Bards with Beards in Bars and Fiddling away the Time (from Prem Martyn)
One of the loveliest places which holds many fond memories for those who know to travel there is Westport on Ireland’s wild west coast . Nestled in its own bay the town itself is so small you can comfortably walk the length or breadth of it in 15 minutes. Bordered by St Patricks Mountain and the everchanging stunning emerald blue green waters of the bay, the river runs through town, past the many pubs. Here as you go up Wesport’s high street you’ll come across several ale house, most of which hold their own evenings of Irish music. One of them, Matt Molloys, is famous around Ireland, but that doesn’t make it a packed pub every night, far from it. On a wet night (most nights can be wet in the autumn , spring or winter in West ireland) a glass of whatever you fancy can be had in Molloys, by your own crackling wood fire, on your personal antique bench in a corner of this low ceilinged 18th century pub.
What caused me to write of this tonight? Well its been raining here all day in Switzerland and rain as we all know is synonomous with melancholy and pouring things. Think of all the allusion to rain in your favourite ballads. And strangely, or not so strangely, Ireland is home to both … rain and melancholic tunes or laments ..and even high jigs .. but more of that later.
For now , I’ll stay with the melancholy theme, without ladling it on. You see the Celtic Harp is the most definitive of instruments upon which one may hear these airs and graces that go back into the Irish tradition of singing, playing and dancing in music. In fact Ireland out of all the european and other countries I know is the most musical of any place I have lived in. Westport and its neighbouring (20 miles up the road ) village of Louisburgh , always has music coming out of strange wee corners at night, just as the sun starts setting in the bay.
Down by the actual port of Westport other pubs and hotels vie for clientele and sometimes it can get really packed, maybe even six or seven people, plus the musicians, which signifies that you have come to where its ‘heaving’ and the place to be that night. Other times, the all-encompassing landscape and seascape closes in and that can make you feel like they always have here… far away in some undiscovered part of somewhere.
Close to Louisburgh , looking over its shoulder is the sometimes snow capped mount of holy St Patricks.. the car park there is always very busy… one car or maybe a half-full bus may be seen outside of the summer months, and seeing anyone outside of the peak season on the road between Westport and Louisburgh, is close to the chances of winning the lottery. The reason for that being that there’s no pavement until you actually get to Louisburgh proper.
Well, back to the music and the fine art of being able to drink and sing and play like fury. Ireland does its best to host any number of festivals and Westport has a bluegrass and folk fiddlers one from around the world, sometime in June. Now about the harp. A few years ago I was in the ancient Welsh town of Aberystwth by the sea minding my own business at a world music festival in the university come cultural centre. And it was there that this strange instrument in its very earliest form was being played. I think the name of the thing is a Crwyth but I know, and don’t ask me how I just do, that our dear SN editor Parmartha is familiar with this lyre or ancient Harp, which can be compared to a slightly limited sitar thingy in its range of sound… the strange thing is that the half a dozen strings can also be hit with a wooden spoon, a bit like a dulcimer or santoor.
The combination of instrument plus half out of tune singing bard…is well-weird. Think Cacofonix in the comic stories of Asterix the Gaul. So what was the lyre or the later harp intended for, well, in all good tribal cultures before the advent of singularised hypnotism via technology, the bard produced a specific and welcome trancing effect, in between the dancing. A sort of cross between storyteller and enchanter, these skills have all but been relegated and sidelined by the invasive and still born effects of the deferred exchange and virtual experience of modern life. Which is a shame. The flickering laptop is no replacement for the flickering common fire.
So what has all this to do with exchanges and stories here on SN…..? What was nice about Osho is that his way of storytelling was very Irish really. Elliptical , full of asides and left you trying to remember what and where was the point of it all. Plus oftentimes having, by way of listening and sitting with him, a very different sensation of selfhood to the one you went into discourse with, albeit without much effort apart from sitting or lying down at the back and nodding off and waking up feeling quite scatty.
And what was the Irish bit about, that I first started this with….? Just that if you do like a good festival, some stories to tell and crackling fires, have a look up and down the Irish and Scots coast this year , there’s usually something big or small, bardic or boozy to tempt even those who have never heard or told a tall story. And you never know some of the old Celtic magic might find you jigging along to the odd singing fiddlers and story tellers and even trying your feet at some furious pair dancing.. a real art of combining and losing yourself all at once.
Begorrah..
ireland and india have even got the same coloured national flags.
one colour each for the local psycho religionists…
the indian constitution was based on the irish constitution too.
that was an odd one.
credit where its due….those paddies sure know how to talk bollocks into a tune.
you remember how osho used to say that if nietzsche or einstein had been born in india,they would have been buddhas?
well,by the same token i reckon if shantam had been born in ireland,he would have been up there with james joyce….
may the road rise up to meet you!
Sannyasnews merely requires extra investment… now there’s a little village i know of with a pub for sale ….hire a few pretty serving wenches… rolling osho videos on 50 inch flat screen tellys….best osho limerick sponsored poetry evenings, charity hugathons, a formal apology hanging over the bar, lookalike beard competitions, therapy night…where everyone cries into their drinks, life’s a gas helium ballon and nitrous oxide fun filled family laughter days,…
oh and special talent spot for the village idiot…
>> What was nice about Osho is that his way of storytelling was very Irish really.
Oral traditions. The ability to memorise vast amounts of information. Homer, The Odyssey, Iliad. Seanchai. Irish storytelling. Story telling. Memory devices. Did you know that watching flames promotes dendrite growth for the stories to go deeper? All that is now superseded by the portable computer. When you hear something you still have to memorise it, when you see something you don’t have to memorise it. That’s why Osho’s books are still the primary medium that attracts people to him.
someone once said the universe is made of stories not atoms……
well the norwegians must have good dendrites then, judging by their new television channel…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-21482313
i can recommend collecting a winters supply of forest wood and chopping a couple of tons by hand….i felt very elemental doing that just before the snow set in…and at night i can be heard muttering about elk and Tromso in my dreams….
if I didnt have such a pragmatic contemporary mind more of the treasures would seep through to my dendritic neurons, and life would be more poetry and less prose…..abandoning any such ideas of salvationist enlightenment and just living with what one loves seems as a very fine option to those who have been to the edge and come back…and statistically speaking its irrelevant to even think of setting up a religion to pursue that goal of gnosis ..
if the ancient greeks got as far as they did.. i reckon we should all clap and just get on with something a little less onerous and bothersome…love is a very fine aspect which doesn’t get much of a look in , in the reminiscences about the Master’s people especially here on SN….
is that because men find talk of love embarassing….
Its your round… diddlley i diddley ididdley ididdidley
Must admit this reads like a travelogue, just the sort of ‘article’ one gets over at Oshonews, which makes me mouse your site first…. hope this will be the first and last.
Actually Osho was in Ireland for seven days in his “world tour”, cos the Border Control in Shannon was so sleepy and Irish…
now does anyone have an account of those few days in Ireland, spent in a posh hotel in Galway… though not sure of that fact, the drink might have got at my memory…
i remember……
the local protestants heard that he was leader of the orange people and invited him to one of their parades……
dear hc
blimey five years of contentious ribaldry and one effing article about having a nice time and you reckon your perspectives are challenged… just go lateral on it and the article will be as relevant to your wish as you wish….
if you’ve never thought of storytelling as what happens on sn and how we’re engaging or not according to that demand then you may not be writing with any intention of dialogue let alone travelogue….
Heraclitus says:
>> Must admit this reads like a travelogue, just the sort of ‘article’ one gets over at Oshonews, which makes me mouse your site first…. hope this will be the first and last.
I’ve actually enjoyed checking out the Crwyth … interesting sound.
Have you heard of the Hang? It’s a recent invention but sounds old.
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those guys have definitely got the hang of it.
lovely sound..every home should have one…
Life raises questions everyday. Tv Pandits give their best answers yet..i don´t see anyone capable of handling questions and taking us deeper with Answers. Information is passing through ears and brain cells with lightening speed and going out also with the same velocity. Better i write questions to Osho and wait for the answer from inner Osho..
Beloved Osho,
Pope Benedict has resigned. He is the first pope in 600 years to do so. What would you like to say about its impact on Christianty, master?
Beloved Osho,
Leader of formerly untouchables in India, gutsy Mayawati wants to address the nation as Prime Minister. Would you shed some light over the fragile democracy of India?
Beloved Osho,
There are some members of your blood family running their own meditation shivirs and buying time on religious channels for the discourses on the same books you have already spoken so intensively. What is your message for them?
The Obama administration is planning a decade-long scientific effort to examine the workings of the human brain and build a comprehensive map of its activity, seeking to do for the brain what the Human Genome Project did for genetics….
This is the news i was waiting for. Without the complete knowledge and working of brain, spirituality will remain in the hands of street magicians and people with Narcisstic tendencies.
From my side, i am willing to go for brain mapping in company of someone like Dr. Shailandra Jain aka Chote Swami ji of Oshodhara fame and also Dr. Amrito, the self appointed spokesperson of Osho.
I hope this message reaches them through winds of change..
hahahaha….lol….lmao etc….
as eric morcambe used to say:
“there`s no answer to that!”
classic stuff
thanks shantam.
you bring me sunshine……
a drunken englishman,a punjabi ventriloquist and a jain with a tea-cosy on his head go to a psychiatrist to get their brains tested……
and what about eckhart tolle?
he`s got an important part to play in
the human garden gnome project,too,hasn`t he?
frank says:
>> a drunken englishman, a punjabi ventriloquist and a jain with a tea-cosy on his head go to a psychiatrist to get their brains tested……
Aren’t you going to finish the joke … or is it a koan?
Basically now with the possibilty of brain mapping, it will become clear whether there is some racial divide or not. Echart Tolle V/s Rajneesh, Afro Advaitist Mauji V/s Lokesh….unending possibilites…
Quantum mechanics and the etheric body
The Indian mystic Osho said, when the quantum physicists, with their new methods, went from the world of matter to the subatomic world, they went – without knowing it – from the physical to the etheric plane. According to Osho, if you go deep in the physical body to the microcosmic level there is a more subtle electrical body called the etheric body. The etheric body is sort of a blue print of the physical body. In the etheric body, also called the emotional body, feelings, sensations and thoughts exist as waves while they exist as particles in the physical body. At a certain level of attention, the waves and wave packets at the etheric level collapse into particles at the physical level. This is of course a quantum mechanical process. (Roger Penrose: Assumptions for a Quantum theory of Consciousness)
* * *
… or as it is being often said, the map is never the territory. The consciousness can not be mapped as it is too random.
Only problem is, Shantam, what happens in the brain is an effect, not a cause.
TM people and others have been examining the brains of their ‘meditators’ for decades, finding all sorts of positive effects, but it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re any more ‘conscious’ than anyone else, simply that they might function more efficiently in certain areas.
Well, I hope that these neuro-scientists and their brain mapping projects manage to find the lump of lard floating around in Shantam`s head that is trying to pass itself off as a brain, and do something about it…
Science does have limits you know!!!!!
If you looking for positive effect, watching a good movie is better than doing TM. A good movie always stops the mind.
If you are looking for more consciousness then it’s a silly request. It’s like asking for more light at midday.
Well, anything that demands our sustained attention keeps the mind occupied and aimless thinking ‘at bay’, but watching a good film, while invoking the ‘change is as good as a rest’ effect, elicits our emotions, not necessarily comfortable ones, doesn’t it, so it might well not be as relaxing as TM, which, in my experience, rests the whole system.
satyadeva says:
>> but watching a good film, while invoking the ‘change is as good as a rest’ effect,
I was only following Osho’s example … a good old Indian movie should do the job. Or any foreign movie without subtitles for that matter. Instead of talking gibberish, it will be listening to gibberish.
relaxing the system… ? my girlfriend does that for me… otherwise she gets sent to the naughty girl magdalene laundry room where she is forced to apologise for her sinful godless ways…
i heard that barry long was a big fan of old black and white westerns for relaxation…
along with “who am i?”, a question that spiritual seekers often ask is:
why do enlightened guys have such dreadful taste in movies?
now there`s another book project for ol` pt misteryburger….
and krishnamurti was fond of old westerns,too,along with his detective novels.
here`s a useful bit of information if you`re ever taking part in a pub trivia quiz down at the the old
`finger pointing at the moon` free house:
the last movie that krishnamurti ever watched?
ET.
just visiting the planet etc….
Science has the limits but belief not!
God is dead but my dead Mas.. is alive..
Fuck the science i believe i believe i believe..
shantam prem says:
>> i believe i believe i believe..
If you are going to believe, you might as well believe yourself rich, and clever, and all that other stuff.
Coming from someone who sees themselves as propagating Osho’s legacy, whatever that is, it’s a bit rich coming away with this ‘I belive’ crap.
One thing Osho repeated many times was that belief and doubt are two aspects of the same coin…basic and correct. Therefore a sannyasin making a thing out of belief sounds absurd. Of course, Shantam being the dummy that he is will belive otherwise.
Satyadeva, tell me please who is more ‘conscious’ ?
The gurus; male and female? just because they advise to the drained out human beings rather than telling their own grief…
How they can have the grief..when not married no children and enough people to take care of their “simple” needs.
If Lokesh has little bit of empty space in his full sim card, he will see, the following three lines in the end were written as satire and not biographical note… …People with minimum sense of humour always say, Osho taught so..Osho taught so..and we got it..
Bravo!
Science has the limits but belief not!
God is dead but my dead Mas.. is alive..
Fuck the science i believe i believe i believe..
lokesh,shame on you!
all those psychedelic drugs have made you incapable of seeing that you are in the presence of a satirical comic genius….
“god is dead but my dead mas is alive
fuck the science i believe i believe i believe”
you dont get that?doh!
anyone who has watched a bit of porn can understand!
shantam has a way with the english language that is hard to describe.
“the amritsar massacre”,maybe?
he should certainly apologise!
….this isn’t cricket chaps….i know for a fact that the umpire here takes a very dim view of proceedings here, and that’s not only because he lives alone with the curtains drawn… oh no….
this is a spiritual marketplace with hundreds of thousands of readers whose consciousness is shaping a brave new world.Come onnnnnnn, !!!!!
In fact I have just set up a survivors group called
‘ Victims of Online Disciples Undisciplined Harassment’ and welcome evidence of this particularly unsporting form of verbal bullying with or without typing errors and other deviances.
I am professionally trained in dealing with issues of spiritual intimidation, including contradiction, inappropriate metaphors, inaccurate interpretations, insufficient exposure to wisdom, ….. common symptoms include : poor diligence or an inability to look within for longer than 2 minutes before giving up in despair ; inaccurate conclusions drawn from excessive selfless devotion to oneself; a general loss of vigour and vitality following years of misdirected jumping up and down shouting haha and not hoohoo as required.
Victims of this ‘dis-inspiration’ can spend years harbouring symptoms of spiritual illnessnessnessness, clinging to vestiges of hope , alone, in online ‘forums’ where they re-expose themselves to unnecessary mudslinging, and oily vitriol, in a typical descending spiral of self-blame for not having understood the power of soft cushions to change the world.
Why, only yesterday I received a grant from the EU to take this supporters group on a no expenses spared , no expenses paid, charabang holiday high in the Swiss alps to give them a new sense of purpose and direction in life freed from the ‘locked in’ syndrome described by the international specialist , Doctor Fritz Parmundarthuren as; ‘ der lonely old codgeren syndrome mit der pumpkin in der place of die headen’.
Doctor Fritzenburger runs a specialist clinic which survives only on charitable donations from an anonymous donor group (Osho NCP car parks and bicycle rack-eteers Pune) which sponsors his little known work. The very helpful secretary, a Mr D. Harmen Goering (who helps with the most severe cases of ‘living in the past as if there was no tomorrow’ an ardent student of Dr Parmundarthurern) is a local lad who once suffered from similar spiritual symptoms such as ringing in the ears (from excessive door bell ringing and then asking himself ‘is anyone in?’ ) will happily take calls from worried seekers, skiers, and anyone else who happens to be on a downward slope, and on the receiving end of an avalanche of repeated online haranguing and taking of the piste.
Me ? I’m off to avabiscuit and cuppa.. cheers.
Don’t forget to read your tea leaves.
frank says:
shantam has a way with the english language that is hard to describe
I understand that Shantam lives in Germany … which might mean that he is using German humour …
in greece, what do they call a goat tied to a post?
a leisure centre.
Frank, and how do you think satyrs are created?
by dyslexic satirists?
Yes, Frank, fooled again by the satirical wit of our online genius, Shreek Shantam. Well, that’s what I get for having a full sim card. Back to the drawing board, my head hung low in intellectual defeat and humiliation.
I think David Cameron,British PM who was in India should have given a politically (In) correct answer when the demand of returning Kohinoor diamond was made.
You stop the use of our language English or start giving us royalty, we will give the Kohinoor back..
language is an amazing thing.
as humanity heads for self-created disaster,with the only hope seeming to be to get whacked by an asteroid before it turns really ugly,the most common spoken phrase across the planet is “no problem”…..
The bounteous universe which is made of transcendent love, just happens to have a sicker sense of humour than me…
…If Parmartha and Dharmen had responsibility for censoring the universe and its foibles then we would be in safe hands….
as it is, their remit does not travel as far as one would wish to the beginnings of life itself, so we are left to flounder in the hope that :
1) Next time the universe wants to incarnate in the form of humanity, it clearly asks for permission from prospective participants and provides for a pleasant get out clause or guarantee of something less insane when clearly things start going apeshit.
2) The benign universe has a kinder way of showing its appreciation other than awaiting the self delving, self immolating recognition of someone who reaches for the paracetamol in times of the slightest twinge of discomfort.
3) That the universal life learning class has definite parameters including the option of sitting at the back and giggling with your mates , whilst the black holes of conscious realization are left to the clever teachers pets at the front.
4) That if the universe continues to play hide and seek with rent paying , bill meeting, health confronting, love looking, shelf stacking, 80% of western european bodies employed in fluorescent lit offices, consciousness finding games , all ending in a triumphant cheerio in a box or urn, it should be warned that it will be censored heavily next time it even dares to describe itself as subatomic infinite joy.
frank says:
language is an amazing thing.
You can live and thrive in London with only 100 English words. If you come back in 50 we will bring them down to 10 …
When Crowley was in America he went on a retreat with someone and they reduced language to grunts. Within a fortnight they could philosophise by grunting at each other.
philosophise?
score dope,more like.
head hung low in intellectual defeat and humiliation.
No Lokesh this cann´t be you…..should not be you..
“Ibiza water is cold like every where else in Europe,but with the season,you guys will have more “Tits and Bits Darshan” and head will rise again..”
Till then meditate..
Yes, mastah!
btw. mullah al jabbar jabberwocky of jullundur.
what is your opinion about the resort management?
i`d love to hear….