Sarlo reflects on a theme of “Me versus the Mob”
It started with a nice chunk of discourse from Osho that was being circulated by the OIF folks, via their Osho Times subscription network (via someone else, i am not subscribed). Their original title for this piece was “‘Me’ versus the Mob.”
Q: If our evolution is interconnected and humanity is one body, why do you stress individuality more than universality?
Osho:
Why do people feel so happy in a crowd? Why does happiness in a crowd become so infectious? Because in a crowd they fall down, they become unconscious. They lose their individuality, they merge their individuality. By dropping their consciousness they drop their individuality. Then they are happy, then there is no worry, then there is no responsibility….
That’s why I say don’t become a member of a group. Otherwise you will be as low as the lowest member. Become individuals. In a group you will always fall to the lowest denominator. It is natural, it is very scientific. If you are walking with a group of one hundred people, the slowest person will decide the speed. Because the slowest person cannot move faster, he has his limitations. And if the group has to remain a group, the group has to move with the slowest. The faster person can slow down, but the slower person cannot become fast; he has his limitations.
The group is always ruled by the stupid person. The stupid cannot become intelligent, but the intelligent can relapse easily and become stupid. And of course, stupid people tend to make groups because alone they cannot rely on themselves. They are afraid, they don’t have any intelligence. They know that alone they will be lost. They tend to make groups, crowds. So whenever a church exists, whenever a sect exists, ninety-nine percent of it consists of fools. It has to be so. They decide policies of religion, politics and everything.
Beware of this mobocracy and be alert. Because in you also there are moments, stupid moments, when you would like to relax. Then you are not responsible, then there is no worry. Then you can always throw the responsibility on the group. You can always say, “What can I do? I am walking with the group, and the group is slow, so I am slow. The lowest member is deciding everything.”
If you really want to grow, be alone. If you really want to be free, be responsible. Hence I insist on individuality.
Osho, from The Discipline of Transcendence, Vol. 1
Discourse continues at http://www.osho.com/library/online-library-universe-consciousness-become-2ba70183-51d.aspx (not sure if sign-in requirements apply)
Sarlo picks up the theme:
Then Osho goes on to explain, among other things, that in sannyas, there is no group allegiance or identity. All relating with each other is on the basis of being related to him, through him. This all enables an interesting new way of understanding the Oregon ranch debacle, or to be more precise, the debacle aspect of that time:
Basically, at the Ranch Osho had removed himself from public speaking and overt participation in the details of ranch functioning, so the possibilty, even the tendency, was there to get more into some kind of group mind. We were off the leash, so to speak, and what would/did we do as a pack running loose? Lowest common denominator (LCD), led of course by the alphas of the time. I had sort of understood this before, but this discourse has brought a key issue of individual-vs-collective into clarity, why the individual matters so much: At the ranch, we — generally speaking, with lots of exceptions — had NOT done the work he speaks of above, of being alone, of being responsible, so our unexamined tendencies to “go collective” were going to come out. This was more or less inevitable.
In addition, we can observe that “individuality” has a “real-world” common-sense concreteness whereas “universality” is an airy, wafting abstraction. Osho wants us to start “where we are,” in the sense of where we feel ourselves to be, and certainly in those days at least, that would have been as separate units. For us to have imagined we were aligned with the universal would have been a big head trip, though the ethic of working hard, donating and sacrificing for the collective benefit was zealously promoted. We were headed for some serious cognitive dissonance.
One more short quote regarding this. He spoke in Pune 2 of his people being misfits, and of his willingness to sacrifice the whole collectivity for individuals:
“I will read your question. ‘As another of your communes takes off the ground…’ That is not right. No commune is taking off the ground. I have tried hard and found it impossible… if the commune has to exist, the individual has to compromise. That’s absolutely natural and necessary. And I am so much in favor of the misfit people, that rather than dropping the misfits, I have dropped the idea of the commune itself. Now there are only misfit people here.”
~~ from The Hidden Splendor, ch 21, ch title, “The Greatest Misfit in the World”
He went on in that discourse to explain that the Ranch had had to create a tremendous amount of infrastructure and that necessitated organization, which is always antithetical to the (misfit) individual. Now, none of that was needed. The individual, although s/he must eventually subside into the Whole, was supreme. S/he can only disappear by rising as a conscious individual, at least in Osho’s way.
The debacle aspect of the Ranch was of course the Sheela gang / abuse of power / salmonella / PR disaster / dismantling of the European communes aspect, which we all have had to live with since, especially in North America (i am from Canada). Only in India has Osho been “rehabilitated” in the public realm so that to be with him is seen to be a progressive thing. (Has its +’s and -’s too 
)
Still this aspect, which “caused” many to leave, does not obscure the benefits for those who stayed with him. Not least of the benefits was that seeing the abuse of power acted out at the ranch helped many people see how they took part in it, and how “it could have been them,” had they been given the power that Sheela had. For example, i got to see that had i been permitted to stay at the ranch as a resident — my request was rejected — i would most likely have been one of the sheep who enabled the higher-up gang to act out in this way. Pure LCD mob collectivity stuff.
This kind of lesson can only happen existentially. No matter how much Osho might have talked about our inner politicians and unconscious ambitions and what not, an existential lesson was best, even at such tremendous cost. And you couldn’t process this stuff in therapy groups either. Only a large-scale, Real Life™ event could have this impact.
Other lessons were the lesson of letting go of a huge investment of money and energy. The lesson of the lengths to which he was prepared to go (jail, deportation, “disgrace,” etc) to help us. The lesson of a utopian commune which actually “worked” for many who lived there outside of the circles of power. And so on. The list is endless, really.
The ranch can be seen as a grand symphonic event or device, with its themes interweaving and playing out, and a cast of thousands. For me it is his Magnum Opus, whose themes and variations have risen again and again to be seen from yet another angle. In Pune 3, a work-related rejection resonated with the residency rejection at the ranch and gave me an opportunity to deal with that and its roots in my psychic basement, culminating in a Workers’ Mystic Rose. Blessings!
And the big discourse piece above also helped me to see something about my part in the recent collapse of an online group i was running, whereby i had collaborated in enabling a group mind to get out of balance to the point of wrecking the group. By the time i took action, it was too late. And it was my group! Tough stuff, this collective unconscious.
And to just be the kind of rugged individualist who automatically rejects the crowd opinion will not be a solution either. This would just be reactive, and in the end one’s views would again be determined by the crowd.
And so on. Perhaps enough to chew on for now.
(Sw Deva) Sarlo
The Ranch story, like life itself, is an enigma.
I am not sure that this is helped by attempts to interpret all aspects of it as if it had a one unified underlying truth.
not an enigma at all, people wanted to escape the dreaded “Real” world and convinced themselves(or were convinced) that building an alternative “spiritual” community under the guidance of a perceived enlightened or holy being was the best way to live out one’s life. If surrendering or turning a blind eye to obvious stupidity, illegality, corruption or lack of use of common sense so you could stay as a “permanent resident” at the ranch, then almost everyone did that. Why risk being booted out into the mundane real world. The educated misfits who resided at the ranch(yours truly included) had great difficulty functioning on the outside. The ranch was a cave that we could function and flourish, to hell with freedom, common sense, morals, justice.
good post…But it’s not possible to flourish in a cave, and this was the demonstration of that.
I find my attention wandering by the second part of the article. Maybe I will come back to it. The first thing that struck me was this, ‘They tend to make groups, crowds. So whenever a church exists, whenever a sect exists, ninety-nine percent of it consists of fools.’
If you write down a few descriptions as to what constitutes a cult, sannyas ticks most of the boxes. Here exists a good example of Osho doublespeak. Sannyas was and as far as I know still is a religious cult. If you don’t agree I suggest that you read The Guru Papers for it contains the most concise and comprehensive definitions of what constitutes a cult as far as I know.
Just an online dictionary definition will suffice for the moment;
1 a. A religion or religious sect generally considered to be extremist or false, with its followers often living in an unconventional manner under the guidance of an authoritarian, charismatic leader.
b. The followers of such a religion or sect.
2. A system or community of religious worship and ritual.
3. The formal means of expressing religious reverence; religious ceremony and ritual.
4. A usually nonscientific method or regimen claimed by its originator to have exclusive or exceptional power in curing a particular disease.(seriousness, in this case)
5 a. Obsessive, especially faddish, devotion to or veneration for a person, principle, or thing.
b. The object of such devotion.
6. An exclusive group of persons sharing an esoteric, usually artistic or intellectual interest.
Rings a few bells, if only on the surface.
Somehow Osho speaking like this managed to dispel people’s fears about belonging to a cult, as in ‘Oh my gawd, my daughter has joined the sex guru’s cult!’ Back in the seventies I would have denied in no uncertain terms that I belonged to a cult. Yet there I stood, dressed in a bright orange robe, with a string of 108 beads around my neck with locket attached, containing a photo of a powerful and charismatic man. Incredible! But don’t be worried. Big brother loves you. It’s a ridiculous joke. How’s that song go? ‘You’re the fool for thinking everyone’s a fool for you.’
Lokesh, can you tell me, the person who wrote The Guru Papers belongs to some cult or not? If he is a Jew or Christian, does it mean he is free from the cult?
The Guru Papers demonstrates with uncompromising clarity that authoritarian control, which once held societies together, is now at the core of personal, social and planetary problems, and thus a key factor in social disintegration. It illustrates how authoritarianism is embedded in the way people think, hiding in culture, values, daily life, and in the very morality people try to live by. The book unmasks authoritarianism in such areas as relationships, cults, 12-step groups, religion, and contemporary morality. Chapters on addiction and love show the insidious nature of authoritarian values and ideologies in the most intimate corners of life, offering new frameworks for understanding why people get addicted and why intimacy is laden with conflict. By exposing the inner authoritarian that people use to control themselves and others, the authors show why people give up their power, and how others get and maintain it.
I think this book is essential reading for anyone who was ever involved with a guru or religious cult because it strikes right at the heart of authoritarianism, which lies behind much of our condition. Osho is not mentioned as such but there is one passage that describes a guru who became allergic to his disciples, who had to pass through a screening test before being allowed to enter his physical presence. I might be mistaken but if I remember correctly the chapter dealt with the biggest danger posed by a false master is to the master himself. This is because the strain of maintaining the facade of enlightenment eventually becomes intolerable. One could surmise that this may have been the cause of Osho’s demise. I don’t know, but something certainly went wrong in his later life.
I think it is important that we question all authorities, including Indian gurus, because much of what they do is based in them being an authoritarian figure.
As to your question, Shantam, the authors of the book were editors for the San Francisco Chronicle. The book is something of a group effort, in my opinion. If you read the book you will probably come to the conclusion that these people would have nothing to do with a cult, because they expose cults for what they are. I also doubt they would be involved with any organised religion. The book’s conclusion runs along the lines that religions, gurus etc. are part of the collective problem facing our world today, because they have existed for so long yet we still have a mess on our hands. The reasoning behind this conclusion being that we need to reinstate our own personal power insted of expecting that some big brother or sister figure will sort it out. They haven’t and they won’t. It is up to us as individuals to help make a better world for our children’s children to inhabit. The balance may have already tipped in a negative direction that may be impossible to right. What is in the young ones’ favour is their amazingly developed knack of learning extremely quickly. Intellectually, my seven-year-old grandson is already where I was at age eleven. Today’s children will need every tool at their disposal to help them survive what is to come. The storm clouds are already gathering and only a fool can fail to notice the changing social climate in our world. ‘Islam is rising and the Christians are mobilising. The world is on its hands and knees because they’ve forgotten the messge and worship the creed.’ Interesting times indeed.
can you translate please?
The problem with the sociologists’ attempt to assess ‘cults’ is that they are usually ignorant of the Oriental idea of ‘guru-yoga’ (best defined in the Tibetan teachings). Osho, at least up until the Ranch, worked via the guru-yoga model. (‘Surrender to me’, ‘take this box (with my hairs or nail clippings in it) home with you’, etc.). The idea behind guru-yoga is constant remembrance of the guru (even visualizing him sitting on your head), similar to the Sufi idea of ‘Zikr’ (constant remembrance of God). The Western academic mindset has no real corollary for this, so automatically interprets it as some sort of weird and threatening submission.
I think Osho tried to do away with guru-yoga after the Ranch, seeing as it was corrupted at that time, but it’s doubtful if many sannyasins truly let go of that model.
The other point worth mentioning is that civilization in general is, essentially, based on cultic mentality. The military is an excellent example of a cult — the will of the individual soldier is minimized (arguably, broken), and the purpose they serve is maximized. There is a charismatic leader – if not the military chief (whether McArthur, Chief Sitting Bull, or Alexander the Great), then the cause itself. Symbols and rituals abound, etc. Every soldier is essentially programmed to serve their master. For other examples of cultic programming, just watch a political convention, or better yet, Clint Eastwood talking to an empty chair:
The video cannot be shown at the moment. Please try again later.
Incidentally, ‘The Guru Papers’ (by Kramer and Alstad) was mentioned on Amazon by a reviewer who was hostile to my own book. Naturally, I don’t share his views but I grant that the review (‘one dangerous author’) was well written…
http://www.amazon.com/Three-Dangerous-Magi-The-Gurdjieff/product-reviews/184694435X/ref=cm_cr_dp_see_all_btm?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending
Good post, Teertha. You say, ‘it’s doubtful if many sannyasins truly let go of that model.’ I’d go one further and say it is for sure that many sannyasins have not let go of that model.
As I’ve said before, many old school sannyasins have a big investment in hanging on to that model and it has often to do with a financial motive. They gain credence due to their special relationship with Osho. No names mentioned, you can watch them in action on You Tube etc, spouting their so-called spiritual stories, which are basically just stories based on projections of their own limited ego self. I am quite sure they believe their stories are important and worthwhile sharing, which does not mean they are of any real help to a person seeking some kind of bigger picture as regards the human condition. I can relate to that, for I once did the same before waking up to the fact that charismatic Indian gurus are perfect screens for projecting our hopes and dreams on to. This does not mean to say that spiritual teachers have nothing to give, quite the opposite. The thing is, a trap exists in the form of worshipping the teacher as opposed to following and practising the teaching.
I see that there exists a basic human need to give a name and form to everything. A good example in our circle is the need to call love, meditation, consciousness, awareness etc. Osho. Many sannyasins speak of feeling Osho’s presence in their daily lives. I can no longer relate to that because the need to stick a label on that which is beyond name and form no longer exists. No big deal, that is just how it is for me. If asked what it is all about I’m quite capaable of delivering something short and understandable that would perhaps impress others, but to be honest, not myself. I’m not enlightened and still go through the daily runaround that seems to be part and parcel of human existence. What I do understand is what I am not and I simply have no need to have some mystical personality in the background calling the shots.
Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi influenced many of my generation who embarked on a spiritual enquiry. The man was the essential bhakti yoga. Beautiful guy with fantastic tales to tell and once upon a time very inspirational. Today I see that kind of thing as a beautiful fairytale. Others are still living it and all I can say to them is bonne chance and bon voyage. These people are often apparently happier than I am and when I meet catholic sannyasins they too often exude happiness that I cannot compete with, so who can blame them for treading the path they do? Me? Well, I’ll keep with the Advaita and pursue the path of the alone to the alone. It’s not always easy and it is also not always happy, yet somehow I can feel it in my gut that this is the road I must forever follow. Good thing about it is the joy of meeting others who have chosen a similar path. Few and far between coming together with such kindred spirits is cause for true celebration with plenty of laughs. I was never really cut out to follow the herd. Like the old Byrds song goes,
‘I will want to die beneath the white cascading waters
She may beg, she may plead, she may argue with her logic
And then she’ll know the things I learned
That really have no value.
In the end she will surely know
I wasn’t born to follow.’
Amen
yes,”cultism” is everywhere…armies,politics even cults!
its human.like hypnosis ,it can be induced but it is also naturally occuring….
even the most catholic sannyasins, maybe like the guy who wrote this article, will have to admit that sannyas ,if even just as a “device”, was a “cult”….
cultism`s obviously fun or people wouldn`t do it
What do you mean by catholic sannyasin, Frank?
Its not an expression I’ve ever used and Sannyas News is the only place I’ve heard the phrase.
I’m assuming you mean religous as in like a krishtun.
While the founder is alive, it’s a cult and after the founder dies, it becomes a religion. Anything can happen while the leader is still around, he might kill all the followers or worse. After the leader dies we will at least know he hasn’t killed many, hopefully, and not much is likely to change so we can sanitize it and call it a religion.
By the way, I just love the new ‘Osho-picture-less’ neo neo-sannyas approach.
One of my favourite Osho sayings was: “I am not a Rajneeshee!” Yes, I know mate. Nameless and faceless…I think they are talking about somebody else.
Vartan
It is my feeling, if people like Lokesh& Frank work as boxers in heaven, I am sure population will drop even further. To reach Nirvana will be almost impossible.
How other plants can grow and achieve their flowering, when potatoes are the only rightful owner of the earth?
If such closed yet secured belief system represents the new awakening of Mother Earth…Sorry Earth!
“boxers in heaven”?
my god,the guy`s obsessed with holy underwear.
but,really,you are right there,shantam.
if the population in heaven goes down and the highway to hell gets some extra traffic,then i will consider that i have been doing oshos work and legacy a favour…
he always said he would rather go to hell than heaven,as heaven is full of boring idiots…….
btw.whats it like up there?
i heard the muslims were just having a laugh…and theres no chicks up there at all,just a few tourist brochures of topless beaches in ibiza and an infinite supply of tissues?
Shantam has had his chips.
It is my feeling, if people like Shantam work as boxers in heaven, I am sure population will drop even further. To reach Nirvana will be almost impossible.
How other plants can grow and achieve their flowering, when potatoes are the only rightful owner of the earth?
If such closed yet secured belief system represents the new awakening of Mother Earth…Sorry Earth!
Arpana, that is really deep, or did you plagarise it from a Fyodor Dostoyevsky book? The Idiot perhaps.
Arpana, it is said in Hindi, one needs some kind of brain too, to make a copy…
You are lacking this quality, my friend. Still, it is not bad, happy-go-lucky chap plays a good role too, role as a filler!
In the above post, you have deleted Lokesh in my “original” post and pasted Shantam, but names can not change the psychological traits. Just by wearing your girl friend´s bra, do you think you will grow the tits?!
If I am a boxer at Heaven´s gate, entry will be quite relaxed, population will increase, as I live with the feeling of, Unity in diversity!
Unity in diversity? Slip of the tongue there, Shantam. Surely you mean unity in the face of adversity, because that is the tune your noisy trumpet usually blows.
Isn’t it diversity in Unity?
Shantam, one needs some kind of brain.
You are lacking this quality.
Just by wearing your girl friend´s bra, do you think you will grow the tits?!
Unity in diversity, units in diversity, yes, yes, yes, thousand times yes…it is unity in diversity…
Lokesh, the question mark(?) behind “unity in diversity” shows how little you and your creed know about India, her people and her heritage.
There is nothing wrong in it. Millions of people in India think, if they eat in Macdoland´s or Pizza Hut, they will become American citizens!
India is the land where Unity in diversity is written many times in a day in some classroom, in some lecture, in some discussion. Because there is no other country on Earth with so many written and spoken languages, so many castes, creeds, religions, sects…Unity in diversity is its Aha! effect.
Osho has personified this in his spiritual superstore, which unfortunately has become a single brand store, because of the reason, CEO from Canada knows shit about unity in diversity!
Yes indeed, Shantam, I guess fine examples of this Unity in Diversity were the Hindu-Muslim conflicts leading to the exceedingly bloody civil conflicts after world war 2…You know, Partition and all that?
Mmmm, so many castes too…How happy they all appear to be…Especially those shudras, eh? Thoroughly contented to know their place…All for the greater goal of Unity in Diversity!
Not forgetting the pungent odour of Corruption, of course, that permeates the very socio-political-economic fabric of the country…
Great place – such diversity…such unity!
Take off those rose-coloured specs, Shantam, wake up and smell the stench of excrement pervading the land….
Unity of Diversity, the similarity of the true self…
But the Hermetic rulers do everything possible against the human welfare. Who killed the Master, who is spreading all this meanness on Earth, corruption and destructiveness against folk? This Agni IV shit, Food that makes us sick, no clean Water for Mothers, Bankster Cartel, who is it who divides the folk and creates domestic disturbance? Sannyas conditioning still believes all this raises from the collective unconscious. The pain is created by a ruling minority of hunters and gatherers, which were intelligent enough putting themselves in a position that the Gojim sacrifices them, since 5000 years. We are sitting in the same boat, India, Europe, Africa and America…the Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Jews, Christianity and even little neo- sannyas.
If you are seeking the root of the problems that exist in the world today look no further than your own selfishness. If you wish for the world to be a better place you can help that happen by working to make yourself a better, more compassionate, caring, loving, aware person. Placing the blame on others lies at the very heart of the problem.
A ruling minority of hunters and gatherers. How convenient to project the world’s problems on such an over-simplified version of global politics. Preetam, I suspect you’ve been reading the wrong books or watching too many conspiracy vids on You Tube.
Lokesh, why now you are coming with this old sannyas concept of blaming, for what normally should be responsibility? Maybe that way of thinking all that on the Ranch could happen, still in fear of negativity, but nice for controlling thoughts of others. But let me amplify a little more…
Those people are living Esoteric, Magic Occultisms and a mystifying Symbolism older than 5000 Years. There are the roots of Magic, Esoteric and Spirituality. Most of the public buildings prove the old Symbolism, same with how so-called Authorities present themselves in Public, learned symbolism and behaviour. I bet the English Queen is full of superstition, for sure afraid she could blow off her cover and people can see her true face. Same for many others of those public workers because of the still needed, but hated, Gojim.
Preetam, I’ve read the conspiracy books and watched the conspiracy vids on You Tube. Your perspective is not exactly original. You’d find plenty of people on Ibiza who agree with you, but I’m not one of them. Most of the people that I know who are into conspiracy theories are also stoners, but not all of them. I don’t get the impression from your writing that you smoke a lot of dope, but then again I can’t know for sure.
Bottom line is that as you believe the world to be so it will appear. Even if there is a huge conspiracy going on, replete with plans for population control, contrails etc. what difference does it make to the fact that your life will end one day and that if you don’t drop the false identity that was created during the early years of your life and get in touch and merge with something more permanent your whole life will have been for nothing. Human existence is a potential, it is up to you to develop that or not. It is up to you.
Ok, you have seen conspiracy videos and read the Books, I haven’t. It’s just my look on the last 5000 Years. I don’t blame anyone or anything and I don’t see it as any negative, it’s just how this structure works. Simply like the most truthful movie, ‘The Magnificent Seven’. If it triggers negativity or makes you boring, it’s not my intent. Lokesh, I told already once, with me it is the T3 Triiodthyronin and I am enjoying being here
Preetam says, ‘The pain is created by a ruling minority of hunters and gatherers,’ and then goes on to say, ‘I don’t blame anyone or anything’. Am I missing something or does anyone else see a glaring contradiction in these statements?
One of the most psychotic aspects of sannyasins comes out when talking about responsibility. First you are responsible for everything that happen in your life, second you are not responsible for what your parents,the society the priests and the politicians have done to you, and when it comes to the long beard…………Oh no, he wasn’t responsible for anything negative, it was just a device for your awakening.
Yes, a big problem this responsibility. Most Sannyasins are intelligent and educated people. How do you make intelligent people trust a structure that at least is not well-disposed for Master and them? Before a few days I saw a Talk show, one of the entertainers asked the circle: “How was it possible that people accept that it’s absolutely needed to save the Bank System?” I ask, how to make intelligent people accept those kinds of lies at all? You have to make them believe, and surrender to something, even if it is against them. Isn’t Osho a Rebel in reality and not a Holy Man? I think, if we make out of a real Rebel a Holy Man, we have taken off his balls.
I just think he was partially responsible for all the messes and the manipulation and destruction in the life of many of his followers at that time. It’s probably possible that he was a victim of a conspiracy against him, but my feeling is that he knew something and he allowed it to happen, maybe because he believed his sannyasins could manage everything, which was clearly not the case. And also about Holy Man trip, he encouraged this for a while, at the end he cancelled this, but it was also his doing at the beginning.
Young sannyasin: The difference is between my will and Thy Will be done. The ego can pretend Thy Will is my will!
Translation, please?
I suppose one could surmise that it is a question of responsibility.
Meditation, for my self spoken, always was a mix between responsibility and desire. But what I find strange in our days, if people who are probably sitting in the same boat, call any criticism against Authority and the established, a blame. Personally, I don’t like if people repress or dominate, and using for the approach of those goals sneaky and hostile methods and I don’t see any need of being quiet if they make money from Humanity, Weapons and War.
What sits behind that structure meanwhile has become so apparent. Staying quiet and just watching are even more hurtful than your fear of being lonely on the Hilltop. Which to me is absurd, if we are this one Self. But I guess that’s what most don’t want to be, out of their confusion, being of one Self. Is that the real Ego?
Frank@6:27 PM
Hats off, sir!
I was at the Ranch 2 1/2 years until the end. It was the best time of my life,it was not easy at times with all the construction work, but I had the energy to do it. At some point we were working like 18 hours a day. It was like a Gurdjieff device. I thought I would live there always, so the end was a big shock. I was lucky I could not play any power games, some people did, but that is their responsibility. Gurdjieff’s Institute in France did not last long either. Anyway, I was blissed out (like all of us) everyday on driveby, among all the other great things that happened there. It was the best time in my life,I was never bored. It is my opinion that too much importance is given to the destruction of the commune over the beautiful life that we shared together. The way I see it now; nothing is permanent, what is important is what I experienced there and all the beautiful people I met.
Interesting post, Amrit. By saying it was the ‘best’ time in your life you are bringing in a comparison to the rest of your life. For all anyone knows you could have been leading an unhappy life before and after the ranch. It is all relative.
Nonetheless, I can relate to what you say because the seven years I spent in Poona One were really great, with plenty of ups and a few serious downs on the Osho roller coaster ride. I don’t know if it was the best time in my life, because looking back one always has to factor in the fact that you were younger. I notice that some of my contemporaries fail to consider that when talking about their experiences in bygone days and I think to myself that they’ve forgotten that they were thirty years younger when what they are describing took place. It seems somewhat tragic to me when I hear people glorifying their past to the extent that they believe the best times are behind them. That is, of course, only my take on things and I have not always viewed it like that. For me, the best day of my life is today, in which, it so happens I’m feeling a bit low. Thing is, today is real and the past is no more, except in your mind. As for the future, no need to worry about that, it will take care of itself.
Yes, it is easy to forget that for the majority of people at the Ranch and in the communes, these were extraordinary and positive times.
Bravo, Mandiro.
Stick to your guns.
You were there.
Don’t allow those who believe negativity, spite, malice, envy, self-aggrandizement and egotism passed off as objectivity to tear you down.
Shantam, I spent over 10 years in India. Today I am more in love with the idea of India than the reality, because the simple fact is that India is in general a very dirty and corrupt place. Anyway, who are you to speak? Signing on at the unemployment office in Germany last I heard.(part of that great Indian heritage?) If India is so wonderful why are you sponging off the social system in Europe? You don’t need to answer that one because we already know the answer. Your mantra for today is the word ‘hypocrite’ (a person who pretends to be what he is not).
To me, ‘the commune’ was not ‘a blueprint’ but what happened when a lot of people wanted to be near Him. And then traffic lights had to be put in place, etc.
To call Rajneeshpuram His Magnus Opus is a disservice. Was His work the books, the discourses, or the sannyasins? Clearly, none of them. His Magnus Opus was Himself.
Vartan
Rajneeshpuram was Osho’s Magnus Odorous Pooporous, wherein the all-seeing one became the non-seeing one. I had to laugh when I read about his escape jet being stopped and Osho was asked where he was going and he replied, ‘I don’t know.’ How on earth could someone like Osho agree to board a Lear Jet without him knowing where he was going? Oh, I know, it was a device for our awakening. Unfortunately, it was a device that failed to work on many, because they are still fast asleep.
But just suppose what he said was true? People around him must have told him wherever he was going, but could he truly have known that for sure? Just as I presume to know what I’m going to do next, but in all honesty it’s just an idea in my head, and I don’t know what the next moment will bring!
Karima, Osho was, on many levels, an extremely intelligent man. He was always pulling the strings and knew where he ws going when he boarded that plane, along with his baggage, which included plenty of cash and diamond encrusted gold watches. He also knew what time it was. The cat was out of the bag and it was high time to get out of there.
In your condition I’m surprised that you can make it out of the front door. You’re mistaken if you believe that living in the here and now excludes the need to plot a course. Perhaps you’ve simply lost the plot. None of my business, but if I were you I’d have a look at that.
Lokesh, I can only speak for myself and the times I’ve lost the plot for a while were a bit scary, but also quite a relief, that this whole willpower to do, to plan, to analyse, to control a so-called future stopped. Everything just happens, there’s no little me who always knows better!
So I imagine that Osho was in that state full-time. It doesn’t mean that he didn’t plan, but not out of fear. I think the people around him did most of the planning and he just went along with that, playing his part!
‘Playing his part!’ That is a good one.
Amrit Mandiro, after the ranch was it possible for you to spend the same amount of time in Pune also?
As I remember, around 150 ranch people became regular visitors to Pune also, few became residents and worked in pop and esoteric therapies.
In the beginning, I was feeling immense reverence for them. Their ranch days Mala was giving the impression that they are not economy but business or first-class passengers!
On the other side, I presume many of the ranch days seekers have to go through an intense burn-out syndrome. Many must have used all their savings to build a Lotus Paradise and lost all in the small Tsunami.
Giant like Osho was there to take care of the devotees. “Save the Master”, Mr. Jayesh almost landed like a stunt film hero. How he could penetrate the different layers and reached direct to the master, only some silent yet insider can tell.
Given the in-depth relationship you would have had with all 150 of those people, including Jayesh, who better than you to assess their worth?
Imagine, 150 people turning up at the ashram, people who, unlike you, at least had the courage to wear a mala and red clothes, and they failed to live up to your expectations.
Damning.
PS:
Any chance they even knew you existed? And there it is. All those individuals who didn’t get you were the centre of the universe. So bad that.
Amrit, don’t excpect a response if you give a reply to Shantam’s questions. He’s very here and now when it comes to that sort of thing and rarely follows up on any of his requests. It could be mistaken for laziness but all us regulars here on SN know it is a side-effect of Enshitenment and he’s probably busy with Indian mama having his chuddies changed.
Arpana, I hope you have the health insurance for Psychological check-up or even an in-depth psychoanalysis. Show my comment to the shrink and ask what you should do; as it makes you feel like pissing?
Never seen such misinterpretation? Are you getting private tuition from Lokesh?
“Are you getting private tuition from Lokesh?” Don’t you know that one has to be fabulously wealthy to pay for my tuition fees. I really don’t think Arpana would wish to spend his hard-earned cash on tuition, especially from me. Although, it has to be said, it would be money well spent. Next!
I am not in your league when it comes to expressing myself using a keyboard.
I regularly disagree with what you write but I am impressed with the way you say it.
Enshitenment.
Snigger.
What a boring world it would be if we all agreed with each other.
Like ol` Freddie said…
“Even if we were mad enough to think all our opinions the truth, we would nevertheless not wish for only them to exist. I cannot see why we should ask for an autocracy and omnipotence of truth.
It is enough that it have great power.
Truth must be able to meet opposition and fight
and we must be able to rest from it at times in falsehood, otherwise it will grow tiresome and powerless, and us also….”
I say, Freddy’s dead but his soul staggereth ever on.
Must be staggering, by now…
He was a legless legominist at the best of times….
Delia went a-walking down on Singapore Street
A three-piece band on the corner played Near my God to Thee
But Delia whistled a different tune, what tune could it be?
The song that woman sung was Look out, Stagger Lee.
The song that Delia sung was Look out, Stagger Lee.
If we would know for sure all our opinions were lies, I doubt if we would go on expressing them!
I’m definitely not sure about that, Karima.
Shantam, I hope you have the health insurance for Psychological check-up or even an in-depth psychoanalysis. Show my comment to the shrink and ask what you should do; as it makes you feel like pissing?
Never seen such misinterpretation?
I visited the ranch a couple of times for the festivals.
It was a great spiritual holiday – a sort of totalitarian Torremolinos, where they showed you how to wipe your ass with a special tissue before you went swimming in the lake (remember that one?)…It was worth it,I thought.
The discos were good, with the homeless guys showing the honkies a few cool moves.
And the constant Russian gypsy music (in a commune at the height of the Cold War on the Redneck Riviera) was a nice touch.
18 hour days in the name of Gurdjieff? Nein, danke.
And it was an accident waiting to happen, for sure.
Just now, it reminded me of a hippy called Krishna I met years ago, somewhere in south of France, he had just come back from India and was dancing about, waist-length hair in full flight, only a lunghi on, in bare feet and and playing his flute and intermittently shouting Hare Krishna and Bom Shiva right outside the gendarmerie. His mate tried to talk him out of it, but he insisted the voice of God had to be heard.
Soon, the crs riot police showed up, took him inside, whacked him on the arms and legs and shaved one side of his head only and let him go….
Ah, the French. Vive la difference!
“All that is required for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing.”
Seems like Edmund Burke did not know, doing nothing is an attribute for meditative men, they are on few pedestals higher than just good men!
Although often attributed to Burke, a staunch supporter of the Church and conservative, he never actually said that.
Lokesh, is something wrong to be a staunch supporter of the Church and conservative, and that too in the 18th century?
Who knows you were Edmund Burke in your past life?
Burke was speaking the language of his time, your values are the trend of this time!
“Who knows you were Edmund Burke in your past life?”
You don’t believe in this ‘past life’ rubbish, do you, Shantam?!
“Who knows you were Edmund Burke in your past life?”
Shantam, I don’t believe in transmigration of souls. Talking about trends, I see the idea of people believing that they die and get a new body and then carry on from there after a brief rest as being a trend. Osho occasionally pandered to the taste of the reincarnationists but I have the overall impression that it was not really his cup of zen tea. He was too intelligent for that.
Satya Deva,
To be honest, I do believe in some kind of “past life”, the way January believes in July?
What I don´t believe is the claim of few people that they have broken the vicious circle of life and death. Their no(self) belief of Nirvana. I find this more as a marketing rather than substance..
People even believe against their own truth, against himself. A kind of self-uprooting, that way the intelligent sabotages himself.
Check it…Shantam and Preetam having a discussion..?
Do you remember that radio game where people had to keep talking for a minute without repeating themselves or stuttering…if they do,they lose?
Well, this game would have people talking/writing nonsense…Aand as soon as they say anything that actually makes sense,the buzzer goes and they lose…
Shantam vs Preetam
World Heavyweight Gibberish Champion bout…
The ultimate Mumble in the Jungle…
A grudge match from a previous life…
The Battle of the Burks…
Seconds away….
Michael Buffer couldn’t have made better.
Preetam, excuse me, I may have mixed you up with karima…
Fair enough,
it’s a walk-over to the Bhagwan of Balderdash,
the Hierophant of Hogwash,
the CEO of Claptrap,
Jullundur’s answer to Al-Jabbar himself….
Twas bryllyg and ye slythy toves
Did gyre and gimble inye wabes…
All mimsy were ye borrogroves
And ye mome raths outgrabe….
This is Frank’s legominism. He is transmitting wisdom from H.P. Kowalski’s Great Orange Brotherhood.
I do believe there`s a bit of legoministic leg-pulling going on here.
Which reminds me, the legendary HPK was out on a limb last night, so he went down to the pub.
He got pretty legless and tried to get his leg over with a leggy blonde…
“Lego of her”, shouted Oleg the barman, “or this could lead to serious allegations.”
He had to leg it…
This morning he woke up feeling like a one-legged legominist in an ass-kicking contest.
“The way January believes in July”? Wow…man, like I can dig it…like, like do you ever get the feeling that your hair is actually tentacles reaching up to the stars to meet a mysterious presence…like you know how Monday knows Sunday but it’s really Friday?
“The way January believes in July?”
The right way to write is, The way January believes in July!
Most probably, Frank, the satire master at SNews will still be bewildered.
But I am sure he knows what it means, ” May December Romance.”
Is there a single Osho sannyasin living in December, not looking to have some May?
Deep down, every tree knows in January, how lonely it feels without leaves, no birds, just snow.But there is a hope, wheels of life will bring July again, when flowering is on its Zenith. Tree feels like a happy Patriarch.
We just forget, otherwise there will be many dead kings and queens serving happy meals at Macdonald´s!
Nothing lasts forever…
Be it Buddha or Buddhu!
PS: Sorry, Like always it is Lokesh and not frank (sorry).
Again and again, Lokesh shows, dry prose is his domain. He may copy, but to understand new expressions from the usual words; sorry Lokesh, you can enjoy your missionary position with words…I prefer kinky also!
Lokesh, Osho may have been a ‘master of masters’, but he was also a master of representing/borrowing other people’s ideas, without question. To his credit, I don’t think he concealed that — he was what I call the ‘Harold Bloom of the spiritual world’, a consummate commentator.
Or Legopold Bloom….
Teertha, I don’t know if you are pulling my leg or not, but just for the record I think Osho’s slogan that he was the master of masters is pure nonsense. I’m sure he was a master of something, but it’s anyone’s guess as to what.
I can remember that there was a 6 month period back in the seventies where I referred to Osho as ‘my master’, but I was never very comfortable with that tag. I saw Osho more as a spiritual friend, who on a personal level gave me wise counsel and lent a guiding and compassionate hand when I was very much in need of it. For that I am forever grateful. One never knows what is up ahead but I doubt that in the time that is left to me in this world a situation will arise where I will refer to anyone as my master. For me, the idea is to master one’s self and that is more than enough to be going on with.
“Master of masters” has got a bit of the old Charlton Heston/Jehovah thing about it…
King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Master of Masters.
The highest in the most literal, hierarchical sense….
Even becoming a “master” of your “self” is probably a non-starter, too…
I was talking to an enlightened guy who claims to be a master of his self the other day.
I offered him some chocolate.
He haughtily replied, “No,I can’t eat that kind of stuff these days.”
Later in the day, I saw him munching through a whole packet of chocolate macaroons.
Of course, the faithful will say he was doing it as a device to expose my judgements and expectations….
After ‘Patton’, a film Osho watched dozens of times, one of his favourites was ‘The Ten Commandments’. Maybe that is where inspiration came for some of his robes. I enjoyed the biblical classic in its time but I could never figure out why Osho dug Patton, which won several Oscars back in the ealy seventies. Perhaps Osho found such dialogue as the following an inspiration for basing his commune on…’Now, an army is a team – it lives, eats, sleeps, fights as a team. This individuality stuff is a bunch of crap.’
I`ve heard that in Devageet’s much vaunted and eagerly awaited book,
“The Whipped Cream Messiah”,
there will be a chapter entitled “Movies I have loved”, chronicling the master’s tastes on the silver screen…
The Ten Commandments…
A prophetically bearded religious leader frees his chosen people and leads them into the desert in search of the promised land…
Crazy adventures ensue, involving evil usurpers to the prophet’s throne, some mysterious tablets and classic scenes of de Nile..
The chosen people never make it to the promised land and 40 years later, they`re still wandering around, wondering what happened….
Zorba the Greek…
Crazy, small town guy sweet-talks rich westerner into living with him and paying for his mad schemes, which include playing pranks on the Church and getting wrecked, and culminate in his biggest doomed project, which ends in total collapse and bankruptcy, with everyone running for their lives. The crazy guy just laughs it off.
Patton…
Outspoken commander of army makes incredible advances due to his charismatic aura, audacious tactics and his inspiration of unswerving loyalty from his troops.
He takes Germany by storm, but eventually stalls when he runs out of fuel….
Woodstock the movie…
Thousands of hippies dance around, shake, take drugs, get their rocks off and generally freak out with a little help from their friends, while God famously appears on stage…
Osho claims, “These are my people.”
I`d love to hear what the other movies he watched were.
He seemed to like a rugged leading man…
Maybe that was just the era…
Wonder what he thought of “Some Like It Hot”?
It is based on the Sumerian myth of Atrahasis. Damon Lindelof (from Lost) was pondering…What could we possibly find, out-there, to make us stop believing in God? The Engineers was his answer. Nothing new really and it could have been handled better.
Vartan
Thanks to all for the responses. A few comments:
frank said: “The Ranch story, like life itself, is an enigma. I am not sure that this is helped by attempts to interpret all aspects of it as if it had a one unified underlying truth.” And Vartan said: “To call Rajneeshpuram His Magnus Opus is a disservice. Was His work the books, the discourses, or the sannyasins? Clearly, none of them. His Magnus Opus was Himself.”
I accept that others have their own way of understanding the ranch (and Osho). “Magnum Opus” may be a grandiose or even silly term. It suited my needs in what i wrote since i was using it as an antithesis to “debacle,” a term some people use which needs to be debunked imo. Yes, it was a PR debacle, and alienated many, but it was a necessary processsing for those who were going to go further with Osho. More about that below.
There are three more comments to address, having to do with authority and the guru model:
Teertha said: “I think Osho tried to do away with guru-yoga after the Ranch, seeing as it was corrupted at that time, but it’s doubtful if many sannyasins truly let go of that model.” And similarly Young sannyasin said: “About the Holy Man trip, he encouraged this for a while, at the end he cancelled this, but it was also his doing at the beginning.”
Teertha and Young sannyasin are right that there was a progression, a flow from one mode to another. We can enjoy our explanations and understandings of that flow or its why’s and wherefore’s can just be a Mystery, but there certainly has been no one mode that persisted, that “defines” sannyas and Osho.
Lokesh said: “Sannyas was and as far as I know still is a religious cult. If you don’t agree I suggest that you read The Guru Papers for it contains the most concise and comprehensive definitions of what constitutes a cult as far as I know. The Guru Papers demonstrates with uncompromising clarity that authoritarian control, which once held societies together, is now at the core of personal, social and planetary problems, and thus a key factor in social disintegration. It illustrates how authoritarianism is embedded in the way people think, hiding in culture, values, daily life, and in the very morality people try to live by.”
This Guru Papers view needs some serious debunking imo. It goes like this: The GP authors are right to see Authoritarianism more or less everywhere, as a central issue infesting all our cultural, mental and emotional makeup but as Americans culturally ill-equipped to grok the guru model, they may be missing a few key things. Most important is that a truly liberated person can exist and may feel like helping nominal others who want to be liberated. How will we recognise such a person? And what to call hir if not a guru? Any name will do really but if we call hir a guru then the GP authors will complain. But a true guru will be helping people to deal with exactly what the authors see as this big deal central issue.
Osho spoke about authoritarianism too, from the very beginning to the very end. He told us to become aware of this tendency, and wanted us to be liberated from any and all “outside” authorities, even him. But just speaking about it was not sufficient. We needed a big existential lesson. So he sacrificed his commune, millions of dollars and much more so we could have that lesson. It was that important. Liberation could not happen without it.
And because we were who we were, we couldn’t just start at the top of the ladder. He met us where we were and talked about God, the biggest Daddy of all. He “experimented” with a new “loving” authority model, with women running things. There were a thousand and one things to be encountered and processed.
And he had us play the Master And Disciple (MAD) game, which the Indians at least sort of understood. This game, this model, is a hard sell in the West. And it’s okay. There’s no reason everyone should buy into this model. But there’s no reason that we should abandon it either. Nisargadatta Maharaj, who was discussed recently here at http://sannyasnews.org/now/archives/1938 — and i may have something to say about that in another screed — is often held up as an uncompromising advocate of the hard truth, not cluttered with the usual bhakti trappings of Indian guruhood. But he would still make his puja to his long-dead guru Siddharameshwar daily, with flowers in front of his picture. There is sufficient freedom in the guru model for even this.
Alexander Smit, one of Maharaj’s prominent Western disciples, has a nice way of looking at the paradox of needing a guru vs going it alone, quoted at http://www3.telus.net/public/sarlo/Ysmit.htm. He himself went through a deep process described in the interview that was linked to in that Nisargadatta discussion. And “authority” was a central issue in his process. Zen folks talk of killing the Buddha but that has to be done when one is ripe. It is clear that simplistic formulations are just inadequate.
Osho spoke of J Krishnamurti’s “failure,” in the sense of his people listening for fifty years about the non-necessity of a guru but not getting it existentially. The ranch was that existential lesson. We didn’t have to be among the power-grasping few at the top. We could see it happening from the sidelines or even after the dust settled. Because we all knew people who were involved, and/or could partake of it because we are all connected via Osho, he made it possible for us to deal with at least some of those inner authority issues. And this is the paradoxical success of the ranch.
He dug Patton because Patton said explicitly he remembered being a soldier in past lives. As far as I recall, Patton encouraged his soldiers, many of whom were soon to die, to believe in reincarnation. Once at the British Library I obtained two or three biographies of Patton. I wanted to find out if he really believed in reincarnation or whether this was a clever ruse to encourage his soldiers. The biographies did not answer the question one way or the other.
Didn’t Patton reckon he had been a soldier in the Stone Age, Roman, Napoleonic wars etc?
Sounded like a seriously grandiose nutter…
Like with Krishna in the B.Gita, I guess the message is…
If it’s your karma, you gotta do it.
Even if it means killing masses of people.
Do you think Osho and Sheela thought like that?
Mind you, poisoning a few locals in the local fast-food joint and slipping a bunch of street guys a Mickey Finn ain’t exactly taking on Rommel’s Desert Rats…is it?
Sounds more like the desert rats taking on the locals.
And sannyasins are the Leopold Bloom of the spiritual world…?
But in the end, in the end one is alone. We are all of us alone. I mean, I’m told these days we have to consider ourselves as being in society…But in the end, one knows one is alone, that one lives at the heart of a solitude.
Mr Bloom
High Times: From your writings I have gleaned that you subscribe to the notion that psilocybin mushrooms are a species of high intelligence — that they arrived on this planet as spores that migrated through outer space, and are attempting to establish a symbiotic relationship with human beings. In a more holistic perspective, how do you see this notion fitting into the context of Francis Crick’s theory of directed panspermia, the hypothesis that all life on this planet and its directed evolution has been seeded, or perhaps fertilized, by spores designed by a higher intelligence?
Terence McKenna: As I understand the Crick theory of panspermia, it’s a theory of how life spread through the universe. What I was suggesting — and I don’t believe it as strongly as you imply — is that intelligence, not life, but intelligence may have come here in this spore-bearing life form. This is a more radical version of the panspermia theory of Crick and Ponampurama. In fact, I think that theory will probably be vindicated. I think in a hundred years if people do biology they will think it quite silly that people once thought that spores could not be blown from one star system to another by cosmic radiation pressure. As far as the role of the psilocybin mushroom, or its relationship to us and to intelligence, this is something that we need to consider. It really isn’t important that I claim that it’s an extraterrestrial, what we need is a body of people claiming this, or a body of people denying it, because what we’re talking about is the experience of the mushroom. Few people are in a position to judge its extraterrestrial potential, because few people in the orthodox sciences have ever experienced the full spectrum of psychedelic effects that are unleashed. One cannot find out whether or not there’s an extraterrestrial intelligence inside the mushroom unless one is willing to take the mushroom.
talking about the ranch- Read today’s “Oregonian” article titled- “Rajneeshpuram cabins still in good condition, seek tenants”.
Sarlo said:
‘Osho spoke about authoritarianism too, from the very beginning to the very end. He told us to become aware of this tendency, and wanted us to be liberated from any and all “outside” authorities, even him. But just speaking about it was not sufficient. We needed a big existential lesson. So he sacrificed his commune, millions of dollars and much more so we could have that lesson. It was that important. Liberation could not happen without it.’
Baby boomers. Trained in authoritarian school systems, of varying degrees. Certainly in the UK. To be good Christians as well, by authoritarian parenting, of varying degrees. and yet moving into the sixties, adapting all those liberal ideas.
Huge conflict. riding two horses at once, torn between authoritarian ideas because of upbringing; and liberal values taken up after leaving home and school, in the absence of the overbearing authoritarians. Pushing aside the internalized authority figures. Hell was bound to break loose eventually.
Good post, Arpana.
But as for Sarlo’s, “But just speaking about it was not sufficient. We needed a big existential lesson. So he sacrificed his commune, millions of dollars and much more so we could have that lesson. It was that important. Liberation could not happen without it.”
Another attempt to make out that the demise of Rajneeshpuram was all part of Osho’s great Plan? To demonstrate that the man who was supposed to know everything really did know it all? That his perfect consciousness admitted no fallibility, no flaw of judgment in dealing with the world?
Pull the other one, Sarlo.
I don’t believe for a moment Osho planned all that happened at the Ranch, but I’m convinced he worked in part, not just from actively setting out to bring something about, but also that a huge part of his impact on us, was and is to do with what he didn’t say no to, all that he allowed. (All those individuals coming from those authoritarian backgrounds, you’ll go hell if you don’t behave backgrounds.) and then responded as events unfolded, in a way that was most likely to work as a signpost for us, help us learn something.
Life at the ranch unfolded, around authority, power, status, and class. Either we were defiant and resentful, or submissive. Two sides of a coin. Osho didn’t put something in us that wasn’t there. Those things didn’t happen because of him and his inability, those things happened because of us. (Everyone who gets involved with us will have to work thorugh varying degrees of problems about authority,power, status, class, and thats going to be the way of it for god knows how long.)
I can not speak for anyone else regarding learning about my own problems over those matters, but I certainly eventually did learn something, although I would say that I learnt during the Mala and red clothes time as a whole, and onwards; latterly through mixing with individuals who werent sannyasins (The Mala and Red was a uniform. Badge of rank. Positive badge of rank. Stigma to others. I felt proud to wear those clothes and also stigmatised and defensive. Superior and inferior. Authoritarian regimes wear uniforms. The schools I went to, we wore uniforms which made the local thugs want to beat us up and try to do that, and that was about class and power and status.)
Letter from a blind man trying to make sense of the tiny part of the elephant he’s worked out he’s touching, despite the blindness.
So the model went from Teacher (Acharya), to Master (Guru), to Fellow Traveler (Friend).
In fact the model was always ‘Lover’, with all the dynamics, that type of relationship will arouse and invoke. What ‘we did’ was not a cult. It might have looked like a cult, in the same way that sex (to the unprimed) might look like violence.
What happened on the Ranch was absolutely atrocious and I bet it freaked Him out as much as the rest of us. Puja was a psycho and she weaved a strange web, probably for no particular reason. In fact 99.9% of what happened in sannyas was actually fine, and more often than not, even better than fine.
Now that the Lover is dead, if the old models no longer apply, then some new models need to be created and played with. The options are limitless.
Vartan