200 Hundred Buddhas should be enough

Various mystics, including Osho and Gurdjieff, both quoted below, believed that just two hundred realised people living in the world at any one time were enough to “save ” it…..   Clearly if one takes their view then we are a biggish number short of that at the present time, which means also that “Realisation” is a very uncommon occurrence, and even where it does occur it does not necessarily mean that the force of it becomes linked to compassion.

“Two hundred conscious people, if they existed and if they found it necessary and legitimate, could change the whole of life on the earth. But either there are not enough of them, or they do not want to, or perhaps the time has not yet come, or perhaps other people are sleeping too soundly.”
( Gurdjieff quoted in Ouspensky′s In Search of the Miraculous)

“It is a heavy load. One single enlightened man cannot carry it; two hundred is the minimum. But from where to bring those two hundred people? They have to be born amongst you; you have to become those two hundred people.
And your growth is so slow. There is every fear that before you become enlightened, the world will be gone. You are not putting your total energy into meditation, into awareness.
It is one of the things that you are doing, amongst many; and it is not even the first priority of your life. I want it to become your first priority.”
(Osho – The Hidden Splendor #14)

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156 Responses to 200 Hundred Buddhas should be enough

  1. Kavita says:

    These days there are thousands of men who claim the biggest ‘ E ‘ , maybe its a case of too many cooks . . . . . ? !

  2. frank says:

    ouspenski said gurdjieff said:”200 people could change the life on earth if they found it legitimate and necessary”

    you try getting 200 enlightened people to agree on anything,never mind “changing the world”!
    in the fact,they are some of the bitchiest nags you`ll ever find.
    just google any of the enlightened ones comments on other enlightened ones to get a feel.

    eg:
    j krishnamurti on osho
    “lost his enlightenment.criminal”
    osho on j krishnamurti
    !wasted his life.solo flute compared to my orchestra”
    ug krishnamurti on osho
    “the greatest pimp of all time”
    osho on ug krishnamurti
    “just ordinary,phoney”
    etc etc etc etc etc….

    (those guys woulda fit right in on sannyasnews!!)
    hey,thats a thought,how many contributors are there on sn?
    must be about 200.
    maybe its down to us.
    all we`ve got to do is to agree on whether its legit and necessary…..
    whaddyasay?

    • Arpana says:

      Frank, wise fool.
      You are the best sometimes.
      Cant decide if you’ve
      introduced clarity or muddiness
      to the issue.

      LOL.

    • Kavita says:

      Now , Iam wondering if Osho could have made his conscious contribution of 21 to the 200 .

      • Arpana says:

        It is possible is it not?

        • Kavita says:

          Yes, why not? (frankly, I am glad I am spared!)

          • Arpana says:

            Very easy to forget Osho was, or Bhagwan was, as loathed as much as he was loved, and Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, were as much adored by some as hated by others.

            • Kavita says:

              In my early days with Osho , there was a time when in discourse in the Buddha hall , I would cry uncontrollably when he namaste-ed , then there came a time when I understood why he did that & why I cried , not wanting to sound sentimental . :)

              • Prem Martyn says:

                Exquisite Kavita

                It’s that Osho who is impossible to discuss. When I left Pune 2, I was on my way back to the west , in the Bombay Sheraton having dinner with another couple of sannyasins… and was literally falling apart in blubbing tears .. I had no idea where the tears were coming from.. Had to send dinner back uneaten…

                Osho had delivered his last spoken discourse just a few nights before, and I was fortunate to have been there,… and he closed it with the last words of the Buddha…Remember that you are a Buddha.

                ”.
                OSHO’S LAST WORDS SPOKEN IN PUBLIC ARE AT THE END OF THE meditation evening of April 10, 1989

                This moment you are the most blessed people on the earth. Remembering yourself as a buddha is the most precious experience, because it is your eternity, it is your immortality.

                It is not you, it is your very existence. You are one with the stars and the trees and the sky and the ocean. You are no longer separate.

                The last word of Buddha was sammasati.
                Remember that you are a Buddha, sammasati. ”

                • Kavita says:

                  Iam reminded of one Swami , DC ( dhyan chaitanya from bombay )
                  he is no more now . One night after discourse , I happened to say to him , I cant believe Iam a buddha ,even though edited : Osho asserts so often , DC yelled so loudly at me ‘ you are a buddha ‘ , I was sitting on the floor , totally stunned .

                  thanks for sharing Prem Martyn.

  3. shantam prem says:

    Is it really so that world needs saviours in the form of Enlightends?

    What great things they will do?

    What they will suggest to the world; Art of Living, Art of being, Art of Love, Art of being human, Art of using the left hand when papers are used only for the texts!

  4. Lokesh says:

    Mr G was talking about changing the world, not saving it.
    Osho says, ‘There is every fear that before you become enlightened, the world will be gone.’ Gone where?

  5. Anand Newman says:

    Osho has coined some of the most beautiful names to his disciples, that never existed before. At least those words were not used to name somebody. For ex. Avirbhava which literally means manifestation. So if a person like Osho has 200 such ( not referring to American Avirbhava) people who are true potential manifestations from existence , then they sure has the possibility of making the world a better place.

    According to Hindu philosophy ( I am only referring to this to make a point), there are 10 avataras ( kind of supreme manifestations) that took place to move the world in better direction. May be there are similar referrings in other faiths. ?

  6. shantam prem says:

    Mr. G wanted to change the world and into what?
    Why such people think, they have the access to the steering wheel of life?
    Why such people always bit more than they can chew?

    Because of His people, easy to read, easy to understand words, meditation techniques and Osho is relevant and will remain so.
    About Gurdieff and Zen, to be true, i would not have even thought about them without reading them in Osho´s books.

    Osho was very candid when saying something like that, ” He was using all these names to hang His coat.”

    • satyadeva says:

      You forget Osho lived in a different age, Shantam, an age of mass air travel, of vastly improved communication and technology, not to mention prosperity.

      All of which contributed hugely to people visiting him, living around him and accessing his media of teaching.

      Then, of course, there’s the other crucial factor of the post-war generation of ‘baby boomers’, when the west went through a psycho-social revolution and young people looked for answers their parents had never dreamed of, being otherwise preoccupied, ie basically with ‘survival’.

      Besides, why should a man like you have had (or even have) any interest at all in Gurdjieff or Zen? You’d never have found them because you’d never have been even remotely interested in looking for them, surely?

  7. shantam prem says:

    You are right SD. I was not remotely looking for g or Zen, not like most of the Indians but like all the Indians.
    Religion as a substitute of many things or too many religions all around, Indians in a broader way, look for only two three things; Money, money, and little bit of extra marital sex!

    And what i was looking was a world, which Osho depicted in His words and in His ashrams, A world which is fair, loving, far out, where opposite qualities meet in a harmnonious way.
    From 1987-till 2000 i have seen, it is possible without even the presence of Osho; last 10 years after His departure has shown.

    And one can see, i always use capital H describing Osho as He; His; not because He is God or god but a realised human being who wished to give so much newness to the old world.

    Gratitude.

  8. Arpana says:

    Q:* THE IDEA OF THE THIN LAYER OF ORGANIC LIFE ON THE EARTH, RECEIVING AND TRANSMITTING ENERGY, WAS THAT SOMETHING ELSE THAT….

    A:* That is something different, because moon has no life — not even a thin layer of any energy. Moon is simply dead.

    This planet has a bio-sphere, and that bio-sphere is certainly getting energies from other bio-spheres. In the whole universe there are at least 50,000 planets who have life on them, and they are continuously connected with life rays, supporting each other.

    The idea of eight centers are available and the nineteenth is missing has some significance. The nineteenth is missing because of man. Man has not been able to evolve superconsciousness which can become the receptor. Those rays are coming from other planets, but we don’t have a receiving station here. The nineteenth system can be created, but it can be created only by people who reach to the superconsciousness.

    Just as Sigmund Freud discovered that below the conscious mind there is subconscious mind, below the subconscious mind there is unconscious mind, and then Carl Gustav Jung discovered that below the conscious — the unconscious mind there is collective unconscious mind….

    I am not interested in that kind of work. Otherwise, anybody who is interested I can suggest there is one thing more below collective conscious — unconscious mind, and that is cosmic unconscious mind.

    These are under-steps. Exactly same steps are above the conscious mind. In the same way as there is subconscious mind below the conscious mind, there is superconscious mind above the conscious mind. Then there are higher stages, equal in number as they are under the conscious mind, until the cosmic conscious mind — of which I was talking to you…. When you reach to the cosmic conscious mind, then there is nothing to learn, nowhere to go, nothing grows. Then everything is just still and utterly peaceful.

    But if we can create just one layer above the conscious mind, that nineteenth system will not be missing. Those scientists cannot do anything about it.

    That superconscious mind can be created by meditation very easily. And if at least 200 people — just 200 people around the earth have created the superconscious mind, the nineteenth missing system will be available. Only that much quantity of superconscious mind will be enough to receive from 50,000 planets energies — which are still coming, but we don’t have a receiving center for them.

    Q:* IS THERE ANY NECESSITY FOR MASSES OF PEOPLE TO DEVELOP THIS SUPERCONSCIOUSNESS?

    A:* It will transform the whole life on the earth. It will change the whole ugliness that exists, the violence that exists. With the superconscious mind, you cannot manage to have a third world war. With the superconscious mind, so many crimes that man is committing will simply stop. Just that energy has to be available here, just the presence of that energy. It will be something like reign of a new kind of energy because the receivers are available, and that will change not only those 200 people — they will be changed absolutely, but it will change the whole humanity, it’s outlook, it’s ways, it’s insight into things. Right now it is so retarded. The average mental age of human beings are only thirteen years. This is so insulting — that a man of ninety years has only a mental age of thirteen-year-old boy; the body goes on growing old, the mind remains stuck.

    With the superconscious energy reigning on the earth the mind will start growing, just as with the rain everything becomes green and starts growing. The mind needs a certain kind of nourishment which is not available to it.

    So those people are right. Our bio-sphere has eighteen systems. Those systems are also not functioning well because man has disturbed he whole ecology. If the nineteenth system starts working, the man will stop disturbing ecology; it will put it back into harmony. It will be conscious enough what he is doing, and what has to be done and what has not to be done.

    But it has nothing to do with Gurdjieff’s idea of moon and…. That is simply…. Gurdjieff was a strange type of master, really a great master, but his ways were his ways, inimitable. He will write books sitting in small restaurants in Paris where customers are going and coming, and people are talking and gossiping, and everything kind of thing is going on, and he will be writing his great treatises: ALL AND EVERYTHING, MEETINGS WITH REMARKABLE MEN. His disciples used to ask, “Why you choose such a place? People go to a silent place if they want to write something significant. You go to a restaurant.” And then every night, whatever he has written, one disciple will read it, and Gurdjieff will sit silently and ask the other disciples, “Have you understood?” If they said YES then he has to write it again. Unless they said NO, he will have to write that chapter again and again. One book took twenty years to write. First the place he will choose to write was crazy; second, his disciples have to be in a state that they cannot understand it — because if they can understand it then it is not worth, then it is not going to help anybody. It needs to be changed. And he will go on changing. Finally, when the book was published, one-hundred pages were opened — that was the preface, and nine-hundred pages were not opened, with a note that, “Read the preface, the pages are open. If you still want to read on, you will have to open the pages. If you don’t want to read on, you can return the book and your money you can get back. But don’t cut the pages beyond the preface.”
    But even to read one-hundred pages is something of an impossibility. He will write sentences which will run half page, one page, sometimes two pages, and he will create his own words. He never believed in any grammar. He never knew any contemporary language. Sometimes his one word will be so big that it will fill the whole line. Even to read it is difficult. Hundred pages, just ten pages were enough and people returned the book.

    The disciples were asking him that, “You worked twenty years on this book, and what is the gain out of it? So much labor. And we read every night for twenty years.” Gurdjieff said, “There will come some time, some people, who will understand, but they will be the people who have superconsciousness. This book is written for them. Just consciousness will not help. Howsoever cultured, educated, sophisticated, it is not going to help.”

    Osho

    The Last Testament.
    Volume 3.

  9. dominic says:

    We can stop worrying. According to youtube there are thousands of fooly realised ‘bodyminds’ (latest jargon), so we are already saved many times over. Hallelujah and pass the biscuits.

    Pure snake oil. If you want to create a movement or cult, make up salvationist, utopian fantasies with chosen people and guru at the top.
    Change of consciouness does not necessarily result in social reform, technological benefits, ecological and political change etc

    Renunciate traditions solved problem of India, (life is suffering and shit) by declaring the world unreal, maya. So women don’t get rights, caste system upheld, general passivity (law of karma).
    Buddha never gave women equal rights.
    Krishnamurti saw animal suffering and turned telly off, brigitte bardot became animal rights activist.
    Paul Brunton’s criticsms of Ramana…
    “The sage who knows the truth that the Self is indestructible will remain unaffected even if five million people are killed in his presence…”
    A more serious ethical shortcoming is that caste was observed in the ashram dining room.On one side the Brahmins were seated, on the other side the rest. Ramana insisted on it…
    And Ramana seemed unconcerned regarding World War II. He is reported to have once remarked, “Who knows but that Hitler is a Jnani, a divine instrument.”
    Ramana seemed to believe that a realized person was above ethical obligations of right and wrong. For the jnani there is no good or evil, only spontaneous activity or actionlessactivity of Tao….

    Also this huge burden of enlightenment.
    Only an enlightened being could know another enlightened one, and they all disagree. So from the side of us mere mortals it’s all presupposition, wishfool thinking, swallowing the koolaid.
    All this fantasy talk about it, is a way of re-traumatizing the patient. Somewhere you’re not and have to get to…Some perfect idealized egoless state that only seems to bring out the worst hubris and narcissism in people.
    I could rave on….
    But basically, Enlightenment… Bleep off ! (Followed by rude hand gestures)

    • Arpana says:

      Towards a demystification of ideas of enlightenment.

    • Preetam says:

      Yes a cunning strategy, putting the responsibility on the back of 200 so called enlightened people.

    • satyadeva says:

      Perhaps this might help to clarify one or two things about ‘enlightenment’, Dominic…

      Many people have realisations of truth, right up to what could be called the ultimate. But no realisation is complete – it remains partial – until actually lived in the world. A popular concept is that after, say, God-realisation (“Self-realisation” in the East), the whole life is instant bliss. This, like all assumptions, is not true. Moreover, the error seems to have been fostered by so-called “realised” men and women. God-realisation does indeed induce a constant untroubled equilibrium in a man or woman. But what is not commonly known is that there then follows an external testing of the inner equilibrium. Circumstances and situations that previously would have caused concern, disturbance or distress have to be faced to affirm that the equilibrium is real. This may take many years. The deeper the realisation, the more provoking or demanding the circumstances are likely to be.

      Also not commonly known is that there are multiple descending levels within of God or truth realisation. Which explains why there are so many teachers each convinced that their way is right. Real knowledge of God at any level is right. But the profundity and extent of the knowledge depends on the depth of the realisation – and the living of it. People realise things and don’t make them real. As the levels of realisation deepen, and the circumstances demanded by each are lived through, the outer life improves. Finally, the inner state is known to have been perfected; and the perfection (which has nothing to do with the man or woman) is reflected in the harmony of the external life. All is solved; all is provided. The life is free of problematical circumstances. There are no conflicting relationships. The lovelife is trouble-free. Work and fulfilment have come together.

      In all that I’ve said there is no certainty of continuity. Truth is always moving. Nothing remains static. Anything is possible in the moment.

      All this of course describes an extraordinary depth of God or truth-realisation often referred to as enlightenment. Bringing such realisation into the world is the same as bringing God into the world. And God knows, the world needs it – but only God knows in whom.

      (From Barry Long’s ‘My Life of Love and Truth’ – his recently published autobiography)

      • Preetam says:

        SD your dialogue with Shantam is descriptive according. Shantams somewhere in a corner believes following a higher Being and teachings will change human consciousness. At the other corner we find Satyadeva, basically both of them in the same corner. Satyadeva has a (ir)rational view onto oneself and other. An idealized picture of virtue and togetherness makes it hard too fulfill those visions for himself. Watching this scenario the whole playground is empty, Shantam and Satyadeva both in a corner. Anyway, I can not see that any superconsciousness needs to be developed. Only the false has to be deleted. We should move from the corner onto the Playground, it’s ours. We are the Authority, aren’t we?

        • satyadeva says:

          Preetam, I don’t understand this:

          “Satyadeva has a (ir)rational view onto oneself and other. An idealized picture of virtue and togetherness makes it hard too fulfill those visions for himself. ”

          Please clarify.

          On the other hand, when you say, “Anyway, I can not see that any superconsciousness needs to be developed. Only the false has to be deleted.”
          Couldn’t agree more, old boy!

          • Preetam says:

            My subjective impression, that you have an idealized picture of “Enlightenment”. To me, this cognition of enlightenment can create an conditioning what makes it for ordinary seeker more difficult to trust the own inspiration.

            • satyadeva says:

              Preetam, like everyone else I have only what I hear from others to go on about this matter of ‘enlightenment’.

              I don’t dwell upon it, I’m too concerned with what one might term the ‘basics’ of life and living, frankly, although hopefully from a rather different perspective, a different context, from the one I was conditioned into, thanks to various experiences and influences over the last four or five decades.

              Still, some explanations and viewpoints feel truer, more ‘right’ than others, and I guess we each have to go by our own ‘lights’ in this respect, as ideally in the rest of our lives.

              • Preetam says:

                If I idealize a stranger, at the same Moment it humiliates me. Maybe I see this wrong. Surrender is alive if it is an experience able view on a heart level. The realization is an inner fact and not a provoked projection by the outside.

            • frank says:

              exactly preetam.
              if you spend your whole life chasing someone elses cosmic carrot,it just makes you a donkey.
              if you stop chasing the carrot just for a few moments, you`ll find the carrot is being held just in front of your nose by a bloke (or woman)riding on your back.
              get `em off your back,eat the carrot and relax into your own ass-hood

              Its call it unlightenment.
              lay your burden down bro`

      • dominic says:

        Nice try sd. Did get to see bazzer, and mother meera (the eyes have it)

  10. shantam prem says:

    Jeff Bezos?
    Who is he; the founder of Amazon and his kind of people, may be 200 in numbers are changing the world.
    And as one can see, spiritual gurus of last century and their meditative TM followers are no where in the site.

    http://www.ndtv.com/article/world/he-s-going-to-break-some-eggs-407354?pfrom=home-otherstories

    • frank says:

      I heard the other day about gerald gardner, the founder of wicca paganism which is now mainstream religion with millions of followers all over US and UK .
      during WW2,gardner and his cronies built a huge fire near the south coast of England and did a bunch of allnight naked rituals with the aim of repelling hitlers attack on the uk.
      some of these were old folk and some of them even danced themselves literally to death.the ultimate sacrifice.
      a bit sad really.
      but nowadays the wicca faithful will look at you with a straight face and say “it worked”…
      and how can you prove it didn’t?

      if gurdjieff hadn’t have done his bit,how do you know that there would be any world here anymore?
      if it wasn’t for his hard-drinking womanising and speeding coupled with total awareness,which brought enlightenment out of the monasteries of the high himalayas and hindu kuch and down into the bars,garages and boudoirs of western europe,some nutter would have pressed the button by now and the planet would be just a big nest of cockroaches .(thanks george)
      the founders of amazon should be grateful to gurdjieff osho and guru palak or whoever,shouldnt they?

      and TM are big in Switzerland.
      if it wasn’t for their positive vibes put out into the ether,switzerland may never have been spiritually ready to grant asylum to such a soul as shree shantam.
      just think about that .

      • dominic says:

        So shantam’s an asylum sikher, persecuted by his own mind.
        Which kind of asylum are we talking about here?

      • Arpana says:

        Interesting bit of speculation Frank.

        Read a book years ago, the name of which has gone, but was published by Penguin, and the author had done all this research which proved something had happened to the world that the author laid at the door of Buddha starting work 2500 years. (Wasn’t one of those Von Danekan type tomes either. Seemed reasonably scholarly as I recall; but of course was all in hindsight, the thesis that is.)

        • frank says:

          buddha laotsu heraclitus mahavira and a few others seemed to have made a leap all around the same time in different places.2500 years ago.
          some say that they were the first glimmerings of DIY religion.by that I mean,godkings are replaced with enlightened beings.
          these are “self-made men” rather than hereditary gods.
          you don’t find them before Buddha.
          he got away from the prevalent theocratic system of the king is the representative of god and the utter social rigidity that entailed in which everyone simply obeyed the gods they were found themselves possessed by.
          that’s why Buddha was booted out of india.he didn’t go along with the caste system which was the expression of that `divine order`.
          it still had to be kept undercover.he ha
          d to compromise what he knew to some extent ,otherwise they would have done him in sooner.this enlightenment was hidden away from everyday life in monasteries etc for centuries,it had to be .the structure of peoples brains wasn’t ready yet.
          come the 20th century….the old order falling apart and the idea of equality of opportunity getting airtime,it was time for the enlightened ones to let rip.
          they came out of the cloisters and out of the closet and started doing what they would have done all along if they could have managed it.
          they hit the bars,pulled the chicks puffed the gas,started the party and pretty much “raised hell”from thwe oldworld viewpoint and generally let it be know that in a world where anyone can be president, everyone can be enlightened,too, and its ok to have a bloody good party on the way.

          osho left a cryptic message concerning this by having his dental tripping room full of mirrors in the “samadhi”
          but not everyone is ready to understand…….
          in fact,oshos empty gas canisters could be used as a symbol for the new age,but people have not reached that level of consciousness yet to accept this level of truth in the same way as Buddha had to play down the “no caste”thing to keep in with the authorities and the limitations of his crew..

          • Arpana says:

            Don’t take enlightenment so seriously, but didn’t we. The ultimate career promotion.

          • Preetam says:

            Actually fathers of enlightenment are Voltaire, Rousseau, and Montesquieu.

          • Arpana says:

            Frank.

            This is the book I mentioned.

            The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind (Penguin Psychology) [Paperback]
            Julian Jaynes (Author)

            • frank says:

              that’s a pretty mindblowing book.
              coincidentally I bought a copy of it last week in a second hand book store for a quid.

              being very much the evolutionary scientist,I don’t think jaynes, would have had much time for gurus.
              he would have seen it as a relapse into bicamerality and a vestige of the social order when everyone obeyed hallucinated voices in their head coming from their `gods` (the right brain) and bowed to the ultimate authority of their god king who sat on a throne and was a total representative of god or ultimate power.
              for him,the whole development of consciousness,or reflectivity was completely away from this sort of brain orientation and ensuing type of social order, which he saw as having collapsed due to its inherent incapability as a mental/social system to deal with the emergence of individual consciousness,whose flexibility was an evolutionary advance.
              this historically happened globally in the 3rd millennium BC.
              my reading of it is that the drama he is characterising is still being played out
              globally, islam and trad religion versus modernity.
              and concomitantly,within everyone on the planet.
              and maybe here on sannyas news,too!

              • Arpana says:

                I agree left brain dominant individuals don’t do well with mysticism.

                • frank says:

                  we probably need to get both “hemispheres” up and running ,
                  whats interesting is:
                  in order to get the right side, mysticism, rolling,you need to disable the left side.
                  this means that `you` have to become an automaton just obeying orders from the `right`.
                  that is,if you don’t make decisions for yourself,and vacate that part.who makes them?
                  how do you do that without an authoritarian set-up?
                  the social sytem ensuing from that set-up HAS to be absolutist and authoritarian.where has it been different?
                  all mysticism-generating organisations are authoritarian in nature.
                  so if you`re a mystic,you`re a bit of a fascist.
                  if you’ve a humanist,you might find mysticism the realm of lunghi clad electroshock types!
                  its a funny thing.

                • Arpana says:

                  RSA Animate – The Divided Brain


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

                • dominic says:

                  RSA…what a delightful vid, Arps. With schooling like that I might have paid more attention.

              • satyadeva says:

                Alternatively, some say those ‘god-kings’ and their socio-political orders were themselves a degenerate form of the ‘original’, pure and perfect consciousness of humanity, which eventually couldn’t effectively sustain the unremitting influx of ‘past’ into the brain and thus ‘fell’ from its pristine ‘innocence’. Thus, another version of the ‘Garden’ myth, found in so many, perhaps all, ancient cultures.

                • frank says:

                  the garden myth would be about the innocence and simplicity of being a kid in dad`s garden.
                  you don’t argue with dad,the right side of the brain,so life is simple.
                  its the nostalgia of childhood and egolessness in an infantile sense on a global scale.

                  from a scientific point of view,the evidence points towards that before the god kings there were only tribal hunter-gatherer set-ups.
                  the godkings are the social order of the agrarian cultures who assemble in one place in larger numbers(towns cities).

                  gurdjieff subscribed to the ” past was better and we have degenerated” view.
                  osho with the `new man` had a more evolutionary perspective.
                  (this is one of the biggest differences between their raps)

                  its probably a personal choice based on temperament.

                  from the perspective of here and now,either of these ideas can only be viewpoints viewed in the present.
                  they will never really be “facts”just present orienations.

                • frank says:

                  SD,
                  if the original consciousness was “pure”and “perfect”,
                  then how did it “fall” by its own limitations?
                  the fall must have been part of it in some way,thus it wasn’t as perfect as postulated!

                  that idea sounds like the old “how did god allow the (d)evil to exist?” Christian impasse dressed up slightly differently.

                  who came up with that one?
                  some frustrated bible-basher trying to pass himself off as a newager?

                • satyadeva says:

                  Yes, frank, a ‘design fault’ indeed.

                  That’s arguably what we’re landed with, a design fault! Or was/is it all ‘part of the cosmic plan’, so that we bloody well have to earn our consciousness, rather than having it handed to us on a plate, as it were? And thus, appreciate, value it all the more….

                • satyadeva says:

                  Perhaps the ultimate point is not just that we value whatever we find that’s real, but that having ‘worked’ for it we then somehow advance the mysterious purpose of the, er, ‘Whole’, helping to make It that much more conscious…

                  Waddya reckon, Shantam, eh?

                • frank says:

                  SD.
                  design fault or cosmic plan?
                  who knows?

                  reminds me of when my mum(bless her soul)used to chide me for my faults.
                  I used to reply: i`m afraid you will have to submit your complaints to the manufacturer.

                • honeysucklerose says:

                  frank- a design fault could be the “cosmic plan”

                • satyadeva says:

                  That’s already been said, honey…

                  “That’s arguably what we’re landed with, a design fault! Or was/is it all ‘part of the cosmic plan’, so that we bloody well have to earn our consciousness, rather than having it handed to us on a plate, as it were? And thus, appreciate, value it all the more….”

                • Lokesh says:

                  Arps, the link for book leads to nothing.

            • Lokesh says:

              Will order a copy. Good tip.

  11. Parmartha says:

    I think, for the sake of argument and just for the moment, it would be good to acccept that 200 real Buddhas COULD change the human vibration of the planet.
    Dom. seems to mention somewhere that there are thousands of self professed realised beings. I have always been sceptical of the rash of numbers over the past 15 years. Just a fashion statement for a lot of them.
    I have once or twice in what is now quite a long life met a few annonymous people on the road who had qualities that felt beyond the norm to say the least. They disappeared, one imagines intentionally, from my life as quickly as they came. I can only assume that at these levels of superconsciousness that compassion is not always to the forefront. Some say it took the Buddha himself seven days to decide whether he was going to “share” his bliss with anyone else.
    This may explain why Gurdjieff uses the phrase, or “they may not want to” – that is raise the stake for human beings. It may explain why this commentator would think there are in fact less than a hundred truly realised beings in the public domain on the earth at this time.

    • frank says:

      mm.
      less than 100 realised beings in the world
      world population 7 billion
      chances of enlightenment: 1 in 70 million

      chances of being struck by lightning in lifetime 1 in 280,000

      so you`re 250 times more likely to be struck by lightning than get enlightened.
      (how many people have you met that have been struck by lightning?)

      seeking enlightenment,you have a 7 million to 1 ON chance of failure.

      good luck chaps!

      • frank says:

        excuse me
        70 million to 1 ON chance of remaining unenlightened.

        I don’t know about enlightenment at or just after the moment of death.
        you`ll have to check at your local paddy bardo`s akashik bookies….

    • dominic says:

      Perhaps for the sake of not arguing then…
      This is a variant of the 100th monkey effect, a critical mass for a leap in quantum evolution. Sounds good anyway.
      Frank’s odds are very favourable compared to the other monkey theorem.
      This states that a seeker..I mean monkey, hitting keys at random on a keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely (get enlightened) or type a given text, such as the complete works of William Shakespeare. You just need a very old monkey.
      But there are signs you are on the right road sir.
      Referring to youreslf in the third person (“this commentator”) is a good indicator.
      Meetings with remarkable anons. (One thinks of shams and rumi).
      And a scathing assessment of today’s flowering/glut of illuminati/illoonynati.
      But pray tell who features on this list of less than a hundred realised souls on the contemporary scene?
      You say realised, I say real lies…(potato/potahto…let’s call the whole thing off).
      As you say they may not want to raise the vibration…..
      Selfish b@$¥€#%s!

  12. prem martyn says:

    Frank ,
    you talk here of enlightenment as a state. If you changed terms of reference from the received evidence and just considered it as actualizing one’s self daily in relation to the world, it would be no different to doing what you do, with as much or as little of you as you wish to engage. Surely sannyas is and was such a metier, even if only variously both social and individual in different hours of the day. That’s the obvious part. As for experiencing mystical states of heart piercing union either you have or haven’t , either you welcome or you don’t. It’s also up to no one to define that for me you or anyone else, but it can and does happen.
    In even linguistically selecting or limiting the range of even notional possibilities then one limits even the smallest part from having significance, meaning or dare one say it, love without address but whose subject is you , in this mystery. Thus ending up with conditioned and received formulas which burden, or outlive their usefulness. In a word, losing track of even our earliest dissolutions into natural ease. Noticing the ease of animals is significant in this. Or the playfulness and beaming smile of a child. It’s only a reminder, not a religion. It’s not the winning, it’s the walk. Or where does the humour go ….to the heart of the matter.. always the heart.

  13. shantam prem says:

    Parmartha, you don´t think level of human consciousness has increased many folds during last twenty thirty years?
    And in a way it is because of the collective efforts of seekers and doers, mystics and merchants.
    even the people who are on the front page as pioneers are there because other millions of people have done the ground work.

    For every single jackpot winner, there are millions of lottery players behind.

  14. shantam prem says:

    Can i ask the active participants of this site a simple question as a matter of survey; when was the Last time, you have meditated together with just five other sannyasins?

    Let me start from me.

    I will write in another post. Spontaneously i cannot remember, when it was!

  15. Lokesh says:

    In answer to Shantam’s question. Just the oher day.
    I’ve given the current topic some serious thought, and here is what I’ve come up with. Would 400 semi-enlightened ones do the trick?

  16. Preetam says:

    Meditation with others together is long time ago, perhaps 12 years. Main reason, body issues.

    According 200… we had since long time in History the biggest opportunity to manage those 200. Don’t know how long it will take for the next such Upanishad, maybe 20.000 years. We had it in our hands, but somehow we managed to “sabotage” the Vision in favor of rationality, perhaps.

    • frank says:

      preetam,
      theres nothing wrong with a bit of rationality
      for example,you mentioned that the withdrawal of the impure carrot was a necessary prerequisite for insertion of the true carrot.
      sounds rational to me.

      • Arpana says:

        Take the piss

        Q From Stephen Balkam: Could you throw some light on to the origin of taking the piss? My (English) wife seemed to think it meant actually being made to drink someone else’s urine.

        A Nothing literal about this one, you will be pleased to hear. It’s usually said that the phrase derives from an older one, piss-proud, which refers to having an erection when waking up in the morning, which is usually attributed to a full bladder (proud here being an obvious pun on its senses of something raised or projecting and of something in which one may take satisfaction).

        It’s first recorded, as so many such indecorous expressions are, in Francis Grose’s A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue; in the second edition of 1788 he wrote: “Piss-proud, having a false erection. That old fellow thought he had an erection, but his — was only piss-proud; said of any old fellow who marries a young wife”.

        This developed into a figurative sense of somebody who had an exaggerated idea of his own importance. So to take the piss is to deflate somebody, to disabuse them of their mistaken belief that they are special. It’s not recorded before the beginning of the twentieth century.

        • dominic says:

          Curiously the guru zone seems to be a pissing contest.
          While been-around-the-block commentating is more about taking the piss out of all the piss artists and things that piss you off. If I’m not pissing in the wind that is.

        • frank says:

          there are so people taking so many different types of physical,mental and spiritual Viagra these days,that even taking the piss doesn’t get rid of the false erection,any more.
          osho was right:these days you need to take a hammer to their rocks.

          “no matter how cynical you get,
          its impossible to keep up”

      • Preetam says:

        Yes, but are the withdrawal of the impure carrot is our outer rationality about authorities? Perhaps this has to be removed first, before a possible realizing of the factual carrot. Not with a revolution, by understanding within our self.

  17. dominic says:

    In osho’s header quote, there’s a carrot… C’mon we all wanna save humanity right.
    With a lot of stick… You must do better you tosspots.. “Your growth is so slow”
    Then back to carrot.. “Make it your first priority”.

  18. shantam prem says:

    future may show those brave hearted masters, who have the courage and guts to say, ” Once i am gone. pack the circus.”
    Some another ring leader will emerge, some new circus will come again.

    Enough with the published words, Toffee like words!

  19. Arpana says:

    Julian Jaynes and the Bicameral Mind Theory


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

    • prem martyn says:

      Arpana…the interviewer on your link sponsors a carnivore website….What a spunky toss pot wanker the interviewer is when he can’t even understand that all his ga ga theorising has led him back to the same toilet his own brain comes from.

      I’ve just come back from a long walk in the Alps, and been up close to some gorgeous big eyed deer, with elegant long ears and sylphine slender necks. They were eating fir tree bristles from our hands.

      And then I come back into the village’s cafe where they serve steak de cheval

      This planet has a lot of fucking evolving to go through.

  20. honeysucklerose says:

    No way 200 buddhas could change the world, or 200,000 for that matter, maybe just maybe 200 million could start things a rollin’. I think we humans have gone way past the point of no return, i really don’t see it any other way, you guys are debating something that shouldn’t even be debated, are you people living in a closet, or dungeon? For christ’s sake and mr g’s sake look around, smell the shit in the air along with soot, next time in India, take a dip in the Pacific waters off Hawaii and you’ll come out with pieces of plastic trash in your hair.. Take a bite of some sushi while in Japan and then see yourself glowing in the dark when you get up in the middle of the night to pee…. which reminds me.. latest news from Fukishima Japan- 70,000 gallons(250,000 litres) of radioactive water is being discharged into the pacific everyday- they recently discovered a new leak in one of the storage tanks at the nuclear site….. bon appetit, my fellow but clueless sannyasins.

    • honeysucklerose says:

      i forgot to add- Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Egypt.. northern ireland is heating up again, Spain and England are jousting, Greece is still on the edge with their debt ridden economy, Sri Lanka is killing anyone who isn’t Buddhist, same with Myanmar. don’t get me started with Africa.. sleep well my friends.

    • dominic says:

      I think you’re almost sugarcoating it H…it’s muuuch worse than that.
      And yet there are also beautiful honeysuckle and rose fragrances in the air. Not to be sniffed at.
      Sometimes too much media is a b!#€h.
      Don’t freak out, freak in.
      Somewhere in a parallel universe or other habitable planet (of which there are now many) life will go on.
      And today is better than the black plague and medieval life expectancy of 35, if you survived childhood, and then going to hell perhaps.
      All this 200 boodhas stuff…file under esoteric fiction, and don’t eat sushi anyway.

    • Lokesh says:

      HSR says, ‘ I think we humans have gone way past the point of no return.’ Return from what exactly?

      • honeysucklerose says:

        How’s the weather in your closet?

        • Lokesh says:

          HSR, I live a full contact life in nature. The planet might be going down but you can still make the best of what’s still around and enjoy what is still a beautiful place if you are willing to move away from urban hubs. Think blue holes in Belize, Volcanoes in Guatamala, swimming with sharks in Thailand, cruising the mountains and rivers in Laos, hanging with the babas in Rishikesh.
          Doom & gloom is not my cup of green tea. If you ever visit Ibiza I invite you out into the big blue and I swear you’ll blow your mind at the seas pure magnificence. Sounds to me like its you that is living in a closet without air holes. Stale thoughts from a stale environment.

          • honeysucklerose says:

            “you can run but you can’t hide”(from yourself) Ancient James Cagney proverb

          • honeysucklerose says:

            you sound and act like rich people- they don’t care what kind of mayhem they create because of their extreme greed, cause they think they can escape from it all , to their isolated and pristine country estate- sooner or later the mayhem follows them, because their minds are diseased.. say, isn’t there an Old Osho book, with a similar title… “You are Diseased”?- yes, Lokesh, that still includes you, whether on Ibiza, floundering about in the Mediterranean, Scotland, Sri Lanka, or your gurus nest in India.

    • Preetam says:

      Who bows down to confusion, is not allowed to meditate.

    • Prem Martyn says:

      You appear to have a misspelling keyboard there, dear honeybubbie

      This is not the world destroying radio-active site you mention but the world saving, web-passive one of Fukushila.

      recent news…
      Despite making the forest light up like Christamas trees at night, and turning the ocean a reassuring irridescent yellow, a Japanese company spokeperson claimed the ploblem was under control and was just going to glow away.

  21. shantam prem says:

    Whenever a soul like Jesus or Buddha or Osho leaves the body within weeks and months, close disciples start practising their skills about Plastic Surgery.

    Some time surgery creates wonder sometime it tarnishes the uniqueness of the original!

    • Lokesh says:

      Shantypants says, ‘Whenever a soul like Jesus or Buddha or Osho etc’.
      Jesus was not a soul and Buddha denied the existance of such a thing. Why rank Osho with Jesus and Buddha in the first place? Osho bore little in common with either of them.

  22. shantam prem says:

    There are people with good insights, who will say, How the wife of Mr. Jack can be a woman, as i can observe, her bra cups are not like my wife.

    What so ever, It was Osho´s estyle to say, Buddha, Mahavira, Jesus, Kabir, Nagaarujna etc. in a single breath and if someone has no cotton in the ears, one can hear, Osho is making him stand in the company of above mentioned gentlemen.
    I wish to fix Punja ji too in the above list. But will be unfair.
    In an exclusive club of Davos Businessmen, It is no good sell the membership card to a Kiosk holder!

    • dominic says:

      Trap has been laid but will tartan stag fall or rise to bait.
      Ringside seats now available for uncivil war and pissing contest.
      Like pregnant ma going into labour, (and before more pixels are violated), we anticipate pain-free birth of new thread.
      Maybe 200 enlightened ones making things worse, with all rivalry and competition, as here in microcosm?
      My guru has bigger lingam than your guru.

  23. Lokesh says:

    Right now my guru is the Mediterranean Sea. So, I suppose gurusea is pretty big. So big, in fact, that it is wise to pay respect by giving full attention to what gurusea has to teach or risk forfeiting one’s life as a consequence.

  24. Prem Martyn says:

    Do you know what…I think today is the day for telling people the Truth…and saying who is actually who……

    oh yes indeedy..
    Here at the Oracle of all things, in search of the benign divine….let’s just put one more irrepressible unambiguous truth out there to truthfully answer some previously confused identities, but nevertheless shrewd concluding by some punters here…Kavita this one’s for you..

    I am truthfully genetically related to someone else on this weblog …the person’s name begins with a D….

    Now then back to Shadowass News for some live updates…

    • bodhi vartan says:

      Prem Martyn says:
      >> I am truthfully genetically related to someone else on this weblog …the person’s name begins with a D….

      … and don’t you find it strange that you are both funny? It brings up the kind of joke where they say something like … our father is a catholic, our mother is jewish, and we are comedians.

      • Prem Martyn says:

        BV… I’m so busy re-re-reading Kavita’s reply that the twinkling stars before my eyes are preventing my ability to focus on anything else at the moment…

  25. Kavita says:

    Since its ‘ Truth telling day ‘ today , Prem Martyn , let me tell you , mostly every time you write here on sn , I am grateful for reading it .

    • Prem Martyn says:

      Kavita…See above reply to BV
      **
      :)

      • Kavita says:

        Since we all suffer from selective memory , due to which Iam a little apprehensive about being friendly specially after reading Arpana’s update on caravanserai a week ago , on disciple – disciple relationship ! but never the less , couldnt stop myself from responding to your comment , Prem Martyn .

        • Arpana says:

          IMO a big problem for people who get involved with Osho is the expectation that we are going to be one big happy clappy family, but we are no different in how we connect to each other to how we are in any other situation, how every one is.

          Gasp. We don’t relate to each other in a specially good way,

          Some people we take to. Some we don’t. Ordinary behavior.

          • Kavita says:

            IMO the biggest problem is to get involved with Osho !

            • Kavita says:

              of course, that is ordinarily choiceless .

            • Arpana says:

              I have heard a story about Count Keyserling — his grandson is here, a sannyasin. Count Keyserling was one of the most famous German thinkers. He traveled far and wide in the East; he was fascinated by the East. The grandson must have something of Count Keyserling in him, hence he has come to me.

              When Count Keyserling was in China, a friend presented him with a beautiful box, two thousand years old, but with a condition which has been fulfilled for two thousand years: that the box’s face has to be towards the East. A beautiful piece of art work, a great work of art! With that condition, for two thousand years whosoever had it has followed it.

              Count Keyserling went with it. He placed the box in his drawing room facing towards the East, but then the whole drawing room was unbalanced. The box looked odd, so the whole drawing room had to be redone. But then the whole drawing room was no longer fitting with the house! But Count Keyserling was a man of his word — he changed his whole house… but then the garden was not fitting, so he had to change the garden. And then he became afraid, because when he changed the garden the house was not fitting in the neighborhood. Now, he could not do anything with the neighborhood!

              Then he wrote a letter to the friend who has given the box, “Please take this box back — I don’t know how I can fulfill the condition. I will have to change the whole world! Now the neighborhood, then the town, then the district, then the province, then the country…. This is too much!”

              If you start seeing just a ray of light, a new light, you will have to change your whole world.

              The friend wrote to Count Keyserling, “Don’t be worried, that’s exactly the message: that even a small box can change your whole world. It is an ancient Taoist symbol; a message is contained in it. You have understood the message.”

              Otho
              The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 7
              Chapter #2
              Chapter title: The greatest rebellion ever tried
              12 December 1979 am in Buddha Hall

  26. swami anand anubodh says:

    I found this interesting read @: http://paidtoexist.com/enlightenment-is-overrated/

    (It may help to explain where all the 200 Buddhas are. Although I do not agree with all of it.)


    “I admit it. I am Enlightened. (If I was going to take the Zen approach, I might say I am Enlightened
    because I know there is no such thing as Enlightenment.) I’m not afraid to admit that I have
    “reached” Enlightenment. I think far too many people shy away from talking openly about being
    Enlightened because it’s such a taboo subject. After all, isn’t Enlightenment something reserved
    for sages and mystics?

    Enlightened people aren’t simply sages though; they’re people like you and me. We wear regular
    clothes, we work regular jobs, we eat, drink, sleep, and go to the grocery store just like everyone
    else. You don’t have to be a celibate monk living in a monastery to be Enlightened.
    Placing Enlightenment beyond yourself just perpetuates the idea that you will never reach it.

    I think part of the allure (and taboo aspect) of Enlightenment is the fact that it is so mysterious.
    Oh, he’s enlightened, he must be above everyone else, seems to be a commonly held superstition.
    People think that becoming Enlightened brings you further away from reality. You completely
    transcend it and dematerialize. Poof. He was enlightened. And then, he disappeared.
    (Sounds more like David Blaine to me.)

    Part of the problem is Enlightenment can mean many things. Bringing light to dark places, bringing
    clarity, and perceiving the truth are a few different interpretations. But ultimately, Enlightenment
    is understanding your true nature. It’s the realization that you are not a separate ego, you are the
    eternal, unbounded energy of the universe.

    That’s is a pretty powerful realization. And while I wholeheartedly believe in the value and merit
    of attaining Enlightenment, I think in some ways it is vastly overrated. That’s because people think
    Enlightenment means the end of their problems, the end of the struggles of living.

    People want their mystics and masters to be free from the same struggles that make them want to
    escape life. They want Enlightenment to be a panacea for their problems. They don’t want their
    masters to have the same troubles they have, they want them to be beyond them.
    They see Enlightenment as some grandeur state where the struggles of life no longer exist.

    The great Enlightened masters (Christ, Buddha, Moses, Lao Tzu, and many others), did not become
    Enlightened and retreat into a cave. They did not merely transcend their egos. They became great
    big egos. They engaged life completely and fearlessly and shook the earth from its very foundation.
    They did not seek Enlightenment as an escape from life, but as a means to live more completely.

    Many people seek Enlightenment as an escape from life. And while Enlightenment can do many
    things, there are some things it cannot do:

    -Your realization that everything is non-dual will not break all of the previous self-limiting
    and fear-based beliefs you have with yourself. Breaking those agreements will require hard
    work and perspiration to change.

    -Wearing a Buddha necklace or getting a tattoo of the Yin and Yang will not stop you from
    having to solve real problems, like how to deal with the job you can’t stand.

    -Enlightenment will not solve your relationship problems with others or with yourself. It
    won’t make your husband any less barbaric, and it won’t lessen the wrath of your wife’s PMS.

    -It will not get you out of debt or free you from financial struggle. It won’t stop you from making
    stupid decisions, like buying an HDTV on credit, after you just missed your mortgage payment.

    -Transcending your ego will not make your ego disappear. You will still have to deal with
    ego-based desire and suffering.

    Reaching Enlightenment will not turn you into an invincible ball of energy high above the world and
    all its troubles. It will not make you immune to the sometimes callous and careless words of others.
    Perceiving the truth of the Yin and Yang, the Diamond Sutra or the Bhagavad Gita will not make all of
    your problems go away.

    Despite all the things that Enlightenment can’t do, there are certainly many benefits to “achieving”
    it. Most importantly, it will help you understand your true nature and help you find peace in your
    heart.

    While Enlightenment can’t solve all your problems it certainly can help you realize:

    -Death and birth are an illusion. (But someone poking you in the eye still might hurt.)

    -Life is a dream with the brain awake.

    -Beliefs are subjective. Something is only true if you believe it is. (Except maybe gravity.)

    -Life is essentially one, everything is consciousness.

    With these realizations you can:

    -Know that you are eternal and there is no reason to fear death, or anything for that matter.
    Essentially, if you are experiencing fear, there’s a bug in your consciousness.

    -What you do to others, you are really doing to yourself.

    -You know yourself through the difference of others, you perceive in others the reflection
    of yourself. Ie. if you think everyone else is an asshole, it just might be you.

    -Because we are all one, compassion and love become the highest principles.

    Reaching Enlightenment doesn’t mean your soul shoots out of the top of your heart and you become
    omniscient. Enlightenment can help solve some of the toughest problems of life. But it is not a
    means of escape from life.

    In reality, enlightenment brings you into a deeper, more intimate relationship with life.

    Rather, Enlightenment means dropping into your body more completely. It means living life more
    fully, passionately and fearlessly.

    Enlightenment isn’t about becoming omniscient and escaping life. It’s about living with verve and
    passion. Am I the only one that’s noticed people put Enlightenment above themselves, out of reach?”

    @LK
    I had a camera with me much of the time in the late 70′s, and took dozens of photos around
    the ashram, Poona and sannyasin life in general.

    Any old friends here:
    http://i.imgur.com/sVlJQBE.jpg
    Or here:
    http://i.imgur.com/0XP8Gwi.jpg

    @Parmartha & SD
    I do remember you both from Medina, Chalk Farm. (Two exceptionally nice guys, as I recall)
    Although I have never went there very often preferring Bell St.

    A couple of photos from around that time.
    http://i.imgur.com/oCZHC8a.jpg
    http://i.imgur.com/1Ar5smh.jpg

    • Arpana says:

      Excellent photos. You’ve a good eye.
      They capture the atmosphere of being in the situation.
      More????
      (Did that really happen. Was it a dream that keeps returning to me. )

      Enlightenment is, or the notion of enlightenment, is like a carrot for goal-oriented, project-oriented activists, who are jaded with the ‘non-spiritual’, but still need a project to work at, and presumably, at some point, by pursuing this project of getting enlightened, goal- oriented, future-oriented gets exhausted.

      The notion of enlightenment is only for those who are not. Like all concepts it goes when it happens. I surmise.

      An Osho is not an Osho to his or herself.

      • swami anand anubodh says:

        Cheers Arp,

        I have many more. They were taken on 35mm transparency film, so do not have that 70′s ‘dated’ look about them.

        http://i.imgur.com/jOhgJ0B.jpg

        Will post some of the best when I get things sorted.

        When Parmartha noted @19 August, 2013 at 7:16 pm

        “Some say it took the Buddha himself seven days to decide whether he was going to “share” his bliss with anyone else.”

        I suspect the Buddha’s realization was so obvious and ordinary that the seven days were in fact spent trying to decide how much to ‘sex up’ his experience to make it more ‘motivational’ for followers.

        A strategy which still persists to this day.

        • Arpana says:

          ‘ I suspect the Buddha’s realization was so obvious and ordinary that the seven days were in fact spent trying to decide how much to ‘sex up’ his experience to make it more ‘motivational’ for followers.’

          Yes. Have speculated on that myself.

          Osho. The Robes. The ranch. Acting the Emperor, Pope archetype.

        • satyadeva says:

          Interesting article and photos, Anubodh.

          Re your comment on Buddha:

          “I suspect the Buddha’s realization was so obvious and ordinary that the seven days were in fact spent trying to decide how much to ‘sex up’ his experience to make it more ‘motivational’ for followers.”

          Maybe so, especially as he’d been hard at it for so many years (20-plus?), but perhaps, as well as totally conscious he was also simply totally knackered and needed a break to assimilate this apparently final break from his past?
          And so maybe “seven days” is just a symbolic term, like the Bible’s “seven days to make Heaven and Earth”? Who knows? (And what does it matter anyway?!).

          This arrived in my emails today…
          “Mind and consciousness are not identical. Mind has no knowledge of its own – it is a reaction to experience and memory. It can become unhinged in frightening or terrifying circumstances when it can’t name what is happening; when it can’t relate to familiar patterns, it dreads its own extinction. This dread the mind often apprehends as madness.

          Consciousness, on the other hand, is behind the mind. It is forever still, unmoving. The spiritual life is about gradually reducing the robotic and emotional movements of the mind until it becomes as still as the consciousness behind it. Immediately this happens there is either a deep insight, a realisation or, in the case of a permanent cessation, the illuminating state and knowledge of immortal life. Only the human mind and emotions stand in the way.

          The expansion of individual consciousness is an acutely traumatic process. No precedent exists for it in experience, in memory or instinct. It is too original, radical and truly subjective to be approximated by thought or emotion. The separation from the mind leaves the mind suspended in an unstable and seemingly isolated condition. Fortunately, in the vast majority of cases the separation is very gradual.

          The process of awakening towards enlightenment involves encounters with forces and energies that are quite horrific at times (as well as transcendentally beautiful). The person’s life – if he or she is to receive a permanent illumination – is literally turned upside down. Relationships are smashed or rearranged to obliterate the claims of the past; the values, attachments, prejudices, expectations, assumptions, sentiments, the layers of the years of conditioning and the secretions of habit must all go into the dissolving fire of conscious scrutiny. The foundations of the psychological self have to be given the acid test to find out what is essential and what is not. The emotional upheaval can be devastating.

          It is a long, long wearying affair. The mind, so unassailably sure of its independent existence among the solid comfortable roots of sense-perception and its conditioned responses, starts to panic at the first weird creaks, as consciousness starts to shine through. No longer able to perceive one tangible world, it senses the presence of an oddly more powerful reality within. Hence the mind of relationships has no frame of reference as there are no relationships in reality.”

          Extract from the newly published Barry Long book, ‘My Life of Love and Truth’ (pp 19-20)

          • Preetam says:

            The beautiful box or the factual carrot does not tolerate lies and confusion. That why the Master must be a Rebel in that world and is being killed.

          • Prem Martyn says:

            SD, Are you sure all that isn’t about the effects of reading Sannyas News..?

            This is what could happen if you let Australians take hold of classic themes and combine them with mind warping ideas.


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

            • Prem Martyn says:

              Although any spiritual Klingons, round these parts might be extra wary of this version…


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

              or that classic of dissolution of the self…


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

            • frank says:

              marty,
              have you read
              “the origins of man and the wobbleboard”?

              • Prem Martyn says:

                Ah Frank, do you mean that classic of Osho’s oeuvre .. Above All, don’t Wobble.

                (Ahum chukka hum chukka hum,.. and a bit of paint there… and ahum chukka humm )

          • swami anand anubodh says:

            @SD

            I know Barry Long is rated by many.

            It’s interesting to read how different people try to express the ‘inexpressible’

            Always worth remembering: ‘consciousness can see the mind – but the mind cannot see consciousness’

    • Parmartha says:

      Thanks Anubodh.
      Post more pics!
      like Arps I thought them very good. Surprised they have survived. In the Poona one ashram they were “funny” about unauthorised people taking photos as I remember, so imagine these are the UK scene at the time?

  27. prem martyn says:

    only 131 replies from 200 buddhas…??
    Why ?

    That makes 132. … (68 to go)

    If we get to 210 , then we’ve overshot Buddhahood and will need to come back round again , out of compassion.

  28. frank says:

    I submitted an new topic which hasn’t been put up.
    maybe the dashboard thing doesn’t work any more.

    i was just drawing attention to the movie “kumare” which I watched the other day.
    its about the American guy of indian origin who sets himself up as a yoga teacher and gets a following,then eventually owns up…….

    I thought it was pretty good.
    I would certainly recommend it to anyone with an interest in the subject of gurus…

    I know lokesh said he saw it.
    what did anyone else think?

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