Here, Nitya Prem reflects on his exploration of the teachings and methods of Osho and non-duality teachers, assesses the effects up to now of Osho’s work, and reaches a simple personal conclusion.
During my great spiritual wandering of the last twelve years late on I inherited a trove of books by non-duality authors, which I still occasionally read from. Which has meant me getting a little more familiar with the lingo, the concepts and the various people. I’ve read Darryl Bailey, Mooji, Gangaji, Jeff Foster, Tony Parsons, to name just a few out of the dozens.
It’s interesting that quite a few of them also have a sannyas connection. Certainly this is a path much wandered by sannyasins in the days after Osho’s death, where, for examplem,Poonjaji and the various students he left behind were found by sannyasins. And the idea of Satsang, or “meeting in truth”, is something quite appropriate for those seekers finding their way together.
It makes for a bright and colourful spiritual road, a rainbow road, which Osho was no stranger to. He talked a great deal about the great spiritual traditions of the ages, drawing on spiritual classics from the Upanishads to Kahlil Gibran’s ‘The Prophet’ and inserting among the interpretations fragments of his own wisdom.
What strikes me as a difference between the various non-duality authors I read and Osho, is that for Osho the non-dual ideas he sometimes talked about were viewed as natural and a consequence of the very deepest mystical experiences. He once talked about going deep within and coming to the core of your being where you become one with God and all existence. That is actually a very non-dual experience, but he never cast it in that language.
More often Osho talks in terms of stories and anecdotes, about the wisdom of mystics and Zen teachers, jokes about Mulla Nasruddin, pointing at relationships and love and meditation. Osho talked with breadth, whereas most non-duality teachers tend to limit themselves to just one subject, awakening, and don’t try to present a vision of a ‘New Man’.
We could look at all of Osho’s ideas and see what has made a change in the world: the communes ended up dissolving and just surviving as one meditation resort, free love ended up becoming the ‘Children of the Cult’ documentary, the New Man came to the world as Gen-Z to be hypnotised by smartphones and turned out to be as easily indoctrinated as the old man.
So perhaps we should seek to awaken first, and then change the world? Ah, but what if awakening fails to arrive? One of my internet friends had a psychedelic-fuelled awakening experience a few years ago and has managed to convince himself that he is now enlightened, and spends his days posting up AI-generated speeches on spiritual topics on various forums. If he was really honest with himself he would acknowledge it was a purely temporary experience, and he hasn’t really changed.
Perhaps we should meditate more? It is good not to be a doer. Osho recommended meditation, but he also said, “If you try and do everything I recommend, you will end up very confused.” My personal preference is to follow Poonjaji’s advice to “Just be quiet”. The rainbow road of the many teachers settles within you if you read their words, and it’s a question of letting what resonates and what you find beautiful come to the fore.
One thing that I have found from my own experience is that one has to shake off all the burdens that spiritual teachers have put in front of you. You may have adopted these things but ultimately being free has to do with being unburdened, realising there is nothing that you have to do or must do. Just enjoy the silence.
In my continuing exploration of Sannyas, I came across this essay by Lily Dunn, I thought it was an interesting read:
https://aeon.co/essays/lost-innocence-the-children-whose-parents-joined-an-ashram
The whole idea that sannyasins revered innocence, but ended up trampling that very quality in the commune’s kids, I think is sharply observed. Lily Dunn can definitely write well.
If I have understood it rightly, then Lily was never a sannyasin. Her mother protected her from the cult.
It is more the story of her and her father, who died of
alcoholism. Also not a good end for a sannyasin.
Requests for ongoing contact:
From Klaus:
Hi,
As Seth/Deva Sugit offered to stay in touch after the ‘goodbye’ here, so do I:
if anyone is travelling to Munich or nearby or passing through – we live about 45 minutes West of Munich on the A96…one night’s shelter is always possible.
My email is: klausrettich@web.de
From Deva Sugit:
Friends,
Hello and goodbye to you all. My name is Seth M. Forstater/Swami Deva Sugit. I have read SN for many years, donated funds and posted a couple of times. I am sorry to see it go.
Anyone willing to share their contact info with me, please email me at: forstater@gmail.com or send a friend request to me on Facebook.
SN TO REMAIN OPEN FOR A SHORT TIME
For anyone who doesn’t yet know, Sannyas News will be closing down very soon but not immediately, despite today, November 5th, being ‘deadline day’. Over the weekend we decided that it has run its course and that the time is right to call it a day rather than attempt to struggle on with few writers of both articles and comments (and also therefore not provide our financial donors value for their generous contributions).
Clive has managed to alter the subscription to a monthly instead of an annual payment basis in order to look after the database and ensure the site is closed down efficiently and securely.
Great credit goes to him for this initiative as it will also give contributors and friends more time to arrange future ongoing connections with others here, if they so wish, and perhaps also to take a look at what the site’s produced over the best part of the last two decades, a pretty long time for a blog venue like this.
Don’t hesitate to let us know if you need help with this or anything else by emailing to: edit@sannyasnews.org.
Very Best Wishes,
SD
SN TO REMAIN OPEN FOR A SHORT TIME
I think for this statement a new article would be fine (the last one).
Perhaps a quote about celebrating death would be good for the heart and also for SN.
MOD:
Perhaps you could provide a relevant quote, Satchit?
Did not find something that fits.
How about this…
“Death should be a triumph, a victory, a coming home. But for that you have to transform your whole life. You have to live differently – not like a Christian or a Hindu or a Mohammedan – but like a natural human being, without any fear and without any greed….
It is a well-known fact in the East that most great sages announce their death beforehand, and people have misunderstood it: people think that they are predicting, but it is not prediction. They know that they have come to fulfilment and there is no more in life and there is no more to be discovered – their journey is complete….”
Osho, ‘Zarathustra: A God That Can Dance’, Talk 16: ‘Of Voluntary Death’
See the longer piece here, maybe you can extract something more suitable…
https://www.oshotimes.com/insights/lifestyle/life-and-death/death-can-be-a-celebration/
“Just be quiet” can easily be misunderstood as suppressing the mind.
And I have heard that besides dropping the doer, it is also important to drop the knower.
Only then is silence possible.
I would suggest you experiment with it and see how far you get. You never know, you may become enlightened, if you know the process so well!
Seems you easily become emotional.
Btw, something like “sannyasins” don’t exist.
You always meet the individual.
You’re an odd fellow, Satchit. I am one of the most stable people I know.
Did you know that the human body is designed for arboreal habitats in the tropics, and is slightly dysfunctional because of light deficit seven months of the year in places like Boston or Hamburg?
NP, to me this is your best post!
Succinct, on the spot.
Very helpful as a neutral observation, impv.
I’m currently on the road…maybe more later…
Cheers and always the best to all of you on here and off here!
Good morning, friends!
It occurred to me that with the closing of SannyasNews I won’t have anywhere to put my morning greetings anymore, which is slightly sad. I’ve given the ok for Satyadeva to share my contact details by email, so you can keep in touch via Facebook or email me if you are interested, although I don’t want to put my email out on the net because of spammers.
I’ve been reading through the back posts on the Rajneesh Communes 1974-1990 Facebook group, and I have to say it has been illuminating, the things that have been shared on there over the years. If you are interested in truth, in who Osho really was, I’d suggest going there and doing a deep dive. It won’t make you happier, but it will open your eyes.
We all have our own sense of the world and its people. But it’s become clear to me that light and dark are present together in many places. even where we expect to find only one of the two…
You are still funny, NP, wanting to know who Osho really was.
Osho is not outside, where is He?
(A farewell koan for you
Yes, I also give permission to SD to share my email address for contact. I live in Bavaria.
Thank God Bayern Munich did win yesterday!
But only scored one goal, Satchit, despite total domination.
I have heard Arsenal were not so lucky, SD.
Total domination and lost game against Inter.
Arsenal are in a tricky period, Satchit, they’re not scoring goals! (lol)
Hopefully, Odegaard’s return will make a significant difference. (Did you know he’s a bit of an Osho fan, btw, as is Havertz? They holidayed together last summer and used to do Nadabrahma in the evening, rather than having a drink or two. I believe one of the wives got them into it).
Apparently, both players felt exhausted mentally and physically after the English season and the Euros, Odegaard quoted as saying he found it hard to recover equilibrium.
You see how dangerous meditation is.
As a result, goalless goals can happen.
I like this koan-like term, Satchit – except that Odegaard had been out injured for over 2 months before yesterday and so far this season Havertz is currently Arsenal’s top scorer!
Good morning, Satchit.
I’ve heard it said that what is left of Osho is an energy, and maybe that is so. He did say something about dissolving like the water drop meeting the ocean, before he died.
It’s cold here today, just three degrees Celsius this morning. But the central heating has kicked in and we just see it on the windows.
“Seek not; otherwise you will miss it, because every search leads you away from yourself; every path leads you away from yourself. “Seek ye not; just be, and you have found it,” because it is something within you. It is not something far away, it has not to be found; it is the finder himself. It has not to be sought, it is the seeker himself. The moment you are silent, neither asking nor seeking, you have it, you are it.
Knock not, because every knock makes you a beggar, because all knocking is on the doors of others. And it is not a question of finding it in somebody else’s house; it is there within you. There are no doors for you to knock on. You have just to be utterly centered, and the doors are always open. This is what Lao Tzu would say, and this is what Chuang Tzu would say. I know if Jesus had been born in the East, he would have said the same thing. It is the Western atmosphere, where all search is for the object and nobody cares about the seeker.”
(Osho)
I’m coming to the conclusion that so many people have difficulty accepting the abuse of the ex-children just because Osho encouraged his sannyasins to be joyful and celebrate. For many people the commune was a happy time, and anything that interferes with that impression poses a problem.
Yes, well, people tend to dislike inconvenience, whether in our circumstances or related to our beliefs and values.
But the under-age abuse itself doesn’t negate the value of people’s happy commune experience, it indicates that the places concerned were imperfectly set up to the detriment of the children/young people concerned.
Neither does it imply that Osho supported such goings-on or even knew about them.
This might prove illuminating about what Osho thought about these things…
https://www.oshotimes.com/insights/society/politics/who-is-responsible-for-sexual-abuse-of-children/
Good morning, dear people.
I read a wise comment yesterday on Facebook, that the best parts of the commune came from the energy of the ordinary people searching for truth and bliss. Certainly it put me in mind of drive-by at the Ranch, where everybody was celebrating and enjoying life.
Certainly it seems that the closer you were to Osho, the more secrets you had and the less you could enjoy that ordinary spiritual search. I was listening to Deeksha’s podcast (https://podcasts.apple.com/nl/podcast/oshos-children/id1544457030?i=1000578657136) and she talks quite a lot about what it was like to be close to Osho.
It’s maybe not surprising that these things get very little attention, because it means coming to terms with the light and dark parts of the commune. Most people following Osho’s lead of positivity don’t really want to know about the dark parts, they would prefer to keep only the good memories.
Still, things like ‘Children of the Cult’ do expose parts of the dark underbelly of commune life, although they don’t really go into the abuse of power that was present. I think there is a lot more still to come.
I was awake at 5.55 this morning, it was still entirely dark when I had my first coffee. I’ve been writing email letters, to Seth and to others. I’ve also been catching up on reviews of the new M4 Mac Mini, probably the best value entry-level computer Apple has ever made – very tempting.
And just to take a break from sannyas shenanigans, I have been reading a few sections of ‘I Am That’ by Nisargadatta. It remains a spiritual classic, and it’s great that there is such a good electronic edition available.
Wishing you all a beautiful Sunday!
Here’s a superb talk from Alan Watts I’ve come across this morning – such clarity, such truth, debunking concepts of God we’ve had from conventional religions…And wonderful entertainment!
No wonder Osho named part of the Pune ashram after him (I forget which one).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tz38Lipz-1E
This morning I was thinking about the master-disciple relationship. Osho talked about it a lot, in glowing terms, but I always felt strongly conflicted about it. And I think I’ve finally figured out why.
It feels to me like someone who tries to establish himself as your master is at the same time robbing you of your independence, self-reliance and self-worth. You are being encouraged to accept their words unconditionally, to rely on them. It seems to me a con, a fraud.
Osho was clever with words, trying to redefine terms. But with me he never got further than the spiritual friend. And even that I am having second thoughts about.
You’re coming from a rather different perspective though, NP, from the people who came to Osho in their 20s, and needed much guidance. The fact is also that if someone is living in a higher consciousness, having fully realised the Truth and living it, they are automatically an authority, with much to give (if they’re so inclined), so it takes a certain humility to accept this and take what the teacher/master has to impart.
The paradox is that a true spiritual teacher’s aim is to help us towards genuine “independence, self-reliance and self-worth”, not to create another version of egoic ‘imprisonment’. That’s hard for ‘the world’ (outside and inside) to appreciate as it seems to be the opposite process, eg collectively engendering a “cult” mentality. Even harder, perhaps, for a strong ego.
But towards the end of his life Osho spoke about being his people’s “spiritual friend” so you might well be on track there (don’t worry, there’s hope for you yet (lol)!).
Although you missed a direct personal contact with Osho you’re no doubt benefiting from all your time in his energy field, being well nurtured by your sannyasin father and other adult friends, and therefore not having had to go through certain processes the previous generation experienced. Which means Osho and Sannyas has indirectly worked for you, helping you towards freedom..
Another great exposirion from Alan Watts, on Death…and our true identity…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QLsEjdogqU&t=69s
MOD:
Here’s most of a post Satyadeva wrote in response to Nityaprem’s one of yesterday, 2.05pm, at an earlier topic (February 2024), ‘Compassion For the Man Osho’:
It’s unfair to claim Osho “set the tone for much of the sexual abuse and abuse of power on the Ranch”. Osho didn’t have sex with under-age children and he made it clear that he wanted the communes’ kids to be looked after by the community rather than or in addition to their parents. (Perhaps his own very happy experience of spending much time with his grandparents rather than his actual parents encouraged him in this policy).
The vast majority of people at the Ranch (and in Pune) didn’t know what his prvate life was like, or even that he had a sex life (except presumably, with Vivek) which of course is why the recent revelations are pretty shocking to many, including me: the apparent lack of love for the women concerned and his wish to keep these meetings secret. (If I were a man so treated by a female ‘guru’ I’m sure I’d be angry, disillusioned too).
It does sound like a middle-aged man from a repressive cultual conditioning in 1930s/40s/50s etc. India unable to contain himself any longer given his status among thousands of attractive young western women, however physically restricted he might have been. He might well have been curious to see whether he still ‘had what it took’ to ‘perform’. Well, he often said he was “just an ordinary man”…
Although maybe he had an ulterior motive, as also might apply to the ‘watch rage’ incident:
Re the bejewelled watch outburst, well, perhaps he had his reasons to act like that (as Swamishanti has suggested), eg maybe he deliberately exaggerated this attraction for a symbol of great wealth, acting it out, as it were, as a means of remaining rooted in this human life, in the body-mind with its desires and attachments, in order to keep on with his people, resisting the urge to ‘dissolve’ for the greater purpose of helping us. And likewise, a similar motive might have applied to his sex assignations. Or, was it that he simply remained an Indian from an averagely well-off (by Indian standards) background for whom such ‘baubles’ still exerted a fascination, however enlightened, wise and ‘beyond it all’ he was assumed to be.
Finally, as I’ve said before, I’m not on the side of those who condemn Osho, regarding him as a hypocritical fraud. One lesson to come from the recent controversial revelations has been that enlightenment does not necessarily imply 100% ‘perfection’. I think we need to bear in mind the enormous work Osho did in order to ‘wake up’ his people. And to realise that he took on one hell of a task.
I say his people are and future generations will be hugely indebted to him for taking on such a task that one might say was and is demanded by the times, inspiring so many to pave the way for a new life for themselves and others. Despite his flaws, the huge good he gave us, the vast perspective he embodied and shared, the love, the joy, the celebration, the guidance, the gift of his silence, are still there, now embedded in the human psyche and therefore available as a resource for humanity to draw upon.*
*(As Barry Long taught re the effects of a master’s life and work, also saying, by the way, that despite their being very different sorts of teachers, that Osho was “a great master”).
SHANTI:
I didn’t recall mentioning anything about bejewelled watches on this topic. I know he was given a lot of bling by wealthy disciples, something which many with the old religious conditionings can’t accept from traditions that have followed enlightened masters such as Christian or Buddhist , or even Iskcon devotees, despite Sri Krishna wearing solid gold bejewelled ornaments and a solid golden crown, as well as being known to enjoy sex with lots of women, enjoying hiding the clothes of his special gopi girls in a tree when they where bathing in the river Yamuna so he could watch them climb out of the water naked, when he was a teen, pure lust, and was then later said to have 16,000 wives, each with their own individual palaces, there are lots of pictures of him dancing with different women and devotees, Radha was always his main girl.
As you spoke about before, Barry Long had five girlfriends on the go at the same time.
The demanding a watch story sounds suspect to me but Osho may have challenged Sheela’s ego in different ways, for example she ended up complaining about getting the same model of Rolls Royce everyday, was fed up when Osho broke his public silence and began speaking again and she actually left the Ranch in Sept. 1985 and began slagging Osho off to the media, and telling some false stories, whilst Osho began accusing her of various crimes, which ended up with her getting a prison sentence which was also very short.
SD, you wrote, “And as you seem to suggest, the vast majority of people at the Ranch (and in Pune) didn’t know what his private life was like, or even whether he had a sex life (except presumably, with Vivek).”
Yet Osho told the world press (in front of thousands of sannyasins present) in 1985, when asked about his sex life on multiple occasions, that he had had sex with multiple partners, so there was no secrecy involved. And he said he had proved “it did not destroy enlightenment.” As many traditions in India, such as Jainism, Osho forbid sex after enlightenment as they had developed a belief that it can be lost after sex. However, their is also a tantric element to Jainism in Khajuraho but this is limited to that area actually Osho’s grandmother originates from there.
And it was “always consensual of course” and he was “a fortunate man because” he had “never been refused.”
It’s a personal thing, how you choose to relate to Osho. And I really like the Facebook group for its being inclusive, and welcoming everyone who was a resident of the communes regardless of whether they feel themselves to be a sannyasin still or have moved on. Both things which are positive about Osho and things that are negative find a home there.
Learning to look critically at Osho, however, especially for someone who grew up in the communes, is not easy. It is easy to fall into the habit of making excuses for him, to say we love him, to hold his more outrageous pronouncements as jokes or devices, or a variety of other excuses to avoid critical scrutiny. I think my original article demonstrated how tenacious that habit can be. It is a learning process.
In the end, people have to make their own minds up, there are a variety of perspectives available.
“I would simply like to be forgiven and forgotten. There is no need to remember me. The need is to remember yourself! People have remembered Gautam Buddha and Jesus Christ and Confucius and Krishna. That does not help. So what I would like: forget me completely, and forgive me too – because it will be difficult to forget me. That´s why I am asking you to forgive me for giving you the trouble.
Remember yourself.”
Osho, ‘The Transmission of the Lamp’, Talk 29
Shanti, do you think people at that time actually believed Osho was referring to his current sex life, bearing in mind that he was not exactly in good health and hadn’t been for years? I for one certainly didn’t.
As for your breathless descriptions of Krishna’s gopis etc., as I’ve said before, do you think these are anything other than vastly exaggerated accounts, myths embroidered by priests and gullible followers over the millennia?
Yes, they clearly had a different attitude to sex in those more innocent days, unlike our corrupt times. I suggest it was purer, far less adulterated by the sort of individual and collective emotional aberrations that pervade our times. In short, based more on love rather than lust.
Which is why Krishna, man or myth, could get away with behaviour that would have him virtually or actually crucified today.
(I was there, I should know – lol). But get real (ffs, lol!).
As for your take on ‘bejewelled watch rage’, you haven’t been doing a spot of self-moderating on that, have you? I could have sworn you recently commented along the lines of “he must have had his reasons for behaving like that.”
Talking of Osho’s motives for controversial behaviour, it’s occurred to me that his reported extremely ‘distant’ attitude towards the women he called in for what’s been described as perfunctory sex might have been due to his wish not to engender any vestiges of attachment on their part, with potential, or perhaps likely jealousy becoming an unwanted complication.
I feel that it’s important not to defend Osho but to see him for what he was. To suggest he was distant because he didn’t want to engender vestiges of attachment on their part is not to recognise that he too was afraid to be vulnerable and real. It was Osho that was distant, he took his pleasure selfishly. There is no higher spiritually in him in this instance, he’s just using women for his pleasure. And he kept it secret, never informing his people openly of his predilections. Yes, he never denied his sexuality but he didn’t talk about it openly. And the women were confused, doubting, and they kept his secret too. Perhaps through guilt.
After all, Osho presented himself as above and beyond the normal, as special. Yet it appears he was as ordinary as many men who use sex as an outlet for their frustration.
The key is to realise that Osho may have been enlightened of many things, but in personal relationships and sex he was perhaps as lost as many of us have been.
Simond, I should point out that my suggestion that Osho might have wanted to avoid these women becoming attached and jealous was/is just speculation, something else that recently arose in my mind, it’s not what I necessarily believe.
I’ve written other ideas at this topic about the clandestine sex reports and the ‘bejewelled watch rage’, also about how responsible he was for the child sex abuse, and I’m digesting it all without having reached a definitive conclusion, except that one must also acknowledge his greatness:
his extraordinary presence, the charisma, the refined, loving energy that could both inspire individuals in a darshan and fill an auditorium, effortlessly bringing large numbers into silent, meditative spaces, the stillness, sensitivity, humour, courage, the help and inspiration he’s provided for countless numbers of people to live a more joyful, loving, spiritually rich life.
It’s a complex picture, and I agree with you that it’s crucial to see Osho as he was rather than in a wish-fulfilling, idealistic way. It’s also like babies and bath water…and I’m not about to throw out the babies!
I do think that “Krishna and his gopis” are not particularly relevant here.
Erin Robbins’s story shows Osho would pick pretty girls to become mediums and come to him for sexual encounters. She was far from the only one — on FB there are others who have come forward, on the Ranch as well as in Poona One. I’m not going to tell their stories, that is for them, but I will say I found the implications shocking.
In general terms, these sexual encounters show another face of Osho, they weren’t about mutual pleasure or some kind of tantric ritual, they were cold and transactional. For me that’s shocking — no sort of relationship or emotional involvement, just picking girls he liked the look of out of the line-up for a quick blow-job. Call that a man who lives from his heart?
I think it shows Osho as a hypocrite, he said many beautiful words about sex and loving relationship in his discourses but he totally fails to make it a reality. He never treats any of these women as an equal, never sleeps with them.
I think you have to question how much the sexually permissive element of his teachings was for our benefit, and how much was for his own? It created a great environment for sexual predators, as shown by the experience of all the teenage girls, who literally had numerous men asking to ‘be their first’, from age 11.
NP plays the great accuser, 40 years after things have happened, feels strange for me.
Nobody here to defend himself.
In the past they were devoted, 40 years later it was suddenly abuse.
Weird things can happen in the mind.
Re the child sex abuse scandal, I do wonder why Osho receives so much blame while the children’s parents never seem to receive any criticism. It’s not as if he didn’t make recommendations for how the kids should be looked after.
For me it wasn’t really so much that Osho is to blame for the child abuse (although in part he is), but that it triggered a reassessment of the whole movement, the communes and also Osho’s role.
Much of the sannyasin community still stands by Osho, and it would be easy to sit back and relax in the loving vibes.
But recent events have made it clear not all was well in the communes, and it would just be intellectually lazy to not get to the bottom of this.
If you still call yourself a seeker of truth, I invite you to find out for yourself what it was all about…
“Erin Robbins’s story shows Osho would pick pretty girls to become mediums and come to him for sexual encounters.”
Erin Robbins’s story shows for me how easy it is to say that she is not responsible for what she has done in the past.
How easy it is to say she is the victim. Somebody else is responsible.
One thing that I recently read in Nisargadatta’s book ‘I Am That’ is that “desire is the memory of pleasure, and fear is the memory of pain.” I’ve for a long time held with a kind of stoicism, of neither chasing pleasure nor avoiding pain, but instead being like a tree and letting the sunshine and the rain come and go as they please.
Now I don’t know where this attitude came from, I haven’t been exposed to real stoic philosophy at any point in my life, but somewhere in my childhood it came to me that this was the way to be in life. This basic enduring has sometimes been good for me, it has kept me from chasing sex or being easily addicted, but it has also had downsides, like when my knees started playing up and I didn’t go see a physio for a year.
In enduring the sunshine and the rain, and not being easily moved, I have found a kind of wisdom about the passing nature of things. I have been a witness to good events and bad, and have found that with patience personal happiness tends to return, if you just let enough silence and rest into your life.
I just wanted to point out this:
One of the books being released by ex-kids of the commune, which talks about what it was like as a teenage girl in the commune, the sexual abuse and also the present-day aftermath, the reaction of the community to these stories coming out, how difficult it has been to get this story heard.
NP, Sarito Carrol was one of the central characters in the docu. I do not believe her memoir being released two weeks after the first screening of the docu is a coincidence. Strike while the iron is hot. I’m quite certain that Erin Robbins will release a similar book in the not-too-distant future. Such is the nature of marketing.
There seems to be a strong public appetite for such publications. Can the role of the media truly be underestimated here? Absolutely not. The extent to which the media depicts bad news as even worse, the extent to which sensationalism occupies the better part of the media environment, based on which clickbait headlines continue to multiply, demonstrates the magnitude of the share of this hungry exploitation of human nature.
In days gone by, most sannyasin publications were extremely positive, the exception being Hugh Milne’s ‘The God Who Failed’. Shiva must now be recognized as a whistleblower, who broke with the ranks and reported that all was not well behind the scenes of Osho World. Although somewhat bitter, I always found Shiva’s book to be an honest report.
Then we have all those books describing the bliss of people who lived around Osho. Now it seems the pendulum has swung in the opposite direction. All the new books have mainly negative content, describing how it was to live in the shadow of enlightenment. A sign of the times.
You know, I find it interesting how the media has treated books by (ex-)Osho disciples. The positive books seem to have a very limited reach and shelf life, from what I’ve seen, and even the negative books like Hugh Milne’s don’t get that much publicity.
But I think Sarito’s book is a brave attempt to get a much-needed perspective on the experience of the ex-kids. I hope the sannyasin community doesn’t avoid this, like they have avoided previous attempts to tell this story in Germany.
It is no longer my parents’ generation who are writing the books (with a few exceptions). They are now 75 years old or older, and it is now my generation who are telling their own stories of what it was like in the communes.
In a way, it is Osho’s policy of treating kids like an obstacle to enlightenment which is now coming to fruition. He created a single-generation religious movement, with everyone else as collateral damage.
I thought this was as valuable an insight for consideration as anything out there in the so-called spiritual world
Whether condemning, praising or excusing Osho’s sometimes confusing and apparently hypocritical behaviour it often comes up that someone repeats the adage that you cannot understand an enlightened person’s behaviour if you are not enlightened yourself, which is a bit of a conversation stopper, to say the least. Following such logic can be a justification for condoning outrageous and generally unacceptable behaviour.
Krishna tells Arjuna on the battlefield that the soul is eternal while the body is temporary. He says that this is important for a warrior to understand because he’s not really killing his enemies on the battlefield – he is only killing their bodies and their souls will live on, reincarnating back into the world. Fortunately, none of us are faced with such decisions, unless we decide to get behind the wheel of a car when pissed drunk and drive like a lunatic, unconcerned about the outcome of our reckless driving because, if you are involved in an accident, even a fatal one, it all comes down to individual karma, which, as Buddha said, is imponderable.
My point is that having a non-judgmental attitude, as far as the enlightened are concerned, heralds an anything-goes viewpoint that condones seemingly unenlightened behaviour as being perfectly all right and introduces such warped perspectives as it all being a device for your awakening, while your snoring can be heard a mile away. And remember, adopting a non-judgemental attitude is ironic because a judgement has to have been made to hold such a stance in the first place. This brings us to the nature of enlightenment itself, which we have been told we cannot understand unless we have attained enlightenment ourselves. Another conversation stopper that entails a non-questioning and accepting point of view, which from my unenlightened perspective looks pretty stupid.
With all the scandal revealed in ‘Children of the Cult’, Erin’s confessions of a clandestine guru blow-jobber and various reports on social media about sleazy shenanigans in the world of Osho, I am left asking where I stand in regards to all this. Ultimately, I have to say, I do not care about any of it. I reported years ago on SN about some of these sordid goings-on and was put down for it, and dubbed an ex-sannyasin who missed. Perhaps due to this, I am not in the least bit shocked by any of these reports.
As far as I am concerned, Sannyas and indeed Osho might have been an elaborate con. So what? If Osho was a con man he was a very convincing one, who somehow managed to exude an uplifting and transformative vibe that I have failed to find anywhere else in the world. He was a brilliant orator, who shed light on many esoteric subjects in an incomparable way. The years I spent around him were amongst the best in my life. Whether or not he was enlightened makes no difference to my life today. Osho always said he was a gate. I passed through that gate decades ago and moved on.
If people feel disillusioned with Osho today it certainly took them a long time getting there and maybe it is time for them to move on also. I can assure you that life on the other side of the Osho gate is quite liberating because there is no need for authoritarian figures to tell you how to live. You just live, it is as simple as that. If the world is indeed a projection of the mind, one might as well project something that relates to what is current, not unsavoury events that took place ages ago.
Thanks, Lokesh. You told me a few days ago that “it is a learning process”, and I agree, it is. Perspectives do not change instantly, and sometimes only when confronted with the raw truth of eyewitness accounts. I’ve said all I’m comfortable saying about other people’s stories, I don’t feel the need to inform the rest of the sannyas community.
My personal perspective on Osho and my childhood is still shifting, but for me there was not much life before Osho, and so a post-Osho world is also more difficult to envisage. Maybe he was all three, narcissistic and megalomaniac and enlightened. Osho as a gate, I can find something worthwhile in that viewpoint, cheers, I may try it on like a suit of cheap clothes, to be discarded if it doesn’t fit.
I do think there are things to be learned here with respect to enlightened people. Mainly as UG said, “Enlightenment? Why would you want that?” It seems to go wrong much more often than it results in a Buddha.
As usual, well thought out writing from Lokesh.
I wholeheartedly agree with his reasoning as well as his wisdom on the saga. If the new crisis amongst sannyasins over what happened many years ago has any purpose for the still believing Trotskyists amongst the brethren, then once again Osho has served his purpose.
When will these brethren start to recognise that as he said time and again, he was an ordinary man. This means he had all the traits of the ordinary, as well also being in some ways, so extraordinary. Such is the nature of enlightenment, there is no perfection in this state, just a deeper understanding of the transcendental.
“This brings us to the nature of enlightenment itself, which we have been told we cannot understand unless we have attained enlightenment ourselves. Another conversation stopper that entails a non-questioning and accepting point of view, which from my unenlightened perspective looks pretty stupid.”
From my perspektive it looks childish to judge enlightenment from your unenlighened state, Lokesh.
Maybe you did go through the gate, (Congrats), but your ego remained.
Perhaps a beautiful ego, but still an ego.
How to judge someone who is dissolved, who is surrenderd to Existence?
Maybe enlightenment has also some diabolic nature.
“I am not nice, I am not your Uncle.”
I’ve been listening to Deeksha telling her story, ‘Dragon Lady’ on the Storielibere podcast.
It’s in 6 parts, in total it’s 6.5 hours long, there’s also 14 episodes of ‘Osho’s Children’ telling their stories which I haven’t heard yet.
https://storielibere.fm/soli-dragonlady/
I found her story riveting and told with a lot of insight, self-awareness and detail, as an insider there from the beginning, and in daily close contact with Osho and other inner circle players like Laxmi and Sheela,
I urge anyone interested, in such an up close and personal view, to have a listen.
For my money, it’s the most personal exposé yet of the man himself and the machinations of his court, but because it has no video content probably won’t be picked up as much.
I didn’t think the Jekyll and Hyde disclosures could get much worse, but for me they do, decide for yourselves.
If you want to keep any remaining illusions about Osho safe and secure, behind the mask of an enlightened guru, you probably should avoid it and do a Gollum…
Those who are gullible will be believe the Erin Robbins stories without any proof whatsoever.
Deeksha is well known to have been used as a US agent since the 1980’s (Agent B in the FBI file), and it has been pointed out to me recently she has also been used in a new book publication and some podcasts and come out with some wierd new stories something about Osho talking about using the ‘dark side’. Sounds like something out of Star Wars.
I have no doubt that she had some good qualities but obviously has an axe to grind and it isn’t suprising given the blows Osho used to deal to peoples ego’s and apparently she had some of power struggle with Sheela.
One can only feel sympathy for those who are bitter or had a bad experience in the communes or didn’t get enough out of their experience with Osho , an ordinary yet extraordinary fucking enlightened man , yet still want to cling to him and imagine they have now become ‘independent ’ of a cult.
One sannyasin who really got a lot out of Osho and with him since the very early days was Swami Yog Chinmaya, who became sixth body enlightened sometime around 1979.
Most sannyasins didn’t know this as he only wanted to work with small groups of people who he felt where ready and didn’t want to publicise his talks or photo’s while he was still around.
“The forces that destroyed the commune still exist in the world”.
Swami Yog Chinmaya.
This rare photo compilation has recently emerged:
https://youtu.be/FhQi5rKHwuQ?si=iczrc8XF26NxFFBP
Here is a Nepali interview with Chinmaya’s disciple Bodhicitta. Interesting how they are still do the gachamis in Osho Tapoban. Seems they may be are stuck in Rajneeshpuram era:
https://youtu.be/0_alkzmW_T0?si=SKGOvIqoXNed7llF
PR for herself, “against her best interests”? She might simply be offloading responsibility for whatever personal lack of fulfilment or disillusion she’s experiencing onto someone else (Osho) who once 40 years ago didn’t treat her well.
I’ve heard that she asked to live in Osho’s house in Pune 2. I don’t know if that’s true of course, but perhaps she should be asked?
Not by me. I have a lot of sympathy for her story as she told it in the letter, and for her appearance in the documentary. It obviously wasn’t easy for her to talk about these things, and I think it is immaterial to her behaviour in the Poona Two period.
Ok, this can’t be pursued unless the facts are indisputably verified.
Yes, Dominic, there are many Gollums around who do not want to listen. I see them as casualties of the Sannyas movement. You cannot help people who firmly believe that they are not in need of help. This is mainly due to the huge psychological investment they have made over the years. The longer it goes on, the more difficult it is to drop. It was all created in the name of freedom, yet freedom is the last thing they want. The mechanisms they devise to rationalize their reasons for remaining in bondage seem to have no limit. There is plenty of evidence of that on SN.
I’ve also listened to Deeksha’s podcast, and talked to her online via video call as well, and I think her story is from the heart. That she recognises there were significant things wrong with the commune and Osho, and she wants to set things straight. It is the story of someone who was there from very early on, and knew Osho personally quite well.
The thing is, there is just too much first-hand material to ignore. If you really go looking, you can find these things, and suddenly you find that while all was rosy as long as you had a little bit of money, in a lot of other circumstances things weren’t nearly as good.
If you were an average punter like me, you just enjoyed the energy, freedom and community spirit of the place, which was unlike most other more staid and traditional spiritual movements, and didn’t know or think too much about what was going on behind the scenes. Why would you? Everyone trusted the ‘Master’.
If you were close to the centre of things, it sounded like a Faustian pact in which you were being conditioned to exchange your principles (if you had any) for the power, benefits, favour and the fantasy bond with your ‘guru’.
Your soul, in some cases, was being boiled like a frog; luckily Deeksha saw sense and jumped out, good for her.
Sheela was too immature and easily compromised and her dark side came out, but the progenitor, the father to the child, was Osho.
Vivek stands out perhaps as the most egregious casualty of this bargain, that she was being physically abused was news to me, and another nail in the coffin of this charade.
I really enjoyed Deeksha telling her tale.
It had the ring of truth for me, others might disagree and claim ulterior motives.
I can echo her wanting to bear witness to what happened, which has helped answer some lingering questions, and uncovered pieces of the puzzle, that made sense to me, as opposed to the party line.
The Osho Enlightenment Pyramid scheme would make one hell of a good series fictionalised on HBO Max or Netflix with all the gaslighting, sex, violence, drugs, prostitution, bioterrorism, gun arsenals, power jockeying, spiritual hocus pocus, suicide, hit lists, murder attempted or otherwise, megalomania etc, it’s got the lot.
Ben Kingsley as Osho obviously, Priyanka Chopra as Sheela.
It would make ‘Wild Wild Country’, which by now seems flattering by omission, look like ‘Mild Mild Country’, a sanitised Disney movie.
I congratulate the Dragon Lady for reclaiming her Moral Compass and keeping her BS detector intact, not everyone has those apparently (who knew?), or they are inoperative and no longer in use.
Just to say, every other group, cult or leader I can think of during the media era, has come a cropper in not so dissimilar ways.
Perhaps it goes back thousands of years to cultural patriarchal hierarchical systems, encouraging followers to outsource their spirituality, and to project wildly onto narcissistic teachers and the holy (but misconstrued) grail of Enlightenment.
Are we learning from all this and entering a new era of inquiry?
Certainly the internet has made it possible to do one’s own research, outside the collusive net of groupthink, before getting lost in a lost cause.
Thanks, Dominic, for posting the link to the interview with Deeksha. Clarifying talk for me: New York lawyer told them already that “Jail is waiting if you act in that way” and the idea of collecting proof by bugging first came up.
I found it difficult to listen at times due to the sound-effects and a bit of Italian accent…so I might have lost a few meanings.
However, one question I had has been answered:
“Why wasn’t Sheela sued by the Foundation for possible money transfered to her own account?”
Based on the tapes recorded from the bugging of even Bhagwan’s chair there was compromising material: In the hands of Sheela. Now – I guess – in the hands of lawyers…
The plea deals (pretty softish punishments for the level of crimes done – not only in my view) with the American judicial authorities could be sealed both for Bhagwan and for the plotters.
A further indictment could be avoided by Sheela by moving directly to Switzerland from Germany: FBI could not follow up.
Important side-effect: Proof of exoneration of Deeksha (see comments on ‘Shill’, informant to the U.S. judicial authorities) might also be hidden in these tapes.
Those people who did not put all of their resources ‘into one basket’ might now be more free than those who committed money, time, crime. And have built a livelihood on spiritual service products under that label:
There was a sentence in the interview that “even changing the name used for 20-30-40 years is now difficult”. Why? Income is dependent on the Osho branding, i.e. that is dependency of some kind. That would be one group of people.
Criminal investigations are still possible for crimes committed, for instance against the children. That would be individual persons.
Moral compass, listening to one’s own inner voice, not drowning it out by group-think and expectations.
A good listen. And congrats to Deeksha for the clear speaking.
Cheers.
kompromat: compromising material
What Osho might have said in effect, stored on the tapes, to be used against plaintiffs, so that plaintiffs refrain.
Shill: informant to the American judicial authorities
There was a sentence in the interview that “even changing the name used for 20-30-40 years is now difficult’. Why? Income is dependent on the Osho branding, i.e. that is dependency of some kind. That would be one group of people.
Criminal investigations are still possible for crimes committed for instance against the children. That would be individual persons.
Sometimes my thinking and writing are too cryptic, admitted.
Yes, Deeksha’s six-hour-long story is quite a listen, and I do not doubt a single word she says. Makes me think of The Who:
“Then I’ll get on my knees and pray
We don’t get fooled again, no, no.”
I feel distant from the carry-on up the ashram scenario today. It was fun while it lasted. A wee bit of shaktipat and away you go, might have been enough for most of us to believe Osho was the real deal. I’m sorry to say, at least going by Deeksha’s insider account, it turns out he wasn’t.
Listening to how Osho first became a Rolls Royce aficionado supplies the final pieces of the puzzle if you needed them. Definitely a device for our awakening.
As for Osho’s adjusting female disciples’ chakras in the wee, wee hours, it has already been pretty much covered, or uncovered, already.
Listening to Deeksha describe all this madness leaves me wondering how anyone could still see Osho as the master of masters, instead of the master of deception. What a fox! For others still identified with Osho, it is not difficult to understand how some believers might find these revelations very disturbing to the extent that they will struggle to come to terms with them. Meet the new man. Same as the old man.
It is all water down the Ganges now.
It’s all water down the Ganges.
Fake masters, true masters.
Fake stories, true stories.
Who cares about people who want to make themselves important?
SN will be also soon down the Ganges.
How long does it take? 10 days?
“Listening to Deeksha describe all this madness leaves me wondering how anyone could still see Osho as the master of masters, instead of the master of deception.”
You don’t get it.
For the trusting disciple it is the same if the Master is true or a cheat.
That sounds like the truest of true loves, Satchit, totally and utterly unconditional. Assuming you’re describing yourself here, I wonder whether your absolute trust would hold out if the inspiration for your pure love harmed you in some way, eg by going off with your woman or squandering the hard-earned money that you so trustingly gave him.
Hypothetical questions of course but worth contemplating although one never knows how one would react until such a shock actually happens ie you might just be kidding yourself.
SD, you assume wrong, I don’t describe myself.
I am no disciple.
Osho is a friend whom I seldom meet.
Btw, “hard-earned money” Is it true with the 10 days? Still miss the money from Clive….
MOD:
Clive managed a deal with the web host company to pay monthly in order to avoid a too sudden close-down. So there’s at least another 2-plus weeks left, possibly more if the comments continue to flow.
Rest assured that no one will be out of pocket, repayments will be made when we know when SN will enter blessed oblivion (lol).
Well, Satchit, in that case your post has little or no value as you’re speaking from what you imagine is true, not what you know to be true, so just useless speculation.
Satchit enquires, “Who cares about people who want to make themselves important?”
Without doubt, a question he should ask himself while looking in a mirror. Osho deliberately made himself important in many people’s lives including him, a trusting disciple.
I rarely respond to Satchit’s nonsense, as I view him as a delusional fool.
Lokesh says:
“Yes, Deeksha’s six-hour-long story is quite a listen, and I do not doubt a single word she says.”
Certainly you do not doubt because it supports your idea about Osho.
I would not waste 6 hours of my time with somebody who was a Chief disciple of Osho and then turned into a Chief accuser. What is there to expect?
Seems you have a kind of morbid taste.
Reminds me of Jesus saying: “Before the rooster crows you will have denied me three times!”
History is repeating.
Satchit, you sound like the kind of guy that got very upset when his mother and father told him on his eighteenth birthday that Father Christmas wasn’t real.
Lokesh, I wonder why you sound so frustrated.
Did you expect something to happen and nothing happened?
And now you listen to people who tell you that the grapes are sour and you believe them.
Sadly, Satchit has flunked Osho’s final teaching, ‘Be A Light/Joke unto Your Self’, drop the mind but use your head.
Perhaps he is destined for infinite rebirths as a ‘useful idiot’, maybe as a gulag guard, a Jehovah’s Witness, a Big Pharma employee…The universe is immensely patient and compassionate; his public, possibly not so much.
Seems you don’t know much about the universe, Dominic.
Speculating about the future of others creates bad karma.
I hope you will not be reborn as a cockroach.
Given your trajectory, Satch, it’s not a huge leap. I don’t know how you got this way, but admire your total committment!
Did you say baaa-d karma? You win the T-shirt.
In any case,cockroaches are very resilient and likely to survive any coming cataclysmic events, so it’s on my wish list.
When Osho said he was an ordinary man, he wasn’t kidding. A regular horny, drug taking, juiced up on power, wheels and bling, badass kind of a guy.
Becoming more and more of a remote blank canvas and creating buffer zones, encouraging people to project wildly onto this ‘ordinary man’.
Holy Hell! It’s a kumare moment.
I just hope that the ‘Children of the Cult’ documentary together with Sarito Carroll’s book ‘In the Shadow of Enlightenment’ and the other books that are still to come raise awareness of what the teenage girls in particular went through on the Ranch and in other Osho communes.
In a way, the whole community is complicit in accepting Osho’s ideas on child raising and the role of the family. Those ideas paved the way for neglect and abuse, they set the tone for the entire culture around Osho, where children really weren’t wanted and were seen as an obstacle to one’s enlightenment.
I think Osho completely missed the point there. What he said about love and sex totally did not match what he did in his personal life, and it showed he never really enjoyed a loving family around him… For me, family life is one of the joys of this world: parents, grandparents, children, cousins… they are all people one is naturally close to.
Yes, one needs to learn to let go at appropriate times. That is a challenge throughout life, where grasping and accumulating fires the passions it is important to know when to just relax and be loving and kind. And there are always challenges with differing beliefs and opinions, where understanding and tolerance are the true measures of civilisation.
And that is where I hope the sannyas community will be able to come together and find itself, both the victims and the abused as well as those who still consider themselves disciples.
“In a way, the whole community is complicit in accepting Osho’s ideas on child raising and the role of the family. Those ideas paved the way for neglect and abuse, they set the tone for the entire culture around Osho, where children really weren’t wanted and were seen as an obstacle to one’s enlightenment.”
That sounds true enough from our present day later-in-life perspective, NP, it was far from a stable environment, basically unsuitable for raising children, as were many of the parents at that point in their lives. Although you were more fortunate in that respect.
But it doesn’t take into account the nature of those now faraway sannyas times, where, as well as pleasure, fun, laughter, dance and meditation, for many, Sannyas often meant being plunged into personal and collective chaos, facing intense emotional challenges in and out of group therapies, marriages and long-term relationships consequently breaking down, ‘free sex’and undiluted pleasure without commitment being the norm…Because the idea was that was what was needed to overcome the burden of conditioning, freeing the energy to become ever more open to the master. At least in theory.
I don’t see anything intrinsically flawed in Osho’s ideas on child raising (having personally preferred being among other friends’ families rather than my own while growing up) except that at that time there weren’t enough adults mature enough to be fully available to the kids. So, what to do?
All true, but if the environment was so unsuitable for raising children, why not ask those sannyasins with children not to come to the communes except on holidays?
The whole early Sannyas as you describe it sounds seductive, turbulent, but perhaps not entirely sane. I know Osho had his catchphrases for refuting sanity, but common sense might tell you that unlimited pleasure is eventually going to catch up with you.
The thing I have come to realise is that gurus whose teachings cannot be summarised in one book (or two weeks of satsang) are bad news. If they need you to be around continuously to “work on you” it sounds like a really bad learning experience.
There is this saying “it takes a whole village to raise children” and that is somewhat true, during my early childhood there was also a time when I could wander into friends’ homes unannounced. But there was always my own home to return to, and a complex net of responsibility among the adults.
NP, I still think you don’t realise the amount of basic, ‘preparatory’ work that had to be done by the earlier generation. It simply wasn’t a case of coming to Osho for a few weeks and you’d be ready to go, free as a bird. Maybe for a few, but certainly not for most.
Also, masters’ realisations apparently don’t just end with ‘enlightenment’, they go on, ever deeper, wider, and their methods can change as the process continues. And depending on which person or people they’re addressing. It’s not necessarily as cut and dried as you rather glibly state.
You’ve never actually been to a spiritual teacher in person, have you? Although you’ve certainly read many books.
I was at Poona One and the Ranch for living there, also at the Stad Rajneesh in the Netherlands, I visited Poona Two, The Humaniversity, and the Poona ashram in 1997 when I was 25. I’ve sat before Osho in person.
So you were physically with Osho at some point between 14-18 years, before you’d really begun independent life?
Yes. I recall his presence quite well, from a number of occasions in Poona One (aged 7), the Ranch (aged 12-13) and Poona Two (aged 16), and I’ve also listened to many lectures on disc (about a third of the total volume of audio discourses) later in life.
To a certain extent it speaks to conditioning, for me Osho was ever-present at least as pictures, videos and so on during my childhood. It’s a difficult environment to shake.
If you really look however, there is a lot of his behaviour which is not ok. Certainly enough to say, I would not want this man as a spiritual guide or teacher.
NP, even though you do not want Osho to be your spiritual guide or teacher, you would do well to heed the following:
“First you have to drop all the yesterdays. The past is dead. And I am dying every moment to the past so that I can live in the present. You cannot do both things together – living in the past and living – it is not possible.”
Reading many of the comments here on SN I can’t help but notice how attached to the past many commentators are. It reads like ‘All Our Yesterdays’.
NP states, “To a certain extent it speaks to conditioning, for me Osho was ever-present at least as pictures, videos and so on during my childhood. It’s a difficult environment to shake.”
Okay, that is not difficult to understand. It also speaks of a somewhat pampered life. Millions of people around the world are going through hell right now. Many of them will pass through it and hopefully arrive in a better place. They will shake off a far more difficult environment than the one NP is speaking about.
NP, if you really do want to shake off the past, why not start by throwing out all those mouldy Osho books and recordings? Just drop it, man. Then go for a walk beside the sea, breathe in the fresh air and feel how good it feels to be alive right now, without the need to carry the burdens of the past. Just drop all the Osho stories, good and bad, and just be in the moment. This is freedom.
There is still a certain internal turbulence, and I don’t want to throw out the baby with the bath water. So I’m going to take my time and let it settle for a while, I’m sure things will eventually become clear.
“If you really look, however, there is a lot of his behaviour which is not ok. Certainly enough to say, I would not want this man as a spiritual guide or teacher.”
Strange that you don’t see it, Nityaprem.
The Master helps you with all these stories to get rid of him.
That you can walk through the golden Gate like Lokesh, lol.
“If you really look, however, there is a lot of his behaviour which is not ok. Certainly enough to say, I would not want this man as a spiritual guide or teacher.”
Excellent, you have arrived!
But will it be out of the frying pan into the fire, if the same outward-looking dynamic and hypnosis keeps playing out?
Still looking for another teacher or system, a more authentic one hopefully to believe in, with some ‘special energy’ (like fries) to go with that?
The only commitment you need to make is to follow and trust your own unique path. You are the baby, you are the bath water.
Many orphaned sannyasins, bereft of community, pre-packaged wisdom, and looking to upgrade their software, have continued the search for a place to land and call home, with Buddha, Mooji, Ramona, Nisargadatta, Byron Katie, Barry Long, Andrew Cohen, Amma, Mother Meera, John de Ruiter, Sadhguru, Sufism, Tantra, and the whole shebang.
There’s usually only a small entry fee for this no-mind experience….
But you had to go through it in order to congratulate yourself that you don’t need it. Isn’t that true for you, Dominic?
Which doesn’t necessarily prove anything about the ‘gurus’ except that where you’re at you don’t need any of them now, and that it’s time to live whatever’s true for you?
Is there space in you for any gratitude for any of them (apart from their perceived flaws enabling you to reject them)?
P.S:
Btw, Eckhart Tolle isn’t in this list – presumably an oversight?
Yes, SD, Eckhart too, it’s a well-stocked shebang in any case, and I don’t mean to imply you can’t enjoy and learn from everyone, although some there I wouldn’t bother with.
Hopefully, I’m not congratulating myself and becoming prideful.
And yes, you have to go through everything, and honestly I’m a slow learner.
Just my feedback to NP really, as to me, from the way he writes he seems externally enchanted, bouncing around from one teacher and text to another, and could now drop this whole reverential ‘Master’ malarkey, and learn to trust himself more without a security blanket.
I can see that others hold onto it quite dearly and that’s their bag, good luck to them.
Just a bit of social work in the mental asylum really
Hope you are well.
Ok Dominic, you’ve passed the audition!
I’m generally ok, thanks, all things considered.
“Certainly enough to say, I would not want this man as a spiritual guide or teacher.”
Perhaps best to just let it go then and look elsewhere. You may be able to find a teacher who best fits your expectations.
We have bitter ex-sannyasins like Lokesh who left Osho in 1981 and believe they are free of a cult and imagine they are now “independent of Osho”, yet are unable to let go of him and want to complain about him being gifted bling and Rollers, despite never being present at the Ranch, World Tour or Pune Two.
At Rajneeshpuram and Pune Two the energy field was extremely potent as many can testify, more potent than in Pune One, as there were by that time not just Osho’s presence but many other Buddhas, enlightened sannyasins quietly minding their business but expanding the energy field; some who also had their own small communes, such as Yog Chinmay , Narendra and Shanti Kristian. And in Pune Two most of those who were not really into Osho or had been put off had left.
Thanks, Dominic. I’ve already read the books of a few of your rogues’ gallery, and there were some that were indeed worth the effort.
But I just want to spend a little time in contemplation, to try and find myself independent of Osho. I’m not particularly looking for another guru or ashram so soon, if at all.
The question I’d like to try and answer for myself is, ‘what is spirituality without a guru?’
Lokesh wrotem “NP, if you really do want to shake off the past, why not start by throwing out all those mouldy Osho books and recordings? Just drop it, man.”
I’ve already removed Osho books, photos and discourses from my space and personal devices, it seemed like a sensible thing to do.
It does not feel more, or less free, though. Pretty much the same.
NP reports, “I’ve already removed Osho books, photos and discourses from my space and personal devices, it seemed like a sensible thing to do.”
That is a start.
Then he says, “It does not feel more, or less free, though. Pretty much the same.”
Oh dear. The only qualified person who I can think of to provide deprogramming is…erm…wait for it…Swarte Piet.
He’s likely to pop you in his bag and take you to Spain if you’ve been naughty. And have you, Lokesh?
But, you are already in Spain, of course!
Yes, I am. Thanks for reminding me, although it is hard to forget with 23 degrees sun and swimming in the sea, with not a glimpse of Swarte Piet. I once bought a Swarte Piet make-up kit but never used it.
Those who are gullible will be believe the Erin Robbins stories without any proof whatsoever.
One can only feel sympathy for those who are bitter or had a bad experience in the communes or didn’t get enough out of their experience with Osho, or drank piss in London squats after leaving India and have an axe to grind.
One sannyasin who really got a lot out of Osho and was with him since the very early days was Swami Yog Chinmaya, who became sixth body enlightened some time around 1979, although most sannyasins didn’t know this. As like other enlightened sannyasins, Chinmaya wanted to keep quiet and low profile.
This rare photo compilation of Chinmaya has recently emerged:
https://youtu.be/FhQi5rKHwuQ?si=iczrc8XF26NxFFBP
Although the wording has been slightly changed in the video, Chinmaya said, “The forces that destroyed the commune still exist in the world.” That was in response to criticism from sannyasins who wanted him to put himself out more and release photos and videos of himself.
But that may just be the translation from Russian to English.
He wanted to keep quiet and was well aware of the hacking and the forces against Osho, and wanted to work with small groups of sannyasins he considered ‘ready’,and most photos after his enlightenment used in the video have been found after his death in 2019.
Thanks for the video, Shanti, I found both photos and soundtrack delightful, they had me totally attentive. Oh, the seductiveness of that eastern-style devotion…
I came across Chinmaya just once, the very first time I entered the Pune ashram, on a hot July afternoon over 50 years ago. It was pretty quiet, in the days before the ashram became inundated with people, and he was sitting just outside what was then the main building. I had a query, probably something about the daily schedule and when I could have a darshan, and I well recall being struck by his tranquil presence, and how his voice slightly lowered almost to a whisper when, after giving me some info, he said, “And then you will meet Bhagwan…”
In those few words he communicated a purity of love for the master and with it, a sense of the profound significance of my impending first meeting with Bhagwan.
Anazing really that I recall those monents so clearly. He was a beautiful being.
Yeah. There are a few videos and podcasts around from a couple of Chinmaya’s disciples, who were both in awe of him and also appear to been transformed by the combination of his and Osho’s presence.
He was critical of Somendra (Michael Barnett) whom he considered a premature declarer and told one disciple that “you are past the point where you can no longer make the mistakes that Somendra and people like him have made. In the fourth body many psychic powers become available and they can enchant and divert you for lives.” Or something to that effect…
He was one of the first batch of sannyasins.
Yeah. Thanks for that description, SD. Nice little video.
There are a few videos and podcasts around from a couple of Chinmaya’s disciples, who were both in awe of him and also appear to been transformed by the combination of his and Osho’s presence.
He was critical of Somendra (Michael Barnett) whom he considered a premature declarer of enlightenment and told one disciple that “you are past the point where you can no longer make the mistakes that Somendra and people like him have made. In the fourth body many psychic powers become available and they can enchant and divert you for lives.” Or something to that effect…
Here is a Nepali interview with Chinmaya’s disciple Bodhicitta. Interesting how they are still do the gachamis in Osho Tapoban. Seems they may be are stuck in Rajneeshpuram era:
https://youtu.be/0_alkzmW_T0?si=SKGOvIqoXNed7llF
Dominic wrote, “and could now drop this whole reverential ‘Master’ malarkey, and learn to trust himself more without a security blanket.”
It’s funny, I never could imagine myself in the role of the good ‘disciple’, there was always something about the idea of having a ‘master’ which didn’t sit well with me. I always thought the words spoke too much of a dominance hierarchy.
Well, NP, Osho did start to refer to himself as his people’s “friend” towards the end of his life. Not sure exactly when but I seem to recall he didn’t let that prevent him from giving the assembled multitude a blast of severe ‘masterly’ criticism for something or other, shortly after announcing this new paradigm.
But Dominic, my spiritual search has always been more a search for truth and healing than a search for a father figure or a security blanket.
I have a father, and I get on very well with him. I have my own money, so I don’t need a further security blanket. I’m now a 52-year-old mature adult, no longer the child who grew up in the communes.
The question of reading spiritual books is about fulfilling a thirst, it is not intellectual. I’m looking for a certain spiritual essence, something beyond the mind.
That’s good news, NP.
I can give that a like from my MAGA platform, Make Autonomy Great Again!
You do you, everyone else is taken, and Gee U R U.
The search for truth is our quest, learning from everyone, following no-one, moving forward and keeping counsel with our own inner guru.
The past is gone, now is the gift, that’s why it’s called the present!
How do you like my corny zen fortune cookies?
Yeah, I must admit my spiritual search had reached an impasse with Osho. His discourses kept sending me to sleep, without really furthering me on the path. But despite having read ‘The Power of Now’ before, it wasn’t really sinking in as a practice, and it was necessary for me to let go of Osho’s path first.
I don’t think I really believe in going to meditation resorts in faraway countries in order to experience the energy, I’m more about an everyday practice, something you can recall and do as needed which deepens your experience.
Very corny zen cookies! Very tasty!
In the end, I think it is not worth it to feel resentful or regretful about Osho, even if you’ve come to the conclusion he was not as he appeared. Too much negativity brings in unhappiness, and I am not going to spend my days wallowing in it.
At the root I believe in a certain natural spirituality, which is about the rhythms of the body and the earth, of day and night, waking and sleeping, the seasons, the years, millennia and aeons. I read yesterday a passage which said that everything in the universe was conscious to a certain degree: the plants, the water, the rocks… if you know a little about the latest particle physics, it seems likely. That if it wasn’t conscious, it couldn’t exist.
If you can inhabit the body deeply, you can come into contact with its inner energy field. In the first instance this is the sensation of the skin, but really you want to go deeper. It’s a fascinating process.
“If you can inhabit the body deeply, you can come into contact with its inner energy field. In the first instance this is the sensation of the skin, but really you want to go deeper. It’s a fascinating process.”
That’s the initial process Barry Long used to emphasise, NP. Also tended to spontaneously happen in the final stage of Osho’s active meditations.
NP, this short talk by Eckhart Tolle might be relevant to the process you describe:
https://teachings.eckharttolle.com/etnow-free-video-calling-in-the-light/
That’s a good tip, Satyadeva. I really appreciate Eckhart Tolle, I have been re-reading ‘The Power of Now’ and it’s a very rich set of teachings.
The whole question of inhabiting the body I think Eckhart explains more clearly than many Eastern teachings which just tell you “you are not the body”, which has always struck me as strange because in a way we are the body while we are incarnate on this Earth. Not being the body gets you to deny the body, which is our locus of presence here on the Earth and in a way our temple.
Instead, Eckhart says, go deeply into the body, encounter its inner energy, and eventually discover that this inner energy is limitless, and reach to Being (the Unmanifested) that way. It allows you to make friends with the body. There is no need to reject the body.
It’s worth noting that Eckhart Tolle took this emphasis from Barry Long, one of whose public meetings he attended well before he became well known. I was there and heard ET say to BL, “I want to be a spiritual teacher”. To my surprise, as ET somehow didn’t seem to be ‘the type’ for that role, appearing rather quiet and insignificant, BL responded positively, encouraging him and suggesting one or two things to bear in mind. Clearly, he recognised him as a potential ‘real deal’.
BL predicted he’d be succeeded by someone whose influence would far exceed his own, and it’s pretty clear that ET is that person.
Nice story, Satyadeva! I had heard that ET spent some time travelling after his experience in London and his time sitting on park benches.
In ‘The Power of Now’ he lists a number of possible portals to get in touch with Being, which strikes me as more reasonable than just one, as many traditional spiritual teachings seem to do.
Yes, Et is extremely prolific, turning out courses, videos and live talks at a remarkable rate. All done with humility and good humour.
Ever since I first met Eckhart on that park bench in Euston all those years ago and he offered me a slug from his bottle of Thunderbird, I always knew he was destined for great things.l will never forget the time, after a particularly heavy session on the Buckfast tonic wine, I think it was, when Scottish Rab, another homeless guy who used to spend time on the same bench, called Eckhart “a wee teutonic garden-gnome wanker.” Eckhart quite rightly took a swing at him but then Rab, being a weegee, nutted him. That`s why, to this day, Eckhart`s nose looks a bit flattened and squashed.
The row started because Rab used to say “Och aye the noo” a lot, in a kind of “Bom Shankar” way, whenever he took a slug from a bottle, and he felt that Eckhart was ripping him off by planning to call his book ‘The Power of Now’. To be fair, he had a point, because nowhere in any of the editions of ‘Power of Now’ is there any dedication to or acknowledgment of Rab, full name Robert Macguffin. Check it for yourself. It seems to be a classic case of cultural appropriation on the part of Eckhart, in this case, from the Scottish.
Don`t forget, it is very important to take gurus and teachers very seriously. Where else can humanity expect a bit of karmic relief delivered with perfect karmic timing?
Take, for example, the cases of tantric masters who eventually are discovered to having quickies with their disciples and midnight secret sessions off their faces on cheap drugs, launching their custard into the faces of their disciples. Surely such brilliant ”devices” would be enough to loosen people`s egoic attachment to absurd pseudo-spiritual conceptualisations and bring them back down to some sort of reality?
MOD:
Frank, are you sure this was ET at Euston? I’m sure his park benches were in far more salubrious, pleasant surroundings, Hampstead Heath and Waterlow Park. I even recall Parmartha (co-founder of SN) pointing out to me “Eckhart Tolle’s bench” overlooking the Waterlow tennis courts.
It’s the karma chameleon himself! The return of the prodigal piss-taker, through his infinite compassion, just before SN dissolves into karmic oblivion!
Call it Fate, Divine Grace, God’s Will, a Bit of a Joke – some things are meant to be….
Haha, very good, Frank! Gotta watch out for those nutters. I hear that Mooji is handing out malas these days, some people take themselves ever more seriously…
Indeed, SD.
As the sages and gurus of old have always known:
When the disciple is ready, the chancer appears!
Which reminds me, I haven`t heard from Swami Bhorat lately. Rumour on the street is that he`s on a yoga retreat in P Wing, for a very long stretch, you might say. He might even be on death row, if the latest charges stick. Still, everything must come to an end, like SN.
Cheraiveti cheraiveti
As you know, it`s very difficult to get hold of ET these days, so I called his helpline.
I got an Indian guy in a call centre on the other end.
He said, “Hello and thank you for calling Eckhart Tolle helpline.
You are number 108 in the queue.
For New Age platitudes, press 1,
For a re-hashed Course in Miracles, press 2
To manifest a New Earth, press 3
To make a payment, press 4.
For all other enquiries, please wait and one of ET’s fans will be with you shortly to drone on to you for hours and hours about consciousness, love, presence, awareness etc. etczzzz…
Please hold the line.
Your enlightenment is important to us.”
Mooji sounds like a boogie-night baba, a gangsta mahatma and a badassatva.
But cultish guru behaviour has gone mainstream these days. Look at P. Diddy, Russell Brand, if not DT*.
Old skool cult leaders are small fry.
Reminds me of that movie from the 80s with Malcolm Macdowell as Jack the Ripper who escapes from Victorian England on HG Wells`s time machine and ends up in modern day USA. He watches the news on telly and realises that these days he`s nothing special, people like him are two-a-penny!
*DT is that American guru who grabs his disciples` pussies.
If our old friend Yogi reappears, warn him to change his typesetting, specifically the inverted commas, otherwise readers might be left with the impression that Yogi is you in diss-guise.
Loke, yes, you can`t be too careful with Yogis, they are a shifty lot.
As Jesus used to say, “By their commas ye shall know them.”
Rumour has it Yogi got busted for a raft of sexual improprieties and various other scams, so he became a born-again Christian and right wing-nut to avoid prosecution.
Hi Frank,
Isn’t it ‘porn-again’ Christian starting a ‘kakistocrazy’?
It’s all repetition. Innit?
Cheers.
MOD:
Klaus, what is “kakistocrazy”, please?
Saints preserve us, Yogi got busted for a raft of sexual improprieties and various other scams! Surely those are trumped-up charges. The world has gone mad. All we need now is for Swami Shanti to appear, informing us how he has attained Level 42 enlightenment, to complete the picture. Pray to Swami G for salvation before it is too late.
I’d think you would need Shantam Prem and Arpana as well to make the crowd complete, for a jolly old knees-up death celebration for SannyasNews! Where are the local burning ghats? So that I can add my iPad to the flames! Yahoo!
Yes, good idea, Nityaprem, but Arpana and SP have been gone for years and when I last communicated with Arpana earlier this year he wasn’t interested in writing here anymore and didn’t trust the site or some of the writers at all anymore. And said something about “perhaps it’s time we should start calling Lokesh Luke.”
Good morning, friends,
It is fresh and pretty cold out there today, just a few degrees above freezing. The sky is grey, but at least it’s not raining, and all of a sudden lots of people were making demands on my time this morning. Usually my mornings are quiet and contemplative, but all of a sudden today I was busy! I’m glad that the tide seems to have slackened now…
The discussion on Facebook today still seems to be how to view Osho? There is little doubt that he has to bear some responsibility for creating the atmosphere on the Ranch and in the communes and its negative effects on the kids, but how to square that with the beautiful spiritual discourses? It’s a pickle, but I am not spending a lot of time on it.
Instead I drink my coffee and catch up on correspondence via the email. There is a lady friend I have been talking to for about a year and a half now who is very concerned with suicidally depressed young people. She sent me a heads-up about a travelling artwork called ‘the Silent Battle’, it seems to be a powerful memorial for those going through hard times. Worth just spending a moment on…
What is discussed might be about Osho/Bhagwan, too.
Imv, it is also a lot about our own selves acting in such and such a way by actively taking part in a few acts. Or by not speaking up and/or interfering more courageously in a few acts.
Each person must be dealing with the consequences of whatever has happened – childhood trauma, sannyas trauma, other shit happening in this life – individually. As always.
Once the support of a leading figure is gone or has been left, one falls back on the level of being one has arrived at by one’s own wisdom. That’s where one starts again:
“Pick yourself up – and start all over again…”
(Nat King Cole and George Shearing)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20ViFpURIDk
Peter Tosh
‘Pick Myself Up’ – Reggae version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=yRlBfYQ8YVg
Peter Tosh
‘Pick Myself Up’ – Reggae version
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=yRlBfYQ8YVg
Here is where the lyrics come from: 1936 movie, ‘Swing Time’
https://genius.com/Mel-torme-pick-yourself-up-lyrics
A sure sign of something or other that some of SN’s best writers are returning for perhaps a final run on SN. Very pleased to see that as it supplies a few much-needed laughs on the site. Of course, it is easy to laugh about Satchit’s shite, but that is too easy and a wee bit sad, as the poor chump believes he has a handle on things…well, maybe he has…a handle on an overflowing potty full of shit.
After considering Deeksha’s revelations on the podcast my mind travelled back in time to when I first arrived in Poona at the beginning of 1975.
I checked into Sundar Lodge on Bund Garden Road, after travelling by bus from Goa. I had a bit of an anti-guru stance that was not built on very much. Real hippies weren’t supposed to have gurus or something like that, and I was a real hippy, my mind pretty blown by too much psychedelics. My first impression of the ashram was negative. It looked so culty, everyone in orange, malas, and those knowing smiles. I felt like a burnt-out tree stump in a poppy field.
My first Osho discourse was a Hindi one. I was worried about getting piles from sitting on a cold marble floor. I could not understand a word that Osho said and could not wait to get out of there and drink a hot chai.
Two weeks passed and I still felt negative about the whole orange scene. This was reinforced when I found an old Buddhist text behind a cupboard in my rented space. The small book detailed how a demon would one day arrive on the planet posing as an avatar. I was convinced that demon was Osho. Paranoia the destroyer.
I eventually booked a darshan and had my first personal meeting with Osho. There was no resisting that incredible vibe he emanated. I did not take a jump or anything dramatic. Osho just slipped a mala over my head and gave me a name…which I loved. There is a story behind it but I will not diverge.
Things took a turn for the worse. I did not recognize it for what it was then, but in retrospect, I underwent a bit of a nervous breakdown. It was a hellish experience. I eventually shaved my head and as my hair grew back so did the new me. I exited Hell after about four months.
During this time, I had a couple of darshans with Osho every week. Osho was very patient, loving and playful with me. He also advised me on my new life as a meditator. It worked. The healing process kicked in good and proper and I became a new man. Clear, positive, vital, energetic, singing and dancing as much as I possibly could. I did Dynamic and Kundalini daily for years. Looking back, I have much to thank Osho for. He helped me tremendously on my path through life, no doubt about it. And that is how I truly remember Osho.
Today we are being presented with a shit show to look back upon. Kids being sexually abused by adult sannyasins. What a fucking mess. I brought up a young lad in Poona One. He loved it. Not all of the kids suffered for their life in orange. Many of them had a golden childhood in Poona One.
Now we hear about who Osho was behind the scenes. Another shit show. All that glitters is not gold. I have not felt very connected to the sannyasin scene for decades, so none of the scandal impacts my life. A long and meandering joke in the very worst of taste.
Meeting Poonjaji in Lucknow was a liberating experience. I closed a circle in my spiritual life that I did not know until then was still open. What was liberating about meeting Poonjaji was he woke me up to the fact that there was no longer the need for an outer guru in my life. The real guru resides within you. Anyone who tells you otherwise is a deceiver. Of course, I had to pass through the gates that both Osho and Poonjaji represented to come to that understanding.
When we are young, the paths through life are many. Ageing not only narrows the arteries in the body, it narrows the path we walk. In that respect, we are all on the same path. Don’t ask me what it is all about, because I don’t know the answer to that. I have embraced that not knowing and it feels all right. As Timothy Leary so wisely said:
“Throughout human history, as our species has faced the frightening, terrorizing fact that we do not know who we are, or where we are going in this ocean of chaos, it has been the authorities – the political, the religious, the educational authorities – who attempted to comfort us by giving us order, rules, regulations, informing – forming in our minds – their view of reality. To think for yourself you must question authority and learn how to put yourself in a state of vulnerable open-mindedness, chaotic, confused vulnerability to inform yourself.”
Amen.
Well said, Loke, thanks.
Cool, bro.
Good that you’ve listened to Deeksha’s podcast. Now that people like Vivek and Laxmi are no longer around to tell their stories, it becomes more and more difficult to learn about the real Osho, how he could go from the wise Acharya to a child-like state fascinated by watches and the trim and modifications of a Rolls Royce.
There was a video posted on YouTube by the organisation of Maharishikaa, a female Indian mystic, about how Osho’s enlightenment had gone partially wrong. For those into esoteric explanations, they may find it interesting…
https://youtu.be/s7wG4pND7Eo
For me, Osho was a massive influence on my youth, his ideas around bringing up children were a guiding force for my father. And there were always Osho discourses around, on tape and on video. It was a thing, to grow up in that environment. Osho said he wanted to help us get rid of our conditioning, but there was definitely a certain sannyasin programming that was instilled.
I do regret not going to see Poonjaji when I was in India in 1997, but I think I wasn’t really ready for it at the time. C’est la vie… for me the ‘Children of the Cult’ was a point of evolution. Not really a completion of the cycle, but certainly a necessary distancing from Osho.
SHANTI:
Well, for those put off by watches and Rolls Royce’s missed the point and never got close enough to the real Osho. Laxmi and Vivek did of course.
Deeksha’s ego was hit by Osho early on in the US and she left and went to the INS, and then became a US agent, and is now being used to spread disinformation and propaganda.
Many left who never got close to the non-physical Osho and some fools got stuck there and want to carry on about it as we have seen on this site. This young lady Maharishikaa has no clue what she’s talking abou t at all she has just read the wrong stuff. As I have mentioned in this thread, Osho’s buddhafield was not less but actually much more powerful at the Ranch as more enlightened sannyasins began to flower, there was no change in Osho, actually enlightened sannyasins where there keeping silent and growing , until they reached deeper samadhi’s, under Osho’s guidance.
and in Pune Two, even more so, with not only Osho’s presence but also Buddhas who where already enlightened as well as more enlightened people, and more mature meditators , minus people who dropped out for various reasons, created an extremely potent energy field.
Auld Lokesh thinks:
“Of course, it is easy to laugh about Satchit’s shite, but that is too easy and a wee bit sad, as the poor chump believes he has a handle on things…well, maybe he has…a handle on an overflowing potty full of shit.”
The dogs bark, but the caravan moves on.
Btw, I had similar experience in Pune: Bhagwan as the devil.
It almost seems that if the recent gossip had not come out you would have consistently continued to share the methods/tools that worked for you, the same epistemological sense that you inherited from the Master.
If someone read this comment of yours, and was not an old man like you, he would have the energy and curiosity to delve deeper into the subject with the risk of joining the sect.
Better that you do not tell, therefore, this esoteric story of the recovery from your drug addiction through the placebo effect of meditation techniques while you were influenced by benevolent “energies” and “vibrations”, the reality is not like that, Osho was the Devil; think of the true reality described by Deeksha the Jewess, her compassion towards those who had emptied her mother’s bank account, a compassion that lasted 45 years.
Amen
MOD:
Apologies to all, there’ll be no moderation of posts until later on today, maybe in 3 or 4 hours time, as I have a couple of appointments to attend. See you later.
A psychologist might observe your repetitious criticisms of individuals and this entire site, Shanti, and tend to conclude that at some level you find such people personally threatening, that you feel compelled to attack them in order to make yourself and your self-created sannyasin identity feel more secure.
In other words, your own condition is the source of the problem you attempt to erase outside of yourself: The more insecure one feels, the more extreme the self-protective response. We all know this (I certainly do) from our own life experience and it explains all sorts of extremism.
I’m sure you think of yourself as ‘standing up for pure Sannyas’, or some such concept, fighting not just the good, but the most important fight, but perhaps if you were to enquire more deeply you might find your real motive is to fight this personal feeling of insecurity.
Otherwise, why bother with this “little site” as you call it? It’s a drop in the ocean, man, Osho’s influence on the segment of the human race that he’s meant for, that’s truly suited to him, will continue for a very long time, many generations (Vladimir Putin and our lot permitting) however much you condemn, either directly or by inference, some people as ‘traitors’ (a term which, of course, can be a prime example of a ‘cult mentality’, and btw, one which I find entirely inappropriate here).
Yes, SD, but don`t forget Shanti has a lot of intel on Yogi, who is working for the FBI, and Bhorat, who is a CIA asset. Over the years they have infiltrated SN, along with the same people who destroyed the Ranch, organised MKUltra and turned people gay by putting chemicals in the water.
He knows about that sort of thing because he watches a lot of conspiracy thrillers on Netflix, so he`s pretty clued up.
He also knows the true story about Osho`s after midnite stories:
The CIA had an operative who infiltrated Osho`s inner circle and managed to mix Viagra into Osho`s medications. Later, Osho started to suffer from extreme and persistent priapism, so female sannyasins had to be drafted in at all hours, for purely medical reasons, in order to give him relief from what can be a very painful condition. It all had to be very hush-hush or else the unconscious masses, negative people who were stuck in their head, people who wanted to destroy Osho`s vision and failed sannyasins would have jumped to all the wrong conclusions.
Yeah, well, Frank, with so many mentions of these fabulous US agencies I cannot stop myself from posting this funny (? – for whom?) event called
‘The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast of…Ronald Reagan’.
In the vid you can see all these actors and/or comedians almost falling off their chairs for the laughter about the Gov’n'r at that time:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ve1z48hljYY
For we might still need someone to shift all the blame onto.
Blimey.
I have criticised in more recent years because the site has become more unwelcome for sannyasins, popularised mostly by people who really inwardly secretly or more outwardly obviously have a negative opinion of Osho, trolls, an axe to grind, and it became more clearer after Parmartha left his body and other writers left the site that some have a motive – “anti-cult” people who feel are out of touch with the sannyasin world, or didn’t get enough out of it, etc.
It is clearly no longer a news site since 2018. I mean no sannyasins are really interested, the notice board has gone, all the links have gone, no one’s interested in the events, etc.
Also, we have noticed lots of hacking and I have noticed mine and other people’s comments have been changed and some have disappeared, which means it is also now a completely unreliable platform to write on as well. Sannyasins’ comments have been changed whilst writing on here.
MOD:
As you well know, Shanti, the deterioration of the site is due to technical difficulties, and not having anyone to look after that aspect, apart from Clive who’s prevented it from going down completely but is far too busy with his own concerns.
As for hacking, that’s most regrettable, of course. Although I suspect the picture you describe is well exaggerated, the overwhelmingly vast majority of posts remaining in pristine condition.
Shanti, if you’re not yourself a sannyasin then you’ve definitely been a master of disguise over the years! And if that’s the case, why are you so concerned about whether SN attracts sannyasins or not? Especially as then you’re part of what you perceive as ‘the problem’, are you not?
Much of the earlier content on SN was simply chat: ideas, argument, controversy, picking over the past, interpersonal conflicts, etc. There was more news then, yes, but the site wasn’t overwhelmingly news-based, as in ‘this has happened, that will happen’ etc.
Besides, I’m not at all sure whether there’s all that much ‘news’ worth publishing in the Sannyas world any more, but there again I’m not and never have been a ‘networker’, unlike Parmartha, the epitome of that role. You certainly haven’t suggested anything SN could or should cover, mainly spending your time here having a go at people you obviously despise – because they’re “ex-sannyasins” (like yourself, lol).
The recent sex scandals certainly qualify as ‘news’ and have been featured here, but without great ongoing interest, infinitesimal compared to the facebook forum, which SN is never going to compete with or even try to duplicate as there’s no need, it’s all covered over there. Which I suspect suits you fine?
This year two writers, Veet Francesco and Veet Tom, told me their comments were being interfered with, and I also noticed some changes to my comments, this year, and in Lokesh’s book, and have also noticed that several older comments from older threads had disappeared, positive comments about Osho and replies to my comments from Parmartha, and recently noticed that other replies to my comments from Tan and Parmartha have disappeared, and it wasn’t difficult to see why someone would’t want them here.
This is only the tip of the iceberg as I have not looked through most of the older material on the site.
Recently one of the Loveosho podcasts has also been removed.
Yes, I am a sannyasin.
You know, I would suspect that this is due to just the technical deterioration of the site. It strikes me as very far-fetched that some hacker or agency would try to modify posts on SN; what would be the point? There is nothing to be gained from it.
Yes, but think how wonderful it is to be able to believe that everything you don`t like in the world is the result, not of the failings of yourself and/or the people you identify with, but rather, malicious forces that have a devilish agenda.
It`s brilliant because that way, your own idiocy, mendaciousness, abusiveness, sheer stupidity etc. and that of those you support can always be deflected, so you can sail through life on an imagined Noah’s Ark of consciousness to save the great heritage of humanity or whatever, espousing and claiming all sorts of spiritual fantasies with you as a key part in the highest spiritual game there is.
It`s a magnificent and hugely gratifying ego trip. It`s easy to see the attraction.
Well done, brother frank, finally a smart guy who has realized himself for a happily spendable life among normal people, without using cheap drugs or oriental spiritual illusions.
When you have the true biblical God in your heart the world appears in the right light to understand that there is no need to conspire against humanity, being possible to crush it in broad daylight, at school, in the pharmacy, at the supermarket or on TV.
Now that you have brought your message of light to the idiots who write here, do not waste any more precious time and go back to dealing with the reality that really matters in your rich social life in the neighbourhood.
That would be very naive to think that.
There are still powerful and not so powerful forces who still consider Osho a huge threat. Don’t underestimate the value of the media to the vested interests.
As Swami Yog Chinmaya said, “The forces that destroyed the commune (Rajneeshpuram) are still active in the world.”
The problem with Chinmaya’s statement of course is that he omits the part played by the commune itself, specifically the cabal running the place, appointed by and their confrontational attitude encouraged by Osho.
I think that the comment doesn’t mean that Chinmaya doubted that Sheela and her group had carried out the crimes which he exposed, but rather that there was involvement from CIA/religious/US officials to make sure that the commune was destroyed and Osho was expelled from America.
And you seriously believe that these shadowy forces feel threatened by Osho’s legacy? Where’s your evidence, Shanti?
Is that why you keep on deleting your own posts, shortly after writing them? (For instance, the one that appeared yesterday where you said you didn’t “identify with being a sannyasin”, that you got rid of after I’d ridiculed that statement, which, of course, made my response irrelevant?).
SD: Yes, absolutely- I don’t need to believe , I have witnessed the evidence since observing the media games around Osho since ‘Wild Wild Country’ came out and have seen what’s going on. And we have some screenshots of evidence, quite a lot of screenshots actually, of hacking, various pieces of positive writing in the online media on Osho being hidden, pieces of anti-Osho propaganda and disinformation being protected when being challenged, diffferent things.
There are also some online books being edited, an online book by someone who visited Nisargaddatta Maharaj has been changed and passages hidden from the original by Christian anti-cult groups, even some online PDFs of books by ex-sannyasins I noticed had certain sentences removed from the original paper books to make him look a little worse.
As for why I sometimes delete comments, well, for exactly the same reason as Lokesh used to.
For you it’s become chronic though, Shanti.
And even when your priest, teacher, master ,guru (or you yourself) gets caught with his pants down sticking his knob where it is not welcome, necking handfuls of cheap drugs, lying his ass off, blagging like there`s no tomorrow, or indeed you do, it`s absolutely no problem.
Dust yourself down, spout a few spiritual cliches, blame the devil, the powers-that-be, unconsciousness, ego, mind, whatever, and stroll on.
Fucking brilliant really.
Golly. Frank, if what you say is true, and there is no reason to doubt it, the situation demands the attention of Anand Yogi, so that he can shed light on the situation before it deteriorates further. The way things are going on SN right now I would not be surprised if The Penguin shows up, heavens forbid. I’ve tried praying to Swami G for guidance, but he is involved in a poker tournament in Ladakh. and therefore has more important matters on his no-mind mind. Yogi, where are you?
I hear Yogi has ascended to Mahasamadhi with an entourage of teenage gopis and a decent stash of soma and will be lying low for the next 84000 yugas or so….
Oh well, I will just have to miss Yogi terribly. Perhaps someone might channel him. Besides, with the speed time is passing nowadays and a few infusions of soma tea 84,ooo yugas will soon fly by. Hari Om.
Well, I miss Yogi too, his channellings uplift us all.
I was hoping for more of his ultimate truths, to get us through this shit show called Life.
Cancel culture is just out of control!
I suppose he got some dodgy reviews from a couple of Gopis having a bad day, and had to lie low.
Only the minds of horny apes would believe that he hightailed it to his own Epstein island, with his entourage of teenage darlings.
Just like Osho, think of all the hundreds of extremely satisfied dakinis that have stayed silent, in a state of sweet surrender and bliss.
Only ignorant fools could believe that Yogi, Osho, Krishna were men, satisfying their own selfish sensual pleasures.
The pure transcendental love and divine union with these masters is gold, like the rays of the sun, and totally different!
Hare Krishna Hare Om!
“Of all certain things the most certain is doubt.” (Bertolt Brecht)
Someone like frank who believed in the science of vaccines and related owls is not surprised that he swallows gossip stories almost 50 years old.
Parmartha would have responded to you as he did to Shantam in 2011 (submitted on 2011/05/08 at 7:34 am), who supported his faith in the pharmaceutical industry versus ineffective oriental herbs:
“Shantam displays a sort of Indian mentality again. Has he never considered that the drugs and remedies ‘of the West’ are arguably more dangerous than the herbs of his ancestors?
All these “approved” medicines that come from those profit-obsessed western companies (it is they who have managed to get the herbal stuff banned cos it competes with their own widely suspected ‘drugs’) are also largely rubbish and have many untold side-effects.
The truth about medicine is that many people die because of its remedies, whether eastern or western, just because medicine is only really beginning as a ‘real’ science.
Many types of recorded ‘healing’ are actually the body healing itself.
Frankly, I wouldn’t trust either side of the coin unless death beckoned and as a last chance. Give me the old daily yoga, meditation and light aerobic exercise as a cure-all any day, for both body and mind – and nil side-effects”.
And to think that a Satyadeva in resentful mode, like a Sicilian husband wounded in his honour by a marital betrayal, told me that Parmartha did not share many of my things.
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/thank-you-dr-fauci-the-high-stakes-docu-thriller-investigating-covid-19-origins-the-dangers-of-biodefense-and-a-massive-coverup-available-globally-now-302290814.html
“Satyadeva…told me that Parmartha did not share many of my things.”
Unfortunately, Veet, the fact is that Parmartha did not generally hold your views in high esteem, however much you might have shared similar orientations re basic medical treatments as, btw, I do, although I’ve not been against having covid jabs.
Fyi, Parmartha was a pragmatist, not any sort of ideologue, and he wouldn’t necessarily have been against being vaccinated against covid.
“FYI, Parmartha was a pragmatist, not an ideologue, and would not necessarily have been against Covid vaccination”. (SD)
Satyadeva argues that Parmartha was not an ideologue, without specifying whether he tended towards the liberal or communist current.
Because it makes a certain difference whether you see things from the side of those who have the means of production/financial/power or from the side of those who must adapt to the rules and prices of the market of goods and services, including those of our own body and brain.
I think that judging from what he writes below Parmartha rebelled against the status quo, not adapting to such rules:
“All these “approved” medicines that come from those profit-obsessed western companies (it is they who have managed to get the herbal stuff banned cos it competes with their own widely suspected ‘drugs’) are also largely rubbish and have many untold side-effects.”
For me he was an ideologue but not from your parish, SD, you who seems to wallow in the neo-liberal jungle (extreme phase of liberalism, where the few who are at the top declare a global social war on billions of people).
Maybe you don’t have to study Marx, you just need to ask yourself a few more questions. For example, why try to increase the gain function of a vaccine in “secret” laboratories (bacteriological warfare)?
How is the recruitment of young people to be sent to the Ukrainian front for the military campaign going in the UK?
SD,
Before SN goes ‘off the air’, I wonder if you could help me solve a 45 year-old mystery?
I was in Pune in the mid-seventies, and then again in May 1979. On that occasion, before I left London, I was asked if I would take an envelope with some papers inside, that was urgently needed at the ashram, I said ok.
Upon my arrival, I went directly to the main gate to hand it in, but was informed that I had to take it to the house. So I took it down to Lao Tzu gate to give it to the guard, who said to me: “You’re okay, you have an ‘old mala’, just go through.”
The next thing I knew, I was wandering around Osho’s garden and looking through the windows of the house. Inside, it was extremely quiet, neat and tidy.
Suddenly a voice behind me said: “You have something for us?” As I turned around, a Swami was holding out his hand and I handed him the envelope. He opened it and his eyes lit up!
I assumed it was some ancient text that Osho wanted to discourse on, but it was actually an Arsenal vs. Manchester United FA Cup Final programme, the game being played in a few days time. And apparently, some of the English boys in the ashram were going to listen to the game on the BBC world Service (no Sky Sports in those days) and thought the ‘energy’ would be better if they had a match programme to hold – so that was my unknown task.
There are ‘gooner’ prints all over this episode, I cannot recall who gave me the envelope. Do you know, SD? It’s possible that Parmartha was involved. And do you know who would’ve wanted it in the ashram? (I doubt it was Osho as I always imagine him at Loftus Road with me).
Btw…
It’s strangely pleasing to know that an FA Cup Final programme has been in Osho’s garden.
Most interesting, Anubodh, a true mystery at the very heart of Osho’s private world. Refreshing too to deal with this matter rather than the various other controversies going on…amazing where football infiltrates, clearly demonstrating how important it is, lol. (I recall my father, in his very old age, not long before his death, way back in ’96, sighing and quietly and perhaps a little sadly saying, as if from another place inside him, “And the whole world turns to football…”, which surprised me at the time but somehow had the ring of truth, and still does).
Stimulated by as few gulps of green tea, I’ve come up with two possible contenders (not including Parmartha, who I don’t think would have been involved).
Patrick, aka Prakash, now the owner of a Health Foods company, a lifetime Arsenal fan and an Arsenal season-ticket holder, who in ’79 was a delivery driver for the company.
And Pradeep, who you might recall was prominent in our sannyas football team in those days, having discovered around the age of 30 (largely, I think, due to the positive effects of Osho’s active meditations) that he enjoyed playing the game, and who often used to watch Tottenham and I think, Arsenal.
I’ve emailed Patrick about this just now but Pradeep passed away quite a few years ago (cancer). I suspect it might have been him who was responsible for the Cup Final programme as he might well have had connections in the upper echelons in Pune.
Good story, yes indeed, thanks!
P.S:
It could also have been Poonam, i/c of ‘Kalptaru’ (London Centre) or Nirvana, for a while her partner, both of whom liked football. I recall Poonam coming to at least one of our matches with a much younger guy who played for us in ’79 (vs. St. Mary’s College, Twickenham, where I was a student). As a ‘vip’ in the Sannyas world of that time she definitely could have been the one.
P.P.S:
We were an unusual lot, the London-based sannyasin football team, like the rabid spiritual seekers we were we generally subscribed to the ethos of this talk from ET:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feyXZBhRwCY
Yes, I remember well the ‘Glory Glory’ days of the sannyas football team! I was still playing five-a-side, until covid blew the full-time whistle on that.
I knew Poonam quite well as she gave me sannyas, and I would’ve remembered if it was her. I can’t place Pradeep, but Prakash rings a bell, especially if he had a girlfriend called Genine? (or similar name) because in ’79 we shared a hotel room in Pune (not as a couple) but to split the rent.
Anyway, thanks again, maybe something else will develop.
Yes, that was Prakash, whose girlfriend was the one you remember (Janine), who’s still very much around, as is Prakash (now Patrick). He later married an Australian sannyasin, Lora, and had (I think) two children.
I should have said Parmartha might have done it but as he never mentioned it I’m certain he didn’t. In May ’79 he might well still have been in Pune although he did return that year and was based from late ’78 for a few years at our shared place in Chalk Farm, just behind ‘Kalptaru’.
Come to think of this Cup Final programme episode, I believe I have a very hazy memory of it. Wonder whether it was me that bought it…(lol).
Just spoken with Patrick this afternoon, Anubodh, and he says it wasn’t him who got the programme.
Ok, thanks.
If SN is to go the same way as ‘The Belmont’, maybe that’s where we should finish. (And as a bonus, sannyasins receive an honorable mention)…
https://www.closedpubs.co.uk/london/nw1_camden_belmont.html
Anyway…All the best for the future.
Thanks, Anubodh. Amazing that sannyasins should be mentioned, but I guess we were highly visible, and pretty good, positive customers. Good times.
Almost found myself singing, “Those were the days, my friend, we thought they’d never end, we’d sing and dance for ever and a day….”
What I can`t figure out is whether SN is closing down due to a far-reaching conspiracy involving the CIA, FBI and deep state anti-cultists waging a war on consciousness and trying to destroy the work of the awakened ones, or whether it is a counter-move by an enlightened cabal of true hardcore sannyasins who are working hard to hold back the black tide of anti-Osho mud as represented by evil ex-sannyasin contributors here.
Anyway, whilst that is getting resolved, and in case SN`s inevitable demise comes sooner rather than later, I would just like to say thanks to everyone involved, from the creators through to the preservers and down to the intelligent contributors and even the barely comprehensible knobheads. All have played their part in the leela, no doubt.
For my part I can say it has been entertaining, educational, even enlightening and certainly fun while it lasted.
Yahoo!
Hari Om!
MOD:
Cheers, Frank.
But nothing is yet fixed in stone, there’s at least two weeks left, more if enough contributors contribute. What’s needed is articles and posts, otherwise it’s over, kaput, done, finished, exit the stage, curtains….
Yes, I second that emotion, congrats to all contributors, the Pro-Sannyas, Ex-Sannyas, Anti-Sannyas, the Born-again Bored again Sannyas, the Multi-guru Sannyas, non-dual groupies, mutants and the Undead.
In all its iterations, no blood was spilt, no attempted bio-attacks or poisonings were made, nobody committed suicide or ended their days in an asylum in a nietzschean funk (as far as we know), nobody was bugged (are you sure?), no life savings donated, no legal teams called.
This is a testament to the brotherhood and occasional sisterhood, to the visionary founding fathers and the rights of free, unrestricted tosh and inconvenient truths to be posted.
The house cats, the foxes, the hyenas have all been made welcome here, though it may have upset a few Germans who refused to participate for historical reasons.
Who can forget the Golden Years, when intellectual giants like brontosauri roamed the Osheolithic plains, or Osho’s boom boom and bust, bunga bunga parties, or the life, love, laughing gas years, or the many uncivil civil wars?
Yes, giants like Shantam Prem, so far ahead of his time that few will ever grok his meaning, Lokesh remaining doggedly faithful to Parmartha’s blessing, and Frank extracting Tesco’s finest urine.
Why would SN R.I.P.?
Perhaps the funding from the CIA, FBI, KGB, Xtian anti-cultists is drying up, given the political upheavals in Samsara.
Others might say, only the illusion of activity remains, with the recycling of familiar themes under different headings.
There are also known knowns, known unknowns, unknown knowns, and unknown unknowns.
Have miscreant reptilian double agents installed themselves in the SN Matrix, causing some keyboard warriors to wander lost, in a fog of conspiracy news cycles?
Yes, there have been lulls in the storms. Nityaprem’s soothing book club and weather reports, has allowed us to recoup, raising the collective consciousness to reflect upon the meaning of life, which remains elusive.
At the end of the day, for grammar nazis, punctuation, like a fingerprint, tells you all you need to know about a person and their alts.
For the average devotee, SN remained sceptical, cynical, and then scandalous when Oshopedia became Oshopedophile.
Some will conclude that Osho is not the Buddha, he’s not on the road, just don’t kill him, and fingers-crossed you weren’t on his hit list, which was probably only ever a hypothetical, reserved for those on the revolving inner circles.
Amongst it all, as it reaches end of life, there have been a lot of jokes…Sachit, Veet, Shanti, Rajneesh…just kidding (not).
What a history, of sex, lies and gurufrolics for guruholics, perhaps it could end with a pub quiz:
What was the name of Osho’s first cousin consort?
First prize: a pair of Shantam’s soiled zen underpants, from the SN lost property dept.
Second prize: a complete X-files dossier from Shanti, on ’foreign influence’ infiltration.
SN will surely remain at the forefront of gurupedia sense and nonsense. and will have benefited thousands of seekers (and suckers). A special thanks to Satyadeva, before he absconds with the pension fund, and other benefactors like Clive.
No doubt we will be entering a new era of AI Osho hologram technology, to make Sannyas great again.
Was it time well wasted that took years off our lives?
Some consumed by the work have entered a higher plane.
Others living a cloistered life have found refuge in the occult knowledge, rambling speech and knee-jerk responses.
We already know the ending (like a Game of Thrones)…all gods have feet of clay and all men must die.
In Memoriam
Pure dead brilliant, Dom. Truly inspirational. That great photo of PM at the end was touching…oops, better watch my language or someone might get upset.
Your wonderful words will be immortalized in a final chapter of SN Two, in about a month. Thanks.
Amen.
“We are all here because we are not all there.”
-Swami Bhorat
It is a “Yess” from me – you have 235349512zt3946§%”%§$() unreserved Yesses!
Sums it all up. And puts it into perspective.
No matter which one.
Aaw gee, thanks guys, too kind, I’m chuffed!
Could there be any higher praise, or infamy, than being immortalised in an SN 2 time capsule? I think not.
Shanti (“infamy, infamy, they’ve all got it in for me!”), resident expert on all things esoteric, seems miffed without his shot at glory.
Perhaps he could be included in another volume, SN 3: ‘The Total Rubbish Collection’ (the very worst of SN, stupid but not funny).
Other sequels might follow…
SN 4: ‘the Kiddies Book’ (just pictures, no texts).
SN 5: ‘The Final Rip Off Years’ (full of misinformation and lies).
SN 6: ‘Drug Cartels, Sex Workers & Guru Hook-Ups’ (not for the easily offended).
All shadowed with book tours and signings.
The sky’s the limit, it’s going to be the greatest achievement of Sannyaskind, and I know it’s in safe hands!
Swami Bhorat’s fooly awakened, hot, penetrating wisdom, for the benefit of all sentient beings, never fails to ignite his largely female following.
We’d all like to be him, wouldn’t we? Long may he run and his life not be unfairly shortened by any accidental excessive drug use.
Any rumours of him wearing an electronic tag, and chain-smoking exotic cigarettes is pure CIA disinformation, and just the sort of thing to expect during this age of Kali Yug.
That’s some lovely easy as Pi “Yesses” sums from you, Klaus. Archimedes, Isaac Newton & Bob the Builder couldn’t have said it better.
You say, “And puts it into perspective. No matter which one” – I like that, it shows a very open window mind, just don’t jump out of it!
You’re a Star, man.
“There’s a starman waiting in the sky
He’d like to come and meet us
But he thinks he’d blow our minds
There’s a starman waiting in the sky
He’s told us not to blow it
Cause he knows it’s all worthwhile
He told me
Let the children lose it
Let the children use it
Let all the children boogie…”
Dominic, ex-Sw. Navajat, but don’t you feel a little embarrassed, at your age, shaking your hips like a cheerleader for the two well-known champions of SN cynicism?
Consider that in this forum they have been trying for years, without success, to free themselves from the conditioning of an anti-conditioning cult that preached and practised being oneself.
Do you think that human nature excludes the possibility of human, warm, honest relationships that overcome cultural barriers and blood ties?
Isn’t what is happening around Osho a miracle, still in progress?
Do you think that cynicism is the existential goal of intelligent people?
At a certain point you had all disappeared from the forum that I thought (not even in the antechamber of the brain that you all had freed yourselves from the obsession of the Master of Masters) that faith or devotion in vaccine science had precluded your ability to handle orthography well, just in your mother tongue, i suppose…
You who claim to be able to recognize a person by their horthography, it should be a serious side-effect to blame on Mr Gates.
Do you think it’s hard to get the best urine out of you?
Is it such fun to act tough with people whose only limitation is to recognize the importance of the orange community in spiritual growth?
And yet we’ve all seen you surrounded by sannyasins, posing for the photo, collecting Big P’s ashes, so it’s not true, not even for you, that only the traditional family exists, with its neuroses and incestuous secrets…
But if it wasn’t like that for you, and this isn’t your chosen family, then why do you keep buzzing around it, at funerals or online?
Consider that what I’m telling you could also apply to Loke and Frank, the same avoidance mechanism at work, the same poker or clown face.
Take, for example, Loke’s gratitude/devotion for his wife or Frank’s touching sharing about his mother’s death, no one in the light of the Master of Masters would ever think of making fun of those feelings for the members of the small traditional family, yet I personally would have a nice list of verbal abuses as a reason to pluck his owl, to babble about an unusually superstitious Frank.
Hello everyone,
I am a fundamentalist of the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church, I have followed the latest events of 45 years ago that have revealed the diabolical nature of the false avatar, Osho.
I suppose that many of you now need the help of a cult specialist to return to real life, so if you want I have some professionals from the parish to propose to you, it does not cost much but you have to cut ties with the sect.
MOD:
The above is from the well-known heretic, Veet Francesco.
Good morning, friends,
The cold weather has stayed, the air temperature here feels like -6 Celsius, it doesn’t often get that cold here. We had snow here yesterday, thick flakes drifting down and settling on cars and bushes, though the ground is still melting the flakes. A mid-November cold snap.
I’ve been reading Sarito Carroll’s memoir ‘In the Shadow of Enlightenment’, it is interesting to see her youth with her hippy mom in America and her days in Poona 1 as a young girl running errands for Vidya. She was a lot more aware of groups of people and hierarchies than I was at that age.
It’s funny, but as a child and even as an adult I have had a kind of disregard for groups and hierarchies, as if they didn’t really matter to me. That the only thing that mattered was the personal connection. It’s kind of coloured my mental landscape for a long time.
But you have a group here, NP.
It is a kind of online encounter group.
This will be the future of mankind, online-encounter groups.
And you can say you have been the avant-garde!
Btw, here also snow, did already shovel this morning.
May I expand a little on your post, Satchit?
Imv, our fully incorporated group totals approx. 7 billion. Non-embodied numbers, I do not know.
I also do not know the point in time when there is no ‘encountering’: Someone on crack once remarked that he “almost had a clash with reality.”
Haha – reality clash:
Two months ago, I took up a new mini-job chauffeuring elderly and handicapped people to daycare. We had an apocalyptic ride home today in blowing snow, got stuck in a traffic jam for 30 minutes, one person needed to pee. We could not leave the autobahn: I kept shouting, “Hold on, we will make it!”, so I took this person to another person’s closer home to see the toilet and it took 20 minutes out of the car to reach the loo. Then he said, “I have not been here before. I do not know this place. Now I do not need to pee. I want to go home.”
Another 20 minutes back into the car…In the meantime, the person remaining in the car in his wheelchair fixed in the back ramp ‘escaped’ via the back seat and into the house…etc. etc…I delivered the no-pee-person home through flying snowdrifts. When arriving back at the daycare parking, I pulled a muscle (or 2-3) in my right arm when trying to pull open the special design backdoor.
Oh, and when leaving daycare 2 hours before with four pax* on board, a door did not close correctly…I stopped, left the car, went around the back – slipped and fell on the ice. Took a few very deep breaths and started the journey. Again.
Bravo! I am not complaining or lamenting, just describing these clashes with reality in a purely informative way. At least, that is what I tried… with a few items not mentionned. Small potatoes.
Greetings to all. Is this the end?
*pax: passengers – airline slang
Funny story, Klaus. It’s surprising how real life can suddenly force you to make an adjustment to your inner views and storytelling.
Oh yes, certainly a very near-life experience. Could have been near-death, too. Considering my health condition.
Falling must have been very total: no memory.
I understand the situation, Klaus, sometimes passengers create problems, but don’t think that transporting goods is less complicated, especially when the semi-trailer is made of different goods, pallets of a thousand kilos that make bags of flour fall, trees and plants that end up pressing on one side of the tarpaulin semi-trailer, changing the road space limit allowed, plants that after Brexit are seized for days at Ashford customs in search of parasites for every single type of tree and flower.
I tried transporting people a couple of summers on Lake Garda, I picked up young people for the disco and then accompanied them back late at night.
This was before there were stringent laws in Italy for the sale of alcohol to minors under 18, a law that was already circumvented because many of those teenagers were already equipped with bottles of vodka (and other things) bought at the supermarket by some friend born a few months earlier.
It was a bus with almost all standing room approved for 50 people but from the rearview mirror you could only start to see people below their heads after 4 or 5 stops at the campsites along the way.
Imagine a load of drunk Nordic teenagers (from Austria on up), singing the same song against the driver, the one that in the event of an accident…
Kids who before the disco shared stories of academic success that sounded plausible to me, if it weren’t for all that vomit that at 3 in the morning I had to wash off using a rubber hose with a slow but abundant jet.
I wonder how many cases of alcoholic coma of minors there have been in the communes of the Master of Masters.
Oh no, Veet, that sounds even more apocalyptic than what happened to me yesterday!
Takes some bravery to stand up to such challenges…man, I do not envy you for the noise and pukery. Holy cow: it can always get worse. It seems ????
Hold your head high!
Ciao.
Thanks, Klaus, but I was in the military for 9 years, most of it using horses (do you know how much a horse eats?) and I know that if something enters us then it has to come out, sometimes through the wrong exit or with a different consistency, so between one exercise and another I did my shifts in the kitchen and also in the toilets, so no ego problem in cleaning the toilets of the sannyasins, which would be incompatible with the theory of the subtle intellectual Nityaprem, denouncing the typical hypertrophy of the ego of the chosen few that would preclude the performance of such modest tasks.
After all, flowers grow on manure…on alcoholic vomit a little less, perhaps.
Big Hug.
I now consider myself a fully fledged member of sannyasnews since people are starting to poke fun at me… hehehe.
NP, no one is making fun of you except perhaps the narrative that makes you identify with a child victim of an evil cult.
I am that I am, is all I can say about that.
P.S:
I also wonder how much the children of the cult of the evil Osho were protected from diseases, if they were able to take advantage of the dozens of mandatory vaccines that in the normal world are necessary to access school.
Here is a nice documentary on the cult of the normal world, made of men and children, by Italian television from a few years ago (subtitles in English), now no longer available in the archive of our public television.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MeOQJ_ncos
Good morning, ye jolly old fellows!
I hope things are well in your neck of the woods. I just had a bit of breakfast, toast with cheese and coffee while watching the workmen installing our neighbours electric car charging station. It’s still rather cold out there but the wind is from the south rather than from the north, so it doesn’t feel as chilly.
Just a reflection on sannyas…the idea of sannyas also played to one’s ego, you were being given a title, swami or ma, and you were told you were one of the chosen few, a disciple of Osho. It’s all buffing the ego, in reality it is so much hot air and a bit of communal play acting. Osho is giving you something intangible, and you can’t prove you haven’t received it.
Yes, Nityaprem, intangible, like what you received from your parents, intangible like what you remember missing from girls when you were imprisoned in the Oregonian concentration camp.
P.S:
Personally, NP, I was so eager to become a chosen one that it took me about fifteen years to take sannyas, after dreaming of a trip to Oregon in the 80s, reading books and joining groups.
You assume that in the cult of the normal world, fulfilling lives (sex, money, rock and roll) were not possible, and that this did not involve identifying with the privilege of the role to have that fulfilling life.
So, dear child of the anti-Semitic cult, do not speak in my name and return consistently to your Christian name, if you do not want to appear hypocritical around here.
“Does anger venting reduce it?”
We have been doing it all wrong: venting of anger makes it worse.
Research and studies:
https://metro.co.uk/2024/03/19/dealing-rage-wrong-instead-20489840/
“A new study published in the Clinical Psychology Review suggests using techniques that address stress have been shown to be more effective at decreasing anger and aggression than venting, as the key is to lower physiological arousal.”
In other words, calm down…
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz….
Klaus, don’t make the same methodological mistake as the pharmaceutical companies, those who with their marketing have prescribed the same experimental drug to 7 billion people, regardless of age, sex, weight, antibodies, diseases, etc.
It is possible that for you it is relaxing to change the diapers of the elderly you transport and that for someone else it works to scream or use the body to run, dance, shake, etc.
But above all, the issue of too high arousal must be contextualized.
Too high for whom? For oneself or for others? In the second case you could ask yourself if you have any responsibility for having pissed off someone who is normally calm and polite, if you like the way of Mrs. Karen when the police stop your driving.
In the first case, as an amateur therapist, if someone asked me to work on the specific symptom of anger, I would investigate with him/her to connect that symptom to the causes, according to what is for me the correct relationship between therapy and meditation/spiritual growth, according to the idea that I have made and that I experience of my way of being human.
I have already written that I do not share Hum’s approach, of putting meditation at the service of therapy, made mostly of catharsis, with little sharing and relative understandings.
https://youtube.com/shorts/VDy894KJiU4?si=Wr1FvKrw9Yzeg9nY
Ah, shit: I made a methodological mistake. Again.
JFC*.
Well, I do hope that the impact is low.
https://swearsky.bagpuss.org/
*Jerusalem Football Club
Interesting, Klaus. It seems the technique of beating up a pillow does not have much to recommend it. Personally, I’ve always found that looking deeply into where you feel attacked resolves anger much more easily than anything else.
Usually it’s a question of having invested in something, of having extended your sense of self into a thing or a relationship, that makes you feel as if you yourself have been attacked or damaged. Ultimately of course, these things are not you at all, it is all a case of mistaken identity.
What we really are is nothing that can be seen or imagined. Everything that you can see is by definition not you, it’s all apart from you. So there’s really nothing to get angry about.
Wow, Nityaprem, how much you know…
In which cult did you learn all this?
Spill out the name of the teacher, if it doesn’t compromise your identity.
Some of these things I have seen in myself, about anger and my-making and how thoughts lead you into them.
The bit about what we are is from Nisargadatta, it is in ‘I Am That’.
Immediately upon reading your post, NP, I thought, “Oh, he has returned to ‘I Am That’”, which is always a good thing to do because it is such a great book. That does not mean the reader should not question what Nisargadatta says.
Take the following as an example: “What we really are is nothing that can be seen or imagined.” Okay. But surely one would have to imagine what that means before understanding can dawn. Or do you disagree? There are, of course, many ways to answer this question. I would just appreciate hearing what you have to say, not Nisargadatta, because I have read ‘I Am That’ several times.
Yes, it is an excellent book and worth re-reading a few times. I have the electronic edition on my iPad, which is clean and very convenient, and I’ve read it cover to cover twice, and return to favourite passages sometimes.
I took Nisargadatta’s statement to mean that everything that we can imagine is derived from things we have seen somewhere, with some chimaeras mixed in. It’s a field full of illusions, and I don’t think that what we are can be some half-real mixture of things. If we cannot be that which we can see, then it seems impossible to correctly imagine such a thing either. An imagining would just be a guess.
The various metaphors used in the book – the mirror, the cinema screen – are only partially useful to me. I find it hard to imagine consciousness without mind and memory. For example recognition of things and knowing their shapes are intimately related.
NP states, “I don’t think that what we are can be some half-real mixture of things.”
That is exactly what most people are.
For example, Ouspensky said,”‘What man must know is that he is not one; he is many. He has not one permanent and unchangeable “I” or Ego. He is always different. One moment he is one, another moment he is another, the third moment he is a third, and so on, almost without end.”
In other words a mixture of ‘I’s. We are all mixed up. Elvis was all shook up. “Hmm, ooh, yeah, yeah, yeah.”
Maybe the mind is like that, presenting all kinds of personalities, but if you’re no longer paying a lot of attention to the mind I think the dominant personality would not be very changeable.
NP says, “What we really are is nothing that can be seen or imagined.”
Perhaps this is simply a sign that NP lacks imagination. After all, we have the power to imagine everything, and anything, including nothing.
There is certainly nothing to get angry about. Yet certainly there are occasions when we do become angry. I have never met anyone who does not become angry once in a while, including Osho and Poonjaji.
NP,
To me, acknowledging the emotions that are there and which might have been repressed in childhood as well as adult situations is a step. And Osho methodologies and situations are certainly doing a good job.
At best, we can see that we created it inside ourself by ourself – hurt, identity etc. as you put it.
With increasing awareness, we can pass through it, see it getting less and maybe even see it disappear and let it go.
Why would one keep re-creating it? If, as the study is saying, re-creating does not reduce, let alone eliminate it.
Therapy and meditation are not separate: one helps the other. As a famous master said sometime: two wings to fly.
I might be wrong: it may depend on the individual’s perspective, too.
Interesting, we have a tendency to want to grasp onto THE Answer, THE Technique, instead of remaining loose without a rigid formula, and responding to the needs of the moment.
Maybe there are different kinds of anger, a healthy protective expression, and one that is reactive acting out, with baggage from the past, or is a secondary emotion over a more primary one of fear, hurt, shame etc. Anyway Beedie Baba always seemed pissed to me.
The idea that “these things are not you at all, it is all a case of mistaken identity” is often a non-dual (and Buddhist) trap leading to dissociation and bypassing, minimising everything to do with the world and being human, because it’s all illusion, a dream, empty etc. It can breed a kind of joyless nihilism and denialism.
It’s an eastern import, just like devotion to an exotic, flawless, utopian guru ideal.
It’s dualistic to say, “It’s all apart from you”, as if there’s a separation between form and formless.
Besides, ye olde sages knew little about all the trauma and therapeutic knowledge that has come to light in the West.
We are rather backward looking, as our ideas about spirituality and awakening continue to evolve.
Have I been serious enough?
Great post, Dominic, all your points seem on the ball to me. Which isn’t to deny that ultimately we are ‘nothing to speak of’, formless…Haven’t we all experienced this, if only for a few monents, when our minds aren’t in the picture (as it were)?
It’s no use making a mental concept from this, which is bound to be false anyway, surely the truth of who/what we are has to be experienced rather than thought about, as you indicate?
I guess one just has to keep chipping away at the unreal (which might take many forms, eg giving up useless expressions of anger, overcoming various forms of fear, listening to someone rather than compulsively arguing with him/her, taking time to break the momentum of living and just be – whatever, a genuine spiritual teacher will provide loads of such suggestions while being a mirror of one’s true nature – in the faith that the reality will come in its own time…Could be a long wait too (lol)….
Dominic asks if he has been serious enough. Well, for a site dedicated to a guru who promoted adopting a non-serious approach to life, I suppose he has.
I really don’t believe there is such a thing as healthy anger. No matter what form my personal anger takes, it always leaves me feeling burnt out. It’s as if an overloaded circuit fuses all the finer lights in the fun fair of life.
I’ve always stuck by a rule for myself when writing on SN. Never, ever, write anything from a spirit of anger. If I catch myself in the process of breaking that rule, I always stop what I am writing and delete it.
I agree with you, Lokesh, but I take it a little further: when I become angry, as soon as I become aware, I take a time-out and my response becomes measured. It’s rare for me to become angry, it happens maybe once or twice a year.
There is a saying in Buddhism: becoming angry is like holding a red-hot coal in your hand and thinking it will burn the other person. Anger causes you to lose awareness, it is ugly, full of desire to hurt. It doesn’t have a healthy or positive aspect.
When you notice yourself becoming angry, you may look within and find some of your boundaries have been transgressed. Then it’s best to take appropriate action to protect yourself — which is usually not following anger’s impulse, which may just result in escalation. More often you are helped by a calm response.
“Never, ever, write anything from a spirit of anger.”
Yes, I like that rule.
A picture of Lokesh’s avatar when he forgets to delete his comments
Help ma boab…Kali!
Interesting topic from the SN think-tank, we could write a book about it.
I was imagining healthy anger as a protective instinct as NP says, and as occurs in the natural world.
In general I try to cultivate a calm, chill approach to life more than ‘drama’, it’s a more pleasant way to live, I find.
If something triggers me, I’ll try to take time to be with it, a ‘feel it to heal it’ approach, and see what evolves out of that.
There was a lot of expression and catharsis in Sannnyas, usually in a safe, controlled environment, which can be therapeutic and release a lot of energy.
I’ve learned more about containment in later years, because ‘dumping’ and acting out in normal life is usually destructive and brings a bag of pain.
But I like fire and feist and energy too, and let that have expression in more creative ways.
I think the hard, encountery approach got exaggerated in Sannyas in the early days (look at Sheela) or some of the Humaniversity stuff built on Synanon.
I concur when SD says, “the truth of who/what we are has to be experienced rather than thought about.”
Our cosmic amnesia is not such a biggie to me anymore, that I’m trying to figure out.
I see Presence as a felt sense, often obscured by clouds, yet always here in the background, available, if I turn to it.
A link from the mind.org on the pros and cons of anger:
https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/types-of-mental-health-problems/anger/about-anger/
Real anger can and does move very quickly. It is no easy task to disconnect from anger when it takes possession of you. I suppose we all have our ways of dealing with it.
NP says, “Maybe the mind is like that, presenting all kinds of personalities.”
There is no ‘maybe’ about it. Each of us has many personalities living within us. If you do not know that it is because you have not realized it yet.
NP concludes, “I think the dominant personality would not be very changeable.”
Everyone believes that is how it is. It is not. MR G sums it up…”Man has no individual “I”. But there are, instead, hundreds and thousands of separate small “I”s, very often entirely unknown to one another, never coming into contact, or, on the contrary, hostile to each other, mutually exclusive and incompatible. Each minute, each moment, man is saying or thinking, “I”.
I find that to be true.
But in fact there is no “I” — there is only a little locus of awareness surrounded by mental factors which we take to be identifiers, but only because we are suckered into thinking they are ‘ours’. Four-fifths of it is abstraction, old thoughts, conclusions…in short, dream stuff. All you have to do is relax, let go, create separation from these mental factors. Let go of the idea of an “I”, it is only an idea, another thought.
The mind is a great deceiver, full of ideas which entrap you in ways you think you have to behave, duties, expectations. Even the idea of having a partner means you start defining yourself according to their vision of you, and take on a whole series of their ideas.
What we can really learn from is the journey back from sleep. After you wake up from a deep, dreamless sleep you come back from a kind of mindlessness, a great peace, a love and a kindness. These are the things at your ground of being, every human gets a little glimpse after a particularly good night’s sleep.
Advaita Vedanta is a good school. The problem arises when a so-called seeker adopts ideas put forth by the likes of Nisargadatta and takes them as their own with little or no idea of what this means on an existential level. I have met people who have been doing this for decades and all they are doing is hosting concepts that are not their own and therefore they are fooling themselves and sometimes others that they have attained a state that they have not. One of the pitfalls of Advaita teachings is that it can appear simple, but one has to be a simpleton to believe it is so easy.
Gurdjieff’s school is another ballpark, but the destination is the same if one goes for it. It is far more psychological than Advaita and as a result perhaps an easier path for Westerners to follow than self-enquiry, the biggest prerequisites there being earnestness, devotion and trust, essentially Eastern characteristics.
Gurdjieff’s system requires logic. One practises the teaching and, all going well, slowly but surely the practitioner begins to see evidence that the teaching is bonafide and yields positive results.
“I teach that when it rains the pavement gets wet.”
(G.I. Gurdjieff)
I’m still gently trying to figure out where I stand with spirituality in a post-Osho life.
NP, when surfing around a bit on the innernet I stumbled over this lovely video of Jiddu Krishnamurti yesterday.
He is pointing to our own seeing the moon / things as they are appearing…no guru, no method, no leader, no this or that.
Then again, it seems to me that his perspective is from ‘hindsight’: having (possibly, most likely, eventually, maybe) left these steps behind.
“Opinions are coffins.
I’ll just trust my feet.”
(Richard Thompson – ‘The Sunset Song’)
Cheers.
It’s true that seen from a distance you can just call an elephant an elephant, there is no need to get cute.
But there are simple qualities like silence and looking deeply into the many transformations of nature. That too is a kind of spirituality.
I just don’t know yet where I will find a spiritual life in the future.
Gurdjieff I have never been particularly attracted to. Everything I have come across in written form told me he was not for me.
For anger to be there, a desire is needed.
No desire, no anger.
The desire can be in relationships (“the others should be different”) or it can be in things (“I want a Rolls Royce”).
It can be in the spiritual (“I want to become enlightened”) or even in the weather (“the weather should be different”).
Below I have put the translation of parts of an article entitled: ‘Rage: a Creative Passion’
http://www.robertolucchetta.it/
A long article that I haven’t thought about enough yet, as it’s full of ideas. If anyone wants to use the online translation to read the whole article in case they come across incomprehensible Italian idioms, just ask.
This is my comment that coincides with some shared points of the article:
I believe it is pertinent to the ongoing debate and even enlightening about the reasons (beyond the financial ones) why the forum is going out like a candle in a room without oxygen, where the fuel (the candle) should be the life/experience of the sannyasins, the trigger the presence of the Master and the oxygen the space of trust that love requires, in order for it to happen.
The claim of those who say they have found different sources to light the inner spiritual fire seems not to have been successful as an inspiration for SN, and this may have created in some advaita a bit of frustration, bordering even on hatred (intellectual, since there is no physical contact online) towards those who, unlike them, have not questioned the authenticity of the love that continues to fuel their lives and for this reason still consider the function of Osho current, as a spark, still grateful to him despite what may seem to be “defects and gossip”.
But I do not believe that hatred is the only or the real problem that has made some interesting contributors leave the forum, those who at a certain point lost patience for the attacks received and preferred to leave the forum, instead of reacting by getting angry as I chose to do, faithful to the motto si vis pacem para bellum (a demonstration that this sometimes works is in the video of the policeman with kind eyes, but which can become fiery, posted above).
No, I think there are other reasons for the candle to be blown out, and this is not only true for the forum.
I think that cheerful, celebratory, playful but at the same time profound people in the current social context, more than in the past, are annoying, to the point of envy.
The social reasons why Osho’s message is a threat to the politically correct, woke, transhuman, dominant narrative (pensée unique), functional to the globalism of the elite, I have exposed it many times and I do not want to repeat myself so as not to anger the conformist (who I love but he does not know it) who moderates the forum.
I will only add that for me the real debate could be how to counter the envy of the fake, the falsely happy, the cynical, who mock the sannyasins both when they love and when they are angry, something they are no longer able to do, having lost their existential passion and with it their authenticity.
Those who were embittered/betrayed/traumatized by the post-sannyas life, must have thought that those moments of joy in their youth must have only been imagined, perhaps not too different from the artificial synthetic paradises, seeking refuge in rationality today, looking for an explanation, so they presented the bill to those who had deluded them by talking about a life of bliss.
But they forgot or removed that that space of bliss was not a sect created around the narcissism or megalomania of a person, but around the experience of compassion of thousands of hearts that awakened to the love of feeling worthy inspired by the Master.
Then Osho did not teach us to bask in this newfound dignity/integrity but invited us to put it to the test, in the world, like Zorba.
By removing the importance of the Zorba dimension, we risk not understanding what is happening in the world, closing our eyes when we should have them wide open, even when we don’t like the war scenario, like the Silk Road that has been burning for 30 years because the sellers of weapons and oil have written on the agenda of politicians: export democracy.
it’s true, Osho today would seem impotent, even futile in the face of the scenario we are experiencing, perhaps he could only advise us to prepare for the third world war, of which the psycho pandemic was only a technical test of the owners of our lives, to understand if we would have been obedient enough to stay home and to follow all the instructions dictated by the TV in an orderly manner.
Perhaps in our days Osho would give one of his speeches in smart working, speaking from the new bathtub created in the latest generation bunker, happy as a clam that thanks to the fallout he doesn’t have to go out to reach the Buddha hall, and yet, I suspect, even in this case, someone would deny the possibility that a Master of Masters can inflame with passion the lives and hearts of even those who have not vibrated in his presence, what envious types!
Ciao.
Excerpts from the article by Roberto Lucchetta
Anger: a Creative Passion:
Anger, a natural biological instinctual basis, represents a probe of the Soul, an internal movement to access a more precise contact with the Self. It is the sharpest of emotions, the one that is most looked upon with a crooked nose. It is one thing when we talk about love, our eyes shine, we smile, when we talk about an individual or a character in love, our heart already drips with emotion. But when we talk about an angry individual, we move to a fearful side. Not always, however, because when we imagine an individual with angry behavior, we take a step back, but if someone tells us about a justified anger (fired workers, mistreated women, abused children, etc.), anger no longer scares us, on the contrary, we take sides.
Anger is a dimension that has to do with aggression, it is a tension against something, a movement significantly different from love which is a movement towards something. But always of movements are discussed.
The theme of aggression was deeply explored immediately after the two World Wars; there the theme of aggression immediately heated up the spirits. Within the Science of Psychology there are two ways of reading it: one, more psychoanalytic, is the tendency to destruction, to destructiveness, not only but also to self-destructiveness. Another, which takes its cue from the Latin root of the term, indicates a tendency to move forward, which has to do with attacking life, penetrating life. Two different movements therefore, one aimed at destroying, one at progressing.
…
Retracing what was said for anger: there is an external object, a person, that provokes something inside us. This unexpected something, which we do not like, pierces the Ego, pierces it by going directly inside, immediately causing an emotional upheaval, disorienting. A reflection of the recomposed Ego allows us to contain the emotion. But if you are not able to compose yourself while remaining disoriented, the risk is to react. The Ego no longer controls the state of mind. In this case, anger can be that energy that lifts me from a state of uncontrollable passivity of the Ego and can take me outward, towards the object or person, to say or do something. Not react, but say, act. Delivered to the moment of patience, we will be able to lose it to act.
Impatience only leads to reacting. When you lose patience, it is positive because you have previously delivered yourself to patience: that will be your true moment of action, and not a mere “doing” that may be recommended. This movement is extraordinary because the unexpected event produces work within oneself that requires leaving the certainties that accompany one’s life. It forces me into a relationship with a missing person of mine, into psychological work, it puts oneself in confrontation with oneself. In that moment I agree to discuss with my missing person.
When the external object causes something inside me and I manage to overcome the disorientation that the Ego alone would not be able to do thanks to this energy-anger that leads me to the comparison, that energy-anger has an immense value and valence: I accept the comparison. The reaction is escape. Anger is a true passion because it asks for comparison if externalized, discussed, expressed, said.
Hate and Envy are an example of two very different modalities of anger. Hate is a feeling of deep aversion. Saying you hate a person is very different from saying you are angry with them. Hate desires the evil or ruin of others.
Hate has no relationship, it wants destruction. It does not want to interact with the aspect of the person who tells me something, like anger that is relative to a place, to a specific gesture. Hate is on the whole person. Envy is an even more subtle dimension. In envy, you attack the good things of the other. I envy someone else’s good or quality, I don’t go towards a negative, I want to appropriate something good. Melanie Klein talks about “attacking the good breast”. I hate and detest your luck in having good and I want to attack it insidiously to appropriate your things fantastically by hurting you.
Envy is a terrible condition that is experienced in living with envy. Hate and envy have in common the absence of the Ego, of the subject as an entity desirous of change. Fundamentally, it lives for the other, to hate him, to destroy him. I don’t change me, I change you by destroying you. I live to steal from you, not to develop myself.
Anger is a passion because it has interlocution. Hate and envy do not. Because one does not fight against an injustice, but I go to the destructive or misappropriation route. An example could be in a couple, where one is more independent and the other less. From the point of view of the dependent person, life is always a little more difficult because he sees the other person doing things that he sees himself incapable of, because he does not legitimize them.
So what difference is there between the attitude of anger, hate or envy – three modalities that can exist in a relationship between two people – on the issue of dependence? Anger will produce a confrontation. Crying out jealousy means accepting the interpretation of jealousy. When I get angry I expose myself, the other person tells me the truth, tells me about something I lack.
When I am dependent I am not capable of getting angry and therefore I use hate. I do not debate, I am not able to say that I am angry about your autonomy, I cannot give a name and therefore I hate, I begin to hate the complexity of the person and no longer an aspect. You become absolutely negative (ab solvere, dissolve from – I leave you!). Hate takes away any space for dialogue, therefore for debate”. (much more to read, before and after).
https://www.oggitreviso.it/rabbia-una-passione-creativa-87355
Perhaps I should have also included this piece from Lucchetta’s article, where the choice of the title is clear.
“If aggression is an instinct, it will have a limit. And the limit is linked to the specificity of the event and the cause that generated it. Achilles’ fatal anger was not stigmatized. He did well, faced with the unjust fact he reacted with the massacre. Aggression makes sense when linked to a cause. We know well the wrath of God where it can be just towards those who make mistakes or harm something of the person who suffers the wrong. It is necessary to hit only the person or group that deserves it. History tells us that anger can generate aggression towards those who make mistakes.
What is the limit, the limit of aggression linked to anger? To be correct and not fall into sin, a just reason, a just cause is needed and one must direct one’s aggression only towards the people or person who commits the wrong and offensive act in relation to the gesture itself, that is, punished for that specific thing, not for his essence as a person.
Anger generates aggression, anger is not aggression. It seems like something that preludes aggression but it is not. Anger is a set of emotions and feelings, perhaps we could start to define it as a Passion. We should ask ourselves what a passion is. The word passion comes from the Latin patire. Suffering, which is opposed to action. Suffering has to do with undergoing: it is a condition of passivity, of passively undergoing something. This is passion.
What do we undergo in passion? We undergo the arrival of an entity, of something from the outside that acts on our soul and makes it succumb. Let’s think about the passion of love. We remain inert, as when we feel anger. An emotion that overwhelms the Ego and we succumb to this emotion.
In the common dictionary, passion “is an intense and violent feeling of attraction or repulsion towards an object that disturbs the psychic equilibrium”. Something that attracts or repels us, that in some way conditions us inside causing an emotional block. This is the passivity of passion. Something that blocks us”.
Breaking news!
Thanks to a team of investigative journalists, long suppressed secret documents have come to light, showing that Osho had indeed been the target of dark forces, as he claimed.
A CIA MK-Ultra program, code named Operation Drive-by Happy Ending, had infiltrated the commune with some of their own ‘orange people’.
They had laced his Diet Coke with mind-controlling drugs, while also adding hypnotic lights and suggestions into his movie collection. This would cause his penile gland to swell and lust after his devotees, some of whom were in fact plants, sent to lure him with their winsome western ways.
The CIA wanted to gather intel that could be used to discredit Osho later on.
Agent Dick Willie Johnson, who master-minded the covert op said, “I felt bad sometimes, corrupting such an obviously holy man, but it was just too much fun, fun, fun being in the commune and getting shagged senseless every night.”
Good morning, friends,
Given Dominic’s contribution of a rather eye-popping gif above, we should talk a bit about hypnosis. Some people hold that Osho hypnotised people, even in massive gatherings, and that besides being a hypnotist he was also a powerful psychic. What say you, were you hypnotised?
While pondering this, I am slurping my morning coffee, and soon it will be time to get ready for the day.s appointments. I have a little travelling to do, and I’m still in the middle of Sarito Carroll’s book.
Impossible, NP, listening to an individual on a god-like pedestal droning on for hours, and participating in mass formation psychosis with a cocktail of feel good chemicals; couldn’t possibly do that to smart, educated western folk, could it?
After the hypnotic and mesmerising gif up there…a lovely tune with banjo, guitar, mandolin etc. etc.
https://youtu.be/ZyHipL45pwM?t=513
Before Olivia takes over! Upppps, meant ‘Oblivion’.
Cheers, y’all.
Thanks, Klaus, i didn’t know he was also a musician, I will see better in his songs.
I enjoyed that, thanks, Klaus! I was also unaware of Steve Martin’s musical talents, good to see he extended himself beyond acting.
Speaking of the art of making people laugh, yes, Steve is very funny, just looking at his eyes makes me laugh, which also happened to me with Gene Wilder’s eyes, but the comic surgeon of comedy for me is W. Allen; maybe I say this because I just saw ‘Bullets over Broadway’ (W.A. director and screenwriter).
One scene continues to make me chuckle, the one of the Shakespearean theatre actor, compulsive eater, who at the end of the performance, surprised in the dressing room with the mafia boss’s girlfriend, runs away from the fire escape in his underwear, meeting on his way the enthusiastic people coming out of the theatre…enthusiasm that evidently does not make people notice that the actor is undressed while they ask for an autograph. The actor, with very measured timing after an initial perplexity, pronounces a few kind words of assent, with the same vocal setting that he uses on stage.
Good fellows, I wish you a fine day!
It is no longer morning but I wished to impart some portion of my musing. I have finished reading Sarito Carroll’s book, and I found it both enjoyable (in the sections talking about the locations, the vibe, the activities) and difficult to read (talking about the abuse). Certainly worthwhile for anyone wanting to go on a trip down memory lane.
Hi Nityaprem,
It would be interesting if you wrote something not only about the book you are talking about but also about what you imagine to be the development of a media wave that seems to have been stimulated by the editorial success of ‘Wild Wild Country’, which brought Osho, in particular the reputational aspects, back to the cenrer of international attention.
I ask you this because you frequenting social media (which I have never have, apart from work chats, soccer and anti-vax) on that topic could help clarify the background of these recent events, which seen from the outside, with this timing, cause me more than a few doubts.
These people who make documentaries, write books and give interviews after several decades from the facts, of the same negative sign towards their experience in the world of Osho, stories that seem to surprise even the oldest, smartest and most cynical sannyasins, make me wonder many things about what they did after abandoning sannyas, it would seem anything but therapy judging by the thirst for revenge, something different from justice.
Fortunately, Osho’s teaching continues to inspire me with compassion, quiet, playfulness, tolerance, non-judgment, intelligence, etc., which allows me to remain open to the possibility that the same person who is able to channel the glory of a cosmic blessing, for the benefit of a people thirsty for water from the moon, is the same person described through the keyhole, one who resorts to common and ordinary human gratifications, with the apparent gestures and ticks of a rock star.
“Fortunately, Osho’s teaching continues to inspire me with compassion, quiet, playfulness, tolerance, non-judgment, intelligence, etc….”
If this is the case, Veet, how do you explain that most of your posts at SN tend to exhibit the opposite characteristics?
@SD 28 November, 2024 at 11:43 pm
I do it to stimulate compassion, quiet, playfulness, tolerance, non-judgment, intelligence, etc. in cynics who are now devoid of any passion.
A typically grandiose remark, Veet, while I suspect the truth (that you don’t want to admit to yourself) is that you can’t help doing it, because you simply can not take criticism, a sure sign of insecurity, typical of a zealot mentality.
The very fact that you take offence so easily gives that particular gane away.
SD, it seems to me that you are too impressed by words, not by chance you insist on welcoming not those who have something to share but those who speak fluent and funny English, know how vs. know what.
You will recognize that more than your beautiful words, my hammering has served to induce some cynics to squeeze a little bit their hearts, sure they protested a bit before, like rap music at full volume, burps and brain farts…but listen now how peaceful it is.
God (and Veet) are great!
Ssshhh…our secret.
Thanks.
It does help to have a sense of humour, Veet. But it seems that’s something that has eluded you so far. Except, of course, when you go all violent, which you appear to find most amusing. Pathetic really.
I am actually in the process of writing a humorous novel about the New Age. In it I have been trying to develop the character of a person who is spiritually deluded, rants about love etc. but is riven with anger, resentment and envy at those who actually experienced the things he dreams about. His resentment stems from the fact that when the guru he admires was alive, he never went to see him, instead he had a job shovelling horse shit for the army and was a devout Catholic, one day even kissing the Pope`s ring, he claims.
He is self-deluded, he sees himself as an important part of an imaginary Sangha when in fact his main hobbies are football, doing the Lotto, watching Youtube and masturbation. He believes himself to be someone who has some kind of influence although no one can stand him, except one guy who is also suffering from some kind of delusions of grandeur and has recently been diagnosed with dementia.
He goes on about tantra, love, zen and so on ad infinitum despite the fact that his grasp of zen goes no further than the sound of one hand fapping. He is mentally and emotionally challenged and given to violent fantasies and outbursts, as he endlessly rants about his warped version of so-called spirituality.
Those who understand him describe him as like a guy who tosses himself off endlessly to a video of an 1980s supermodel that he has never met, and then tries to pick a fight with and convince the model`s actual boyfriends that it was him who knew and loved the model the best.
I had been struggling to flesh this character out, but then along comes Veet. Now, all I have to do is take notes! So yes, gratitude is in order! Keep going bro`, and if I never answer, don`t worry. You are doing an important task.
Cheers!
Golly, Frank, what an exciting story. Will there be any Scottish skinheads and sex robots in it?
Oh yeah, there`s Scottish skinheads and Tibetan ones too. Might save the sex robots for the sequel when they all escape to Mars after stealing Elon Musk`s rocket.
What have I done?!
I was mentioned in a comment by the emotionally constipated frank…so I exist?
What do I say “mentioned”?
I’m going to be famous! He’ll write a story about me!
The talented old man who insists on writing under the guise of a young rapper, high on ketamine and some side-effects of some experimental therapy, has decided to try his hand at a new literary genre: hyper-realistic biography.
He promised that he will put all his effort into scrutinizing all my comments.
The good thing about all this is that we could finally meet in person for a question of intellectual property rights, if he has the un-Scottish fair play to recognize a modicum of intellectual merit, transcribing the lives of others in a book.
satyadeva says:
“It does help to have a sense of humour, Veet. But it seems that’s something that has eluded you so far. Except, of course, when you go all violent, which you appear to find most amusing. Pathetic really”.
SD, do you mean more pathetic than your attempt to moderate the debate among ego-drunk hooligans in a neutral manner?
MOD:
Absolutely, Veet. After all, without my finely-tuned sense of fair play you wouldn’t have the opportunity to tell me and others here what utterly worthless apologies for human beings we are.
Frankly, you should be grateful but your sense of entitlement seems to shield you from what you probably perceive would be a degrading admission.
Unfortunately, Veet, words are the currency used on an online forum, in this case, English words. Sorry about that.
I have talked to Sarito on Facebook and after reading her memoir it is almost like knowing her quite well. She put a lot of personal details in the book, things which you’d often share only with a really close friend or lover.
She has spent tens of thousands of dollars on therapy, and has herself studied psychology and English literature. So that she would be able to write a good book, with excellent self-examination, is not a surprise. The driving force seems to have been more a desire for fairness and justice than revenge, and in the end she acknowledges the futility of even that, and focuses again on finding her happiness.
The book also details her feelings as a young girl, that she felt proud and special to be chosen by an adult man, the dreams she had of love and loyalty, and the heartbreak she suffered when he went off with other women. This at just thirteen years old.
It was her therapist who told her many years later, I can see from your body language that you’ve been abused, and that it started when you were about twelve years old.” She denied it at the time, it took a while for the conditioning to break. But the law says that for an adult man to have sex with a twelve year-old girl is abuse and rape, and with good reason. The body, brain and hormonal systems aren’t mature yet and have a hard time coping with adult relationships. Sarito was eventually diagnosed with severe post-traumatic stress disorder, a condition which has affected her life and relationships deeply.
And she is not the only one. She talks about her peer group from the Ranch, very many of whom suffer from drug problems and mental health issues. Many of these then-kids don’t even have an inheritance to look forward to, with much of the family wealth having been donated at the time to the commune. Many of them want reparations and apologies, from the abusers and also Osho International Foundation as the guardians of Osho’s legacy.
The way the ‘media wave’ has been taking shape is not a coincidence. First came articles in the papers, such as The Times and The Guardian, then the ‘Children of the Cult’ documentary, now Sarito Carroll’s book ‘In the Shadow of Enlightenment’ and I’m sure there will be more books to follow.
It isn’t some nefarious plan, it’s just the way the media operates. They tend to group these things together to build a kind of hype. It’s also interesting that often they refer to Osho as ‘Osho Rajneesh’, which makes clear the link between the modern movement around Osho and the older articles and programmes about Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh.
I have a lot of sympathy for my peers, the then-kids. Many of them have suffered significantly from neglect and abuse during their upbringing.
Yeah, that`s how the media works. Some may call it a conspiracy and in some aspects that might have some truth in it. Nevertheless. the real conspiracy here, as in all institutional abuse cases, is the self-serving defensive conspiracy of silence and deception within the org itself. The people who knew, stood to gain, rationalised the behaviour or just stuck their head in the sand or were scared.
On a different tack, I have noticed that `cults` have become quite a genre in themselves, with people who have little or no actual connection to any cults being fascinated and binge watching programmes about `cults` onscreen. These do give people quite bizarre, kind of horror movie type ideas about what goes down which in some cases are not entirely accurate.
Not long ago, I was chatting with an American woman, the wife of a friend of mine, late 40s, Californian of middle eastern extraction. It turned out that she was well into all kind of cult stories on screen. In conversation one evening she was shocked to find out that I had been part of the cult she had seen on ‘Wild Wild Country’! Although we had always got on well, she was visibly uncomfortable at the revelation. I tried to explain that the majority of people were having a good time, not poisoning salad bars, getting tooled up and attempting to rape people in padded cells.
She struggled to believe me and asked me how I had `escaped`. I could tell that she viewed my attempted explanations as to what the scene was really like for me, a nuanced view I like to think that takes in the spectrum of cult to counter-cultural religious movement, but I could tell she was not totally convinced and suspected I was some kind of apologist.
Oddly though, in further conversaions I realised that as a person of Lebanese background, she is, for a such a liberal, some might say `woke` kind of person. she was surprisingly tolerant and supportive of her own religion of birth, Islam, and wasn`t the type to wear a “Fuck the Pope” T-shirt, let`s say.
The point that I am making is that, without wishing to go down the whataboutism route, however weird `cults` are, I can`t help feeling their presentation as a bogey man to the rest of society, rather than going after the mainstream religions with the same force, does have an element of deflection and misdirection that serves to preserve the hegemony of mainstream religion.
The narrative thrusts of cult stories are very alluring and highlight archetypal cultural fears for the modern person: The loss of individual identity, the fear of losing control, the fear that underneath one`s respectability may lurk a darkness or criminality that can be iginited at any moment (“anyone can find themselves joining a cult”), the fear that education and upbringing is no bulwark against the dark tide, the irresistible allure of evil….
I am also aware that, like with many things, if you try to take a nuanced view, you get attacked from people on both sides of the conflict/culture war, both of whom are convinced that you are an agent for their enemy.
These days, I`m ready for that.
“People on both sides”
Yes, even here we have two archetypes:
In one corner:
Lokesh, who has dropped Osho and preaches about moving on.
In the other corner:
Shanti, who will never leave Osho and cancels all doubt.
Certainly they will battle to the end.
Satchit, I didn’t cancel all doubts. I just reached a place where I don’t have any doubts left. It’s all about the experience rather than the speculation. Therefore it is nothing to do with trust/doubt. Or belief.
Yes, Lokesh preaches about moving on but no one listens except for a few ex-sannyasins and Roman Catholics and anti-cult groups fighting a lost cause.
So you don’t have doubts when you listen to Erin and all these abuse stories, Shanti?
No. No doubt at all. And I have been amused at how the story was presented. I would feel like a fool hanging on to a guru if I had a really negative opinion of them, or didn’t like lots of Silver Spur rolling off trucks everyday or Osho wearing bling or Hasya and Veena dressing Osho up with diamonds and pearls in his hats, Hollywood-style and making those costumes for him etc.
Osho said some of his most beautiful stuff during that phase, as well as some rubbish if you are into the words.
“I am also aware that, like with many things, if you try to take a nuanced view, you get attacked by people on both sides…These days, I`m ready for that”
frank November 30, 2024 at 9:29 am
Did you call me, Frank?
To me your vision does not appear nuanced at all, Frank.
The profile of your vision is the effect of your nihilistic fury in this forum, hidden behind a false cheerfulness, that’s why I hammer you every now and then.
I’m fine with you destroying what you don’t like (often other people’s nuances) but I don’t forgive you for not feeling the moral tension of sharing what you like/love.
I know, it’s not easy to do it, to expose yourself, you would make enemies, then they look at you with suspicion. Maybe better to pretend to adapt and cultivate resentment, cynicism, isolated…or risk living, rebelling, joining a community of rebels full of defects, except that of sharing the essence of a teaching that invites you to be yourself, celebrating the here and now, allow the flow of our being.
I trust in your tolerance towards the shades of blood on my hammer.
I think you’ve done too much therapy, Veet, which has filled you with grandiose ideas about yourself. I mean, “shades of blood on my hammer”? Who do you think you’re kidding, apart, of course, from yourself (lol)?
So, why now, after forty years? Well, it takes time to gain independence from the commune years, time to find a place in society, to discover how differently things can be done, to get therapy, to break down the sannyas group-think. And it’s only then, after all that, that people discover that they are actually quite angry.
Therapy doesn’t always lead to sweetness and forgiveness. For some people it leads to a maelstrom of emotions beneath the surface, which they’ve now exposed and have to deal with. That is how trauma works.
Thank you, Nityaprem, for sharing your point of view and/or for conveying that of other ex-sannyasins.
The essential things that I see in your interpretation about the reason for the alleged settling of scores between these women and Osho are fairness and anger, because for some of them the therapy led them “to a maelstrom of emotions”, but you exclude that pointing a camera in someone’s face to make him feel ashamed 45 years after the facts for how he failed to manage his hormones when he was around 20 years old could be dictated by revenge.
I watch videos, I am immersing myself in the social climate of that decade, between the 70s and the 80s, let’s say between the end of my childhood and the beginning of my adolescence, to better place the facts with the scenario.
Woodstock had already happened but in the colonies of the cultural empire cultural things/fashions/movements arrived a bit late, avant-gardes aside, in the 70s gatherings were held featuring music, politics and meditation.
The most relevant summer gathering for the participation of artists, who later became famous, was the one organized by the magazine ‘Re Nudo’ by Andrea, not yet Majid, Valcarenghi, with other political, student and feminist organizations.
It lasted from 71 to 76, despite the contrasts of the population who criticized these long-haired people who went around hugging and kissing, complaining about the scandal of shameless 13-year-old girls who should have stayed home.
The feminists, very combative, in interviews complaining about the moral blackmail of the “communist comrades”, disappointing as the bourgeois patriarchs, asking the female comrades to make the sexual revolution “open the pussy and fuck”, to show themselves not frigid but emancipated from bourgeois morality.
Then there was the issue of heroin. Every now and then a dealer was beaten, then a post-trial of those who said it was a fascist act to punish in that way, with witnesses who came forward to say that the victim was not a pusher but “a proletarian like us”.
This youth festival ended, at least for the inspirers of the first editions that headed towards India, with the riots for “the frozen chicken”.
Over the years, the fame of the gathering attracted young, culturally undeveloped proletarians from all over Italy, even from the economically underdeveloped south, who thought they could feed themselves with a few thousand lire for the duration of the gathering.
The prices of the food stands went up, the kids attacked them, the police intervened.
I put the links in the internal chat, a documentary that at a certain point requires access by age, people were very naked in those years, an element that does not encourage libido, if anyone has been on holiday in Cap D’agde (C. Oltra) they know what I’m talking about.
@SD 29 November, 2024 at 1:10 am
Actually, SD, I was the one who was criticizing you, for a long time now, your one-sidedness is quite evident if you ask many of those who have left the Chat, but I admire your impassive face in continuing to do so, I see some timid progress, perhaps due to the recent attack received from Lokesh.
I don’t master English but is it really so difficult to evaluate the distance between me and what I write? Not even the suspicion that sometimes what I write is modulated by emulation, deliberately adopting the most used communicative registers by one of the factions on SN?
I don’t like rap, maybe that’s why we don’t understand each other.
The so-called “attack” from Lokesh was due to a misunderstanding, so you can delete that one from your ‘points scored’ tally (while I add one to mine).
Good morning, friends…
I’ve been listening to a present from Spotify this morning, a playlist full of soul music, while I write on forums and answer emails. I’m on my second cup of Lavazza coffee, I was up at 6.45 with the winter dark outside. Just a few weeks to the winter solstice, then the days will get longer again.
It’s funny, I’ve noticed a darker cast to my thought these last few weeks, but last night I was reading from Eckhart Tolle’s book ‘A New Earth’ and this morning things seem to have lifted. There were some passages about old emotion and old anger lingering in the inner body, and driving you to seek more negativity, with which I felt a recognition. It’s a well known phenomenon in trauma therapy that feelings are stored in the body, so it does not surprise me.
A question that has been keeping me awake at night.
Should bloggers on SN, who are obviously suffering from dementia, be allowed to post comments on the forum?
You made me realise, Lokesh: I take very few people on here seriously, if you ask me whose opinion I respect even a little it’s mostly you and SD. It’s nothing personal, it’s just that you may all be in your eighties just tapping away at little keyboards with suspect opinions about conspiracies.
Your position was obvious as soon as you came on here, NP.
I think I have done the gentlemanly thing and allowed myself to be persuaded hither and thither until I could no longer take it seriously. In the beginning I looked askance at all the little feuds on SN but you begin to realise it’s largely done in jest after a while…
Yes, indeed, NP, and now you must bow before Osho for allowing you the online privilege of meeting real sannyasins like Swami Shanti, who fully understands the master’s vision and never doubts for a moment in trusting Osho, and hence his perceptions are honed as sharp as a samurai’s katana, allowing him to cut through the Maya and expose the essence of lesser mortals like you and I immediately. His blessings….
But what will you do NP now you are post-Osho? Read Pappaji?
First I am going to take some time to get clear the influences of Osho on my mind, because in a way he still lives there. I want to see what was his legacy in me, how his ideas shaped me.
Of course there were many other influences – my time in Amsterdam between the communes, writers like Jules Verne and Alexandre Dumas, to name just a few. But I just want to sort out a bit more the influence of the social sannyas life, and Osho’s guidelines to us.
Hi Nityaprem.
Why does what you say to me sound like: “I want to see how much damage Osho has done to my life”?
Maybe because you speak in the past (shaped your mind)?
Maybe because you only speak about mind, since he has already left your heart?
If so it would be very important, love has no forms that can contain it.
Honestly, if you are an authentic seeker and not one who wants a better social life with Christian/Muslim/Jewish believers, it does not seem to me that the issue deserves particular attention, in the sense that you have a strong enough backbone to welcome whatever truth you seem to be passionate about.
Imv, Osho could have influenced you, if you allowed it step by step as you proceeded with meditation/witnessing, in not giving you any truth that did not put the human being at the centre, the only one who is truly responsible for its (truth) validation.
In case this has become existentially rooted in you, it would not even be correct to attribute the credit/responsibility/blame to Osho, since this is part of a long tradition of the cult of integral life, without a god who divides it in two, before and after, on earth and in heaven, a cult, that is, a care for life, that precedes Osho by a few millennia.
I believe that even your Scottish mentor has not returned to believing in God and his commandments, try slapping him for confirmation of it.
As for practical advice for daily life, in case you decide that Osho has given you all the ones wrong, I cannot tell you what alternative guide could help you, taking inspiration from his lifestyle has never been my trip, from nutrition to watches, from air conditioning to reading books…
In your place I would follow, as I continue to do, his advice: “stones fall effortlessly from your hands when you find diamonds” (almost).
So it won’t be you who distances yourself from him but he from you, falling into oblivion among the infinite possibilities. The important thing is that you don’t stop feeling worthy and you go on celebrating the mystery, here and now, and not after having atoned for your sin and in heaven.
Veet Francesco, what it comes down to is, if Osho manipulated his way into these situations, then in what other ways did he manipulate me and the other sannyasins?
You cannot trust what he says, if he is proven to be a hypocrite and a manipulator as well as a hypnotist and a powerful psychic. What he says proves highly dangerous because he mixes in spiritual truth with his own opinions.
I would like to talk about Deeksha’s paternalism.
In the first part of her interview, after the introduction of the interviewer Roberta Lippi, “disciple” of the Cult Specialist (it’s written exactly like that on her website) Lorita Tinelli (the woman with the longest CV in the world), after the old Dragon Lady recalled that it was not the “Love bombing” (coincidence, the title of R.L.’s book) by Osho that struck her but the meeting with Laxmi (whatever that means).
At about minute 30, a bell rang, when she talks about her generation that ended up in India in those years (early 70s), mostly to emulate the Beatles, a generation disillusioned by politics, in short, “lost” generation, not all of it but a good number of it.
The paternalistic tones used to describe that lost generation, and for that girl she was then, sounded very familiar to me, but with a difference: I had never heard her speak in such a detached and cold way, as she does, of those first meetings with Osho, and in those years.
Even those who here claim to have jumped out of the boat have never denied the huge positive impact brought about by the meeting with Osho.
My point is that youth movements have always followed one another in different waves, and continue to do so today, perhaps it only varies in the quantity of participation and social conditions, but the quality of a generation of young people always seems to be, more or less consciously, that of having in their hands the power to change things, a dream ultimately not too different, over the millennia, of a better world.
For this reason I believe that if there is a generation that cannot be defined as lost it is precisely that of the age group let’s say between 14 and 28 (not so rigidly understood), where the boundary between dreams and reality is very blurred.
From these first clues, combined with the timing of the rising wave of media bullshit, many implications arise that would increasingly explain the sensation of listening to a phoney testimony, perhaps from a woman who is now withered.
MOD:
The first part of this post has been deleted. We’re not prepared to take any further negative comments about how this site is managed. As an old English army expression goes, ‘You can either like it or lump it.’
@MOD
errata corrige
9th paragraph: “but with a difference: I had never heard SOMEONE speaks in such a detached and cold way, as she does, of ANY OF those WHO MET Osho IN THE FIRST MEETINGS, and in those years”.
I’m not sure if it is clear, I mean at beginning of the meetings with Osho in those years.
MOD:
9th paragraph where exactly, Veet?
After the English version of Deeksha’s long sharing, I’m listening to the one in my native language where I’m not distracted by the translation of concepts and words and Deeksha also seems more fluent.
Without these two cultural mediations, of the speaker and the listener, I feel like I can better appreciate the nuances and timing of a story of events that happened 40/50 years ago.
If she’s not a very measured actress, I feel like I can say she’s not lying.
The feeling is based on the fact that not only do I not perceive resentment in her but above all she is describing things that at the time caused her shock, disappointment and repulsion with a voice tinged with melancholy; at times I perceive a sense of detached sadness…if I’m not projecting.
Very interesting, especially the breaking point, which for Deeksha was listening to Osho’s apologia of the Power used by Hitler in private…even if with a bit of reticence she describes her family of origin as “not fascist”, when in reality the main enemies of Hitler and Mussolini were Jews and communists.
This episode came after Deeksha had spoken with a lawyer who had explained to her that creating a commune in America as Osho thought would have meant prison, and she was very clear that she did not want to go to prison in his place.
I’ll let it all settle and if these feelings are confirmed, then I’ll try to focus on the theme of the possible implications for my beloved Sangha.
You seem to have a similar impression as I did about Deeksha’s heart-felt honesty, Veet. She was very close to Bhagwan in those days, and the stories that she tells have considerable weight. I think it is brave of her to come out with such a strong personal opinion.
Deeksha, was considered very fascist by sannyasins and wielded tremendous power in the commune. Like Sheela, she was considered a bit of a mini-Hitler, who was also the butt of jokes.
Good day, dear friends,
As a small Christmas gift I gave my father a new webcam, and the last few days we have been video-calling a couple of times a day. It’s been fun seeing my dad in the early mornings when we are both sipping our coffee, trading stories about football or ancient monuments.
I have been reading more Eckhart Tolle, and I have to say my inner experience of his books and techniques for awareness are different now that I have created some distance from Osho. Osho’s influence now feels to me pleasant but soporific, hypnotic.