How to resign your post – Osho’s way!

Osho’s Resignation Letter to Jabalpur University, 1964

There has been discussion on other sannyas sites about whether Osho’s resignation from the university was forced, or not. The following account culled from a range of sources is of interest.  It shows how the bridge for Osho between employment and self employment was crossed,  which many sannyasins also followed without knowing this story of their Master. (SN)

Osho was a lecturer in philosophy from 1957 at Jabalpur university,  for some seven years,  before he became as it were “his own man”.

According to reports at the time there was a conspiracy to get rid of “Rajneesh”.  by other Professors and Senior Lecturers at the university because of his anti-social behaviour, and the popularity of his lectures which were drawing in students from other departments, and undermining the professors of other subjects.

At one Convocation before he resigned, four professors conspired against him with the Vice Chancellor of the university.  Osho had not gone to the Convocation, viewing it as a waste of time.
The VC was socialising after the Convocation with a few professors and asked then where “Rajneesh” was, as he had not noticed him at the Convocation.

A Professor Dubey replied to the VC  “Why should he be here, Sir? He considers himself superior to us. For example one day he told me “Such functions are useless, a waste of money and time”.

A second professor said Rajneesh did not respect the VC, and asked has he even been to your bungalow to show his respect?

A third said that he had been amazed that Rajneesh had not taken his increment in salary, until  he told him the reason – which was he disapproved of income tax, had he taken the increment his salary he would have come into an income tax band!

The fourth said he he had indeed noticed that Rajneesh had never attended an annual staff photo session for some six years. He said that Rajneesh takes it to be an insult if he were to stand next to you. “Who on earth does he think he is?!”

A  further Professor said “actually Sir, he has been crazy since his appointment seven years ago. Students of his are allowed to get their attendance mark, but if they so wish can then leave the lecture before it commences!”

After these accusations the VC called Osho to his office to repeat them to him. . Apparently Osho sat immediately on the most comfortable looking chair before saying “Did you call me?”.

Osho refused to answer the points that the conspirators had leveled, simply saying they need to come to him directly and not through the VC. .  But the VC persisted with his own complaint, that Osho had not come to the staff photo session.

Osho’s reply was simple saying he accepted that he was not a “social” being, but that these functions were a waste of time and money.  Apparently Osho made some reference to the other Professors simply “selling themselves”.  .

At that the VC declaimed “Professor, you also take a salary, how come you are different, you are also selling yourself!”

After some further exchanges the VC told Osho that he was abusive, and he would have to take the consequences – meaning he would be sacked.

At that Osho pulled a pad from the VC’s desk and wrote a three sentence resignation letter.  Osho added the had been feeling suffocated for some time. The VC asked him why he was happy to leave, and was he mad, when no salary would be forthcoming in future.  Osho said “I was actually only mad when I joined the service. I had been thinking I was wasting my time teaching just 30 students, where I could and should be teaching thousands of people.

Not so long after Osho was speaking in Bombay to many  Jains, and began to support himself.

 

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143 Responses to How to resign your post – Osho’s way!

  1. shantam prem says:

    Was Osho a Shah Rukh Khan or Brad Pitt of Spiritual world and we are the audience; enjoying the movie and thinking in movies everything is possible, reality is different.
    All the heroic stories of Osho have lost their shine for the reason, adult children cannot quote their father´s adventure stories unless they are in some kind of enclosed facility.

    • Parmartha says:

      The point of this story to me is that Osho was just like us in this wise…. and that is refreshing. It’s not some excuse for some kind of false adulation, his story in this is also ours. (at least for many of the old school Pune one sannyasins! ).

      • Parmartha says:

        You miss the point Shantam.
        This is not an “heroic” story about Osho.
        It is the story of many of his early western disciples as well, and that is why when we met him we recognised a fellow spirit, not necessarily someone so much in front of us.

        • bodhi vartan says:

          I agree there Mr P. What I saw in Osho was someone who could have been anywhere he wanted but he chose to be there with us.

          And it was the same from our end (with a few less options).

          Both sides had to drop much, to create the new space.

  2. bodhi vartan says:

    I reckon at least half his sannyasins walked out of jobs to be with him. It was in the vibe, man.

    Well he was decent enough to tell his boss he was leaving.

    • dominic says:

      Yeah man, we didn’t sell out, flew our freak flags and dressed in every shade of orange. What a trip.
      Now the revolution’s over, can I have my career and normal life back?
      I could have been a Professor of Oshology with a mansion on the hill… bummer.

      I think he jumped before getting pushed.

  3. dominic says:

    There’s a movie in there, full of drama, with a sprinkle of dead poets society & history boys.
    Young rebellious genius resists fitting in and conformity, and sticks it to the man…. “You can’t fire me, I quit. F#*k you”
    Then goes off to found visionary movement… that also ironically ends up enforcing conformity and fitting in. Oh well…

    On the plus side his argumentative nature and self-belief were the fuel for his charisma, wildfire originality and shooting star.
    On the minus side, infallible hubris *(“I’m right even when I’m wrong”) and lack of peers, formed part of his decline.
    Ecce Homo.

    *I don’t know anybody else like that of course.

  4. Fresch says:

    That was an interesting story sn, thank you. It is my professional story as well ( well, i did not turn a guru, but independent in my profession) and so much more became possible, even it’s not easy all the time. And as we know most people go new career paths after taking sanyas.. Or do things differently.

    I just read in face book about Arun’s project getting 50000 people sign against oif osho will etc activity. They have now almost 2500 names..wow, well done. I just might join in it. I like it that Arun and his gang are coming out like this, i am feeling the heart here.

    I have told you my parents were left wing politically, so i actually have never, ever been in any political or like wise org involment my self by choice, but now this is something i might need to support how ever it goes. I do not want to give in being so cynical that some canadian laywer making money and creating private resort out of commune would be more powerful than what we actually have inside of us with osho. Any other osho place would be free to do what ever, but oif did NOT create pune alone, NOT around Jayesh, and cannot control osho’s words alone. That is just too much.

    Few days ago i put an osho words on my face book, first time ever. I must say he is intense, his words just are intense. I could almost hear different reactions in my ears from so many kind of different people. So, puting his words on my fb was feeling a risk taking for me..so, what can i say, but he really is coming through with his words.so, my point is it DOES matter who is editing his words.

  5. Lokesh says:

    Osho was always a troublemaker…something I always enjoyed about him. You can just imagine a bunch of stuffy old profs with steam coming out of their ears upon hearing Osho declaring, ‘that these functions were a waste of time and money.’
    Then again, viewed in retrospect, Osho went on to waste a lot of money himself. Well, I am also guilty of that too. It was fun, though.

    • bodhi vartan says:

      I’d go as far as to challenge P’s statement…

      Where are these millions? How come we never hear from them? All we have is poor Shantam.

      Lokesh you are right, Osho was a rascal. The goody-goodies forget that. Rascaling should be their next meditation.

      • Arpana says:

        Meditation leads to introversion Varti.
        Introverts keep themselves to themselves,
        have varying degrees of less to say than extroverts,
        so there may well be many individuals who are into Osho, but who would not be recognizable as such because they don’t fit the stereotype

    • bodhi vartan says:

      >> Osho went on to waste a lot of money himself. Well, I am also guilty of that too. It was fun, though.

      Spending (wasting) money, it’s what it’s all about. It’s the ones who save it that are causing the world’s problems by keeping the money out of the system. The world’s 10 richest people can solve everything, but they don’t want to. We have been asking nicely but if they don’t listen our grandchildren will he guillotining their grandchildren. Nazi enough?

      • dominic says:

        Osho wasted a lot of other people’s money that was given or donated in good faith as well, on tacky baubles and being flash, at the ranch. He wasn’t helping the poor or society with it, but himself and a small coterie, while others worked hard or saved all year to come and build shangri-la.
        I doubt Lokesh wasted money on such crap, and it wouldn’t pass muster in today’s ecological zeitgeist, except amongst overpriviliged tossers like saudi princes.

        • bodhi vartan says:

          dominic says:
          >> Osho wasted a lot of other people’s money that was given or donated in good faith as well, on tacky baubles and being flash, at the ranch.

          Given or donated in good faith towards what? Retirement in paradise? I think you have a money issue Dom.

          On the other hand I’d love to know when Osho realised that the shit had hit the proverbial fan. It’s sad really.

          • dominic says:

            The whole world has a money issue bv.
            But the point stands, if you were around at the time.
            The ranch was hyped as a retirement home or last chance saloon, in an oshoesque post apocalyptic vision.
            People were encouraged to give and donate to realise this. While the money was being wasted on rollers and making rich people richer.
            Having worked as a croupier you may have rubbed shoulders with playboys and playgirls, and are inoculated against this clientele.
            But this is more of a good faith, trust and betrayal issue, as well as being shabby and self-indulgent.
            And just plain typical asian-made-good, flashy behaviour.
            All the post ’60s, hindu stock gurus went off the rails faced with western materialism, like kids in a sweet shop.
            Sai baba, maharishi, prem rawat… You name it.
            The hippie generation that were emerging from that, had to swallow the banality of this excess, and pretend by putting a bliss ninny devotional smile on their face, or jump ship.
            Not that I judge of course…
            Perhaps more sad than anything.

        • Lokesh says:

          True, Dom. Out of the seven years I spent in Poona One half the time I had no money at all. I had an ashram food pass and little else. Those are remembered as some of the most happy and care free years of my life. The last two or three years in Poona I actually became quite well off and paid for a couple of dozen therapy groups…well worth the money. Money is such a great deceiver…promises much but delivers little of real value. Then again, no money, no funny.
          We are spirits living in the material world. Great song by The Police. Played a cool remix out a few times last summer. Here are a couple of throwaway lines from the song.
          Where does the answer lie?
          Living from day to day
          If it’s something we can’t buy
          There must be another way

          • dominic says:

            “The last two or three years in Poona I actually became quite well off ”
            Was there a chemical formula for this success ;) ?
            Yeah, money deep down, doesn’t bring happiness.
            And so shaking my head, I look at half of the world’s population, and wonder why the poor suffer so? Just think happy thoughts.
            What’s up with these people, don’t they get it?

            Sting’s new venture, a tyneside musical, I saw on tv, I thought was brilliant.
            How about Do(o)m’s version of
            “Every breath you take
            Every step you make
            You’re closer to death…”

            • bodhi vartan says:

              >> Yeah, money deep down, doesn’t bring happiness.

              It’s not the money but what it represents. It represents time.

              [There's a triffic film with Justin Timberlake out there called "In time". Watch it.]

              When people retired they used to be given a watch… meaning that they were given their time back.

              Money represents the freedom to do with your time what ever you wish. I Lokesh’s example, when you are where you want to be (which is rare), then money becomes meaningless. It’s when you are where you don’t want to be that it begins to acquire meaning.

              • Lokesh says:

                One thing about money, or the lack of it, is that it is a very convenient screen to project worry etc onto. Once you have it you realise that the worry persists and searches for a new screen. When you finally get it you relax and the worry fades and dies.

      • Parmartha says:

        As I remember Varts, this was the name of the game of “Prosperity Consciousness” back in the eighties.
        It was flawed for me when some guy leading a group (Shantamo) actually told me to give him all my money and it would come back a thousand fold!
        But your argument itself is not flawed. Keeping money on the move is the secret, but not to give it to conmen!

  6. Fresch says:

    Lokesh, osho is a troublemaker, big time stil is. And if he waisted his money, good for him. Now, let’s not let a canadian wannabe cult leader take over.

    • Lokesh says:

      Canadian cult leader? Take over what?

      • satyadeva says:

        Good question!

        Fresch, I think you might need to take it easy for a while, you’re putting 2 and 2 together and making 22.
        Or rather, adding 1 and 6 billion and making er, er…a globalised religious dictatorship, based in Edmonton, Alberta?!

        • dominic says:

          Well now sd you’re using my lines which you earlier dissed. That’s a catch-22.
          No use denying it. Suppose I should be flattered.

          Anyways freschie, you go girl!
          Freschie for commander-in-chief! Yahoo!
          Would love to see you parachuted in with a crack team of maroon seals for a takeover bid.
          We’ll be in the war room on a live feed, handling the… um.. logistics

          • satyadeva says:

            Pure coincidence, Dominic.

            • dominic says:

              Talk about dishonest…
              SD says: “you’re putting 2 and 2 together…”
              Last thread Dom says:
              “adding 2+2, you keep getting 3!”
              satyadeva then says:
              “Just fatuously foolish crap, Dominic, not even ‘clever’. Try harder next time!”

              What are the chances?
              Are you blushing with embarrassment?
              You should be.
              Try harder next time!

              • satyadeva says:

                More fatuous nonsense, Dominic. You must be rather disturbed to dredge up such a pile of utterly trivial, misplaced bullshine. I suspect I might have hit a nerve when I told you I regard you as wifully dishonest?

                In case you can’t quite understand, I’ll spell it out for you:

                My derogatory comment about your earlier rubbish was just that, a comment on the whole silly post, not specifically related to your “2 + 2″ etc.

                Grow up, for God’s sake.

                • dominic says:

                  I can enjoy a good putdown sd, if it hits the target or has some saving grace of repartee and wit.
                  But your comments are simply rude, crude and derogatory, in the style of a stuffy, irascible, puffed up schoolmaster.
                  Not tongue in cheek as mine so often are.
                  They have all the power of a dopey mosquito.
                  But I’m surprised that moderators don’t find them ad hominem, if not ad dominem.
                  What would mammy meera (not) say?
                  Try to inject a little ‘je ne sais quoi’ into your banal and tired rants.
                  “Grow up, for God’s sake,”
                  Really? Is that the best you can do?

                  MOD: WE’RE WATCHING THE SITUATION AND COULD PULL THESE SORTS OF POSTS ANY TIME.

                • satyadeva says:

                  Which, translated, merely means you object to having it ‘straight’, you ‘just don’t like it up you’ (which, of course, we already know).

                  Which, of course, is probably why that’s just what you’re getting. Bad luck, ol’ boy.

                  Thus, apparently wilfully blind to your own often expressed nastiness on here, masquerading as verbose clever-dickery, which you imagine to be funny, you qualify as both hypocritical and self-deluded as well as dishonest. Mind you, the three do tend to go together.

                  As I said, time to grow up, lad. For your sake.

                  Now get on with your homework, you’ve got important exams every day for the rest of your life…

                  See you in Death,

                  Yours most paternally,

                  Saturn

                  MOD: WE’RE WATCHING THESE SORTS OF POSTS AND COULD PULL THEM ANY TIME AS WE PREFER SN ISN’T USED FOR ONGOING ‘PERSONAL ISSUES’.

  7. shantam prem says:

    Millions of people getting help from Osho books; Maybe means all the people combined together who buy books from esoteric bookshops or people who have heard once in their lifetime some news about Osho.
    Brand recognition is also quite an achievement.
    Fact is for all the practical purposes, Osho is as useful for the world at large as George Bush the senior!
    No one else to blame but the prodigal sons/daughters.

    PS_ Is not a reality that women who have spend their lifetime around Osho hardly use the word Osho for their transformative work for bread and butter?

  8. shantam prem says:

    Anyone who has walked the talk for decades won´t be able to discuss with someone who has just started posting inspiring quotations on facebook.
    Life is such.

    I am not sure, little babies have the sense to realise, it is their own pampers which are disturbing their tranquillity.
    Arpana, can you do some internet research for me, please!

  9. madhu dagmar frantzen says:

    dear arpana

    what about implying or better applying
    by pondering
    looking at disfunctionality of “systems” (group of people calling it s self friends of sannyas or issues connected with that
    as well as looking at skapegoating

    HERENOW ?????

    right here at this place ???

    that has been my understanding of mediation in progress

    madhu

  10. madhu dagmar frantzen says:

    remembered today
    shantam prem

    your spiritual as political correct contribution
    the other day

    remember ?
    your TWO mentioned possibilities of acting
    from a man who was eager to reach the arycharya s lecture and met violating hooligan being busy to rape a women in the streets while on his way-

    your today s
    especially on the place of PS….
    de-maskaskarates some of the rightiousnesses of your garments

    that s how i feel it

    madhu

  11. Parmartha says:

    Someone, annonymously is calling themselves P earlier in this string. Can I underline this is not me! It is true that some acquaintances call me P but I always post from a legitimate email address and as a member. This person is not me!

    MOD: ALL POSTS FROM AND IN RESPONSE TO ‘P’ HAVE BEEN REMOVED.

  12. Parmartha says:

    I like this “story” and also the way SN copy writers slant it. As Vartan says earlier, Osho’s story about leaving conventional “employment” certainly rings a bell for me as it must for many sannyasins.
    Like many of us also Osho was given to laziness. He needed that push after seven years in the university to find his own way, and make a rupee or two from his power as an orator. I can remember that in my own life, but later was glad that circumstances “pushed” me out of conventional state school teaching.

  13. shantam prem says:

    Parmartha, after P´s experience, I think it should be made mandatory that people who have the itch to write should be Man or Woman enough to stand for their thoughts.
    It is just down right ugly stupid and impotent to write wise but behind the veil of anonymity.
    Why?
    I don´t think this site has anything to do with any kind of criminality or anti social activities. If someone feels trembling legs to write as a human being even on a simple innocent site like this, I think that person should not bother at all.
    What to say about biting a bullet, Sannyasnews is as mellow as Haribo.
    SO my heartly request to the readers of this site is that if you feel any itch to share your thoughts, please take a jump. It cost nothing, may be you will feel more inner empowerment by standing for something, which is dear to you.

  14. shantam prem says:

    In your place, I will feel utterly embarrassed, Arpana.

  15. Anand Newman says:

    Why did Osho said ” Forgive me and forget me”. What was the context and significance of this statement? Any comments please.

  16. Fresch says:

    Dom, I do a lot to stay independent in my life, so i would not be interested being part of any sanyas org eather. Satyadeva, after some contemplation i am also not into any demonstrations. I did not expect Arun to get that many names, so i wish them luck . Lokesh, it’s about the words. I do not think you want to read Canadian cult leader’s interpretation of one sentence of Osho or do you?

    There is not any Osho written in the sky, but plenty of possibilities for many kind of meditation. The small groups of friends meditating together seems to be the direction. If something more is needed, i also read in face book that for example harideva had more than 100 people gathering in goa for osho day..no need to make money every time or force people to participate in some massive group process. If you have done your share of groups, loose settings, meditation and dancing is more it.

    • dominic says:

      I think meditating and celebrating alone and in meetings with friends is what’s left.
      Perhaps larger gatherings from time to time.
      If you’ve done enough group work and are no longer seduced by it’s claims and promises, you’ll realise charity begins at home, and will feel less need to donate to what have become quite expensive merry-go-rounds, and to support a small elite.
      Group highs though enjoyable, are as long-lasting as dew on the morning grass and as easily addictive.
      The growth field is also virtual online courses and meet-ups, though sannyasins seem a little behind in this regard.
      Amazing how many are still not very computer literate or interested.
      “Too much mind man… Does my head in man… Roll me a joint man.”
      Even this site is very bare bones.
      We could all be on google hangouts, where we’d probably be a lot kinder to eachother… myself included.

  17. bruce says:

    No disrespect Bodhi Vartan but I am using my ‘real’ name. No matter how beautiful and wonderful the finger is maybe we should refocus our attention on the moon. Just a thought.

  18. madhu dagmar frantzen says:

    dear anand newman (23.january 3.10 am)

    how do you know what osho said ? (your quoting a sentence)
    have you been present ?
    and if not
    what seems to be clear of your asking others for “context”
    others – who -like everybody- also could look inside why they pick up something
    or much better said
    ARE picked up by words
    so
    i would like to ask you
    who passed that (sentence)over to you and what was THERE the context
    because in this talk you HAVE been present

    the answer you then and there get
    will be your own
    will be alive
    and maybe also changing wherever you rivering of life goes – or is at

    to share with you what i found out (again) when reading your post
    was
    how often in my life i have been stuck by the wish somebody would say
    oh …i am sorry …about doing this and that to you
    well
    that hardly ever came

    but in walking much of the pain i have been finding new perspectives of inner landscapes of inner “terra incognita”

    have a nice walk today

    and me have a nice walk too -

    madhu

  19. madhu dagmar frantzen says:

    thank you – arpana

    you are a care-taker
    sometimes

    in ZEN we have humans taking the broom and taking care of the garden and house too
    in a virtual caravanserai we all have to find new ways of care- taking
    for ourselves and as well for others walking chat-wise the pathless paths

    what a challenge the virtual is – though

    love

    madhu

  20. shantam prem says:

    Arpana, I would have gone away from Sannyas years ago, no body would have been here to tell smoothy makers like you, where are the rotten apples.
    For me, people like you are the symptoms, who live through the impressions created by books.
    Without doubt, religious texts are the first porn literature, creating titillating effect without providing substantial experience.
    For me, people like Arpana are representing those billions of people who are just unable to accept, Their priests are the part of the problem and not of solutions.
    Blame is always on the others!

    • Arpana says:

      Shantam,
      For me, people like you are the symptoms, who live through the impressions created by books.
      Without doubt, religious texts are the first porn literature, creating titillating effect without providing substantial experience.
      For me, people like Shantam are representing those billions of people who are just unable to accept, Their priests are the part of the problem and not of solutions.
      Blame is always on the others!

    • bodhi vartan says:

      shantam prem says:
      >> impressions created by books.

      Books (i.e. other ppl’s thoughts) can enhance experience. I am sure Osho’s thoughts have enhanced the experience of your life.

      >> religious texts are the first porn literature, creating titillating effect without providing substantial experience.

      What are these religious texts that are replacing experience?

  21. shantam prem says:

    Fresch,
    This post is for you.
    Almost in every suburb of every city, there are small groups of people doing meditation, but not Osho meditation.
    From someone´s head comes the tidal wave and paper boat sinks!
    Yes, there are Osho meditations happening too, but part of some sleezy group. Spend 250 Euros for a weekend course and you can have two Dynamics and two kundalinis!
    On 19th January, I did one Nataraj in my room!
    Fact is when roots of the tree are poisoned, branches simply cannot attract leaves!

  22. Lokesh says:

    Chuddie king declares, ‘On 19th January, I did one Nataraj in my room!’
    Is that some kind of sreet drug that causes brain damage?

  23. shantam prem says:

    Who am I, who am I
    and I forgot, what is Nataraj!

    I think universities around the world need to engage in a project, how books of Indian gurus damage the brains of Western people.
    It is not a joke.

  24. madhu dagmar frantzen says:

    aaahhhh lokesh – (23.1.2014 10.55 am)

    you can t leave it -
    CAN YOU ?????

    i promise to appear at one of your next dancing disk events
    as a german ghost
    giving you as others a heartily

    HOO HOOO BUUUU BUUU
    and driving you some of your stuck and fixed scotish screws a little more

    LOOSE
    everybody will enjoy to the max…..

    HOO BOOO !

    madhu

  25. shantam prem says:

    bodhi vartan says:
    23 January, 2014 at 9:17 pm

    I think somewhere this is a valid point. Not accepting it will be a denial.
    Yes, one can land the plane in the water but then to use it as submarine; it happens only in the world of make belief.

  26. Parmartha says:

    Puritanism and yoga are a bit similar, based on concepts of universal good and evil, and the self flagallation if you cant be “good” somehow.
    The criticism of Osho and other teachers at SN seems to me often of those schools. They are predicated on the view that somehow “evil” exists, (and good) and evil exists in those they choose to target or criticise.
    I consider this view to be largely mistaken, and just a little going within will show that such concepts as good and evil are socially ordained on the whole, and going beyond them is the proper knack of advaita.
    And another thing…. judge not, that ye be not judged. Where do all these judgements come from? It doesn’t matter at all even if in your eyes all the gurus in the world are “evil”, or for that matter “good” if you dont look at yourself, which is the only thing that matters.
    All that looking out there is just dross and idle entertainment.

    • bodhi vartan says:

      Parmartha says:
      >> Where do all these judgements come from?

      We construct an internal model of the world based on our history and when the world doesn’t match the model then the judgments arise. Fortunately or unfortunately, it is the same mechanism that controls vision (seeing something different from what is there) so by suspending judgment, the ability for change also gets lost.

      I am afraid that judgment and change are inter-locked. When Osho was alive then he was providing the changes, but with him gone we only have our judgment as a guide and hope. Or maybe we should drop hope too, because nothing will ever change.

    • dominic says:

      I agree and disagree with what I think Parmartha is saying.
      We enter a murky psychological realm.
      One voice says, “don’t judge, it’s all one, look at yourself”
      The other says, “you’re in denial and defensive, can’t face the truth”
      I can concede on some absolute level, “All that looking out there is just dross and idle entertainment.”
      But at times deconstruction is useful, since consciously or unconsciously we have constructed many false beliefs, and have been looking out there in the form of a guru or teaching for guidance for some time.
      We also have a longing to know the truth about the world rather than it’s spin.
      It is salutary to divest ourselves of the fantasy godlike status of many gurus, and see them as complex, contradictory people like ourselves.
      We are also emerging from authoritarian, male dominated and religious societies, and have imported into them further mythmaking from the asian cultures of enlightenment.

      It is not really a question of good vs evil, but of knowledge vs ignorance and questioning things.
      The movie ‘kumare’ showed how willing people are to believe and imagine spiritual openings, with a complete self-confessed fraud.
      For many years Jimmy Saville was hailed as a philanthropist who made millions for charity, now he is reviled as someone who abused perhaps thousands of children, enabled by others. Resources are pumped into this, to discover the truth. It is in the public interest.
      You are unlikely to get this focus with gurus, as you would say with catholic priests, but if they are pretending to be one thing and doing another it would help others to know that, if you want to give them your trust.
      I also think outrage/anger can be a very healthy reponse, say for example if you see a vulnerable person being abused, bullied or ripped off.
      We are judging our environment all the time as safe or unsafe, or as what is good or bad for us, and the mind is a very useful tool for that.
      Certainly the sheer weight of corruption and abuse that has emerged about teachers in recent times has caused people to re-evaluate their relationship with them. Some, habituated to the guru dynamic simply swop one for another.
      Many sanyassins go to john de ruiter or mooji or amma et al, hoping for the same buzz, community or handholding they got with osho, and it is hard for them to hear evidence that all is not what it seems, because it rocks their world.
      For me, I have to admit to some schadenfreude, in gurus being toppled, because I hate the hypocrisy and their pedestaling themselves above others.
      Not that all do that mind you, just all the ones I’ve come across!
      But to me the very idea of an outer guru is now a prison, whereas the idea of an inner one is liberating though perhaps more difficult.
      Which does not mean not being inspired by guides, friends, mentors and life, but the idea of the all seeing, all knowing holy man/woman, who you need, to see through your ego’s tricks, is a false, codependent one I believe.
      A lot of it rests on their being ‘enlightened’, another dubious claim, the stuff of myths and legends.

      Osho was a great flagellator, of priests and politicians, and by putting himself out there he deserves some payback for his flaws, as well as appreciations.
      My new Osho welcome centre would include information for newcomers with the good the bad and the ugly in it. Why not?
      The full disclosure might prove a turn-on.
      In our search for a better vision of life, we’ve tended to jump from the frying pan of conventional authorities, (politicians, monarchy, religions) into the newly born fire of commercialized gurudom which is a very recent toddler phenomenon here in the west.
      But yes, ignorance is bliss if you like it that way, or as Eliot put it, “Humankind cannot bear very much reality.”

      We have two linked ideas,
      “concepts as good and evil are socially ordained on the whole, and going beyond them is the proper knack of advaita.
      And another thing…. judge not, that ye be not judged. Where do all these judgements come from? ….look at yourself, which is the only thing that matters.”
      One could write a book on this.
      Advaita and eastern philosophies are complicit in denying the world, including the body, in the pursuit of nirvana.
      There may be many reasons.
      Escape from the oppressive poverty, gender inequality, mortality, caste system etc.
      Rationalisation and maintenance of the status quo, “nothing matters, it’s not real, it’s karma,” and good old priestly self-interest.
      Everything being relative and socially ordained is yet another “socially ordained” idea much loved by social psychologists and the new left pc brigade. Thus resulting in inaction where action is needed (as I mentioned before in the case of FGM where there has not been one prosecution amongst many thousands of cases.)
      I would call that an ‘evil’ practice, not in the satanic sense, but in the human empathic sense… stupid pathological and causing great suffering.
      So I don’t have a problem saying the word ‘evil’. It’s quite powerful, but I don’t mean it in an ultimate truth kind of a way.
      “Judge not, that ye be not judged” is another bumper sticker idea which has infected new age positive thinking types, and addled their brains.
      It usually confuses judgement with discrimination or censure, and the pattern with the person, and might indicate issues with boundaries.
      I don’t have a problem with saying, this film is crap, this food is shit, circumcision is barbaric, etc. I could use a more convoluted language… “Watching this film brought up feelings of aversion”, but I prefer the more natural.
      “Looking at ourselves” is not the only thing that matters, because after looking at ourselves, we usually speak, act and do in the world, rather than sit in our caves.
      Perhaps all ideas are ‘bad’ ideas, imposed on an ever changing reality, that may elicit a fresh response rather than an ideological one.
      And “Judge not, that ye be not judged” is in any case a judgement!
      Which might require looking within, and seeing what criticisms of teachers might be triggering.

      • bodhi vartan says:

        Great post Dom.

        What is this advaita you and some others keep going on about, as if it’s the new sliced bread?

        >> …full disclosure might prove a turn-on.

        Try practising that with new acquaintances (dates?) and then come back and tell me you were wrong.

        • dominic says:

          Thx BV.
          As for the advaitising, the bread’s not quite so fresh anymore.
          Advaita just means not-two, popularized in recent years by Ramana, Nisargadatta and their love children like papaji and ramesh and now hundreds of others in the west.
          Many streams and influences have now poured into it, sannyas being one, so that there are no end of flavours.
          After Osho died many went to Lucknow to visit papaji and got turned on, even ‘illuminated’ there. His was a very direct approach, ‘who am I?’, which relied as much on the force of his presence as any technique. It emphasized instant direct insight into what is already here, and when the penny dropped or a shift happened, it was a bit like a mild shot of lsd.
          It’s not a panacea though, as some seem to think it is and can turn into another mindgame.
          Many teachers used to come to london, less so these days, but the english strand of it continues.
          Tony Parsons (ex-sannyas) is the main culprit in the uk to have influenced them. Though Mooji’s more traditional star has been rising of late.
          It’s a world wide phenomenon, barring obvious places. Some like Eckhart Tolle, Adyashanti, are well known, most are not, plowing a smaller revenue field.
          There’s masses of videos on youtube and sites like conscious tv (ex-sannyas) and batgap and nevernothere and live telesatsang, so you don’t have to go anywhere and it’s free.
          There are twice yearly science and non-duality conferences, where teachers give talks and thrash it out in dialogues.
          Think Osho vs Krishnamurti vs Buddha, rumble in the jungle, live on stage.
          Alternatively the new ashram scene for numerous old sanyassins and satsang followers has been in Tiru in the south of India, Ramana’s place, for a cheap staycation.
          Chi-ting blogspot is a good satirical site that rips into the underbelly of it all, and makes me look all sweetness and light by comparison.
          Founded by a wickedly humorous brit, but won’t make much sense without knowing the scene.

  27. Fresch says:

    Couple of things that are actually positive ( and what also osho has said in public)which come out this horror movie. People who were close to osho are not more evolved or special than anybody else. Also not if they have meditated for years, any newcomer can be much more mature and meditative. Meditation or osho does not solve all your life issues, only way is to live it.

    I would not like to be in pune org peole’s shoes: thousands of people love osho and despise their actions. Many people say and i agree, that all of them are nice people as individuals when not doing their crimes ( that is funny statement for me, but tells alot).

    People are not interested any more what anybody says osho had said to him or her in private, only interest will remain what he said in public. Like his last words in public were:

    “Remember you are a buddha, samansati”

    That’s more like it. Also, if you want to follow osho’s public guidelines on pune org, he said it needs to be changed every month. However, i have not looked original sources of these osho quotes. But it sounds more like it. He seems to say, it will happen all over again, no matter who is trying to do the job.

    So, sn, your topic is right to the point here and now.

    And what comes to 1.27 m. osho face book likes, they predict that by 2017 same will happen as for My Space: 80 percent will leave face book. Like my teenage son, he has over 1000 friends, but is not active there any more since a long time. Also, i would like pune org people as individuals, to get the empowerment and thrill of doing something new in their professional lives in the marketplace. Like most of us.

  28. phoenix says:

    On oDD Disconsolate Days, feeling swamped with Deep Dismay at the Difficulties I brought on myself with this maD Decision to emigrate to rough W African life, I Dream wistfully of a Detached Domicile in Dulwich or Dorking where I Doze, Dully, Depressedy, but Oh, so comfortably, thanks to the civil service career I entered straight after graduating from Cambridge.
    Instead though, I Dropped out from college, a copy of Theodore’s Roszak’s ‘the Making of a Counterculture’ in my backpack, and 5 tabs of lsD, and 10gms of Dope, stashed in the spine of that book… and the rest is the history which a few of you know.

    That is what DDom’s asking for his straight life back reminds me of.

    It is really only odd days though that that wistful dream comes, because that dull depression would not have been worth the comfort. I am happy to have got the adventures I did, first going east to Pune, now south.

    I do sometimes ask myself, now head of a family of up to 12, and CEO of a business with 16 staff, living in a detached mansion with a maid (actually a half-sister escaping being sold into marriage in exchange for cows), and even married, if I have ‘sold out’.

    The question is silly. Things come full circle.

    The German 68-generation had a slogan:
    Wer zweimal mit der gleichen pennt
    Gehoert schon zum Establishment.

    Ie
    Whoever sleeps twice with the same person is already part of the establishment.

    For me though, not being married had become the new convention, so when Rebecca asked me, one reason I said yes was this thought: I never tried that, let me try it, rather than get stuck in my ways.

    As boss of my company, I spend time regimenting my staff (not very successfully) and telling young people not to smoke ganja where they are sitting. (I do not tell them not to smoke it, just to move.)

    I try to play boss with compassion and explanation, and often get praised for the freedom I grant my staff, the democratic way I conduct staff meetings.

    But I am sometimes authoritarian. I even sack people!

    I don’t think I have betrayed anything. I might think so if I were always authoritarian… but once in a while is fine.

    When I look more deeply, it is all just a dance, and to dance fully, one tries out all positions. As long as one keeps SEEING all the seven billion other partners in the dance, one should not go far wrong.

    • dominic says:

      The obvious question here is what’s the going rate in ‘bongo bongo’* land, for a half-sister? How many cows?
      ‘Dull depression’ probably tastes the same everywhere, but one can always throw it on the environment.

      *A UKIP party member got thrown out for using that phrase recently, but sometimes stereotypes are true.

  29. madhu dagmar frantzen says:

    YES – arpana -
    discernment is not only useful but a necessity
    and i want to add
    IS COSTLY TOO

    has ever been – very much so -
    be it on and in the marketplace be it on and in the marketplace of an ashram or other places of inter-communal-”brother and sisterhood” affairs

    we had not been invited to be dumb and dull by osho

    as well as my understanding – bodhi vartan – has never been that osho “did” the changes and now what…??
    that has been costly too – for me at the time being…

    and my understanding – parmartha is not that all looking out is kind of” idle”

    it’s more a very alive wisdom love affair with all kind of frailties as well as trial and errors happening

    once and again
    dancing that dance in the virtual realms as well
    IS a big challenge
    as you really don’t know what kind of masquerade you address to (TOO)

    and last and not at all least, i would like to share that i loved it when seemingly the tone and climate went more towards respecting each other

    love to the fellow travellers
    from me

    madhu

  30. madhu dagmar frantzen says:

    so
    i have to be quite precise
    just went for the shop near by
    opened up the chat again

    and yes
    solo much new waves came in

    i want to refer to your post of 24. january today s at 3.15.pm !
    and
    thank you for this long SHARING – dominic
    from your “lost and found”
    “finding by loosing”
    inner -outer shelves
    may be you don t like how i named it
    then i apologize in before…

    it s just to find an expression for the space inside myself where your long posting has landed and i loved it

    madhu

  31. Parmartha says:

    The key to more clarity around some issues here is the sentence of Dom :

    “but the idea of the all seeing, all knowing holy man/woman, who you need, to see through your ego’s tricks, is a false, codependent one I believe.
    A lot of it rests on their being ‘enlightened’, another dubious claim, the stuff of myths and legends.”

    Yes there were many, who perhaps like Dominic “believed” in the past in enlightenment, and it’s perfection, etc. And what I take to be their bitterness and keenness to expose all and sundry who might be so described comes directly from that.
    But there were indeed others, myself included, who had a different paradigm, that perfection was clearly a nonsense, but at the same time there were those men who had trod some of the same path before and could help one on one’s own path.
    The psychology of “certainty” is an odd one, but very human. We live in a very insecure world in which death may come at any moment literally, and we all know that. The myth of such a Buddhist/Hindu concept of enlightenment arises out of that insecurity and NOT accepting it, and surrounds such a concept with “powers” and with infallibility.
    In the inner journey the giant leap is to move from such fundamentalist “security”, to an open universe where everything is indeed insecure and once in a while to simply watch it.
    That “liberates” – and actually only that liberates.

    • Arpana says:

      How about who cares if Osho is enlightened or not.
      Has involvement with him, and all that’s gone on since
      that began been worthwhile.

      For me the answer is yes.

      Mind you I get something out of involvement
      with the neighbor, who was a bus driver most of
      his life, along with his wife who stayed at
      home and looked after the kids.

      They have good hearts without even trying.

    • dominic says:

      I would say Parmartha is being disingenuous and rewriting history when he claims to have seen Osho as a mere mentor as he portrays him now.
      He was never packaged or promoted as such, and most ‘devotees’ would not have seen him like that.
      He regularly references the all seeing ‘Master’ archetype.
      Just two recent posts…
      ” a living Master as only they can see through the tricks of the ego and make it their whole life and business to expose such things.”
      “They will never “crash” because the Master is not there to orchestrate the destruction of their egos!”
      If they are merely ‘men’ why use epithets like Master. I would suggest that it implies a very elevated perfected state, and a contradiction in your thinking.
      I cannot disabuse you of your interpretation that I am bitter. Schadenfreude perhaps.
      Discussing what’s true and what is false would seem a salutary part of most forums. Surely that’s the point and the fun.
      You may mistake passion and impatience with falsehood and lies as bitterness.
      You may have different values and standards.
      Someone who sets themselves up as a guru, should be held to account to quite a high standard, in my book.
      Most people’s moral compass would include shock and betrayal to discover that the person they look up to, behaves in a way that is hypocritical, abusive, exploitative etc.
      I wouldn’t specifically target Osho here, because you could argue that sannyas morals were pretty lax, so that the charge of hypocrisy is debatable, as compared to say Buddhism which has a defined ethical container.
      It surprises me that you don’t think it’s a public service to expose the widespread turpitude within the guru scene, within all traditions.
      Oshoworld is a small pond anyway, and there are many discussions around this topic elsewhere, pointing to an evolution and maturation within people’s thinking.
      As I’ve said before, I think the age of the guru is dead.
      Mentor, friend, guide is fine. Find inspiration wherever you can, but in service of strengthening the inner guru and not to worship someone else.
      You may be dazzled by their charisma and oratory, but you are your best friend, guide and guru.
      You have dipped into the satsang scene and know that most teachers today in the west present themselves in a much more informal way. You get to chat, hang out and have dinner together, making it harder to keep up the projection, (except with Messiah wannabes like John de Ruiter.)
      Osho during his superstar heyday, is a throwback to an earlier golden guru age. That’s fine but everything changes and moves on, and much more quickly these days.

      • satyadeva says:

        I wonder if you realise you’re mainly preaching here to the already converted when you go on at such length about the need to avoid ‘worshipping’ teachers, gurus, Dominic? Except that for some, a very small minority in the West, I suspect, mostly female, devotion is a genuine option, if truly practised.

        I don’t see the problem with the word “Master”, although I suspect there are very few real Masters around. Perhaps it uncomfortably resonates in you with the word ‘Headmaster’, with its authoritarian, domineering, possibly abusive connotations? We speak of masters in many ordinary contexts, eg master builders, master carpenters (even, on here, ‘master-baiters’, aka ‘mastur-baters’!), why not in the realm of ‘Life Itself’? What exactly is the problem applying the term to those rare beings who have journeyed far within, perhaps even as a sort of ‘surrogate’ for the rest of us, and who, having integrated their ‘findings’ into their lives, are blessed with a capacity to teach others?

        It does sound as if you resent that they might be be ‘higher’ than you, further along than you – very likely much further – notwithstanding any evidence of fallibility (or worse). Perhaps, like many of us, you have a long-standing ‘authority issue’?

        Perhaps you feel that at your stage of life you really ought to ‘grow up’ and not ‘kowtow’ to what anyone else says? This is likely to be a personal prerequisite for ‘ordinary’ growth, ie a key step on the road to individuation, but as I’ve said before, any true teacher will invite you to test what he/she says in your own experience, not simply to believe all they say, or do what they tell you to. Perhaps Osho used to give so much detailed guidance in darshans because the people coming to him were so young – as well as often being pretty confused, a generation trying to figure out what to do, how to be, in a way having been left ‘high and dry’ by their times. Still, “Belief is for fools”, as one modern master used to say, although there’s a place for such personal guidance – and anyway, it’s always up to the individual whether he follows it or not.

        You yourself have said that you came to Osho’s Sannyas through a wish for “inspiration, creativity and longing” – although you didn’t specify what that inspiration was supposed to be for and offered a few lines of a song when asked what you were longing for (which I translated as ‘love’, with which you didn’t disagree). You’ve been uncommunicative though, concerning what you’ve received from all these many years of being around teachers/gurus, expressing great scepticism that anyone has ever really ‘got’ anything from such ‘seeking’, any claims to the contrary being sheer self-delusion, the result of wish-fulfilling imagination.

        As I’ve said, that sounds simply dishonest to me, an unbalanced picture – although no doubt convenient for your ‘crusade’. And I note that after at first asking me for a resume of how I’d personally benefited, you later withdrew, denying any interest whatsoever. Couldn’t face the truth, or what? Again, you claim you want to get at ‘the truth’ yet it seems your definition of that is largely confined to what suits your agenda. Which, as I said some time ago, is so often the trap of those identified with a fixed ‘position’. particularly one connected with a kind of ‘moral crusade’.

        But if it is true that you’ve just wasted your time, energy and cash, after coming in with such high hopes, while it’s understandable you might want to look for scapegoats, for ‘villains’, it might also be worthwhile, essential even, to see where you’re really at, where exactly you’re coming from.

        You might think it’s harder to ‘do it’ without a master, but what exactly are you trying to do anyway, one might well ask? And do you really need a master for whatever that is? Of course, it’s easier when no one’s around to pull you up for being ‘self-ish’, one can more easily fool oneself, delude oneself one’s being ‘spiritual’ when all you’re doing is just giving your same old self a nice ‘polish’!

        You say, “the age of the guru is over” – but I’d prefer to declare that ideally, ‘the age of people thinking they need a guru (master/teacher) when really they need a therapist and/or to simply ‘get their lives together’ is over!’ Which should cut out a rather large number of so-called ‘seekers’ who are too naïve and/or stupid to realise they’re not with the ‘Real Deal’. With consequent effects on the numbers of false gurus. But I wouldn’t hold my breath on that one…

        There’s a lot more to say but it’s too late now (and I wasted half an hour earlier before losing all I’d written), but just two more points:

        1/You had a go at Osho for accepting all the Roll-Royces, implying he’d have done better to have ‘helped the poor’ or’serve society’ with the money, yet I ask you, what have you ever done to truly deserve all the material advantages you yourself might well have enjoyed and possibly currently ‘luxuriate’ in (ie like most of us in our privileged western world)? Do you see your hypocrisy here?

        At some level, I suggest if you look within you’ll find a little (or large) puritan thoroughly enjoying your/his current righteous cause. In a way, similar to how the anti-Poona regime brigade (or is it now a battalion, regiment or even army?) are bent on ‘religiously purifying’ Osho’s ashram, even the entire movement, if they could. Power and powerlessness, goal and cause – maybe in some way true for you, Dominic?

        2/As already stated, I certainly question your motivation as I suspect that, apart from a certain idealism, it might well also be due to a mixture of factors, stemming from a level of personal unhappiness whose causes have not yet been adequately dealt with. A person who, for example, repeatedly chooses to present a morally innocent and beautiful soul like Mother Meera as some sort of ‘con artist’ peddling useless, specious rubbish has to be disturbed, unhappy, otherwise how could he bring himself to write such pig-ignorant bullshine?

        When you, Dominic, are busy giving your precious life in the service of humanity and are able to look with pure love and compassion into the eyes of all who come to you, then I might listen to what you have to say without being sceptical about where you’re coming from.

        • dominic says:

          Goodmoaning SD.
          So much heat, so little light.
          Whatever. Am I bovvered though?
          Are you disrespecting me, and saying I am not the Maitreya, giving my life in the service of humanity?
          I don’t like to brag, but I am in fact a level 3 (ladies underwear) Avatar.
          If you would like some of my softcore vedic porn and metaphysical valium, I can send you some.
          As a sharp instrument of the divine, I too am selflessly working for a visionary evolutionary paradigm shifty thing, ushering in a new golden age of tea and biscuit hangouts.
          So there…headmaster.
          http://youtu.be/WxB1gB6K-2A

          • satyadeva says:

            Mr Avoid-the-Question strikes again…
            Have you been taking lessons from your local MP?
            Or is such slipperiness just second nature, Mr Purifier?

            SEVEN questions not only unanswered
            But totally ignored.

            You’re out of your depth, boy,
            An un – adult – erated fraud.

        • bodhi vartan says:

          satyadeva says:
          >> I wonder if you realise you’re mainly preaching here to the already converted

          In the mediterranean countries, old people sit and play cards and gossip, a lot. Men tend to sit with men and women with women but it is not sexist as they generally like to gossip about different subjects.

          Apart from the odd weirdo, I don’t think there is anybody here, who is here to teach or learn, so unless you want to go out-there and change the world (tried that, too much like hard work) the rest is just gossip without the cards. Maybe we should find an online game to play while we gossip. Go-Fish Advaita?

          • satyadeva says:

            I beg to differ, vartan – look at Dominic’s ‘crusade’, or Shantam’s, or (god help us), Ekantam’s. They’re not just ‘gossiping’, they’re deadly serious.

            • dominic says:

              More wintry thought showers from sd.
              Which make me laugh, for all the wrong reasons.
              Mr Hoity Toity, of Avatarded, Meerakat & Rotter, legal services.
              Up late, tired and wired, working as state prosecutor in an imaginary murder one investigation.
              He ought to investigate himself, as he is in contempt of court for dodging every testimony, piece of evidence and question posed to him.
              How many deaths can one man die… from shame, and still reincarnate?
              The answer’s blowing in the wind.
              Are you likely to get open honest answers? Course not.
              He knows a true guru, because a true guru has the gift of presents… lots of them.

              • satyadeva says:

                Dominic, you say about me:
                “He ought to investigate himself, as he is in contempt of court for dodging every testimony, piece of evidence and question posed to him.
                How many deaths can one man die… from shame, and still reincarnate?
                The answer’s blowing in the wind.
                Are you likely to get open honest answers? Course not.”

                Well, that’s pretty fuckin’ rich coming from one who consistently refuses to respond to leading questions about himself and his own life. One who, at the first hint of potential difficulty, anxious, whatever happens, not to reveal anything ‘personal’ (for fear of undermining his precious ‘agenda’) flees for refuge into puerile attempts at humour. A classic smokescreen, as transparent as daylight.

                Perhaps I was wrong after all, perhaps you really did gain absolutely nothing from all those years around masters, gurus and teachers…

                To remind you of what I said yesterday afternoon:

                “Mr Avoid-the-Question strikes again…
                Have you been taking lessons from your local MP?
                Or is such slipperiness just second nature, Mr Purifier?

                SEVEN questions not only unanswered
                But totally ignored.

                You’re out of your depth, boy,
                An un – adult – erated fraud.”

                If answering seven’s just too much for you, Dominic, how about dealing with just one a day? Reckon you might be able to manage that without panicking and running away?!

                Reckon I already know the answer….

                • satyadeva says:

                  If people aren’t prepared to fully discuss issues then we might as well not bother at all, vartan, SN may as well shut down.

                  Or perhaps mutate into a sort of ‘agony aunt’ service for those with short attention spans.

                  Or regress into a sort of ‘creche’ for would-be comedians whose vast talents inexplicably remain unrecognised in the outside world.

                • bodhi vartan says:

                  Just because I am laughing, it doesn’t mean I object.

                  Crack on!

                • satyadeva says:

                  I strongly suspect you’re only here for the ‘gossip’.

                  Wipe that grin off your face and start thinking.

                  NOW!

                • dominic says:

                  My one-a-day dumber dharma dialogues.
                  Mr. Hoitytoity says, or should that be Mr. Hottytotty…

                  “Except that for some, a very small minority in the West, I suspect, mostly female, devotion is a genuine option, if truly practised.”

                  Off to a good start with some frankly patronising if not chauvinistic sentiments. You may be right SD, (“girls eh, emotional creatures”) but it’s like saying the laydeez are more suited to slavery.
                  As freud said..
                  “The great question that has never been answered, and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, is ‘What does a woman want?”

                  Clearly Sri Knobaji (and John de Rotter) seem to know, and will be pleased to hear, that they’re just providing a service when they fire up their “thunderbolts of flaming wisdom.”
                  What does “truly practised” mean anyway?
                  Early Beatle girlie fans were screamingly devotional. Today it’s one direction and justin bieber.
                  C’mon girls pitch in, oh I forgot they don’t do thinking like wot we do, ok relax…
                  Check out this dude for how it’s done, from the 15th century, Drukpa Kunley, “The Saint of 5,000 Women”, whom the Dolly Lama praises.

                • satyadeva says:

                  How many women, in your experience, Dominic, have what it takes to be a true devotee? Which, as you ask, simply means to place their love of the teacher/guru/master above all else in their life, ie more important than their work/career or ‘self’-concern.

                  This is generally far more natural for a woman than for a man as – in case you haven’t noticed – the ‘average’ female tends to be closer to the essence of love than her male equivalent.

                  But how many are mature enough, clear enough of personal emotional issues – thanks to their conditioning, adverse experiences in love, disappointments with unloving, screwed-up men etc. – to be anywhere near ready or willing to put their ‘selves’ aside, as it were? Because there’s still too much ‘self’ in the way!

                  You, predictably, equate being such a devotee with “slavery”, whereas it’s actually an ancient and most joyous path of liberation, followed by ‘seekers’ of countless past generations. Are you truly so obtuse that I really need to point out that being a true devotee is a totally different ball-game to being a screaming teenybopper pop fan?! Or is this just another know-it-all pose from your pseudo-hip online persona?

                  This is not being “patronising” or “chauvinistic” at all, just realistic in these times, at least for the West, when, despite – or even partly because of?! – nearly 50 years of mainstream feminism, women are often just as or more emotionally damaged by both the past and the prevailing culture as men. Especially, perhaps, those drawn to ‘spiritual’ concerns, which do attract a large number of the ‘walking wounded’ of both sexes.

                  PS:
                  I trust you’ll not be deflecting the issue any further from the seven questions I’ve already asked?

                • dominic says:

                  So churlish, Mr Glass Half-empty.
                  There’s no pleasing some people.
                  You claim 7 points, but your rambling post does not display them. So out of courtesy I just start with the first point.
                  Shoot the messenger!

                  It’s a non-starter, I don’t buy “the true devotee” schtick, putting the love of the guru above all else.
                  It’s a recipe for the last 50 years of exploitation and general depravity, (starting with MMY in 1965), notably with Eastern gurus, but not only.
                  You’ve merely bought into a lot of indian esoteric hocuspocus,
                  without further research.
                  Devoteeism does not stand up to scrutiny.
                  You see it as an an ideal.
                  I see it as pathological, dependent and holding people back. “Self” and “self-concern” is a summum bonum, not something to overcome.
                  Surrender to the guru, usually a male, is problematic.
                  Because of the paternalistic/infantilised dynamic, sex is like incest.
                  Considering the widespread corruption, all gurus should be considered guilty from henceforth, until proven innocent!

                  I don’t agree with your premises.
                  Being a devotee is not so different to the cult of celebrity or pop star. People go into bliss and ecstasy in the same self-induced fashion.
                  But I’d rather go to a concert because there may be some real talent on display, rather than the trite stage show that passes for spirituality.
                  (That is, googooing into someone’s eyes or listening to incomprehensible tortuous banalities. You know who I mean!)

                  Devotees are enamoured with the guru’s mask, a pat performance abetted by their public relations propaganda.
                  These generalisations about women are superficial and patronising, and women outside the west are far more enslaved and brutalized.
                  We are all walking wounded, none more so than the gurus.
                  I think it’s the gurus who aren’t mature enough. Most of us might have done a better job than they have in staying clean and running their enterprises.
                  Nonetheless the disservice has been a service and given people back to themselves for the next phase…
                  However if you want to get down on your Japa knees and kiss some feet and ass, feel free.
                  Your serve.

                • satyadeva says:

                  “So churlish, Mr Glass Half-empty” – I take it you’re talking to yourself again, Dominic?!

                  “You claim 7 points, but your rambling post does not display them. So out of courtesy I just start with the first point.”

                  Ever tried paying attention to what you’re reading, Mr Not-too-Clever Dick? I referred to questions, right? Here’s a tip: Look for question marks, ok?

                  And if you’d like me to hold your hand and take you there, let me know….

                • satyadeva says:

                  I absolutely disagree that the way of the devotee is necessarily “pathological, dependent and holding people back”. It might well be for some, or many, but for others – as I said, a small minority in the West (mostly female) – it might be perfectly right and good.

                  I’ve come across just a handful in Sannyas whom I’d regard as true devotees, plus quite a few more in other spiritual movements.

                  While the East (although probably not for much longer, due to ever-growing westernisation) remains much more fertile ground for this sort of way. Very many easterners are quite different to most of us westerners, simpler, softer, less aggressive, more passive, less in the head, less ‘too clever by half’, less ‘clever dick’ – more, well, ‘in the heart’, as it were.

                  You, Dominic, might be disillusioned, cynically weary of the so-called ‘spiritual circus’, almost drowning (it would seem) in bitterness, but that doesn’t automatically give you the right to pronounce on what might be good for the rest of the human race. In fact, I suggest you might be the very last type of person who’s fit to decide on such matters.

                  I democratically concede you’ve a right to an ‘opinion’, but as I said recently, I wouldn’t necessarily trust where you’re coming from, which, it seems to me, is from a space rather too much poisoned by personal unhappiness, which, I assure you, leaks through your posts here, despite – or even because of – your attempts to conceal it.

                  To coin a phrase, who do you think you are?!

                • dominic says:

                  Deviation from the topic.
                  You’re clearly drowning not waving.
                  Your question marks scattered all over the place are purely rhetorical.
                  You are evidently making points, or rather disparaging aspersions (ad nauseam I might add), faintly concealed as questions.
                  Anyone can see that.
                  You need to up your game laddie!
                  I can offer you some english lessons, if that helps.

                • satyadeva says:

                  English from you, Dominic? No way, you write (and probably also speak) with forked tongue, lad.

                  You attempt to disguise your unease at being faced with a few tricky questions by trying to claim they’re not questions at all! What utter sophistry. “Anyone can see that”.

                  And this from one with the persona of such a cocksure little clever dick! As the old saying goes, ‘The bigger the front, the more the opposite is the truth’.

                  Ok, to make it blindingly clear I’ll write out each question, one a day, so you’ll have bags of time to concoct a response. Starting tomorrow.

                • bodhi vartan says:

                  dominic says:
                  >> “What does a woman want?”

                  It depends on what time of the day you ask…

                  On a serious note, the mechanics between women and men, and between men and men, and women with women, have been so manipulated it would be impossible to find a blueprint.

                  Yes women are more prone to superstition, because that is what religion, devotion, and all that mysticism really is… superstition.

                  Most of the current emotional response is mostly programmed, because there are also other programs:
                  http://www.badassoftheweek.com/dahomey.html

    • Kavita says:

      When I first heard the word ‘ enlightenment ‘ , it was like hearing the word ‘ experiment ‘ for the first time in my first science class , it had a thrill to it & frankly now the thrill factor has greatly diminished or rather vanished , these days I cannot decide whether its practicality or living in the moment ( which I strongly guess was always the case ) & I mostly wonder if liberation is just another word !

  32. madhu dagmar frantzen says:

    this morning -kavita –

    when i saw you reappearing in the caravanserai again
    i just loved it

    it s like when honesty find words or questions too

    my feeling is that we all are contributing
    some more evident -some less evident-
    to the calamity that symbols or words loose meaning
    or are rooted in our everyday life showing up in our body-mind-soul

    and expression

    i had a walk outside walking the winter day here and the quest of what your words triggered in me
    and i had a walk outside too with my pain of loss too
    and by that i don t mean the loss of “big letter” words like “enlightenment”
    which i didn t like that much all these decades because i found much greed stink (and competition)in how that was used very often

    so – no harm when that is disappearing….

    but harm is – as i feel it
    is the loss of heart to heart communication and also the words for THIS

    as far as i can see ist
    you have answered yourself in your last lines
    haven t you ?

    today outside the kids have built the first snow-men
    in the park
    “he” is smiling -for the time being- with a broad smile
    and has even snow ears and a very long nose

    it has been hard work to get the snow together from everywhere
    the first winter day that could happen

    the small kids are in joy

    i wish you very well
    love

    madhu

  33. madhu dagmar frantzen says:

    dominic,

    you seem to have looked into many many satsang or/and meeting places and people gathering there to share whats on their minds and their hearts-

    here – in that form of “caravanserai” we are travelers
    not even like the way travelers meet physically at resting places
    and by that i mean we don t have all our senses together to adjust whatever we are reading with impressions our eyes get by and from the speaker
    or our ears by the sound of a voice
    up to the so called sixth sense which miraculous combins all kinds of impressions (if we are quite awake)

    i want to ask you
    if you have shared to the people you met in the body so to say
    what you found out while sitting with them
    or later -wrote a letter or an email to them and there ?
    and when ?
    what have been your experiences then and there when you honestly shared ? what you are feeling about them ?

    daily -hour per hour and even in nano second terms everything changes
    also people
    if we are aware of it or not
    and we are bound to find life sources in all that insecurity nowadays overloaded with tsunami-wise tuns of so called information
    and also we are bound as long as alive to look for something nourishing
    not only in the physical realms
    something that keeps us going

    what is it what keeps you going – dominic
    even to that amount here into the caravanserai place ???

    meeting us ?
    as we are not robots but human beings -

    so many questions

    may be you like to answer the one or the other ?

    madhu

    • dominic says:

      “what is it what keeps you going – dominic?”
      Breathing in and breathing out + clean underwear.
      “we are not robots but human beings ”
      We are meat robots programmed by our overlords.
      “If you…wrote a letter or an email to them ?”
      I am always writing to the root guru of all gurus, master avatar and grand poobah… Sri Sri Fu Ling Yu.
      He just laughs.

  34. madhu dagmar frantzen says:

    thx , dominc
    for contributing a meat robot s anonymous machine reply to questions
    guess that the equipment for artificial intelligence and “replies” will be optimized soon
    worldwide competions of scientists are running in full gears
    - the military approach to life -

    have a nice day INSPITE of this

    and good wishes to all our in- and out- breathings
    to get OXYGEN
    and the miracle what can happen by this processioning of e x c h a n g e

    grateful for the surprises included to this

    is

    madhu

  35. madhu dagmar frantzen says:

    so – -

    dear friends of caravanserai walkabouts
    we came down today to very nice pictures of rabbits
    cats
    and even a baby – very concerned about “this cake is MY cake !”

    in the midst posted as well a small video obviously taken by a young german sannyas ma- the sound of
    being very impressed being allowed to interview one of the old “VIPs”
    the later has not been so nice to be looked at (for me) as some of the other picture postings
    and that has to do with my life s experience throughout the last decades
    and experiences also therewith how “flexible” the one or the other alzheimer approach happens to quite uncomfortable facts which like to be denied or simply arranged a-new…
    just take only one issue (of many)
    take
    THE BUGGING GAMES of sannyasin(of concurrent different tribes)
    in the eighties
    well – as kind of that criminal behavior – causing as much turmoil as ugliest outcomes
    as then later either denied or silenced
    similiar fucking bad stuff happening nowadays – isn t it ?
    that a social or called spiritual movement is hardly ever destroyed from the outside
    or that some or the other special scapegoat can or should “take it all”
    it s a climate where many humans had been
    or ever are involved into this -
    technicians workers who did (doing)it etc
    obeying an order
    an criminal agreement etc etc

    that kind of stuff is not from the yesterday s -yesterday
    more than these thirty years ago

    in so called spiritual groups and communities or even amongst “friends”

    what follows is pretty much the same
    yesterday as today
    its destruction of values and essence of communication
    amongst friends

    i see it as a symptom that so many postings come close to rioting in a way
    or like a “catch as catch can” by targeting persons instead of issues one is involved in
    the longer that goes this way
    hardly recognizable identities
    or on the other hand some are stuck with ever the same in hundred faces of the same
    some are one “the joke as joke” can trip mostly at cost of other persons
    showing their indifference that way
    oh yes -lets fuck up all -who cares
    or who brings the most sadist kind of rotten jokes targeting to other contributors
    some stay out of it
    disappear in total -or wait – till the tide might be better to have a surf again -

    still i am grateful for the opportunity to address what s not only on my mind

    still wondering
    still open for a surprise

    and very much open for issues brought up
    issues which may be issues for wanderers and their story of pilgrimages
    be they outer be they inner

    the issue what brought -me- to post this evening has been
    my remembrance of very deep shock when i heard from the buggings and or other very mean attacks
    also
    on people like you and me

    and i know it first hand from my life and also my sannyas life
    so to say
    that you have sometimes to pay when you speak up or spoke up
    and that that hurts a lot
    and what also hurt were the satsang goers who “advaitatsized” that away
    by standard comments
    up to the point that you are threatened or simply then and there totally isolated
    or both of it in combination

    other than dominic
    i am unable to throw that all on a master
    not even people like sheela
    although i have been present when i experienced many in what we call here
    “kadaver-obedience” and the greed to be close to someone “being in power”

    the person sheela on one hand despised these people on the other hand had been easily using them for her power trips

    for years

    yes
    it is very touching to see
    how next and then next next “generations” are dealing with history

    up to this very moment
    i can say from my side that from the very beginning
    i ve been feeling that the master had never ever promised a kind of rose garden without thorns

    and it s US
    who are the roses
    and it s US
    who are the thornes

    and it s also US
    present in the garden

    and how nice will that be when it doesn t turn into a kind of PEEP-SHOW

    or a jungle foul play like a computer GAME in ego shooting
    at other kind of games by so called avatarish egomania

    how to reach you ???

    i
    don t
    know
    but have to give it a try

    madhu

  36. Parmartha says:

    To me the whole “disciple” and “master” trip was already dated in the sixties.
    It got revived, but that was certainly not down to Osho, but a number of Americans who began taking to zen, and bringing back what they saw as some kind of “infallible” wisdom. A;lan Watts was one of the most famous.
    Even then it seemed to me “silly” to readopt into the modern era a very old paradigm which was from a certain time and place, which despite the efforts of historians we still know very little.
    I admit I went along with it, but to me, but it seems not to many others, it was a “play”, and harmless enough if you saw it that way.
    The beauty of the story of this string about Osho and his university career for me was to see he faced the same problems of many of us, his “disciples”, and that there was a common bond between us of anti-authoritarianism and “not fitting in”.
    One thing I still find difficult to fathom is the lack of gratitude towards those times and Osho, not from all, but a noticeable majority. I can only imagine that these folk really had taken the master/disciple paradigm very seriously, and thereby missed the Leela in it. In so doing at the time it has made them bitter in the present – which is really something of a surprise to me.

    • dominic says:

      Looking back I didn’t take disciplehood too seriously, not german enough perhaps. Some of it maybe cultural, the english are fairly anti-authoritarian and their humour depicts this. There are exceptions of course… no names. So I was happier on the fringes, perhaps where I wouldn’t get burned. Never trusted that ‘surrender’ line anyway.
      So I don’t feel bitter, contrary to other’s imaginings, but I enjoy unpacking all the false beliefs, myths and fictions that have surrounded the whole enterprise. Seems to me because of the global mind, the internet, the iguru we are now in a unique position to do that. With all the information to hand today people should be able to make better choices, and spare themselves unnecessary heartache.
      Whereas previously they might have spent 20-30 years in a troublesome cult feeling uneasy, today a few clicks and voila!

      • satyadeva says:

        So, O great iconoclast, if you’re not bitter, how come you have never wanted to express gratitude here for anything that might have come your way all these ‘guru’ years?

        So I ask again:
        What did you receive from Sannyas and/or any other ‘spiritual trip’ you’ve got into (or dabbled with) that you’re actually grateful for?

        • dominic says:

          And it came to pass that the Lord spake unto the SatyaDevil saying..
          Thou shalt NOT assign homework after midnight, for that is heresy.
          Thou shalt NOT attempt to force gratitude so ungratefully, for that is blasphemy.
          Thou shalt NOT sound like a really annoying broken record, for that is an abomination.
          Thou shalt NOT cast out the faithless or embrace ‘true believers’, for that is hubris amongst the brethren.
          Thou shalt NOT make Eve to be devotional and obey men, for the Lord liketh feisty women.
          Thou SHALT love and praise the Lord’s works, or be cast down into demon hell with the rest, without any sports channels.

        • dominic says:

          “What did you receive?”
          Sannyas helped me let go a bit.
          Plus community and meditation.
          As for the other trips, more of the same.
          Except they were’t usually so good on the letting go side.
          Ultimately one feels gratitude for life, all of it.
          Teachers and events are one facet of that.
          Pain is also a good teacher, which comes in many guises.
          Your turn.

          • bodhi vartan says:

            dominic says:
            >> Sannyas helped me let go a bit.

            A bit? Why? Do you think there is more?

            >> Ultimately one feels gratitude for life, all of it.

            You are projecting. Gratitude for what? I wasn’t asked to be here. I had to even go and find my own teachers because the ones they provided were wankers.

          • satyadeva says:

            Thanks for the response, Dominic.

            Am too busy to comment further today, so I won’t be putting the next question till tomorrow.

            Enjoy your night off!

    • bodhi vartan says:

      Parmartha says:
      >> To me the whole “disciple” and “master” trip was already dated in the sixties.

      I was too young to know about the sixties but all that, and “enlightenment”, were well past their sell-by date by the time I was old enough to understand but I could accept them from Osho. He was so damn convincing about everything he said, that I would have bought anything from him.

  37. madhu dagmar frantzen says:

    as i see parmartha that we both have posted same time

    i would just like to share with you

    that LEELA
    and intentionally foul play played is not the same
    although i came to know many of fellow travelers
    who did and do see ist
    same -same
    the personal issue to work on bitterness
    IS needed
    and also for this work friends are needed or better said may be
    the possibility of meeting integrity
    inside but also OUT-side
    and by that i mean NOT to exclude any feelings
    even if they don t look SMART

    madhu

  38. madhu dagmar frantzen says:

    dear parmartha

    to give examples – i would say that bugging a person’s privacy is one of the crimes i mentioned being in especially perverted cases “legitimized”
    other foul plays are to play stalking games in teams of stalkers
    i know both of it
    by being confronted with it for quite a while

    i’ve been mentioning it very clearly also in this caravanserai threads ever now and then

    so it may be also important that you learn to read again

    madhu

  39. madhu dagmar frantzen says:

    dear dominic -

    you mentioned your english superiority by proclaiming your antiauthoritarian habits – compared for example with german heritage…
    -english wittiness with humor – you mentioned as well
    -you declared the net as i-guru sparing everybody “heartake” by consuming critical information about this and that (in time)

    the point is that the net
    more or less became kind of war-zone where combatants and very often in a quite anonymous way
    DEAL with information and also very often wirth information not trustworthy at all
    sometimes to get their often very hidden aims going by infiltration

    i ve been meeting many english natives on the path
    and ever so often it has been their arrogance and their kind of superiority complex taking much space
    yet
    we could laugh together also sometimes about the famous black humor

    i found out though
    sometimes – and also in these threads of chattings
    that they are not willing to apply to themselves in every days interpersonal traffics what they recommend to others
    when targeting others as inferior to them
    that may be an heritage too by long colonizing others in seemingly less developed areas of the planet
    what for example indians of upper classes imitated in sometimes really disgusting ways (against their own indian fellow travelers)

    to be a “disciple” is not at all outdated -dominic, parmartha and body vartan

    it s very arrogant to say that

    as well as my feeling is that to bow down in gratitude
    is not at all outdated
    and be it for the simple possibility to sit together or to meet together
    as humans beings and guests all-together (instead of combatants)

    being here for the time being
    on this planet

    madhu

    • dominic says:

      “you mentioned your english superiority by proclaiming your antiauthoritarian habits ”
      I said nothing about superiority, especially to das Master Race ja?(joke alert!). We are all aryans here after all!
      Just that we do humour, (well some), and you do everything else.
      I salute you (though I shan’t say what kind of salute).
      I liked your earlier sarcasm about artificial intelligence, it’s a start.
      The interweb is a wild west for sure.
      Watch out! But it’s amaazing too.
      The word “disciple” makes me cringe now, it is tainted, unless you take the latin root meaning, discipulus – a learner.
      What does it mean to you to be a disciple?

      • bodhi vartan says:

        Dom, you are overestimating the people who are looking at the interweb and their ability to differentiate the music from the noise.

        Commentators are always needed. That’s why you might be reading the Guardian instead of the Sun. Most are looking for ‘an angle’, ‘a viewpoint’ from which to look at the world.

        For me to be an Osho disciple wasn’t like being anybody else’s disciple. It redefined the word. “What we did” was what created the new definition of spirituality. The word comes from discipline and the only discipline an Osho sannyasin should impose on himself is love.

        On the bottom line Osho was a great commentator. For the ones still seeking he can offer a plethora of alternative viewpoints. For us, there is no hope. It’s good to know tho.

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