Osho’s place in a New Spiritual Tradition?

Prem Paritosh compares Poonja and Veeresh, and finds them lacking for the leadership of a New Spiritual Tradition


The wealth of satori amongst those around him  was both Poonja’s strength and his weakness. Osho, by comparison, always tended to downplay the importance of satori in a person’s development: for all his larger-than-life quality he was against hothouse atmospheres. Osho was aiming for Zorba the Buddha, for the complete and integrated human being – not just for catapulting people into states which, however superb, were bound sooner or later to fade back into the light of common day.

Veeresh and Poonja…In a way you could say they represented the two poles of sannyas in the years immediately after Osho’s death. And not only represented what was best about it, they also expressed its crucial weakness: its tendency to fragment, to split into mutually suspicious subgroups.
On the one hand, Veeresh saying get into your body and your feelings; on the other, Poonja saying, get out of them…Veeresh is like the first half of an Osho meditation, without the second; Poonja is like the second half of an Osho meditation, without the first. Veeresh is Zorba – and Poonja
the Buddha. Both are right – and yet neither can accept the equal rightness of the other. Neither has Osho’s grasp of evolution, of dialectics;- and both are the poorer for it. Veeresh sounds to me like he’s on shaky ground when he talks about meditation; and if you watch Poonja videos closely you can see that he’s far from comfortable with women. Backed into a corner, both are off balance. Veeresh with his Ecstasy, and Poonja with his cricket – frankly, which is worse?…Well, speaking as a sannyasin, the cricket I guess.

Taken from the book, Life of Osho by Sam (Prem Pariosh)

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41 Responses to Osho’s place in a New Spiritual Tradition?

  1. frank says:

    not many people are aware of it,but papaji and veeresh did meet one time for a discussion intended to unite the east and west,zorba and buddha.
    i have the transcripts of this meeting that i am now releasing for the first time….

    V wow,man,its great to meet you,you`re the head of the bodhisattva gang,yeah?
    P that is right i am a satguru.
    A thats amazing,how do you sit still for so long? i have to get up,pop an E,roll a doobie and have a date….
    P there is nowhere to go,and nothing to do..
    V right,hey,whats that red ash on your forehead,its cool,whats in that?
    P that is vibhuti,holy ash
    V booty?,wow,i like that stuff,whats the talent like in lucknow?
    P very good indeed.we have a left-arm over inswinger leg-spinner who can really deliver the goods
    V wow,amazing.i just love that crazy kama sutra stuff.
    P and some good all rounders who know how to play the field and blast their balls to the boundary on a regular basis.
    V wow,thats amazing,we do that kind of stuff down in the basement at the humaniversity,too..
    P we have quite a few players who have scored a century here,too.
    V wow,likewise,sounds like we have a whole lot in common.man.
    hey,those tantric bhangra babes are just soooo hot,wow,lets do a group,i`m gonna call it: “power,sex,lucknow fucknow,coming together, gagagoogoo boogaloo”.
    here,satguru,have an E
    P er,no thanks,there is nobody here to get high or anywhere,and intoxicants are not neccesary..
    V oh yeah,right,you gotta keep the junkies off the dope,i run a rehab,you know…hey whos this cutie?….namaste sweety,you`re a rollsroyce pretending to be a morris ambassador….whatyou doin later tonight?yahoo..
    P that is my wife
    V oh right,sorry bro,hey man,lets have a hug,i`ll show you how to hug properly..
    P now is time for the evening puja.
    V oh yeah,right,i`ll have mine straight on the rocks…..
    wow,this is beautiful,i really get the feeling this eastwest osho thing is really gonna work…….

  2. alokjohn says:

    Osho said he would have no successor so the question is moot.

    • Arpana says:

      Did he not also say all of his people were his successors, which might lead to a discussion of who his people are.

      • roman says:

        I appreciate this comment.
        Among all those who meditate, does anyone meditate?
        Among all sannyasins, is there a sannyasin?
        Thanks

        • Arpana says:

          Trying to decide when is a sannyasin a sannyasin is a bit like trying to be clear about the meaning of meaning.

          I meditate regularly by the way.

          or I explore some techniques that go by the name of meditation, something like that, because if you repeat the word meditation often enough, one begins to wonder what meditation means.

          • roman says:

            Apana,
            A discussion about ‘who Osho’s people are’ may not be a futile exercise. You’ve noted how meditation is not insignificant. Interesting how Sheela pointed out she wasn’t interested in meditation and she wrote something about running a commune for profit. There are lay Theravadan Buddhists who teach meditation and live on donations alone. Fred Titmus has been doing this for over 30 years. I have met sannyasins who work this way. There is obviously an exoteric and esoteric side to religion and spirituality. I’m reminded of how someone got very upset because they were told they were not a sannyasin even though they wore orange and a mala. Osho pointed out how they had missed again. I guess we can all get stuck in literalism. Cheers

            • Arpana says:

              I know people who haven’t heard of Osho, meditation or anything like that, who seem to have as much going for them as some I’ve met with sannyas names. People who aren’t sannyassins, who seem more seekers than some with sannyas names, so I never say someone is or isn’t.

              Sure Osho works to move people from where ever they are at any given time.
              Movement from layer 1000,000 to layer 999,999 for example. The most apparently stuck individual, to our eyes, may have moved further than the individual who fits our ideas of a sannyasin.

              I like uncertain in that way. Keeps us alert. Part of the deal, and hopefully will help stave of full blown institutionalization for 1000s of years, or for ever.

  3. Teertha says:

    Interesting excerpt there from Paritosh. The problem (at least as Poonja is concerned) seems to boil down to what exactly ‘satori’ is, and whether or not Poonja was really promoting that.

    The best treatment of satori can probably be found in Roshi Kapleau’s ‘The Three Pillars of Zen’, in which he discusses in depth the experiences of a number of hard-core meditators in cold, austere Zen monasteries in Japan in the 1950s. These experiences are quite similar to psychedelic epiphanies. Poonja’s whole teaching was supposed to be about ‘the end of experiences’, and so technically at least, he was not interested in mere satoris. He was interested in a stabilizing of some degree of realization beyond experience. Or so he claimed, at least. Maybe cricket for him was ‘beyond satori’.

    It would have been interesting to get Osho, Poonja, U.G. Krishnamurti, J. Krishnamurti, Chogyam Trungpa, and Da Free John-Adi Da Samraj-Bubba whatshisname all in a room together. Well, at least two of those guys did actually get together once:


    The video cannot be shown at the moment. Please try again later.

    • frank says:

      what about if those guys had got together for a game of cricket?

      those guys would have thrown a few bouncers at each other,not to mention plenty of match-fixing,sledging and an obsessive following in india..
      for sure.
      the participants would have needed to remember to put their boxes and helmets on for that one…
      and who knows what really happened behind the sight-screens?

    • Arpana says:

      My experiences of satori are that everything felt so right, even the cars driving past on a major road felt right and in their place. On one occasion I was seeing the seagull above me, and was the seagull and seeing all the seagull saw, surrounded by profound silence intermingled with sound that was right.

    • roman says:

      Teertha,
      Thanks for the link.
      Having thrown these guys together a person could find themselves wondering how being a mystic can be compatible with the standards of being a mystic or how being a disciple can be compatible with the standards of being a disciple? As opposed to dogmatism not-knowing?

  4. Preetam says:

    Upanishad admire the golden persons without having names, deepest respect for realizing truth for keeping the wheel stable. Mostly idiologies and dogmas are yarn around names and nothing is more confusing as the half-truth.

  5. shantam says:

    Spiritual tradition or no tradition, here is a 21st century Panchtantra/Sufi or Zen story. Please enjoy the story and find the conclusion yourself…
    Just few years ago there was a rebellious Master who has the vision to change the wheel of religiosity. Most of the world looked at Him with contempt, a man who is trying to shake their foundation. Yet there were thousands others from around the world who became His disciples, chaged their names and way of living and thinking.

    Master was rejoicing in the presence of His people. He was sharing with them the vision closer to His heart.

    Like everybody, Masters have to die also though it is said time and again, masters don´t die they leave the body and submerge with Existence and His people. The way parents live through their children and generation to come, Master, I.e Sadguru lives through His Disciples.

    Here we must not misunderstand the World Master as a Head master or a normal teacher in a school.Masters in the spiritual world are not appointed by the state or the management of the school. Such people don´t give lectures to pupils as part of their livelihood. Spiritual master is born as a call from the divine..

    SO this master also died one day. Question arose, what is the line of action we must follow. Precedent is to follow the same like of actions, the path of the master as he was creating and modifying.

    But in this case, there were many other opinions too.

    One day, the chief disciple said, ” I know what master´s wishes are. I am going to do it accordingly. If you don´t like, feel free to get out from the premises.

    Few people left, most of them stayed..and the story says, They lived happily afterwards.

    After all, who can know the master better than the chief disciple!

    .

  6. martyn says:

    I have English Satoris…

    Obviously I play it safe, with no excessive displays of realization, I become one with the experience/ing …. but not too much, that would be very rude and unthoughtful…, being in the pure awareness but only if its on time and doesn’t keep me waiting around queuing for too long,..and realising all in the one .. but not without my socks and underpants on…as a satori can make one feel chilly afterwards…in fact it would be best to practice the aloneness first by say mowing the lawn.. and waving ‘Ta Ta’ to everyone in a nice sort of consoling way, without looking silly..unless of course you happen to be an eccentric sartorier and find you don’t fit the average…in which case you’ll be accepted by the locals in the local hostelry with a laugh and a ‘oh don’t worry about me.. I’m maaadd !’

    and effacingly mouth ‘sorry i’m having a satori’..if you disturb anyone else during….as you would in the Doctor’s surgery when describing your predicament of painful piles to the receptionist..

    oh and refer to satori like sex with a member of the opposite gender……with a nervous smile and innuendo…

  7. Karima says:

    Martin, i don’t know wheter you talk from expierence or just try to be funny,but in my expierence when there has been a “taste”of being awake, it felt akward to live in the world,feeling different, and at the same time pretending to fit the mould out of fear for isolation. It’s funny(,or not so),that when there is an expierence of Truth,the ego tries all the harder to win territory again! Perhaps you mean the same with your story?

  8. martyn says:

    Karima…

    My experiences of satoris or energy darshan or moments of oneness or even further back taking acid and mushrooms…..are distinct because of the amounts of wondrous cunning stunts that we seek to enjoy as sentient beings…a genetic tradition which seeks a return to the womb by any means possible….

    lets take human skill : anything from a dentist relieving pain , to a pianist playing the piano , to giving birth or flying a plane…. there’s lots we know to be marvellous .. and sometimes we just are in the marvellosity…quite a bit a lot….

    but if/when life gives you lemons … ..if life gives you a highly bothersome personality of endless familiar emotive thoughts with little reward, physical deterioration and bewilderment…then there’s no need to harp on about not being in wonder… just make yourself comfortable and …make lemonade…when its time to be separate….turn it into a song and dance show… stop treating life as a transplant organ needing a certain religious acquiescent awe …..its all and I mean ALL the same game..or as the English would say… its awful…
    … we don’t go shopping singing loud devotional songs….but it would feel better if we did, instead of saving up our religiosity for moments of insightful non egoic intensity…. when those are less common than our taken for granted yet very missable lives….. so ..even if we are pure presence… it wont make you tea and biscuits when the undertakers come….life… don’t turn it into a big deal by looking for it with a telescope…

    • martyn says:

      only germans americans and swedes …try to be funny…
      try being one just for five seconds…..

      see how impossibly funny that is…its very similar to satori….
      unless you are one of course

      … in which case its hysterical….

    • Preetam says:

      For me, there are curios beings which look into their deity. They don’t live accordingly what outside world preperes. Maybe they find this “Self”. Maybe its possible to experience this “Self” permanently. Maybe from this place rises “Truth” we looking instead of being driven by outside interests. To me if awareness and love is centered within “our Self”, Oshos Vision is possible, same Vision of all the golden Beings.

      If I look into the outside world, soon will find lots of interest which don’t like bodily healthy humans, humans without pressure on there being.

      Because if Humans find themselves as divine, independent with pleasure and dignity as part of our being experiences. These interest which claim to be gods of the world, these people consistently ruling and constrain Humanity with there evil scheming. We don’t need to safe the poor, we need to safe all the world of this empire of dirty motivated Rulers.

      It is wrong a oblation, wrong addressed.

  9. rajni says:

    It’s 10.30pm where I am, in Oz – and it’s the 19th January. Twenty two years ago on this same evening, some five hours earlier, I was sitting in the ashram gardens surrounded by mosquitos. I had not wanted to join the White Robe Celebrations that night. I had had a disturbing dream in the early hours of this day, from which I awoke in a sweat. I had dreamt that someone that killed Osho. That ‘they’ had killed him. The dream details are long gone. A river at night. A full moon. I watched the line of people being sniffed and entering the hall. I was very wired. Was it a full moon? I can’t remember. Something in the air. Besides mosquitos. All of a sudden there was an announcement that everyone should come into Buddha Hall. Amrito was going to … well, we all know what he said that evening. No doubt many of you were there. Hours passed – or was it eons. Down at the ghats – singing. The burning. The timelessless. The sense that this had happened before – that we were all here – before. The year 1990 meant nothing. It felt like 1290. Or 390. A time out of joint – yet strangely – ‘here now’. Dawn broke over the river. The dawn of time. Red. Orange. Music, drumming, crying, laughing, singing. An ending – and yet a beginning. The gap. And my tears flowed. My god, the tears. Endless. I wasn’t celebrating and laughing and hugging. I was awash. I could have drowned the world. A few days later – emptied of tears – I danced for hours. Let the music never stop.

  10. roman says:

    The Time Needed

    Years are needed before the sun
    working on a Yemeni rock
    can make a bloodstone ruby.

    Months must pass before cotton seed
    can provide a seamless shroud.

    Days go by before a handful of wool
    becomes a halter rope.

    Decades it takes a child
    to change into a poet.

    And civilizations fall and are ploughed under
    to grow a garden on the ruins,
    a true mystic.

    -Hakin Sanai

    I’m quoting from ColemanBarks,( ‘Scrapwood Man’ ), who believes Osho was murdered (as do I) by the Reagan Regime.

  11. shantam says:

    As the myth says, When Jesus was born three wise men came to greet such divine soul, similar stories are crafted by the screenplay writers of different Masters. I don´t think with Osho, there was a need of such story. Though born in a medieval circumstances of Middle India of 1930´s, it was still the time of intellectual awakening all around the world..

    Most important fact about Osho´s life is tha…t He left His body while thousands of His seekers around the globe were in His presence….This is THE MIRACLE. first time in the history of man kind, heart beats of young and educated seekers from around 120 countries were saying silently and with laughter and tears, ” WE DON`T SAY GOOD BYE:: YOU ARE HERE IN US.

    I was 26 at that time and now closer to 50, i can say with my hand on fire, His legacy, His work has been turned mediocre by His own trustworthy disciples..

    Let us Bring the same festivity back in HIS ashram, which we have shared with Osho in His body form…

    Let us make that rare bird free..who is surviving. looks healthy, but see little deeper, you will find the cut of the blade around His wings..

    LOVE YOU OSHO:::AND YOUR WORK AND YOUR PEOPLE.

  12. martyn says:

    funny we deservingly remember his ‘death’ …..whilst we joke that our separate ego ‘i’ stuff is just illusion ..we cannot die ..
    i mean do any of us know what we are doing or saying really? and why we reverse sentimental value when it comes to hallowed experiences of the no ‘i’ which we then attach to a time and body, whilst fundamentally dismissing having an ego and enjoying it..because we don’t exist ??????

    • roman says:

      ‘Do any of us know what we are doing or saying really?’

      Martyn, it is a good reminder because we are born into a language and we don’t control it. Unfortunately some of us are controlled by language. Reminds me of Laurie Anderson’s ‘Language is a virus’.
      Someone I love.
      As for doing well what to say? Some on this planet seem to be able to ironise life but not in a superficial or intellectual sense. It allows them to live in a state of not-knowing without being cynical, nihilistic or suspicious and paranoid. An irony which allows one to be a wise/fool? A Great Fool? The wisdom of a Socrates? Osho? The ability to see through literalism? A poetic style and grace? I don’t know!

      • martyn says:

        ..Roman….that they are compelled to is their neurological destiny, like people who have nervous breakdowns but the other direction…. how you respond to it, for your own uses, is between you and yourself… in the game of self realization nobody is the slightest bit invested in whether you get it or not… except …only…. you…
        ..
        as such ‘disinterest’ has the same net value to you as my euologistic veneration of another…and the obfuscated paradigms of accessing generative states are more exclusive than say collaboration without any demand other than being willing,frank, gracious and transparent…

        i find irony in short supply when certainty is demanded for salvation… creating a de facto acquiescence to achieve symbiosis with the implicit state.
        What is generative or degenerative is for me and you to select from all the stimuli available, but not on behalf of anyone but yourself…

        on a personal note….
        To be frank, the time of ‘ego’ versus sublimation to radiant permeable consciousness is over for me..after much weirdnesses in the communities of searchers et al….. and a lively citizen intelligence and dialogue has taken its plebean place with greater verve and self respect….and frankly women and their beauty are far more regularly fascinating to me any way than euphoric internality…

        • satyadeva says:

          Martyn, would you mind clarifying what you mean in your middle two paragraphs, please?

          The rest I get ok.

          • martyn says:

            satyadeva.. the fact that i tell you this guy or gal is enlightenedly marvellous..or that i’m not interested in the slightest, will not necessarily be useful to you either way…

            how many roomfuls of seekers have you been in, that talk gibberish, with such earnestness… which in itself leaves me rolling on the floor at home laughing mirthfully..
            and the greed of seekers to get every crumb of significant transformation, whilst their personal libido is as hidden as the piece of stale cheese that’s been in the back of the fridge for months….
            the hallowed ‘slippers only ‘ of hushed veneration drive me round the twist..and yes i’ve seen /listened to mooji, krishnamurti, osho, barry long and some unmentionable real weirdos all do their prosletysing to well behaved rebels.
            It Doesn’t work. (for me)……and I’m over wrestling with it ..big time…

            • martyn says:

              and satya-d ….
              I can’t tell you whether me taking the P**s is good for you , but its great for me……and either way alls well….

              I don’t keep a check of its spiritual value…only of how much it makes me laugh…

            • satyadeva says:

              Thanks, Martyn, that’s pretty clear.

              But can you really say that apart from realising all that isn’t for you and that you see through all the rubbish etc., that you haven’t benefited one iota from being with a spiritual teacher or (heaven forbid) even with your fellow ‘seekers’?

              Have you ever tried being with someone who doesn’t talk at all? Eg Amma (although she does occasionally make a speech on her annual visits to London) or Mother Meera? You never know, you might find it refreshing at some level or other….

              • martyn says:

                sd mutual fun is sacred to me, as it has been to my close friends..like laughing during sex…

                further; my jesting and my own confirmation by laughing at home with my laptop and friend(s) shows enough for me that I understand the off side rule but i’m not identified with the football result…and dont want the team jersey…..
                so these days all you get is me here… not in community…

                SD I absolutely refused a hug from friends wanting me to get one at an Amma gig many years ago.. the room was full of asexual hindus and her rugged fussy male protectors on stage who were lording it festival style to everyone down at tufnell park hindu temple…the room was full of goofy benign idiots to put it simply…no mischievious fun at all…

                I had energy darshan with Osho…and that crippled me with catatonic laughter…. for hours… i dont need or want anyone elses…

                love, with the heckling funny bits
                martyn

                • martyn says:

                  * SD( i mean i refused to have a hug from Amma when encouraged from friends to have one from her )

                • satyadeva says:

                  Ok, but I still don’t get this:

                  “for me the story telling is the medium, not the debated positions…”

                • satyadeva says:

                  Martyn:
                  SD I absolutely refused a hug from friends wanting me to get one at an Amma gig many years ago.. the room was full of asexual hindus and her rugged fussy male protectors on stage who were lording it festival style to everyone down at tufnell park hindu temple…the room was full of goofy benign idiots to put it simply…no mischievious fun at all…

                  SD:
                  Some would say that’s a classic piece de resistance – or alternatively, a ‘piece of resistance’, ie choosing not to see the wood for the trees…;

                • martyn says:

                  ok last post cos its work for the editors..
                  SD..the piece de resistance… is your judgement and your investment like mine is mine…and maybe the never the twain shall meet…
                  my girlfriend hugged mooji ..i didn’t….
                  i could not care less… what anyone says about the value behind it or not, or me, or my shoe size….

                • satyadeva says:

                  A lesson in wholeheartedness then!

                  But I still don’t get this:

                  “for me the story telling is the medium, not the debated positions…”

  13. Preetam says:

    My opinion, the problem is not an not existing Ego… compromising and being reasonable makes it non extatic, profane.

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