Some Early experiences recounted by Lokesh
Questioner: You ask: I have been told that you leave your body for several hours each day and that when you return you are very hungry and that you eat sixteen chapattis. Is this true?
Osho: Yes, it is true. Whenever one leaves the body one feels very, very hungry on coming back, and after entering the body again food functions as a paperweight and helps the inner space to settle in the body again easily.
During the seventies in Poona One, it was not uncommon for Osho to touch upon subject matter in his morning discourses that had been a topic of conversation the evening before amongst one and one’s sannyasin friends. I experienced first-hand, on half a dozen occasions, instances where Osho repeated in a discourse something I had been talking about the evening before and more than once he looked directly at me when he said it. He often said he knew everything that was going on in his commune and the evidence supported it, which of course brings up how he could later claim to be completely unaware of Sheela’s shenanigans on the Ranch, although this is not my motivation for bringing this up for discussion.
If you spent much time in close physical proximity to Osho you will know that he used a balm that exuded a very distinct smell. If you asked me to describe it today I could not, but if I got a whiff of it I would recognize it immediately.
During 1977 I was running ‘Prem Kutira’, a sannyasin centre in Chapora, Goa. Before he left for Poona, Arihantha, the centre leader, stayed around for a few days to show me the ropes… milking the goats etc. One sunny morning, Ritambhara, my girlfriend at the time, and I were returning from the beach when we ran into Osho in the bushes. He was out of the physical body but very much present. We could smell his balm and feel that unmistakeable energy he exuded by the bucketful. The pair of us fell to our knees, assumed the Namaste mudra and entered a state of meditation. The spontaneous encounter lasted for about five minutes, until Osho moved on, although the emotional impact of the meeting made it feel much longer. We then gathered our things together and continued on our way in stunned silence. Ten minutes later, we arrived at Prem Kutira to be greeted by a very excited Arihantha.
‘Wow!’ he exclaimed. ‘Bhagwan (Osho) just visited, but he left a few minutes ago.’
We, of course, described our meeting with Bhagwan on the jungle path. Arihantha went on to explain how this sort of occurrence had happened before. Arihantha was, by the way, a rugged individual who was not prone to spiritual flights of fantasy. It had been Arihantha more than anyone else who had convinced me to go and meet Bhagwan in the first place, two years earlier. What I admired about Arihantha was his zen/tantric attitude and his ability to remain clear after blowing a massive chillum packed with Manali hashish. He died of heart failure some years ago in Byron Bay and the world is a sadder place without his boisterous laughter.
A month later, my new role as centre leader established, myself and my girlfriend had a late night meeting with Osho in the garden of Prem Kutira, under the light of a bright full moon. The details of the meeting were similar to the first and differed only in the respect that it was night and the garden suddenly became bathed in a curious luminosity that had nothing to do with the moon. I might add that a number of sannyasins living in Goa at the time had similar experiences.
that manali charas was pretty strong…..
i could certainly put away sixteen chapatis after a few chillums of that stuff….
plus an all-you-can-eat thali,two kilos of sweet curd,a coupla bhang lassis, 400grams of milksweet,laddus, gulab jamuns,kheer, two packets of parle glucose biscuits and 17 cups of chai……
An interesting story, Lokesh. One common sense question that occurs is how you could smell the balm if his physical body was not there. Astral balm?
Perhaps sensing his presence energetically, triggered associations of that presence in the brain, hence the smell.
There is a teaching from the Samkhya tradition that refers to three essential qualities of energy (gunas), those being ‘tamas’ (passive), ‘rajas’ (active), and ‘sattva’ (clear and balanced). Osho’s life went something like this (and I think he himself talked about this at one point):
1. Tamas phase — his ‘lazy’ years, culminating in his Great Doubt Awakening of ’53.
2. Rajas phase — his active phase, probably from his university teaching years up till the end of Poona I, when his body began slowing.
3. Sattva phase — the later years.
It seems that all the extraordinary energy phenomenon, including the psychic stuff (‘siddhis’) and the energy-darshans were part of the rajas activity. But an interesting part of the Samkhya teaching is that these phases have little to do with enlightenment, which makes sense since formless consciousness is supposed to be beyond energy of any sort. From that point of view all these energy phenomena are parts of the personality/karma just burning off. A guru can wield considerable energetic powers (shaktipat stuff, for example) but not necessarily be enlightened. For example, all the Jesus-miracles — the transfiguration scene, especially, where Jesus meets three disciples on a hilltop in his ‘body of light’ or astral form — are distinct from what wisdom he offered, if only because there were many other magicians during his time who wielded similar ‘powers’.
All the same, always interesting to hear the early-days stories of Osho.
the biblical “stories” of Jesus, are just that- stories for the dumb sheep to believe. “…What wisdom he offered…”. according to whom/what? the Bible? No one really knows what went on back then. as a matter of fact there is only one reliable mentioning of a guy named Jesus, the leader of “The Cult of the Fish”. that was by a Roman official making a report to Rome. So, please keep this in mind, before going off on a journey comparing gurus and what arsenal of magical tricks they be carrying.
The value of any history that can’t be confirmed by a time machine is in myth, allegory. My point was about the allegorical message, not the historical. I don’t care whether Jesus really existed or not. Here, have a toke.
Speaking of history, I understand someone somewhere made a marble statue of Osho? Seems he’s already been preserved for the future when our digital memories run out of fossil fuels and our glass buildings get officially outlasted by the pyramids.
You are the most heartful ‘Intellectual’ I’ve ever come across in my life. Such an interesting combination. Air and water. Sparkling water.
Makes your writing style really engaging. \(^o\) (/o^)/
Teertha: with all due respect, that is one of the dumbest questions i’ve heard,- “… how could you smell the balm if his physical body was not there…” please re-read Lokesh’s story- osho was out of his physical body- NOT “his physical body was not there”. it seems you’ve been smoking the hash – ease up on it dude!!
I had two kind of similar experiences while at the ranch @ his celebrations. totally overwhelming. Also, I met a swami who had the gift of reading auras, whenever he saw osho all he could see was a glowing golden aura all around him. That guy left the ranch saying he couldn’t deal with the b.s. politics from the ma’s. So, having a golden guru ain’t worth being badgered by bitching ma’s. What a wimp that swami was.
i dont really think there is a conclusive explanation(s) for strange,unfathomable occurences…
some of my best commonsense friends have had the experience of being taken up in to spaceship type situations by benign aliens who showered them with love….
small unexplainable in normal terms happen pretty much all the time…
for example,my view is that dreaming about the future in small things (not predicting 9/11 etc) is really surprisingly common if you choose to focus on it.
and lokesh,as regards your astral vision of osho.
was it only at that time?
maybe something like an “old wise man archetype” was blasting its way into the modern consciousness and popping up all over the place in the 70s,and osho was riding that wave…?
but i am wary of any pat (or shaktipat!)explanations for things beyond us…
i remember the paul lowe teertha gang ,back in the eighties after he split with osho…they were claiming that they all had simultaneous visions of aliens visiting them while they were doing group meditations…
in my view,sane people downplay these sort of things as its easy to get on a psychic trip of feeling ,like teertha`s lot did–they went on that one that they were a bunch of souls who were visiting the planet periodically to “do important work” and sort it out and a whole bunch of delusional inflated stuff kicked in.(E may have played a part,too)and it was difficult to be around.
i have seen it with other psychic groups….if there are enough suggestion,trances,hypnangogic experiences,altered states(osho induced plenty of that)wierd synchronistic,psychic,”magick”stuff starts to happen.its all very interesting but whether it is actually any better in terms of spiritual growth than smoking manali cream or as someone put it here on sn: “drinking jack daniels,listening to johnny cash and getting a blow job” is definitely open to question,i would say…..
Yes, of course it is all questionable. The thing about this particular Osho story is that others witnessed it apart from myself and in seperate physical circumstances where I was not present.
Aliens? I actually had a close encounter with a couple of…ehm…non-human sentient energy balls on little Vagator Beach, Goa, circa 1971. Once again, I shared the encounter with another person. I can’t say these energy balls were extra-terrestial because I don’t know. Bottom line is… so what? If aliens decided to make their presence known to the general public on planet Earth I don’t really see what difference it would make to my life and the fundamental questions that arise if one asks about what it means to be human…is reincarnation a reality?…what happens when you die? etc.
I don’t really think our planet would be of great interest to the galactic community, if such a community exists. I mean to say, in spite of human achievements in the realm of music etc, we are as a species still at a primitive stage in our evolution. What intelligent species would, for instance, use carbon fuels globally when they knew it was so destructive to their environment, (one place that a firm belief in reincarnation would be good for future generations…if we really thought we would be back here soon after we died perhaps we would not be so eager to leave such an abominable mess behind) or spend billions teaching young people to kill other people, while spending nothing on teaching people how to die? Kind of dumb and primitive in face of the fact that we only live a short time while perhaps eternity awaits us. On a planetary level we must appear at a distance as….sorry folks… dirty, disease-infected, microscopic parasites. Beam me up, baba.
times have changed…..
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Lucky bastard. Why god? Why not me?( Shakes fist at sky.)
In his book “Life of Osho,” my old friend (now deceased) Prem Paritosh (Sam) has one chapter, Chapter Nine, called Shapeshifter. His early account from his days in the ashram circa 1975 allude to some similar experiences, though not out of the body.
He describes, as he had quite close contact with Osho at the time through being the first leader of the Vipassana group, LSD type shaktipat when close up to Osho’s physical presence. He describes how “The space around him seemed to be flickering slightly, or vibrating…. several other old sannyasins have said the same thing about talking to Osho at darshan being like coming on to acid. Same brightness, same elation, same thinning out of matter”.
So I myself have a mixed reaction to Lokesh’s story. Part of me says he’s having a joke, yet another part remains open. I also feel ambivalent about Osho’s reply to the 16 chappati story!! He also was not beyond having a joke.
Free John, again quoted by Paritosh, says a “Man of Understanding” is “a madman, a hoax, a libertine, a fool, a moralist, a sayer of truths, a bearer of all experience, a righteous knave, a prince, a child, an old one, an ascetic, a god”…. well that business about a hoax… !
Incidentally copies of Sam’s book are still available through SannyasNews.
Looking at photos of Osho when high on good LSD is a very powerful and mind-blowing trip. I sometimes suspected that all those fancy hand mudras of his were contrived, but, perceived from a highly altered state, they are not…they correspond to energy changes that…er..ehm..defy belief.
I no longer need to indulge in such practices but on retrospect I am glad that I once did, even though they sometimes scared the bejesus out of me.
that baba free lunch guy could definitely put away more than 16 chapatis.
did you see the state of him?
he was big on jack daniels and blow jobs too….
i heard that he gave some of his disciples the hardcore tantric task of eating his shit one one occasion.
a very good teaching it was too.
i hope they learned the lesson….
First Darshan. No memory of being called, moving forward, kneeling down,. Can feel his hand on my forehead, and then recollect being lifted by two Swamis, one each side. Couldn’t stand. Completely limp. Have a vague picture of white set in light.
In The Sound of Running Water, there is a part where Osho tells of himself visiting some one astrally. Can’t remember the details but he definitely claims to have done this.
I had a friend who, while meditating in Sedona, Osho appeared to her as if an actual person was standing before her. She wasn’t a sannyasin when that happened, she had great doubts regarding Osho being an enlightened master. She had some psychic abilities ever since she was a child and her dad was an archeologist who uncovered ancient Hopi artifacts. after that “appearance” by osho, she applied and took sannyas, and moved to the Ranch.
Also Ouspenky, in, In Search of the Miraculous, claims some strange going on with Gurdjieff.
I can say with complete assurance that G. did not use any kind of external methods, that is, he gave me no narcotics nor did he hypnotize me by any of the known methods.
It all started with my beginning to hear his thoughts. We were sitting in a small room with a carpetless wooden floor as it happens in country houses. I sat opposite G., and Dr. S. and Z. at either side. G. spoke of our “features,” of our inability to see or to speak the truth. His words perturbed me very much. And suddenly I noticed that among the words which he was saying to us all there were “thoughts” which were intended for me. I caught one of these thoughts and replied to it, speaking aloud in the ordinary way. G. nodded to me and stopped speaking. There was a fairly long pause. He sat still saying nothing. After a while I heard his voice inside me as it were in the chest near the heart. He put a definite question to me. I looked at him; he was sitting and smiling. His question provoked in me a very strong emotion. But I answered him in the affirmative.
“Why did he say that?” asked G., looking in turn at Z. and Dr. S. “Did I ask him anything?”
And he at once put another still more difficult question to me in the same way as before. And I again answered it in a natural voice. Z. and S. were visibly astonished at what was taking place, especially Z. This conversation, if it can be called a conversation, proceeded in this fashion for not less than half an hour. G. put questions to me without words and I answered them speaking in the usual way. I was very agitated by the things G. said to me and the things he asked me…
…For a long time I sat and smoked in some kind of glade. When I returned to the house it was already dark on the small veranda. Thinking that everyone had gone to bed I went to my own room and went to bed myself. As a matter of fact G. and the others were at that time having supper on the large veranda. A little while after I had gone to bed a strange excitement again began in me, my pulse began to beat forcibly, and I again heard G.’s voice in my chest. On this occasion I not only heard but I replied mentally and G. heard me and answered me. There was something very strange in this conversation. I tried to find something that would confirm it as a fact but could find nothing. And after all it could have been “imagination” or a waking dream, because although I tried to ask G. something of a concrete nature that would have left no doubt about the conversation or his participation in it, I could not invent anything weighty enough. And certain questions I asked him and which he answered I could have asked and answered myself. I even had the impression that he avoided concrete answers which later might serve as “proofs,” and to one or two of my questions he intentionally gave indefinite answers. But the feeling that it was a conversation was very strong and entirely new and unlike anything else.
After one long pause G. asked me something that at once put me all on the alert, then stopped as if waiting for an answer.
What he said suddenly put a stop to all my thoughts and feelings. It was not fear, at least not a conscious fear when one knows that one is afraid, but I was all shivering and something literally paralyzed me completely so that I could not articulate a single word although I made terrible efforts, wishing to give an affirmative reply.
I felt that G. was waiting and that he would not wait long. “Well, you are tired now,” he said at last, “we will leave it till another time.” I began to say something, I think I asked him to wait, to give me a little time to get accustomed to this thought. “Another time,” said his voice. “Sleep.” And his voice stopped. I could not go to sleep for a long time. In the morning as I came out onto the little terrace where we had sat the evening before, G. was sitting in the garden twenty yards away near a round table; there were three of our people with him.
“Ask him what happened last night,” said G.
For some reason this made me angry. I turned and walked towards the terrace. As I reached it I again heard G.’s voice in my chest.
“Stop!” I stopped and turned towards G. He was smiling. “Where are you going, sit down here,” he said in his ordinary voice. I sat with him but I could say nothing, nor did I want to talk. At the same time I felt a kind of extraordinary clarity of thought and I decided to try to concentrate on certain problems which had seemed to me to be particularly difficult. The thought came to my mind that in this unusual state I might perhaps find answers to questions which I could not find in the ordinary way…
“Leave it,” said G. aloud. I turned my eyes towards him and he looked at me. “That is a very long way away yet,” he said. “You cannot find the answer now. Better think of yourself, of your work.” The people sitting with us looked at us in perplexity. G. had answered my thoughts. Then something very strange began that lasted the whole day and afterwards. We stayed in Finland three days longer. During these three days there were very many talks about the most varied subjects. And I was in an unusual emotional state all the time which sometimes began to be burdensome.
“How can this be got rid of? I cannot bear it any more,” I asked G. “Do you want to go to sleep?” said G. “Certainly not,” I said. “Then what are you asking about? This is what you wanted, make use of it. You are not asleep at this moment!” I do not think that this was altogether true. I undoubtedly “slept” at some moments. Many things that I said at that time must have surprised my companions in this strange adventure very much. And I was surprised at many things myself. Many things were like sleep, many things had no relation whatever to reality. Undoubtedly I invented a lot. Afterwards it was very strange for me to remember the things I had said.
I’ve said often that Osho could read people’s minds like others read newspapers. During a certain period in my life I experimented in transferring thoughts with other people. We did things like send simple messages, lift your right arm etc. It really was not such a big deal. You would hear the other person’s voice in your head…kind of tinny sound. I used to call the mental space necessary to do this kind of experiment ‘Fingerprint Land’, because externally the world looked like it had a giant fingerprint superimposed on it.
When meeting someone who can read your thoughts, Osho for example, it easy to allow yourself to be bedazzled by such a ‘magic show’. Think about it. If someone can read your thoughts we can be easily taken in, thinking we are in the presence of an enlightened being etc, when in fact this is quite low down in the realm of siddhic powers. I recall Osho saying siddhis are like cufflinks to a real master….ehm cufflinks? Well he always had a unique dress sense.
This all pretty much boils down to angle of perception. If you go into a situation with a certain expectation (like a close encounter with a great guru) then your mind will manufacture an experience that fits the expectation. Drugs will simply enhance the show.
There was a great old Star Trek episode, called “Specter of the Gun” as I recall, where Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scott, and Chekov beam down to an alien planet that is turned into a recreation of the American West, late 19th century, and the fight at the OK corral with Morgan and Virgil Earp and all those gunslinger guys. In the climax scene Spock has to hypnotize Kirk and the other feeble-minded humans into believing that the bullets fired at them are not real (which in fact, they weren’t). Once convinced of this, the bullets passed through their bodies without harming them, which then freed up Kirk to kick the cowboy’s asses doing his flying Kato number.
What we’re convinced we’re going to see, we generally do (and vice versa). Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant worked all this stuff out three hundred years ago. They disagreed on details but the main point is that it’s all occurring in our mind shaped by our thoughts, mostly unconscious. Come to believe that a guru is truly great, magical, and when you sit in his presence, magic will generally happen. Doesn’t mean he isn’t wise, but the kaleidoscopic stuff is mostly self-generated.
“Come to believe that a guru is truly great, magical, and when you sit in his presence, magic will generally happen. Doesn’t mean he isn’t wise, but the kaleidoscopic stuff is mostly self-generated.”
I am a bit doubtful about this. Osho had great powers, and often the experiences were way beyond just imaginings. People who were expecting nothing often had powerful experiences.
It’s possible that the people who were ‘expecting nothing’ may indeed have been expecting something, but not consciously. An example would be someone raised in a family with religious conditioning. When you’re taught from an early age that Jesus went up to the sky in his new body, that God knows everything and that a boogyman runs Hell, you are, in effect, conditioned for magical thinking. Your university years may suppress this conditioning, but it’s still there, which is why the average person has wild trips on LSD or ayahuasca.
I don’t doubt Osho’s vast charisma and tremendous personal energy-field. I sat in front of the man, not more than 25 feet away, for 30 straight days, when he gave his talks in Kathmandu, Nepal, in February of ’86. His presence was extraordinary, without question, and altered states of consciousness in his presence were not hard to come by. I more now question the mechanism by which such experiences arose in my mind, and my own part in that, based on my conditioning, expectations, level of openness/sensitivity, etc.
I think one of the biggest issues with humans is our arrogance. If we can’t see it or hear it, it doesn’t exist. You doubters sound like superstitious scientists- only what can be seen is real. Now, what explains the sense of smell? You can’t hear or see or feel it, you “smell” fire, but to identify the smell, you need to learn to associate it with fire, same with smelling food being cooked, say Italian food, it’s a learned thing to associate it with something you see, but we can’t see the smell. Too bad we can’t associate our “paranormal” or psychic occurrences in the same manner. Just because some one else doesn’t experience these things or if a person does, it doesn’t mean it’s a “delusion”. Our arrogant mind is what keeps us from the “whole” in the first place- yes, drop the mind and all is revealed.. Even with your head trip with osho- that’s arrogance too. Existence is infinite, our visual perception is a tiny fragment of what exists in the universe(s).
In ‘Osho, India and Me’ by Krishna Prem (Jack Allanach), there is a similar description of an out of body visit by Osho.
The only thing I ever had a bit similar to this was my relationship to his photo.
For several years before taking sannyas I would visit Kalptaru meditation centre, on and off. There was big photo of Osho as you entered and every time I went in I got this big “jolt” off the photo. His eyes would follow me around the room. I remember doing a group in which his photo was more real than the participants. I take this as “being called” because once I eventually took sannyas (it took a few years), the “jolts” and the following eyes ceased or lessened.
Did he know there was this then young guy in London who needed to be called, so therefore projected his energy into the photo? Who knows?
But even today I always keep an eye on his photo…..there are times when it is strong and times when it is not so strong. Now it is quite strong, though nothing like than in my early visits to Kalptaru.
Sw Arun also talks a bit about such out of body visits.
If I recall correctly, in ‘Osho India and Me’, they actually ask in advance for the out of body visit, and thank him in darshan later.
The other thing I get is some quality in the trees when the Old Boy is around.
I remember driving up to Medina and as I approached the trees looked different. I got something similar at Sw Arun’s groups. So I am always looking at trees to see if he is around or not.
Teertha, I actually saw that Star Trek episode…not bad, as far as theses things go. Are you a Trekie?
It makes no differance if people believe my story or not. It really did happen. I am just reporting on it. It had nothing to do with any kind of mumbo jumbo, projections etc. I don’t even see it as such a big deal. These things do happen and I just felt like writing about it and wondered what kind of responses would come. As it is, I’ve enjoyed reading all of your comments and for me this little episode has been entertaining. Even better than ‘Spectre of the gun’. (note the spelling)
Two days after my father died, early one evening had an incredibly intense feeling of him in the house. My mother felt the same in a separate room and freaked. ( He was not a happy man. ) Went upstairs. The presence was palpable, and the dog was cowering and freaking out in a corner. Was very disturbing, and for only the second time in my life I prayed to Osho, prayed for him to come and lead my father away,. Then the house was filled with golden light and Osho came, and the sense of my father in the house evaporated, as the sense of Osho did.( The memory of that is incredibly moving. )
Don’t doubt that you experienced something, but such experiences are the most private of all and I suppose we doubt them ourselves because we know we cant prove what happened, we know we are likely to be disbelieved by those who believe if it cant be proved it ain’t real.
Ace share. Many thanks. \(^o\) (/o^)/
For the record Lokesh, I don’t doubt your experience. I’m curious more about your interpretation of it. And I say that because my own background is full of altered states of consciousness experiences (in fact, I ‘began’ on the spiritual path via learning out-of-body techniques via an Eckankar initiate, and studying Robert Monroe’s work). Was later heavily involved in lucid dreaming, so-called astral travel, and past life regression work. This included a number of vivid and powerful dreams of Osho (including dreaming of his death about a year before it happened, although I subsequently found out this was surprisingly common among many sannyasins, the ’89 premonition’ that something big was coming down soon). My own journey has involved sharpening discernment, and applying that retroactively to my own altered-states experiences. In the last year of Osho’s life he himself became quite sharply critical of anything that wasn’t connected to the Zen approach. In Zen they have a really helpful concept called *makyo*, which relates to the way our mind generates powerful visions and altered states of consciousness when we set the intention to wake up.
Altered states of consciousness still deeply interest me — just the other day I had a powerful lucid dream in which a dead guy (I knew) passed a message on to me to pass on to his girlfriend — but I’m especially interested in subjecting it all to a bit more rigor, maybe so as to spend less time wandering in the bardo.
ps — ‘spectre’ (English spelling), ‘specter’ (American spelling — being Canadian, I usually use American because I’m a typical Americanized great white northerner whose sole cultural attachment is hockey. And Captain Kirk was Canadian).
Teertha, my last comment was not addressed to anyone in particular…more a statement of where I am at.
You say, ‘I’m curious more about your interpretation of it. ‘. Well, I just reckon that some people know how to move about on different planes of existance. I’m reminded of going to see a Seigfreid & Roy show in Las Vegas. I was in the fromt row and within a few minutes the two gay illusionists had made an elephant apparently levitate and I looked on as a white tiger was fired out of a huge cannon to make it appear in a cage suspended above the audience. I just thought to myself, ‘I’m going to sit back and enjoy the show, without trying to figure out what is going on behind the scenes’. And so I did just that. Same goes for the story that began this thread.
I’ve heard it said that important spiritual happenings in an individual’s life are best kept secret so they can grow inside of you. I’ve never went for that…I love telling stories. That is why I wrote a couple of novels. I also like to illustrate to people that there is something going on that is way beyond having your nose pressed up to the glass in the display windows of the material world. Telling stories is one way I do that.
Osho was a mysterious man. He did a lot of amazing things but he was also capable of the mundane…daft cars and fancy watches etc. I accept all those paradoxical sides of him because for me he was an easy guy to love. I’m not bothered how or why he did certain things…that he did them was enough. I enjoy a good sunset and don’t need to know the science that makes it happen. If someone has the knowledge and they want to educate me that is also cool, but the sunset will not be made any the more beautiful by knowing the mechanics behind it.
Appreciate your response. Just to clarify, by ‘interpretation’ I’m not referring to figuring something out with discursive reasoning, etc. I was referring to perspective.
In my own case, after my Eckankar friend gave me a mysterious energy boost, I spent three straight months working intensively on cultivating the out-of-body state. (This was 30 years ago). I got to where I was able to go out of body almost at will, but only at a certain time (around 6am, right after waking). Once ‘out of body’ I was never able to control the actual experience (doubtless because it isn’t about control), and my ‘astral sight’ was generally poor. But on occasion I would see clearly, one time catching sight of a bright blue etheric field around my body. This three month period culminated when I ‘traveled’ to my brother’s apartment in a city that was over 1,000 miles away (a phenomenally real experience).
Looking back now, my view of it is a bit different. I see it less as actually having ‘traveled’ somewhere and more has having shifted my consciousness (which makes sense, since space is a mind-construct). And that does not negate the experience or its value. It’s a bit like that funny Castaneda story when he took some mushrooms with don Juan and they went for a drive in his car. He thought he was driving for hours and then realized that don Juan was bobbing his head up and down to simulate sitting in a moving car, when in fact Carlos had forgotten to turn the key in the ignition and they’d never left the parking lot.
Probably my strangest altered state experience with Osho was shortly after taking sannyas (early ’83 in my case) when I woke up in the middle of the night and ‘knew’ that he had just visited me, and placed his hand on my head. My whole body was radiating energy. Now however, I see it from a different perspective. I don’t think he visited me. I think my consciousness simply shifted (owing to my state at that time), allowing a door of some sort to open. I prefer that interpretation because in some way it feels more accountable, if that makes sense. But it doesn’t diminish the value of the experience.
That said, I appreciate your perspective on your experience, seems like you’re not attached to how others perceive it, and that alone speaks volumes.
Just for the record-we can also leave the body and then you will KNOW for sure you are not imagining! – Good you are open-minded at least a bit
There’s a meeting of the Blake Society intended to summon the Visionary Heads that Blake depicted in his sketch books, on Tuesday 18 October 2011. Has a relevance to this string? It’s at
the House of William Blake, 17 South Molton Street, London. The organisers say:
We gather just before midnight at Blake’s only surviving London home and where he painted ‘A Ghost of a Flea’. Here Blake and the rumbustious John Varley would share friendship, art and visions. They would stay up together through the small hours to wait for the arrival of those visitors, long dead, who survive in the sketch books known as the Visionary Heads.
We meet once more in candlelight to see if visions might again appear … and to try to understand what a vision means today.
If you wish to attend it is essential to book because of space. Please email visionaryheads@blakesociety.org
“visionary heads”
nice one….
if the doors of perception were cleansed,everything would appear as it is,infinite……
talking about enjoying magic shows….
have you seen vids of sai baba doing his magic act with the “holy ash”?
they show that he has it hidden in a pellet between his fingers.
no surprise there.
what is interesting is that his sleight of hand is so poor,he would never get away with it as a close-up magician at a party.
why? because the crowd is completely expecting a miracle….
the “hypnosis” is more important than the sleight of hand technique.
ie the audience are so programmed to see a miracle that he can be as sloppy as he likes…..
you see the same in comedy.
people will laugh at a comedian because they “know” he`s funny even if his jokes are crap…
happens all the time.
jimi hendrix may have lost the will to live because the crowd would applaud wildly even if he broke a string….
we humanimals need magic.
need laughs
need visions.
just seems to be like that…….
people will have spiritual experiences even whilst sitting with a paedophile so long as he looks and acts the part…
amazing really….
(of the guru)
In 92 I was in India when there was a big scandal about Sai Baba palming gold chains. He was caught in the act by an Indian film crew. He died some years later to the accolade of being India’s greatest holy man. Nothing new there.
Jimi Hendrix did not lose the will to live. Just before his death, rock’s greatest guitarist was very excited about the new phase that was opening up in his particular musical dimension. His death was an unfortunate and accidental one. A casualty of a very intense lifestyle, one could say.
loko: yeah jimi “accidentally” plunged too much smack up his veins… i gotta remember that joke for my next cocktail party.
Well Jimi and Satya Sai certainly had the same hairstyle.
Yeah, ‘visionary heads’, that really is a good one, but I think that I’ll give that one a miss.
re. osho and other gurus being able to read people`s minds.
maybe such a skill is possible.
what i can say is that what is definitely possible, is for the guru,by means of direct and indirect suggestions to create hypnotically in the disciples` mind the sense that this indeed is happening……
this touches on an odd phenomena in the hypnotherapy world.
yes,it is possible to heal various problems through hypnotic techniques,but it is even easier to simply give the suggestion that the healing has happened,and the client simply takes that suggestion and imagines he`s cured when he`s not.
he`s in for a rude awkening.
like for example,the sannyasin(or hippie)who has convinced himself that he is a citizen of the world,he is past narrow national identification,yet on returning to his home country he sees someone ripping up his national flag and suddenly feels a surge of rage or guilt….
his no-borders,citizen of the world idea was just a hypnotic trance he got from listening to too many osho discourses…!
Poonam visited the Centre I was involved with in the early eighties, and during the meeting, while I was holding forth, ( Was well established with the crowd, and still an extrovert in those days. ) had the most powerful sense was about to be eviscerated by her, picked up an intensely violent vibe. She was completely overshadowed by me. (Had got hold of some silly notion we were equal to each other.)
Spontaneously flipped into the fight mode of fight or flight internally, ready to do whatever, short of physical violence, I had to, to hold my ground. The feelings faded, and after I left the centre thought to myself, ‘I’m just paranoid’, and then realised I had picked up her non verbal violent intentions. (Read her mind if you will) but she picked up mine, read my mind, and backed down.
…or picked up on her body movements. recognizing body postures, facial expressions is inherent to most species. Reading minds, well possibly. i know that some animals like horses and cows can communicate by methods other than body postures, scents, etc. some people who have worked with these animals claim they use mental telepathy to communicate, as for me, i worked with both for extended periods and think that is entirely possible. So, Arpana maybe you just picked up on Poonam’s body postures and expressions. I hear she isn’t that tough of a read, she’s supposedly hunched over most of the time and when she straightens up- LOOK OUT!!!
Frank, ‘re. osho and other gurus being able to read people`s minds.
maybe such a skill is possible.’
Maybe? Come on, Frank, there is no maybe about it. I learned how to do it as I already mentioned. These days I have better things to read. I’m a big fan of T C Boyle. There is definitely no maybe about it….at least not in my books. (Mind Bomb & Borderline Dreamtime) I experienced Osho reading my mind and I know it was real because he confirmed it. I also reckon he was pretty good at mass hyptnotism…what you think all those hissy Ss were about? My ssssssssssssssannyasssssssssinsssss etc. I suddenly feel very sleepy. I have to go and lie down….zzz.
The whole idea of ‘spiritual reality’ is that separation is ultimately an illusion. There is only the totality, or the ‘One’, as Plotinus called it. Therefore, things like ‘mind-reading’ or ‘astral travel’ are no big stretch. Consider it — if separation is ultimately an illusion, then
1. Possible travel anywhere is not just possible, but is built into the fabric of the universe. We can truly ‘go anywhere’, because the distance between point A and point B is a thought construct. Look at the Moon with the understanding that undoes that thought construct, and we are not just ‘there’, we *are* the Moon.
2. Since time is interdependent with space, then we can also go ‘any-when’. Our past, therefore, need not control us, because it is not ultimately separate from our present. And we need not live in fear of the future, since it is only a thought in the mind.
3. Mind-reading would not only be possible, but completely natural. After all, where is the demarcation between your thoughts and mine, if demarcation itself is ultimately illusion?
Of course all this does mean we live as if separation is illusion. We live as if it is real. We keep chopping wood and carrying water.
Osho was a force of nature, and we as his disciples saw him in a special light. But it seems to me that his ‘powers’ all boiled down to our recognition that separation is ultimately an illusion.
i have been reading all your thoughts and am not the slightest bit surprised that no one has bothered to mention that there exists the huge untapped ability to be utterly incapable of predicting the effect it will have on global evolution, say about by lunchtime tomorrow.
i’m also tremendously reassured that regarding the Totnes ‘some-say-its-sati’ project there are some older expertly ‘robed’ chums from yesteryear whose last chance for an intimate mutual relationship will be with someone who is likely to lose their senses , including discreet discrimination, withtin six months of being smiled at benignly. Apparently Bram Stoker also had a similar project in mind once.
I knew that Dracula might be involved. After all he can take on the form of a bat or a wolf and he does not think twice about licking fresh blood off cut throat razors.
Beloved Mods.
How about a thread, a discussion of the impact of wearing the Mala and red. Got my buttons pressed till the pips squeaked. Tripped so much about what I went through, but never recall discussing what went on with anybody. Cheers.
Start forum topic here:
http://sannyasnews.org/now/now/groups/caravanserai/forum/#post-new
or
submit article here: http://sannyasnews.org/now/wp-admin/post-new.php
(must be logged in for both)
If you get a message about lack of privileges. let me know and I’ll fix it.
Is the ability to look back with regret similar to being able to look into the future with hope and better planning? Can we use the same resources of the cosmic mind? I’m incredibly resourceful at internal imagery, in fact when it comes to drawing a blank or a veil over what the hell I’m doing I get almost teleported to a state of utter disinterest. Am I close to Osho in this .. well I do hope so otherwise it could be said that I really should do more groups as a wise therapist once told me..mmm …will the budhhahahohohood group help?
Regarding UFO activity.. I can confirm that I too have been reduced to a state of wonder and ineffability by this phenomenon.
Once when walking across planet earth minding everyones business but my own I came upon a young slip of a girl with a full and lithe blossom about her fresh and nubile body..perched as she was in the shade of a large hairy conker tree…
Gosh ‘ I said to her. ‘Is that a UFO?’
She slowly and disappointingly squinted and arched her eyebrows until her gaze met mine.
‘That’, she said is a hairy conker. Now why don’t U.F.O and leave me alien.Otherwise I will have you teleported to the nearest constabulary.’
”Must be my eyesight”, I said excusing myself rapidly, whilst considering that though she was extraordinarily ineffable, I could not arouse her interest with my flying saucer.
‘Ucking aliens, Uck them all.’