Thanks to Navajat for recommending this video.
“One specific activity cuts dementia risk by 76% — and it isn’t running, swimming, or anything you’d find in a gym. Harvard Medical School research cited by Dr. Trisha Pasricha shows that dancing outperforms reading (35% risk reduction), crossword puzzles (47%), and even regular aerobic exercise, which had almost no measurable effect on cognitive outcomes. In 2026, Kyoto University confirmed that dancing is especially powerful during subjective cognitive decline — the window between normal aging and early dementia, when intervention still works.
In this video, Dr. Sam Waterling breaks down exactly why dancing is the most cognitively demanding physical activity a human can do — and what that means for your brain, your spine, and your joints. Six brain regions fire simultaneously: the basal ganglia, cerebellum, kinesthetic zone, auditory cortex, limbic system, and prefrontal cortex. The spine gets full mobilization from neck to sacrum. Hip rotation releases the chronically spasmed iliopsoas — one of the leading causes of lower back pain in adults who sit for a living. A PLOS ONE study from Northeastern University confirms dancing meets American Heart Association cardio guidelines: 150 minutes of moderate activity per week. Bone density decline slows by 20-30%. A single session drops cortisol by 25-40%.
Dancing triggers simultaneous release of dopamine, serotonin, and endorphins — the same combination antidepressants approximate, without side effects or withdrawal. York University showed Parkinson’s patients who danced regularly improved concentration and daily function even as the disease progressed. Dance-movement therapy is now formally recognized in US and European clinical practice for depression, PTSD, and neurodegenerative disease.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGvMDGeDAGc
Thanks, Navajat, i’ll dance with my mom every day.
But what kind of dance? I would think Hip-hop would be a little too demanding for the average seventy-year-old…
NP, I think that couple dances are the most therapeutic, because in addition to co-ordinating with the music you have to find co-ordination with the other person: music + movement + empathy + embrace.
This is a song I can’t listen to without crying:
When you’ll be little girl, I will help you understand who you are.
I will be close to you like I never have before.
We will slow our pace if I walk fast.
I will speak for you if your voice stops.
We will play at remembering how many children you have,
that you were born on March 20, 1946.
If you wonder why there’s that ring on your finger,
I’ll tell you about my father, aka your husband.
I will teach you to stand on your own two feet,
to find your way home.
I will repeat my name a thousand times,
because you’ll forget it anyway.
And…it’s yet another day with you,
to give you back all the love you’ve given me,
and smile at the time that seems like it never passed.
When you’ll be a little girl, you will truly teach me who I am,
to understand that your son has become a man.
When I hold you in my arms and you seem light,
like a little girl on a swing.
I’ll make dinner,
I, who barely know how to make coffee.
I’ll repeat your name a thousand times
until you remember it.
And…it’s yet another day with you,
to give you back everything, all the good you’ve given me.
And also defeat the time that hasn’t passed for us.
There are things you can’t erase, there are hugs you shouldn’t waste.
There are gazes filled with silence that you can’t describe with words.
There’s that anger of seeing you change and the struggle of having to accept it.
There are pages of life, pieces of memory that I can’t forget.
And…it’s yet another day with you,
to give you back all this life you’ve given me
and smile at time and how it has changed us.
When you’ll be a little girl, I’ll hold you so tightly
that you won’t even be afraid of death.
You’ll give me your hand, I’ll give you a kiss on the forehead.
It’s late now, be good,
goodnight.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUi3iBgS6QQ&list=RDWUi3iBgS6QQ&start_radio=1
Yes, I know that feeling, because I have encountered it as well. Yesterday my mother came to me as I sat reading, and asked what I’d like to have for dinner, and explained that she was running late because she had had such a long and intense chat with her sister. I listened to her, and said Come, mom, we will cook together today,”,=because late in the day she runs out of energy and gets depressed…
Ciao, Nityaprem.
Perhaps your mother is processing the recent grief of your father’s death.
I think it was a rather unexpected death; perhaps there wasn’t enough time, clarity, and energy to say the last things we wish would accompany the people we love or those we haven’t loved enough—things that, if they remain in our hearts, then we struggle to bear the weight.
Grief has a certain weight; crying helps me, but for it to work, I need to be alone, while for your mother, having you by her side is perhaps the greatest joy.
A little more silence and solitude, then you can dance with her.
She is now rather deaf, even with hearing aids, so our communication is often written rather than spoken. Which makes everything she does more difficult.
But she is a wonderful human being, and we get on very well, in our little commune of two people. We cherish our time together.
When I passed on to her the article above about dance protecting against dementia she said rather sadly, I can’t hear the music, and my balance is so bad I couldn’t dance even if I could hear it.
NP, I was talking to my friend Swati and somehow happened to share this post about your mother’. She shared that in 2011, in an accident, she suffered a spine injury, after which she also suffered from imbalance and was taking physiotherapy in which she was given something like a memory foam mattress to walk on for 10 minutes daily; then slowly she regained her balance. Thought & felt I could share this with you.
Thank you, Kavita, you never know what technique may help. I’ll certainly discuss it with my mother.
But her balance is not so bad that she can’t walk, for now she can get around with the help of a rollator and can even jog short distances again. She is slowly improving.
NP, maybe she can try dancing slowly on such a mattress, if you find one.
In any case this was just a suggestion, dear.
Personally, I guess, for me techniques can help only if there is trust in oneself. I had a spine problem a few years ago, went to a few doctors, you know the drill, x-ray etc., all of them told me that surgery was the only cure for that. Somehow didn’t trust them, found a sannyasin Russian therapist who has been practising in Poona for 30-plus years, who happened to be an ex-neighbuor in KP, from whom I took 15 sessions along with a few precautions for life, was cured in 5 sessions, but the deal was 15 non-refundable sessions, so I took all fiftenn, only because I enjoyed going for them
.
“Ronald Reagan is sitting in the barber’s chair having a haircut, when the barber casually says to him, ”Hey, Ronnie, the newspapers reported today that Osho told a great joke about you.”
”Yeah? What did he say?” asks Reagan.
”It was about how you became the president of the United States after a surgeon grafted a smile onto a donkey!”
Reagan, who shows no sign of discomfort, mumbles to the barber, “Yeah, very funny. Just finish my haircut, and I will have a shave as soon as you are finished.”
”Hey, Ronnie,” continues the barber, ”and did you hear what Osho said about you being worse than Adolf Hitler, Mussolini, and Ivan the Terrible put together?”
Ronald Reagan’s face turns bright red but he does not say a word.
The barber continues, ”And did you hear what Osho said about..?”
Ronald Reagan interrupts the barber, saying, ”Will you just get on with the haircut? Why are you always so interested in Osho, anyway?!”
”Well,” replies the barber, ”besides the fact that he is a very far-out guy, every time I mention the name Osho, your hair stands on end and it makes it a lot easier to cut!””
( Osho, ‘Satyam, Shivam, Sunderam’ )
A man once asked an old Buddhist monk:
“How can I allow myself to feel peace or happiness when the world is full of suffering, injustice, pain and chaos?”
The monk looked at him calmly and asked:
“If your house was dark, would you refuse to light a candle
Because the whole world is not illuminated yet?”
The man stood still.
The monk continued:
“The suffering of the world is real.
But if you completely destroy your own peace,
You create yet another exhausted and hopeless person.”
The man replied:
“But isn’t being happy selfish when others suffer?”
The monk smiled softly.
“A drowned man cannot save another drowning man.
Peaceful people heal more than broken people consumed by despair.”
Then the monk pointed to a pond nearby.
“If the water is disturbed, it cannot reflect clearly.
But when it gets quiet, everything becomes visible.”
He looked back at the man and said:
“The same goes for the mind.
A restless mind reacts with fear, anger and hopelessness.
A calm mind responds with wisdom, compassion and clarity.”
The man lowered his head and whispered:
“But the world still feels so heavy.”
The monk nodded.
“Yes. And that’s why your peace is even more important.”
Then he added softly:
“Don’t carry the pain of the whole world in one heart.
Instead…
Be nice where you are.
Help where you can.
Speak softly.
Reduce the suffering around you, even in small ways.
A single candle cannot take away all darkness…
But it still changes the room it enters.”
In Buddhism, happiness is not ignoring suffering.
It’s learning how to stay compassionate
Without letting the suffering of the world completely destroy your mind.
The monk smiled one last time and said:
“Protect your inner peace. The world needs more calm hearts, not more broken minds.”
I asked the AI why Ronald Reagan was an economic idiot or simply a puppet in the hands of the usual bunch of bored psychopaths, always seeking new emotions, such as not feeling emotions when they manage to instill more violent ones in others:
“The main economic damages attributed to Ronald Reagan’s presidency (so-called Reaganomics) include the enormous increase in public debt, the rise in social and economic inequality, the shrinking of the middle class, and the weakening of workers’ bargaining power. These negative effects are articulated in specific areas: Explosion of the national debt: Massive tax cuts (especially for the highest incomes) combined with the skyrocketing military spending were not offset by economic growth, causing the American public debt to double. Increased inequality: The trickle-down economic theory (according to which tax breaks granted to the richest would ultimately benefit society as a whole) led to a strong concentration of wealth at the top and to the impoverishment of large segments of the middle class. Contraction of welfare and services: To partially stem the deficit generated by tax cuts, the administration implemented severe reductions in public spending on social and welfare programs. Weakening of unions: Deregulation policies and the decisions to fire thousands of striking air traffic controllers in 1981 triggered a decade of intense union repression and stagnation in real wages”.
Hi, Nityaprem, my mother also had hearing problems, then, a few years ago, it seems that the stimulation of the hearing aid helped her recover some of her hearing ability; now she rarely wears it.
Osho wasn’t targeting an idiot or a corrupt person, but an entire system of power that expressed itself through the president of the United States.
Does anyone doubt today that there could exist, today as then, people above the rules, indeed protected by them, who would find it amusing to eliminate a voice, like Osho’s, outside the chorus of the collective consciousness?
I agree with the Zen master: the condition of the external world cannot be improved by destroying the internal condition within ourselves.
A mind contemplating a chaotic situation, such as war, is no indication of a lack of wisdom, compared to a mind that prefers to contemplate the silence of a closed room.
Thank you for this brilliant sharing, NP. _/\_
I thought, if it applies to Buddhism it can apply to Sannyas as well. It’s a good sentiment.
Yes, now I feel guilt-free for having relative peace
.
A mind contemplating a chaotic situation, such as war, is no indication of a lack of wisdom, compared to a mind that prefers to contemplate the silence of a closed room.
Wondering if Wisdom actually can be relatve!
It’s definitely possible to have a relative who is wise
The Zen master invites us to respect the pillars of wisdom, but he doesn’t say where to do it: “Be nice where you are. Help where you can….”
“Don’t be deceived by words, because words have not been coined by enlightened people.
The suave, impeccably dressed gentleman approached the menswear counter and was greeted by a beautiful, shapely, young attendant.
”Good afternoon,” she murmured huskily, ”and what is your desire?”
”My desire,” he said, after giving her a long appreciative look, ”is to take you in my arms, rush you to my apartment, open a magnum of champagne, put on some romantic music, and make hot love to you. However, what I need now is new shirts.”
The word ‘desire’ created the whole trouble. He had come only to purchase shirts; if the girl had asked, ”What is your need? What is your requirement?” things would have been different.”
( Osho, ‘Satyam, Shivam, Sunderam’ )
“But human mind is very cunning; it tries to the very end to deceive you. And you are very naive, you go on being deceived.
Sadie Moskovitz took her old grandmother to the movies. It was an epic about the Roman Empire. In one scene a lot of unarmed prisoners were thrown to the lions. The old grandmother broke out into loud wails, crying out, ”Ah, those poor people.”
Sadie was very embarrassed and whispered fiercely, ”Don’t scream like that, Grandma. Those are Christians.”
Choked, Grandma said, ”I see.” She was quiet at once, but then began wailing louder than before.
”Grandma,” demanded Sadie, ”what is it now?”
”Over there,” said Grandma, pointing, ”that poor little lion at the back. He’s not getting any Christian.”
Beware of your mind more than anything else in the world. It is the greatest deceiving device which has been created by your body, physiology, chemistry, biology. It keeps you tethered to the body and does not allow you to open your eyes to your consciousness. It keeps you engaged; it does not give you even a little holiday. The danger is that if you are given a little holiday you may become aware of your inner grandeur, the beauty of your being and the enormous truth and the glory of it. And once you have seen that splendour, you are not going to be deceived anymore.”
( Osho, ‘Satyam, Shivam, Sunderam’ )
“You have to love your children, your wife, your husband, your parents, your priests, elders, neighbours – there are even teachers like Jesus who say you have to love your enemies too. Just don’t love yourself! This strange logic has destroyed your very roots of loving.
I say unto you: first and foremost, love yourself. And if you can love yourself, others will start getting your love very naturally, without any pretensions, very spontaneously. A man full of love soon starts overflowing. You cannot contain your love into the small space you have within you; your love is far greater than you are. Your love can fill the whole earth. A single man’s love can fill the whole universe. It is so vast that you can go on sharing with everybody.
But if your very source remains closed, then all that is left is to pretend. Everybody is pretending; that’s why there is so much talk about love, so much poetry, so much literature. And if you look around, you don’t find love anywhere, you never encounter it.
I want the whole universe to be a loving, rejoicing universe. But I see where humanity has failed, where its teachers, messengers of God and saviours have taken a wrong route. They listened to logic and they forgot that logic is absolutely man-made; it has nothing to do with your nature.”
( Osho, ‘Satyam, Shivam, Sunderam’ )
“But please don’t make me responsible for anything. The responsibility is very dangerous – it is walking on a razor’s edge. Today you find your mother is healing, and you praise me and love me and trust me. But no mother can live forever. The day she dies, your whole love, your trust in me, will simply disappear because I allowed your mother to die, because I did not give her the healing energy. That’s why I want my hands from the very beginning to be completely clean.
I don’t accept praise because I know behind every praise there is the possibility of condemnation. I am condemned already too much all over the world. At least leave a few people who don’t condemn me! But you may not be aware that this is how things go wrong. People start expecting and if their expectations by some coincidence are fulfilled, they are immensely grateful. But it is only a coincidence. If they are not fulfilled, then I am ”the god who has failed.” First they make me a god, just to declare finally that I am the god who has failed.
I am simply enjoying my energy. It is overflowing and enough for anybody who wants to share it. But the whole doing is theirs.”
( Osho, ‘Sat, Chit, Anand’ )
I find it an interesting answer to the question of Osho meddling in his disciples’ lives on an energetic level. The sannyasin who asked the question was wondering about his mother receiving healing energy.
“I find it an interesting answer to the question of Osho meddling in his disciples’ lives on an energetic level. The sannyasin who asked the question was wondering about his mother receiving healing energy.”
Fact is: Only being can recognize being.
Maybe this is the reason, coach potatoes are glued to “Let us dance” kind of shows!
One mind-blowing article is brewing in my mind.
Kavita from Pune gave the motivation, this is worthy to discuss at this site.
Hopefully I forward that to the editor-in-chief.
Article based on true events of Mr Osho Rajneesh is so mind-blowing, it can bring chill to the conscience…
Till then, guess what could be that!
Good to hear from you again, Shantam.
But by “conscience” do you mean conscience in the sense of a set of personal moral/ethical beliefs, or do you mean ‘consciousness’?
Name change cult has talked enough of consciousness, conscience as an inner voice and sense of right and wrong were always put aside.
One cannot have the cake and eat it too, even if someone is self- =certified Enlightened or his ardent followers.
“Myth is a primordial tale that expresses the profound and universal truths of humanity. The symbol is the image, sign, or concrete object that condenses this meaning, allowing the mind to transcend the limits of rational thought to connect with the sacred and the unconscious.
These concepts have been explored over the centuries through various interpretations:
Anthropological function: For scholars, myths are cultural maps created to explain the universe (cosmogonic myths) or to justify rituals and behaviors (etiological myths)…” AI
Satyadeva, I don’t think psychoanalysis is very popular in India.
The latest news Mr Iqbal anticipated he’d like to share here soon, which would be “so mind-blowing” is aimed at Western conscience; he’s not talking about his own or the “sannyasin conscience” given that he has returned to the name his parents chose on the day of his birth.
Indian conscience is not so naive, and it is not easily overwhelmed by the theme of sin and guilt.
If in the West, thank to Freud, the conscious mind is the tip of the iceberg, Indian conscience, overexposed to the myths and symbols of religiosity, has a perspective, looking at the reality of the emerged world, from the bottom up, from the depths of the ocean.
India is so rich in symbols that the temptation for a Western spiritual seeker to close his eyes and explore that sea, whose symbols are just the marvelous shells, is irresistible.
I believe that Osho shares with Mr. Iqbal the same inner symbolic-mythological richness; perhaps the difference between the two lies in not considering the symbolic and monothematic poverty of the cross necessarily a limitation, a congenital naiveté.
If the ultimate outcome of the Master of Masters’ teachings was Zen, the exact opposite of a shell collector’s fetishism, it shouldn’t be surprising that it might be more difficult for an Indian to free himself from his belief system, which is far more sophisticated than that based on the guilt-atonement of the crucifix.
If Mr. Iqbal, on this forum, hadn’t been attacked for years by Western renegades, depraved because they were deprived of the symbol of the Father, the cross that before Osho had managed to contain their behavior, providing a Christian belief system (“Do not do unto others what you would not want done unto you”), perhaps today he wouldn’t be forced to return to the comfort zone of his cultural identity, flaunting, sometimes with irony, sometimes with pride, his collection of beach jewelry.
I can’t guess what new scandal our hero will discuss, but he has provided some clues, even if the ironic tone might mislead.
Since he’s addressing naive Westerners, but with a nod to our friend Kavita, who currently seems to be the only commentator from an Indian culture (perhaps not Sikh), it might make sense to intersect the two moral codes our two friends grew up with:
Mr. Iqbal’s Father (with the Khanda-sword) is concerned with protecting his children from the “five thieves,” who steal common sense from humans:
kaam-lust, krodh-wrath or anger, lobh-greed, moh-attachment, and ahankar-ego or excessive pride;
In Kavita’s culture of origin, the Father takes care to protect his children from the boredom of life, in the form of infinite reincarnations, by advising them to avoid the six enemies of the mind (arishadvarga):
kama (desire), krodha (anger), lobha (greed), mada (arrogance), moha (delusion), and matsarya (jealousy).
Since our warrior friend has criticized the greed and lust of Pune’s bosses for many years, if he’s thinking of writing something original, perhaps this time he could address something on Kavita’s list that he doesn’t have on his own: jealousy (?).
Sw. Veet, it seems you were an Indian Brahmin in many, many lives. Brahmins get high through Shashtras (scriptures), Rajneesh literature has become the addictive opium for you.
I have submitted the article to the editor, it is a memoir of a close female disciple of late Bhagwan aka timeless Osho!
MOD:
SN will not publish this memoir, Shantam, you’ll have to find another place for it. No further discussion of this topic will be published.
I see you like to play with your interlocutors, Shantam I Singh, by not giving any clues about your true self-perception, starting with your name, which keeps changing.
There’s no need for that; in a forum, it’s easy enough for misunderstandings to arise. This is also a feature of literature, as in the comedy of errors, almost the norm when communication occurs between distant people, often never met or embraced before.
Some people find the literary entertainment that Sannyasnews, especially in the past, offered commentators appreciable. This was also thanks to your contributions, which made you one of the funniest characters in the virtual village, before another character burst onto the scene, wielding a club, proposing a shift in literary genre from comedy to epic (since the undisputed hero of a nation of disciples can only be their Master, not the disciple most daring in displaying the largest hemorrhoids). This is also because in the meantime, the more gentle, lyrical characters had been forced off the scene, ridiculed by the comedians.
Not so for me; I don’t enjoy using this place of friends and former friends of Osho for literary entertainment purposes.
I don’t know you, and so, like with others, I suspend judgment on the real person behind your writing. But you don’t have a clearly definable literary character…it seems you oscillate between a lyrical approach (when you seem preoccupied with the Master’s material legacy—OIF), until the comedians frustrate your communicative attempts, and the dramatic approach of resentful isolation.
To avoid succumbing to the “comedians’” desire to reduce the spiritual and human story of Osho (and his people) to a tale of collective idiocy, one must accept the challenge of responding in the literary register that best neutralizes those who would dominate the narrative.
And when interpretations of what one reads-writes conflict, one must go back to the character who is describing himself in writing and evaluate his literary consistency.
Here too, in my case, one is not judging the real person who writes, but the fictional entity of the “writer character.”
For example, you label me a Brahmin addicted to Rajneesh literature, while someone else labels me a conspiracy theorist. This would be fine if we recognized the literary boundaries and subjective limitations implicit in communicating with strangers on a forum, as already described.
In fact, if from your point of view I’m among those, or the one, who reads the most books by Osho, for someone else, however, I might be the one who reads the most books by Icke.
From my perspective, judging from the autobiographical data shared on SN over the years, I think those in this forum who have the most reading training are those who, unlike me, attended university (I believe they went to), that is, literary figures who signed their comments with names like Premartha, Satyadeva, Kavita, Swamishanti, Nityaprem, Klaus, Arpana… and who knows how many others. I’m not sure if Lokesh and Frank honed their undisputed literary skills at university, but I certainly sense they’ve read more books than me, especially underground fiction and non-fiction.
I’m more interested in socio-political reality, as a necessary but not sufficient condition for fostering meditation (in the Master’s vision) so I read summaries of socio-political analyses in articles and interviews, then I follow the debates at conferences and in Telegram chats, etc.
About 20 years ago, a friend of mine, a true bookworm—only fiction, absolutely no non-fiction, instilled in me a passion for fiction. Until then, I had read almost exclusively non-fiction. It lasted until my eyes began to tire and my mind began to feel increasingly voracious.
At my request, she recommended entertaining books that I devoured (by Niccolò Ammaniti, Camilleri-Montalbano, Ken Follett, Hanif Kureishi, the Stieg Laarsson trilogy… there was only one book I couldn’t finish, or even start, and she was a little disappointed about that: “Never Let Me Go” by K. Ishiguro). Then I started choosing books without her advice (she had always read almost everything noteworthy available in bookstores), also because we argued… I was disappointed by her decision to swallow Bill Gates’ COVID-19 narrative. Yes, too much literature, I think, is harmful; you risk ending up believing that language coincides with reality.
I experienced the height of my literature addiction in Goa, a sudden bout of double vision while reading a book by C.L. Zafòn, “The Shadow of the Wind,” translated into Italian. I found it on a restaurant stall. That night, I ignored the problem because I was too engrossed in the story.
Osho has nothing to do with my literary cravings; I’ve never managed to read one of his books from cover to cover. I don’t find it entertaining at all, just as my own face in the mirror doesn’t entertain me.
I prefer singing and dancing and playing soccer every Monday at 9 p.m., or volleyball on the beach. All of this seems very un-Brahminical to me.
However, if you address a group of disciples expecting to say something definitive about Osho or his people, this Brahminical attitude of yours risks turning me into a relentless philologist, not because I love reading your literature…
Perhaps you could consider gratitude the highest form of transcending one’s Master.
It’s funny, I’ve been enjoying a video podcast called ‘The Book Club’ which has reignited my literary leanings.
So in my new enthusiasm I picked up a copy of ‘The Brothers Karamazov’ by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. I started reading it, and found it terribly dull. Within thirty pages it had doused my ardour.
I quickly retreated to reading ‘The Hobbit’, by many considered a children’s book but far more enjoyable and colourful than the dreadful Russian tome.
This exchange left me wondering, is literature really worth persisting with if you don’t enjoy it? There are classics I enjoy, like Dickens, Dumas, Verne, Wells, etc.
Nityaprem, if you’re looking for easy indulgence in the “1,000 kinetic alternatives to flipping through the pages of a book,” you’ve found it.
I was immediately discouraged by classic middle school texts (when I was between 11 and 13). The Greek mythology of the angry Achilles and the adventurous Ulysses didn’t excite me, nor did The Divine Comedy, written in a 700-year-old language, or the romantic story of Manzoni’s ‘The Betrothed’.
Perhaps the teachers themselves weren’t enthusiastic; after all, it can’t be easy to decide which books are educational and which aren’t.
But here we’re talking about books that entertain or amuse us; the choice should be easier.
Perhaps the book’s theme and the author’s style are decisive.
With non-fiction, it’s different; the motivation to engage in reading comes from the desire to better understand an aspect of reality, which usually boils down to a more accurate description of it, hypothesizing a new interpretation of the mystery that pervades us.
I think I’ve already mentioned that a book (not for insiders) of psychoanalysis, about love, sat on the shelf for 20 years before I crossed the two metres that separated it from my bed.
I wonder if the time has come to give it another try, with what is considered Proust’s masterpiece, put on hold since 1984.
“In fact anything that is great in life has no reason.
Once Picasso was painting by the side of a rosebush and a man was standing there watching for almost an hour. Finally he could not resist the temptation and said to Picasso, ”Excuse me, sir, but I cannot see any reason for what you are painting. I have looked at it from every side…I can’t even figure out what it is!”
Picasso looked at him and said, ”Just look at the roses. Go to them and try to find out why they are there. I am so much harassed and nobody asks the birds, nobody asks the peacock, “Why this beautiful tail, with so many beautiful colours?” Nobody asks the cuckoo – the sound is so sweet, almost incomparably sweet – nobody asks the trees, ‘”Why are you green?” And every idiot comes to me to ask, “What are you doing, what is the meaning of it?” Go to God and ask him, “What is the meaning of this whole universe?”
I am a small creator, he is a big creator…Just go – perhaps he knows the reason.
But I know, if you meet God, he will not know the reason either. What reason can he supply for why he painted the peacock’s feathers so beautifully? What was the reason? Why has he given a long white tail to the bird of paradise?”
( Osho, ‘Sat, Chit, Anand’ )
“Why has he given a long white tail to the bird of paradise?”
A biologist would say that he has given them a long white tail to attract the girls.
Thanks, Nityaprem, a nice reminder about the nature of beauty, beyond reason.
…even though I can’t appreciate the beauty of a Picasso painting…in my living room, I’d prefer to hang one by Lokesh, who fortunately shares with his Spanish colleague only his machismo and flair for marketing.
“In fact anything that is great in life has no reason.”
In fact, that is certainly not an immutable fact, and you would have to be a real dummy, or simply an Osho parrot, to believe it is.
Take a look around you, NP. There are lots of things in life that are great, and there are good reasons they’re great. Let’s take laser eye surgery as an example. The procedure involves using lasers to reshape the cornea. The clinical name for farsightedness is hyperopia. People with this condition can see objects in the distance clearly, but other things can appear blurry at close distance. Farsightedness is due to the cornea being too flat. Laser eye surgery can correct this by reshaping the cornea to have a steeper curve.
Surely one has to agree that someone suffering from such a medical condition and then the condition being repaired is indeed ‘great’, fucking brilliant, in fact, if you ask me. And the reasons for it being great are many. And the reason it happened is that many gifted and skilled people applied themselves to make it happen. That is just one of many examples of things in life being great for definite reasons.
Perhaps it is time for you to awaken from your fluffy ‘Osho said it, so it must be true’ dream.
“It is true when you say, ”Osho, I also realise that I am still not seeing your total radiance and splendour.” But you are fortunate even to see a glimpse, because there are millions of people in the world who will not be able even to see the glimpse. On the contrary, they will only see everything evil that man has ever imagined – no glimpse of splendour, no glimpse of clarity, no glimpse of grace, but only a fear, a danger; danger to their morality, danger to their religion, danger to all that they think is valuable.”
( Osho, ‘Sat, Chit, Anand’ )
“So you should be happy, not sad that you don’t belong to those millions. You should feel fortunate, not frustrated that at least you are capable of seeing a faraway glimpse of the Himalayas. Just a little patience, a little closeness, a little more love, a little more gratitude, a little more openness, and you will start moving towards the ultimate splendour. It is not my property. It came into existence when I was no more. It is the property of existence itself.
So don’t be at all sad. There are many present here who have come far closer than you, who have looked into me more deeply than you. They are not in any way more special than you. They have just been patient – years of patience, years of silence, years of meditation, and this is nothing compared to the eternity of time.”
( Osho, ‘Sat, Chit, Anand’ )
Well, every saying by Osho is a tiny lens through which to see the world. It takes you on a journey through his being, his mind. It shouldn’t be taken as literal truth I don’t think, but that doesn’t mean it can’t move something in you, perhaps transform something, or make something clear.
I’ve been particularly enjoying ‘Sat, Chit, Anand’ because it is quite a short volume, and you get a certain sense of the people who were there.
Rajneesh said, Osho says…
There is a need to discuss what was that urgent need to change Rajneesh to Osho !
To understand this clever tactic can break the spell of an Indian mystic, whose ashes are preserved under the Ultimate bluff anyone ever made, ” Never Born Never Died.”
Maybe a good idea for an article, Shantam? I hear it’s hot in north India at the moment, my weather app is telling me that Varanasi has had a long stretch of temperatures over 40 degrees.
I don’t think, Nityaprem, that there’s room for a devotional article by Shantam, Satyadeva just rejected one of his.
Besides, it wouldn’t add much; it’s well known that Osho was clever, as were his tactics of providing fodder for gossip about him, avoiding creating the myth that then drives disciples, desperate for the lack of the Master’s infallible guidance, to bathe his grave with tears.
At most, with his clever tactics, he aimed to provide the opportunity for another opening of the heart, when the mind collapses in the gaps of his words: Never born, never died.
MOD:
Fyi, Veet Francesco, Shantam is welcome to submit a proposal for a new article.
Dancing is good, but only if that good, once achieved, can be shared, for example by inviting others to dance.
This also applies to meditation.
A critical article on Mindfulness (to be translated), useful for understanding Osho, when he recognizes an implicit rebellion in the spiritual seeker who pursues his own integrity (and not adaptation to an ethical code) in a world based on compromise of/for power:
“All the promises of mindfulness recall what University of Chicago cultural theorist Lauren Berlant calls ‘cruel optimism,’ a hallmark of neoliberalism. The cruelty lies in the fact that each of us emotionally invests in what are ultimately only fantasies. We are told that if we practice mindfulness and reorder our individual lives, we can be happy and secure. Stable employment, home ownership, social mobility, professional success, and equality will be the natural consequences. We are promised that we will achieve self-mastery, that control of our mind and emotions will allow us to thrive amidst the vagaries of capitalism.
Joshua Eisen (of the Department of Anthropology at McGill University in Montreal and (author of Mindful Calculation) observes: “Like cabbage, açaí berries, gym memberships, vitamin water, and all the New Year’s resolutions, mindfulness signals a deep desire for change, but one that relies on a fundamental reaffirmation of neoliberal fantasies of self-control and free action.” We just need to sit quietly, pay attention to our breathing, and wait. The cruelty is doubled because these normative fantasies of “living well” are already crumbling under the weight of neoliberalism, and focusing individually on our feelings only makes the situation worse. By neglecting our mutual vulnerability and interdependence, we fail to imagine how to defend ourselves collectively. And despite the emptiness of the fantasies we foster, we continue to cling to them.
Mindfulness is not cruel in and of itself. It is only cruel when it is fetishized and linked to disproportionate promises. It is then, as Berlant points out, that “the object that attracts our attachment actively impedes the purpose that brought us to it in the first place.” The cruelty lies in upholding the status quo while using the language of transformation. This is how neoliberal mindfulness promotes an individualistic vision of human flourishing, persuading us to accept things as they are, “consciously” enduring the ravages of capitalism.”
https://www.internazionale.it/notizie/ronald-purser/2022/11/18/meditazione-capitale
I don’t think that is true, that mindfulness makes promises of a stable and happy life. It helps you achieve a stable and happy mind, but you are still subject to the many vagaries of modern life in a capitalist society.
A little awareness of the breath every day goes a long way. Whenever you remember, just take a few deep, conscious breaths, like the start of a meditation, and you will feel better.
Nityaprem, can you find reasons, beyond commercial ones, why two age-old practices like Vipassana and Hatha Yoga should be mixed together and abstracted from their religious context?
Besides, the Buddhist vision, before conforming to the Big Pharma C19 bible, also arose as a rebellion against the Hindu value system: Buddha didn’t meditate on how to adapt the feeling of compassion to the caste system, according to a selective spiritual vision, respecting castes and finding it normal to despise those who had incarnated in the poor and unfortunate neighbourhoods of the world, in a slum in Mumbai, Gaza, or South Africa.
I believe you have the right to meditate according to the teachings of biologist Jon Kabat Zinn as long as you like, but without forgetting that shopping is also good every now and then, especially when the refrigerator is emptying or you’ve run out of Lavazza Qualità Rossa.
I wonder why Buddha wanted to break with his family’s religious tradition. He could have continued to be a good father, husband, and ruler, meditating as long as he wanted, with a few coffee breaks—strictly Italian, in a moka pot or espresso, at the bar just below the castle.
Shantam, stop parroting Lokesh, he’s not the boss here anymore, if you really can’t help but kiss an ass there’s always Guru N.’s.
What about an article about a young Indian man who claims to be the reincarnation of Bhagwan/Rajneesh/Osho?
His name is Bhagwan Shashi Vasudev.
The cult of Osho won´t accept that….
Nothing wrong with that, I’d say let him claim that. It’s perfectly alright, just do nothing and say, “maybe so, maybe not.”
This was one fine answer from you, Nityaprem.
Does it mean you are not one of those 99.99% cultists who would say, Osho said it is his last life?!
Shantam, I didn’t realize it was one of your philological traps, luckily I didn’t express myself too quickly.
Now I can say it with absolute certainty, without needing to listen to the boy: the young man can’t be a joke by Osho. When Osho said his was the last reincarnation, he was serious; he didn’t like contradicting himself or making jokes.
Only a Bodhisattva could love his human brothers more, to the point of not caring about contradicting himself and preferring to return for tormented disciples like you who have lost their touch with Western girls… btw, how are you with Indian girls? Do you have any advice to share?
I have a problem with K (for confidentiality reasons, I can’t tell you who she is). I’d like to invite her to dinner, but I don’t know how to start. Malai Kofta or Spaghetti Carbonara?
A multitude of words is tiresome,
Unlike remaining centred.
Hardcore criminals also remain centred, most often more centred than the monks or half-monks, half-cheaters.
Shantam, it’s not just hardcore criminals who can benefit from mindfulness.
Speaking of post-modern meditative practices, it seems that young people from all over the world (mostly poor, even English) have managed to detach themselves from the virtual reality of the web to do something noble, like repel the invading Russian army.
https://t.me/TrackAMercChat
Centred? I guess they don’t know what this means.
Satchit, I don’t think Lokesh was talking about you, unless his account was hacked.
Francesco, you seem centred in your mind.
Ever heard of being centred in the being?
Satchit, I am sure there are many like me who are enjoying this Now! I feel like saying I love you!
You surprise me, Kavita.
Love is in the Air…
https://youtu.be/ZWzWL-S05fg?si=L6fyclNikMoveQie
Satchit, I know centering as an experience connected to witnessing. I don’t know what you mean when you say “centered in your mind.”
Perhaps you meant that my mind is focused on an object.
It remains to be seen what relationship exists between my being and that object—that is, whether thinking about that object is tiring or relieving for me, or whether it would be even more tiring to repress the emergence of that object.
For me, words about reality are not reality (in this case, conscious mind vs. being).
Every hypothesis about it, therefore, has equal dialectical dignity.
What is not neutral is the ontological-hermeneutic responsibility of each individual in making their own choice regarding hypotheses (scientific, philosophical, psychological, spiritual) already available or yet to be formulated-discovered (as in the case of the Masters).
The risk is that without the choice reality can be a foregone conclusion, not worthy of being experienced.
After the three narcissistic wounds inflicted on the human race by Copernicus, Darwin and Freud, it wouldn’t even be such a great tragedy.
Those are Lao Tzu’s words, not mine. Tao Te Ching. I just thought it would make a change from “Osho says….”
There is always room for the words of the wise….
Yeah.
If me, myself and I could write in a similar fluent style as Lewis Richmond in this article in Tricycle.com from 2025…
I would. But I can’t. So I don’t:
https://tricycle.org/magazine/lewis-richmond-quiet-life/
Why would the driver ask that there be
“No Spitting On the Bus”?
The Steve Gibbons Band
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMntJW950MA
The Steve Gibbons Band? I saw them many times in Camden’s Roundhouse. They were a good local band. My favourite song by them is ‘One of the Boys’ ….used to take the roof off.
Great song, ‘One of the Boys’…just mulling over “Life on the dole ain’t no good for your soul. It’s enough to drive a poor kid mad” – really?
Perhaps it’s the Protestant ethic speaking in Steve, the same ethic that a couple of years later would allow Lady Margaret to reverse the redistributive trend, leaving the only free lunchs for industrialists, royals and bankers.
But it’s possible the phrase was written ironically, foreseeing what would happen shortly thereafter.
I sense a certain paternalism regarding the sterility of the Punk movement, which I agree with, although with certain politicians, spitting is more necessary than analysis:
a rebelliousness without a comprehensive, and therefore political, vision, culminating in taking their mohawks and leather jackets too seriously, providing a new fashion to conform to, those who were originally anti-fashion.
Plus, I didn’t like their music…and the punks I hung out with during my military service drank too much for my taste.
I’ve seen photos of Steve Gibbons when he was 50 or 60…he reminds me of someone I saw in Pune. I remember being struck by his certain aura of a popular star. At the time, I thought he was the famous actor Terence Stamp, but now I realize they look a bit similar.
It’s also plausible that he had a connection with Osho through his artistic friendship with ELO keyboardist Richard Tandy, who lived in the Medina commune.
I read a bit of the Tricycle article before their paywall shut me out, interesting that he would argue for a quiet life as a key component of the bodhisattva path.
Nityaprem, the same thing happened to me… it was a joke by our neoliberal-Europeanist-globalist friend Klaus, at least he’s not lacking in irony.
Klaus whets our appetite with the opening of an article that leads to a good read, about a bodhisattva who ponders what to do when economic, social, ecological, and military threats loom over us, and we, who have already humbly fallen to our knees, ready for a little light and comfort, are suddenly awakened by a bucket of ice water that brings us back to the reality of social power relations: if you have money, you’re safe, otherwise you’re screwed!
VF, the freedom to frame anything or everything according to your mind-frame – is certainly yours. Forever. And for always.
Maybe or perhaps that framing is…inadequate.
Your critical thoughts have been thought (years and decades) before. By so many persons.
Thesis
Anti-thesis
Syn-thesis
No-thesis.
Cheers.
Klaus, dear keyboard friend, I’m delighted to hear I’ve chosen the wrong frame.
I’m not so paranoid as to necessarily want to put you in the same frame as the servants of finance and its military-industrial complex, despisers of the people like Draghi, Rutte, Von der Lyen, Kallas, Schwab (Klaus, for business friends)…
Thank you for confirming Hegel’s relevance, although now that you’ve pointed it out with some annoyance, I should assume you don’t like the dialectical approach…are you challenging me? Should I expect a club blow from yours behind my back? But then I can’t put you in the same frame as my Bolshevik friends…the paranoia is growing…perhaps, suspending political judgment, I should learn to spit like a punk.
Aiiiie.
They let me read it once in full.
Before popping up the subscription screen….
Found it here as a podcast:
https://www.zencommuter.com/blog/2112
…
“Today’s featured article is The Power of a Quiet Life by Lewis Richmond. In this thoughtful reflection, Richmond reminds us that simplicity and stillness are not just retreats from the world but powerful foundations for inner strength and clarity.”…
Lokie, you were right about having Shantam back, already enjoying this! The energy has changed Now, don’t you think?
Don’t get too wet, Kavita, these are people over 70.
Hi Kavita,
What do I think?
Had I not met Shantam some summers ago, I would probably have written him off as someone overly identified with the mind. A headbanger. As it is, I know the man to be a kind human being, a loving father and a good laugh in an Indian ‘Goodness, gracious me!’ style.
Whether or not intentional, Shantam is a bit of a reactionary who perhaps presumes himself to be a revolutionary. People like that are sometimes attracted to SN. Anything as long as there is a bit of emotional reaction, no matter what, sort of thing. Just do not ignore me, whatever you do.
Bottom line, I like Shantam as a man.
Lokesh, it’s hard to ignore you! You know you are our favourite Scots sannyasin (as well as probably the only Scots sannyasin that we know). May your days be warm and your sunsets ever colourful….
Well, NP. It is often said that wherever one goes in the world, there will always be a Scot.
Late afternoon and time for a wee swim in the sea.
Seems we both share the same sentiment about him!
Which one, the headbanger or the man?
Don’t you worry, Veet, I guess I know when & with whom to get wet!
Kavita, you’re not alone. I don’t think I have the keys to seducing an Indian woman.
I find you all very fascinating, too bad there’s no reciprocity.
Maybe I should learn to dance like an Indian:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTW6lco_s0k
“That’s why no wife can really respect the husband, nor can the husband respect the wife. They hate each other. Now, psychologists are perfectly right when they say that husbands and wives are intimate enemies. And the reason? The reason is: you cannot love someone on whom you have to depend. Now, the man has to depend on the wife. He has a sexual need and the wife takes every opportunity to torture him. That is her only opportunity to torture him.
The man tortures her in many other ways. She is dependent financially. She has not the freedom to move in society; she has not the freedom to feel independent, liberated. Even the women who think they are liberated are not liberated. They are only reacting. They are still in the same old grip, only they have gone to the other extreme.
The moment you feel you are no longer dependent on anyone, a deep coolness and a deep silence settles inside, a relaxed let-go. It does not mean you stop loving. On the contrary, for the first time you know a new quality, a new dimension of love: a love which is no more biological, a love which is closer to friendliness than any relationship. That’s why I am not even using the word ‘friendship’, because that ‘ship’ has drowned so many people.”
( Osho, ‘Sat, Chit, Anand’ )
Some might say, thus spoke a sexually repressed Indian geezer who was never much good at relationships.
As far as I am concerned, I can’t relate very much to any of this cynical nonsense, because it is not at all my experience in life.
That NP finds this Osho quote good enough to publish on SN perhaps says more about the way he relates to women than anything else. Or why else publish it?
Thanks, Nityaprem, you always find the right quotes at the right time.
I’m flirting with an Indian woman, and these words put me on the right track to approach her.
Osho is addressing an audience of mostly repressed Indians, Indian women financially dependent on their husbands, and the usual proverbial Scottish loner: wherever one goes in the world, there will always be a Scot.
It’s illuminating how Osho, with his light irony, manages to ease social tensions built up over millennia of conditioning, capturing three pigeons with a broad bean (it’s an Italian proverb about efficiency, even though the pigeons were two, but in the case of the Master of Masters, providence is never a flaw), pointing out to repressed Indian husbands and financially dependent Indian wives the Scottish loner, with plenty of money but no wife.
@MOD
sw. veet francesco says:
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
29 May, 2026 at 2:17 pm
The comment of mine above in Caravanserai is currently appearing twice, as if it had been published, but it is still appears awaiting moderation.
There’s also another post of mine that hasn’t been published, the one on the political-military escalation between the EU and Russia. Please check to see if this is a technical error. There’s no reason to object if there were other reasons.
MOD:
Veet Francesco, these comments weren’t published as they’re not directly relevant to this site.
@MOD
“Not directly relevant to this site,” you say?
One comment discussed music and the anti-systemic vision of punk, a theme introduced by Klaus with a Steve Gibbons song featuring social and political criticism. The comment delved deeper into those aspects, also drawing on my own experience as a teenager in the ’70s, observing the punk phenomenon through the eyes of a boy immersed in the culture of southern Italy’s provinces. I also pointed out that my negative opinion of punk music was strictly related to the group of Milanese friends during our military service, with their underground cassette tapes of rhythmic noise.
In my opinion, the theme of punk culture’s rebelliousness is very relevant to the site, just as the music I shared is relevant to a topic about dance.
Maybe you don’t like the music I featured, but that’s really relevant to the site.
The other comment concerns the theme introduced by Klaus, about difficult times, including the nuclear threat.
He offers the wise advice of one of his gurus, such as “if you don’t know what to do, be patient, don’t do it, but don’t do it slowly and with a clear mind.”
In my comment, I confirmed that we live in difficult times, but, applying Goofy’s philosophy (“it’s strange how a descent, seen from below, resembles an ascent”), I pointed out a few politicians who have an easy life thanks to the spiritual bypassing of those who force themselves to believe that if they live a slave life, it’s because they don’t meditate much, not because of their chains.
So, I pointed out how military escalation could have further shortened the chains, preventing the EU from dancing near potential Russian military targets, the ones that are producing the weapons the Ukrainians are using against them.
Perhaps you don’t like the idea that your spiritual bypassing is making times incredibly easy for our leaders; this too is relevant to the site.
Proposal:
If anyone finds this comment relevant, I ask you to consider the possibility that my two comments awaiting moderation might also be relevant.
The other option would be to also consider Klaus’s comments, which inspired this reflection of mine, “irrelevant to the site.” That would be very consistent. Thank you.
MOD:
This site wasn’t founded to be a forum for political discussion, however strongly you feel about these issues.
I wouldn’t be surprised if SN readers are not particularly interested in your lengthy analyses and viewpoints, however well researched and dear they are to you.
We’ll see what people’s responses are.
@MOD
Thanks. If other friends here agree with you, believing that an Osho forum shouldn’t discuss what happened to Zorba during the bombings, I’ll take my advice and leave.
I think if commentary on other topics — be they political, environmental, social — started to dominate over things directly relating to sannyas or Osho, I would also start reducing that volume of posts, if I were the moderator.
Some people post more than others, and some post more directly about Osho or sannyas. But in the end we are all here because we are interested in the topic, and keeping the site alive means stimulating the talk, so some off-topic banter should be allowed. The best banter, of course, is that which engages everyone…
Now I am off to watch the Champions League final.
Nityaprem, on another occasion you expressed appreciation for my comments, saying you even found them more interesting than Lokesh’s. I thanked you then, and I reciprocate your appreciation now for the honesty you put into your posts, which I often argue with.
It’s true, you and I, lately, are the ones who write more than others, but I don’t believe things can’t change and we return to the old glories, when shopping bags full of piss flew, amid the smug sneers of bullies.
Perhaps the current times don’t encourage comedy.
It’s not our fault if the forum isn’t what it once was, but rather the comedians who have exhausted their repertoire of insults to Osho and his lovers-friends.
It was enough for a few older commentators to reappear to raise the issue of too many and too long comments, so it’s best to be selective, choosing which topics to address and which to skip.
For me, meditation is the art of being with what’s there…I think I read it in a book on codependency. When times are tough, I don’t seek refuge in nostalgia or hope.
“I didn’t just want to attend parties, I wanted to have the power to make them fail!” Jep Gambardella
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Li8kcdgeB9w
Nityaprem, perhaps you could describe how you can devote yourself to spirituality while abstracting yourself from everything else.
I’d like you to tell me, if it exists and if you’ve found it, how to reach that metaphysical garden, suspended in time and space, far from the social dynamics and politics that shape them.
It would be greatly appreciated, perhaps not only by me, that you could contribute to deciding which direction the neo-sannyasin movement would be wise to take, in these times when the ongoing genocide in Gaza and other wars that have dragged on for decades are the side effects of a system of production-exploitation that pervades and poisons every aspect of social life.
Otherwise, if that metaphysical place doesn’t exist, because it’s structurally impossible for our social nature for it to exist (if autism isn’t a blessing), then talking about the spiritual teachings of this or that guru seems superficial to me, even a narcissistic display of literary virtue, à la Jep Gambardella.
When Stefania, the radical leftist chic of the group of bored and cynical friends from the film “The Great Beauty” (the film contrasts the beauty of Rome with the human squalor of people with no passion, except for the passion of quenching the passion of others. Jep himself, the protagonist, later discovers how he’s wasted his life) tries to give a moral lesson to the rest of the group, saying that she’s tried to change things, that she’s not a snob, Jep warns her a couple of times with a light barrage of fire.
But she insists, saying she’s a woman with balls, and then Jep:
“Any gentleman would collapse over the phrase “woman with balls”… You asked for it, didn’t you?
In no particular order. No one remembers your civic vocation during your university days; many, however, personally remember another vocation of yours that was expressed back then, but it was practiced in the university bathrooms… You wrote the official history of the party because for years you were the lover of the party leader. Your eleven novels published by a small party-funded publishing house, reviewed by small, party-friendly newspapers, are irrelevant novels, everyone says so. This doesn’t change the fact that my youthful novel was irrelevant, too, and I agree with you.
Your affair with Eusebio: but what was it? Eusebio is in love with Giordano, everyone knows it… for years they’ve been having lunch every day at Arnalda’s, in the Pantheon, under the coat rack like two sweethearts, under the oak tree. Everyone knows it, yet you pretend nothing has happened. You would sacrifice every minute to raise your children: you work all week on television, you go out every night, even on Mondays, when not even the poppers dealers show up. Your children are always without you: even during the long holidays you allow yourself, and then you have a butler, a waiter, a cook, a chauffeur who takes the kids to school, three babysitters… But really… how and when does your sacrifice manifest itself?!
These are your lies and your frailties.
Stefà, mother and woman, you’re fifty-three years old and have a devastated life, like the rest of us…
So instead of lecturing us… of looking at us with dislike, you should look at us… with affection.
We’re all on the brink of despair, we have no choice but to look each other in the face, keep each other company, tease each other a little… isn’t it so?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdzIiPu0HCU
Last night in Hungary, Karma presented the bill to the British arsenal(s).
“Let’s empty the arsenals and fill the granaries!” Sandro Pertini (1978)
Well, the answer is simply this: turn within. Let the example you set be one of kindness, joy, celebration, dance, and not Ché Guevara’s revolutionary fervour, or the philosophy of Marx. The mind and its knowledge of history are not your friends.
I wonder if you’re always turned whitin, NP, or only when you meditate in your room—that is, if what happens outside your room can affect your kindness and joy.
I don’t think your “turn whitin” will help you overcome your paranoia about communists, people who in NL aren’t known for their kindness, joy, celebration, or dance…very different from the peaceful neoliberal heroes.
Meanwhile, the post-fascist Italian government has just sent 100 soldiers to Romania, making Mark Rutte, a Bill Clinton admirer, as enthusiastic as Monica Lewinsky.
The cause is said to be a Russian drone that crashed in that country; the mainstream press immediately identified it as the one that was launched from the toilet window of Vladimir, the Black Lamb of God.
Aye, sitting by a campfire in the highlands, we would eat our porridge and listen to Granny Macfuggit tell us about the goud auld days. Time after time, the wizened auld crone would return to one of her favourite sayings, “If you want to know who someone is, look to who they are friends with.”
Who knows what wrinkled old hag Granny MacFuggit would say about a friend like Osho, she who is suspicious of everything that comes from the nearest village.
Better not spread the word that members of the porridge club (food strictly cooked over a bonfire of dried Highland cow poop) crossed a thousand villages to kiss the feet of an Indian sage who had walked miles of Gobar.
Indeed. The Dutch website by the local Osho foundation is called ‘the friends of Osho’, which to my mind is a broader group than all those who have taken sannyas.
I find it really interesting that there seems to be such an emphasis on anti-cult behaviour coming out of the US and maybe also mainstream media in Europe. I remember there being talk about “new religious movements” (or nrm’s) back in the eighties, it was a lot more tolerant back then.
Nowadays if you admit to being “a friend of a guru” in Europe people look at you very strangely.
For those interested, here is a recent photo of Granny MacFuggit, taken down at the local, The Hairy Pie, on the Isle of Lewis.
Mr. Self-Love and Madame Vanity are the two chief agents of the devil. ~ George Gurdjieff
I think this contribution of yours is very honest, Lokesh.
I wonder what Gurdjieff would have to say about jealousy? I suppose it is related to vanity, but I think it is a more direct expression of what is corrupt in the human soul.
Perhaps by “jealousy” connected to vanity, did you mean “envy,” Nityaprem?
I heard Osho use the same word, and even then it seemed like he was referring to the other one. In Italian, they’re well distinct, non-overlapping words; I don’t know about English.
Anyway, according to Christian tradition (influenced by Greek philosophy), the soul is “the immortal and incorruptible spiritual principle created by God.”
Perhaps you were referring to some other philosophical or religious idea of the soul: anemos, psyche, res cogitans, atman, anatta, nefesh…
I was recently listening to a young high school philosophy teacher discuss the paradox Foucault encountered in his attempt to describe human nature: the more man knows himself (like any other object), the further he distances himself from his own nature as a living being (as opposed to the predictable and measurable nature of any other object).
The debate on human nature still seems wide open; keeping Osho’s metacognitive approach on the cultural margins helps fuel discord (divide and conquer), reducing the issue to nature vs. culture.
It would be important, NP, for you to establish which soul shapes human nature. Perhaps you could finally refute Aristotle, who obsessed with defining the human being as a “rational and political animal” (I don’t think by “political” he was thinking of Stefania in the famous film).
Off topic, but not too much, expressed with the question: Could we still dance wildly, men and women together, if Muhammad triumphed in Europe?
I’d share an article by Professor Zhok on the hypothesis of Europe becoming Islamized, on how this should not be seen as a negative social-spiritual fact, preferable to the spiritual void of having no religion at all.
There are very few things I disagree with what he writes; even in this long article, the only disagreement is with the concept described above (even the negative connotation he gives to the notion of “emptiness” doesn’t convince me), something that is relevant to what I have already passionately argued about in his Telegram chat, to the point of being banned:
“PEOPLE, DEMOCRACY, AND SOME MISUNDERSTANDINGS
The problem posed by democracy is the problem of the existence and functionality of a people (demos). Stating that “sovereignty belongs to the people” is an essential but insufficient step.
The left of progressives and liberals has created a fiction, devoid of any historical or practical foundation, according to which democracies can exist without peoples. In fact, these “democracies without peoples” are simply the reduction of democracy to a total (global) non-place of voluntary exchanges. This is the “democracy” where “a dollar is a vote” and where the will of the people is expressed with the acts of purchase on the market. Obviously, there is no collective identity here, and therefore no political horizon, which requires the possibility of a horizontal discussion among all decision-makers. This is the “global village” of “citizens of the world.” Politics is replaced by economics, democracy by the market. Whether they realize it or not, this is exactly the direction in which all the various “no-border” activists and all those who think that citizenship is a useless frill or a politically correct honor are moving.
Democracies began to exist when territorially defined political systems came into being, where the laws, decided by those who permanently belong to the territory, apply to what happens on that territory. (This is the reason why there are those exceptions—extraterritoriality—such as embassies or ships, where a law defined by one people applies to a distant and different territory.) Otherwise, there are empires, monarchies, or plutocratic oligarchies.
But if the left is confused and inconclusive in its The right is no less so.
There is a segment of the right—currently a minority—that has never recognized the very idea of popular sovereignty, and with it the very idea of democracy.
Then there is a significant segment of the right wing that actually embraces the liberal-democratic conception, according to which a dollar is a vote, and according to which, ultimately, people’s decisions must be “weighed” and not counted: the richer simply have more weight, and that’s right. This perspective formally accepts democracy, understanding it as a form of plutocracy. To the limited extent that it reflects us, this right wing justifies itself on the basis of some form of “social Darwinism.”
Finally, there is a segment of the right wing that remains at a level of pure cultural chaos, imagining that it’s enough to chatter about “traditions,” “Judeo-Christian roots,” or “Italianness” to have something on its mind. This is the most insidious part, because the mental confusion It allows for the indiscriminate mixing of very different things, right and wrong, paradoxically gaining credibility precisely because of this confusion in which everyone can recognize something similar.
The concept of “tradition” is enormously important, since it is essentially an equivalent for “cultural transmission,” and no people (nor any democratic politics) exists without a good commonality in “cultural transmission.” But the “tradition” on the right usually involves things like the “Sagra dei Osei” or the “Festival della Porchetta” (a celebration of two traditional regional recipes: Polenta with Birds and Whole Roast Pig), worthy things, of course, but essentially brands to be sold to tourists as “typical products.” At the same time as they rant about these “traditions,” the right wing (just like the left wing) dismantles school planning programs, demolishes theaters, joyfully welcomes the Americanization of academies, etc.
As for pleasantries like “Judeo-Christian roots,” this is a hypostatization of a hircocervus, a product of fantasy, given 1) that the history of Christianity is proverbially divided within itself, 2) Judaism in Europe has counted for nothing as a cult—mostly confined to the ghettos—and 3) given that the broadest and most unifying common roots of European culture are the Greco-Roman ones, from which Christian denominations have established themselves in highly divergent forms (consider the connection between Orthodox Christianity and the Greek roots of the Eastern Roman Empire).
This hypostatization, however, is not an innocent error. It effectively serves the purpose of DESTROYING European roots, bringing them back into the sphere of influence of the American-led West. “Judeo-Christian roots” are an invention whose true meaning is not to reconnect with one’s own (European) cultural tradition, but to assimilate into the US-Israeli dyad that has dominated Western politics since 1945.
It is on this basis that right-wing anti-Islamism arises, intentionally confusing the (real) problem of uncontrolled migratory flows with the (fictitious) problem of the Islamization of the West. As if the riots in the French suburbs or the ISIS attacks were moments in a “process of Islamization.”
Final note:
This, however, does not mean that Europe cannot at some point “Islamize.”
Given that there are countless varieties of Islam, and that therefore any discussion of “Islamization,” without further clarification, conflates literally incommensurable things, it is nevertheless not at all excluded that Europe could “Islamize” at some point.
If this happens, it will not be through a coup d’état or the imposition of Sharia law by force, but through the voluntary conversion of Europeans: the achievement of internal hegemony.
Islam is a growing religion today because it represents a spiritual perspective in a world, like that of neoliberal Europe, which has systematically eradicated every spiritual dimension. It matters little that Europe can legitimately reconnect with a rich spiritual tradition. If this remains a pennant to be brandished at some public ceremony, with nothing behind it, its fate is sealed. Nature, including human nature, abhors a vacuum. And spiritual emptiness (the vicissitudes of the decline of the Roman Empire illustrate this well) is never tolerated for long.” Prof Andrea Zhok
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NDy6Rlijzo
Would you then say that a people without a spiritual conviction are empty at heart, and ready for a collapse?
NP, are you speaking to me? If so, what are you referring to? I stated first that I disagree with the Professor in judging Islam preferable to no faith at all.
I was referring to the Professor’s statement that nature abhors a vacuum, even a spiritual one.
NP. I also have doubts about this; perhaps an intellectual like him associates Aristotle’s physics with the horror vacui of psychology.
While for me, the void that Osho-Buddha pointed out to me (after an initial shock) is the inner space cleansed of all inessential things.
“Mr. Self-Love and Madame Vanity are the two chief agents of the devil.” ~ George Gurdjieff
very true, for name change cult from top to bottom, front till the shadow side.
Shantam, in your religion, Waheguru has no rivals.
I don’t think you handle the idea of the devil very well. It’s a Western thing. Don’t get involved. You don’t have enough guilt, like psychopaths.
“Our vast collections of knowledge and experience are just part of ego’s display, part of the grandiose quality of ego. We display them to the world and, in so doing, reassure ourselves that we exist, safe and secure as ‘spiritual people’.” (Chogyam Trungpa)
That’s hilarious, and sharply observed.
From the ‘Memoirs of an Alcoholic’ series, a collection of books:
https://www.amazon.it/Chogyam-Trungpa-Libri/s?k=Chogyam+Trungpa&rh=n%3A411663031
Before commenting on Lewis Ruthmond’s words shared by Klaus, about the wisdom of finding “your own pace” (not just your external pace), here’s a funny and moving speech from a comedian.
A sharing of how compassion, by someone who graduated from Harvard University and then began learning from his failures, frees us from our self-centeredness, making room for joy and celebration.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3fCktnkBbc
@MOD
I’m not sure if “self-centeredness” translates the meaning of the word “egocentrism” that I meant in that sentence.
MOD:
According to an AI search, the two terms are interchangeable, Veet Francesco.
I would like to dedicate the following post to Satyadeva, regarding the secret language of the sky and its stars.
As Lokesh says, “Behind every headbanger, there may be a man.” Forgetting this on this forum has created the phenomenon of a community of headbangers claiming to judge Osho’s spiritual and human legacy by analyzing his words, neglecting the silent communion of a community that, thanks to deep roots nourished by widespread compassion, was able to hear the whisper of the stars:
“Laurens van der Post, in his book, ‘The Lost World of the Kalahari’, recounts his incredible experience…
Living with the Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert, an ancestral people deeply connected to Nature.
A people considered backward and stuck in the Stone Age.
One of the most shocking stories is when the Bushmen were surprised to discover that Van der Post couldn’t “listen to the stars.” At first, they thought he was joking or lying, but when they realized he was telling the truth, they were filled with sadness. For them, not hearing the whisper of the universe It is not a simple lack, but a sign of spiritual illness: a total disconnection from the natural world.
But the book goes beyond these anecdotes.
Van der Post reflects on how Western civilization has lost something essential by distancing itself from its primitive roots. He describes the Bushmen not as “backward,” but as custodians of a wisdom we have forgotten.
Their ability to track animals, read the language of the Earth, and live in harmony with their environment is a reminder that true knowledge is not always measured in terms of technological advances.
The author also emphasizes that, for these people, solitude as we understand it does not exist.
Nature is never a void: the wind, the earth, and the stars are constant companions.
Instead, modern man, who has everything, surrounded by noise and technology, suffers from a profound loneliness: that of having lost his connection with the natural world and, with it, with himself.”
https://t.me/marcellopamio
In 1977, Alan Sorrenti sang that we are “children of the stars.” Perhaps the sky was closer in those years, or perhaps Osho had managed to neutralize the headbanger within each of us and create a joyful silence to listen to the stars.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTMCFYz65-E&list=RDYTMCFYz65-E&start_radio=1
I feel like an heir to that spiritual community, the only sounding board capable of making Osho’s words resonate in the hearts of those who come after me—us. I don’t want to regret not having shared “how beautiful a human being can be.”
Lewis Richmond, who asks what the bodhisattva’s behaviour should be in these socially and politically challenging times, when the atmosphere of past decades that encouraged trust is just a memory and one would like to prevent regrets (because as we age, there’s not enough time left to make amends), doesn’t seem to be referring to a community; it almost seems as if the bodhisattva himself is isolated in his care for the world.
Now, for me, the problem is understanding what kind of community is the best vehicle for a bodhisattva’s compassion. I have some ideas on this…for example, one criterion might be to ask myself in which context I felt most vital, playful, joyful, desired (i.e., loved)…it seems that the bodhisattva’s compassionate behaviour, according to neurologists and physiologists, is the healthiest.
However, if I really can’t save Osho from the judgment of this literary club, by cynical and bored headbangers who, on an exclusive and elegant Roman terrace, use the Master’s words to hang him, I will at least try to become the best of the headbangers, as Jep teaches:
“The most significant discovery I made a few days after turning sixty-five was that I can no longer waste time doing things I don’t want to do.
When I arrived in Rome, at 26, I fell quite early, almost without realizing it, into what might be called “the vortex of worldliness.” But I didn’t want to simply be a socialite. I wanted to become the king of the socialites, and I succeeded. I didn’t just want to attend parties, I wanted to have the power to make them fail.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiJgy6Xst7I
It seems to me that we as humans pick up much mental clutter from our environments. It is only if you are a bushman of the Kalahari that you find you are picking up nature, rather than culture…
This also applies to sannyasins. Living in the place where Osho was, surrounded by other sannyasins, it created a uniquely strong mini-pocket of shared habits and desires.
“If questions arise and disappear it is a great symbolic indication. If you want to ask something and you find it unsayable, it means something from beyond the mind is longing to be expressed; words fail, mind cannot manage to bring it down to the world of language.
And this is something to be remembered by you all: if you are getting more silent, more peaceful, more calm and cool, it is an intrinsic indication that you are in the right direction. If things are otherwise – you are becoming more disturbed, more anxiety-ridden, feeling more anguish, feeling as if you are falling apart – it is a sure indication that you have gone astray.”
( Osho, ‘Sat, Chit, Anand’ )
“The heart joins the mind and being just like a bridge. And as you start moving on the path of the heart things start becoming more beautiful, more loving. You are surrounded by a new energy, a new life, as if you are getting rejuvenated every moment.
Mind knows only questions. The heart knows only answers, and the being is beyond both. It knows neither questions nor answers. It is simply beyond all kinds of duality.”
( Osho, ‘Sat, Chit, Anand’ )
I’ve heard Osho say that it hurts more when “the hand that offers itself full returns full, than the hand that asks empty returns empty.”
This should be the heartfelt experience of a bodhisattva, which seems the opposite of the ordinary experience that seems to accompany every human being from childhood.
The child playing hide-and-seek with his-her parents, who affectionately interact with him-her and eagerly begin searching, confirming, then, how much they have missed the little one…according to Lacanians, that is the profound dynamic of human affectivity: moving towards (creating situations to intercept) the desire of the person he-she loves to be desired by.
This pattern seems valid even as adults; it makes us feel good, alive and blessed, knowing and feeling that our existence in the world is not indifferent to the people in our community, more or less narrow.
This seems to be the opposite dynamic of the narcissist, who loves himself without desiring to meet the desire of the other, avoiding becoming “too intimate” with anyone, for the risk of experiencing the vulnerability of asking how “missable” he really is to that person, preferring instead to be surrounded by people attracted by his success and charm as a formidably independent person.
It remains to be seen whether and how the mutual and exclusive love between two human beings can stay without an extended community, beyond family and blood ties.
I am always struck by the vitality of very elderly wives and husbands, very close-knit couples after over 50 years of living together, as they express all their childish desperation, experiencing that their beloved one will no longer seek them out.
The community created by Osho is the place where the traditional family has experienced, or imagined, the vulnerability of a full hand remaining full, as soon as one steps outside the Buddhafield.
I saw that Sadhguru put Osho as one of the sharpest minds of the twentieth century. I would say that he is certainly correct, Osho was, I think, the Einstein of Eastern philosophy, and there is still much to be learned from him, if you can sort the wheat from the chaff.
Whether he will ever get the recognition he deserves remains to be seen. His stature as a guru, a mystic and a philosopher is tarnished by his failure as an administrator, and his sheer volume of works makes him hard to assess in total.
Yet I think his ideas are slowly spreading through the Hindi and English speaking worlds, by a kind of osmosis. Every time someone buys an Osho book and recognises themselves in the pure gold of the discourses, it spreads a little further.
I find Osho still has the power to transform, to bring clarity, to show the path to kindness and love.
NP writes, “I find Osho still has the power to transform.”
Okay, I understand, it is an ongoing process for NP. I am curious to hear how NP views this process in his life today, as in a few examples of what he was before this transformation took place and what or who he has been transformed into that he deems important enough to write about.
NP claims “Osho’s stature as a guru, a mystic and a philosopher is tarnished by his failure as an administrator.” An administrator is someone whose job it is to control the operation of a business organisation. NP actually believes that Osho’s stature as a guru was mainly tarnished by this? No mention of Osho damaging his health due to drug addiction, getting blow jobs from his female disciples, while telling people sex should be transcended by the age of 48, having a penchant for luxury cars and wearing ridiculously expensive watches, because this is all perfectly acceptable in NP’s eyes. Yet failing as an administrator is a no-no. Really, man, what a crock of shit.
NP claims, “Osho was, I think, the Einstein of Eastern philosophy, and there is still much to be learned from him.’” All right. I am curious to hear what NP has learned from Osho recently.
The legendary Lokesh has just delivered one of his well-reasoned and unequivocal pronouncements, in short: Osho was a piece of shit.
To avoid appearing like the usual headbanger bully who can detect bullshit at the first whiff — even though at the old Mac Fuggit campfire, when the Highlander shit runs out, old eucurie cosse tyres are burned — our friend invites young Nityaprem to use Osho as a mirror, revealing human nature, capable of showing all the reasons why it’s best not to trust it.
Lokesh is so right that, after feeling deluded by Osho, he chose a guru with an old enough prostate to transfer his libido to the Pakoras. After all, the body is just a means to walk the path to reach the nearest thela.
Thanks, Lokesh, for your straight-talking, no-nonsense feedback! But really can you say that you have done so much better than Osho? That you haven’t damaged your health due to some addiction such as whiskey, sweet foods, or perhaps an excess of haggis? Or that you wouldn’t have succumbed to the temptation of thousands of groupies lining up while you swept past in your Roller?
I think Osho was profoundly human, with his fair share of flaws, but he was also a genius and a gifted psychic, and he decided to share his gifts of exploring the inner world, spirituality and what it means to be alive.
As to what I have recently learned from him? Yesterday I read that fidgeting during meditation is indicative of an unquiet mind, that it is not a physical thing, and that when it goes away it is a sign of progress, if such a thing can be said to exist.
NP enquires, “But really, can you say that you have done so much better than Osho?”
I could not say that because it would not be true. Better in which way? It sounds preposterous to me. Besides, I am not in competition with Osho.
NP, do you really need Osho to make you aware that fidgeting during meditation is indicative of an unquiet mind? I would have thought that would have simply been obvious. To not see that as obvious is indicative that you are a bit stupid on certain levels, or simply immature.
The fact that me pointing out a few flakey claims about people’s ideas projected onto Osho should get people’s dander up to such an extent is surely a sign of people’s insecurity. It is a blog after all. I thought the whole idea was to create a situation in which writers could express their views and examine what someone says from different perspectives…the good, the bad, and the ridiculous. Instead, it has turned into a site where, if you say anything about Osho that does not make him look like the master of masters, you are likely going to be viewed as an infidel.
You may not be in competition with Osho, but if you can’t say you have done better, then perhaps the right thing to do is to have compassion for his flaws? He lived an extraordinary life, and we can’t assume that the temptations he had were of the ordinary kind, and he was a bit of a rascal to begin with, and not much given to discipline.
I don’t believe Osho was the Master of Masters, the words have no real meaning to me. And we are all rebels here, though we are learning Osho’s lessons.
The master of masters. I think I was present when Osho first coined the phrase. It makes a good slogan, but in the beginning, it was not intended to have anything to do with mastering it over anybody. It has to do with when enlightened people die and the state they enter.
I meet many people I would never dream of saying I did better than them to. I just do not view people like that way…it is very judgmental, and in most instances, there really is no reason to judge.
Feel compassion for Osho’s flaws? Again not my way. I normally have a good laugh at Osho’s flaws, generally because they were funny and so remote from how a guru is supposed to behave. It’s a joke.
This is true, there is a lot of ‘self marketing’ in Osho’s books. The phrase “Master of Masters” fits perfectly with that, it speaks of a certain kind of bravado which goes with his genius. Without that, he might not have made it as a guru.
You’re being unfair, Nityaprem.
Scots don’t always drink for the sake of drinking; they often do it to forget what they’ve just eaten.
In our friend’s defence, I’d like to reveal that the original haggis recipe, served at the campfire of his youth, included lizard tail, a Cambodian variant.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haggis
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ESAy1QDsHKs
“No mention of Osho damaging his health due to drug addiction, getting blow jobs from his female disciples, while telling people sex should be transcended by the age of 48, having a penchant for luxury cars and wearing ridiculously expensive watches, because this is all perfectly acceptable in NP’s eyes.”
You should be thankful, Lokesh.
Your judgements helped you to become free from
Osho. NP is still a lover of Osho.
Satchit, to be honest, it never really occurred to me that I might be free from Osho. Now that you mention it, there may be something in what you say.
For many years, Osho was the fulcrum of my life. I simply loved the man and loved being around him. When I was not physically close to Osho I felt something was missing in my life.
In human terms, that all took place a long time ago. Osho, I only really think about when I visit this site. I use SN as a kind of psychological tea break from my work, play or whatever creative outlet I am busy with…currently painting.
To me, posting Osho quotes and putting Osho up on a pedestal is just not my thing…it looks kind of sad and empty to me. Osho did not exist to live up to people’s lofty expectations. Osho was never really about his words, even though he was a very verbose man. Osho was about silence. In my youth I was not so comfortable with silence. Now I relish it. I enjoy a lot of peace and quiet in my life. I am fortunate on that level.
If I look for words of spiritual encouragement, I check out Ramana and Nisargadatta. I suppose those wonderful men have become my guiding lights through this thing we call life. Although, in saying that, I must not neglect to say that I am blessed with some great friends.
My paint brushes beckon.
I have heard him saying that the master-disciple relationship is a passage.
So at the end, one is a light to oneself.
If judgements are needed to create this distance it’s fine for me.
Satchit, if Lokesh has been writing against Osho and his naive disciples on this forum for 15 years, it’s precisely because he can’t move beyond that mystical experience (unless his true agenda is to fuel the reward circuit by doing business with his paintings).
This means that after Osho, aside from a few fried vegetables, nothing significant has happened to him on the vertical plane.
The problem with peak consciousness experiences is that, in a stabilized form, they make us lose touch with the concerns of people who live in a dimension with different frequencies.
Like Damien, the angel on the Berlin monuments in Wenders’s film, having realized the sense of eternity that deep love provides, we are nonetheless not immune to those concerns, even though we understand their illusory nature in their egoistic investment.
And so eternity is experienced as a condemnation, because of the helplessness it brings us to see all those lives pass by, faint lights of small flames, innocent and unique like children, exposed at any moment to the wind that could extinguish them.
This is too much, even for an angel, so we want to give up our wings for material hands to protect any of those flames, perhaps choosing the one that would make us bearable the infinite melancholy for all the gazes that never had time to meet our gaze, with our eternal promise of love.
So an angel like Osho might find himself doing human things, too human not to be noticed by his and our one-dimensional brothers and sisters, capturing their attention-eyes, somewhere between pleased and scandalized.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iAzYofuItM
Veet Fr. said, “if Lokesh has been writing against Osho and his naive disciples on this forum for 15 years, it’s precisely because he can’t move beyond that mystical experience.”
This does sound like it has more than a smidgen of truth in it. Perhaps Lokesh is after all these years still trying to convince himself?
I’ve noticed over the years that critics tend to judge things based on what is outside of their area of understanding. By never looking beyond our assumptions, we give up trying to meet others, and again and again end up meeting ourselves. And thus it is that we use our supposed understanding of others to speak on their behalf, and condemn them for the words we ourselves placed on their silent lips.
It is easy to fire back with something along similar lines of criticism, but I refrain from this because reacting like that is rather predictable, mechanical and somewhat stupid. Besides, there are already experts at this practice writing on SN.
Ultimately, one just has to say, “Is that so?”
Transform what? The path of kindness and love is within.
Osho is just a mirror. If you forget this, you create only attachment.
Transform what? asks Satchit, if the path of kindness and love is within.
Perhaps transform the pack’s habit of conforming to the leader’s will, choosing the comfort zone of traditional paths?
“One day in the changing room where the ashram workers kept their clothes and bags, I found Deeksha going through my bag.
“What are you looking for?” I asked her. She replied: “Just curious!”
https://www.oshonews.com/2016/10/16/beloved-deeksha/
I’d like to point out that in this forum, the criticism of the private life and teachings of Osho & Friends began long before the Netflix series and the other byproducts that have tried and continue to try to ride the wave, attempting to consign the Master of Masters to the oblivion of history.
In the video below (use automatic subtitles), Deeksha’s bible is discussed, with reference to Osho raping a Japanese girl and touching the genitals of his female disciples during darshan.
They are three spiritual seekers, not sannyasins, who have benefited greatly from Osho’s teachings. They now have different perspectives on this former sannyasin’s revelations.
The host (on the left of the screen), who titled the video ‘The Dark Side of Spiritual Power’, is the most shocked and scandalized, the one who takes Deeksha’s words as a condemnation without question, deserving a sentence without appeal.
Andrea is the one who most resembles Lokesh, a bit of a braggart and a bit of a headbanger. He doesn’t question the authority of the source conveying such private information, but rather blesses the situation to push him to “take off the diaper” (he often suggests this image of his emancipation… I believe he has become Advaita, beyond the master-disciple duality).
David seems to me to have the most balanced approach.
He emphasizes, in all his comments on Deeksha’s words, that he only hypothesizes the possibility of a private Osho with power trips, Hitlerian sympathies (can anyone tell me anything about Deeksha’s private life? For example, if she’s Jewish…) and sexually compulsive… explaining how, however, the disciple’s commitment to taking from him whatever is useful for his transformation is not wasted.
He also says other intelligent things, all aimed at not preemptively discouraging anyone who wishes to follow the path of The transformation proposed by Osho. Indeed, he says, since the Master isn’t in the body, one avoids projective complications and the social tensions that normally arise around Masters, who are such because they have the energy to break with tradition and scandalize with a new and authentic path.
About an hour into the video, there’s also a commentary by a sannyasin, Sw. Sattva, which also somewhat summarizes my point of view.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ByR0Sdo_kc
What I recall hearing is that once you get to some advanced level what many practitioners call “light” and “dark” is all just divine energy. For example you have the Tibetan wrathful deities, and in India you have Kali.
Great video on Osho, Veet Francesco, and a good opportunity to learn a little more Italian from the subtitles — I enjoyed it! It was good to see the different perspectives on Deeksha’s podcast, and the fact that they had two videos submitted by guests I also liked.
I think there are always different ways of looking at the same events, even among eyewitnesses, and Deeksha’s talk about Osho’s dark energy is a good illustration of this.
My stepfather, Swami Anand Yatri, was very close to Osho in his time during Poona One. He was one of the few sannyasins who was allowed to go see him anytime, often on business as Yatri was head of the design of the books (as well as doing the cartoons for The Rajneesh Times).
One of the stories Yatri used to tell was how he’d come in with a big batch of photos and ideas for a book cover, and how Osho would go over everything and make suggestions, and in the end would say “Or just do it as you would like it!”
For every Deeksha talking of ‘dark energy’ there is a Yatri, a devoted sannyasin close to Osho who often thought of Osho as The Master and himself as The Fool.
This video has provided much food for thought. I think it’s really good that in Italy there is still such a lively public discussion of Osho and his ideas.
In my opinion, the world needs people to talk about Osho, about what spirituality means in the twenty-first century, about the meaning of existence away from the reductionist materialist paradigm.
That Osho inspired so many people with his stories of Eastern philosophy, religiousness, enlightenment is a very good thing. The idea of a whole city where people live and worship in a spiritual life is well ahead of its time…
NP, in your opinion, what does spirituality mean in the twenty-first century?
Why would spirituality mean something other in the twenty-first century than what it meant in previous centuries?
NP states, “The idea of a whole city where people live and worship in a spiritual life is well ahead of its time.”
Obviously, NP does not know his history very well because his statement is completely untrue.
The concept of large spiritual communities is an old one. One only needs to refer to The Bible to read about the holy city of Zion.
The apostle Peter writes, “In keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells” (2 Pet. 3:13, NIV). Yet, while this city is something believers look forward to inheriting, there’s a sense in which they’ve already become part of it (Heb. 12:22).
When we grasp Jerusalem’s significance as the goal of God’s creative and redemptive activity, it’s easy to understand why Newton concludes his hymn with the words “Solid joys and lasting treasures, none but Zion’s children know.”
“Holy Mount Zion
Jah sitteth in Mount Zion
And rules all creation.” Bob Marley
And so it goes.
More recently, Sri Aurobindo’s dream became manifest in the sixties, when Auroville was inaugurated. Today, a few thousand people live there, forming a large community of spiritually inclined people.
Yes, but where are they now? None of these spiritual communities have lasted, so in that way they could be said to all be ahead of their time.
That is, assuming some utopian future in which all mankind acquires a spiritual flavour… which admittedly does seem far off.
That is all well and good, NP. I have no idea where those communities are now, and I could not care less one way or another.
You wrote, “The idea of a whole city where people live and worship in a spiritual life is well ahead of its time.”
And I wrote in response that what you wrote is untrue.
And I replied that just because there were earlier such communities it does not mean the idea’s time had come then or now. It might still be in the future that it becomes popular or common.
Moving along. I noticed that you neglected to give a response to my other two questions NP. So, here they are again.
NP, in your opinion, what does spirituality mean in the twenty-first century?
Why would spirituality mean something other in the twenty-first century than what it meant in previous centuries?
Well, I think in past centuries there has been this great confusion between religion and spirituality. Spirituality is man’s tendency towards the spiritual, while religion is the ritual and worship surrounding it.
I have a great respect for spiritual people, while I see religion as a kind of wrong-headed approach to the reality of spirituality. Religion needs priests, spirituality needs only a certain care and love.
“Holy Mount Zion
Jah sitteth in Mount Zion
And rules all creation.” (Bob Marley – an illegitimate son of Kronos)
“When we grasp Jerusalem’s significance as the goal of God’s creative and redemptive activity, it’s easy to understand why Newton concludes his hymn with the words, “Solid joys and lasting treasures, none but Zion’s children know.” A fake renegade quoting a real renegade.
I believe this son of Kronos here declares his love for the Zionist cause, his unshakable faith in the destiny of the predestined, convinced that one day he will be rewarded for recognizing the true “Jewish Antichrist,” Armilus.
“And if God was so angry with the Jews because they did not more diligently examine the prophecies he had given them to recognize Christ, why should we think he will excuse us if we do not examine the prophecies he has given us to recognize the Antichrist? For surely, adhering to the Antichrist must be as dangerous and as easy a mistake for Christians as it was for the Jews to reject Christ. And therefore it is as much our duty to strive to be able to recognize it, we who can avoid it, as it was theirs to recognize Christ, whom they could follow.”
(Isaac Newton, ‘Treatise on the Apocalypse’)
Nityaprem, if it’s true that in the land of the popes there’s a certain vitality and sensitivity to spiritual themes, perhaps this is due to all the blood that had to be shed so the people could emancipate themselves from the “name of the father”, trying not to go mad or end up at the stake.
Paradoxically, a tradition like the Christian one was born because a son rebelled against his father’s religion to love his fellow sinners, whom his father’s law stoned.
Yet, in the end, Jesus became bait for the same system of power that had crucified him, in the name of a stern father’s law, and had dominated for centuries the lives of naive sheep who, identifying with Jesus, the rebellious son, ended up kissing the ass of the priest, who had become as demanding as a rabbi, in the name of the father.
Slowly, through guillotine blows and the crackling of the pyre, a subterranean cultural tradition emerged, disenchanted and angry with the clergy, who had betrayed the spirit of the rebellious son in favor of the father’s law and its gratifying exercise.
As Swami Shanti already wrote in the February 2024 post, where you shared the passing of your-our beloved Yatri, in 1981 the future Pope Ratzinger became the boss of the former Holy Inquisition, identifying Buddhism as the true danger to Christianity, calling it “spiritual autoeroticism.”
A spirituality that not only repudiates the cruel father but also the half-rebellious son seeking a better father must be a real pain in the ass for pastors of souls.
The German cardinal’s Holy Inquisition wanted Osho out of the US, and possibly out of many other countries where the Roman Church and the Pentagon had influence.
Only someone with a mind formatted with the criteria that later inspired MK-Ultra could consider the historical reading of documents about the powers that coordinated against Osho implausible.
The Holy Spirit, which for the Catholic Church is the son’s love for the Father-God, is the birthright of every human being; addressing it to a father who sacrifices his children is an act that invites blasphemy.
I am opposed not only to female genital mutilation in the name of God, but also to male genital mutilation. In Italy, only one of the two is prohibited. Who knows which?
I believe such a shock leaves a profound mark on children’s minds, predisposing them to a life of cynical suspicion, seeking refuge in the protection of their father, their family, their own tribe, marked by the same destiny of being children of Kronos, a cult at the height of its popularity today.
I would like to tell the Kronos children, filled with resentment for their father, that before killing the Buddha they must break the Middle Eastern pact, enduring all the insecurity of opposing a vengeful god.
Using a Boy Scout knife against a scapegoat like Osho is the sad story of someone who lacked the courage to use it against their father, the one who, with a knife thrust, when they were most vulnerable and needed to nurture trust, opened their minds and closed their hearts.
Sw Veet, while I have sympathy for your difficulty with fathers and priests, I find your predisposition with violent imagery somewhat disturbing? Kronos, knife thrusts, murdering the Buddha… it’s all a bit much early in the morning with my first coffee.
All nations have light and dark sides to their cultural personality. Let me tell you about the Dutch way of good cheer. It is about a shared coffee and rationality and emotional warmth, honesty and closeness.
Enjoy your coffee, Nityaprem.
It’s true, when I write I don’t worry about entertaining someone who’s drinking coffee or taking a break from painting, sorry.
But we’re in a Zen context; we might be talking about masters beating people or cutting off heads.
Perhaps I haven’t managed to convey the symbolic level of my point, which nevertheless refers to a violent reality.
Osho often tended, getting to the root of problems, to refer to the importance symbols have in shaping reality.
Kronos is a mythological symbol, while initiatory genital mutilation is reality.
“That Osho inspired so many people with his stories of Eastern philosophy, religiousness, enlightenment is a very good thing. The idea of a whole city where people live and worship in a spiritual life is well ahead of its time… ”
Did happen already with the Ranch and it failed.
Why does every commune fail?
Satchit, where do you see the failure of the Ranch beginning?
A failure presupposes a goal that wasn’t achieved, like the conclusion of a fairy tale: “and they all lived happily ever after.”
Instead, other things happened after the Ranch, just as they had before the Ranch, yet it seems like failure is only spoken of when referring to the pinnacle of the American experience.
From my perspective, I might consider what happened on that piece of land not a success but even a miracle.
It could have lasted another 20 years after Osho’s death and faded away “naturally,” without trauma or major events, like a natural demographic phenomenon. Perhaps some would find this a sad failure, like the young spiritual warriors of that time who are now aging and dying.
To me, however, it seems that those young spiritual warriors wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere else other than where you see a failure.
Perhaps this could be a criterion for evaluating a social failure: interviewing those who were there and asking whether personal goals were compromised by the end of that social experiment.
And what if what you call failure was actually the seal of a highly successful experiment that increasingly called into question the success of others, and for this reason it would have been unbearable to them to continue?
And what if what you call failure was actually the seal of a highly successful experience that increasingly called into question the success of others, and for this reason, it would have been unbearable to continue?
Veet, this is probably your only statement which I may have read on SN, which I could ever relate & agree to & found profound so far!
I came across these in the WhatsApp post of a friend, I remember meeting the artist, an Osho sannyasin named Sandipa, back when she lived in England for a while. This was back in the 1990s.
Loved this painting!
I forgot to add Sandipa’s website, in case you wanted to buy something of her art.
https://sandipa.com.au/