Oshoites – the Superiority Complex

Are Oshoites the only meditators?  Shantam takes aim

I know I won´t be counted as a meditator by the elite of sannyasnews,  or sannyas in general. Meditator means, one who is concentrated with the inner exploration, which as a general community, sannyasins ostensibly always think they are.

Quite often I have observed (Yes..I am too much occupied with the outer), sannyasins speak about meditation – its positive effects, its regular practice,  etc., as if they are the first ones on Earth to discover it.

There is a common notion that humanity´s soul is shrinking because they don´t know what meditation is. With seating meditation at ground zero, one can from such a solid base create better individuals,  and again thereby, a better society.

Isn’t the impression often given that we, the 30, 40 thousand committed disciples of Osho, are holding the torch of meditation -  that if there is a little depth in life, it is because of us.
Somewhere it is easier to see the class distinction. We are the meditators, the others are just bees!

Let me ask the meditators, how many hours they usually spend on meditation?
I know, immediately someone´s inner memory bank will get clicked and answer will be, “What a useless question. Meditation is a non-stop affair. It is a 24 hours process. it is not the quantity of the time, but quality.”

Matter of fact, I know in India there are many people, who wake up when the stars are still in the sky,  and remain occupied with their practice till the sun has taken charge of the day.
They have nothing to do with Osho,  and moreover, whosoever is their master has not left a word behind.

In Christian or Buddhist monasteries too, the style of living integrates meditation in such a way as even to mention it looks out of the way.

My feeling is Sannyas as a collective mind has got stuck into its own superiority complex. Too much reading and listening to words have become a hindrance.  There is a great difficulty in that as a group we sannyasins still pretend and act as if we are the only ones – the chosen few.  Errant nonsense indeed.

 

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34 Responses to Oshoites – the Superiority Complex

  1. madhu dagmar frantzen says:

    Your post, Shantam Prem:

    “My feeling is Sannyas as a collective mind has got stuck into its own superiority complex. Too much reading and listening to words have become a hindrance. There is a great difficulty in that as a group we sannyasins still pretend and act as if we are the only ones – the chosen few. Errant nonsense indeed.”

    My response :
    My feeling is that your pretension to judge about a “collective sannyas mind” has gone stuck into your own superiority complex. Too much reading (?) and NOT listening to words have become a hindrance to become aware of that.

    There is great difficulty in that – that you – speaking up for a group you seem to know nothing about still pretend and act (?) as if you are the only one, the chosen one – errant nonsense indeed!

  2. Parmartha says:

    My experience, Shantam, has been that “meditators” as a group, and not particularly sannyasins, do sometimes have a sort of elitist self-worth.

    In fact, because the Osho meditations are based upon the Gurdjieffian view that something needs to be done, and great effort involved to achieve even a small shift from ego to egolessness, then it starts with a self-critical base which is much preferable to any sort of Buddhist or other meditation practice, and much less likely to lead to such overvaluing of themselves.

    The analysis of the superiority complex in most psychoanalytical schools is that it is actually a particular unconscious strategy of the mind to address hidden feelings of inferiority (You have sometimes gone on about some “gurus” here, like the now Mexican Rajneesh. I would say he may be in this category).

    The beauty of Osho’s approach is that he embraced psychotherapy, in particular “group” psychotherapy, to run alongside the meditations. Hence among many sannyasins, certainly Pune one sannyains, this was at least addressed and confronted in the groups. Though by no means, of course, in all.

    There were, for example, some who never went through this group process, or very little of it, which included some of the “administrators” and bosses in the ashram. (Amrito, for example, has said on his own admission to have only done 3 low level groups.)

    I would further add that my own observation, both within and outside of sannyas, is that a “devotional” psychology in particular does lead to an “I’m better than you” mentality, which is not related to meditation at all. This is because devotion is just not interested in seeing the other point of view, or even hearing the slightest criticism of the person or persons venerated. It leads to what Sir Karl Popper rightly described as “reinforced dogmatism”.

    My own view, for what it is worth, is that the current “differences” between the various sannyas elites represents simply a clash of devotional approaches, all of which are flawed by reinforced dogmatism, and a lack of what most call simply “an open mind”.

  3. Lokesh says:

    I saw it in Poona. I witnessed it in Lucknow and there is much evidence of it in Shantam’s article. Gurus almost always have an element of the lunatic fringe amogst their followers.

    Although there is talk about superiority complex I believe what lies at the heart of Shantam’s writing is that he comes across like someone who is suffering from an inferiority complex. I come to this conclusion because there appears an effort on his part to bring things ‘down’ to his level. The signal he is transmitting is a confused one and betrays the fact that his perception is very limited.

    Take the following as an example, “There is a great difficulty in that as a group we sannyasins still pretend and act as if we are the only ones – the chosen few.” In my community of sannyasin friends on Ibiza (more than 100) I could not say that one of them believes themselves to be part of some chosen few. It sounds ridiculous just to contemplate it.

    Shantam says, “My feeling is Sannyas as a collective mind has got stuck into its own superiority complex.” Note the “My feeling” opening to the sentence. This is old-school Sannyaspeak, relating to the credo that one’s feelings are more likely to be true than what one thinks. Somewhat of a contradiction, seeing as how Shantam’s conclusion is definitely a head-trip.

    In general, I see that Shantam is coming from a negative place in himself. He does not come across as a happy camper and has little good to say about anyone or anything. He is a prime example of how a non-meditative person views the world. Meaning that he simply does not understand that all he sees in the world is a reflection of himself. He will probably remain fixed in this position for the remainder of his life, living in ignorance of the fact that were he not so lazy and negative he could have changed the world by changing himself. Barring a massive shock this will not come about.

    My conclusion is that it is tragic that having been exposed to a marvellous man like Osho, whose whole effort was to waken people up, Shantam remains fast asleep to everything he taught. Imagination is behind it, because only imagination has the power to make one believe that you are a torch-bearer for awakening when all the time stumbling about in the darkness having a nightmare.
    I will end this comment by responding to this question asked by Shantam, “Let me ask the meditators, how many hours they usually spend on meditation?”

    The question betrays a certain misconception about the very nature of meditation. Meditation has nothing to do with time, because time is concerned with the horizontal and meditation has to do with the vertical and is therefore timeless.

    If you were to ask me today what meditation means to me I will say bringing the sacred into the small acts of life. Difficult when responding to such a head trip of an article and much easier when tending to cleaning out the weeds in a section of garden, which I am about to embark upon now. To the uninitiated, pulling weeds might appear boring, to the initiated it is a world of wonder. Look at the snail taking a whole day to move down a wall when all that was needed was the guts to jump.

  4. Fresch says:

    Isn’t that so, Lokesh, that “the world you see is your mirror” for you too?

    Love is blind and that might be one reason people feeling Osho is the best of the best. You just see the one you love. And why would you not feel that way if you wanted him to be your master in the first place?

    I had an interesting talk with some people yesterday; I talked first time in my life about politics. A fierce conversation. And I did sound aggressive to my own ears. Also, it felt a bit stupid. My mirror there was that why on earth I have had this “political period” in my (!) life. That includes sannyas politics too. It’s echoing like a useless ghost.

  5. Lokesh says:

    Fresch enquires, ‘Isn’t that so, Lokesh, that “the world you see is your mirror” for you too?’
    Yes, of course it is. But what is the point in asking that? I was speaking in context. I could say your comment is just a reflection of your self and then you could say the same back ad infinitum.

    I would be curious to hear your explanation of how you experience feeling Osho, seeing as how you consider it the best of the best, which in turn implies that you are drawing comparisons. Compared to what? How do you know that what you feel to be Osho is not simply an emotional projection? You don’t. How could you? Now, that is something I would enjoy to hear you explain.

    I have noticed in your past comments that you somehow experience Osho as a pressence in your life. Not long ago you were referring to him in the sense that he was messing around with you on that particular day, or something to that effect. Please explain what form this takes in your life. I am genuinely interested.

    Returning to the aticle this thread is based on. It is impossible to take it seriously. One reason being that the author of it recently wrote that we have to face the fact that sannyas and neo sannyas no longer exist. If he really believed that what is this article referring to? A non-existant community?

    One has to face the fact that in the non-existent neo sannyas community there are some complete imbeciles who just open their mouths and blurt out the first thing that comes into their head and then get all self-righteous about it. Just a reflection of myself? Yes. If I wander into a hall of mirrors at the local funfair.

  6. Fresch says:

    I already owned some of my reflections. And I am moving on. How about you, Mr L? I am interested to read about it.

    And after then, if you or SD had something for me to be more specific about what I wrote, it’s an adventure to be contemplating on it.

    • satyadeva says:

      Presumably then, Fresch, it wasn’t enough of an “adventure” to answer previous queries put to you?!

      • Fresch says:

        I can go for your questions, SD, if you like, but it needs to be an honest dialogue (from your part too), not some pseudo ‘you bombing me with some strange demands’. I need you to be a bit more clear.

        • satyadeva says:

          “strange demands”? You should be so lucky, Fresch!

          Perhaps if you just answer any questions at the time they’re asked you wouldn’t have to dredge up silly excuses from your apparently over-active imagination.

    • Lokesh says:

      Yes, Fresch, you certainly share one quality with Shantam, the avoidance of direct questions concerning your belief system. Why write on an interactive blog if you do not wish to respond to questions?

      Are you, once more like Shantam, just here to blurt out the first thing that comes into your head and then dodge the fact that you are doing that? Looks like it from here.

  7. shantam prem says:

    Russia and Osho Sannyas Scene has some similarity.
    If you are in Russia, people like Lokesh will go all the way to quote some G or O or D to label Pussy Riots as negative. Vartan and Arpana kind of people will go all the way to say they did not get proper attention from their father, therefore mirroring their complexes over the Putin.

    Those who have got some university degree will simply ignore the rut and will shift to England.

    To talk about democracy is futile. Better to do some Tantra groups. It is much better than earning some rubbles in incest videos.

    MOD: PRESUMABLY YOU MEAN roubles NOT rubbles, SHANTAM?

  8. Arpana says:

    Russia and Osho Sannyas Scene has some similarity.

    Shanty pants kind of people will nag people like his mother nagged his father

    Those who have got some university degree will simply ignore the rut and will shift to England.

    To talk about democracy is futile. Better to do some Tantra groups. It is much better than earning some rubbles in incest videos.

  9. shantam prem says:

    Society where all the answers are available in the holy texts, one needs someone to raise the questions too.

    Look at all the Osho media around, how many are raising the questions?
    In the above piece, one of the key question is, “Is there some kind of collective Sannyas mind or is it degrading even to think there is some kind of collective mind?”

    It is quite a soothing feeling to feel like having the permanent residence permit of No-mind land.

    If there is a collective mind, what are the common traits?
    There are many wonderful traits and qualities, which are unique. On a broader level, they could have affected and infected the world at large. Unfortunately, all the new qualities cultivated through Osho´s personal energy, groups and collective meditations have been eclipsed by one basic deficiency: the capacity to take the blame, accept the mistakes and come out from denial.

    Other day I was dusting Liz Greene´s book, ” The Shadow of the Dark”, purchased two years ago and was surprised, many traits describing narcissism fit quite well with many or majority of us.

    I think by confronting and encountering such things, as fellow travellers we can create a healthy Sannyas. Maybe we need to take some tips from the Double Mastectomy of Angelina Jolie.

    • satyadeva says:

      “Unfortunately, all the new qualities cultivated through Osho´s personal energy, groups and collective meditations have been eclipsed by one basic deficiency: the capacity to take the blame, accept the mistakes and come out from denial.”

      Are you sure, Shantam, that for you this “one basic deficiency” is that most people simply disagree with you because it’s the product of an obviously limited, spiritually immature perspective, all the more so as it’s so dogmatically clung to and perpetually perpetrated here at SN?

    • Lokesh says:

      One sure sign that you are speaking to a narcisstic personality is that you feel you are communicating with someone via a two-way radio phone, but what you transmit is permanently jammed.

  10. Kavita says:

    When I came to Poona, I was not initially interested in meditation at all & I guess , I enjoyed the milieu of meditating more than meditation itself .

    Then there came a time in life which I got over about 5/7 years ago) when ‘MEDITATION ‘ & being a ‘MEDITATOR’ was all that one ever desired & that I attribute to the intimate company I happened to share in my encounters during my early sannyas days .

    Now I am grateful that I had a chance to experience that adventure & it has, in a way, made me quite self-reliant, if I may say so & somehow it has helped me realise how important it was to go through this & also to realise that meditation is not the same as meditation technique.

    Thankfully, now I don’t have that ‘MEDITATION ‘ & being a ‘MEDITATOR’ bug anymore.

  11. madhu dagmar frantzen says:

    I am called from inside, Shantam Prem, to clarify a bit my yesterday’s response to your post.

    Loaded with a lot of frustration I went through these last months since I joined the virtual Sannyas News caravanserai and especially when I did let your postings IN.

    Although I more or less know that this frustration (also irritation) is mine and might have not an iota to do with realities you are living in and posting “out” from there

    I would say that you have good friends here, Shantam Prem
    felt that when I saw Parmartha’s post (after mine, yesterday)
    and even see that in the engaged comments of Lokesh

    For me, the last couple of threads brought me to spiralling memories of past events more deep than others.
    I found my very dusty 5 Nicholls books again, which I bought in 1981 and carried them throughout turbulent decades without even opening them again.
    What happened was a ride in past experiences with people and fellow travellers I met BEFORE India and before joining the sannyas sangha.
    These days I am confronted again with the reasons why I didn’t /couldn’t merge with their life school classes or sangha, or whatsoever you want to name it.

    Not only you, Lokesh, remind me when I am reading your posts quite often
    and then and there when I feel closing up when a “hammer is used” on the rock someone sees and I am not seeing. (MOD: COULD YOU CLARIFY WHAT YOU MEAN HERE, PLEASE, MADHU?)

    My own experience still is (also in so-called bodywork) that the lightest approaches work out the best and the deepest
    though what has been added for the time being is
    that some apparent tenderness can be as bullying or more
    than a scream of anger.

    What also is spiralling again – Arpana – is the conceptualised ways of describing personality/spiritual issues.
    My having been first fascinated, like I have been fascinated by astrophysics and quantum physics or astrology related to personal as well as suprapersonal or spiritual quests – and then time after time leaving me in terms of occupation. (MOD: WHAT DOES leaving me in terms of occupation MEAN, PLEASE?)

    Meeting Osho and also a sangha around this essence and being
    still means a lot for me
    although forms and ways seem to be so different.
    I feel most at home with the (not only) metaphor when the Sufi ritual of whirling has come into place.
    With saying
    hello to each other in dignity and great beauty
    to whirl
    everybody a pinnacle of energy yet alone and yet together
    then the finishing part
    in great beauty
    also by just being present as sitting silently by the side
    as a watcher on no hill
    is miraculous.

    What to do with all these gifts?
    To overcome the doing
    a lifelong enterprise, isn’t it?

    Have a beautiful, happy Easter-evening, friends – all of you

    Madhu

  12. madhu dagmar frantzen says:

    Dear Arpana,

    I’ve been starting to write the above post after having read R.M. RILKE this afternoon.
    Looked for a good English translation of his poetry about the “monastic life” and the “book of hours”…didn’t find a good translation.
    He is one of my most favorite poets in German language.

    And growing circles –
    that’s how I felt in the last days when I read the issues of threads here.

    There he (the poet) writes:
    “i live my life in growing circles…” (that’ s may bad translation)
    It’s a very beautiful long poem.

    For me, in some life periods, the understanding of life has been like in a matrix, so to say, and constantly being an investigation into predefined energy patterns
    didn’t make it more simple and rooted in acceptance
    good for me as well as for others whom I met.
    ….
    The work of BYRON KATIE though, that’s another chapter of this
    to investigate projections…but in a very open-minded way
    spiralling, I said,
    because so much remembrance has been touched, Arpana,
    to feel entangled into memories is sometimes very useful.

    I hope I could answer your question a little bit
    and just for now

    Like to rest

    Madhu

  13. madhu dagmar frantzen says:

    PS: for Arpana (and all)

    and…
    I didn’t meet anybody like Osho
    who embodied so to the max

    LOVE TO LIFE
    in its full paradoxes

    And the sharing of that
    is indeed
    a diamond’s value, very much de-material way and not to be described in words.
    May I be called a “lunatic”…I don t bother.

  14. Anand Newman says:

    “Oshoites – the Superiority Complex” – I wish the title could have been better than this. Why only Oshoites? this kind of superiority complex is in every spiritual group. That hinders them from mixing and mingling with their fellow travellers from other groups.

    Now within Oshoites we have different groups that don’t merge with others. When there is an Osho event happening in their town / city, some “Oshoites” don’t participate because they think the facilitator is not representing true Osho, or he/she is old-fashioned, so on and so forth.

  15. madhu dagmar frantzen says:

    With a “hammer”, I meant the use of verbal attacks with insults and contempt and/or emotional abuse, indulging in fantasies of violent sexual distortions.

    With “left me in terms of occupation”, I meant that the way of being pre-occupied with investigating my motives and character simply dropped from me when I found out that I kind of misused concepts for keeping the illusion of concepts for another illusion: that of control.
    I loved it when once Osho used the metaphor of that insect with a thousand little feet:
    pondering about which feet to start the journey…and then- no surprise – couldn’t move any more!
    I sometimes felt like that; and I so much loved the laughter of that little story he told us.

    Present state is:
    I haven’t overcome yet both of the points you have been asking about:
    neither that I still attract violence in one or another way,
    nor the fear – sometimes deep – and then the often cunning of the mind to invent some control strategies, trying to stay in conceptual thinking as if having a shield of protection to avoid feeling the pain (of the issue).

    Well,
    life itself is the teacher
    and same kind of lessons are presented over and over again
    seemingly little bit different (spiralling)

    And life this morning is good to me
    this moment – everything -
    hello to out-there and in-site too

    Love

    Madhu

  16. Ashok says:

    I really feel that I must complain about the base and lurid depths it appears the SN editorial team has stooped to! I cannot believe I am the only one to have noticed? It is beyond any doubt that we the viewers are being abused by the serving up of puerile and gratuitous innuendoe and filth rite under our very noses! It’s scandalous and something needs to be done about it!

    To what do I refer specifically? Well for the most innocent amongst you, please look no further than the sub-title: ‘Are Oshoites the only meditators? Shantam takes aim.’ Who in heaven’s name refers to Osho sannyasins as Oshoites? The latter is quite clearly a play on the word ‘shoite’ meaning ‘shit’, whereas the ‘O’ is an Irish prefix used in surnames. As for the bit about ‘Shantam takes aim’, please draw your own conclusions, I have drawn mine.

    Keep up the good work boys…I am genuinely impressed!

  17. shantam prem says:

    Are human beings and specially educated human beings who came to Osho can be treated as drops in the pond or leaves on the trees?
    In my opinion, leaves on the trees is more fitting and realistic metaphor.

    Leaves don´t merge with each other, they keep their identity and presence yet without them tree won´t be a tree.

    I feel Ashram around Osho was like Jungle in that sense. Different variety of trees co-existing and growing. so idea of complete merger is a fallacy. People sitting in mosques can be like drops in the pond, but not Europeans-based religious movements. Nature of different seeds is like this.

    Trees around Buddha Hall are the eye witness.
    During the end months, Osho has dedicated one of His books to the bunch of bamboos.

    PS: Life is different now. Trees are replaced by plants and flower pots. And what amazes me the most is that all can see this change of reality, yet dare not speak, including those who are the public faces of Osho.

    Only reason can be, Indian names have made Europeans mellow. God´s natural justice happens on the right time in the right season in this eternity.

    Indian collective mind only cares about oneself and the family around. Social and public ethics don´t exist, and they look as happy and satisfied as sannyasins are trying to be!

  18. Kavita says:

    And you Lokesh , can be Prem Chopra !

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