A NEW DIMENSION REVEALED
Osho was the first person I heard talking about self-enquiry. It was back in 1975 and I was young at the time, 25, and although I was interested I never really paid that much attention. Yes, I was curious, but the passion to really enquire deeply as to who or what I really am was only in the early stages of development.
Osho said, ‘I used to ask myself, “Who am I?” It is impossible to count how many days and nights I passed in this query. The intellect gave answers heard from others, or born of conditioning. All of them were borrowed, lifeless. They brought no contentment. They resonated a little at the surface, and then disappeared. The inner being was not touched by them. No echo of them was heard in the depths. There were many answers to the question, but none was correct. And I was untouched by them. They could not rise to the level of the question.
Then I saw that the question came from the centre but the replies touched only the periphery. The question was mine, but the answers came from outside; the question arose from my innermost being, the replies were imposed from outside. This insight became a revolution. A new dimension was revealed.’
Beautifully put, I’m sure you will agree. Over the years Osho returned to self-enquiry intermittently in his discourses, but in my opinion never over an extended period of time and never to the extent that he really used self-enquiry as a hammer (not a sledgehammer, at least) on the rock. I think that perhaps the main reason behind this is that there is not too much that can be said about the matter and it is something to be practised rather than spoken about overly. Osho needed fuel for his discourses and self-enquiury simply did not fulfil that need. One thing is for sure, self-enquiry was pivotal to Osho’s awakening.
In 1992 I met H W L Poonja, an Advaita teacher who taught Advaita and nothing else and it was he who awakened me to the minimalistic miracle that is self-enquiry. Since our first meeting twenty years ago I practice self-enqury daily and am confident that I will do so for the rest of my life. The reason behind this is that once practised in earnest I’ve found no other teaching that gives so much as self-enquiry in terms of inner peace and making sense of the human condition.
Enlightenment, if it happens, will occur spontaneously and it will be the end of ‘you’, but who exactly is that ‘you’? From what I’ve come to understand it is not very substantial, although I must be honest and say it is all I know…apart from that which is entered into in deep meditation. Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj describes very well how one takes it for granted that we were born. When one enquires in depth one finds that we were told we were born and that we actually have no conscious memory of the process. That is because what we identify with as ‘I’ is created after birth in our formative years beginning around two or three. It is then that we first are introduced to the idea that we exist as a separate entity. Baby looks in the mirror and says ‘baby’. Once he/she gets into the swing of things down here on Planet Maya he/she looks in the mirror, points and says, ‘me’. H W L Poonja suggests, ‘Take the first thought, ‘I am so and so,’ and find out where it comes from.’
The ball of illusion is now rolling and next thing we know we want that ‘me’ to live for ever and thus such conceptual ideas as reincarnation come into being. Osho pandered to the reincarnations but I suspect it wasn’t really his cup of Zen tea. Then again, Osho did say, in no uncertain terms, that what is described in The Tibetan Book of the Dead is reality. Which brings me to what I believe to be an interesting point. Osho said so many contradictory things. Is it any wonder then that there is so much confusion as to what exactly Osho’s vision is? In the end he left us his dream after working for decades to wake up other people from theirs. That is one thing I appreciate about the Advaita masters. Their vision is clear cut and they never waiver from it. Sri N M and Ramana have a few books, but their subject matter is essentially the same, occasionally approached from different angles.
Osho’s epitaph, never born, never died, can be interpreted as representing Advaita. Significant, I would say. It seems all of our sufferings are based in our over-identification with the body/mind complex and liberation involves our connecting with that which was never born and never dies. If we can merge with the awareness that hosts all this we are free, free of separation and all the sorrows that sooner or later come as a consequence of that sense of separation.
With such an uncomplicated technique that could ultimately lead to salvation one will, quite naturally, ask why Advaita Vedanta is not sweeping the planet? The answer is that it is too simple for your average seeker to understand. We are complicated and love complicated explanations, chakras, past lives, therapies…the list is never-ending. Osho understood this and it is therefore he did not talk too much about self-enquiry. Way too simple. Osho was out to change the world and his grand plan included attracting a multitude of people. And so it happened that he delivered thousands of discourses and people were drawn to him.
Another aspect of the self-enquiry path, which must be taken into account, is that, at least in the early stages, one needs a teacher present first-hand,(Osho was working with too many people to supply that) to guide you through the minefield of misconceptions that lie on the path. The biggie being, ‘I’m enlightened’. It is an easy one to fall for and not just for beginners, for sages also it would appear. Sri N M declares, ‘Those jnanis who state that they are established in the Absolute are actually in beingness. They are known as sages. They like certain ideas, certain concepts, and they want to propagate those. But they propagate only ‘idea’ and an idea is not the truth. Truth is the state beyond concepts.’
I’ll round this of by relating something from my own experience. When I first met H W L Poonja he showed me in a few minutes (by posing a set of questions) where I had got to after twenty years of seeking. I was stuck in the bliss states. In the past, I was always in the front of the queue when it came to experiencing the new, the most fantastic, the so-called ultimate high. Be it through ingesting psychedelics or practising meditation techniques. Thank god those days are over and I managed to retain my sanity, because for many years I trod the razor’s edge and saw many of my contemporaries fall into an abyss never to return. Now I’ve swallowed the ultimate medicine and if it works as intended there will be a complete dissolution of the ‘I’ and I can tell you it won’t come a moment too soon and it will come as a relief, like taking off a too tight shoe. As simple as that, no big bang, no bright lights, no ultimate orgasms, just eternal peace. In the meantime it is a case of every day life is the path.
To close I will leave you with something by Osho, this is a sannyasin website after all.
‘This is one of the most essential things to remember, that you cannot watch your watchfulness. If you watch your watchfulness, then the watcher is you, not the watched. So you cannot go beyond watchfulness. The point that you cannot transcend is your being. The point that you cannot go beyond is you. You can watch very easily any thought, any emotion, any sentiment. Just one thing you cannot watch—and that is your watchfulness. And if you manage to watch it, that means you have shifted: the first watchfulness has become just a thought; now you are the second watcher.’
Lokesh
A (sannyasin) guy I know was a multi-addict, who has been a longterm meditator also.
He was on/off/…all sorts and a lot of drugs/meditation for years.
It had become a chronic problem.
So he visited a counsellor and explained that this is what he had been doing all his adult life…trying to maintain bliss states , variously and continuously, through meditation practices, drugs, “therapy”, sex and all.
The counsellor asked him: “What was it you were trying to get away from?”
“I wasn’t trying to get away, I was more trying to get TO a better, higher space”, he answered.
The counsellor was unconvinced.
Then my friend got it.
By trying to get somewhere he was affirming, even creating his unfulfilled state.
His attempt at the goal of bliss was exactly the same thing as he was trying to get away from.
The problem he had was his attempt at the solution.
Something seemed to click for him…
He never took any more drugs.
I dont know if he is “enlightened”, too,…but he is clear-sighted, friendly and has a good sense of humour.
I call him “the accidental advaitist”.
Interesting post…
Yes, not very often Osho mentioned the self, surprises me too and more the last years. That Osho was perhaps a little impatient wouldn’t be astonishing, time is short; all the inspiration and maybe he wanted to create a Result for as many as possible. I don’t think he wanted to change the world. I presume his compassion wanted to help as many that were thirsty to find themselves. Possibly, he did not want overstretch the patience of the word “self”.
Funny, but never met many sannyasins myself in the old days very interested in Advaita. They got interested in that after Osho died.
I always felt it was a bit second-best compared to tantra as a path, which I always felt one way or another, connected to, when Osho was alive.
I’ve got high reading some advaita books later in life, particularly “I Am That” by Nisagardatta – a sort of contact high, as I never really “understood” what he was going on about.
I am not at all sure what Osho means by saying you cannot watch your watchfulness. Why not?
and reel of a couple of objections, the first being it leaves you with nothing, which I’m not quite sure I, or a lot of people, are really ready for. Anyway, for fun, I just Googled the phrase ‘the trouble with Advaita’, and here, taken from the Advaita Notebook website, is what I found:
THE TROUBLE WITH ADVAITA
The trouble with Advaita
Is
You can’t prove it’s Wrong
The trouble with Advaita
Is
It doesn’t say what to do
The trouble with Advaita
Is
There’s nothing to know
The trouble with Advaita
Is
It doesn’t change anything
The trouble with Advaita
Is
It doesn’t stop anything changing
The trouble with Advaita
Is
There are no rules
The trouble with Advaita
Is
It doesn’t make me better
The trouble with Advaita
Is
It’s probably right
The trouble with Advaita
Is
It accepts the bad stuff
The trouble with Advaita
Is
There’s no pay off
The trouble with Advaita
Is
You can’t tell your friends
The trouble with Advaita
Is
It’s too simple
The trouble with Advaita
Is
It’s so obvious
The trouble with Advaita
Is
Where’s the bliss?
The trouble with Advaita
Is
You can’t dress up
The trouble with Advaita
Is
It’s not even necessary
The trouble with Advaita
Is
It already applies
The trouble with Advaita
Is
Who wants nothing?
The trouble with Advaita
Is
You accept yourself as you are
The trouble with Advaita
Is
You forgive others for being
Themselves
The trouble with Advaita
Is
You forgive the world for being
What is
The trouble with Advaita
Is
You can’t get it
The trouble with Advaita
Is
It chooses you
‘Why not?’ Timothy Leary’s last words.
And here’s another one:
The enlightened guru and
The miserable seeker
Are both dreamed
By consciousness
The trouble is, I used to go around saying stuff like that, but it was just talk!
Lets face it, advaita is a load of nihilistic rubbish.
Nothing ain’t worth nothing and it ain’t even free?
These guys really put the con in consciousness…
And most westerners involved in it are stuck in a kind of narcissistic paralysis…dreaming about being in the ultimate state in an oversized pair of diapers…
As you can see from the quotes above, they imagine that all that life brings can be neatly summed up in Peanuts-the-cartoon-style captions,cliched `thought for today` style doggerel and irritating coversational dead-ends “who is asking?”etc…
If advaitists try to visit me these days, I leave a message:
there`s nobody in…
I was getting too many NBDE`s…
near bored to death experiences….
Don’t know if I’d go that far, Frank, but there’s so much room for self-deception, read the right books, hang around a few Advaitaists and suddenly you’re pure consciousness and if you’re clever with words you might even convince a few people of that too. There were plenty who had satoris or realisations around Poonja, who he told to go to the West and teach, some are still doing it, most had to admit they lost it and have had the humility to acknowledge that, but I wouldn’t mind betting there are still some out there who are just hanging on to the concepts and acting out the guru.
Plenty of people had satoris around Osho, but unlike Poonja he never told any of them to go and teach, probably cos there’s more to it than a satori or realisation.
I don’t think Advaita’s a load of rubbish but unfortunately there are a lot of people spouting off what have now become spiritual cliches.
Frank says, ‘If advaitists try to visit me these days, I leave a message: there`s nobody in…
Why do they wish to visit Frank in the first place?
Also leaves me curious as to how Frank perceives what is going on. Frank is good at the Neti, Neti, but what does he have to offer once he has eliminated everything with neither this nor that?
Lokesh asks…
Q.. “Why do they (advaitists) wish to visit frank in the first place?”
A.. They`re invariably looking for a free lunch.
Q.. “And what does he have to offer?”
A.. I don’t have anything to offer.
The process is the goal.
Hey, that`s a good catchphrase…
I reckon I could get the hang of this advaitising mallarkey….
Well done, Frank. Thank God someone is taking time to feed the starving Advaitists, who are so busy asking each other who they are they have forgotten to eat. Images of long queues of shaven-headed meditators lining up for plates filled with steaming brown rice and fresh chappatis flood my mind…oops, I mean no-mind. Any thoughts on the Nobel Prize for services rendered to humanity? You have my vote.
Parmartha says: “I am not at all sure what Osho means by saying you cannot watch your watchfulness. Why not?”
Maybe if you surrender to everything that arises as it arises you
fall into the silence of watchfulness.
Maybe the context of watchfulness is going on in the space of no-mind where thoughts reflect themselves,.
Maybe if it wasn’t for watchfulness you would not be able
to know what you are thinking.
Maybe we are that watchfulness where thinking occurs.
Katar – I guess you never became the “watcher”, even once, for a short while…If you did, you would know “watchfulness” is the eternal flame, the forever existence, our true nature, etc. etc. So it can’t be done, ’cause you’re home already.
babasvetlana – I guess there is no hope for me whatsoever! I have spent my entire life surfing. The rest I have just wasted and that reminds me of a joke.
There once was a woman who woke up one morning,
looked in the mirror,
and noticed she had only three hairs on her head.
“Well,” she said, “I think I’ll braid my hair today.”
So she did and
She had a wonderful day.
The next day she woke up, looked in the mirror and saw that she had
Only two hairs on her head.
“H-M-M, ” she said, “I think I’ll part my hair down the middle
today.”
So she did and she had a grand day.
The next day she woke up, looked in the mirror and noticed that
she had only one hair on her head.
“Well,” she said, “Today I’m going to wear my hair in a pony tail.”
So
She did and she had a fun, fun day.
The next day she woke up, looked in the mirror and noticed that
there
wasn’t a single hair on her head.
“YEAH!” she exclaimed, “I don’t have to fix my hair today!”
That joke is so bad it must be one of Osho’s.
Kartar – you have to check out Gotham Chopra’s new film about his dad…the “great” Deepak Chopra – I just saw a preview on American t.v. last night, on ABC New’s “Nightline”, the same show that interviewed Osho back in 1985 while he was in jail. Film comes out in October but you can view the preview on “Nightline”. I came away from last night’s preview convinced that our modern generation is more out of it than my generation and that before me…By “out of it”, I mean more neurotic, and thickheaded. Like you said – you spent your time surfing and wasting. Engage in life, go out and live. Today and recent history, say the last 25 years, has been the generation of video games, computer games, web surfing, Facebook, Tweeting… stuck in a room with nothing to do except – let’s see who’s on the net today – gotta keep my Blackberry at hand, gotta join some social group, cell-phone ringing, gotta call my mates, veg out in front of the telly…gotta keep busy…And I thought I had it rough….
I’d have to support that point of view, babasv. It’s a sort of ‘electro-magnetic pollution’ that’s going on – and I sometimes succumb to it, although not through video games, Facebook, Twitter or other social media, just surfing the net.
the grumpy old men are out and about!
i remember,some years ago…..
a guy who i knew,who was a drug dealer, was off to a university campus to sell his wares.
he was going my way,so he gave me a lift.
on the way,we struck up a conversation.
“you know,kids these days are just too straight”( it was the 80s),he complained bitterly
“yeah,man,things have gone down hill” i agreed
“they just dont get wrecked like we used to” he continued
“when i was their age i was smashed out of me head every night,no messing,completely off me face,….
now its all,like: `i`ve got to get up in the morning` and neurotic shit like that”
“me too,i was rat-arsed 25/7…they dont know they`re bloody born” i ecchoed
“they`re more interested in fuckin` filofaxes,pocket calculators, sony walkmans,rubiks cubes,nintendo and all that bollocks..” he continued with genuine venom..
i had to concur…”fuck man, they`ve completely lost it ,too much electromagnetic shit goin` around,for sure”
“for sure”
I find the new generation of children amazing. The new kids are exceptionally bright and I reckon they will have to be, because there is a slow train acoming round the bend and times will become more difficult.
I enjoy very much the kids between 17 and 25. They are very much a mixed bag, but generally I find many of them are more mature than my sixties generation were at their age. I reckon this has to do with access to so much information. There is also the ‘I know it all’ gang, late thirties, early forties. I find many are very ambitious on a materialistic level. It really is impossible to generalize, as there will always be more than a few exceptions.
The other day I visited a meditation centre in the ‘hood. The place is run by a group of Spanish people in their mid-thirties. I spoke to one guy who had dropped out of a very successful business career in Madrid to come and live closer to nature on Ibiza. At one point he led me outside saying, ‘I want to show you something amazing’. I followed, curious as to what he would show me. Minutes later we sat by an old well. He did not say anything, and I wondered, what’s going on? Then I got it. He wanted to show me the view…even though I’d told him that I had been living in the area for thirty years. We sat in silence and looked towards the sea in the distance, framed by verdant countryside with a thousand-year-old fortified church positioned on top of a hill. Fantastically formed cloud formations drifted over the landscape. The young man spoke. ‘This is so beautiful.’ I had to agree and his enthusiasm opened my eyes just a little bit more. If you ask me, the kids are all right.
Why “times will become more difficult” for our children?
Don’t you know what’s happening in the world, Preetam?! May I ask where you live?
Yes, Satydeva, I can tell you why and did already often! But you would be again the first who will say it’s ego, blaming, not of a spiritual seeker, or say just mind
So your question to Lokesh comes from you thinking you know why times will become worse, not from burying your head in the sand?!
You’re not thinking of that wretched ‘freemasons/New World Order etc.’ stuff, are you?
I’ve forgotten, modern spirituality cursorily with worldly issues, it’s too confusing, and it disturbs the ride on the pink carousel. For seekers of “spirituality” in search of some facts, why Men develop in a particular direction of ego, blaming, generally negative or just Mind.
It’s easy to corrupt innocent people by something false, worldly or heavily lies. The False confuses, tells half-truth, volitional or not volitional, doing a problem out of Humanity for just one reason.
Spiritual Strategies force people thinking of becoming a better man and destroying at the same by that strategy his natural freedom. Making people unsure about themselves, just useable for the common, what you try to sell me. Mobbing of “spiritual seekers” who should have become “Finder” (once used by Karima, love it) of himself.
You obviously don’t have a tv. Just to fill you in a little. Economic crisis. Islam is rising and the Christians are mobilizing. There is a country called Iran that is hell-bent on joining the nuclear club. There is another country called USA and they are hell-bent on stopping Iran from joining that club. There is another small country called Israel. They hate Iran and right now are preparing to attack Iran. Israel is surrounded by hostile neighbours. Israel has nuclear weapos. Meanwhile, we have this thing caled global warming that will eventually cause massive disruption on the global weather front.
Taking into account that most people are very selfish, our planet has too many peope on it for the current system to support. As a race we are well on the way to tipping the scales in a very negative direction that will affect everyone. There are numerous factors pointing in a direction that does not bode well for our species. It is highy likely that we are entering an existential cul-de-sac…just another failed mutation in Mother Nature’s lab. It is highly likely that the dinosaurs were much more successful than we will be in terms of survival.
Preetam, you need to get out more. While you still can.
You just list results for “Generation Doof” (Generation Stupid), do you know that book about the young generation brought up by half-truth? But that doesn’t cause hundreds of years’ hostility against Humanity.
The only thing that makes the future difficult is the fear of a minority that Humanity wants to live in peace without hunger, fear and without being dominated by common.
Grand Master David Rockefeller at UN business Conference, Sept. 14, 1994: “We are on the edge of a global redesign. Everything we need is the right great crisis and the nation will accept the new world order.” So much about your official media, paid by the same people.
Preetam, you say, “The only thing that makes the future difficult is the fear of a minority that Humanity wants to live in peace without hunger, fear and without being dominated by common.”
This is such complete and utter tosh it’s barely worth discussing. “The only thing” indeed?!!
Babasvetlana – just looked at the preview on Nightline, good stuff, worth the watch. The way I see it is that children who have been extensively influenced by their parents – can turn out to be the exactly the same or the complete opposite. In my case, my father was a massive influence in my life. He was one of those men who had a way with words and a charismatic personality. When he wasn’t running his busness he was out celebrating all night long till the early hours of the morning chasing women, getting naked, and consuming as much champagne as possible while his wife was at home. In my early days I followed in his footsteps till I realised he was a selfish pig and cared for no one else but himself. And got his kicks telling everyone what to do and exploiting all who came into contact with him. My mother was the only person who bought some sanity into my life. Recently, I have been hanging out with a couple of ten year- olds – school holidays here in Australia and spring time – all they ever do is play video games and play with their remote control toys and are always saying their bored. Sheesh, when I was ten I was never bored, did not even have any toys except for a black gollywog. Anyway, I asked the kids have they ever been camping before and they don’t even know what that is! So I have asked the kids’ parents if they would allow me to take the kids on an adventure. Now the ten year-olds are all excited about going into the unknown and the parents are glad to get rid of the kids for a few days. Such is life.
Almost the same here – kartar. when I was 10, I had my little cars to play with, electric train at around Xmas-time. Besides school, it was for the most part, playing with my mates outside usually, in the park which was nearby. Wintertime, when there was enough snow, nothing but sleigh riding and snowball fights, till I got so dripping and wet from melted snow, I’d run home, change and go back out and do it all again. I was never overweight, which is a big deal now, here in the States, for me it was energy expended at having a good time running about…
Now, we have so-called “wise kids”, as Lokesh professes, more like overly neurotic “know it all kids” who learn life through a computer, not by direct personal interaction…perhaps they are too afraid that they will be “bullied” as they call it here, or picked on and therefore hide themselves at home in front of a computer screen.
Didn’t Osho make fun of those “fakirs” who go hide in the mountains and stay away from people? What did he use to say – “Don’t renounce the world, meditate in the marketplace” – or something like that? Reminds me of Gotham Chopra during the preview, when his dad would say something like that, Gotham would roll up his eyes like, “What did you just say?” type of thing. Sad commentary. Kind of clueless generation obsessed with trivial and mundane things.
Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize
What you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agein’
Please get out of the new one
If you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’….
Bob Dylan
Frank – here in the States they say, “fir sure, fir sure”…A big city boy knows immediately that the person reciting such poetry is from the sticks (backcountry).
Baba says, ‘Kind of clueless generation obsessed with trivial and mundane things.’ Which might be a reflection for all anyone knows. Good examples being, ‘here in the States they say, “fir sure, fir sure”…’ Very enlightening. Then we have the shocking confession and I quote, ‘when I was 10, I had my little cars to play with’. For someone putting down a generation obsessed with the trivial and mundane I ask what kind of example is he setting himself?
I often wonder about my grandson’s incredible skills with computer games and can only conclude that he might one day need those skills to make his way in the world. Baba’s vision is a very short-sighted and negative one. Comparable to deciding that a book is no good by reading a single page. I say he has had his turn and it is time to get out of the way and let the new generations have theirs. After all, the world they are inheriting is the way it is because of our collective actions.
Yes, Lokesh, but I come across a lot of young people of school age who spend a great deal of time at home, at their computers, and rarely do much outside.
I do think that there’s a significant trend away from being in our bodies, in our senses, even being with other people, towards being in an artificial cyber-world, created by and for the in a way ‘disembodied’ mind, which bodes ill for the well-being of those who succumb to its seductive temptations. The younger generation know no better, unfortunately, and many don’t seem to get the balance right.
Not to mention the poor souls who have to spend all their working days in front of a computer screen. My God, what an apology for a life that must be….
I suppose it all depends on where one lives in relation to the impressions one gathers.(just returned from a walk in a pine forest) Then again, there was a photo going round a while back of Kalahari bushmen with very sophisticated phone technology in their hands.
As for Preetam…well, he is obviousy a very intelligent chap who is privy to top secrets that we, the masss, aren’t aware of. Thank goodness we have him around as a guide through the darkness posed by the Kali Yuga. Aieeeeee!
You made the Theme, as I see it it’s about the Self. To me, straight this self causes existence. But, the same self is responsible for the repression of itself – truth, too. So, where the other world ends and “this” world begins.
Preetam:
“But, the same self is responsible for the repression of itself – truth, too”.
I reckon otherwise, Preetam, ie that Man is given freewill to do what he/she wishes with his/her existence. Unless you’re making a clear distinction between Self and our all-too-human ‘selves’, emotionally driven and robotically identified with which we have become, to our obvious detriment. (And unless, of course, you happen to be a ‘Court Jester’ type – no names mentioned – in which case you can simply sit back and laugh at the parade of human folly, without and, hopefully, within!).
So Man has clearly chosen to go down the path of self-willed ignorance of ‘what it’s all about’.
Yes, and the powers-that-be/vested interests make sure they exploit this situation as much as they can. Which has all led up to the current chaotic state of affairs in the external world, major aspects of which Lokesh has outlined earlier today: multiple effects of what I agree with you are from a fundamental cause, that now threaten the survival of our so-called ‘civilisation’.
A veritable Carnival of Ignorance indeed.
Do you reckon Thatcher, for example, as a representative of ‘THEY’, knew what she was doing was wrong, and did it to ‘US’ anyway.
Of course not, Arpana, she was one of the most self-righteous people to hold office. Totally unconscious, but of course!
I reckon a lot of the bankers knew what they were doing and did it anyway
“So Man has clearly chosen to go down the path of self-willed ignorance of ‘what it’s all about’.”
I don’t think Man has chosen, he has given the Idea that he has chosen. But, Man had a choice between two heads, both have the same idea behind. To me, humanity is made to make this choice, with every possible means.
Anyway, for me of interest are only the background story…truth, facts of history and of now, no good and bad or right and ethically wrong, no spiritual idealisation. Just what stands behind and has enough hate against the “own” species doing such things.
Preetam:
“I don’t think Man has chosen, he has given the Idea that he has chosen. But Man had a choice between two heads, both have the same idea behind. To me, humanity is made to make this choice, with every possible means.”
This isn’t exactly clear, Preetam, but I assume you’re saying Man has been and is being subverted, as it were, by the – for want of a better term – ‘powers-that-be’ (priests, politicians, kings etc.).
Can’t disagree, but I think the rot set in before the ‘vested interests’ started to work us over.
In my mind, SD, the jury is still out on whether we have “freewill” or not. This could all be a pre-programmed game by some super consciousness-like being (God). We haven’t even found out how to lick the common cold, never mind discovering the true nature of life on this plane.
I think the phrase- “freewill” has been so ingrained on the human mind (by religious leaders and scientists alike) that we accept it blindly, without question.. We hear “Question Authority” – how about questioning the force feeding of the notion we have freewill?
I’m not aware of any other world other than this one.
Great point SD…Lokesh and his notion of the ideal childhood left out the innocence of children…To him, a smart kid might include some murderous gangsta kid, good with the gun as well as the computer….
Baba says, ‘To him, a smart kid might include some murderous gangsta kid, good with the gun as well as the computer.’ This sounds to me like tyical Babatalk…i.e. dropping huge judgements without having the faintest idea what he is talking about. In this case, this has probably something to do with living in America and watching too much tv.
Babatalk is better than snob talk any day. You’re just a cunning guy using cunning words to con the rest of them.
I think you underestimate “the rest of them”, babasv.
No doubt about that.
con 1 (kn)
adv.
In opposition or disagreement; against: debated the issue pro and con.
n.
1. An argument or opinion against something.
2. One who holds an opposing opinion or view.
Yes, in that sense I am a con man, but I’m not a snob.
Baba, you seem to me to be someone who is bitter and carrying a massive chip on your shoulders. I’ll supply the salt and vinegar to go with the chip if you wish, but I have to admit as to being somewhat curious as to why you are so bitter. Especially so, seeing as how you bombard me with comments about my ego and how I missed Osho’s message. What message was that and how does that fit in with your resentment trip? I’m sure this would be an interesting topic had you the guts to supply a few details.
PS: I trust you enjoyed the link to the Teletubbies vid on You Tube. I just could not bear the thought of you having nothng to relate to.
Lokesh – “you really are a funny guy!” – Henry Hill,”Goodfellas” 1990…
Ever hear of childhood innocence? Guess not…Being an adult-like whizz-kid at the age of 10, then growing up to be a socially clueless and overweight buffoon is just your idea of a “healthy, mature, sensitive, caring, loving, and practical” human being.
Yeah – take a good look in the mirror, Lokesh. Can you see the real self before it starts to fog up?
“the same self is responsible for repression of itself, truth,too.”
Maybe Preetam is trying to articulate the old Hindu Leela thing of God creating the world so he can have any dream he wants by acting all the people in the universe…
After a few aeons, he realises he needs to spice it up a bit…
He gets a farout idea: “I know, I`ll forget that I`m just imagining/dreaming it all..then it will be like it’s really real, what a trip! I`ll try that.”
So he does, but she forgets what she’s done, then goes thru endless stories, joys, hell, sufferings, oppression, nightmares, till eventually she wakes up and remembers that it was actually she who decided to do it all to herself…
I like that mythology.
When you think about it, people all over have always loved a story.
And storytellers (they include our enlightened boys) have been consistently looked up to since time immemorial
That’s why.
There’s a recognition….
Yes, great story, most entertaining – but I guess it’s also a convenient way to divert responsibility on to some omnipotent ‘Supreme Being’, isn’t it?
It could easily be, yes.
The mind is a tool.
It creates stories.
And of course, every tool can be used as a weapon or to dig your own or someones else`s grave!!
C`est la vie!
Yes, SD, indeed that may be the truth. The illusion of freewill is a very egocentric belief, yet we are beholden to our hormones, our genes…We have limitations, so to compensate, the mind creates this illusion that it can choose freely, choosing to do this or that, go this way or that, etc. All in essence, to deny that we are at the hands of some higher power. Just notice how we are beholden to the power of “Nature”… and that is only the tip of the iceberg, the rest is a mystery waiting to be discovered, but we refuse to move onwards and upwards, out of denial or fear of losing our ego.
One of the curious things about Advaita Vedanta is that it discounts free will, or basically comes down very strongly on the side of predetermination.
So-called advanced later teachers of Advaita say things like free will is an important concept and it is important to continue to live one’s life AS IF one has it, but basically one does not.
Frankly, I find all this just sophistry. Advaita is from 8th century India (Shankara) and the whole of Indian history has been blighted by it. In particular, this stuff about everything being preordained – that’s why half the country still lives in shit and preventable disease, and the caste system is like cast- -iron still.
The adventure of human life is that it CAN be free. Of course, mostly it is not. A recent survey from people dying in hospices says that most regretted “working all their lives”. Of course, living outside the norms of society, and living in a free way is very difficult and demands courage and imagination. But a few do it, including the writer of this initial stimulus, and should be admired. Actually, many of the early sannyasins were doing it. Osho was doing it.
Anything like Advaita philosophy that murders that as a possibility is just conservative and supports the status quo in societies, and needs to be discarded. In its context things like courage and self- -determination get slaughtered, but after 100,000 years on this planet human beings deserve better.
Exacto.
Like I said…nihilistic rubbish.
As in…
“Consciousness is dreaming itself as a brahmin who beats to death a member of shit-scraping caste for not scraping his shit properly, then God dreams the shitscraper’s wife is raped by the brahmin…It is written…Hari Om”.
The philosophy of predetermination is a good crack if you`re born to the caste in power.
Trouble is…
The philosophy of free-will was also developed and used by those in power to justify themselves.
“Everyone has free will, it’s just that I wanted it more than you, and I now own the place and you`re a loser. So where’s that 100% interest you owe me, punk?”
The world and its philosophies suck shit whichever way you turn…
Oh well. I think I`ll have a nice cup of tea….
Parmartha says, ‘After 100,000 years on this planet human beings deserve better.’
Well, Parmartha, when reading that statement I rubbed my stubbly chin and shook my head. I could not say that I agree or disagree, but I do admire your enthusiasm.
‘No free won’t’ is more pernicious than ‘no free will’, resulting in Oughtism.
We get lost in being a doer, instead of doing a beer (mine’s a hoegarden).
Neuroscience babble seems to lend support to advaita’s ‘shit happens’, apparently, but no shitter thereof. (Recently noted on Channel 4′s idiot guide to MDMA.) But all the advaitic twittering in the twitter sphere will not a game change make. Some say a ticket to Graceland (thankyouverymuch) is required for the ego to leave the building, but all maps have been shredded. Bummer.
The Britvaita scene seems to have triggered the most nihilistic bleagh feelings in this no free willian. All babies have been thrown out of the bathwater…meditation, celebration, transformation and only a grey tepid scum left behind. How anal retentive, how stiff upper lip…nice bowl of mindfucksoup anyone? Neti neti or nutty or nutty ?
(Of course, Parmartha, you were predestined to say that….-)
I’ve always enjoyed Ramana’s statement: ‘You have only two choces in life and those choices are whether or not to accept that everything in life is preordained.’ (that is my interpretation as I can’t find the original.)
I can imagine the old boy smiling enigmatically when he said that because it is a beautiful Zen koan. Get busy on it!
Just believing that eveything in life is preordained need not necessarily lead to lethargy. After all, it mght be one’s destiny to work hard. I see Frank’s opinion of Advaita being nothing more than quote, ‘nihilistic rubbish,’ as being typical of someone who has not explored it. I know a few people who practice Advaita and they are amongst the coolest people I know. This could, of course, have to do with like atracting like. What I must say also is that these people are all very active in the world and to a lesser or greater extent successful in the world. Yes, now that I think about it they are all very life- -affirmative people…so what does this have to do with nihilism?
ni·hil·ism (n-lzm, n-)
n.
1. Philosophy
a. An extreme form of skepticism that denies all existence.
b. A doctrine holding that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated.
2. Rejection of all distinctions in moral or religious value and a willingness to repudiate all previous theories of morality or religious belief.
3. The belief that destruction of existing political or social institutions is necessary for future improvement.
4. Also Nihilism A diffuse, revolutionary movement of mid 19th-century Russia that scorned authority and tradition and believed in reason, materialism, and radical change in society and government through terrorism and assassination.
5. Psychiatry: A delusion, experienced in some mental disorders, that the world or one’s mind, body, or self does not exist.
Well, I’ve never been too keen on the psychiatric vision!
Osho has the last word here.
Osho on Destiny and Free Will
Question – Are Our Lives Predestined or Not?
Osho : This is not a personal problem, it is a philosophical question. Our lives are both predestined and they are not. Both yes and no. And both answers are true for all questions about life. In a way, everything is predetermined. Whatever is physical in you, material, whatever is mental, is predetermined. But something in you constantly remains undetermined, unpredictable. That something is your consciousness.
If you are identified with your body and your material existence, in the same proportion you are determined by cause and effect. Then you are a machine. But if you are not identified with your material existence, with either body or mind – if you can feel yourself as something separate, different, above and transcendent to body-mind – then that transcending consciousness is not predetermined. It is spontaneous, free.
How do you practise Advaita ?
Nobody knows!!
Autophagy: Eat yourself.
Vartan
Dominic, I use physical exercise as a foundation. A good example is long distance swimming, because it has a number of advantages. I begin by counting strokes. Often by twenty or thirty I find myself on another planet. As Gurdieff said, if you can watch the second hand on a watch and remain toally aware of watchng, you are on the right track. Whenever I am drawn away from the present I return to zero and the count begins again. Thoughts come and go. One trick is not to identify with so-called positive thoughts, which opens the back door for the nego ones.
After a while the thoughts tend to loosen their grip. If they persevere I increase my pace to the point of feeling my lungs will explode and my heart is thumping in my chest. With such a total effort the thought forms have no space to move and no consciousness to identify with them. Now we are getting down to it. If the meditation technique is successful one realizes it by the bliss that accompanies the state. Here words show their limitaions. By saying bliss I don’t mean to imply some exalted quasi-psychedelic space…just a deep relaxation and emptiness. Walking is also good, as is the gym.
We all must find our own way of contacting true self which means complete watchfulness. A good test of how deep you are going is when you fall into anger or depression. If you can remember the ‘I am’ in those states you are getting the hang of it. Everything can be used as a tool. Witnessing is a step but there is more to it than that, because if there is a witness that means something is aware of the witness. It is that awareness that is the target. Here again, words show their limitations.
Once you have the hang of it, meditation becomes easier to enter.
Yesterday, I attended a singing group. Singing is good for opening the heart. Once I’d loosened up I had moments where I could see the whole thing. My corporate form, singing and beating time with my right hand, which was holding a shaker, the whole illusion that we are separate minds and bodies, doing the dance of creation…while that ever present awareness is always vibrating in the background.
In my youth I somehow got the idea that the truth was up there, higher chakras, thousand petalled lotus etc. Now I am at the point that I see reality as being back there, behind the scenes, so to speak.
I think what it is based in is this. We are, for the most part, completely identified with our body/mind complex. Hence we will live the dream of dying one day. Most will, at best, accept this. I see that much of being human has to do with potential. We have the potential to merge with something that will not die with this body and its mental set-up. Thus we have the expression ‘never born, never died’.
What I am talking about is for the few, because there are not very many people who reach a point where they can see that such a potential exists. In my own case it required reaching certain extremes to bring me to where I stand today. Most people that I know who have reached a similar stage don’t mention it, probably wise. I have a tendency to share what I think is worthwhile in life and I have a big mouth. Thus my gregarious personality manifests in the world.
To conclude, I might add that most of the time spent in writing this awareness was mostly there. It’s like a very good habit.
Lokesh,
It makes sense to me…
Meditation is potentially possible at all times…
It is constantly accessible with some kind of intent…
It is not about tripping-out on chakras etc…
It’s “down here”, not “up there”…
There’s a strong feeling of it being valuable…
But how does that make it “advaita”?
Frank, up to this point everything everyone has said was pretty predictable. Now you go and surprise me. I was just on my way to go and put in a bit of time in my studio…doing the thing that passes for work in dimension Loke. What I will do is look for an appropriate quote.
Found it. Good old Nisargadatta, one of my heroes:
‘When thought has no customers, thought vanishes, there is no thought.’
Eh…erm…I’m out of here.
PS: I highly recommend my main man’s ‘The Ultimate Medicine’. It really lives up to its title.
I suppose it`s neccesary to distinguish between trad advaita, which is the philosophy that served well in keeping India as a caste/religion-ridden racist woman-hating, sexually repressed, oppressive cess-pit, as said above.
This was nihilism in the Nietzschean sense – it denied and oppressed the emergence of the human in favour of “divinely” ordained abstraction, and thus lent support to the already all-too-human established order
(when you say everything has to happen as it does, you obfuscate your own input).
Which brings in neo-advaita…which involves westerners.
Again, it is characterised by self-serving delusion.
For example, in neo-advaita, your “story”, the continuous workings of your mind that create “the ego” is the thing to move away from in favour of pure experience, where there is “nobody there”. Yet in reality, you will never find so many characters endlessly repeating their own stories of their realisations, stories of their meetings with “great” men, their “satori” stories(!), important revelations they have had etc. etc…The “story” of their disappearing ego turns out to be a lot more inflated than the average man-in-the-street`s story/ego!
These spiritually obese fellows strut around, self-importantly declaiming against the self and ego and at the same time seamlessly infer their own importance…
It’s brilliant and clever stuff.
It’s as amazing as the feathers on a peacock or the call of the kookooburra.
Humans, eh? bloody `ell.
Road trip Frank.
Not matter transporter!!!!
Good post, Frank. I tend to curb my cynicism, for it can, in certain instances, make you blind to certain aspects of life that are very wortwhile and valuable. In the end it all comes down to how you want to do your dance for the short time you live in the third dimension. Who knows, it might all be for nothing. Nothing, great word.
Inneresting.
Lokesh, sounds good. Thanks for the description of your blisskrieg. I find complete watchfulness as rare as unobtanium. The physicality, totality and watchfulness speaks of Osho, and the resting in/as background awareness of advaitenment. Anything that helps to facilitate these altered states and the deeper self is what works, and is different for everyone. More of a feeling or knack. Perhaps for some the who am I? enquiry works, but I am not much drawn to that, and contraindicated when spiritual escapologists use it to dissociate from uncomfortable experience. Disidentification is also a double-edged sword. In general, I find simply being and embracing what is leads to a spontaneous let-go, wherein spaciousness and relaxation open up.
It does not last of course, so practice needs to be resumed, but then something you enjoy doing in and of itself is not practice in order to get somewhere, it’s more like soul food, though not always easy to digest.
From there flows action, needs, intuitions, creativity etc. that throws me back into life, rather than negation of it.
The fooly realized want to identify with the absolute pole, rather than a free flow between background and foreground, absolute and story. This is a crippled philosophy imo.
Frank, the cynical ennui is refreshing, don’t ever change. A pessimystic is seldom disappointed.
Oh mon dieu, le guru bashing, c’est delicieuse, n’est-ce pas ?
“cynical ennui”?
…moi?
But I must admit I did have a liking for old Albert Camus when I was a young man.
Especially that story about the decadent old debauchee who hangs out in a seedy bar on the fog-bound Amsterdam waterfront.
He engages an innocent fellow compatriot and becomes a kind of guru of hopelessness and extreme cynicism as he expounds his vision of man’s essential duplicity and hypocrisy and pulls the poor chap and the reader into his nihilistic world…
“The Fall” -
that was a good one….
Dominic..11;22.Took a second read to catch the vibe that this is the right stuff.
Fortunately, advaitars did not call up to now for “let go” while swimming around Ibiza Island (rofl).
Frank, let’s name and shame some of these strutting peacocks, these cheater teachers, for fundalini’s sake. There’s Igor Trip, Farrakhan Ari Gant, Guy Dusall, Nome Noyu, Lucinda Mynd, Cara Zmatick, Mick Stupp, Issy Mani, Ova A. Cheever, Haim Al Wes Wright, Luka Demi Moore, Fu Ling Yu, Randy Mann, Albie Rich, M. T. Hedd, Hugh Briss, Holly Krapp, Uri Lee Kwesi, Karmapa Nzimi, Dion Lee Wan, Israel Wanka, Bea Sleyve, Nolan Ding, Hamza Grate, Ahmed Hitab, Haim Zat, Upton O. Goode….
I`ll bet most of them were disciples of Baba Free Baksheesh and Baba Free Lunch at some stage…
They`re all singing the moolah mantra, for sure….
Yeah, Frieda Wallet and Millie Yannaire on bvox.
Not to mention the Mahaharichi…
Must read Monsieur Camus again, good for a midlaugh crisis…
“L’enfer c’est les autres”….
Moolah mantra…nice.
Satsangatory. It is the dawning of the age of nefarious….
Predestination (the physical/emotional body) only leads to Reaction. Free Will (the mind) can offer a Response but they are both connected to a Stimulus.
The Fourth Body (consciousness) has vision. It is visionary. Its heart is imagination and totally independent to any Stimulus. We belong with the visionaries and the seers.
See: “Life of Osho” by Sam, Chapter 25 (The Chakras continued) pp176-179
http://www.enlightenedbeings.com/pdf/life_of_osho.pdf
Also: Osho on the Fourth Body or Consciousness Body
http://www.oshoteachings.com/osho-on-fourth-body-or-consciousness-body-or-vijnanamaya-kosha/
With Philosia we see ‘the vision’ bonded to the mechanism of physical vision:
How 3D can be encoded in 2D and the probability that ‘we’ (our ‘information’) exist in 2D on the event horizon, with the physical body simply being a decoder which allows us to experience what we sense as a 3D world …
BBC Horizon 2011 What is Reality? (2nd half better)
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xkvoa0_bbc-horizon-2011-what-is-reality-hdtv_tech
The word real comes from the word royal. Basically the King tells you what is real.
Vartan
Does all this boil down to one basic idea, ie that ultimately, Consciousness is behind everything, the reality that creates the other levels of reality, eg the world as perceived by our senses?
So in a way, we’re looking ‘out’ at the world/universe, mistakenly taking that for ‘reality’, whereas it’s more like looking through the ‘wrong end’ of a telescope?
Science seems to be coming ever closer to perceiving what have up to now been the insights of spiritual adepts.
“The Fourth Body (consciousness) has vision. It is visionary. Its heart is imagination and totally independent to any Stimulus. We belong with the visionaries and the seers.”
I’d use the word ‘creativity’ rather than “imagination”, which has all-too-fallible human mind connotations for me.
Satyadeva said, “I’d use the word ‘creativity’ rather than “imagination”, which has all-too-fallible human mind connotations for me.”
Creativity is a product of the vision, it is how we exhibit (communicate) that we have had the vision. In communication, words (the Logos) is the simplest form of creativity. Without the Logos all imagination is pointless. Imagination without creativity is opium territory.
Vartan
Yes, that’s more or less what I was getting at, I guess.
Yes without Vision and Creativity there would be no inspiration.
This is all a bit over my head.
Obviously!
Having never been to these places like you.
How about a few tips to show me the way. (I have, do meditate regularly, so that’s not the answer really.)
Super caput meum quoque.
Now I have two F-words to grapple with, free will and fourth body. Moderator, a caution for such wanton display of scholarly intelligence
The answer is surely entheogens….
dominic says: The answer is surely entheogens….
Pharma is like the devil who promises but never delivers. It opens a door that you can never walk through …and now you have a draught to deal with.
What was the question again?
john
Before a few months I came over an article about the third eye. It was a site for medical studies. They found out that in some animals (insects, reptiles, a few birds) a third eye expands light into the brain system, at least about day and night information.
Maybe it says nothing; I find it interesting around the theme of inspiration and realization. Perhaps the third eye makes us able to look through in the dark, if we drop our narrowness.
Once, I came across a definition for a shaman, it said: “One who can see in the Dark”.
Those shameless shamans will say anything to get on tv.
Confrankius say…
“Man who thinks he can see in dark always bang head”.
My Granny, Rebecca Macduff, had a fourth eye in the back of her head. She could use it to shoot off a cat’s whiskers at five hundred paces in a pea soup fog.
Many’s the time I played at her feet, in her derelict croft in Auchtermuchtee, listening to her repeat again and again, ‘Never forget, Lokesh, ‘I am’ itself is the world’. One time, sitting by the heather-clad banks of the River Grungees, she told me that anything you can forget is not the truth. She went on to say,’You will remain confused as long as you are identified with the body. Now be a good laddie and finish yer porridge or you’ll no get a slice o’ plum duff.’
Granny Macduff died of a few years back, after drinking three bottles of homemade vodka, but I still can hear her voice when the wind rustles the pines.
Yes, I trust your granny, too…for sure she was acquainted with the Love that allows listening to her voice when the wind rustles the pines.
Preetam, your third eye must have packed up completely…
I wouldn`t trust Lokesh`s granny further than I could throw her.
She was the one who had it away with Al “The Magick” Crowley on the banks of Loch Ness, wasn`t she?
To be fair…
Her soup was legendary…
And she liked a good smoke
Hubble bubble
Toil and trouble….
Ay yai yai Preetam. Have you thought of upgrading to an iEye for better performance? Latest is 5th generation, back-up first though….
She is buried on Blasted Heath. Frank, you have a good memory. I’d forgotten about that one, which means?….
…She`ll be down there in the underworld with
Magick Al, Beelzebub, Baphomet and all the gang, having a right old shindig…
Rave on, Macduff….
Maybe, do you mean this picture of Baphomet whom I guess Hermes / Toth found it’s interesting an image, the pointer finger of the right hand shows up, the other hand down. One leg walks under the sun – the other stands within the eternal.
I always understood it that the third-eye is one looking in. The darkness can be seen in two ways, one, if one is unfamiliar with the environment, or two, that the eyes are shut. Most can only meditate with the eyes shut (hence the darkness).
Vartan
It’s easier to just switch on a light. Not one of those energy savers, though, they are radioactive.
A Red Indian shaman, called Breaking Wind, who ran endarkenment weekends, used to open our chuckle chakras by smoking a Rajneesh pipe together….
I knew a guy who did a sweat-lodge with breaking wind.
Three days in a dark, hot confined space with nothing to eat but beans.
“What did you learn?” I asked him.
“That life`s a gas.”
Sorry about that one…
It’s from the script of “Carry On Up The Chakras”, starring Kenneth Williams as German New Age tantra guru…Everard Tool
and Sid James as the sex-crazed bishop C W Meatbeater of the Theosophical Society.
“There`s nothing I like better than getting into my fourth body by lunchtime…” etc. etc….
Guru Pitka: Let’s look at the word, guru. Ok. My goal is to get you to say “Gee, You Are You”, tm.
“The Love Guru” (2008)
Vartan
But what does that actually mean, please, Vartan?
The sort of obscurantist statement that confuses rather than clarifies. Typical Eastern guru nonsense – or some American pretending to be an Indian?
Well, ha ha haha!!
Turns out it’s from a – very unsuccessful – film, ‘The Love Guru’:
Darren Roanoke, the star player of the Toronto Maple Leafs, is suffering from stress because his wife, Prudence, has left him for Jacques “Le Coq” Grandé, who is the goaltender of rival team Los Angeles Kings, his nickname apparently a nod to being exceedingly well-endowed. Roanoke’s stress causes his hand to shake, which affects his hockey performance, so team owner Jane Bullard enlists the support of guru Maurice Pitka to help Darren with his stress so that the team can hopefully break their losing streak.
So Vartan’s not the purveyor of obscurantist twaddle I’d imagined he was!! Massive Relief….
Is “Gee, you are you” a crap comedy line,
a clever piece of enlightened wisdom or
an embarrassing chat-up line?
Nobody knows.
Ask him.
[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v83/abraxas/no%209/guru.jpg[/IMG]
Guru Pitka’s No1 is called Rajneesh and I thought that Ben Kingsley as Guru Tugginmypudha made the film. Basically, ‘Austin Powers Does India’ – very badly.
Young Pitka: “I want to become a guru so that girls will like me and then I will like myself.”
Vartan
Arpana says: these places
There is only one place and that is ‘here’.
Arpana says: How about a few tips to show me the way.
Have three:
Mid-action freezing.
Switching attention from the eyes, to the ears.
Defocusing.
These can help to bring you to the moment. For a moment.
Vartan
http://freakymartin.com/2008/06/20/catch-the-moment-part-2-43-photos/
A good piece up there by Lokesh. This closing paragraph is, I think, important:
“To close I will leave you with something by Osho, this is a sannyasin website after all. ‘This is one of the most essential things to remember, that you cannot watch your watchfulness. If you watch your watchfulness, then the watcher is you, not the watched. So you cannot go beyond watchfulness. The point that you cannot transcend is your being. The point that you cannot go beyond is you. You can watch very easily any thought, any emotion, any sentiment. Just one thing you cannot watch — and that is your watchfulness. And if you manage to watch it, that means you have shifted: the first watchfulness has become just a thought; now you are the second watcher.’
The ‘watcher’ seems to be authentically established only if it does not involve dissociating from other elements of our personal reality, especially those related to responsibility. I sometimes refer to this matter as the distinction between the ‘idealized self’ and the ‘regular self’. The ‘idealized self’ is a product of witnessing that is more a form of repression or dissociating. Osho was a maverick in recognizing this problem, and actually trying to do something about it (by integrating therapy with meditation, so that the ‘witness’ could be authentically established, as opposed to being an elaborate mechanism for evading life). I talked about some of this when I was recently interviewed by Ken Bok (not my best, struggling with a cold that makes me sound like a coke-head, along with the irony of trying to wake up with coffee while discussing the matter of ‘awakening’).
The video cannot be shown at the moment. Please try again later.
When Osho says you can’t watch watchfulness, isn`t he saying:
you cant bite your own teeth, or see your own eyes.
so youve got to just be them?
To me, theories about “authentically establishing the witness” sound like theories about how to bite your own teeth…
and may well be elaborate strategies to avoid life….
How about banging yourself, Frank? Can you do that?
Is this R.A.T., rude awakening training ? Has Frank enrolled ? Is Gurdjieff paying him ? Is it ad hominem to his straw man ?
Perhaps we could all have a day off netiquette once in a while and enjoy some rude awakening. How about foul fridays, swearing sundays or wicked wednesdays ?
Inner arresting vid Mr T. Professorial.
Don’t believe in Jesus as historical fact, just as another legend to play with.
Some Matrix quotes then…
“If real is what you can feel, smell, taste and see, then ‘real’ is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain.”
“Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.”
“What you know you can’t explain, but you feel it. You’ve felt it your entire life, that there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is, but it’s there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me.”
“That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else you were born into bondage. Into a prison that you cannot taste or see or touch. A prison for your mind.”
“Neo, sooner or later you’re going to realize, just as I did, that there’s a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.”
Now, who’s got the red pill?…
The Matrix!
Agent Brown: Perhaps we are asking the wrong questions.
How to unplug?..Agent…S..m..i..t..h
Omg, I’m jacked in…
Protect the Matrix, keep the resistance contained and The One aka Neo (advaitins) distracted with blogposts, and trips to the MetaCortex and club Hel….
PT, no, I haven`t.
What`s it like?
Personal reality, is it reality, or dream? Responsible for whom except oneself if the true self is the whole. Idealized and regular…if one knows the regular, the false disappears. But it gives me the impression one confused himself a bit by regular and idealized.
If the Idealized is not the real self, how is it possible that it is a product of witness, at the same a form of repression and dissociating? Maybe, is witness intangible for some people? Or, maybe both are false, then only Dynamic Meditation will help till you die.
I suggest the Love space, not dividing oneself into pieces, being total and whole. The modern art of healing divides the psychic into pieces and covers truth into maya, and maya into reality.
Preetam, Dynamic Meditation is great for what it is…basic. It’s like cleaning out the basement or building a strong foundation…a beginning, not an end.
During the early days of Poona One I was a dynamic meditation addict…couldn’t face the day without a good catharsis. The ashram began to develop and less and less of my contemporaries did dynamic. They’d begun working (“worshipping”). I was acutely aware of this, as Osho must have been. I hung in…hoo, hoo, hoo. Eventually, after years, I joined the work force, or went to Goa for a break when I found the whole trip ridiculous.
So. I cannot agree that dynamic meditation will help till you die. I don’t believe it was created with such an extreme purpose in mind. I don’t see Dynamic having much to do with real meditation, other than it being a good process to till the soil in preparation for something to grow which by its very nature is much more refined than Dynamic Meditation.
Me too, have been a Dynamic addict. For sure is the main work of Dynamic, a good release. But for me it always has the quality of a hammer, going through resistance and more. Speaking for me, it is the most important meditation technique; on my way to understand meditation a little better, silence. Now, once in a while if the Body works properly, I like it as challenge for staying focused within the realization of what I call Meditation, out of pleasure.
Interesting to look back in sangha. I haven’t done Dynamic per se for a while, daily meditation is more quiet, but once in a while, why not? I can remember how enlivened and centred it often made me feel.
Of course, catharsis and intensity can become addictive, bit like xtreme sports, drugs and raves in the normal world, looking for that high. So it’s good to see that sometimes gentler approaches (no pushing) may touch at an even deeper level.
Osho’s meditations were unique in blending different elements, whether forcefully as in Dynamic or more gently as in Kundalini. If you consider those elements you can mix and match and make up your own to fit. There’s nothing holy about the tape, the music or the one hour tag imo. Think of Dynamic as activation, release, centring/totality, integration/beingness, celebration/dance. No other spiritual movement offered the level of ‘juice’ that Osho did imo.
Though as you get older your juice requirements and need to offload probably go down. Osho was eclectic and not the usual, only passive, quiet (often heady) and non-expressive modalities of other groups.
If I think of Lokesh doing his swim meditation and singing, it seems to incorporate these elements of activation, soft release, opening the heart, chakra/expression etc..
I always thought of stage 2 in Dynamic as an expressive phase, not only cathartic. If there weren’t emotions to release one could sing, be an animal, be playful, be Zorba, as was also true in No-Mind, Born Again, Mystic Rose, Aum, Nataraj, etc.
Main thing I think is to enjoy what you do and recognise that needs will change…
What is ‘real meditation’? That which requires no ‘practice’, perhaps.
Dominic states, ‘No other spiritual movement offered the level of ‘juice’ that Osho did.’
There were times in my life when I would have agreed with that statement. Today, I am more open to seeing that it might not be like that. I think it’s a case of different juice for different folks. I’ve met many people who are enthusiastic about how much juice they get being around this or that master or teacher.
I have a good friend who is really into Guru Maharaji, a wee fat guru I could never take seriously. The friend in question is an intelligent and sensitive man, master musician, who can play anything from rock to classical and during the summer gigs nearly every night. He is also a partner in a very successful kind of New Age event that has gained international recognition. He performs about 50 wedding ceremonies a year. He is in great physical shape due to his daily hatha yoga. He meditates every day and is a much loved and respected member of the community. At sixty the girlies still dig him due to his waist-length hair and youthful appearance, mild-mannered approach and general great guy vibes.
He goes to Maharaji events and comes back buzzing. He absolutely loves Maharaji. Maharaji! Gulp! There has to be something in it and the wee fat guru must be doing something right.
Why compare?
Lokesh says:
“I’ve met many people who are enthusiastic about how much juice they get being around this or that master or teacher…”
It is said that the right seeker can achieve, even, with the wrong master.
Vartan
Fascinating, Teertha, thank you.
Also thanks for bringing my attention to Yaeko Iwasaki. Her, ‘Buddha is none other than Mind’ is quite similar to my conclusion that, when not practising No-Mind, to make sure your mind is telling you what you want to hear. I see the mind very much like the internet, where we are all online, but we don’t all use it the same way or go to the same places. I even know people who have absolutely no idea what to do with it, while to me, it has been a source of wonder.
Inter-es-ting that you are both sitting in front of books. Maybe next year you should be sitting in front of computers. Hehe.
Vartan
Thanks for the YouTube clip Teertha. Though it is obvious you were ‘under the weather’, as you said, I was impressed by your erudition: your ‘off the cuff’ references to Dante and Emerson – your knowledge of the Western Esoteric Traditions – unlike so many sannyasins whose only ‘connection’, so to speak, is found through Osho discourses – not that there’s anything wrong with that – but there is a ‘history’ – and you, in your interview, revealed some foundational understanding – and I think some may find and see this as a threat…rather than enlightening.
There’s certainly a ‘history’, but whether any of it is practically relevant to most people in this day and age is open to question, isn’t it?
Nice stuff to read and speculate about though, inspiring even.
Hey, Rajni,
Teertha is not the only one who can make off-the-cuff comments about famous stuff, you know…
I once saw Emerson live at the Rainbow in the 70′s, and he absolutely mashed his keyboard.
As for “Dante`s Inferno”, I`ve been playing it since it came out in 2010.
And what`s so erudite about traditional westerns?
You into Louis Lamour or something?
We can laugh, Frank. But Mr T was born for this, after thousands of years of cognitively enhanced eugenics and the drive for success and self-promotion. He is, I presume and dare I say it, Jewish…as so many ‘teachers’ are, I have noticed.
Hey Frank. Yeah, I was a disciple of Master Louis L’Amour way back. He had a big commune in Arizona which was cruising along real well until this dude, this High Plains Drifter, rolled into town. After this the commune scattered… some of us ended up in Oregon. Others got lost on the way and are still wandering listlessly around with Dante and Virgil
Rajni -
Virgil, eh?
So you were a fan of “Thunderbirds”,too?
Where was International Rescue in 1985,I ask?
Or do you mean that serious one about the psycho Roman guy with adenoids?
Seemed a bit anoid, to me.
Dominic –
Yes,there’s a bit of racial stereotyping in the vid…
With the Jewish PT Sellers as Inspector Clouseau investigating the mystery of life with his long-suffering Chinese manservant Cato….
Well, Frank – As it turned out, Virgil and Lady Penelope ended up in Oregon, but, try as they might, they were too busy shovelling snow to alert International Rescue to save the situation going down…Their trainee therapists kept insisting they were having some ‘shared’ paranoid delusion – so every time they attempted to contact IR they were locked in a room and forced to…(rest of this post has been deleted by the FBI).
Yes m`lady,i see.
so Virgil is really Roman?
but Roman sounds more like Brains to me.
But seriously,
I do love the classics…
Homer and “Cartoon Gnosticism” are particular favourites…
Doh!
Rajni says:
Hey, Frank. Yeah, I was a disciple of Master Louis L’Amour way back. He had a big commune in Arizona which was cruising along real well …
Yeah, he strolled-in with his N2O canisters as if he owned the place.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v83/abraxas/no%209/9-the-compressed-gas-canister-in-no-country-for-old-men-39625.jpg
Vartan
Why, thank you, Rajni and Vartan. The second half of my interviews/talks are generally sharper than the first half – I’m a bit of a slow starter – but your feedback is appreciated.
The analogy of ‘the Matrix’ I used in the talk connects very much with the Gnostic ideas, although ironically, I think that Osho was in most ways an ‘anti–Gnostic’. A key part of Gnosticism is that material reality is a negative, or even evil, and that the ‘true God’ did not create this material world and has nothing to do with it. Osho taught that this world is ‘divine’, certainly not a negative, and so in that respect he was more aligned with mainstream Christian doctrine (which teaches that the world was created by God) than he was with the Gnostics.
Teertha,
I also enjoyed the interview. No doubt you are aware of the influence Emerson had on Nietzsche who is probably the best selling Western philosopher today, and is so easily quoted out of context. Nietzsche certainly could write a sentence but how many can read one. Freud, who won the Goethe prize for literature, once said that if he read more Nietzsche he’d have nothing to write.
I find your reference to Gnosticism interesting. Whilst Osho was not a gnostic there is an agument for saying that ‘Oshoism’ is a gnostic movement. Harold Bloom, whom you’ve referenced, pointed out in his ‘The American Religion – The Emergence of the Post – Christian nation’, how American Christianity has its own peculiar theology’, a spirituality which he calls ‘Cartoon Gnosticism’, where American Christians have their own timeless Jesus, whether it be Pentecostals, Mormons, Adventists, Christian Scientists, and Jehovah’s Witnesses – as well as the beliefs of Southern Baptists and African – Americans.
You can surely see where I’m heading here? Osho lovers now have their own personal interior Osho who is disembodied and no longer confined to time and space. If you encrouch too closely on someone’s personal Osho you’ll quickly be told where to go. So in a sense ‘Oshoism’ has gone gnostic with this personal ‘deity’ residing within one’s self. Incidentally, Bloom’s book is a great read and highlights how certain Christian cults in the United States during the 19th century made Woodstock look tame. Bloom regards himself as a sort of gnostic which is obvious when one reads his books on poets like Blake.
Finally, as you’ve mentioned ‘The Matrix’, the March edition of ‘Sight and Sound’ has an interesting article on David Lynch, which considers his film, Mulholland Drive, in the light of the Vedanta – inspired spiritual philosophy that underpins the director’s work. Lynch is seen as a spiritual artist in the same line as Tarkovsky, the great Russian director.
Hi Roman,
Having your own timeless deity which you defend zealously is simply good old-fashioned religion.
They all do it, don’t they?
And there’s plenty of Oshi`ites and sunniasins doing that.
Intellectuals, psychotherapists and teachers aren’t much different.
For example, Teertha thinks the sun shines out of Siggy Cigardust Freud’s coke-addled ass, and that we should be all be eternally grateful to the guy. Then watch him lose his rag if you suggest differently!
Frank,
I find it interesting how these American denominations don’t stress the crucifixion. Some don’t even have a crucifix in their place of worship. Jesus was ‘never born and never died’. Somewhat gnostic? One only has to contrast this with the film of Mel Gibson, who apparently is an ultra conservative catholic, where the flogging and cricifixion counts for all. Didn’t the Vatican love it?
By the way, I haven’t been away celebrating myself. I’ve had a lousy time in and out of hospital with health issues. I’ve read some postings over the months. I think Camus is a wonderful writer. The gap between our expectations and life doesn’t fit. The absurdity of it all. He articulates this so beautifully. Anyway, the trees are nice from the park bench and I’m picking up. Take care.
Roman writes:
“Harold Bloom…pointed out in his ‘The American Religion – The Emergence of the Post – Christian nation’, how American Christianity has its own peculiar theology’, a spirituality which he calls ‘Cartoon Gnosticism’, where American Christians have their own timeless Jesus, whether it be Pentecostals, Mormons, Adventists, Christian Scientists, and Jehovah’s Witnesses – as well as the beliefs of Southern Baptists and African – Americans.
You can surely see where I’m heading here? Osho lovers now have their own personal interior Osho who is disembodied and no longer confined to time and space. If you encroach too closely on someone’s personal Osho you’ll quickly be told where to go. So in a sense ‘Oshoism’ has gone gnostic with this personal ‘deity’ residing within one’s self.”
SD:
Your last sentence above, Roman:
“So in a sense ‘Oshoism’ has gone gnostic with this personal ‘deity’ residing within one’s self.”
Sounds pretty spiritually degenerate to me (maybe also to you?), if the Master is reduced to mere figments of our various imaginations, fired by all their imagined needs and neuroses – a sort of ‘all things to all people’ multi-headed persona…But that’s the price of hanging on to a dead Master, isn’t it (especially one that passed away 2000 years ago)?
I suppose – as usual – it all depends on the individual, if it’s true that when someone dies they ‘go inside’ those that love them…Depends on how refined the inner connection…And people can fool themselves…
But is this inner “personal deity” stuff, that you’ve outlined, Roman, really similar in any meaningful way to that of the Gnostics’? After all, Masters aren’t ‘deities’ or ‘gods’ and to treat them as such instead of as ‘fingers pointing to the moon’ is going off-track, isn’t it?
And I’d thought the Gnostics were a lot ‘stricter’, more authentic than your common-or-garden Christian, ie primarily committed to ‘esoteric’ rather than the ‘exoteric’ forms of the ‘spiritual path’. Surely they and the various American sects you’ve listed are on different planes, the American lot are into a sort of emotional wish-fulfilment, aren’t they?
Gawd help us if sannyasins degenerated into that sort of arena…Nah, couldn’t happen…(?!)
SD,
I couldn’t have said this better. Lots to think about here. I remember leaving Poona two weeks after Osho died and was cremated. I haven’t been back.
Nietzsche probably despised and admired Socrates at the same time. Despised the ‘no one does wrong willingly’ approach and its attempt to rationalise and give existence a telos. Hence Nietzsche’s love of the pre-socratics like Heraclitus, the riddler who didn’t ignore the dark and tragic side to life.
I think one of Osho’s best books is the one on Heraclitus.
American Christianity ignores the tragic side to life. What to say about Oshoism? A whitewash? At least there isn’t a whitewash on sannyas news. Some hard questions are asked and with a lot of humour.
Cool comment, Roman. Right on!
Oshism -
The meeting of the Whitewash Brotherhood?
However hard they try it`ll probably always be more of a White Rogue Brotherhood.
Try
Whiter than white Osho detergent.
With extra added bio-danza -
The unique three-in-one whitewash…
Keeps your white robe sparkling clean…
Gives a complete brain-wash…
And launders your soul…
All in the here and now!
Yahoo!
(terms and conditions apply)
Thanks for the positive comment, Mr T. Have saved the link for a quiet evening. Looks interesting and it’s always good to have a face with the words.
Who am I , who am I?
This enquiry was happening continuously in my brain, from the time I came to know this exercise for the inner fitness.
Finally it dawned on me, whosoever I am, I am in much better position than the others.
This was quite a humbling and redeeming experience!
PS – Lokesh, it is not a personal statement but a general observation.
“Who Am I?” is a meaningless mantra-type construct…
“Let me say first in a preliminary way, the easiest way to stop thinking is first of all to think about something that doesn’t have any meaning.” Alan Watts (on Zen)
Vartan
This is where beginners get confused, thinking that Advaita means going around all day asking oneself, ‘Who am I?’. It runs a wee bit deeper than that.
I`ve heard that Scottish advaita as taught by Rabmana Macarthi is practised by pointing at yourself in the mirror and intoning…
“Hoo th` fock d`yu thunk yu`re lookin at, pal?”
A schizophrenic practising Scottish advaita: Are you staring at us?
Vartan
Frank, I think you mean Rabama Mahanesbitji. The great Scottish Advaitaist who was crucified for his beliefs at Govan Cross. His famous last words were. of course, ‘Let me tell you this, ya bunch a useless tattie-heided tossers!’
Much loved and revered by the local populace on Glasgows southside, Rabama taught Advaita to anyone who would listen. Even today, Rabama’s technique of staring at the bottom of an empty pint beer glass for hours on end is still practised by many in the homeland. Brings a salty tear to my eye simply visualizing the great master, dressed in his holy string vest, spreading his message wherever he went.
“By their underwear ye shall know them.”
A fine Bromance, Frank ‘n Lok. Fifty shades of sadsang. Gives this saddhudhu a hearton.
“Runs a wee bit deeper than that”…ooh, you’re such a tease. Master, save all us poor beginners from Confusianism and Truth Decay…
Is the answer same as following, perchance..?
“Descartes walks into a bar. The bartender asks him if he wants a drink. Descartes says ‘I think not’ and disappears.”