Meditation now the Opium of the People

Gentrifying the dharma: How the 1 percent is hijacking mindfulness

The protesters looked anxious as they rode down the escalator in San Francisco’s Marriott Marquis. A yoga bag slung over one of their shoulders hid a banner reading “Eviction Free San Francisco.” Another had a bullhorn tucked into her backpack. Two reached out to touch an inflatable, neon-blue lotus as they walked toward the conference hall.

They were there to disrupt “Three Steps to Build Corporate Mindfulness the Google Way,” a panel on Google’s corporate mindfulness program at the 2014 Wisdom 2.0 conference.  As the panelists began their introduction, protesters walked onstage, unfurled their banner, and began chanting “Wisdom Means Stop Displacement; Wisdom Means Stop Surveillance; San Francisco: Not For Sale!”

The conference itself is an annual gathering of life coaches, tech elites and spiritual teachers now in its fifth year. It bills itself as a “conversation about the merging of wisdom and technology,” and topics range from mindful business and leadership to social entrepreneurship and innovation. Past speakers have included Buddhist teacher Sharon Salzberg, Twitter founder Biz Stone and Rwandan president (and possible war criminal) Paul Kagame. It even got its own “What to Wear” column at Forbes.

Ire at Google buses, tech-driven gentrification in San Francisco and Silicon Valley’s close collaboration with the NSA has been all over the news, but the demonstration at Wisdom 2.0 was different. It wasn’t just aimed at the tech industry; it was also aimed at what some see as an elitist streak in the adoption of some “eastern” and ancient techniques

“Most of the workshops offer lifestyle and consumer choices that are meant to help people heal from the harm, emptiness and unsustainability associated with living under capitalism, but [they do so] without offering an analysis of where this disconnection comes from,” Amanda Ream, one of the disruption’s organizers, writes in a blog post for Tricycle Magazine explaining why she disrupted the conference. “The conference presents an evolution in consciousness of the wealthiest among us as the antidote to suffering rather than the redistribution of wealth and power.”

Interaction among Buddhism, neuropsychology and the self-help movement has also launched a constellation of publications, gurus, life coaches and conferences that make up the mindfulness movement. Its proponents tout yoga, mindfulness and meditation as panaceas, good for everything from managing stress and increasing longevity to turning around poor urban schools and establishing world peace, all one breath at a time.

Of course, Ream’s criticism is nothing new. Marxist philosopher Slavoj Žižek has long argued that “Western Buddhism,” as he calls it, is an ideal palliative for the stresses of life under late capitalism — their “perfect ideological supplement.”

“It enables you to fully participate in the frantic pace of the capitalist game,” Žižek explains in a 2001 essay for Cabinet magazine, “while sustaining the perception that you are not really in it; that you are well aware of how worthless this spectacle is; and that what really matters to you is the peace of the inner Self to which you know you can always withdraw.”

As if trying to prove Žižek right, the Dalai Lama participated in a panel titled “Moral Free Enterprise: Economic Perspectives in Business and Politics” at the American Enterprise Institute less than a week after the Wisdom 2.0 disruption. He was joined by hedge fund founder Dan Loeb, New York University business ethics professor Jonathan Haidt, Columbia Business School dean Glenn Hubbard and AEI president Arthur Brooks.

“Now, after sort of listening yesterday and also today, particularly today, I developed more respect about capitalism,” the Dalai Lama said after a question from Brooks about protecting individual property rights. “Otherwise, just my impression, capitalism only takes the money. Then, exploitation.” The other panelists were less ambivalent, regularly calling free enterprise a “blessing,” a “miracle” and a “savior” throughout the event.

In 1955, Mao Zedong reportedly told a 19-year-old Dalai Lama that “religion is poison.” Both Mao and Žižek’s criticisms of Buddhism are rooted in Marx’s well-known quip that religion is “the opium of the people,” an intoxicant that keeps workers from seeing how capitalism exploits their labor. But many Buddhists now fear their religion is turning into a designer drug for the elite.

Some are fighting back against this trend. Katie Loncke at the Buddhist Peace Fellowship wrote a passionate defense of the Wisdom 2.0 disruption. The USA’s largest Buddhist publication, Tricycle, has moved toward covering more social and political issues. And many great American teachers — Bhikkhu Bodhi, Danny Fisher, Justin Whitaker, Shodo Spring and Mushim Ikeda, to name just a few — are working to articulate Buddhist challenges to injustice.

“Just like the gentrification of a neighborhood where new, wealthy people displace people who have lived there longer,” Ream writes, “the dharma is undergoing a process of gentrification in San Francisco today.”

Joshua Eaton who wrote this piece is an independent journalist covering religion and society, human rights and mass surveillance. His work has appeared at Al Jazeera America, GlobalPost, DeSmogBlog and elsewhere.

This entry was posted in Meditation/Spiritual, News. Bookmark the permalink.

199 Responses to Meditation now the Opium of the People

  1. madhu dagmar frantzen says:

    how did it go, parmartha – and maybe others here too?

    that parable story about Laotse who – one morning lying in bed would not like to stand up to meet his disciples?
    dreaming he was a butterfly…pondering about…if he was Laotse dreaming to be a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming to be Laotse? And was it Chuang Tzu then
    coming late from chopping the wood
    who took that bucket of cold water into the face of his master
    to get Laotse going to stand up and come for the meeting?
    well
    i just want to post that i am grateful about this new thread
    thrown on caravanserai track-paths
    pulsing
    more or less up to now in seemingly silence

    and say hello to you all
    and maybe
    see you later ?

    yours SINCERELY

    madhu

  2. shantam prem says:

    If meditation is a new opium, what is wrong.
    It is much better than alcohol or tobacco.

  3. madhu dagmar frantzen says:

    and PS

    what gripped me in a way
    from yesterday up to this morning
    was
    that the issue of what tibetan buddhism calls “the hungry ghosts” has to be discussion-wise UPDATED so
    that the way how highTECH highjacks the living becomes worth being freshly-insighted
    i mean
    update also to the so charming ways of looking at that how Charlie Chaplin has been donated to us all from around the beginning of the last century!
    everlasting
    tears in the laughter

    madhu

  4. madhu dagmar frantzen says:

    no, shantam prem

    i contradict your prose

    madhu

  5. Parmartha says:

    My view and test for others is whether they charge for meditation and satsang!
    Of course there are a few costs like hire of a place, etc, refreshment costs, etc but over and beyond that of it’s very nature should be free – just as God’s fresh air is free.
    These days it seem a rarity, but worth seeking out.
    In the old days I never experienced the Poona ashram as expensive at all. You could meditate all day for really very little when I arrived there in 1974, and Osho’s darshans and lectures did not cost except the entry fee to the ashram which was clearly just meant to meet running costs.
    In that sense myself and others of that generation were very lucky – and in the right place at the right time.

    • satyadeva says:

      I have nothing against people charging, as even masters / gurus / teachers have to earn a living, not to mention the, I think, valid idea that we tend to place greater value on what we pay for.

      But I’m afraid some go over the top. Eckhart Tolle, for example, has become a ‘business’, including charging exorbitant fees for just an evening public meeting, which to me is indefensible (as well as unaffordable). Thus, he’s lost a lot of credibility for me.

      Contrast this approach with that of others, eg Meera and ‘hugging’ Amma, who charge nothing and exist via donations and in the latter’s case, sales of books and other merchandise.

  6. chetna says:

    Amma is rich… “Her organization raises about $20 million a year from sources worldwide, according to a spokesman, but in India, the finances are not public. And the M.A. Center, her United States organization, is registered as a church and thus doesn’t have to disclose its finances the way secular tax-exempt groups do.” She is not a stupid lady either.
    I love the most Thich Nhat Hanh but the prices for their retreats and meditations with him are also unreasonable…makes it kind of sad that people have to pay so much for silence.
    I guess sannyasins have taken that route too, charging ridiculous money for their so-so groups…and they are nowhere near enlightened. Pune seems to produce a big number out of their organisation….

    • Parmartha says:

      SD, I think that living expenses of those who choose to teach are much best handled through donations, etc.
      When Osho left the philosophy lecturing and started out he was helped greatly by the Jain community but it was all donations, they were never charged for his teaching. . See that book of great resource by the Indian, Swami Gyan Bhed. I myself dont agree that if one is asked some exorbitant sum for teaching one “values” it more. Maybe someone with a very undeveloped consciousness, but not otherwise.

    • Parmartha says:

      Chetna. Thanks your contribution!
      Yes apposite on this board the monies that sannyasin therapists and group workers ,and graduates to enlightenment charge.
      I would say that unusual sannyasin guy, Amano charged very little in the nineties. Looked to me like he was just charging enough for hall hire, etc. His satsangs were energetically very good.
      Also Maitreya, the guy who died a little while back in New Zealand never charged very much, just enough as far as I could see to keep the wolf from the door, though he had a reputation for high living, certainly in his earlier, fellow sannyas life.
      I benefited from them both.
      Actually my feeling is that of the old Christian mystics, which as far as my reading goes, relied on “communities” to feed, house and cloth them. What they had to offer they saw as a gift from God, and they were just the conduit of that, so nothing very special as it were. I find that approach very refreshing in the mad materialist world in which, as the article above indicates, we now live and which has invaded spirituality.

      • satyadeva says:

        Too idealistic in the modern world though, surely, Parmartha?

        Besides, it’s good to have masters / gurus / teachers who actually live and work ‘normally’, as examples to the rest of us, as well as masters who live in their ‘sanghas’.

    • satyadeva says:

      “Amma is rich” – is she, or is it her organisation that’s rich? The same organisation that provides many charitable initiatives for various disadvantaged groups in India…

      I’m well aware of such accusations, btw, chetna, but the main point for me is that she / her organisation doesn’t charge for public events, anyone and everyone is welcome, no matter what their socio-economic level.

  7. shantam prem says:

    Every Indian knows how much is gathered in the name of donations for Social causes, and how much is spent and in which bank goes the rest.
    Same is about the good-hearted charity in the name of Afrian kids.

    Maybe people wash their guilt by donating. I won’t doubt the intentions of good- hearted beings.
    It is very much possible, disciple/student has more refined soul than the teacher/Guru!

  8. Lokesh says:

    I cannot think of any other guru, apart from perhaps Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who commercialized meditation techniques more than Osho. Strongly influenced by Gurdieff, Osho subscribed towards the ‘if people don’t pay for a thing they do not appreciate it’ idea and I tend to agree with that. People need to be taught how to meditate and as their meditation deepens often guidance into the suburbs of the inner world is needed. It takes years to learn how to deliver such guidance and during the learning of such a skill the bills need to be paid, much in the same order of any apprenticeship. No harm done in charging for such a valuable skill.

    The problem arises when meditation techniques are not recognized as a steppng stone towards integration of meditation in one’s daily life and thus become an addictive crutch that may require a lifetime of financial outlay. The same can be said for a guru’s presence. I know that during the seventies I sometimes felt that being around Osho’s energy was the fulcrum of my existence, comparable to being hooked on a narcotic. Strange that the liberation game can swing in quite the opposite direction and move one into deep bondage and thus one becomes a spiritual junkie.

    My home of the last 30 years, Ibiza, is fast becoming Europe’s New Age business capital. There are dozens of meditation retreat centres and everything that one can imagine in that field from Ayahuasca groups to sweat lodges to Tibetan chanting…really quite amazing. Down at my local beach there is a big yoga centre…known locally as a New Age singles club. When I return from my morning swims, during the summer months, I sometimes stop for a coffee at a beach bar and on occasion observe the fledgling yogis chilling. Most look young to me, twenties, thirties, positive, energetic and…ehm…fast asleep. It’s kind of sweet. Which brings me to my conclusion.

    A real spiritual search is something you carry out alone. Something that takes place in that inner world we all inhabit, in one way or another…alone. In that world money is not required, because it holds no value. What is needed in that land is commitment and an earnest determintion to go the distance, because it is not an easy path and everything in the outside world points against it. On the journey it helps to have inspiration from gurus and teachers, but they cannot walk that road for you, at best they can give you a gentle push in the right direction and help one understand that others have traversed that long and twisting path and that it is the journey that counts, not the destination, so don’t miss it due to the goal-orientated mind.

    No true master will ever lower him or herself to requesting payment in any form for this service, for that would mean becoming trapped in the mire of commerce. Who could charge for a smile and some wise words of encouragement? Only someone who does not recognize that we are fellow travellers on the way. That is why Osho said God is not for sale. Then again, once Osho developed a taste for Rolls Royces, everything else was. I don’t have a problem with that.

  9. Lokesh says:

    Parmartha declares, ‘Also Maitreya, the guy who died a little while back in New Zealand never charged very much.’
    Sorry, PM, that is simply not true. One man I know gave a substantial amount of money to Maitreya, in the form of a donation for a space in a commune that did not happen. The enlightened one nipped out and bought a brand new Porsche for starters. I wonder where he learned that one.

    • Parmartha says:

      I should have said therefore he never charged me anything very much. I went to quite a few of his satsangs in London and oddly enough in Pune (in 2000).

      • Lokesh says:

        Thing about Maitreya for me was that whenever I saw him I found myself asking can a leopard change its spots? I liked Maitreya and was aquainted with him at various stages of his life. I found it difficult to take his enlightenment trip seriously.

  10. Fresch says:

    Donations are dangerous because naive and idealistic people end up paying more than others; I know several cases with Osho’s, but also other organisations (like also Lokesh wrote about a guy paying for a room in a commune which never happened). That’s why they are also fake. There are professional people specialized in going after dying people for the testaments.

    As I did write long before, I noticed (in a work project with the church in Africa) that charity in crisis is the best lottery win for religious as well as these other organizations (like plan or even government-run development projects etc.), to convert people or get members in a cunning way, exploiting people in need. So, I am happy Osho was actually against it, saying problems need to be solved at sociological ground level.

    A job as a teacher of meditation needs to be as in any job: you get normal pay or a salary, so that’s clear. So, same prices for meditations and groups as any similar services. The range would be between a haircut and top management coaching. People need to take responsibilty to pay for 20 years old therapy practices that do not lead anywhere, especially if they do not lead to meditation and individual (out of the group) processes, which they can independently practise. And many therapies do not care about people’s individual, normal lives at all.

    So, as in anything, you would need to have an urge to practise your inner exploration – also without any coaches. And even if you did not practise Osho meditations or visit any centre, it does not mean you have dropped out from anywhere. I have so many long-time sannyasin friends who meditate or self-reflect or in so many ways explore their inner in other ways. Some have Osho with them all the time or sometimes. Anyway, the priest does not have the key to the God.

    However, “meditation being opium for people” – that is more interesting than the money issue.

    • satyadeva says:

      Fresch, if you were a destitute Indian woman with no means of support, or an orphan living on the streets, or unemployed with no skills or other support, or a person suffering from or vulnerable to a deadly disease, or indeed any homeless person (to give just a few random examples of the sort of people Amma’s charities support) would you have such sophisticated considerations about ‘charity’, including the issue of whether donations are ‘correct’ or not?

      Although not at that rock-bottom level, I’ve had occasion to rely on ‘charitable’ organisations in the past, ie 3 days with the Salvation Army in Toronto, age 20, when broke while travelling, and Hare Krishna food van handouts in London when very short of money, not so long ago.

      Once you attempt to put yourself in others’ shoes another perspective opens up, doesn’t it? All very well to pontificate about the need for “problems to be solved at sociological ground level”, which ultimately might well be so, but life and death are here and now and the relief of suffering, together with the offering of a half-decent chance in life is a wonderful thing, as all of we exceptionally privileged ones in the West have known since we were born (but tend to often forget?).

      Also, I see nothing whatsoever ‘suspect’ about the opportunity to give a donation after attending a meeting or course, especially if all is done without compulsion and anonymously, eg simply placing one’s contribution in an envelope and then into a box, which, btw, is how Meera’s people operate. That’s similar, but more private, to how the Christian churches have gathered funds every Sunday from “the collection” bowl being passed around during services.

      Other forms of donation, I agree, can be misused, exploited, whereby naïve idealists can be ‘made’ to part with large amounts of money. A friend of mine, for example, gave £20,000 to the Da Free John movement in London around 20-plus years ago, regretted it later and had to fight tooth and nail to get it back, most of which she did eventually, but only after much torment.

      On the other hand, such mistakes are a good, but painful, way of seeing one’s capacity for stupidity, hence they’re a source of wisdom-from-self-knowledge – and if it isn’t a ‘religion’ that exploits one then it might well be someone or something else, eventually.

  11. Fresch says:

    So, I forgot to write. In this money issue, I think Pune prices are healthy and clear. Also their effort to give courses for people to practise meditations at home alone or with friends (for no money).

  12. chetna says:

    Lokesh, you have covered the subject beautifully and I totally agree with you. One thing I would add: often when I can afford a retreat or a workshop (which is really needed and helpful when one lives in a big city, far from nature…)I would still not pay that money because I think it is very dishonest of the leaders to promise so much in one weekend or a day. It is like with anything, their point is that you pay for quality and speed which is ridiculous in the subject of meditation and transformation…

    I am however happy to pay for good teachers and good places. Why not? What a wonderful way to exchange. I am most happy to spend money for meditation rather than a new pair of trousers or a movie… but has to be within a reason.

    • Lokesh says:

      Chetna says, ‘which is really needed and helpful when one lives in a big city, far from nature’.
      That is a very important point. I live in the Spanish countryside. Right now, as I sit writing, I hear a pair of wood pigeons cooing in the background. One thing that has become ever more apparent to me as the years pass is that it is a sad fact of human life that many human beings are completely out of touch with nature. I always recall Osho speaking about how nature, animals, birds, bees etc are all in hamony with existance and it is only people who live in disharmony.
      During the summer I sometimes sit on the rocks by a packed tourist beach and watch holidaymakers. One thing that often strikes me is what poor physical shape they are in, overweight, stooped shoulders, and tired faces. City life is for many not conductive to healthy living. Quite often, when talking with friends on Ibiza, someone will comment about how priviledged we are to live in such a uncontaminated environment. Most of us share that view and none of us take it for granted. I do enjoy a few days of city life but my heart is always in nature. At night the skies here are often clear with no artificial light pollution. Once in a while you look up and there is the Milky Way. Wow! I’m really insignificant, is one thought that hits me right between the eyes when confronted with that. Good to remember and feel grateful for being given the opportunity to do your wee dance on this, the third stone from the sun.

  13. Fresch says:

    Satyadeva, such as your friend’s mistakes would not be needed if “money issue” was clear. And more so, if sociological issues like over-population etc. were healed. Osho spoke so much of these and demanded his disciples to live up to them as an example (which I did not, by having a child). But that was from him bringing in politics too.

    And Satyadeva, also, my sister, who is a doctor, thought that she might want to do some voluntary work in some developing country, but found out that the only way is to pay for it yourself these days. It goes for all environmental organizations and other help foundations: only job you are to do for “free” is to sell their memberships. So, I totally agree with you that small meditation events with friends are very, very valuable.

    What I found interesting in this SN article was that sannyasins could be more connected with other people meditating, doing creative work and science. And that hopefully, the gap could be more narrow, not just between east and west, but between different people meditating. And also bringing this new creative energy into the meditation cages (= meditation centres), that is so apparent in sannyas circles. Well, young people are doing it anyway.

    I did one long project on shit by the way. Shit is actually “black gold” if you recycle it in the right way: there is born new life there (phosphorous). In India that is basically a social problem, it’s not because of the poor, but greedy rich exploiting the poor, with their old stuck mind settings, so that water becomes contaminated; the root problem is not resolved. And what has happened? They can not avoid it when going out from their bubbles where they have been polishing their golden restricted cages, quarters, outside they see shit and death is everywhere. And they just do not see the golden nugget in it. What a projection.

    That is for younger generations to innovate and make a better world, recycling – like in Tilopa’s heart meditation. Most often it happens on grass roots level, but some big companies have made real new innovations on it. We might even be able to fly to Pune on shit fuel some day.

    One of my professions is a gardener (I do not directly work in the field). I love nature, not just watching beautiful trees or flowers, but care for them…but in a sustainable way. And second big issue there is diversity on global level. And understanding these issues is taking care of others (= empathy) on this planet, not only you and your own one plant garden. That understading is totally missing in sannyas altogether. Shit and diversity.

    • satyadeva says:

      Fresch, I don’t see what point you’re making re my friend’s mistake. It wasn’t a donation to ‘charity’ , but to a ‘religious’ organisation, comparable to sannyasins’ donations to Osho’s movement.
      And how would the healing of “sociological issues” be relevant in such cases?

      Also, what has volunteers selling “memberships” for charitable organisations got to do with people meditating in small groups?!!

      Nothing ‘wrong’ with getting involved with ‘social and ‘ecological’ action’, of course – probably better than sitting at a keyboard writing about it – but I don’t see how that necessarily connects with the ‘inner search’, apart from being fine if one is moved in that direction.

      Perhaps it’s worth remembering that sannyas (etc.) is essentially a private affair, however difficult or even ‘selfish’ that might seem when the world of man and his home are in such deep crisis that one can feel impelled, almost as a ‘duty’, to ‘do something about it’.

      As I said, it all depends on where one is at, it’s not some sort of ‘spiritual imperative’, appropriate for everyone.

  14. shantam prem says:

    I think somewhere Chetna has mentioned she works in investment banking.
    Maybe she can shed the light, in comparison to a first-class seminar leader or a mid-level guru of 20 years experience, how much an investment banker earns?
    I think in Sannyas circles, Turiya, Leela, Shunyo or Anando are well known names. I don´t think their annual income is more than a high school teacher?

    Fact is in this cut-throat business, there are not even 1 percent like Deepak Chopra or that unimpressive face of Eckhart Tolle, who make some killing.

    It is not the fees charged which nerves me but their exuberant promises; most of their advertisements or websites give the impression of Delhi based Sex Doctors: “Don´t feel shy before your wife. Solve your problems in three days. Meet Dr. Rip Of. Doctor Ji treats with underwater herbs discovered at Ibiza Beach.”

    • Lokesh says:

      Shri Mahachuddie, you need to get out in the nature more. Sounds like you are suffering from nappy rash. If you are I have a wonderful herbal remedy, discovered on Ibiza beach. Not cheap, though.

  15. Fresch says:

    To give a practical example from nature and human life: if you look at the plant that has got too much urine, nitrogen, it’s thin and is kind of bending. In my country we call these kinds of people “urine heads” (= urine has gone to their heads; in humans it means the person thinks a bit too much of him or herself), so it’s just very important not to give too much non-separated shit on these plants. They end up in bed.

    • satyadeva says:

      Well, Fresch, the ‘spiritual life’ / sannyas etc. certainly isn’t about thinking “a bit too much” of one’s self, is it?!!

      That’s just a common misconception, born of a lack of understanding of what it’s all about. As I recall Osho advising, in an early Poona discourse, “Don’t be an introvert, that’s just pathological!” (not a totally exact quote, but just about his words – isn’t that right, Arpana?!).

      • Arpana says:

        In the same way a man of awareness and understanding moves from the periphery to the center, from the center to the periphery. He never gets fixated anywhere. From the marketplace to the monastery, from
        sansar to sannyas, from being extrovert to being introvert — he continuously goes on moving, because these two are his wings, they are not against each other. They may be balanced in opposite directions — they have to be; if both the wings are on one side, the bird cannot fly into the sky — they have to be balancing, they have to be in opposite directions, but still they belong to the same bird, and they serve the same bird. Your outside and your inside are your wings.

        This has to be very deeply remembered, because there is a possibility… the mind tends to fixate. There are people who are fixated in the marketplace; they say they cannot get out of it; they say they have no time for meditation; they say even if time is there they don’t know how to meditate and they don’t believe that they can meditate. They say they are worldly — how can they meditate? They are materialistic — how can they meditate? They say, “Unfortunately, we are extroverts — how can we go in?” They have chosen only one wing. And, of course, if frustration comes out of it, it is natural. With one wing frustration is bound to come.

        Then there are people who become fed up with the world and escape out of the world, go to the
        monasteries and the Himalayas, become sannyasins, monks: start living alone, force a life of introversion on
        themselves. They close their eyes, they close all their doors and windows, they become like Leibnitz’
        monads — windowless — then they are bored.
        In the marketplace they were fed up, they were tired, frustrated. It was getting more like a madhouse;
        they could not find rest. There was too much of relationship and not enough holiday, not enough space to be themselves. They were falling into things, losing their beings. They were becoming more and more material
        and less and less spiritual. They were losing their direction. They were losing the very consciousness that
        they are. They escaped. Fed up, frustrated, they escaped.
        Now they are trying to live alone — a life of introversion. Sooner or later they get bored. Again they have chosen another wing, but again one wing. This is the way of a lopsided life. They have again fallen into the same fallacy on the opposite pole.I am neither for this nor for that. I would like you to become so capable that you can remain in the marketplace and yet meditative. I would like you to relate with people, to love, to move in millions of relationships — because they enrich — and yet remain capable of closing your doors and sometimes having a holiday from all relationship… so that you can relate with your own being also. Relate with others, but relate with yourself also. Love others, but love yourself also. Go out! — the world is beautiful, adventurous; it is a challenge, it enriches. Don’t lose that opportunity! Whenever the world
        knocks at your door and calls you, go out! Go out fearlessly — there is nothing to lose, there is everything to
        gain.

        But don’t get lost. Don’t go on and on and get lost. Sometimes come back home. Sometimes forget the
        world — those are the moments for meditation. Each day, if you want to become balanced, you should balance the outer and the inner. They should carry the same weight, so that inside you never become lopsided.

        Osho.

        A Sudden Clash of Thunder
        Chapter #2
        Chapter title: When you are Not, God is
        12 August 1976 am in Buddha Hall

        • satyadeva says:

          That’s along similar lines to the one I referred to, Arpana, although in that one (in ’74) he did describe introversion as particularly “pathological”, saying extroversion was healthier, but ideally, a balance of the two was best.

          • Arpana says:

            The old sannyasins, the old monks, claimed only the inner, they denied the outer. My message is: Nothing has to be denied — the whole belongs to you. I give you the whole universe, the inner and the outer both. And I would not like you to become introverts, because those who are introverts against extroversion become ill, pathological, dormant, stagnant, closed, disconnected, uprooted. They start living a windowless existence. They start living in unnecessary misery. They never come to know what aloneness is, because aloneness cannot be known without love — they only know loneliness. And loneliness is not health; loneliness is illness.
            Osho

            The Fish in the Sea is Not Thirsty
            Chapter #2
            Chapter title: Feel, Love and Feel Alone
            12 April 1979 am in Buddha Hall

            • bodhi vartan says:

              Using the Zorba the Buddha analogy which is essentially the same as the intro/extro (above)… Osho said that it is easier for a Zorba to become a Buddha, than for a Buddha to become a Zorba.

              From experience I’d say that one needs a mind before they can drop it.

      • Arpana says:

        Interesting that you drew me into this.
        Have just seen that since I took sannyas, got into meditation, don’t seem to have had any choice about moving between the two, (Haven’t understood this in quite the way I have at this moment before. I know I move between the two, but haven’t quite understood the element of out of my control as I have now.) and initially, the early days, wherever I was I condemned it, but now I am comfortable that sometimes I need ‘right’ company and sometimes I need solitude. ( Even at Sannyas News. Sometimes I’ve the energy to join in, and sometimes I haven’t. )

      • Arpana says:

        In the early years after the ashram if I lived alone I beat myself up for avoiding the difficulties of living with people, and if I lived with people I beat myself up for avoiding the difficulties of living alone.

        Gotta laff avencha really. (Well eventually anyway.)

  16. Fresch says:

    Satyadeva

    “Your friend’s mistake. It wasn’t a donation to ‘charity’, but to a ‘religious’ organization,”
    It (religious/spiritual movement) is the same thing as
    “sannyasins’ donations to Osho’s movement.”

    “
And how would the healing of “sociological issues” be relevant in such cases?”
    Donations are fake.

    “Also, what has volunteers selling “memberships” for charitable organizations got to do with people meditating in small groups?!!”
    Small groups of meditating have NOT these problems when there is NO money involved.

    “but I don’t see how that necessarily connects with the ‘inner search’, apart from being fine if one is moved in that direction”
    Not, true, we are all one, earth, body, emotions, spiritual level.

    “sannyas (etc.) is essentially a private affair…”
    In the beginning, yes, but not after, so not, true, we are all one, earth, body, emotions, spiritual level.

    “As I said, it all depends on where one is at, it’s not some sort of ‘spiritual imperative’, appropriate for everyone.”

    Yes. So, where are you?

    • satyadeva says:

      What do you mean by “Donations are fake”? What’s “fake” about giving, freely and anonymously, after a meeting or course? It strikes me as the very opposite of “fake”, ie as thoroughly genuine.

      Sure, small, informal meditation groups are free from financial exploitation, but what has taking part in such activities to do with ‘volunteers’ (or others) selling memberships of charitable organisations?!

      This “we are all one, earth, body, emotions, spiritual level” – sounds all very fine, IF that’s your genuine experience, a true expression of your consciousness, Fresch. As I said, if one is moved towards the sort of socio/political action you cite, then fine. But to suggest all ‘true seekers’ SHOULD be so involved is just authoritarian bullshine. Which tends to indicate to me that this is probably not an expression of your experience, more an ideal.

      As for me, I do what I do, I’m not an idealist, nor particularly oriented towards the sort of action you describe and recommend. Which is not to say I wouldn’t take action if moved to by circumstances, eg the proposals to build a massively damaging high-speed rail line (HS2)through my area of London.

      Like most of us, I just live as best I can and ‘help’ if I can. IE no rules, no ‘musts’ or ‘shoulds’ – no unnecessary pressure from within or without, hence no guilt trips accepted (mine or from others, like you, Fresch!). I suggest that if you were as ‘conscious’ as you seem to wish to make out, then you’d understand that everyone is simply doing their best and it’s really rather pointless to pontificate otherwise.

  17. Fresch says:

    Arps, your own words?

  18. Fresch says:

    Satyadeva,
    I am glad you are not introvert any more. Big Hug.

  19. Fresch says:

    Satyadeva. Pls read what i wrote before it “being fake” if you are interested, if not, that is ok.

    • satyadeva says:

      Fresch, I’ve already carefully read your recent posts, checked them all just now and can not find where you have written “being fake”. Please advise – or better, say exactly what you mean.

  20. shantam prem says:

    Fresch says:
    10 March, 2014 at 1:23 pm
    Arps, your own words?
    Arpana says:
    10 March, 2014 at 3:09 pm
    Why?

    Surely, why one´s own words, when 350 Bibles are available for the Oshoits.
    According to such people, Ronald Reagan is still president of USA and Pope the Pollack, the head of Christian church.

    With so many answers, why to bother about the questions of today?

  21. bodhi vartan says:

    From what I have been reading above… am I to assume that Eckhart Tolle, Meera and ‘hugging’ Amma, are all offering the same product let’s say (for example’s sake) the same product as Osho was offering?

    What is meditation and can it be taught as such in corporate seminars? And what is “a meditation teacher”? Was Osho a meditation teacher?

    The original article in Salon magazine was titled, “How the 1 percent is hijacking mindfulness” (and essentially Buddhism)… for their ends which are to enslave large numbers of people into accepting their position. If they ever get around to discovering Osho’s techniques the world is doomed because Osho’s techniques without the love are…

  22. Parmartha says:

    Marx thought that religion was an instrument by which the establishment kept social order.
    He did not like social order cos it stopped the revolutionary instinct, and revolution was the name of his game.
    I agree with the flavour of the original article, much corporate meditation (which he hints has replaced religion) subtly “tranquillises” silicon valley, etc, and thereby people just do their jobs without a single revolutionary thought in their head.
    But on the other hand, my interpretation of Osho’s active meditations was that they led to freedom from social control and an invitation for you to be in control – and to the bravery of someone living “outside society”. Anyway that was my experience of them.
    I never found them expensive, and often people invited one to do them for free in the old networks. I remain very grateful for both the meditations, and those who provided them generously in my youth.

  23. Parmartha says:

    Some of the original Jains who supported Osho with donations after he stopped lecturing, like those big ones from the Parikh family were vital for Osho to start his mediation camps and public discourses. We should be grateful to them. Maybe they did not call them “donations”, but knowing they had wealth, they felt inspired by the young Osho and what he said, and this led to the feeling that their cash was better placed there than buying another house or something material.

  24. shantam prem says:

    It is really healthy to live in the best memories of Pune One or Pune two. Everything was at cost price, there was an inspiration in the air.
    There is sometime no need to tell a gentleman that his gorgeous Gloria from the time of world war 2 is also in the next room of caring home!

    • satyadeva says:

      Actually, old boy, it’s spiritually incorrect “to live in memories” of anything (or anyone), good, bad or indifferent.

      Wake up over there in Switzerland, please!

      • Lokesh says:

        Yeah, like what was that Glimpses of a Golden Chidood book all about?

      • bodhi vartan says:

        satyadeva says:
        >> it’s spiritually incorrect “to live in memories” of anything (or anyone), good, bad or indifferent.

        You are correct oh master but I am an apostate and often indulge in nostalgia*. I see nothing wrong in it. Most prefer an earlier version of themselves. Let me hurt in peace, please.

        I often drift into the time when Osho was alive and nothing can take that away from me.

        * νόστος (nóstos), meaning “homecoming” and ἄλγος (álgos), meaning “pain, ache”

        • satyadeva says:

          “I see nothing wrong in it” – then you’re choosing to live in illusion, in your mind’s filtered memories, out of the present, just like anyone who yearns for the so-called “good old days”.

          And the older you get, the more stupidly sentimental you’re likely to become.

          Who taught you that such indulgent tripe has “nothing wrong in it”?

          Call yerself a ‘spiritual seeker’?

          Bah, humbug, sir, humbug.

          • Arpana says:

            Its ——- awesome that I can, we can be Osho sannyassins and get on with it anywhere, we dont have to be in a special place, but while reading a Darshan diary this morning I felt a pang, because we can never go there again, bit like youth really; and honestly SD, I am, honest injun, not much given to nostalgia.

            But I agree with you about Varti.
            Honest to god Varti, just pull yourself together!!!!!!!

            The simple reason is that enlightenment is not going to make you significant. You will not become Ronald Reagan. You will not become even Jesus Christ; nobody will crucify you. You will not even become Al-Hillaj Mansoor; nobody will murder you.
            If you become enlightened you will become so ordinary, so simple, that nobody will take any note of
            you. You will become almost absent.

            Let that become my definition of enlightenment:
            You will become almost absent.
            You will pass just like a breeze — not like a storm: Adolf Hitler is coming! You will just pass like a
            small breeze of no significance.
            To the world you will be nobody.
            To yourself you will be the whole world.
            To the universe, you will be all that you can be, all that you are meant to be.
            To the universe it will be a tremendous joy that you have dropped all running after significant things. At
            least there is one man who lives insignificantly, ordinarily, not going anywhere; no heaven, no God, no
            nirvana. He is not concerned even about the next moment, because all his energies which were involved and invested in all directions are now falling back upon himself.

            Osho.

            From Misery to Enlightenment
            Chapter #18
            Chapter title: In the silences, the semi-colons and the full stops…
            15 February 1985 pm in Lao Tzu Grove

            • Upnita says:

              Arpana,
              tks for your very good post about enlightenment…hadnt read these beautifull words from Osho for a long time!….
              Enlightenment is a realization but doesnt stay there there is nobody enlightenned…

              Jack Kornfield says beautifully in the book…
              “After The Ecstacy, The Laundry”

              “Enlightenment does exist,” internationally renowned author and meditation master Jack Kornfield assures us. “Unbounded freedom and joy, oneness with the divine … these experiences are more common than you know, and not far away.”

              “But even after achieving such realization – after the ecstasy – we are faced with the day-to-day task of translating that freedom into our imperfect lives. We are faced with the laundry.”

              Upnita

              • Arpana says:

                “But even after achieving such realization – after the ecstasy – we are faced with the day-to-day task of translating that freedom into our imperfect lives. We are faced with the laundry.”

                Thank god for the ‘ordinary. ‘

          • bodhi vartan says:

            I have stopped being a seeker when I became a finder.

            I know Osho spoke against nostalgia but that was when he was talking to beginners. The mind can compartmentalize. You don’t use the same part of the brain to watch a movie as you do when you watch reality. That is how jokes work…by jumping compartments.

            Upnita (further down) is correct. With extreme love there is always a pain of separation. And that pain is real. Whether it is from the beloved or the master. Avoiding that pain would go against everything Osho said.

        • Upnita says:

          Vartan…
          “I often drift into the time when Osho was alive and nothing can take that away from me.”

          ” νόστος (nóstos), meaning “homecoming” and ἄλγος (álgos), meaning “pain, ache””

          I am very touched by your words , pain, ache,homecoming…
          I also saw..longing….fragance..sorrow..

          Sufi couplets:” Those who love always cry, where is deep love there is allways a separation. Beauty has a reason, but love has no reason for the mind knows it not.
          If I am happy I forget You: but if full of sorrow, i think of You! So give me sorrow only that I may always think of you….”

          I dont feel or think it is an illusion but rather a sweet homecoming to Yourself….

          Satydeva talks about memories ..but memories are of the mind and your longing, pain addresses the Heart..there is a difference.

          From chapter “pain” Osho book ” From Medication to Meditation”

          I have heard: A man came to a Zen Master and asked, “How shall we avoid heat and cold?”
          Metaphorically, he is asking, “How should we avoid pleasure and pain?” That is the Zen way of talking about pleasure and pain: heat and cold,”How shall we avoid heat and cold?”
          The Master answered, “Be hot, be cold”

          With Love

          Upnita

          • satyadeva says:

            I appreciate where you’re coming from, Upnita, although Vartan didn’t make that clear enough (at least, for me).

            At best, “I often drift into the time when Osho was alive and nothing can take that away from me” is ambiguous, suggesting a yearning for past ‘good times’, an avoidance of the present, a classic refuge of the middle-aged and older.

            My dictionary defines ‘nostalgia’ as “a MORBID longing for the past”, a “homesickness”, from the Greek ‘nostos’ (return) and ‘algos’ (pain).

            So perhaps Vartan might like to make it clear exactly what he means, in case you are perhaps reading into it what might not be there?

            • satyadeva says:

              Perhaps the key to this ‘memory’ issue is, if possible, to stay with the ‘internal energy’, the present living inner space of the past situation (to coin a phrase) rather than losing oneself in random – and probably unreliable – mental pictures, ‘emotional visions’ (as it were), which so easily degenerate into sentimentalised, conveniently ‘self-airbrushed’, pictorial versions of the dead past, which only serve to confuse and undermine our intelligence.

              Easier said than done, going against the stream? Probably, but it’s only an example of a sort of ‘death’. And what do we think spiritual life is ultimately about if it isn’t stripping ourselves and being stripped of such mentalised illusions? Dying for Life, as they say…

              But I guess those inclined to prefer ‘bhakti’ ways might disagree…Well, I think anyone on such a path has to be very careful not to confuse emotion/sentiment etc. with the level of pure feeling Upnita is indicating.

              • bodhi vartan says:

                Thank you, SD. You put it better than I ever could. There is a difference between conscious and directed nostalgia, and a drift into daydreaming.

                Consciousness would be the key. It doesn’t matter where it is as long as it is conscious.

          • Ashok says:

            Hi Upnita!

            That looks like smoke coming out of the sufi dancer’s behind?…..Was the photo taken just after he had whirled? If the answer is in the affirmative, then my question to you is: is that what the Master in your story meant about ‘be hot’?…….ie stick a burning flare or rag up your bottykin and then whirl yourself into a frenzy trying to escape it! A highly unusual meditation method, I must say. Well, each to their own, I suppose!

  25. shantam prem says:

    Parmartha, you think rich Jain familes supported Osho?
    They supported Acharya Rajneesh. They supported their tradition, their heritage, their culture with the feeling, Acharya Shree will clean the shelves.

    Once Osho started his own firm, embargo came into force.
    During last 30 years, there are dozens such great men in India with hardly 0.5 percent of Osho´s wisdom and 5000 times more support in the form of donation and patronage.
    Don´t forget, to check the list of billionaires living in UK, and how Indians are showing their presence in that list.
    Indians are not like Russian Oligarchs eager to marry the friends of their daughters and buying Football clubs.
    Indian follow the way of the divine blessings.

    Here is one latest photo of India´s richest family who live in world´s most expansive home. without sarcasm, it makes sense to see their rootedness into the tradition.

    • bodhi vartan says:

      shantam prem says:
      >> They supported Acharya Rajneesh.
      >> Once Osho started his own firm, embargo came into force.

      Absolutely correct Shantam. He actually played the same game with a number of other traditions too, like the Xtians for example. First he would praise them, and they would come. And then he would critisise them and off most would go. What was left were His people.

      As for you holding any credit for your tradition, you better take off your mala off then. Your tradition is as sick as mine. And I don’t even have a tradition anymore. Maybe it’s because I’m a Londoner…

  26. shantam prem says:

    Roots and the flight; India´s number One business family. Similar rich Gujratis would have invested some thing in Acharya but not in Bhagwan Shree, not in Osho.

  27. Fresch says:

    Satyadeva, I mean that ”donations are fake” because naive, responsible and ideological people end up paying more than others. It’s the same when you try to do some voluntary work, it’s always the same people actually doing something and respectively the same people avoiding. I hope my answer is satisfying for you.

    Arpana, it’s more interesting to read people’s own words and sometimes quotes.. I like your own writing.

    Che Varti, I can really clearly see you with the flag. And tanks for the films. I just love sanyas English, especially spoken by Italian.

    Tonight is a new movie night, I will tell you later.

    • satyadeva says:

      I don’t really see that you make a valid point re donations, Fresch, as – IF TRUE – the situation simply reflects the rest of the general human situation.

      What’s surprising or necessarily ‘wrong’ in that? Especially if the sort of “naïve, responsible and ideological people” concerned include wealthy ones who can well afford it. And there are plenty such examples, eg George Harrison, who gave vast sums to the Hare Krishna movement.

      Ideally, of course, the outfits should be publically funded, but at this stage of proceedings that’s, er, ‘hardly likely’ is it?

      So it seems to me you’re the naïve – and impractical – idealist here!

      • satyadeva says:

        And, as I said before, if people are, or imagine themselves to have been, ‘ripped-off’, then it’s a good lesson in both worldly and self-knowledge for them. Isn’t it?

        Although I agree the sort of cases like my friend’s with the Free John people in London and that of various Indians who were recently let down by Swami R and his lot re their investments in a Goa commune project that was abandoned, leave a nasty taste in the mouth.

  28. shantam prem says:

    In German language, there is a word, ‘Streber’. It is not abusive but in a class few students are Streber types, and even a Streber feels offended if he is mentioned like this.
    Similar words in English are Geek, careerist, smug, nerd, teacher’s pet.

    I don´t want to name such person here at sannyasnews….

    MOD: WE’RE NOT PUTTING OUT THE REST OF THIS POST, SHANTAM, AS IT’S TOO GENERALISED COMMENT AND ALSO OVER-ABUSIVE.

    WE SUGGEST YOU ADDRESS YOUR REMARKS TO THE PEOPLE CONCERNED, WHICH WOULD BE MORE STRAIGHT, MORE HONEST.

  29. Parmartha says:

    SP,
    One of Gurdjieff’s most famous donors was a Rothschild and she put up the money for his one and only commune near Paris.

    I think it says something when a rich man or woman offers to someone of spiritual inspiration the wherewithal for their material survival, or their projects.
    Osho’s first donors were Jains, as that was the religion he was born into, and yes of course they may have partly wanted him to be a Jaina celebrity, but Bhagwan grew out of Acharya Rajneesh as Osho grew out of Bhagwan..

    And dont forget there were always a few that stayed with him from all the religions or politics he attacked, and as Vartan hints, that was the point!

    Now those Sikhs: perhaps as you are one, you find out what Osho had to say about those swords and that hair that was never cut, and all sorts of nonsense that religion embodies…and the stealing and dubious commercial practices they rip the rest of India off with.

    • bodhi vartan says:

      There is/was talk about Osho and “his rich women”, Laxmi, Mukta, Sheela, Hasya… I’d say that Osho was capable of destroying everyone’s illusions.

      Running a meditation group or giving a satsang here and there can never be compared to events when somebody like Osho is around… or as may be said… rich people can be insecure too.

  30. shantam prem says:

    Parmartha, It will be more useful if you focus your attention to the company where you invested your life.

    Is the firm growing, offering dividends to the shareholders, have fair and transparent policies, and who is the CEO, CFO etc. etc?

    There is no need to chase others.

    Anybody who feels some moral authority should start from his/her own religious beliefs and the organisation. That will be the sign of new spirituality.

    Pointing fingers at other religions is same old rubbish.

  31. shantam prem says:

    HTAQ?
    what it means?
    could not find the meaning of this abbreviation.

  32. Fresch says:

    One interesting post I read in facebook:
    Somebody (supporting OIF) saying Jayesh was the one ”who raised money for extra properties in Koregaon Park, those same ones they tried to give for this unknown charity foundation (or the one they own). I only hope they did not raise it through donations with wills/testaments.

    However, that post’s logic was that because Jayesh raised the money (well, in the name of Osho, of course) he would be entitled to get that property to himself now. Wow, wow, wow! Did you ever hear of somebody working in the company/organization/foundation raising money for it and then 30 years later claiming it to be his? It would have been another issue if he had raised the money in his own name. What cunning. This kind of explanation shows that they really have created a cult.

    So, in that matter I do agree with Shantam that we should NOT point ANYTHING at any other religions at the moment, it’s just shameful because sanyas is at such a sad, sad point.

    However, I do think that Shantam, you better drop any idea of Pune being anything what it once was. Also, I am just very cynical that much else will really happen in terms of people co-operating (even the Pune people left). That is actually the biggest reason nothing will really happen anyway, because there seems to be really not anything interesting in any whatsoever ”Jeyesh afterlife” picture. Except people’s own processes.

    It’s just the cold era of Putin-Jayesh, “who is not in this world”, and rest of the (sannyas) world’s weak politicians who just play their own games.

  33. shantam prem says:

    Fresch,
    I am quite well aware that reverse vasectomy is almost not possible anymore.
    It is like, Justice delayed is justice denied.
    Still…I won´t allow the issue to rest that easily. By fighting those fights you can not win should not bother us because future will not have to fight again for the similar reasons.
    This is the way human beings have worked. They blew the rocks away, made the bridges and yet well aware, they won´t walk on that bridges themselves.

    Osho did the same.

  34. Fresch says:

    Uuhh, yeah…shantam, how on earth do you manage your everyday honourable speeches here? It’s like as if you were standing on some podium all day long, your eyes focused upwards, light shining in behind? Perhaps some wind blowing your hair…then going home for your laundry, but not doing it and instead collapsing in front of the TV, all the snacks around. But perhaps that is just your personal after-enlightenment laundry….

  35. Fresch says:

    Hi, you can all be my facebook friends etc., but can I pls keep my nickname here and stay relaxed? I needed some translation help and because of my poor technical knowledge I did some stupid mistakes…which is not worth for any translations help.

  36. shantam prem says:

    This is a good picture of me, Fresch. Though in reality, my life in Europe is not that great as of some leader. I have just spent more than an hour to sweep and mop my kitchen. What to say about an inspiring leader, no Indian male will ever think of doing such mundane things.

    Anyway, it is grace of Osho that I can use my words. Before his arrival in my life, I had no inclination to respect or bow down before anybody or call any one living, “My leader” – what to say about calling someone My master?”

  37. madhu dagmar frantzen says:

    YES

    Shantam Prem
    “justice delayed is justice denied”

    and then?
    fully FEEL it
    and then
    broaden the view what justice is all about
    and that’s a BIG one
    for everybody
    (also for me – and especially for me as a woman)

    your approach – more or less approach – of your way of fighting is not the one which worked for me
    on the contrary, it was counter-productive and the people who are indulging in getting what they want without any scruple
    are being entertained the best when they see or experience me fighting the above facts you mentioned
    sannyasins, ex-sannyasins, so-called buddhists also
    the full marketplace so to say

    what
    by the way makes me sad here is that the way the trigger is set in the subject of the thread is mostly discussed in monetary terms (with only a few exceptions)

    the issue itself but a spiritual one
    for example, the way we all – more or less – have to look DEEPLY after our own possible corruption
    being chilled when we are SEEMINGLY loved or repulsed when we are seemingly hated or when we feel exploited in a way (spiritual /emotional, up to physically)

    so MUCH to do
    or in other way said,
    LETTING GO OF

    and thank you for your posting, Shantam Prem
    as i was hooked “there” on this very bright, Bavarian spring late afternoon
    and couldn’t find a way earlier to the “caravanserai”

    wish you all a beautiful spring evening
    myself included

    madhu

  38. Fresch says:

    Laundry time is good. I was just thinking today when walking on the street (to the supermarket, by the way) in a good area, myself being totally tired and scruffy, that, aahh, it would be so nice to accept this way too, being just normal.

  39. madhu dagmar frantzen says:

    and thank YOU

    upnita

    and words fall very short
    but i need to address you

    love

    madhu

  40. Fresch says:

    Upnita, you gave some beautiful concepts, but personal experience is always more interesting for me. Thank you anyway. I do love Sufism.

    Satyadeva, I am not so much interested in Shantam’s approach if he wants to stay where he is. And somehow he seems to want to keep some cover up. I write here to understand some of my own issues better, not to convert or convince somebody else about anything. But interaction is the thing, of course.

    • satyadeva says:

      But you describe how he comes across to you (in your imagination) in somewhat ‘mock-heroic’ terms – and he appears to take your description at face value!

      And you have no response to that? Do you see what I’m getting at?

    • Upnita says:

      Fresch,
      Thanks for your comments.
      Sometimes transparent in my personal experience other times sharing what i feels right from other sources..
      Good night
      Upnita

  41. shantam prem says:

    Satyadeva wants to tell about Irony.
    Uncle from 1978 batch, have you not noticed, on this site, this Indian writes maximum irony in your mother tongue, and as I have observed, You, Lokesh and Arpana are the ones who cannot distinguish between an ironical statement and a statement.
    For tongue-in-cheek writing, mostly there is an exclamation mark in the end!

    • satyadeva says:

      Shantam:
      “This is a good picture of me, Fresch. Though in reality, my life in Europe is not that great as of some leader. I have just spent more than an hour to sweep and mop my kitchen. What to say about an inspiring leader, no Indian male will ever think of doing such mundane things.”

      Well, if you think this constitutes irony, Shantam, then I suggest you enrol asap in a local evening class in Literature or Creative Writing, and get a relevant education.

      Or consult Lokesh, Arpana or me, of course, because unlike you, we actually know what it is.

      That, or consult a decent dictionary.

      Btw, what’s this nonsense about an exclamation mark? Totally wrong again – unless you imagine you’re being ‘ironic’ again.

      PS: Have you found what widely recognised qualifications in HTAQ, HTAAQ and HTAPDQ are? Amazing if you haven’t, just astonishing in fact.

    • Arpana says:

      Eine Feder in der Kappe nicht machen Ihnen ein Kanarienvogel.

    • Lokesh says:

      Shri Mahachuddie, with you it is not so much a case of statements but rather states, as in what a state that poor guy is in.

  42. shantam prem says:

    Without getting distracted by Osho´s Utopian concepts, many of us would have become school headmasters or professors in universities.
    2 out of 3 sannyasins are born teachers type and third one?
    The massage experts who like to release blocks of teachers, students and business people through combination of Italian and Indian herbs!

    Sir, what is the meaning of HTAQ, HTAAQ and HTAPDQ? I have not studied computer science. Missed the big bus for big bucks because I was reading at that age, “Education and Significance of Life.” and other deviations of similar kind! Lol

  43. Fresch says:

    Suggesting dynamic was hilarious (most probably for someone who did it 3 days in some group), so “catalystinthedark” perhaps you guys in Pune, instead of spacing out in pyramid in the evenings did some AUM or dynamic together with your friends in Europe and elsewhere, so you did not have to spend all that money on courts. Or get some professional therapists to intermediate. But that did give me a good laugh, so thank you.

    Also, madhu is for sure peaceful soul indeed, Upnita.

    Satyadeva, I do not understand what do you mean by me making shantam “mock-heroic”? I actually have not had chance to give any feedback to him because all of you are so busy with it; I just have not come up with anything more or clever enough. He seems to be branding himself quite a character – with all your help. But it has been fun to read.

    Shantam, you could publish a “Shantam Nasruddin” book from your time in SN….

    • satyadeva says:

      Fresch, a ‘mock-heroic’ description is a form of satire, where a person is portayed in an exaggeratedly ‘noble’ manner, the point being to imply the opposite qualities or at least that the individual is considerably different from the description.

      IE far from a ‘hero’, more likely a ‘mediocrity’ – nearer perhaps to ‘zero’!

      Your earlier description of Shantam:
      “Shantam, how on earth do you manage your everyday honourable speeches here? It’s like as if you were standing on some podium all day long, your eyes focused upwards, light shining in behind? Perhaps some wind blowing your hair…” is pure mock-heroic, isn’t it?

      Especially when you continue, “…then going home for your laundry, but not doing it and instead collapsing in front of the TV, all the snacks around. But perhaps that is just your personal after-enlightenment laundry.” !

      So, you’re playing your particular part in cutting Shantam down to size, although you like to protest your innocence, citing others as the ‘culprits’.

      Rather like your accusing others of being naively idealistic re the donations issue, while you emerged as equally, or even more so!

      ‘Know thyse;lf’, as the ancient Greek philosopher used to advise….

  44. Fresch says:

    I can not believe, dear Satyadeva, that was were I was ironic:
    “Shantam, how on earth do you manage your everyday honourable speeches here? It’s like as if you were standing on some podium all day long, your eyes focused upwards, light shining in behind? Perhaps some wind blowing your hair….”

    What else can that be? Hello! ”Perhaps some wind blowing your hair”. if that is not irony, what is? Are people really British?

    • satyadeva says:

      But, my dear Fresch, that’s precisely my point! Mock-heroic is profoundly ironic – do you know what ‘to mock’ means? It means ‘to undermine by making fun of’ – so you are doing exactly what you criticise others for doing, aren’t you?

      And as I said, why not be “interested” in Shantam’s response, if you’ve taken the trouble to put him down in this way?

  45. Fresch says:

    Now, this is making shantam very happy, I suppose.

  46. shantam prem says:

    Satyadeva, I don´t think anybody of us will try to cut the other down to size. This is quite a political work.
    Emphasis is and should be to get others and oneself more refined.

    Fresch, Idea of book is in my mind for a long time. Once Satyadeva even offered his help to edit the stuff.
    On a deeper level, I am a Pisces from many angles. Postponement can go till the next life. Where is the hurry?

  47. Fresch says:

    Well, you all sweeties, this situation is ironic. The nature of writing in blogs is to be a bit provocative…nothing wrong with that, one needs to challenge others sometimes.

  48. Fresch says:

    But, Satyadeva, it’s true, I am naïve; I was just today thinking I must be female version of Forrest Gump.

    • Arpana says:

      You’re either fishing for compliments now,
      or being ironically self-deprecating.
      Maybe both.
      Hmmmm.

    • satyadeva says:

      But this, being “naïve”, is the case for many sannyasins, isn’t it? It might well be down to the ‘puer eternus’ (eternal child) syndrome, many having been first attracted to Osho and the movement as a substitute, ‘good’ parent figure and the ‘ideal’ family they never had. I’m sure both motives played their part for me, as well as a ‘certainty’ that he was the ‘real deal’ who spoke and embodied the Truth.

      • bodhi vartan says:

        >> But this, being “naïve”, is the case for many sannyasins, isn’t it?

        The word you are looking for is “innocent”.

        • satyadeva says:

          There’s a fine line between ‘innocence’ (desirable) and naïve (undesirable). And many sannyasins, including me, cross(ed) and
          recross(ed) this line, to their own and others’ detriment.

          • bodhi vartan says:

            What was done innocently might, with hindsight, appear naive but I refuse to accept that anyone is or was being naive on purpose.

            The biggest innocent in all this and that was Osho. We never got to the bottom of it, on how much he may have been “enabled” by the circumstances.

            • satyadeva says:

              But I don’t mean just the ‘big issues’, ie the Ranch, donations etc., Vartan, I’m talking in general terms, of how people were/are, in their ordinary lives.

              And Osho, of course, embodied both the profound ‘innocence – ‘inner sense’ – of the sage, together with an equally deep inner ‘knowing-ness’. After all, that’s what a Master is, isn’t it? But the latter wasn’t enough, apparently, to prevent the Ranch debacle.

              A master evidently isn’t necessarily equipped to deal effectively with the complex practical demands of the outside world – especially one, America, of which he had no experience and was therefore ‘alien’ to him. He was like a fish out of water over there.

              The best that can be said, I think, is that he was misled by those he trusted (arguably having misjudged their characters) and that he simply didn’t know how to handle America and the western world – apart from his brilliant handling of the Press, but unfortunately AFTER the ‘brown stuff’ had hit the ceiling. Perhaps he should have met these people from the very start, ‘milked’ the media, including tv….

              • Arpana says:

                What do you believe Osho set out to do that you believe he failed at?
                Is part of your sense of his having failed because you feel you didn’t get something that you wanted or expected to get by taking sannyas and didn’t?
                I’m asking you this because my notion of what constitutes success and failure has changed so radically since I met Osho, as in when I took sannyas I basically believed that every breath I took was a failure and a failing, and that for a long time after I took sannyas everything that happened was a failure, as in doing dynamic twice a day for months wasn’t good enough, and I didn’t do it perfectly, and it was the wrong meditation to do, so I failed.
                As I’ve mentioned if I lived alone I failed because I was avoiding the difficulties of living with people. If I lived with people I failed because I was avoiding the difficulty of living alone.
                That crap, thank god, has gone. So I no longer suffer from my miserable goal post moving perfectionionism, and equally I don’t judge him and his efforts in that old perfectionist way of mine.
                I see sannyas, our collective history, our lives, collective and individual, as either and or, rather than either or.

                • Arpana says:

                  Now I’ve written that, realise I don’t think about everything to do with sannyas as a success or failure. It just is what it is, and because its connected to Osho, zen koans, serendipitous and otherwise, imaginary and real, abound.

                • satyadeva says:

                  To me, that tends to indicate you’re possibly being hoodwinked by ‘the mysterious East’, Arpana!

                  Although I am somehow certain that his work has succeeded, in that it’s penetrated the human psyche, via comparatively vast numbers of people and is therefore bound to have its effect, in time, in generations to come.

                • satyadeva says:

                  Re-read my last paragraph, Arpana, I thought I’d made it clear enough…

                  “The best that can be said, I think, is that he was misled by those he trusted (arguably having misjudged their characters) and that he simply didn’t know how to handle America and the western world – apart from his brilliant handling of the Press, but unfortunately AFTER the ‘brown stuff’ had hit the ceiling. Perhaps he should have met these people from the very start, ‘milked’ the media, including tv….”

                • satyadeva says:

                  That comment applies to the Oregon adventure, of course, not to his entire work.

                  I don’t think we can ‘spin’ the Ranch business as anything other than a failed project, given that it was supposed to be an ‘example to the world’ in several ways, the way it was run giving Osho’s enemies priceless ammunition.

                  But that’s not to say there were no positives, far from it.

                • bodhi vartan says:

                  Arpana says:
                  >> What do you believe Osho set out to do that you believe he failed at?…………

                  Osho Manifesto
                  http://www.satrakshita.be/a_gathering_of_friends.htm

                • Arpana says:

                  Vart.

                  Thanks.

                  I have been looking to find that again for years..

                  I mislaid the mag the piece was printed in.

            • satyadeva says:

              But Vartan, if you’re “being naïve on purpose” then you can’t really be naïve, can you?!

              The point about naivete is not knowing any better, ie being in one or more ways unconscious.

              For sannyasins (and others) this often meant/means allowing excessive emotions to overrule judgment and/or common sense. And often, they/we/I simply weren’t ‘worldly’ enough

              • bodhi vartan says:

                >> But Vartan, if you’re “being naïve on purpose” then you can’t really be naïve, can you?!

                And that is why I was using the word innocence.

                >> For sannyasins (and others) this often meant/means allowing excessive emotions to overrule judgment and/or common sense. And often, they/we/I simply weren’t ‘worldly’ enough.

                And yes, following emotion instead of hard logic. Not necessarily excessive emotion, but just enough to stay human.

                I am sorry to say that most of “the wordly ones” I meet are mask-wearing robots, and I’d rather be amongst “emotionally challenging unworldlies”, than robots, any day.

                • satyadeva says:

                  Well, as I said, there’s a fine line between ‘innocent’ and ‘naive’ and what you term sannyasins’ ‘innocence’ – and sure, at its best it’s a desirable spiritual quality – I say is/was too often rather childish naivete, born of both worldly and emotional immaturity.

                  And Vartan, you’re taking it to extremes. I used the words ‘judgment’ and ‘common sense’, which can, but not necessarily by any means always, imply the use of “hard logic”. Since when have these been ‘spiritually suspect’? Does one have to be a totally unworldly fool to be a sannyasin? Is a certain stupidity some sort of essential qualification?!

                  As for your juxtaposition of “mask-wearing robots” and “emotionally challenging unworldlies”, that’s again going to extremes, exaggerating the instance of both and thus making a comparison that has little or no practical use or value..

                • satyadeva says:

                  Well, as I said, there’s a fine line between ‘innocent’ and ‘naive’ and what you term sannyasins’ ‘innocence’ – and sure, at its best it’s a desirable spiritual quality – I say is/was too often rather childish naivete, born of both worldly and emotional immaturity.

                  And Vartan, you’re taking it to extremes. I used the words ‘judgment’ and ‘common sense’, which can, but not necessarily by any means always, imply the use of “hard logic”. Since when have these been ‘spiritually suspect’? Does one have to be a totally unworldly fool to be a sannyasin? Is a certain stupidity some sort of essential qualification?!

                  As for your juxtaposition of “mask-wearing robots” and “emotionally challenging unworldlies”, that’s again going to extremes, exaggerating the instance of both and thus setting up a false choice that has little or no practical relevance or value.

                • bodhi vartan says:

                  I admit it, I do think in extremes and it’s ok to get pulled up on it.

      • Arpana says:

        Lot of truth in that.

        Osho works with us where we
        are at any given time.

  49. Fresch says:

    Arps, why are you so suspicious, Satyadeva told the truth before, I just ratify it. There is no money involved. How is your “after marathon life” now?

  50. Fresch says:

    Auts.

    (Auts is the word to use when you make the same mistake again and see it at the same time).

  51. Fresch says:

    I got the picture you had been in a humaniversity marathon. So, I was enquiring about the long-term effects.

    • Arpana says:

      I’ve not had anything to do with Humaniversity,
      but I have done a lot of meditating on my own, and other stuff.

      I’ve always got something on the go.
      Did Gibberish everyday for two years,
      the last two years at art school,
      which came about because of sannyas and Osho.

      Been keeping an Intensive Journal
      http://intensivejournal.org/index.php
      for the last five years,
      along with intemittant gibberish and mantra chanting.

      and of course staying afloat at Sannyas news, is an encounter group.

      • Lokesh says:

        Gibberish? Arps, if you want to master this technique you could learn much from His Holeyness Shri Shantam Maharantum. The master has been doing gibberish his entire life, which is probably as obvious to you as it is to most of the regulars. It might be infectious, going by some of Madhu’s comments, but nonetheless it provides enlightentainment from time to time and works wonders in terms of longevity. Maharatum is over 500 years old. So, gaggie bagoo doo doo, as they say.

  52. Fresch says:

    Arps, perhaps I got mixed up with some of your quotes…What a relief. I sometimes feel gibberish would be good for me too, but not too long.

    SN is not really encounter, but more interaction…. okay, most often with nutcases, of course.

    It’s quite something you can take time for art school, good for you.

  53. shantam prem says:

    Fresch, without being naïve you would not have come to Pune.
    The moment people drooped their naivety they became wise enough to chose Right kind of Guru for them.

    I was thinking from 1979 till 1990; which guru Satya Deva was following?

    I am sure, like many others he was reading all kind of news, rumours and gossips about Osho, in that case whether he has no temptation to visit Ashram again or was there someone else?

    In any case, SD, I am sincerely interested in your life story of that phase of time.

    • satyadeva says:

      I’m reluctant to answer you, Shantam, as you so often fail to respond to others’ points, including mine, which leads me to think that you might well not bother to read many posts, especially when you get an impression they might be critical.

      However, I will say that throughout this time I continued to live with and generally mix with ‘Osho people’ and do sannyas meditations, including a trip to Oregon for the annual festival in ’83. All of which was greatly facilitated by living opposite the London Centre, Kalptaru, ensuring a regular flow of visitors and general ‘good energy’ at home.

      And I did have a feeling to go to the Poona ashram in ’89, but unfortunately it was a difficult time and I couldn’t afford it. Still, I ‘formally’ acknowledged Osho’s passing away along with others on the day he left us.

      And yes, I spent much time in London with another master in the mid-80′s in London.

      Enough for today?!

    • Fresch says:

      One younger co-worker just said today that it’s impossible not to be transparent any more, as an individual. Younger people are so much inter connected, they know everything about everybody from so many sources. It’s not about googling someone or “horrible internet”, but much more, basically about interrelation. My old kind of old naïveté is not necessary any more. World becomes more normal and at the same time more magical.

      • bodhi vartan says:

        Everything that is being said about the internet (and all the other electronic social outlets) today, was also being said when the printing press was invented.

        Transparency is an illusion. The first thing a child learns is that he (she) can hide stuff and lie. And that will never change.

        As the saying goes… for as long as you think I am transparent… I will keep saying that I have nothing to hide.

        • Fresch says:

          You do that (hide), but younger people do not, they do not need to and they do not pay so much attention to it.

          And they move fast away from stuck priests (like there are no under 25 years olds in pune), but many of them doing all kinds of meditation.

          But how do you, varti, manage to stay so innocent? And conservative, at the same time?

          • bodhi vartan says:

            I had a great master.

            But on a serious note. Last year I met 3 people that just came back from Pune and 2 were under 20. I must say I had nothing to complain from what I saw or heard. If anything, all the complaints I’ve heard about Pune were from old sannyasins who feel that Pune has nothing for them. From the way I see it, the official Osho academy is stuck to offering only the kindergarten level.

            As for the young? Enlightened? We were all enlightened when we were young, and then we grew out of it. They will too.

            I love the young. It’s like watching puppies.

  54. Lokesh says:

    Welcome to GN…short for Gibberish News. Or, according to Madaame Fresch, Nutcase News.

  55. shantam prem says:

    The moment women become assertive, Patriarchal minds go berserk.

    Lokesh, from inner to outer, you are a Scottish Patriarchal mind.
    I don´t say it is bad, it is like this.

    • Lokesh says:

      Actually I feel more Spanish than Scottish, but I do still feel touched by the skirl of the pipes. Nationalism is the last refuge to which a scoundrel turns and a week each year in the Highlands is more than enough for me.Viva Espana!

  56. shantam prem says:

    Thanks, Satya Deva,
    I read most (very few I just scan through, when they have less contents) of the posts of fellow bloggers. Many times I don´t feel to respond when the questions are put forward with hostile energy.
    And also I was thinking, when we ask personal and direct questions, it is simply impolite to find scratches here and there rather than accepting another person´s version about his/her own life.
    At least I will try to avoid this.
    You can also tell about the other master; if it is someone else other than Shyam Singha.
    Some of my British friends I came to know in Pune that Shyam Singha was quite someone to attract seekers and give some direction.
    Right now, another picture came in my mind of one Afro-Indian sannyasin. I think his name was Mohan something. Years ago he was in the news for molesting someone in his radius.
    Maybe someone knows about that case?

    • Lokesh says:

      Scratches! Shri Shantam Mahachuddie has mastered understatement. What about craters?
      Yeah, that Mohan geezer was just another pervo in orange. He had patchy sanyassin background. That’s the thing aout Osho, he was not too fussy about who he allowed into his flock. Shyam Singh was quite an intense fellow, who received much credance due to his having contact with the old man back in the old days. He was also a good acupunturist. Treated me for a bad shoulder one time and it worked.

    • satyadeva says:

      “I read most (very few I just scan through, when they have less contents) of the posts of fellow bloggers. Many times I don´t feel to respond when the questions are put forward with hostile energy.”

      Shantam, what you here call “hostile energy” I see as questions for which you have no adequate answers. Time and again people have put you on the spot – but you remain silent. Not impressive.

      While on the topic, have you discovered what HTAQ (etc.) mean yet – you know, the qualifications I’m certain you must have attained at some institute of further education, or evening class?

      Let me tell you…

      HTAQ – How to avoid questions

      HTAAQ – How to avoid awkward questions (You were absolutely correct, Arpana – sorry!)

      HTATQ – How to avoid tricky questions

      HTAPDQ – How to avoid personally difficult questions

  57. Fresch says:

    This new experiment with “reply” is interesting. I am not really writing only to one-to-one, but trying to include people, also new people. So, I hope everybody just jumps in.

  58. Parmartha says:

    Lest it gets lost

    this link from an Osho talk in 1967, from Vartan is very interesting!!

    http://www.satrakshita.be/a_gathering_of_friends.htm

    • bodhi vartan says:

      Yes it is. It shows that Osho had ‘drifted’ from his original objective of ‘also listening’.

      Another interesting document is the one below which links up with Osho’s environmentalism as stated in the “Gathering…” talk.

      MYSTICISM AND ENVIRONMENTALISM: AN APPRAISAL OF OSHO’S ECOCENTRIC INTERPRETATION OF RELIGION (2009)
      http://tinyurl.com/ntp833y

      • bodhi vartan says:

        (Ma Anand Bhagawati’s intro to the shorter “Gathering…” talk on Osho World.)

        “Recently I was browsing through the immensely readable and interesting book by Swami Satya Vedant (aka Vasant Joshi), ‘OSHO The Luminous Rebel’ and happened to open a section in the back entitled, ‘A Gathering of Friends’. As soon as I began to read I was mesmerized. Here was a talk given by Osho on December 23, 1967 in Lonavla, India, well BEFORE Sannyas initiations had even come into being! In this talk Osho enigmatic ally lines out His work and future implications for mankind to a small gathering of friends.

        He states unambiguously that spreading His work and message is of uttermost importance for the future of mankind, yet this needs to be done without propagandizing, without becoming a cult or organization. He declares that although the present group is small at the time of the meeting, “in ten years’ time it could be bigger than you might possibly imagine.” And we all know how many friends had gathered by the end of 1977 in Pune and all over the globe, and how have many joined to date.

        Osho emphasizes in His later discourses that he does not want any organization or cult to be established after he leaves His body; He speaks of religiousness that is alive, a fragrance that cannot be named. And so many of us have nodded and agreed they wouldn’t let organizations happen as long as they were alive. Well, we have lived through our share of organization attempts even while Osho was still in His body and some of us have learned a lot. However, the mind does not give up easily trying to control events and people, and so attempts will continue to be made for organizations to be established and rules and regulations to be issued, all in the name of Osho’s work. It is up to all of us in this caravanserai to stay on our toes, to cherish and hold upright Osho’s absolute wishes on this subject.

        There were about 25 friends listening to Osho’s talk on that day. I do not know who these friends are but if any of you are still alive and read these lines, please come forward and share your experiences!”
        http://www.oshoworld.com/onlinemag/july10/htm/special_feature.asp

        • shantam prem says:

          what is Bhagwati´s conclusion or yours, Bodhi Vartan?
          How Osho would have interpretated his own words of December 1967 in December 1989?
          What conlusion we can draw in 2014?

          • Parmartha says:

            Good question Shantam.
            The talk in Lonavala is inspiring and insightful as to what happens in organisations, etc. But Osho definitely became more inplacably zen later, who said clearly he was not running any kind of democracy from about 1977 onwards.
            It is also interesting that this very early talk was somehow recorded. Would be interesting whether it was penned or recorded on some old tape recorder at the time, and who transcribed it.
            It gives pause for thought.

            • Fresch says:

              After Oregon, Osho said something like that he only knows himself, he does not know everything in the world, (like he said he did not know what Sheela was doing). That was a healthy statement.

              How i see it, he is an absolute authority in meditation, inner search etc. but in all other issues like society, politics or running the post offices or buying food at supermarket he might often be insightful, but also fallible. Also, post office people have all the way interfered with sannyasins’ inner search. And that’s where it has always gone wrong. These are two separate issues and needed to be kept so.

              • satyadeva says:

                “Also, post office people have all the way interfered with sannyasins’ inner search.”

                I’ve been waiting for someone to bring up this threat to our spiritual freedom for a very long time, decades in fact – thank God at last someone’s had the guts to bring this truly appaling state of affairs out into the open at last.

                Absolutely right, Fresch. Those queues for stamps and postal orders – my God, what a gross inconvenience for the full-time spiritual seeker. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve been late for early evening kundalini and lunchtime gibberish meditations, thanks to their bloody queuing systems.

                And then, as soon as they know you’re a sannyasin (or even a ‘fellow-traveller’) – and don’t worry, they’re trained to spot us, with latest figures showing 97.5% accuracy – they slow right down, taking at least 10 minutes to sell you a single postage stamp, 25 minutes for a postal order and as for recorded delivery, well, the last time I tried I gave up after an hour and a quarter of continual questioning about the difference between love and emotion (which made me pretty bloody emotional, as you may well imagine, setting me back several months of profound inner work).

                And I object to the way they photograph you on the way out of the post office.

                If it hadn’t been for this wilfully inflicted inconvenience, many of us would be infinitely more evolved than we are now, where all we can do is sit and complain.

                Bloody post office people – the sworn enemies of Sannyas and spiritual growth.

              • bodhi vartan says:

                Fresch says:
                “After Oregon, Osho said something like that he only knows himself, he does not know everything in the world, (like he said he did not know what Sheela was doing). That was a healthy statement.

                Don’t you think it would have been wiser of Osho, to have said that…before Oregon?”

                What needs to be cleared up, was (is??) Osho’s exact position in “the commune”, because as time goes on He is becoming irrelevant to the issues of today.

                • Arpana says:

                  If only you had been there running the show, Shanty pants.
                  Everything would have been so different now. None of the difficulty stuff would have happened.

                • bodhi vartan says:

                  “If only you had been there running the show, Shanty pants.”

                  Oh my god, a male Sheela! An image burned on my retina.

          • bodhi vartan says:

            As I said last week, “most prefer an earlier version of themselves”… to which I will now add… “and so did Osho”.

  59. axn shunyo says:

    more opium per opium !!!

  60. madhu dagmar frantzen says:

    friends

    yesterday i’ve been so busy walking my endless ongoing inner chatterings
    persuading them to dim down and get exhausted
    fortunately Spring showed up
    mysteriously and miraculously supported that
    one step at a time

    when i came back late
    looking into the caravanserai space
    what a joy -
    seeing the contact satyadeva and arpana having had around lunch break time and even after

    so both of you- satyadeva and arpana -
    thank you two for sharing that to us all – so to me too
    i can relate to these few postings
    but words didn’t come yet

    love

    madhu

  61. madhu dagmar frantzen says:

    dear bodhi vartan (18.3.2014 at 6.34 am)

    could you share how you come to this strictly roundabout conclusion ?

    madhu

  62. madhu dagmar frantzen says:

    dear bodhi vartan (18.3.2014 at 6.34 am)

    could you share how you come to this strictly roundabout conclusion ?

    i remember what fresch said –
    bodhi vartan
    she seems to be a trainee of her own accord (or takes in second life “caravanserai” an identity as such)
    why am i so insistent ?
    because “relevance” or an “irrelevance” of what we – I – may have no better words for than “teachings”
    are deeply rooted in the individual’s growth
    ever so often i have been stunned that i never listened the same although it seemingly was the case when i listened to Osho throughout the decades
    and sure
    it’s quite something else when i listen to interpreters
    or to politicians

    so maybe i give it another try – what is relevant for you – bodhi vartan ?
    and what did you you mean with “con-temporary issues” in that context of relevance ?

    madhu

  63. madhu dagmar frantzen says:

    PS

    sorry, bodhi vartan – about harassing you by insisting…
    i found a kind of your response to my question when strolling at other places in the caravanserai just now

    it’s quite a labyrinthine space here sometimes for me
    i go back and forward and sideward
    and sometimes just sit down

    and look at the birds

    and thank you for this

    madhu

  64. bodhi vartan says:

    madhu dagmar frantzen says:
    >> dear bodhi vartan (18.3.2014 at 6.34 am)
    >> could you share how you come to this strictly roundabout conclusion ?

    It was in reference to Shantam expecting Osho to comment on a previous statement of his. As it happens I agree with Shantam. Osho’s original democratic statement was wiser than the later autocratic one. And please don’t tell me you don’t prefer an earlier version of your self? It’s a universal constant.

    It’s a labyrinth for everyone in-here, darling. The moderators are too busy moderating than adjusting to the needs of 21st century forum science. Now we know what happened with the tower of Babel…just when everybody started to speak the same language….

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