Almost exactly ten years ago, I sold my London house, readying myself to emigrate, probably to West Africa.
First though I went back to Pune, to that community which had been as much my home as anywhere over the previous two decades.
I thought while I was there of changing my plan and staying for good, but in the end I did not. If you read on, you will find out why.
Instead then of staying in India, I reverted to my original plan. I have been based in Ghana, W Africa since December 2004.
Ghana is a remarkably religious place. When I first came, I was surprised how often I was asked the question, ‘Do you believe in God”…. Except that it wasn’t really a question, as only an affirmative answer seemed allowed.
My surprise was however pleasant at the start… Until, that is, I realised that belief is belief, and that discussions between people with two different starting points often end up in unpleasant and intractable argument… if not war.
So after a while I tended to avoid those direct questioners.
Even then, God is everywhere in Ghanaian conversations. If I ask someone ‘How are you?’, the words ‘by His grace’ may come back as complete answer… Happy or unhappy is not the point, wherever one is it is by God’s grace, and that is enough.
So God cannot be avoided here. So I have needed to make some sense of It/Him, as He/It figures in life here…. which is, as I said, pretty much all the time.
So I have tended, eg in conversations where my partner refers to God, to mentally ‘translate’ the ‘concept’ to something more suited to me: the concept of goodness.
So then that famous question becomes: Do you believe in Goodness?
That is a good and useful question for myself.
As I reflect on it, my memory goes back to Pune, and goes back too to other utopian communes I once lived in.
There I surely believed in Goodness.
Why did I? Why/how could I?
These two questions have come to me a lot over the last decade, as the decision I took in 2004, to leave Pune, probably for good, was a little difficult.
As I have reflected on it the last years, I have often thought, I was far ‘happier’ in Pune than I have been here in Africa since.
Now I add in the idea that THEN I believed in Goodness… But as you will see below, NOW my position on that is more guarded.
Yet leaving was the right thing to do.
My memories of Pune in 2004. are of almost constant happiness.
It seems to me that that constant happiness, and the concomitant belief in Goodness, was possible because of the scale and the framework of my human environment.
The scale was small, there were perhaps a thousand people only in my life. That meant that there was strong intimacy between myself and those around me generally, a very cogent ground for happiness.
As to the framework: economic pressures were not there on me, nor I think on most of the other thousand.though perhaps on some. And money, as we have all heard, has a lot to do with evil.
What else? Well, while others, judging from what I read here, might disagree, there was little in the way of serious politics or power-struggles, life was generally playful.
Of course, there was a lot too of dancing and hugging and holding hands and of other things for which the place was famous or notorious.
On the other hand, there were almost no children. And while children are a profoundly magical source of joy, they are also a source of disturbance and worry. I know that for myself, there are always six at least in my house. (As I write this, there are ten, and I am feeding them all.)
To recapitulate. I was constantly happy in Pune in 2004. But it was not… what shall I say… the real world. Life there seemed too simple for me after a few months. I left, this time for good.
From within the philosophy of some communards, it would be seen as the ego – the desire to be special, to achieve as a separate individual – that took me away.
Perhaps. Still, I went. The challenges outside in the big world were too inviting.
And I am now in that ‘real’ outside world, that harsher place, characterised by shortage (love and cuddles do not suffice here), in that competitive place, thick with power-seeking, that world whe we do not all easily melt into each other any more.
Do I believe in Goodness here now?
I think the answer has to be: I do believe in it, but it is not the whole story.
Because if I believe in Goodness in too starry-eyed a way, as perhaps I once did, the hard knocks of life, especially African life, dent the constant courage I now need.
In 2004, I probably considered a hard skin undesirable.
But now I need it… and it grows from believing there is more than just Goodness.
Or God.
Phoenix
God meant godliness to Osho!
Godliness one can contact within,
if one melts his mind,
the mind which becomes hard in outside world,
the mind which is soft in commune,
and mind can be melted through meditaion and love,
meditation and love, which is not supported in outside world,
meditation and love, which is supported in commune!
One can feel godliness in commune or outside world,
wherever he wants!
One can miss godliness in commune or outside world,
wherever he doesnot melt his mind!
Melted Minds. Whatever will they come up with next?
God/goodness/godliness/gobberish/gobbishness only knows!!!!! ‘Melted Minds’ – I think I want to be sick. Very melted I would say. Love Birds more like it, Phoenix and Birdh Eggbantam, roosting together and preening each other’s precious plumage and feathers. It seems a pair of pompous energy-suckers have found each other. Let ‘em get on with it, I’ve got better things to do rite now, like going to bed. Ta ta.
“melted minds”?
is that the new flavour from ben and jerrys` new
“I leave you my cream” range?
have you tried the jackass news special:
“the totally bananas longboat”?
it`s one scoop of “religious nut”
one of “orange lunghi fantasy”
one of ” half-baked waffles”
one of “double choc chuddies”
one of “ripe mangos creampie”
all covered in a big dollop of melted minds
with a couple of rum babas
and spiritual flakes stuck in the top…
all walloped into one big zen cone…
Esteemed Brother Frank,
Congratulations! You have undoubtedly achieved the difficult goal of combining an appropriate and wide variety of sickly sweet, sticky flavours and spiritual essences in your new culinary creation, ‘Totally Bananas Longboat Special’. I feel sure the ‘Love Birds’ will find their every holy wish, longing and desire catered for – dipping their beaks into the exquisite honeypot they have inspired, and which you have masterfully created for them on the occasion of their coming together in matrimony!
In the name of Bod the Father, the Son & the Holy Ghost. Amen!
“mind melt”.. Isn’t that a Vulcan thing?
Another excellent prescription from the orifice of Dr. ‘Bones’ Ekan’tam, to add to the list.
-One Osho discourse
-One meditation
-One Mind melt (toasted)
to be taken orally everyday 4ever!
Can’t imagine what life is like in Africa. I carry rather a negative perception of african societies… corrupt, violent and cursed by their religions and tribal affiliations.
Just as the west relegates religion to a polite nod by the establishment, black culture with it’s pentecostal and/or fundamentalist beliefs be they christian or muslim or local spirit worship and witchcraft, would take us back to the dark ages. Having said that, ghana seems relatively tolerant.
I loathe religion and it’s fantasy toxic belief systems but not the good commonsense and hearts of people, in spite of the brainwashing.
I notice they worship god and not the goddess in almost all these religions, which says a lot.
Not sure what the so called “real” world is, somewhere that involves earning a crust I suppose. There are as many real worlds as there are people and societies.
Poona 2 was quite a relaxed place for the average punter, probably in reaction and compensation to the totalitarianism of before. But scratch the surface and you might find plenty of politics and friction.
There is no escaping it and no utopia where darkness and light do not dance together. Perhaps the corruption of most gurus below the surface is intended to teach us that they are no different, to keep our eyes wide open and use the critical faculties of mind.
Poona 3 is not Poona 2 and you might be shocked by how much it’s changed as well as pune itself and koregaon park. It is another world, much more expensive and greatly diminished in my view, from the relatively cheap cosy life we previously enjoyed, though better no doubt for the indian middle class and well to do.
God is within, guru is within and “goodness” (a subjective term) too.
Work it out individually and collectively and let’s have 7 billion different religions on earth.
Thanks Phoenix for great prose. So nice, it does not touch my sarcasm nerve.
” In 2004, I probably considered a hard skin undesirable.
But now I need it… and it grows from believing there is more than just Goodness.
Or God. ” ~ in this case believing is be living , i guess.
Thank you for sharing .
Nice try kavs… needs a little work.
Hard skin can be a problem in India . Have you tried exfoliating?
Dom , just to let you know , I was operated for my appendix when I was 23 , and while they were operating , I heard the doctor say to his staff that my skin is very thick .
btw , I din’t get the ‘ try ‘ you are referring to ?
Dom actually after reading your post for the second time , I realized i didn’t get any , of what you wrote !
I guess exfoliation happens on its own at frequent intervals ! I prefer nature to take its course , mostly .
Thanks, Bodh Ekantam.
I think what Osho said was: There is no God, only godliness.
Whether goodness, or godliness, I will not argue against.
You say: melting the mind, I said: softening the skin.
Again, either way, I do nor argue against.
Indeed, when I say I believe in goodness, I mean something very similar to the Desiderata’s ‘Love is as perennial as the grass’.
I do not argue against. But I feel the need to remind myself that god or godliness or goodness or love or utopia are – right now at least in my life, as I understand them right now – not the whole story.
I do not say they are not there.
I just remind myself how they become concepts, which become dreams.
Life is tough here. Dreams will often only be a hindrance.
Hello Dominic
No need to imagine. Go – right now – to http://www.the-rising-phoenix.com, choose your room at my beach resort, click on ‘Pay now’, pay, buy your flight, come find out at first hand.
And you may well learn new things here. I long considered myself traumatised by religion. Coming here to Ghana, where just about everybody is religious, often even fanatically so, one surely either has to come to terms with religion or leave. Coming to terms means for instance finding commonality beneath the surface. I learn here to see a point in ‘believing in goodness’, and also say that it is not the whole story, ie there is also badness.
The only difference between that and traditional Christianity is grammatical. I use the abstract nouns goodness and badness, traditional Christianity uses proper nouns: God and Devil.
So come.
I love it here. People are naturally without barriers, open and friendly, oranges are 6 pence each, big fat mangoes 25 pence each, and socks never ever needed. The life I have chosen is touuuuuugh, often stressful, still, I did not know what home meant till I came here.
———-
Sure, no utopias. And I do not want to argue that there was no politics in Pune or Rajneeeshpuram. I managed though to create a generally happy, often ecstatic life for myself there, without involving myself in politics at all… I got banned from all the UK communes, from the Cologne discos, etc etc… even that was all Leela. (And the first instance was even a big joke, because shortly after that many/all (?) were closed down… So what was I banned from?)
So that was my point. There, then, politics seemed inessential. Now in this environment of limitation, of shortage, and yes, therefore, of corruption, politics is unavoidable. I accept it as part of the price I have to pay for this progression in my life… though not always happily.
As to the seven billion religions. Yes, but also no… Too simplistic. As you say just before, there is also the collective.
Imagine me, in 1978, walking up those steps in Belmont Square, and FINDING ONLY ONE PERSON IN KALPTARU, SAYING TO ME, I AM GOING TO DO MY MEDITATION GIVEN TO ME BY MY GURU, YOU, IF YOU LIKE, CAN DO A DIFFERENT ONE, GIVEN BY SOMEONE ELSE, but never the twain shall meet.
I think I would never have gone back. And that whole long rich odyssey of orange and maroon and India and America and Germany and Holland would never have started.
Instead though, that evening, I found plenty of people in Kalptaru, most wearing the same colour, with the same master, pretty much with the same dharma, doing the same one meditation.
People also like and need that kind of sameness. And it had, that evening, the joint strength sufficient to change the trajectory of my life entirely. .
@Caps and doublespacing ‘R us!
Sounds like you were doing your own ‘meditation’ anyway to have been honoured with so many bans…an unstoppable force.
Of course, commonality and core goodness behind all the dysfunction.
And yet the life force at it’s optimum expresses itself through infinite variety and points of view, therefore be a light unto yourself, (which doesn’t preclude sharing common interests), is what I mean.
These desert religions are greedy beasts and require constant feeding, worship and conformity for their fantasy superheroes…
But yes it feels cosy and safe, requires no thought and benefits the status quo (but don’t tell the local witchdoctor I said so, just in case.
I also have been known to pray for a parking space when the chips are down…good to hedge your bets!)
“You keep them poor and I’ll keep them dumb,” said the priest to the politician.”
Still you love it and feels like home. That’s boko!
Shantam Prem, thanks for the compliment.
Kavita, thanks for the thanks.
Believing = be living? Hmmm…
It is a nice pun, though I am not quite sure I get the meaning.
The nearest I can get is something I like to say, that:
‘I believe in goodness, not because I know it is there, but because life is more worthwhile that way.’
Is that close?
Why not remain with the sheer goodness of being alive? Not necessarily as circumstances, related to things and/or people, which can’t be relied on to last, but as the sheer “good” of the basic, natural feeling inside our bodies, that’s always available there, behind any passing psycho-physical discomfort and which doesn’t depend upon anything else, including thoughts and beliefs, being simply what’s ‘given’ by simply being, ie our very life?
Simple, but not necessarily always easy by any means, especially given tricky circumstances in the world, but as the old saying goes, ‘these things are sent to try us’.
Perhaps ‘God’ is just another word for ‘Life’, the source of the whole lot, so-called good and bad, everything that is? And behind it all the original purity is there, inside us, accessible in the first instance through that simple good feeling, so easily overlooked or taken for granted? So near and yet so far….
(Not my original ideas of course, but it makes sense to me).
Yes pheo .
My two rupees…
Never mind beliefs and ideas, last time I think it was Yogi Parahamsandwich no?
Go inside, open up, feel what’s going on…take it from there.
And thank ‘goodness’.
Lovely place by the way, though ‘by the time I get to phoenix…’
Phoenix!
Thanks for such a beautiful post!
Straight from heart!
I loved it a lot!
Good question, Satyadeva. In fact, arguably, a succinct rephrasing of the nub of the story I have told.
Why not, you ask, remain with that essential goodness?
I will tell you the answer that came immediately to my mind: Try feeding twelve children, and you will know why.
Or if that answer isn’t enough, how about this: Try feeding twelve children in an environment where all around people hardly know how to feed their own children, let alone send them to school or get health care for them, so that life is generally full of pressures, and dishonesty, and corruption, arising simply from the general, and correct, perception of great scarcity… and you will know why.
Of course, if one closes one’s eyes to all that, as I might have done had I remained in Pune (not so many destitute kids in Koregaon Park), then one can perhaps remain in that essential goodness.
But I left.
And the life I lead now, running a business, which means looking after 16 employees, and feeding many at home, requires great ‘realism’ of me.
Don’t dream, I tell myself. Even if life is always good at a certain level, it is not always good at other levels. And I also operate at those other levels.
Yes, I appreciate what you’re saying about external difficulties, Phoenix. And that’s the nature of the challenging circumstances you’ve chosen, which, presumably, for you as a spiritual man, has to boil down to keeping your equilibrium, your well-being, while all around is chaotically disturbing, exerting its relentless pressure.
But that’s what we’re all up against, one way or another, according to our ‘lights’ and capacities, it’s not just you who feels under pressure of the world. And that’s arguably what the world’s there for, isn’t it, to challenge us to prove the worth of any realisations we might have had in our spiritual lives?
And it’s rather profoundly ironic that you’re going through this ‘ordeal’ in such a ‘God-oriented’ land. Although as you say, their and your concepts of ‘God’ are very different, which, as you also intimate, can too easily become the cause of conflict, individual and collective.
My God, what a world, eh?!!
John Lennon’s famous words ring ever true for certain people, even whole cultures, facing adverse inner and/or outer conditions:
“God is a concept
By which we measure
Our pain.”
Phoenix,
When many africans are risking their lives to be in the west, what prompted you for shifting to Ghana?
Better business prospects in an under developed nation or ?
Probably many, but not all, are up against such material pressures.
As to me, for the first thirty years of my adult life, I was almost entirely free of such pressures. Now it sometimes seems I have gone to the other extreme.
So, no, Shantam, it was not business opportunity that brought me here. What it was was love, as described above in my answer to Dominic.
The Lennon quote is apt. God is arguably omnipresent here to balance the vast despair.
I do not see myself though on any spiritual path, with the world provided to me as a testing ground for spiritual insights. That sounds to me too theological, as if some wise person with a beard sitting somewhere up high has a plan for me.
That kind of thinking may arise simply to compensate our terror at the arbitrary, accidental, careless ways of the cosmos.
Or maybe I am blind to that divine plan?
But the real point, Phoenix, is not that there might be some “divine plan” for you, orchestrated by some external deity, it’s that, however we understand it – and whether we like it or not – the world ‘out there’ reflects and tests every seeker’s prized realisations, as if to say, “Oh, so you reckon you ‘know’ something, you’ve ‘got somewhere’, do you? Ok, take that and let’s see how ‘evolved’ you actually are!”
One extreme would be sickness, disease and death, others would be taking on huge responsibilities, finance and business crises, poverty, relationship difficulties, people’s heavy criticism, and so on…
I wonder if the cosmos is actually as “arbitrary, accidental, careless” as you say. And you, after all, have described various significant, synchronistic happenings in contributions to this very place, haven’t you?! (We’ve all had them, you know!).
God and Goodness, Through this string, these two words are making some waves of feelings and thoughts inside.
As an Indian i was always feeling angry to see a vast scale corruption and injustice in Indian socio fabric. As from upper middle class, i could have remained immune to all this like million others, but it was not possible as i am too curious to roam my eyes all around.
Compare to my home country, Europe seems to be the fountain of goodness; institutionised goodness implemented because of Christian upbringing.
Yet i miss that waves and inner landscape of India, where God seems to be more closer to us earthly beings. May be it is that soothing atmosphare, where elements of life create a very balanced whether.
Puna Ashram was therefore an oasis of my inner longing. Western goodness and Indian vibes of Godliness…
Very true!
Perfectly laughable coming from one as conceited as you, Ekantam!
Compounding the ‘joke’ is that you’re apparently totally oblivious of being absolutely “up yourself”, as Lokesh says.
Shantypants reminisces for the 999th time in his Ikea ‘deep-rest’ room.
Having truly absorbed the master’s teaching he says, “Nostalgia ain’t what it used to be.”
Now he is upper lidl class, his happiness in his own hands but hard to find anywhere else.
Still don’t like this ‘spiritual evolution being proved/tested in the material world’ lark. I guess I find it too dialectical, thus too antagonistic.
In Pune, I was utopian, that was right for me then. Nothing proved me wrong, just I changed my circumstances and then perforce invented a new Lebensanschauung to suit. Did I evolve or just step sideways… Do I care?
By bringing in synchronicity, is one seeking to prove existence essentially benign rather than neutral?
That looks to me rather like smuggling God in through the back door.
But if there is no God, only godliness, then it can be neutral. From there on, only our godly trusting attitude creates goodness.
or perhaps better, is the ground for goodness…
And is what for badness, the toichstone?
But where else can ‘spiritual realisations’ be tested? In one’s imagination? Surely they have to be lived and tested in the normal circumstances of our lives?
Synchronicity is an apparently cause-less phenomenon, and as such rather mysterious. And you yourself have described the rather odd processes that led you into sannyas.
Why not attribute such events and ‘processes’ to the vast, interconnected human psyche, rather than an imagined ‘God’ (with all its ‘man-in-the-sky’ baggage)?
And doesn’t ‘moral goodness’ – if that’s what you’re looking for – arise, in the first instance, from the sheer ‘goodness’ of the feeling of the ‘original’ life inside us, inside our bodies, rather than from any superimposed attitude or belief?
Thanks, Satyadeva, I appreciate what you write.
And while I might in this context prefer to disagree with some things you have just said, I also know that in other contexts I might say exactly the same thing. So little need to argue.
However, there is one point I will take issue with. I don’t think I spoke of synchronicity in connection with taking sannyas, rather of telepathy.
Two months back, I was indeed an apologist for telepathy. But today I had to make an effort to remember why, because today I do not feel inclined to plead for it.
That interests me… Why the change?
Well, two months ago, I had decided to write positively of Paramhansa, despite my strong scepticism as to the many miracles he reported.
Now I have more or less forgotten Paramhansa. And therefore feel no need to plead the case for telepathy.
Does this shifting attitude make me shifty, dishonest?
No…
I labour this point because I do not see myself as a seeker of truth here, rather as a writer. (Both these last two long posts you have seen of mine here started out as diary-like entries on facebook.)
And as a writer, the relevant questions are perhaps, even more than: Is this true?, questions such as; ‘Is there logic, pattern, beauty in what is written?’ and ‘Does it make me feel clear and whole?’
Certainly I did not set out to answer here the question: ‘Is there God?’
After all, it seems clear to me that people, depending on age, education, mood, location, culture, and depending too on who they are talking to, will answer either yes, no, or maybe… and will still always be right.
Even the word god above was modulated, into goodness, and later into godliness.
So god/goodness was not the crucial point of what I wrote. The crucial word was rather ‘believe’.
So I was talking about myself, about myself making sense of my life.
And that is a very simple thing.
I cannot see that I am hankering after spiritual realisation. I am just making a beautiful life; and writing beautiful words. (In so far as I am a writer, those are the same thing.)
And the writing should leave me feeling whole, and I am one with the writing. Out of that I still, without arguing, question the idea of ‘insights tested in the world’. It is unnecessarily dualistic. Insights and action are within the same one fusion. Thus everything tests itself instantly.
As to your third paragraph: my preference in the context of today is to posit, not a vast human psyche, but the cosmos, including all that is non human too. But even if I follow you and restrict myself to the human realm, the same fact seems to remain that humans in conditions of scarcity do not always show good intentions towards each other… And that was the background out of which my question as to belief arose.
As to your fourth paragraph: again, I will not argue, but I incline to suppose that the original feelgood factor is not sufficient cause for goodness. The way you write, goodness seems rather a response. I would prefer to describe it as creation.
The initial post here was triggered by a particular incident. A certain authority has been troubling my business. I looked for the right response, which proved difficult, as I hardly know the authority officers involved. So I looked for a general principle to guide me, and that, in distilled form, came out as the phrase I wrote above: ‘I believe in goodness, but it is not the whole story’.
(In this particular incident, the word God which I was playing with, and which modulated to goodness and godliness, might also modulate to goodwill, as I was among other things wondering how much goodwill to expect from the officers.)
Anyway, once that belief was formulated, it occurred to me that I seemed less utopian than I had once been, when I found it easy to assume universal goodwill.
That got the writing first a shorter piece on facebook, then this extended version here.
Two things arise in me on that further reflection.
One: I start to question the need for the grand backdrop I am creating. I see I can also take this incident, and all other similar ones, on a case by case basis. (I think that is partly what Dominic is suggesting as he tries to earn his two rupees, right?) No need then to involve the cosmos, no need to involve all those words beginning go…, no need to involve belief.
That is indeed how I often live, step by step, AA-style.
However, that Chardinesque backdrop makes life richer, so I let it hang.
Two: The story I am writing here is one of (Lotus) Paradise Lost. (What was one slogan of that earlier utopia?: This very place the Lotus Paradise).
And what I notice now is that I carry within me the assumption of Paradise Regained, just as traditional Christianity does, even if the details sometimes seem different.
Once I saw universal goodwill, now I do not. Soon though I may again.
I can even at this point bring back Satyadeva’s evolution, but not individual evolution, but collective evolution.
I see the capacity for compassion growing, thus universal goodwill/goodness/godliness/God arising. Soon. Any moment now. Or in a million years.
And that vision gives a beautiful framework to something that happened over the weekend which I mentioned in passing above.
Despite grave misgivings, despite strong doubts that what I was doing was not helping anyone, rather creating destructive stress and resentment, I silently allowed, purely out of compassion, the number of young people living out of my household to rise, at least temporarily, from six to ten.
Today it seems I was ‘more right’ there than I thought.
Teilhard de Chardin, Crosstianity, collective evolution etc, does it really make life richer or just add layers of confusionism and foolosophy, with other people’s ideas and overthinking it.
Can’t comment on your life situation but after this and your last post on Parahamsandwich.. (sorry but after a little research I can’t take him seriously).. strikes me it’s easy to lose oneself in philosophical meanderings, and honestly who doesn’t, but staying with one’s own experience and discoveries is a surer course…even if it’s a feeling of overwhelm or I’m confused and clueless.
Compassion requires giving it to oneself as much as as other people.
Goodness gracious me. Believing in goodness? I must be missing something. Again and again the old man said ‘belief and doubt are two aspects of the same coin’ and he was absolutely right on the money. I see believing as something best left to the Monkees. These days its more about who or what is it that does the believing number. Goodness, badness isn’t this all part of the dualistic nature of mind trip? Really can’t relate to believers. Reminds me of Christians and naff American pop lyrics. I say, be a good chap and pass the piss and vinegar. Do you believe in God. Such a stupid question.
The last belief system (catholic/christian)for me was shattered about 6 years ago at an evening meeting. I had just popped down to Pune for the first time ever,from Srinigar, on a whim.’I'll just go and have a look’..( 6 months later i was still there) ha ha ….My entire religious beliefs,the last great anchor in my life disappeared that night. I was so unsettled as i came out of the of the meeting,my head was in a spin.I went to my room and as was my habit before going to bed, i was about to bless myself and i suddenly thought,’what the fuck am i doing, i don’t believe in this anymore’. That was the beginning of the end for me.What a glorious day it was….next morning at dynamic i was cursing Osho,’ what have you done, what am i to believe in now…WHATS HAPPENING’
My understanding is belief is part of some system,frequently and significantly, religious and its a mind function.Its fine…but i don’t know what to believe anymore.
By the way the story told by Osho that night was roughly about the priest that tried to get into heaven.He arrived at the HUGE doors of heaven.So big you couldn’t see the top of them or how wide they were.They were ENORMOUS.The priest knocked on the door for a long time before St Peter, popped his head out a small window and asked the priest what he wanted.St Peters head had a thousand eyes.The priest said God told him he he would get into heaven if he was a good Catholic priest. St Peter asked him his name,’Murphy’ said the priest. ‘Let me look to see if your name is on the list’ St peter said. A few minutes later he popped his head with a 1000 eyes out the window again and said Murphy’s name wasn’t on the list.(All through this story i was absolutely heaving with laughter, i could hardly keep it in i was in convulsions).Eventually Murphy said , ‘well please go and find God and tell him i’m here,he’ll know me’.St Peter said,’ i dont know where he is…..iv’e never seen him. This place is so big nobody has ever seen him’.
When i remember this experience,i laugh and realise how tenuous my belief system really was.After about two days i had settled down.What an amazing experience for me discovering Pune.Wow.
Hands up, I was a believer and had all the monkees records.
Catchy song oh yeah (neil diamond), that and ‘moi….je t’aime’, summer of ’67…
Davy Jones, he died last year, took the last train to Godsville…
Truth be told, I think I’m a Believer is a great pop song.
you are missing something, there you are right on the money. You are missing me for instance. If you stop judging my words by other words you once heard, you may see me.
Phoenix, maybe I’m not interested in seeing you. Maybe you missed that. I’m not judging anything, least of all your words.
Lets have a look see and maybe I can deliver some good and proper judgements for you to judge. Oh, I know Jesus said we shouldn’t, but, hey, come on, nothing wrong with a bit of judgemental fun because, afterall, the idea that there is something wrong in judging is in essence ironic, because that is a judgement.
Here we have, ‘So I have tended, eg in conversations where my partner refers to God, to mentally ‘translate’ the ‘concept’ to something more suited to me: the concept of goodness.’ Well at least you’re being honest and declaring that these are ideas…conceptual thinking. Not exactly groundbreaking subject matter. Goodness just sounds kind of corny to me. Maybe that is just my hard boiled programming talking, so lets investigate. ‘Do I believe in Goodness here now? Answer: I do believe in it, but it is not the whole story.
Okay, so that is your conclussion…you believe in Goodness. What does that mean? What is this Goodness that you feel is so important. Some kind of definition would certainly help, seeing as this is your conclussion, a conclusion that concldes with, ‘but it is not the whole story.’ Perhaps you could drop a hint as to how you know this. Or perhaps give a scetch of what you suspect the whole story might look like.
I’ll go back to what I said earlier….belief and doubt are two aspects of the same coin. Yes, Osho often said that, but you are mistaken in thinking that I view your words through something someone once said. Osho was declaring the truth on this matter. I examined his statement and applied it to life and found it to be true existentially. You believing in this Goodness thing, whatever that means to you, Phoenix, means to me that you have gathered positive information to affirm your viewpoint. Another person might have gathered negative informaion and completely doubted this world view. It is all in the mind, especially conceptual thinking.
In the school I attended I learnt that all polarities belong to the mind. Where I arrived was a place where one sees that and if you can see it you are not it. There was much ado around Osho about witnessing. It was a good start but, to coin your words, it is not the whole story. The whole story is that we are dream characters inhabiting a dream world. Our conceptualizations have nothing to do with reality. Reality can only be experienced by stepping out of the mind and the spider web world of conceptual ideas. In order for reality to be you have to get out of the way. It really is as simple as that and to many it is a frightening thought, because it means that one has to die to the misbegotten belief that one is an individual entity. You, we, I are not. It is therefore that I am not so interested in polarized thinking and people’s mind trips, beliefs concepts etc. They are just the accumulated dust of a human lifetime and there is nothing new to be found in it.
Thanks Lokesh
No obligation of course to see or know me…
I would like though to help you find out whether you want to see me or not. Right now, you may not know, that is not surprising, I am new to you.
But if you do want to get to know me,,, do me the favour of meeting me with an open mind ready for surprises.
I wonder if you read carefully everything I wrote, because some questions you ask seem already answered there.
But anyway, let me try to elucidate this phrase ‘believing in Goodness’. Paraphrases might include ‘amor vincit omnia’, though that I like less, as the word belief emphasises my active participation.
Believing in Goodness encourages risk, a bit like the attitude that gets casinos opening. The roulette has an extra slot, right, where all punters lose, so statistically operators ought to make a small margin. Of course the ball may always land black or red, then they cannot cover their costs, but they believe in the Goodness of statistics..
Believing is Goodness is thrill in the heart.
Out of belief in Goodness we were conceived, though we didn’t need to be. And honouring that momentous luck, we give the favour back.
Well, there you have it. No need at all for you to be interested in this, though it interests me…
I hope you noted what I said above to Satyadeva, that I am not seeking spiritual revelations. Nor am I seeking or wanting Reality.
Beauty, yes.
Good post. Beauty is surely in the eye of the beholder.
“Reality can only be experienced by stepping out of the mind and the spider web world of conceptual ideas.”
Does stepping out of mind means, one will not enter the mind’s zone again?
Condemning the mind was the time pass for centuries in India. It has lead to no where, other than the preachers, they got the reputation of being great saints.
Repeating those ideas which are just ideas have no element of beyond mind.
Shantypants, the mind is a God given tool. In certain instances it is simply not needed. Just like a car, a very useful thing, you step out of it when you have arrived at one’s destination. That does not mean that you need to abadon it forever. You just turn the ignition when it is needed for another journey. Same goes for the mind. Use it, but don’t allow it to use you. It is as simple as that. Your other speculations bear no relevance to this once understood.
The life is a dream or maya and all-is-brahman narrative of the east, which has risen to fame in the west has become as much a curse as a blessing.
If you have permanently merged with the infinite and that is your experience, you’ve won the lottery, a very rare event. Good for you!
If you’ve had glimpses or adopt it as a philosophy it can breed passivity, nihilism, denial, repression and other assorted headtrips.
Thank ‘goodness’ the west developed the mind and valued individuality and life to give us the progress we enjoy and the rest of the world aspires too, (apart from the bad stuff of course!).
People came to osho and he said witness then they went to papaji and he said, “who’s doing the effing witnessing?”
This approach seemed to bypass the mind and turn the focusing power of attention back on itself. Though it may have had as much to do with his intimate presence which was long gone with Osho.
It was a revelation, but like everything becomes old hat and cliched with time and it’s limitations seen through.
People’s individuality was getting bypassed… their needs and desires, emotional life and creative self-expression, things that osho was quite good at encouraging, producing a wave of zombified advaitabots, “nothing’s real, I don’t exist”
As far as I can see no gurus past or present ever got realized by the methods they advocate (witnessing, self-enquiry, power of now)… It just happened. Nor did it always seem to impact much on their all too human failings, and may have made matters worse.
My point is there’s no place to land.
Identification with just the mind’s ramblings may leave you empty and disconnected from deeper resources.
And the idea that life is a dream, disconnected from valuing one’s own embodied individuality and life experience.
The ‘saintly’ Ramana who had to be force-fed to be kept alive, or Nisargadatta who was heavily addicted to nicotine and died of throat cancer, or Papaji addicted to sugar going into diabetic coma, or alcoholic Trungpa dying from cirrhosis of the liver, or Osho high on nitrous, etc etc… are not my role models either, thankyou very much!
Good post, Dom. I agree with most of what you say, although not entirely. For example your declaration…As far as I can see no gurus past or present ever got realized by the methods they advocate (witnessing, self-enquiry, power of now)… It just happened.
Of course it just happened, but the chances of it happenig are surely increased by preparing the soil for that to happen by employing some form of meditation.
Never been one for role models myself. As for my comments about it all being a dream etc, please take it all with a pinch of curry. The concept of enlightenment is just that and does not figure in my life, except perhaps when I read comments on SN and write something myself on the subject. As it is I simply enjoy the fact that I have been given the opportunity to do my transient dance on Planet Plungo. Pump up the volume!
Just stirring the pot in between the cage fighting.
Yes that’s also what I say, taking the ‘meds’ helps make one accident prone. Anyway I enjoy ‘formal’ meditation when I do it, for it’s own sake, the day usually goes better.
Osho emphasized meditation whereas the satsang scene seems to de-emphasise it, making it almost uncool and irrelevant. The subtext being, “your new meditation is, paying to listen to me.”
Then again what is meditation? Many different flavours.
I suspect the ones who readily dismissed it, were the ones who weren’t enjoying it much anyway, making an effort, or using it as a means, golden carrot syndrome, because someone somewhere told them that they should and that it might lead to the big ‘E’, e.g. tm, vipassana, self-enquiry.
The underlying message behind these techniques is “you have to fix yourself or get somewhere.” So imho I think they’re a bit flawed, unnatural and tend to encourage efforting, “spiritual bypassing”, dissociation and dullness. Which many seem to enjoy!
But it’s true isn’t, like a formula, each awakening has a story for the punters..
“I gave up, I sat under a tree, it happened..(Buddha)”
“I felt really suicidal and depressed, it happened..(E.T)”
“A coakroach crawled up my leg, it happened.. (B.K)”
“I was walking in the park, it happened.. (T.P)”
“I gave up, it happened..(Osho)”
“I lay down and died.. it happened (Ramana)”
“I ate a big jar of honey..it happened (Tao of Pooh)”
“The Force felt me up.. (Yoda, Jedi)”
And all these gooroos, none of it’s real anyway. We never knew them really and they’re all just idealized (in my case, not so) images in the brain or consciousness.
And furthermore… blah blah blah…
Dominic
Are you sure that you can separate individual experiences and discoveries out from the entire cosmos?
I am not.
And just like satellites are needed to photograph the entire earth, a certain attitude may be needed to see the events in their entirety?
Philosophy can perhaps help build or rebuild such attitudes.
Depends how one defines attitude. I see attitudes forming out of habit and routine and residing in the unconscious.
Perhaps I can paraphrase Voltaire here so as not to be misunderestimated,
“When he to whom a person speaks does not understand, and he who speaks does not understand himself, that is philosophy.”
I’m afraid mind has gone south at this point and these ideas have become gibberish and word salad.
To clarify: by events I mean individual experiences and discoveries.
Lokesh
Good.
Writing of ‘belief’ on SN seemed risky, wasn’t belief one of those anathema words in sannyas? Along with mind, ego, religion, society, priests, politicians etc?
Now I however embrace all…
But anyway, I was talking of ‘belief IN’, rather than just ‘belief’. And there is a subtle but important difference.
My one and a half year old is just starting to jump into my arms from the table.
Do I believe he can do the jump? I am not sure. He cannot flex the right muscles well at all, so what he does is more like stumbling and falling than leaping. So belief would be misplaced, and for that reason I stand very very close, so I can catch hum whatever happens.
But do I believe IN him as he makes the attempt? All the paternal pride and joy in me yells YES in answer to that!
I’m afraid this is subject matter best addressed to Mr Spock. He being the incarnated essence of logic.
“Your human approach to getting out of a sticky situation does have its advantages on occasion, captain.” – Spock
Having written about goodness in my life, it seems apt to investigate how much has arisen on this string.
Several respondents have recognised well my meaning and intent, have seen style and beauty, have made the effort to tell me so, about that I am happy. Satyadeva in particular has known how to engage with me in such a way as to, by taking a different but relevant position, to help me see my own purpose better. Dominic has also been a good companion. He has preferred to turn towards flippancy and punning at the end, and while I take his point that there is a danger that I get carried away with my own words, I do not follow him into punning, but his turning away does not hurt, is not bad.
Lokesh has me puzzled still. His first response seemed to me an over cynical put-down, and he seemed at first very interested in letting me know why he isn’t interested in me… The ‘detached’ position he then espoused was nevertheless put to me with engaging effort. Fair enough, I say to myself. I do not quite see though how to marry that position to what I wrote, and that marriage would be my need. So there, out for the count, even after his last positive response, perhaps a result of his acceptance of my suggestion that he is not understanding me, still its brevity left me suspicious, as if it were too much appeasement or politeness, rather than deep rapprochement. Then again, perhaps that is my cynicism!
At the very start I was criticised by Ashok, for pompous preening. Unconstructive criticism, methinks, not useless, but not that good.
Against that kind of thing I tether my camel… even as I also trust Allah.
There, Lokesh et al, is another paraphrase for ‘believing in goodness, even though it is not the whole story’. Trust Allah, but tether your camel.
I know, Osho said to drop the last four words. But for now I keep tethering mine. I am happy with that.
“At the very start I was criticized by Ashok, for pompous preening. Unconstructive criticism, methinks, not useless but not good.”
I see you have decided to engage with me, Esteemed Brother Phoenix – mercifully and thankfully in a manner quite different to that in which you engaged with the Esteemed Brother Bodh Ekhamtan, might I add. It would be of no use trying to lick my rather large bumhole!
So what can I say by way of reply? Let’s see. Ah yes, the following comes to mind:
“Fain would I climb, lest fear I to fall!” (Me thinks – but am bound at the same time to recognize was not written by my own fair hand, but by that of Sir Walter Raleigh).
Oh yes indeed, I feel I must confess Brother Phoenix, many, many are the times I have fallen from grace! Undoubtedly, I am often wide of the mark with the potshots I take from the sanctity, comfort and safety of my own personal shit-pot, and sometimes I have to suffer the ignominious task of having to eat my own shoite when it misses the intended target and boomerangs back at me! As evidence of this, please take a look at some of the dreadful things I scribbled regarding the Esteemed Brother Prem Shamtan Premium Gas (1*Lead addled), on the previous thread, which I was subsequently forced in the most humiliating fashion, (by my own conscience), to humbly retract. However I digress, so let us return to your own exalted personage. In this particular case, I see a glimmer of hope for the pilgrim, when you say my criticism of your “pompous preening”, is “not useless”. Would this constitute a frank and honest confession on your part that some of the shit thrown, did in fact hit the intended target? Can you say that with your hand on your heart? I do hope so Brother Phoenix as this would represent a ‘feather in your cap’ if you will pardon the expression, (no offence is meant here). Furthermore, your recognition of a certain failing common to all and sundry here, would set you apart in my eyes from some of the lowly scoundrels, you have been keeping company with recently, namely Bodh Ekhamtan! A lost soul who stubbornly refuses to take the hand of salvation offered him. Let us pray for his soul.
Finally, I would like to add that pomposity, preening, confusion, long-windedness, pretentiousness, pseudiness, taking-yourself-too- seriouslyness, lost-in-your-own-wordsness, lost-in-your-own-self-importanceness, foolishness, haven’t-got-a-clueness and condescension, Etcetera, Etcetera, are all subjects close to my own sweet heart. You may at this point Brother Phoenix if you so wish, enquire as to why?
Your Humble Servant & Meekness,
Brother Ashok
As Parma Ham Sandwich tells us, any habitual thing, such as the heartbeat, can be made conscious. Keep choosing your attitudes afresh.
Ashok, why?
(Make your answer as skilfully funny as your last one and I will be happy.)
As to your other question: I have wings, so will fly… If sometimes so high, so that I am shot down, fair enough.
TODAY’S PRONOUNCEMENT FROM THE ABBEY
Esteemed Brother Phoenix!
I think you are trying to put my saintly patience to the test here when you write,
“Make your answer as skillfully funny as the last one and I will be happy.”
In the first place in riposte, let me say that your happiness is your own affair Brother Phoenix. My only concern is for matters of a weightier and graver nature, like taking care of my own illustrious presence, for example.
Secondly, I think perhaps I did not make myself clear in yesterday’s pronouncement as it would appear that the main thrust of your message has been written with the intention of butterlicking my sanctimonious bumhole! Or are you trying ‘to take the Father Michael’ as it were? If it proves in fact to be the former as I strongly suspect, let me leave you in no doubt as to the futility of following that avenue of enquiry. Nevertheless if you were to have some sharp incisive critical point to deliver ie were to ram home something hard all the way up my Bodhkin so that I were to cry out in surprise and joyful pain and Ekstasy – at that point Brother Phoenix I might begin to take your point seriously.
Thirdly, as you appear to be unable to decipher some of my hieroglyphics, I strongly recommend that you consult your friendly Frier of Lost Souls, Brother Satyadeva with whom you have been cross-breeding successfully you tell us. He is of a sufficient intellectual calibre in the matters of Holy Shoite, I have no doubt, to be able to guide you in the right direction whilst revealing the fairly obvious in my own humble scribblings. Should he be unavailable, try knocking on Brother Shantam’s door, which I think you might find profitable.
Finally, it is becoming clearer to me now through the sacred vessel of your earnest efforts, that you are of a rather youthful, innocent and naïve disposition. This in part explains why you have been gullibly led astray by the spiritual impostor Birdh Eggbantam. Take heed of my words carefully and stay closer to the likes of Brothers Lokesh, Dominic, Satyadeva and Prem Martyn (when he returns from his sabbatical leave),et al, should you be serious in your intention to further your spiritual education and practice.
I have spoken.
Brother Ashok
wit is empty without relevance, and I get only the former out of this.
I see. I’m not surprised really, because I’m just playing with meself, methinks.
SMILE YOU’RE ON CANDID CAMERA!
more love, more peace, more god
With that prayer from god multiplied, time to conclude.
Paradise is not in fact lost, just discarded or put to one side. Revisting is possible, but not always relevant.
Stories have been told, and become the mulch for new stories. Listen out!