he was really freaking out and I felt like smashing a flimsy acoustic guitar over his head to try and bring X back to earth. I did not do that and lived to regret it.
Next morning, X borrowed a few quid and went down to the local gas station to buy a full canister of petrol. He returned to our house and emptied the gasoline over his head, struck a match and blew himself up right outside our front door. He died screaming on the pavement. As you can easily imagine, it was a real shocker, to say the least.
To this day, I still wonder if I missed an opportunity to help a friend avoid his life coming to such a horrific conclusion.
Coincidentally, X’s sannyas name was Anutosh. I knew two other sannyasin guys with that name, who both ended up committing suicide. One of them was a dear friend. He had severe medical problems. Last time I saw him he said, “Lokes, if this gets much worse, I am going to buy some good smack and OD.” A few months later, I heard that dear Tosh was found in his London apartment, dead, with a syringe sticking in his arm. God rest his crazy soul.
Osho’s name-giving. Was there something in it? Anutosh means ‘relief’, ‘light’, and all three of the men were called Anand Anutosh.
Shocking, Lokesh. And very extreme. It is when I read stories like that that I realise (again) that most of our suffering is inside our heads, and that our kindness and forgiveness should be extended towards ourselves first of all. One of my friends at university, a very gentle but a little strange man called David, committed suicide, but it was something I was told about, not something I witnessed. I haven’t thought of that incident in years.
My experience of schizophrenics was of those who took medication and were not too extreme, a little dulled and very rarely filled with strange impulses. Perhaps the medication does do some good after all then.
Osho’s name giving I was always sure had some meaning. But how it should be interpreted I never figured out. For me “eternal love” has a particular meaning, I’ve always been very faithful to the people I love but it’s never been easy for me to connect to women my age. So the name was both ‘what I already am’ and ‘what I should pay attention to’.
Oddly enough, the sannyasin who immolated himself had the Christian name David. In the old days, he was nicknamed ‘Shortwave’ Dave, because he underwent dozens of electro-shock treatments. He’d regularly sign himself into the local mental hospital when life on the outside got too much for him.
Osho and the name game? Sometimes I suspected it was all a bit of a lark. Other times it definitely wasn’t. Many times I witnessed Osho giving friends Sanskrit names that were either appropriate or the names they wished for. I put this down to Osho’s capacity to read people’s minds. He was a mind reader for sure. No doubt about it. To what extent this remarkable ability went I cannot honestly say. I reckon when people began to receive sannyas names by post it might have been someone else sending them, not Osho. Nobody ever told me this. It is just speculation. One thing is for certain, it gave us something to play and experiment with.
The whole idea behind the mala, orange clothes and new names was cooked up by Laxmi. She was a funny bird and the only person I ever met who spoke about herself in the third person. At the time, this was viewed by many as a sign of her spiritual development. I found it cute and a bit nutty. I don’t think she was enlightened or anything like that, but I really liked her. She could be mischievous and funny and once taught me a life lesson that I will never forget…with a benevolent smile.
When I read these comments then Osho’s idea of ‘sannyas or suicide’ comes to my mind.
I think if someone really sees suicide as a solution then it is difficult to hold him back,
maybe impossible, because you don’t know how and when.
Osho came up with many great one-liners. How many or how much of them were plagiarised is up for debate. “Be prepared, plan for a miracle” is my personal favourite. “Sannyas or suicide! has something unsavoury, cultish about it. When Osho first came away with it, I could somehow relate to it. Now I can’t.
During that time, Osho also came away with the following+: “In the West, it always has happened that the unique individuals have to commit suicide.” If you believe that nonsense, you are capable of believing anything. It is a very negative statement that also happens to be completely untrue.
In the same discourse Osho said, “Almost always people die unconsciously. Before death happens they become so afraid, so very afraid, that a kind of coma surrounds them and protects them. It is a natural anaesthetic. When you go for an operation, you need an anaesthetic — and death is the greatest operation there is: the soul and body will be torn apart. So nature has some built-in mechanism — before you start dying you go into a coma; all consciousness disappears. In the first place, your consciousness was not very much. Even while you were alive, it was just a tiny flicker. When the wind of death comes, that flicker is gone — there is complete darkness.”
Osho gave a great example in the manner in which he died. He died consciously. The death of a master.
“In the West it always has happened that the unique individuals have to commit suicide. The mediocre go on living, the unique have to commit suicide. A van Gogh, a Hemingway. a Mayakovski, a Nijinsky – these are unique individuals. Either they have to commit suicide or they have to go mad – the society drives them mad. The society puts so much pressure on them that either they have to yield to the society and become just anonymous, or they have to go mad, or they have to commit suicide.”
You did pick the sentence out of the context.
“Osho gave a great example in the manner in which he died. He died consciously. The death of a master.”
How you know?
Have you been there?
Once again, Satchit’s attempts at oneupmanship backfire and leave him sounding like the fool he is.
He says, in reference to my using an Osho statement, “You did pick the sentence out of the context.” He obviously does not quite understand what taking something out of context means…If a statement or remark is quoted out of context, the circumstances in which it was said are not correctly reported, so that it seems to mean something different from the meaning that was intended.
“In the West, it always has happened that the unique individuals have to commit suicide.” This is a clear statement that means the same whether in context or not.
In the same comment, I say, “Osho gave a great example in the manner in which he died. He died consciously. The death of a master.”
Satchit comes away with the following, “How you know?”
Apart from being a stupid question, the answer to which is “reliable sources”, it brings into question how Satchit believes he knows anything about what is taking place in the world around him, other than what he personally witnessed. This is bullshit. Most of us have never visited Antarctica or Yemen but we are hundred per cent certain they exist and we know their geographical locations because reliable sources, who we know nothing about, have reported it so. We know a lot about the people who reported on Osho’s death and there is no valid reason to think what they reported is untrue.
Satchit concludes with the cheeky and schoolboyish question, Have you been there?’ This just comes across as utterly dumb, on many levels.
Crap like that spoils attempts to make SN an intelligent site for exchanging info, experience and debate, because any educated person reading Satchit’s childish comments will immediately see that the site is very much run in the old-school sannyas mode of anything goes and everyone has a right to express themselves no matter how dumb they are, which does not actually work in terms of creating a blog for attracting intelligent discourse.
Meanwhile, Satchit believes and actually says this site would have collapsed ages ago were it not for the energy he has put into it. I think the correct term for someone like him is ‘delusional wanker’, no matter what context it is viewed in.
Thanks ,Lokesh, for the laughter.
Certainly you repeat yourself, but even repetition can become sometimes a running gag.
“We know a lot about the people who reported on Osho’s death and there is no valid reason to think what they reported is untrue.”
Strange that you suddenly believe in reports, you, who is so much against all kind of beliefs.
Thanks again for the joke!
The other is always a black box. Only the person alone knows if he dies consciously or not.
Satchit, I find your stance lacks much in the way of creativity. You do not really address what is being said to you and brush it off as if you are above and beyond it all, which, of course, you are not. What you are is smug. A quality I have never liked in people. If nothing else, complacency is a very boring attribute to carry. I have nothing more to say to you for the time being.
It’s an old game you play here, Lokesh, and it is a bit boring.
Who cares about what you think of me, if I am creative or not in your eyes?
I am not here to fulfil your expectation, you are not here to fulfil mine. (Fritz Perls)
Better do your homework first!
Some of those statements were great. “Be prepared, plan for a miracle” was one of my favourites too. It seemed to somehow embody the essence of sannyas, of not doing the ‘mortgage, home, family, pets’ thing but living with the master as a disciple, sitting in Buddha Hall listening to discourses.
The idea of “sannyas or suicide” seems to me one of those slogans that does not carry the seed of truth, that spark of reality which makes a really great slogan. It has something rather desperate within it, as if one is fleeing from the normal world.
With death, it is only a few who go looking for it. By far the most are content to wait for it to happen. Osho also lived until it was time for him to go.
‘The idea of “sannyas or suicide” seems to me one of those slogans that does not carry the seed of truth, that spark of reality which makes a really great slogan. It has something rather desperate within it, as if one is fleeing from the normal world.”
I guess the idea is this:
If people like Van Gogh or Hemingway would have meditated, then they would not have killed themselves.
Satchit says, “If people like Van Gogh or Hemingway would have meditated, then they would not have killed themselves.” This is Satchit’s guess or interpretation.
Both of these creative giants were in a lot of pain before they took their own lives. You would have had to been a very advanced meditator to surmount their psychological and physical problems. It is all very well viewing a person from the outside and passing judgement, but one never can really guage the extent of an individual’s inner turmoil and suffering.
‘Sannyas or suicide.’ This is an advertising slogan. Blunt and to the point. It meant that if one did not become a sannyasin, one would most likely end up committing suicide. The prospect of suicide is not a very inspiring one. I better take sannyas. Oh yeah, and above all, don’t wobble.
I agree with you, Satchit, “Sannyas or suicide!” echoes the other phrase by Osho “Meditation or Third World War!”
I believe I have heard Osho use the word “suicide” also in relation to the ego, as an intuition connected to the practice of meditation, when it is not just an aestheticizing practice for beautiful souls.
In my case, but I believe I am not alone, when the facts of life (I am thinking of human relationships, in particular the one with my dying father) put me face-to-face with the consequences of a life lived without responsibility, they gave rise in me the need for a deep existential commitment to stop living someone else’s life.
I feel intimately ashamed every time that for practical reasons, of convenience/usefulness, I fall into the practice of compromise, instead of choosing the path of totality/integrity.
In the work environment I sometimes choose to join groups/companies that are very distant from me/sannyas, if not actually contrary/opposite. In the past I would have faced the risk of appearing to be the misfit of the day with lightheartedness, today I would react by treating them like sheep, as the pandemic has highlighted.
Today for me it is preferable to stay at home rather than go back to wearing one of the ego masks required in certain social contexts, almost a spiritual suicide, making compromises with the profound demands of Sannyas. I prefer to be alone to the moral suicide of the wrong company.*
Yes, I believe that the word “suicide” in the case of a victim of egocentrism, such as I was, is appropriate, and has a positive meaning, something dies, something else is born.
As regards cases of attempted suicide among drug users (by Christine Yuodelis-Flores and Richard K. Ries of the University of Washington in Seattle, USA), 40% have a history of attempted suicide.
A sannyasin who uses drugs, or a drug addict who does meditation seems to me to be a contradiction in terms.
The most convincing testimonies on the matter are by those who recognized that without meditation, with that existential commitment indicated by Osho, he/she would not have survived.
*Here I use the word “suicide” in the opposite sense compared to what I did before: if meditation in Osho’s perspective implies the death of the entity organized around the social expectations of the family, school, society…”today”, for a existence based on the core of the meditative experience, encountering existences and energies based on something very different implies a sort of “spiritual suicide”, that is, a return to the past, to the false, to the egoic choice based on convenience instead of love.
In fact all medicines are also drugs, and most people use some form of medicine. My father uses beta blokkers for his heart, I have a friend who uses lithium as a mood stabiliser…very few people are clean of “drugs”.
And addiction… it’s worth avoiding but there are all kinds of things you can be addicted to. Alcohol, sex, games, sugar, caffeine, you name it. Human beings addict easily, and it is always worth knowing your addictions.
The thing is, an addiction is almost always covering up some lack, some shortcoming in your regular life.
Satchit said, “if someone really sees suicide as a solution then it is difficult to hold him back.”
Yes, Satchit, but it all comes down to suffering. If you don’t suffer then what problem is suicide a solution for? It is really joy and happiness that matter. Meditation, knowing thyself, therapy are all routes to that.
For someone on the schizophrenic spectrum that is a much more difficult journey, they often have a load of suffering within them that is difficult to overcome.
But with joy and happiness you can choose for life, creativity, a joyful medium. So it is a question to look for the calm of your own mind, and the things that give you joy.
“In fact all medicines are also drugs, and most people use some form of medicine”. (Nirtyaprem)
Fair clarification, NP, everything is chemistry and everything can be addictive, in different ways and at different dosages, better clarify what/whom I’m referring to.
“The narcissist’s pervasive feelings of shame are the root cause of their multi-addictions. So, whenever they experience a narcissistic wound, the narcissist turns to one of their addictive mood-altering experiences to deliver them from pain, in this way their addiction becomes their form of self-soothing. For example, unable to regulate their strong feelings associated with shame, they may turn to one of their multi-addictions, i.e. a chemical substance as an auxiliary regulator (Hotchkiss, 2003), or to retail therapy, to get their fix.
Narcissism, by its very nature, is an obsession and a compulsion, therefore the narcissistic personality is particularly prone to addiction. Obsessed by the illusion of a False Self, and an inflated sense of their own superiority, power, and control, the narcissist renders themselves susceptible to all sorts of obsessions, compulsions, and addictions.
As well as being addicted to some of the classical addictions (i.e. drugs, alcohol, shopping, gambling, food, sex, etc.) the narcissist will also become addicted to anything that will assure the survival of their False Self. That is, anything that allows them to self- medicate against the pain of any unpleasant anxious emotions (i.e. loneliness, illness, failure, uncertainty, shame etc.) and guarantees the paralysis of the True Self.”
https://narcissisticbehavior.net/the-pathological-narcissists-multi-addictions/
In my opinion, the discriminating point in the use of non-endogenous chemistry (better to point out that the best chemistry is natural and free, when you are not in drug withdrawal syndrome or with a non-functioning endocrinological system) is whether this experience happened before or after the process of identification, which began when life (in particular human relationships) made us recognize the limits, the ugliness, the injustice of living in narcissism (at different degrees of it) and when luck simultaneously showed us “how beautiful a man can be”.
So to understand how to evaluate the use of exogenous chemistry for me it would be necessary to relate it to that fundamental point in human existence, having known or not the joy (endogenous chemistry) implicit in the discovery of the fundamental meaning in everything that exists, having realized the sense of dignity of feeling part of it, part of the mystery.
After this experience, I don’t believe that the following experiences, however traumatic, can make it seem preferable to escape into the artificial worlds of drugs when it is much more exciting and unpredictable to practise the art of being with what is there, at least while we are able to recognize it, otherwise, as I have already said, I am in favour of a dignified death, which cannot fail to include a celebration to thank existence and the people who have brightened our earthly transit.
Yesterday I met up with a sannyasin friend who had been a psychiatric nurse and had worked in hospices with the dying. He’s now in his sixties, and it was interesting listening to some of his stories. I’ve myself considered doing hospice work as a volunteer, it seems like an interesting way of doing something meaningful.
But I’ve always found it interesting how Osho recommended doing creative work of some kind. Music, painting, ceramics, graphic design, writing, I’ve tried these without making a full career of them. It strikes me that creative work is a kind of movement from inside to outside, it is a bringing forth of what is within, and then the question is can you make it beautiful?
It’s a very different process from caring, where you are mostly involved with other people and you do the same routine over and over again.
“It’s a very different process from caring, where you are mostly involved with other people and you do the same routine over and over again.’
I can’t agree with that. Caring for others brings endless possibilities for creativity. Most friends I know who did hospice work definitely added a new layer of depth to their lives.
Life has its routines…the sun rises and sets…yet we can add a bit more colour to those routines by becoming more creative.
Perhaps you can be a little creative in caring, if you choose to. You can interact with people in different ways, you can choose to play with them a little.
But it’s not the same as following a creative profession. I was a graphic designer for a few years when I was younger, and that was a continual work with what the eye finds beautiful, with expressing new possibilities from within, with making adjustments. All in order to make an end product that is beautiful, clear and readable.
With pottery, which I have continually come back to at different times in my life, there has been a similar process, you continually destroy what is there in order to make something new. It requires courage and judgment and practice. Which I don’t see in a caring profession.
To restrict ‘creativity’ to artistic endeavour seems an unnecessary narrowing down of the concept, NP, which doesn’t correspond to the nature of life. I agree with Lokesh on this, that life provides opportunities for creative responses in many contexts, not only in caring roles, obvious instances being making jokes, rearranging furniture, experimenting with fresh approaches in relationships, trying different tactics in football or other sports, modifying an exercise routine, and so on. Just observe children, for example.
And one doesn’t have to be a meditator or on a spiritual path (although that should certainly help) as, given a chance and ideally a modicum of inner well-being, everyone can be and invariably is a creator, it’s a key feature of our make-up. Working in a creative profession is demanding, requires a commitment of time, energy and skill, but so do other fields of work, whether as ways of earning an income or leisure pursuits.
That description of man as a “co-creator”, a ‘partner’ of ‘God’ (for want of a better word) hits the spot, I think. It’s just that there are many different ways of being creative, different levels, different talents, abilities on the creative spectrum which we’re born into as participants.
“Caring for others brings endless possibilities for creativity. Most friends I know who did hospice work definitely added a new layer of depth to their lives.
Life has its routines…the sun rises and sets…yet we can add a bit more color to those routines by becoming more creative.”
I can’t disagree with that.
In recent years Lokesh has shown a lot of creativity in beating up in colourful ways all those who disturbed his narcissistic routine in this forum, made up of cynicism and sarcasm with respect to everything that for him could be referable to a feeling of gratitude towards Osho, receiving in this also a little help from his friends (Satyadeva, Frank, Prem Martyn, Anand Yogi, Dominic).
Who knows how loving Lokesh (and his helper Satyadeva) would be to those he pushed early into the Sannyas News hospice, adding a new level of depth to his life…but I’m not sure if Arpana, Shantam Prem, Nepalis and other sannyasins around the world, they would like Lokesh to meddle in their underwear.
In the counterculture movements that started in the 1940s and took momentum in the 1960s a “square” referred to someone who clung to repressive, traditional, stereotypical, one-sided, or “in the box” ways of thinking. The term was used by hipsters in the 40s, beatniks in the 50s, hippies in the 60s, yippies in the 70s, and other individuals who took part in the movements which emerged to contest the more conservative national, political, religious, philosophical, musical and social trends.
It was in this context that Sly and the Family Stone’s trumpet player Cynthia Robinson yelled out in the hit ‘Dance to the Music’: “All the squares go home!”
AND…
Can anyone give me an example of a decent existential path from that psychedelic culture that claimed to change the world using the illuminations perceived thanks to the effort of swallowing a mushroom?
“With the growing success and celebrity of the band, however, numerous problems soon came. The relationships between the members of the group were deteriorating; there was constant friction in particular between the Stone brothers and Larry Graham. And Epic insistently asked for more successes from ranking to be placed on the market.
After moving to Los Angeles in late 1969, Stone and his companions began to use drugs heavily, particularly cocaine and PCP. As the members of the group sank deeper and deeper into drug addiction (Stone carried a violin case filled with drugs with him wherever he went), record production slowed down considerably. Between the summer of 1969 and the end of 1971, the band released only one single, ‘Thank You’ (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin) / Everybody Is a Star (December 1969).
Having moved to Los Angeles with then-girlfriend Deborah King, later Deborah Santana (Carlos Santana’s wife from 1973 until their divorce in 2007), Stone’s inspiration became increasingly sporadic. Epic, having no new material to release on the market, finally released ‘Greatest Hits’.
The band’s cohesion slowly began to fall apart, and so did their popularity and record sales. Errico left the group in 1971 and was replaced by Andy Newmark. Larry Graham and Stone were no longer on friendly terms, and Graham was fired in early 1972 and replaced by Rustee Allen. The band’s subsequent releases, ‘Fresh; (1973) and ‘Small Talk’ (1974), were more Sly Stone solo records than the group.
Sly & the Family Stone’s live bookings had been decreasing from 1970 onwards, because despite their still decent commercial success, promoters feared that Stone and the other members’ drug problems would cause problems during concerts. Indeed, the band often played badly under the influence of some drug or did not show up at concerts at all, and Stone sometimes left the stage without reason before the end of the performance. Ken Roberts became the band’s promoter, and later their general manager, when no one else wanted anything to do with the group due to their unreliability. In January 1975, the band performed at Radio City Music Hall. The arena was only partially filled, and Stone and his companions had to raise money for the trip home from their own pockets. After this failure, the band broke up.
Rose Stone was kicked out of the band by Bubba Banks, who was her husband at the time. Rose thus began a solo career, recording an album of Motown-style songs under the name Rose Banks in 1976. Freddie Stone joined Larry Graham’s band Graham Central Station for a time; then he collaborated with his brother one last time in 1979 for the album ‘Back on the Right Track’, and finally retired from the music business to become an evangelist pastor in Vallejo, California.
In 1990, Stone sang on Earth, Wind and Fire’s ‘Good Time’. In 1991, he appeared on the cover of his song ‘Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)’ by the Japanese band 13CATS. In 1993 he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame along with the other members of the Family Stone. In 2003, the other six members of the original Family Stone entered the studio to record a new album. Sly Stone was invited to participate in the project but declined the offer”.
(Sly Stone, frontman in the band Sly & the Family Stone, source Wikipedia)
Could someone warn our hero that the intoxicant market is already successful enough without his apologia?
Could it be that his obsession with prevailing over everyone, even in drug consumption, prevents him from seeing how he conforms to the standards of his community of hallucinating addicts?
In a context of spiritual growth like SN, does calling such a pointless provocateur a “troll” make me a square?
Veet F, please bear in mind that I’m writing as a non-drug taker (since age 20) and I can’t even accurately recall the last time I had alcohol. Not that I’ve necessarily closed such doors forever but they haven’t felt right for me, that’s all.
The widespread exposure to psychedelics of large numbers of intelligent, adventurous young people in the 60s and 70s was a highly significant factor in the upsurge of interest in eastern spirituality, and as such a key reason for the swift growth of Osho’s Sannyas movement in the West. Yes, there were drug casualties such as the band whose story you gleefully seize upon and quote, but that’s only part of the picture.
Attempting to exploit the story of an increasingly dysfunctional American rock band whose heyday was in the 60s is another atrociously cheap shot at a perceived ‘enemy’, any relevance of which dissolves through the simple facts that not only were many inspired by drugs to look further within for answers but also that you’re attempting to discredit a specific guy who has been and remains a genuine seeker, a fit, articulate 70 year-old with a gift for writing and degrees of wisdom allied to plenty of basic common sense through much life experience, including multiple modes of therapy, meditation and living, both in Osho’s movement and elsewhere, including considerable direct contact with Osho and other teachers.
You’ve scraped the barrel with this one, Veet F, and I’m afraid the result is an unappetising, inappropriate mess.
Once upon a psychedelic time, Baba Ram Dass had a timely book published, inviting and reminding people to…
“What you meet in another being is the projection of your own level of evolution.”
― Ram Dass
Quite right, Swamishanti. Did you know that in many parts of America marihuana is a schedule 1 substance? You can actually go to jail for a long time, many years, for holding a bag for your own use. While it’s mostly harmless, if not taken to extremes. But then so many things are harmful if taken to extremes — chocolate, potatoe crisps, alcohol can even kill you! Ridiculous.
The whole drug war is tremendously harmful to society, and we’d be much better off legalising a lot of these things. This is speaking as a non-drug user.
But apparently supporting the drug regime is a requisite of membership of the United Nations I read not so long ago.
“What you meet in another being is the projection of your own level of evolution.”
― Ram Dass
This is certainly true for your complacency!?
Fair enough, SD. It’s pretty much an argument about semantics in any case.
I’m not here to entertain you, Satyadeva, and it’s you who’s at the bottom of the barrel, something to scrape for your hippie friend.
Your friend discredits himself by thinking of coming here to discredit Osho’s disciples as conformists, including Sam, founder of SN and author of Life of Osho, read or reread it.
I asked the disciples of the Master of Masters in this Forum to give a positive example of that world of “rebels and conformists to the drug market” and you quote me one who mocks Osho and his lovers every day.
I shared an article that hypothesizes a relationship between narcissism and drug use and you suddenly burst out with compliments for an ego that risks sagging due to lack of applause.
I cited a study that says there is a very high percentage of attempted suicides among drug users, and you reply that many of those reached Osho’s feet…are you sure that they were not in India for other reasons, and no longer had credits from pushers?
How many of them just passed through Pune? How many of them went back to taking drugs or had never stopped doing it? How many with the still warm ashes of the Master of Masters went to look for a living one? Are you sure that the most talented artists dying under the age of thirty is an acceptable side-effect for spiritual growth?
You do future generations of possible Osho lovers a disservice by defending an old, bitter hippie who wants to explain to the world why it is better to buy a book of his, copied on the internet, than to read a speech by his rival.
Well, you’re certainly not my idea of an entertainer, Veet, pouring out such vitriol.
Setting aside your gratuitously misplaced insults, together with any similarly misguided implication that I’m a drug enthusiast myself (have you actually read what I wrote or are you blinded by what’s already in your head?) I repeat that what I said was that back then, in the 60s and 70s, the insights experienced by many who experimented with drugs fuelled a thirst for further profound inner experience, significant numbers of whom found Osho as a result. It was part of the huge waves of change in those days, not the only factor leading to a spiritual quest, but nevertheless an important one – whether you approve or not doesn’t alter that fact.
You appear to assume I’m saying that Osho’s ashram was inundated with chronically addicted drug users, which I’m not, that wasn’t the case. Many took acid etc. and moved on without becoming addicts. And by the way, unlike you, I was actually around the scene at the time, so I’m reporting from experience, not from hearsay or personal preference or imagination, or rage.
(By the way, I’ve read ‘Life of Osho’, in fact I sub-edited it for Pari (pen name ‘Sam’) whom I knew a bit as he was a friend of Parmartha).
SS, judging by the great artists who died because of heroin, we should infer that it too can create a certain heavenly condition, powerful enough to stimulate creativity in the attempt to tell such ecstasy.
The question remains open about the recreational use of drugs such as LSD, when not included in therapeutic rituals, otherwise how to explain the repeated repetition of this experience by people, I would say the majority, uninterested in spiritual research?
If it were true that through LSD & Marijuana people saw new and progressive possibilities of reality, for example compared to an old social order, you would agree that after an ideative/theoretical phase, if you really want to change things, should follow the practical/realization phase, which does not require continuing to take drugs, the rebel must be lucid if he wants to be effective in the action.
The argument that LSD and Marijuana is a threat to the status quo and should therefore be made illegal should have the consequence that other drugs that kill and numb should be legal, but they are all equally illegal.
Yesterday I asked a question:
“Can anyone give me an example of a decent existential path from that psychedelic culture that claimed to change the world using the illuminations perceived thanks to the effort of swallowing a mushroom?”
Satyadeva in an attempt to answer began to defend Lokesh; for me, on the contrary, he is the example of existential failure, or put another way, the triumph of the ego.
This here can not be stated otherwise the good man of the stars (SD) goes into square mode and makes a list of the last forbidden words used by me against Lokesh/Trollesh, forgetting those used by him towards me (this would be the least if some cuckold didn’t worsen the regularity of the debate by changing the text of my comments).
MOD:
Post edited due to foul, abusive language.
I think marijuana and LSD are a threat to the status quo, but the status quo deserves to be threatened. The world is currently drowning in a sea of materialist sentiment, people worrying about jobs and houses and cars and banks.
Being inspired to go on a spiritual quest, a visionary experience is a good thing. As is finding new music and art in other dimensions. But it needs to be done with respect.
I think where the hippies went wrong is just taking acid at a Grateful Dead concert. The whole idea of an Ayahuasca ceremony is to guide the experience and give it room to grow.
NP thinks where the hippies went wrong is just taking acid at a Grateful Dead concert.
I think that is where the hippies went right. Every time I dropped acid and went to see The Dead I had a blast. It was more than a religious experience.
“But I’ve always found it interesting how Osho recommended doing creative work of some kind. Music, painting, ceramics, graphic design, writing”
Fact is, cleaning the floor can also be creative.
It depends on your inner state.
A friend of mine worked also in a hospice.
One must be ready for the different ways of dying.
You can bring a sense of play to anything, but that doesn’t make it creative, Herr Satchit.
The hospice in town here has closed temporarily, so it doesn’t look like I’ll be volunteering there anytime soon.
It depends.
If you do things in a loving way, you create beauty.
This is how it is, Meneer Nityaprem.
It’s very much sannyas-cliche, but is it actually true? It could be a diversion into an incorrect path,
Strange, Nitya, your name is ‘Prem’ and you don’t know about prem.
If you would know, you would not talk about cliches.
Hitler once wrote that any statement repeated often enough took on the appearance of truth. That is how cliches form, and it is a good thing to examine them again and again to see if they are still true.
NP, you need not quote Hitler.
Here on SN you find also people who repeat their crap endlessly.
Ever been in a Zen monastery?
A Tibetan Buddhist temple here in the Netherlands is as close as I’ve been to a Zen monastery,` Satchit. I enjoyed the experience and received an initiation from the Dagpo Rinpoche, it was nice. The garden was beautiful.
So now you have a second identity beside being a Sannyasin.
As a Buddhist you have to follow certain rules?
They’re more a kind of suggestions, but yes, there are five precepts which are given to all Buddhists. But then, I don’t call myself a Buddhist. I still enjoy a hefeweize half-litre once in a while…
I was watching Hamilton’s Pharmacopeia (a television series about a variety of psychoactive compounds, their uses and chemistry) about the Peyote cactus, and how it is used in the Native American Church. It’s a classic case of a plant being used as a sacrament… to me a whole bunch of things about religion are slowly starting to make sense.
Ingesting these plants causes a religious experience, so it makes sense to use them as a sacrament, part of a ritual at the core of a religious movement. Just as the South American curanderos do with Ayahuasca, so the North American Natives do with Peyote. In a way it is the old indigenous wisdom which goes back 200,000 years to our hunter gatherer ancestors.
It is a shame that a lot of the chemical drugs don’t have a similar ritual and religious aspect. Substances like mescaline, LSD and so on can cause powerful experiences, but they are often not treated with similar respect, but are just handed out like candies. They seem to be gateways to experiencing other dimensions, places where myth and meaning become real.
You could imagine a religion a hundred years from now around an LSD sacrament, wouldn’t that be something
It seems that rituals involving psychoactive mushrooms go back 6,000 years at least according to cave paintings in the Moroccan Atlas mountain range. It seems very likely to me that these kinds of experiences are the root of the religious impulse in mankind, if you consider what strange ideas have been generated.
I’m not the first to come up with that idea I am sure, Terence McKenna often spoke about the role of psychoactive mushrooms in the early evolution of the human brain, which was the so-called “Stoned Ape” theory. I’m not sure whether we can attribute much evolution to these things, but perhaps a few ideas that wouldn’t otherwise have been generated came along because of it.
And apparently humans were not the only one of our closely related cousin species to indulge, it seems Neanderthals also had a taste for psychoactive substances.
https://www.indy100.com/science-tech/scientists-neanderthals-getting-high
All things considered, Osho was very much a hippy. He claimed to be the world’s biggest dropout, enjoyed flashing the peace sign, dressed in flamboyant outfits, enjoyed free love, and had a relationship with mood-altering and mind-bending drugs. Of course, Osho had a reason for taking nitrous oxide and valium. They helped him cope with extreme physical pain.
Laughing gas was a firm favourite of the Grateful Dead, but even there Osho probably outdid the psychedelic rock band when it came to consuming the gas.
Now we have Veet, a confirmed square, getting fired up about his anti-drug and anti-hippy stance, meanwhile believing he is a true disciple of the master of masters, who was a drug user, for whatever reasons, and encourage people to drop out. How Veet manages to rationalize his reactionary mindset is anyone’s guess, if anyone could even be bothered to hazard a guess.
All things considered, Osho was very much a hippy. He claimed to be the world’s biggest dropout, enjoyed flashing the peace sign, dressed in flamboyant outfits, enjoyed free love, and had a relationship with mood-altering and mind-bending drugs. Of course, Osho had a reason for taking nitrous oxide and valium. They helped him cope with extreme physical pain.
Laughing gas was a firm favourite of the Grateful Dead, but even there Osho probably outdid the psychedelic rock band when it came to consuming the gas.
Now we have Veet, a confirmed square, getting fired up and applying his special brand of warped logic to his anti-drug and anti-hippy crusade, meanwhile believing he is a true disciple of the master of masters, who was a drug user, for whatever reasons, and encouraged people to drop out. How Veet manages to rationalize his reactionary mindset is anyone’s guess, if anyone could even be bothered to hazard a guess.
Satyadeva, I’m glad that you corrected or almost completely aborted your comment of December 2, 2023 at 3:31 am, where you exposed yourself to a possible accusation by right-thinking people of “crime apologia”.
If you have these fears, you were right to point out later that you have been sober for years and don’t use drugs, unlike me who, when I pass by Holland or when some old friend I meet by chance takes out a joint, I take a few puffs.
Cesanese del Piglio is the red wine of the area where I live, an alternative to the one I loved most, sipped at the Miasto canteen, the Tuscan Chianti, at least one bottle a month, in winter, to share with my mother.
Luckily I’ve never loved cocaine, they say it’s performative one, maybe that’s why I don’t like it, for me the high had to be a quiet walk in the clouds.
I feared heroin too much to let it flow freely through my veins, experiences due to the alienation of a soldier locked in a barracks at 20 years old.
Even younger, between 13 and 16 years old, lots of beer and joints.
No experience with hallucinogens.
During my years in Rome I met by chance the Italian anti-prohibitionist leader Marco Pannella, who worked with Majid to end the disgusting operation against Osho, fighting in Parliament to get him a visa to be a guest in our country, a couple of times I was a guest at his house talking about the issues of the Radical Party.
I have nothing against people who choose to take drugs, if they are not intolerant and consider those who prefer to meditate conformists or moralists.
I have hypothesized that there is indeed a conformism of nonconformity, and your kilt-clad hero, Satyadeva, is a shining example of this.
You, Satyadeva, with your comment (before you corrected it) reacted according to the principle of belonging (generational, national, relational,…) to a consideration of mine regarding the judgment (square) that one of the Hippy community addresses to those who choose the former between meditation and suicide through drugs.
You, completely missing the point, rushed to defend, once again, the irresponsibility of a Hippy and his prerogative to come here in an Osho context to make the usual accusations based on an alleged and imaginary superiority.
You used the “square” argument, as the respect based on age (poor Lokesh is 70), supposing creativity of people who have a lot of experiences out of the normal tracks: Lokesh as good artist…this is an ambiguous topic, if associated with drugs, as the counterfactual is not available: what they would have produced if sober the artists who died out of drugs and those who survived using it?
Veet F, at 3.31am I simply clarified my own preference re drugs as, following my earlier post (1.11am), you were eager to identify me otherwise and consequently ready to seize a perceived opportunity to condemn anything I might have to say.
I’m not going to waste energy ploughing through all your outraged comments except to suggest you’re far too inclined to put Lokesh ‘in a box’, to label him with the obvious pejorative “one of the Hippy community” with “the irresponsibility of a Hippy”, thereby comimg across as something of a blinkered reactionary, the easily offended type that in past centuries would happily volunteer to search the land for alleged apostates, those that had the temerity to diverge from what he believed to be ‘the ‘one and only true Belief, the one and only Way’.
Have you ever bothered to take a good look inside and ask yourself how come you allow yourself to get so very angry? I mean beyond the egoic “How dare he criticise me?!” reactivity and the “I’m protecting the integrity of Osho’s work” sort of rationalisation? You say you’re offended by “an alleged and imaginary superiority” – insecurity, even perhaps jealousy, at some barely conscious level?
Satyadeva, it is you who have been anxious to answer me at one o’clock at night, normal time for me (I do seasonal job, May to Sept.) and I play football until 11 pm., to say that Lokesh is a handsome 70-year-old man, very creative and blah blah blah.
Can I disagree with you?
Why aren’t you so eager to intervene when someone who loves Osho is criticized/insulted?
From what do you infer that Lokesh would be less indignant than me in his propensity to put everything that revolves around Osho in the box of gullible?
Does the fact that you are always by his side perhaps make you less indignant by implicitly sharing his own propensity?
Of course, do not waste energy analyzing among the comments of your friends who have transcended Osho and come here to hunt down those who have not yet done the same, you may discover what clue of obsession is this use of blinkers to satisfy such reactionary attitude.
Little man, don’t you feel uncomfortable writing such bullshit like this: “thereby comimg across as something of a blinkered reactionary, the easily offended type that in past centuries would happily volunteer to search the land for alleged apostates.” What are you talking about? Who would be the apostate chased by a pack of my dogs?
The right metaphor would be another, this: a bunch of apostates, drug addicts, hippies, hallucinators who enter a meditation room full of people, and who start taking turns shitting on the empty chair of the Master of Masters.
You are part of the group, you are shy and with a lazy intestine, a kind-mannered follower, like all hypocrites, you don’t shit in public but you use your mouth to say bullshit against those who protest, like this:
“Have you ever bothered to take a good look inside and ask yourself how do you allow yourself to get so very angry? I mean beyond the egoic “How dare he criticize me?!” reactivity and the “I’m protecting the integrity of Osho’s work” sort of rationalisation? You say you’re offended by “an alleged and imaginary superiority” – insecurity, even perhaps jealousy, at some barely conscious level?”
Veet F, your rage is out of all proportion to the reality here, fuelled by your imagination, feeding on itself. Take this absurdly lurid description, for instance:
“The right metaphor would be another, this: a bunch of apostates, drug addicts, hippies, hallucinators who enter a meditation room full of people, and who start taking turns shitting on the empty chair of the Master of Masters.”
This cariacature actually reminds me of the kind of reactionary rants my school headmaster used to make in morning assembly, raging against the evils of “woodpecker shoes” (his version of ‘winkelpickers’ie ‘pointed’ shoes), long hair that dared to touch the ears and 16 year-olds not wearing their school caps “properly”!
I do believe Veet has retired from SN. I think poor Satchit will be the only one to miss him because Veet actually agreed with something Satchit said. Birds of a feather….
Actually Veet was tired of fighting with someone who is smug like Lokesh.
Guess who can’t get over being told he was smug and complacent? No prizes for giving the right answer.
It’s just a case of mirroring.
The ego is always smug and complacent.
Spiritual bypassing can be defined as “a tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved issues, psychological wounds, the truth about oneself and unfinished developmental tasks.”
Satchit, the SN village idiot, declares, “The ego is always smug and complacent.”
This is, of course, completely untrue. Egos come in all shapes and sizes. Some egos are, contrary to being smug, sheepish. The same goes for complacent. Some egos appear to be humble.
The whole ‘Ego Trip’ went out the window decades ago. Osho talked about ego a lot and some fools, taking Osho’s understanding for their own, still parrot ego-speak, but really it has passed its sell-by date.
New frontiers have been crossed, in terms of understanding the human condition, that go way beyond seeing that everything one does has to do with the ego. Humans are far more complicated than that. These days talking about ego sounds old-fashioned and simplistic, and just too easy a path to tread in order to explain away why people do the things they do.
Certainly ego exists.
And Lokesh has a very fat one.
It thinks it can insult me here with “village idiot” and nothing happens. Maybe.
We will see if Veet was right when he said that SD supports him or how far this so-called SN policy goes?
MOD:
Satchit, you’ll find far worse than “village idiot” in others’ posts, notably Veet’s.
The village idiot declares, “It’s just a case of mirroring.”
He then follows up with, “Certainly ego exists.
And Lokesh has a very fat one.”
Really, man, this is kid’s stuff.
Satchit then complains that I am trying to insult him by calling him “the village idiot” when, in fact, I am just stating an obvious truth. Satchit is, without doubt, the most stupid person currently writing on SN.
So-called SN policy? Why so-called? SN has a definite policy, wherein everyone is allowed to share their opinion, no matter how stupid they are. If this were not the case Satchit’s comments would no longer appear on the site.
Lokesh, the kid with the fat ego wrote:
“Really, man, this is kid’s stuff.”
Yes, Daddy!
The Master of the Masters said we shall become kids again.
So everything is fine.
I agree, SD, that metaphor was out of all proportion, as if Veet actually spends time trying to make up offensive make-believe situations… I mean why would you bother?
P.S:
That old headmaster of mine was known as ‘Square’!
Hmm, well, I’m all in favour of tolerance, kindness, fellow feeling. It’s too easy as life carries you towards old age to become embittered and suffer many egoic reactions. Every once in a while the ego should be given a thorough enema, to get rid of the sludge build-up.
I’ve had my morning coffee, done a little meditation (twenty minutes of a Mooji exercise) and am now catching up on the forums across the world. Last night I was performing a time-hallowed function as the helper of Sinterklaas who delivers wrapped presents at the neighbours door. It went well so I can feel pleased about that.
I have no idea why people who say they’ve left Osho behind make innuendos about the sexual orientation of those who haven’t yet done the same. Could this be a sign of a lack of self-confidence regarding their virility? Maybe a child who doesn’t look like them at all? Or the courtship of a pen pal who continues to lick their ass in a forum?
The whole LGBT movement and openness about diverse genders seems to have a lot of buy in from the younger generation, it’s quite interesting how things are changing. Sometimes you see a teenager dressed in androgynous clothing and you get the sense there is no longer the same stigma in many places as there used to be.
Of course, it is up to the parents to move with that new acceptance, to not be reactionary and transphobic or stiff when the kids are confused about becoming sexual creatures. I mean in my day we didn’t even have sex education at school, that all came later. And I belong to what is generally known as Generation X, so consider myself relatively modern.
I wonder what Osho would have made of the gender-diversity and neuro-diversity movements… we all know what he said about homosexuality early on, and late on. Would he have moved with the times do you think?
Would Osho have moved with the times do you think?
In respect to moving with the times’ financial aspects, I daresay most definitely. Osho took a while to pick up on the fact that gay people can often be quite well off with pink dollars to spend. His attitude towards gay people softened over the years, possibly because he realized he was missing out on a money-making opportunity. Osho enjoyed making money. Apart from that, being gay became more respectable over the years, due perhaps in part to a few well-known and influential people coming out and declaring they were gay.
Amongst my gay sannyasin friends, the all agreed that being gay around Osho was never a problem, even though in the early days Osho put gay people down.
Due to a change in circumstances my morning routine has altered somewhat, and I have taken to spending my morning hours in a re-reading of Nisargadatta Maharaj’s book ‘I Am That’. Now on my first reading years ago I found the sensation was rather like a power drill going within, rather uncomfortable. But I got something out of it, and was left with a lot of respect for this book.
This current reading seems to be going much deeper. I find myself pausing to think and consider after every other question and answer in some of its short chapters, it just is a very densely packed book if you consider and actually live every question and answer. I am enjoying it very much.
Just now I came across a beautiful section where Nisargadatta was talking about longing and earnestness. He said that to find the ultimate reality nothing more was needed beyond longing and earnestness, that one could perform any kind of action with the longing to become realised and it would take you there. Wonderful!
Satchit, you need to differentiate between being childlike and being childish. The latter of which is what category your comments mainly fall into. So, contrary to your conclusion, “So everything is fine”, I would say it is not and that you need to wise up a bit and get yourself out of that corner you’ve boxed yourself into, wherein you imagine you know the answer to everything when, in reality, you know and understand very little of worth, and have nothing much genuine to share, content to trade in tired spiritual cliches.
You say, “The Master of the Masters said we shall become kids again.” That does not mean you should behave like a kid.
JC was the first one whom I heard verbalizing this sentiment: “He called a little child and had him stand among them. And he said: “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me.”
Seems your memory is no more so good, Lokesh.
Old age? You started the hostility here (“Poor Satchit”, “Village idiot”).
To your judgements and projections about me:
Seems you are also a disciple of Hitler.
By repeating them endlessly, they will not become true.
I don’t know the answer to everything.
My comment was not childish, but playful.
You know the difference?
Swamishanti said; “coming back to the topic, here’s a freshly discovered meeting and exchange between two masters who could be said to be of Osho’s lineage, his bodyguard Vasant Swaha and Vishrant.”
Interesting, yes. I’ve now watched a few of Vishrant’s videos, and I think it’s not bad that he is putting himself out there as ‘fruit from the Osho tree’…it’s very clear he is Australian and very forthright, he is not your blissed-out kinda guy, and the look in his eye is still quite on the defence-aggression plane, darting left and right.
As a contrast from the Near-death experience world I’d suggest you take a look at Peter Panagore’s story which I recently came across on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/lCpBa1xgFv0
He has a community which he calls “Not Church” where he goes over the Gospel of Thomas, and he talks about his experience of the Light which changed his life.
I’ve watched some of Vishrant’s videos, after watching his loveosho podcast with Swaram. He had a powerful mindblowing satori whilst interviewing Osho at the Ranch in 1985.
I haven’t seen any defensiveness. I watched one where he spoke about absorbing all the denser vibrations of the emotions of the people around him , which is then transmuted into bliss. That is what happens with any authentic Buddha such as Osho.
I watched the video of his interview with Osho, it was interesting to see both the younger Vishrant and how he interacted with Osho. It’s on Vishrants YouTube channel.
But props to him to actually have a YouTube channel. It has to be tough to be continually compared to Osho, who was a wonderful public speaker and had great presence. I wish Vishrant the best of luck.
At the end of the video you posted originally, Swaha says “I am just doing my masters work” and Vishrant agrees with him that they are both doing that. But in a way that is still a follower’s attitude, not that of someone who is enlightened himself.
The thing is, if you look at Papaji, a whole bunch of people came from that and started teaching. Not only Mooji but others like Gangaji and Ganga Mira and others. Now Papaji didn’t leave any techniques or meditations, and didn’t allow many people to stay beyond a few weeks. Therefore there is a lot of variety in the teachings, but they all give satsang.
Swaha on the other hand mentioned all these Osho devices which he employs at his centres, like gibberish. So I guess if you want a taste of Osho’s methods from someone who was there, he is your man.
NP: “ Swaha says “I am just doing my masters work” and Vishrant agrees with him that they are both doing that. But in a way that is still a follower’s attitude, not that of someone who is enlightened himself.”
But Swaha also mentions in the video that he is ‘one with the master’. That means that is enlightened and still with Osho. Dissolved into the Master. Dissolved into Existence. It is a love affair.
“As person I don’t exist. As a person I only appear. I exist only as a Presence.”
Osho: The Invitation.
Vishrant also feels that he is doing his masters work but it is not clear from the video if he is still with Osho’s presence.
What exactly constitutes Osho’s presence?
Your openness constitutes it.
Mercedes met Benz, Dow met Jones, and Satchit met Veet. A dream team, taking Osho’s vision beyond 20/20 into warped dimensions beyond the known. Be prepared and plan for a miracle and never forget that only losers win in this game and what a wonderful pair of losers they are. Fighting and resisting the sources forming the axis of evil, trying to destroy Osho’s work here on SN. Bravely going where no man has been stupid enough to go before in the quest to create new absurdities and incomprehensible nonsense that no person in their right mind can understand. You could not make it up. Valiant heroes of consciousness bringing readers to a level of no-mind previously believed to be unreachable. A veritable incarnation of Krishna and Arjuna in the no-mind’s land of the vast battlefield of maya. Jai Osho!
Very playful, Loco.
We are happy that we are the cause of your creativity.
Jai Osho!
Spiritual bypassing can be defined as a tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved issues, psychological wounds, the truth about oneself and unfinished developmental tasks.”
Interesting subject, Lokesh.
Why not write an article about this?
You know, I cannot do this, I am too stupid.
You have successfully bypassed the dangerous task of writing an article about spiritual bypassing! Congratulations!
Why not write an article about this?
Already done.
https://sannyasnews.org/now/archives/8835
Do you still think many sannyasins are guilty of taking a spiritual leap without clearing up their own stuff first, Lokesh? Osho was kind of instrumental in that, by telling people they were already Buddhas, or trying through encounter groups to bring stuff to the surface more quickly. In psychotherapy dealing with one’s stuff takes years, in buddhist meditation also.
Certainly a lot of spiritual seekers seem to be looking for a quick fix, it’s something I have been guilty of myself: Just try this meditation and it will set you right! What you end up with is just a selection of tricks of the spirit.
NP asks, “Do you still think many sannyasins are guilty of taking a spiritual leap without clearing up their own stuff first, Lokesh?”
To be honest, this is not something I would even consider thinking about right now because it does not concern me. Osho invited just about everyone to the party including fools, wonderful people, misfits etc. He cast his net far and wide and caught a mixed bag of fish. It is obvious that he strongly impacted on many people’s lives.
How much that has to do with the long term effect he had upon people is up for debate. On a seeking for the truth level, I think Osho made it all look too easy for people and the delusional just became more delusional as a result. You do not have to look further than SN for evidence of that.
From what I’ve seen, sannyasins were very varied in their mental make-up. A lot of heart people, not so many real head people in my experience. To try and guide such an eclectic mixture towards enlightenment with just discourses would seem a near-impossible task.
But then, I’m not sure whether guiding others to enlightenment is at all possible. Papaji appeared to have some success, and Buddha was said to have managed it with groups of up to 200 monks (in the Fire Sermon). But even people like Ramana had only the occasional positive result.
I never look at life in terms of enlightenment. I live my life from one day to the next and am grateful to be able to do that, even though I see that we do not really do anything. Life just happens. Who needs enlightenment?
I think it is a question of maturity… Nisargadatta wrote in ‘I Am That’ that many refusals to go looking for self knowledge were down to a lack of ripeness, a certain crudity and immaturity at some level. He also prescribed awareness as the remedy.
I think if you are truly ready for it then these things happen more or less by themselves. The master will present himself once the student is truly ready for him.
I think self-knowledge and the concept of enlightenment are two very different things.
Anyone with a bit of intelligence needs some self-knowledge to help them live and navigate in the world. Without some self-knowledge we become biological robots or become lost.
Enlightenment, in the sense of complete dissolution of the individual self, is a different thing entirely. We do not really need it if we are content and enjoying life. If you want a guru quote on it, how about Osho saying, “Seek and you will miss”? I think the idea being that you cannot search for something that was never lost in the first place. Besides, acccording to the enlightened, enlightenment simply happens when the time is right. The fruit falls from the tree when it is ripe.
According to Nisargadatta enough self-enquiry and enough awareness lead inexorably to ripeness. So perhaps they are linked after all.
Yes, NP, your self-knowledge has to become stronger.
You have to boil the water.
Dear NP,
Your article absolutely resonated with me. Unlike many of you here, I was born a little too late to sit with the Master. Instead my whole experience is through his books, audio tapes, and videos – shallow substitutes for the real thing. I can honestly say that I have never had such an experience of finding a living teacher and being so absolutely encapsulated by them that I’ve wanted to give up everything to be with them – to leave my whole life and fly across the world. And I think that’s my loss, because that is beautiful.
I love Bhagwan and his Vision, there’s no doubt, but a piece of me pines for such an experience; to be so enraptured, so utterly and fully and completely caught up and in love. And so while I love Bhagwan, I can’t help but feel that my love is a fraction of your love, or anyone’s love who was there with him. And that is not to put myself down, I’m just being honest.
I suppose you could say that I’m just a little tiny bit jealous of that, because knowing myself, I just can’t see myself being so taken in by anyone else after knowing and reading Bhagwan’s teachings. Others may exist, others may also be great and wise, but for me, Bhagwan’s teachings were just so true-to-core that going to anyone else would almost feel like almost a betrayal. It took me a lot of searching to find him, and I just don’t think I can replace that so easily.
Interesting and insightful post, Teema. I think it’s true for many sannyasins that they don’t want to leave Bhagwan behind. But in a way he always did encourage us to look widely, to Buddha, Lao Tse, Kabir and many others, so I don’t see it as a betrayal, more as an extension of Bhagwan’s own exposition of the religious.
We were lucky, because in the 20th century there were quite a few major figures: Jiddu Krishnamurti, Ramana Maharshi, Bhagwan, Papaji, Nisargadatta, U.G. Krishnamurti and others. Bhagwan didn’t say that much about them, but I feel they were influential and worth investigating. Many of them were rebels.
In a way, the sense of missing that you have with Bhagwan I have with Papaji. In 1996 I was in India, I could have travelled to Lucknow easily, but ended up missing the opportunity. It was also a bit of a failure of taking the leap. By all accounts he was also a living enlightened guru, and now I too am limited to reading the books and watching a few docus on YouTube.
From experience, I’d say that you do not end up at wise guy’s feet unless it is meant to happen.
I was first shown this in 1972, when I was in north India and was presented with an opportunity to visit Neem Karoli Baba’s ashram. It did not happen. For some years I regretted that until I realised I was just not ready for it.
When I arrived in Lucknow and first sat at Poonjaji’s feet I had the distinct impression that it was not so much to do with my personal efforts, but rather that I had been placed there because I needed to be there for some unknown reason.
With Osho it was slightly more complicated. I needed help and spiritual guidance and he supplied it.
I have no idea if any of those guys were enlightened or not. It makes no difference to me. I benefitted greatly from meeting them and that is what counts.
It might be a cliche but I know it to be true…the master will appear in your life when the time is right.
Teema’s comment hosts many misconceptions, due no doubt to lack of experience. The idea that she would somehow be betraying Osho by hooking up with another master is pure myopic nonsense. Spiritual masters have different personalities and different delivery systems. If a master is indeed authentic you will experience exactly the same vibe while sitting in their presence. Many have their way of trying to describe that vibeI call it the cool breeze, because that is how I experienced it. Appearances are many the truth is singular.
Certainly that there might be a natural evolution from one guru to the next was very much something that people like Nisargadatta talked about.
Bhagwan I recall once saying in reply to a question, “if you are with me, you should be with me, not with other gurus.” But now that he is no longer with us, except in spirit, I don’t see anything wrong with it…there is the whole idea of all outer gurus being just a reflection of the inner guru.
But I can understand Teema’s point of view; maybe she wil ripen into a more plural view and maybe not. My mother is another one of those sannyasins for whom Bhagwan was the one and only master, and she is now 74 and still going strong.
“Bhagwan I recall once saying in reply to a question, “if you are with me, you should be with me, not with other gurus.”
I recall him saying, if you feel attracted to some other guru, it is He who sends you there.
So relax, everything is fine!
Correct, Satchit.
“I can honestly say that I have never had such an experience of finding a living teacher and being so absolutely encapsulated by them that I’ve wanted to give up everything to be with them – to leave my whole life and fly across the world. And I think that’s my loss, because that is beautiful.”
Your loss is that you compare and don’t accept yourself.
@Teema, you wrote to NP:
“I love Bhagwan and his Vision, there’s no doubt, but a piece of me pines for such an experience; to be so enraptured, so utterly and fully and completely caught up and in love. And so while I love Bhagwan, I can’t help but feel that my love is a fraction of your love, or anyone’s love who was there with him. And that is not to put myself down, I’m just being honest.“
I remember once viewing some of a transcript of a group that Devageet, Osho’s dentist, ran at an Osho centre in Germany. This was long after Osho had left the body.
At he prepared the group for one of their meditation sessions his words were something along the lines of: “ He is waiting to meet us in our hearts. “
And this statement was coming out of Devageet’s direct experience and understanding, not something copied out of any book.
Devageet was very close to Osho whilst he was in the body as well, and a real devotee.
Chetna and Swaram, two second generation sannyasins, have written here years ago, but since left. A few days ago after it was mentioned I tried to find a comment Chetna made about feeling Osho’s presence to Lokesh when he said it was imagination but it seems to have disappeared or been edited. Anyhow, they created the ‘Loveosho’ podcasts which can still be found, a treasure trove for new sannyasins.
But they’re currently involved in a project where they teach meditation to business people and have gone undercover with their legal names.
P.S:
For the other commentators here, Teema is actually a man, not a woman.
You mentioned UG above – a non-teaching teacher Osho did blame to the shits…but that was to be interesting enough when you will get curious someday – going best on your own way.
Then you may also read some six quotes by Osho about UG and will check and balance it with your own video-reality and some UG writings (‘The Mystique of Enlightenment’ for example). The resulting appreciation will be another window for this multiple thing called Buddhahood if you are mature enought…hahaha.
Very interesting is this parrot-video where they also mention Osho, btw. That disciple-film producer and that funny, always spitting UG do their best to kill the one to “meet you on the way.”
Well done:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0giYl6bi7Os
Something is very badly missing here – as we only talk about the past -and how we look at it from today. It’s a critically missing update we never dare to discuss here.
The new article/headline (who will do it?) could just be like:
‘Here & Now: Things To Come: About Putin’s Coming World War’.
What more to say except things out there are getting worse and worse, and have been for a long, long time? While on the other hand a growing percentage of the world’s population are beginning to wake up…allthough maybe too slowly and too few of us anyway to avoid a global catastrophe?
But there is much more to say abou it, Satyadeva.
But maybe not in a board of our wise Sannyas believers…Here & Now?
My last virtual connections with social media sannyasins taught me a sad story. Osho has gone for many – in depth and own insights. What remains there for many are those old quotes inhaled as a sufficient belief system. Spiritual stereotypes and substitutes filled the mind. So-called meditation is just another hang-up in first-life. Intelligence of the mind was not trained for decades because of those rational doubts in the mind, thought to be our evil anti-force.
Some even follow Trump and Putin as if there is a new need for guru-dictators, while Osho fades out more and more – with it the former cognition that could not grow any longer while missing a vivid buddhafield….
Most real-life sannyasins live a life we don’t know about because they don’t share it on social media.
And those who still openly think about what Sannyas means to them have not matured as much as they want to believe. We circle around that Osho-Kaaba and hate to watch our religious system having overgrown that real thing of the past, once alive…
The end is near, is closer than ever – but we philosophise on theological aspects, how close we may have come to truth and the centre of it all. It’s a funny intellectual tragedy.
Most (social-media) sannyasins have filled their emptiness with esoteric substitutes like conspiratorial paranoia, fringe-”science” and alt right pseudo-politics. It’s such a shame.
Such things are rarely discusssed by old farts like us.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/sannyaslostandfound
MOD:
“Osho has gone for many – in depth and own insights.”
What does “in own insights” mwean, please, Veet Tom? Are you referring to “many” sannyasins preferring their “own insights” to those revealed by Osho? Or to something else?
“The new article/headline (who will do it?) could just be like:
‘Here & Now: Things To Come: About Putin’s Coming World War’.”
Yes, Tom, talking about the past is not good.
Osho’s vision is talking about the future.
I always appreciated what the mushroom intelligence told Terrance MacKenna when he asked why the mushrooms came to this planet.
“Well”, said Mushroom Central, “things were pretty nice here before the monkeys got out of control.”
Flying above “Osho-Island” in second life – years ago…
I posted a video link recently on Caravanserai which may be of interest or worthwhile to remember. Caravanserai is the only choice if you don’t want to continue a certain thread – this time – but overlooked maybe.
What about that clever, small-budget movie? Is it just pure science fiction/horror/fantasy…or also a film about spiritual communes in the West? I tend to think that Rajneeshpuram has influenced it as well as those famous deadly cults. Some characters and movies are interesting enough to reflect on in our weekly Sannyas meditation before the entertainment-screen. (I also watched it again just now).
And…
” ‘The Endless’ acclaimed film-makers Moorhead and Benson return with this mind-bending supernatural thriller about two brothers who revisit the UFO death cult they escaped as teens, only to find there may have been truth to the cult’s otherworldly beliefs all along….”
https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B07DD13QJH/ref=atv_dp_share_cu_r
https://www.amazon.de/gp/video/detail/B07ZRXXKFH/ref=atv_dp_share_
What a strange, empty, lonely second life that was…but funny.