THE NAME GAME: Lokesh opines
Osho said: ‘Don’t be deceived by the names. You are always hankering to catch hold of something, to make something big out of nothings. The names I give you are just like lovers’ sweet nothings. Don’t make much fuss about them.
“In fact, once I have given you the name, never come and ask me about its meaning again because I forget. It is in that moment that I create the meaning around it. Then how am I supposed to remember? I must have given thirty thousand names or more.
“A name is just a name. You are nameless. No name confines you, no name can confine you. They are just labels to be used – utilitarian, nothing spiritual in it. But because I pay so much attention to your name and I explain it to you, you get hooked with it. That is just my way of showering my attention on you, nothing else; just my way of showing my love to you, nothing else.’
Allowing someone to give you a new name is a role normally exclusive to parents, who have been blessed with a newborn child. Therefore there is no denying that something resembling parental authority is at play in the equation. Of course, the faithful will argue that the name change was all a technique for helping one detach from their past and the conditioning that accompanies it. What is ironic about such a concept is that allowing a guru to change your name does not help you detach from one of the greatest conditionings of all…the inherent tendency to search for a person that we can trust more than ourselves. In other words, a perfect parent or leader who knows what is best for us. This is a powerful and basic conditioning and Osho left that very much intact, although I’m sure Catholic sannyasins will be in complete denial about this. It could be said that Osho taught people to become a witness and gain a detachment from game role reality, but the very same people became attached to him, to the extent that he became their centre and he in turn became attached to the power that comes from being other people’s centre. (I can see them now in their white robes, raising their arms towards the master and chanting ‘Osho’, as if the man was the fulcrum of their existence, which for many it was and still is by the looks of it.) I’m sure that many will argue that there was something spiritual about this reciprocal relationship ― because Osho was enlightened and beyond it all. Well, maybe he was and, like the master said, I ‘m trying to make something big out of nothing. Circle complete.
On another level, I witnessed many instances where Osho giving someone a new name bore another kind of significance, other than simply expressing his love for that person. In my case he gave me the name I really wanted (it’s a long story) and not only that, he gave some of my friends, during the early years of Poona 1, names that they either wished for or, in many cases, a name that fitted their personality like a glove. He definitely, in my opinion, was not pulling names randomly out of a top hat. I saw far too much evidence that contradicts that theory. As the years passed people were simply given either Anand, Prem, Deva, or in rare instances Yoga etc, in front of their old given name, which in turn always produced a few knowing laughs from those present at the darshan. It has been suggested that almost all the people who had been with Osho in previous incarnations were already with him towards the end of the seventies, apart from a few latecomers. On the other hand, it could be that Osho’s remarkably perceptive mind and incredible intuition began to go downhill after this period, due to physical degeneration, which would tie in with how it was possible for him to move from being aware of almost everything taking place in his commune, to not knowing that his personal secretary and her cohorts were out roaming the streets of the ‘hood in Oregon plotting arson and mass poisoning.
Food for thought, one might say, and maybe encouragement to share your thoughts on the name game.
Being a casework counsellor by profession the paradox seems to be the confusion in the disciple’s mind.
Clearly in terms of the role the Master plays in the cacophony of “unconscious” forces we all inherit, then there are very grave dangers for the disciple in replacing the poor parent by the best parent. To me this clearly happened to Shiva, (Hugh Milne, author of the God that failed) and it gave him a major nervous breakdown in the end. Poorly parented in his pre sannays life, for some reason he thought he had found the perfect protective parent in Osho. Now zen masters are clearly not that, they want to take you beyond the parent entirely.
For me taking a new name from Osho was part of the dance of life, but not to be taken seriously. Then again I do have a bone to pick with those who more than studiously return to their old names. Surely in the name game one should at least move on to another third name and so on and so forth!
I confess that I have always felt there is a final part of full empowerment that should lead one to finally “taking one’s own name”. Something that is meaningful to one’s deepest core, but that one chooses oneself.
Well Lokesh, thanks for the stimulus, and following those old seventies conversational habits so hard to forget, are you a Deva? And what does your name mean?!
Osho called me Anand Lokesh and told me that it meant the blissful Lord of this World. In Hindi Lokesh is another name for Brahma and in Tibetan an abbreviated form of Avalokiteshvara. These days, when meeting people I’ve never met before, I introduce myself as either Luke or Lokesh, depending on what kind of person I perceive them to be. I was originally named after a famous undertaker in the north of Scotland. I use that name when visiting the country of may birth. Ultimately, I think Osho is right on the money when he says, ‘You are nameless.’
A doctor writes;
A lot of my patients ask me at this time of year ‘Who am I?’ and we in the medical profession have come to expect that with the ending of British Summer Time the nights become shorter, creating the seasonally known SADnyass syndrome or Sannyassin Affective Disorder.
To explain this syndrome is actually quite simple, when we realise that a lot of people who previously dressed in orange in the long winter months , now have only a string of beads to fondle and a name to echo alone in the confines of a bathroom .
Most colleagues or the average man in the street who takes medictations for a cold can quite easily misunderstand this as a type of flu-bug creating a high temperature and despondent feelings of ‘leave me in alone’… with the universe-type isolation . In fact the average man in the street doesn’t realise that having a cold in the winter and feeling a bit low is actually very similar to SADnyass symptoms which have been confused with an eastern virus that has no known cure and is transmitted from master to disciple , known as Quite-Cuckoo-Bird-Flu 1.9.7-8-90s
Why, just last year millions of anti-viral doses were produced in anticipation of a mass epidemic of this strange dark night of the soul on a short winter evening. Luckily most Indian NHS trained doctors realised that a quick rummage around the wardrobe for some orange underwear or a badly dyed red jumper taken with some large doses of mind and body numbing ‘old devotional songs’ hidden on a cassette tape could quite quickly bring the patient back to their senses, leaving them with nothing but a beatific smile as evidence of this completely harmless influenz-a.
If you are at all worried still that you may not know who you are or what you are doing or why, there is really no need for concern as SADnyass symptoms are known to recur sometimes without any provocation and especially if you have a lot of time on your hands to ponder important things like that and how long to let a tea bag brew.The best thing to do in that case is to open the windows and let some fresh air in. And never to succumb to any spreading tittle tattle, or borrowed notions or the usual mass listeria.Remember always rinse any borrowed ideas with large amounts of anti-sceptic.
In fact letting large doses of fresh air, innuendo regularly guarantees good lasting health .
Well I hope that’s reassured those of you who have written in this week.
Now I must be off as the wife has been locked out for the last half hour in the garden calling out ”Are you in?”….well of course not… as I think I have a touch of SADnyass after all, doesn’t everyone in November?
PS..I’m sure tomorrow will go like a rocket…pzzzzzzzz whizzz yaaaaayyyyyyyy ooohhh….enjoy it Guys…
Lokesh . . whats the long story . . if you not feeling lazy do share . . love listening / reading true stories . .
Well, after reading Martyn’s comment, I’m definitely worried about sounding completely absurd.
I would go on sipping this well brewed tea bag forever . . ( atleast for now ) !
It is funny, but I now fully guessed two names of sannaysins to be before their ceremonies (both names of each person). First, I thought it was a coincidence but the second time I guessed I realised what some old sannaysins who give sannyas say is true: “Osho still gives all the names and anyone who can get in touch with His consciousness will produce the same name/meaning”.
I find it beautiful!
I loved my name from the very beginning but know people who never liked theirs.
Osho gave me the name Prem Pagalo.
Madness of love.
Its been a fabulous ride yet I have my complaints.
I was given the name Deva Dilrupa . . didnt like Dilrupa so changed it to Deva Dilruba on my own . . these days I switched back to my family name . . probably as I have been hybernating at home . .
btw the meaning of Deva Dilrupa was given as divine beloved & the meaning of Dilruba is also the same . . someone did tell me that it could have been a spelling mistake . . anyway guess I didnt feel there was any need to make an issue of it then or now . . since its totally personal as is . . SADn yas . . like martyn says !
Kavita in hindi means poetry . .
wonder what it would be like without having a name . . maybe I /we wouldn’t be reading /writing at all . . anyway guess thats choiceless now . . .
The name-trip may indeed have been another parental trip — basically a version of what Freud identified long ago as ‘transference’ — but it was perhaps a necessary one. For whatever may be said about Osho, I think he was in tune with the Zeitgeist (which is largely why he was so popular). I see it all as something like this:
1. Early wave Osho disciples are mostly Baby Boomers (born between ’45 and ’65, thereabouts). This generation carries a lot of wounding, coming on the heels of the world wars, Depression, and other world-shaking rites of passage. Family systems are screwed up. Most are in need of deep parental healing.
2. Parental healing rarely occurs between child and parent, but rather via proxy later in life (via guru, therapist, or even spouse/lover). Osho simply filled a natural proxy role, with some wisdom thrown in for good measure.
3. Graduating from the proxy transference. Although alas, this ‘graduating’ often doesn’t happen, and the disciple drifts into a kind of aimless grey zone after the death of the guru. Much like how a kid can remained disconnected for years after the death of a parent, in a type of perpetual post traumatic syndrome, or stuck glorifying the memory of the dead parent (a variation of what Wilber called ‘romanticism’).
The solution? Be good yourself. Buy yourself a Rolls, but not a Silver Spur. Differentiate from Dad and at least get a Silver Dawn or Phantom Coupe.
Giving the disciple a new name is not exactly Osho’s invention but a thousands years old tradition. Ofc simply indicating the start of a new life and a break with the past. Actually no use at all for (pseudo)intellectual smart talk and Freudianisms.
And it should be equally simple to understand that only a very immature and confused ‘seeker’ will search for a ‘Father figure’ instead of a Master. A Master to help him/her on the journey from darkness to light.
But though things chance all around sannyas news stay the same. A playground for frustrated (ex)disciples who for some reason find it necessary daily or weekly to proclaim their ‘independence’ of Osho.
Some even write very large books about it trying to comfort themselves by comparing Osho to someone like Crowley…
Osho was open to all who came to him for sannyas. This was unlike the past when Masters felt free to refuse disciples with alacrity and choose only those they considered “ready”. Many ended up surrounding themselves with quite a small number of disciples with whom they worked intensely, as in the Sufi schools.
Osho’s decision made the game of neo sannyas quite different. If you lived amongst sannyasins through the seventies and eighties which you may have done Herren you must have worn blinkers if you did not see that many drawn to Osho lacked maturity and suffered what in other circumstances would be called mental health problems.
To offer to the whole world and to whoever got washed up in Pune or elsewhere “sannyas” was a new game, not an old one.
I am not questioning Osho’s decision, he must have had something in mind, however he was clearly doing something different from the past. In the past “many were called but few were chosen” in nearly all mystical traditions.
There were clearly many with Osho from the seventies and eighties who in conventional terms were not ready for such departures from their old lives, witness the number of sannyasins who ran back to their old lives (and names) as soon as they were put through the fire of the Ranch denouement.
And today’s Osho quote is:
The rebellion is against the dead past: all the traditions, all the religions, all the civilizations, all the cultures, all the nations, all political ideologies — the rebellion is against this junk.
i mentioned this several times in the past.. osho, i think, opened up sannyas to everyone because our dire circumstances called for drastic action, and he felt he needed to “spread the word” to as many as possible. “BY hook or by crook”… more like “Calling all hookers and crooks”… sounds like sannyas to me.
Parmartha . . probably I dont feel / think that I am getting the exact point you are making . . what I feel /think is whosoever is accepted as a disciple . . has a direct equation with the Master . . & even though mostly all disciples do see their Master as an exception . . sometimes Jadas is inevitable . .
if seekers are not confused / frustrated why would they be with a master . . seeking itself is proclaiming that one is not clear . . wondering if there was no frustration would there be any seeking . .
Kavita you are right. Confused, vulnerable, self reflective, without hubris – good places for a first time disciple to be. But the problem was with Osho saying Yes to everyone that there were those who came with psychopathologies, for example Shiva and Sheela to name just two. They certainly were not confused and self reflective.
They came not with their confusion and gentle love of the truth, but ambitiously and without any self knowledge. They then fostered this in Shiva’s case by being grandiose (special) and Sheela’s case by her complete absence of interest in any form of meditation. Arguable they were both first and foremost in need of clinical help, not the help of a spiritual teacher.
oh yeah,i love to get out my copy of
“the clinical and diagnostic manual of psychological disorders”
at sannyas events,and use my intuition..
thats a fun activity.
beats oshozen tarot readings anyday….
so,apart from good old fashioned
sex addiction,substance abuse and rock `n` roll,you`ll usually find …
adjustment disorder of mixed emotions and conduct…
intermittent explosive disorder…
delusional disorder…
undiagnosed holier-than-thou disorder
female arousal disorder…
penile dementia…
shared psychotic disorder…
narcissistic personality disorder…
religious delusional disorder
generalised ontological disorder (god)…
we`ve all been there,i guess….
what about those sannyasins given only one name- without a prefix. it was claimed that those without prefixes met osho in a previous incarnation… i noticed those characters were often pompous asses… being grandiose- Shiva definitely wasn’t alone in that category.
Parmartha . . well Iam a little confused at this statement of yours . . or maybe its that I somehow can’t relate to these persons simply because to me they are just names . . as for Osho what I gather is he could play any part & best part is that of a Master ( to me / many )
Kavita, (this from Parmartha)
Osho made a clear decision to give everyone who wanted it sannyas. He must have thought about it, I think that one of his very early disciples was on record as saying he took three days and nights before saying yes to Laxmi re creating an organisation with names, orange and the mala.
I dont question Osho’s decision, just pointing out it was very different for other Masters, for example, Rumi or Jesus who were both on record as turning a lot of people who wanted to become disciples away.
Osho was frying other fish. Throwing all us genuine seekers together with people like Sheela and Shiva mean’t that in this moment we have become arguably more mature than having spent our formative years in a closed commune of genuine seekers, instead of one much more resembling the ordinary world as it is generally found.
Does this help your confusion?
Bodhi, I find your comment myopic. Just because something is an age-old tradition does not mean that it is good. It also means that by saying that it somehow is means that you are not really looking at the points I am making, which have nothing to do with being a pseudo intellectualism or fan of Freud. I sincerely believe that we are entering a period in human history where the old traditions no longer work and are in effect part of the problem that prevents people taking responsibility for themselves as opposed to letting someone else do it for them. I have reached this perspective in part because of Osho’s influence upon my life.
I also find your take on Sannyas News cynical. Most of the steady contributors on this site do not appear to be frustrated to me, but rather quite humourous and questioning, in the sense that they are unwilling to accept the old party line that Osho was some kind of saint who could do no wrong. Osho was not a saint, warned people to stay away from saints and being a great experimentor made some whopping great mistakes during the course of his controversial life.
If the age-old traditions worked how come the world is in such a mess? No, Bodhi, if mankind is to survive on this planet following age-old traditions is not going to do the trick.
Sometimes I am deliberately provocative in my writing. On another thread I wrote a cock and bull story about selling my mala to someone in Barcelona. Then some fool writes about how my mala was a hotline to Osho and how I’d missed the master’s message. This kind of smug attitude is rife in Catholic sannyasin circles and in my opinion stinks to high heaven. I see the same element at play in your writing. Following age old tradition is obviously taking you nowhere…in other words you are stuck and unwilling to see the urgent need for a paradigm shift. Remember, change is proppeled by confronting the dead ends in life. Looks like you are ripe for a change in the way you perceive life and the outmoded spiritual practices that only serve to keep you in bondage to them.
Most traditions need to fade away real fast. For instance, Scotsmen wearing kilts, Sikhs wearing turbines, Jews wearing yamakas or frisbees as we use to call them back in Philadelphia. Circumcision is another, killing others from another tribe or religion(“Holy War”). yes, bodhi, it’s time to stand on your own two feet and decide things for yourself.
Who are you to say which traditions should “fade away”? It should be the choice of the individual whether to follow the traditions or not, no?
you are right herrenvolk,
the pseudo-intellectual freudian who wrote that idiotic book clearly is an immature seeker,unlike,say,you or i,who luxuriate in the mature lotus of no-mind obedience to our master,whilst these ex-sannyasins with their fantasies of “independence” are stuck in the mud of unconsciousness.
that is clear enough.
the utterly frustrated ex-sannyasin lokesh also thinks he knows better than his master.
like all the contributors here he is totally confused and seeks solace in playing practical jokes on honest disciples and making light of the masters holy mala.
i simply cannot understand how these pygmies cannot see that subscribing to a tradition that is thousands of years old is the only way to break from the past…!
but seriously,glad to see my old mate herrenvolk back again.
he`s a bit of a religious bigot. but what the hell,nobody`s perfect.
he has a good side,he once referred to me here on sn as “the intellectual,frank”.
i loved that.
i often think of him as i stroll down the left-bank of the seine with my overcoat collar pulled up,puffing thoughtfully on a gauloise and experiencing extreme existential angst and utter frustration at being an ex-sannyasin who has utterly missed.
i duck into the cafe des philosophes and order a large cafe cognac with my mate albert.
“have you considered suicide?”he asks
“its worth thinking about”i reply
Yes, Frank, you’ve nailed me. I feel like a bad Jesus. Do you think if I get my mala out of the trunk, polish up those mouldy wooden beads and say a hundred ‘Hail Oshos’, while clutching the plastic locket, I might overcome the error of my ways, instead of sharing a joint with my old mentor, Rab C, as we stagger drunkenly along the banks of the River Clyde?
you`re just making it worse for yourself swami….
you can laugh now,but you wont be laughing when herren and osho catch up with you in the bardo………
osho was all for laughter,but only in the correct meditative environment and under the auspices of a fully qualified therapist and mature seeker like bodhiherren,who knows how to consciously use only jokes from the osho times,and approved publications, and not the kind of “independent” ego-oriented mindstuff normally found on sannyas news…..
A man acts according to to the desires to which he clings. After death he goes to the next world bearing in his mind the subtle impressions of his deeds, and after reaping there the harvest of his deeds, he returns again to the world of action. Thus he who has desires returns again to the world of action.
Brihalaranyaka Upanishad.
Or, as Jerry Garcia put it.
‘The wheel is turning and you can’t slow down, can’t get off and you can’t stand still…if the thunder don’t get you then the lightening will.’
Your parents choose your name, even if they are good parents, they are parents. You throw the whole societal beckoning by throwing away that name. So Osho did stage one. However – not stage two, for he gave us another name which in and of itself was societal – the society of sannyas, replacing one disempowerment by another, though less malign.
Of course as Lokesh says we are all nameless, names are just conveniences of interaction.
However as some therapists say one has to become one’s own parent to begin full empowerment. In so doing you yourself choose not only who you are but by what name you are called. Even if a Master of Masters has given you one!
And clearly the names that Osho used in his life were the one’s he himself choose, and were not Rajneesh Chandra Mohan (or whatever his birth name was!)
Always see Osho’s intention to be about getting those who came to him to move. So if they became fixated on him, and angry at him, which a fair number are, it was still movement for example.
Don’t need him as I did, but that’s because of him, his words, devices and meditation. My own commitment, and spontaneous engagement.
The good gurus primary purpose is to make himself redundant!!
Yeah …but who chooses who you get born to? I don’t remember the request, and despite looking for an action plan in all of de Meistersingers Von Pune’s grand operatic works including the hit sannyas songs ”You know Wassaname’ and ‘Do you remember Me?’ and ‘Oh I don’t use that name anymore’ …I haven’t found an answer to that one so i guess getting a new name will have to do as a sort of a deliberate re-birth…with a new parent…. who in turn tells you really life is not that bad when you are really not here…a good piece of advice though slightly grandiose when compared to the average parents request not to stay out too late….
Anyway it was about the name and the length of hugs that defined one as a real sannyasin.. the real legacy of it all was hugging… and the true spirit of sannyas lives on here…
The video cannot be shown at the moment. Please try again later.
Great video Martin. Thanks for it, and do you know anything else about this guy, and which city he is in?
Great idea, and let’s hope it catches fire. Now was “Juan” a sannyasin??
martyn- according to Tibetan Buddhist beliefs, we chose our next life, our future parents, all of that rubbish… it’s in the Tibetan Book of The Dead- Lokesh swears by it- i think it’s garbage, just to keep people stupid and reliant on religious authorities. BUT- then again , it may be all true. maybe it’s like the Sri Lankan buddhists, along with the south east asian faction, where they believe it’s all at random, we could be born again as a flea, or cockaroach, spin the wheel of fortune– and good luck!!!
Sri Krishna’s Remembering:
‘Many lives, Arjuna, you and I have lived. I remember them all, but you do not.’
Bhagavad Gita.
i dunno … who da guy is.. but it should catch on …. like flashmobbing.. try it around xmas..it’ll be a riot.. and dont forget a video camera….
and if anyone figures out my syntax above in the previous post… please write in as there’s several ideas causing mayhem all at once in the same sentence…
i actually meant ….osho saying life’s great when ‘one’ is not here….and choosing a rebirth via him etc etc….. oh dear its getting worse.. maybe i’ll just go outside and wonder out aloud and find a re-assuring hug somewhere…
Osho hated hugs… so… what now? I love hugs- long, deep ones, as long as the person doesn’t have hair or body lice.. one ma i knew long ago, claimed to have gotten crabs from hugging a sannyasin… Some folks have bad B.O. and filthy clothes- so, Martyn- you gonna hug them too?
I was a bit confused when my name was given back to me, thinking perhaps that I had missed out on something. I wasn’t given any groups either, although I did do some in the end, again not wanting to miss out! Wearing the mala and orange did make us all stand out in ‘normal’ society as all the attention it created made us explain ourselves and what we were about. “Who do you think you are?” He he!!
Shop assistant: ‘ And which sannyas would you like sir and your charming friend, …madam ?’
Customer: ”Well we were looking for something externally confirming but with just a hint of internal ,well, spiritual … ‘je ne sais quoi’ as my charming french friend would say..”
‘Yes sir, well we do have the latest do-it-yourself legacy self naming sannyas name …or perhaps sir would like a more traditional approach , some happy clapping perhaps..
”I’m sorry my friend is French she really thinks happy clapping is not ‘ ow you zay .. cultured enough… although ….”
‘And of course a lot of older sannyasins do rather prefer a completely inner approach, a certain hidden splendour here ,a whiff of path-finding there something where the head tilts back and a knowing laugh issues forth from a liberated part of the no-self..’
”A what ?”
‘A name, sir, I was relating some essential qualities one might obtain from a name sir…’
”Do you have anything to go with it ..?”
‘Oh yes sir .. some beads perhaps.. and a new found cure for the world’s ills…’
‘ ”Dahhhlingg ze beads are loverlly .. who cares about ze name…” ‘
‘Yes, quite madam, they are very ….love-r-ly…..religious… 108….’
”….Pieces of finely crafted turned wood…produced by hand in the loving buddhafield of the master, by therapeutically trained craftier-persons no doubt.?..Well they do seem rather appealing and we have been searching for an awfully long time , haven’t we daahling?”
‘Will you take them Wrapped sir? or as we in the trade like to say…swaddled in awe?’
‘Why of course , yes and how much are they?”
‘Oh you will have to see our manager for that sir….you can deal with him… you see he’s a licensed sole trader of sannyas, a Mr Natas De-Ville…’ he deals with the sole-selling ..and if you need to bring the sannyas back anytime…..he’ll have something exquisite from the ever turning world of experience waiting for you… won’t you Mr De-Ville… ?’
‘ ”Dahhling is it getting hot in here or is it my inner glow ?” ‘
Brilliant!
You ought to be on the telly X
Very interesting thread. The sense I’m getting, after posting occasionally at this board for the past few months, is that sannyasnews is something of a herald of a Gnostic-type sannyas — that is, an attempt to make sense of what we were doing with a chunk of our lives, what Osho really is/was, and what ‘taking sannyas’ actually meant. In other words, an intelligent inquiry into the inner meaning of disciplehood.
To Osho’s credit he made it very hard for the Church of Osho-anity to be formed in his wake, though to some extent this has already happened. One interesting point of comparison is with the life of Jesus shortly after his death. For the first 50 years or so, there was no real organized body of faith, only scattered ‘Jesus-communities’ rather like the scattered website communities of our day. These Jesus-communities often disagreed with each other and from them arose certain Gnostic groups that insisted that the form of Jesus was secondary and that the Resurrection was an unnecessary article of faith. Gnosis was the spark of spirit to be found within, independent of conformity to outer ‘laws’. (Not that all Gnostics were sparkling examples of wisdom — many in fact developed some strange anti-materialist views, such as fearing and loathing physical matter, but the idea of seeing beyond the edicts of the priesthood was valid).
I recently heard a remark by Andrew Harvey about the Occupy Wall Street movements. He was saying that the problem with the protests is that they are too stupidly organized, that some measure of organization had to be put into effect, otherwise the whole thing (as with all failed revolutions) will be doomed. I think Osho was facing the same problem. As Parmartha and Lokesh mentioned he was casting with a very great net, not just looking for a few fishermen on some misnamed lake. So he had to play Faust and sign on the dotted line for the devil in order for some organization to be there, otherwise it would have been sheer chaos.
But now Osho’s body is gone, and the disciple is left with three basic choices:
1. Remain loyal to the outer structure, conform to all guidance provided by the ‘inner council’ of the ‘elect’, and be supportive of them (Osho’s version of the College of Cardinals).
2. Become ‘Gnostic’, i.e., inquire into the deeper meaning of sannyas, take responsibility for one’s own awakening process, and become truly independent — not in a reactionary way (as in ‘fuck you, Dad, for dying on me’) — but in a way that reflects how Osho himself came to his realizations, i.e., by questioning everything, and by discovering one’s own center.
3. Become resentful and give up. This latter is maybe where Freud’s ideas of transference are as useful to understand as anything else.
As for the name, the old Egyptians had a belief that one’s name (they called it the ‘ren’) was a powerful code that represented the soul, especially in the afterlife where navigation (they held) was done via name. The name of Jesus was used to cast out devils (according to the New Testament) and the old grimoires constantly cited the power of names to control energy. There is doubtless a lost science to all this which in current times has deteriorated to fussing over one’s Facebook handle, but the main point was that the name was supposed to serve as a wake-up call and memory device. Back then they spoke of ‘warding off evil’ because there was little science around to explain the mysteries of cause and effect, but the idea remained, which was to find the high road and stay on it. The name is a reminder.
Great post. (from Teertha) ‘A herald of a Gnostic-type sannyas’….yes, finally a piece of good feedback for SN. ‘The name is a reminder’…yes, but of what exactly? I think the reminder will be different for everyone.
SN is also a reminder. The other day I was reninded that when I get serious about something my ego is involved. One of my pranks backfired on me. I felt really pissed off about Bhikku’s comment concerning my daft story about selling my old oval-shaped mala. I find it difficult to stomach smug catholic sannyasins, as I result I reacted instead of taking a deep breath and reponding. Just goes to show, an old dog can still learn a new trick or two. Woof! Woof!
Interesting that during the mala and red clothes days all the negativity, the sneers and condemnation, came from outside our ranks, and more and more, since the regalia has gone, the negativity, sneering and jeering comes from within our ranks, and nobody from outside even knows we exist. Hmmmm??
get gnostic or die tryin…
by fifty paise
some say we the psychotics who lost it
but we the caustic gnostics …..
you say we sardonic an sarcastic
but we dialogic and cathartic…
we dont wear no polished locket
dont need no oligarchic thing goin hegemonic…
we givin our karmic its own prognostic…
we easin off on the despotic and the apostolic…
keepin it autonomic and agnostic…
prefer the psychotropic to the bombay gin an tonic…
we want to frolic comic not go masonic..
we see the main man demonic and anarchic
we dont need to clean him with the carbolic
we dont stay myopic an xenophobic
we expand the optic and the comic
cos we the caustic gnostics
and we gonna put a smile on ya face
with our oshodontics……
so it seems pretty clear that sannyasnews needs a name change,too.
its gotta be
“the gnostic herald”
or
The Julie Andrews Coffee Table Companion Courier
The Re-Psyche-All Bugle
The Journal For Research into Objectively True Opinionated Humbug (Quarterly).
The SannyaSexpress with free magazine;
The Wholly Healing Hornblower.
The Per-Oxiders Pergamon – or The Gassing Geezers Gazette
News of the Mirror
Mirror of the News
The Dharmen and Parmartha Echo
The Laptop Leveller
Al-Rubbisha
‘Inwards’..Photo Journal of the United Front of Tantric Mass Debaters
The Shafted Daily Post.
The Curmudgeons Testy Chronicles
The Mystery School Monitor
RFI Charity Daily News (combined with the Swiss Laundry Informer )
The Weekend Retreaters Almaniac
Yes, yes, but we must get organized. I suggest the working title for the new Gnostic Sannyas Church as Ecclesia Dia-Gnostica Dionysia Sannyasa
Sannyasnews can be the mouthpiece.
Now a council must be elected. I suggest:
President: Bodhi Heeren
Vice President: Jaycedollar
Minister of Eternal Affairs: Martyn
Speaker of the House: Lokesh
Ambassador to Pune: Frank
Chief of Security: Arpana
Encyclopedia salesman: myself
Fundraising: Dharmen and Parmartha
I’ll second that, does that mean I get to do all the talking? I’m really good at that!
I like the idea that we all have a different ‘master’ in osho ..or not at all or a part time one or whatever is useful to think of him as, re kavita’s comment on the accompanying blog.
So how could you possibly organise a mutual route of expanding self-enquiry around the same ‘ Osho ‘presumptions in each of us….its a minefield..even if you presuppose every hugging giggling energy sharing was a unified field experience….there’s still shrapnel from unexploded spiritual devices and neurotic humans waiting to ‘go off.’…
So I guess what ‘he’ started off with, was that old favourite ; ‘its them not us’…then he made it trickier by saying…’watch out they are inside you.. get rid of them’ then he progressed onto ‘it was her not me, honest’.. to ‘i told you, you were all sheep, its not my fault’ ..to .. ‘this is really important stuff so i’ll say it one last time…’…to ‘well if you don’t get it, at least it was a fun ride wasn’t it ..oh and one last thing…goodbye’…
And now we have the really reverential crew…everywhere….selling lush-gush by the barrel load.. which just provides lather at little cost..
The ‘do what you want shall be the whole of the law…what choice is there anyway’…comes way down the list of mutually beneficial insights…and the gushy ones continue with the veneration of meditation, the veneration of gobbledgook insight watching metaphors,the veneration of heart opening events and their method affected personal relationships , even down to the content of your underpants…all at that IMF exchange rate; you want freedom and love.. you have to pay for it .. cash…as if there is a way of sanctifying or prognosing human behaviour first by way of religious conferring of names , meditations etc etc…
What strikes me is how ‘good ‘some sannyasin therapists have been at selling that to others of the same intent, their suppos-ed fellows and fellowesses.. making money out of feeling good en-masse.. when you know that individually they are as incapable of conferring upon you, as a lasting image of themselves, anything more than what they are…ordinary people , doing what it takes to live.. with a limited , limited ego…just like everyone else…..except they are in the business of ‘healing’ or ‘transforming’ or whatever makes them a buck…its a closed shop…… but one which has betrayed the collectively inspired ‘share your experiences’ to one of ”sell them to people who are told that they need what you’ve got”……its a one way ticket not based on collective mutual living but of serving mammon. The ‘give me your money for my security, even though none of this money that I make is shared in a collective pool’. Zero zilch nada rien, nothing.
Sure mutual living correspondences went out of fashion after Pune 1….and some of us(me) found the lack of ‘real life ‘in the outside world as bad as ever…and certainly not worth investing heart and soul in, in terms of career or experiences or people or relationships…….
and therapists thrive off that disappointment….
Osho ‘Therapists’ have been fly by night performers, quacks,trailer trash selling junk food full of additives ; words, notions, ideas, experiences that the ordinary pleb in the street licked up by the bucket load. Leaving them high but unsatisfied(yes folks count me in)…and worse… disempowered by one’s own definitions and potentially weakened and ambitious for the credentials conferred by others…. i saw it happening over and over in the small centres i visited over the last ten years….
The percentage of self improvement potions still creating a chance of making enduring friends collectively with some common understanding and purpose is creamed off by the ‘upper’ class of therapists and their wannabe’s who swan around taking advantage of everyone else who has to scrim and scrape in daily routines which are not choc full of osho visions and then hand over the loot to sponsor yet another day of reckoning… based on the fear that you haven’t become your loving self ….yet..as if love was to be pre-packaged and sponsored in this showroom californian manner…
Do i have a remedy…. yes… i wait patiently for my insights to become a national best seller in the Nobel Prize for Literature….
The Nobel Prize for Literature….take your place in the long queue please.
what r we gonna do with the ladies,er,i mean, goddesses..?
i guess someone will have to do the cooking and washing up etc?
just give them a good title.
kavita and chetna, 33rd degree initiates,washerwomen and good-time girls.
there,that should flatter them sufficiently.
you were right to choose me as ambassador,we really need someone who understands and knows how to deal with people….
Teertha said.
I recently heard a remark by Andrew Harvey about the Occupy Wall Street movements. He was saying that the problem with the protests is that they are too stupidly organized, that some measure of organization had to be put into effect, otherwise the whole thing (as with all failed revolutions) will be doomed. I think Osho was facing the same problem. As Parmartha and Lokesh mentioned he was casting with a very great net, not just looking for a few fishermen on some misnamed lake. So he had to play Faust and sign on the dotted line for the devil in order for some organization to be there, otherwise it would have been sheer chaos.
Lot in this.
THE Tyranny of Structurelessness.
by Jo Freeman .
http://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm
many of those protesters are anarchists and mentally ill homeless. Here in the states it’s been pretty much the same characters who have been protesting/rioting for the past decade and longer. when i lived in Portland and Eugene many years back , i hung out at the drum circles, playing my djembe and congas usually at the Saturday/sunday markets. Anywhere from about 40 to more than a hundred people would gather round, some playing drums some dancing, most stoned out, and many drug dealers. The cops wouldn’t bother us, usually, because when they did, bottles, cans, garbage, rocks- you name, it was thrown, but there were many instigators and usually there were black clad, filthy, smelly anarchists some of whom tried to pass themselves as Rastas. during the 1990′s and early 2000′s there were big problems with them… arson, vandalism, beatings, robberies occasional murders. Then the powers that be(business owners- big and small) pushed the local govt’s to come down hard on those characters- lots of arrests, long jail times. pretty much chased them underground- UNTIL….. In Portland, this past month, as compared to the same period the last few years, crime has doubled, just found out yesterday; assaults doubled, robberies, same; same with thefts, rape, murder. It turns out those camping out in the downtown park(protesters) most are mentally ill homeless, and anarchists with a few genuine, intelligent people trying to hold things together.. from what i know watching the local, national, international news it’s pretty much the same everywhere; AS opposed to the ranch and pune 1, Arpana you’re way off base, yes, these protesting clowns are disorganized, now how can you organize schizophrenics? The sannyasins of old- generally where well educated professionals, most with college degrees or higher(according to a University of Oregon research study done , i think in 1984). But most of these well educated professionals were extremely sexually repressed, so i think, that’s where the dilemma was, it’s real tough to organize some swami’s raging testosterone, might as well as try to turn a raging bull into a gelded donkey; or a ma’s estrogen roller coaster level- why didn’t they require the use of Chastity belts? Hey, they ended up separating those with HIV from the rest of us, and required all swamis to use condoms. it could have been done.. but for Arpana to compare the Wall Street protesters to the sannyasins of old- not even close
The mala, red clothes and the names….. they were like the cross to Jesus of Nazareth. Just fantastic publicity. Osho claimed to have reached most of the known world by 1980, he would never have done that without all of us guys between 1973 and 1980 showing up in orange in every western capital city on the planet, starting meditation centres, and bringing consternation all round, from for example regular sitting meditation Buddhists at the one extreme , to the priests of public morality on the other. Hence the orange clothes and our new names, etc had a function over and above each one of us, with our own private trips about whether we liked our names or the robes or not, it meant that the planet tasted the salt of the sea of sannyas in every place.
Given that, many would say that Osho made the right choice on starting neo sannyas back in 1970. Had he remained “a secular sage” the chances are that many of us would never have met him or even have heard of him.
During the Mala and red clothes years we constructed a metaphorical building, within which sannyas would function eventually, while Bhagwan worked on us and through us. During the years between the end of the Mala and red clothes time and Bhagwan taking the name Osho we fitted the building out, while he continued working on us and through us, and when he settled on the name Osho, the building was ready for use, for us to function within, while he continued to work on us and through us,
Making use of the building, functioning in and from the building has to have a different quality to functioning within a building under construction.
sounds more like one of those tourist hotel scams where the hotel ends up half built with a few squatters in it and the scammers make off with the moolah…..
or…..
the rich
will make temples for osho
what shall i
a poor man
do?
my legs are pillars
the body a samadhi
the head a pyramid
of gold
listen,
things standing shall fall
but the moving ever shall stay.
Gosh that s so deep!
whosever knows he`s deep strives for clarity.he who would like to appear deep to the crowd strives for obscurity.
-freddie N
‘kin hell, is there no lower depth to your deepness?
For the crowd considers anything deep if only it cannot see to the bottom: the crowd is so timid and afraid of going into the water.”
- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
like some kind of crazy troupe of performance artists,osho and sannyasins also sabotaged reality with the whole religionless religion act…..
a bunch of spoilt westerners from the richest moment in history having it large whilst wearing the attire of the holy renunciate….
what a wind up!
sure, he used the only way available to him to reach as many people as poss,by playing the holy man…
how else was he going to do it?
nows the moment to get secular…
do you need a robe,beads etc for that?
we are all secular sages now.
otherwise we`ve been wasting our time!
‘He used the only way available to him to reach as many people as poss’
I don’t think that is true and I also don’t think it happened that way. Laxmi was the one who came up with the idea and it simply took off, for one reason or another. There are other gurus who have been even more popular than Osho and their people don’t and didn’t run around in orange clothes.
A friend recently attended a gathering of over 5000 people in Barcelona, centered around Guru Maharaji. He reported the energy to be amazing etc. If you did the same thing for a deceased Osho perhaps 50 would show up.
As someone said earlier, Osho’s success had much to do with the zeitgeist.
thats right.
look at maharishi mahesh yogi.
his membership and property portfolio are absolutely massive.
and his followers were pretty much completely invisible ,wearing suits and ties since the seventies.
bouncing up and down on your ass in a padded cell and pretending you`re “yogic flying” is more of a crowd puller than dressing up as a fancy dress holy man and livin it large and doing what thou wilt (with awareness)…
it`s a funny old world.
It`s a funny old world. There is no denying that.
Frank ,you leave the marmitejarji’s of this world out of this insightful blog…otherwise you won’t become as aware as your birthright demands…its all karma frank…you have obviously learnt nothing and simply have a calorie surplus ego which can hardly get off the sofa let alone fly.. i know frank i’ve been where you are…in ‘non empathic i’m alright jack land.’……..sanyaholics synonomous helped me frank….
focus on the breath and the unbearable lightness of being…not poking fun at astronuts….they’re not worth it frank leave it out .. put your drink down and lets go frank…..its a waste of negative energy..and speaking of shantam..where is the blogger of last resort…
er thats it for now…. sometimes i wish i knew what i was blogging for….frank Leave It…( he’s like a dog to a bone, jeesshhh.. )