A year or so back Devageet finally got his book published about his time with Osho. He was Osho’s personal dentist. The book is called “Osho: the First Buddha in the Dental Chair”. According to Devageet, Osho specifically asked him to write such a book and one has no reason to disbelieve him.
Sadly unlike other members of the then “Inner Circle”, such as Maneesha, Amrito, Anando, etc, Osho International Foundation choose not to publish his book. The mystery of why has never really been declaimed. Devageet’s book is a good read and it is more than anecdotal. In fact it is far more interesting than other books by members of the Inner Circle, which Devageet left over ten years ago as far as my recall goes. I had one or two replies to emails from Devageet in the past years after he published short articles in Viha Connection magazine, mentioning his book, or it may have been “books”. He said he was looking for a publisher….. and had been for sometime.
Anyway though the text had largely been prepared many years ago, it did not reach the light of day until 2013 – published independently by a wealthy sannyasin through “Sammasati Publishing”. And printed amusingly enough in China!
I can only surmise that the “content” of the book did not meet with the “public relations” mind set of those responsible for the publications of Osho International Foundation. In refusing to back a book that Osho himself had ordered they showed little “understanding” of what he was about. In fact they denied “ordinary” sannyasins, for over ten years access to such a document, as they knew that such a subject, in fact just as their own books, would find difficulty to reach publication unless done by OIF.
I will not review the book here, but would recommend it. You will find it available through Viha Connection.
Parmartha
Devageet is not like Ouspensky in one sense, former is still alive and is based in the country where Sannyas News is headquartered.
My question is if fellow disciples post their comments about his book, will the writer disciple will read them. I am not even presuming he will reply.
If answer is No, it is utter wastage of time, energy and expressions.
Does It sound egoist?
Well, let it be.
Crushed tomatoes are more useful than crushed ego. With former, one can make Ketchup!
As indicated elsewhere, Shantam, Osho’s whole enterprise and experiment with laughing gas was widely disapproved of by so-called leading disciples at the time, and seemingly later, when they blocked the publication of Devageet’s book.
For example, people from both sides of the then sannyas political spectrum, and as far apart as Sheela and Vivek, strongly disapproved of it and also hated the idea of anything being published about it.
Subtle forms of puritanism existed and exist even in many of us, maybe in all human beings during parts of their biography – until they grow beyond it.
It was only after Osho’s insistence that the three nitrous books were ever published – and then only after Osho had reminded those responsible that he wanted that – even though three years had elapsed, when the “Notes” for the books were lying around in Devageet’s room and he alone seems to have had any energy for it.
Are you sure, Shantam, that you are not looking at your foreclosure to discussion as a piece of your own puritanism – which your Master wanted to disturb very much by drawing attention to his experiments with a psychedelic?
It’s a bit of a convoluted idea that Osho blasted gas and popped pills to “help people grow beyond puritanism”.
He was already getting sleepers from a doctor friend, off-label, supposedly `for his headaches`, at the age of 28 (“they balanced out the two sides of his brain” in his own words (`Autobiography of a Spiritually Incorrect Mystic`)
Phenobarbs are not psychedelics, far from it. They’re awful stuff. and who`s mind/ego was he helping to go beyond with that escapade?
He just found drugs helpful.
IE he liked the effect.
There may have been some politics in Vivek’s attempt to stop the books, but consider also that having to sit back and watch him gargantuanly gassing himself into the void wouldn’t have sat so well with her in her well-established role as his
“caretaker”.
She was probably more bothered by seeing the person she was supposedly looking after daily getting wrecked on what is, let’s face it, a pretty duff drug to be taking with any frequency.
Having spent a decent part of my early life surfing various chemical seas, I would never take a puritanical attitude.
Do what thou wilt, I say.
The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom etc.
Although the “puritan” in me might add: watch out for the potholes, sink-holes, the feds, other drivers and don’t put red diesel into your super-car…
Having said that, I wouldn`t wish it on my worst enemy to be still using and whacked-out when existence flashes up “game over”.
I hope he made it through the Bardo ok, and gave the black magicians who were stalking him the slip….
Frank, really enjoyable post, which I can relate to 100%. Some great lines: “A pretty duff drug to be taking with any frequency.” My sentiments entirely and hardly surprising that Osho suffered headaches, because ultimately that is all the Jumpin’ Jack Flash leaves one with.
“Don’t put red diesel into your super-car”. Yes, that is a mother that can make one’s feet feel like their feet are imbedded in the asphalt. Once owned a classic Mercedes Coupe that I’d always wanted. Day after I bought it I realised it was all an empty dream. Lent it to my son, saying don’t put diesel in it. He drove downtown at midnight, cruising in the summer heat. My phone rings and he says, “Guess what I just did?” Precious things lead one astray, I am sure I heard a wise man say.
Sold that car after performing an excessively dangerous driving manouvre at 4 in the morning, with three sannyasin passengers on board screaming in glee. Afterwards, one of them said, “Lokesh, you are an amazing driver”. The truth was that I had nearly killed the four of us by overtaking a line of cars at 250kph with a bus coming from the other direcion round a blind bend. Inside I felt like a dangerous and irresponsible idiot, although I did not let on.
By all accounts, Osho was a dangerous driver also. I put that one behind me and mended my ways. Live and learn.
Frankly, these days, I have mostly stopped buying any /anyone’s books, If / when someone mentions a book, I could ‘MAYBE’ read a book, I happen to come across / really feel like putting my time into it only if it’s available free of cost, so, as of now, today I managed to only read the acknowledgements…& the first chapter of Devageet’s book .
I remember seeing Devageet & exchanging friendly glances, some years back in the commune and he still had an aura of an IC member ( to me, the so-called owners of the so-called property ), even after resigning from the IC!
(In case Devageet, you happen to read this, I would like to give my regards & share a long, tight, gentle hug; and to Kamala like we always share, she knows me as Dilruba from Omar Khayyam, Audio Dept).
Parmartha and Frank, two sides of British mind.
I think through his wits frank has stepped much closer to truth in comparison to Parmartha´s devotion-laced defence.
Time has shown, existence has reduced a master into an author.
Hey, Devageet, you qualified dentist, pioneer of belief-based therapy; can you tell what happened to the Buddhafield, where clock was moving seven times faster than the day-to-day world?
Can you also tell, as an Inner Circle member who pushed the Buddhafield into the grave, seven times faster than eyes could blink?
As a public figure, you owe the answers to the community, as a dissident even more so.
Yes, Parmartha:
The worthless white Brit
whose commitment to free speech provides you with
a platform to spout your hypocritical drivel.
Osho ‘reduced’ to just being an “author”, not a master?
If you think so, Shantam, then that indicates a major flaw in your version of Sannyas, because if you find you’re unable to, shall we say, ‘adequately function spiritually’ without a ‘buddhafield’ around you then you might well not have properly understood what you claim you’re supposed to be into.
What DID you get up to all those years in the ashram (apart from the sex, of course)?
Shantam, it’s been suggested to you before – probably more than once – but if you’re so utterly discontented at the lack of ‘communal Osho facilities’ around then why don’t you take the initiative and create something?
Eg, meditation sessions, videos etc. Small beginnings can develop into something worthwhile, as long as you’re patient and don’t expect it all to happen instantly. If the time, place and energy is right, people will come.
You’ve been moaning how bad it all is for years now. Haven’t you got yet that it’ll most likely NEVER change to how you’d prefer it to be? Has all this tapping on your keyboard served to change a single thing in your ‘real’ world? Will it ever?
Come on, see the facts. If not you, then who?
If not now, then when?
SD, I did suggest Shantam to start organizing meditations on small scale a long, long time ago. So you see, I am totally independent in this.
You seem totally unaware of the nature of spiritual ‘service’, Shantam.
How many people came to Osho who otherwise might not have done, had Devageet not worked hard at the transcription of the ‘Notes’? In particular, I have heard ‘Glimpses of a Golden Childhood’ widely praised by many different sorts of people, a book that turned them on to Osho.
Also. the time that you seem most enamoured of, in the life of the commune, as I understand it (please correct me if I am wrong) was from around 1990 to 1996. Devageet was still part of the Inner Circle at that time and you were happy as a participating sannyasin. No heavy criticisms about changing the regime then. Devageet, despite struggling so it seems, and whose books the organisation would not publish, carried on with no ill will to serve continuously.
Bit of biographical note:
September 1987, I was trying to adjust with my life as junior advocate. One day while sitting in the court premises and feeling me misfit among the other advocates and sad that Bhagwan Shree has come back to India. He is calling His people and I am wasting my life sitting here. I simply don´t have 1200 Rupees for second class train ticket and 10 days stay there. Because junior advocates in India don´t get paid during learning period, I was relying on 10 rupees per day pocket money and maybe get some independent case because of some tout; idea was to be in Pune during Osho´s birthday celebration.
I can still feel the shadow and sun of that particular day. My senior was in the session courts. I was alone in the chambers. With the ballpoint pen, I wrote on my left palm,
“I
love
Bhagwan Shree”.
From my back, comes Mr. Virk (my senior) and asks what I have written on my hand.
I forward the hand. He reads it and says spontaneously, ” You are not going to be here for long.”
In December 1987, I took the holidays for 2 weeks and grace of life, it was just easy to slip into the Ashram life. As if life has planned like this. Few of my friends were already working in the Mariam Kitchen and took me in their shelter. Very next day of arriving in Pune, I had worker sticker. Beauty of that phase was, when you were working in Kitchen you were entitled to eat during that shift and if your friends were working in another shift it was like home kitchen. If within one week you fitted into the work, food pass for all the meals was given.
No need to say, I simply did not go back after two weeks. Phoned to my family and the senior to convey my regards to the judge in whose court I had won my only and the last case and that too with such a sixer. Judge has invited me into his chamber and gave the compliment, “I was waiting for years to have someone like you to plead the case.”
So from 1987 till 2006, my life was moving around the ashram. Many times I went to my parents, many times to Germany and Switzerland, but minimum six months per year, I was in Pune.
So from face, I knew Devageet from the very first days. For a newcomer like me, all the people around Osho were special. In a typical Indian fashion, I touched their feet in my heart, whenever they passed by.
It was really like “home is where the heart is and my heart is with you.”
All of my friends of initial days left the ashram, but I stayed. Those friends are part of my being and each one has the life story of a hero.
I think it was a year before or after Millennium festival, when I have spoken with Devageet and that too in an interview of a fiasco event, ‘Buddha to Buddha’. I don´t know who was the idiot that got the idea, where few people on behalf of management wanted to start screening the long-time visitors, and their main question, “how long you are going to stay more and how you manage your finances?”
I must say, that was the beginning of an end.
Shantam, an enquiry re ‘Buddha to Buddha’:
Would you like to describe these “sessions”, and whether you paid for them, and what you consider to be the origin of them? And what years were they prevalent etc? And who played the role of the Buddhas from the Resort side?
“I have heard ‘Glimpses of a Golden Childhood’ widely praised by many different sorts of people, a book that turned them on to Osho.”
‘Glimpses of a Golden Childhood’, my all time favourite:
The video cannot be shown at the moment. Please try again later.
Discovered a really good friend of mine, a Swami, was dealing drugs in the early eighties, which put me in a quandary, and I reacted in an extremely puritanical manner (congratulations on introducing that concept to our debates, Swami Parmartha) in the first instance, but eventually acknowledged that I had used dope and, if not for dealers, would have been unable to get hold of the very enjoyable stuff.
So it seems a bit hypocritical for anyone who’s used drugs to get on their high horse about Osho doing nitrous oxide. (He did once note he experienced physical pain. He said he couldn’t be hurt emotionally, or words to that effect, but he experienced physical discomfort).
Frank says:
“It’s a bit of a convoluted idea that Osho blasted gas and popped pills to help people grow beyond puritanism.”
You have to ask a secondary question, Frank, that you fail to answer. Why make this a “public” matter (insisting on the publication of three “books” dictated on the gas)?
At the time it was completely unknown to the world and to even those communards who were in the Buddhafield – such as myself.
That Osho blasted gas and popped pills makes him more interesting to me; and I have never heard him condemn anyone for taking drugs. No hypocrite he.
Parmartha,
“Why make it public?”
Knowing that it would eventually get out anyway due to the scale of the necessary “food-chain” of getting the stuff, he thought he would get and keep control by declaring it himself and turning it into a story in his own way, and play the old device number too.
Smart move, imo.
Readers may not have noticed the link between the last two threads.
It was, of course,in “Tertium Organon” that the young Osho would have read Ouspensky’s eulogisation of nitrous oxide, the “anaesthetic revelation”, as Ouspensky called it.
Osho found ‘Tertium Organon’ such a mindblowing book that I speculate that when he realised that its author was a gasman, Osho must have thought, “I need to get my hands on some of this stuff.”
Ouspensky also lengthily quotes William James on nitrous in ‘Tertium Organon’.
(Remembering that Osho declared that his name was derived from William james’s ‘oceanic`, an experience that WJ experienced under various drugs, notably nitrous).
Connections connections…It feels like I`m tripping…
Osho agreed with both of them that nitrous gives you mystical states.
So he didn’t mind admitting it, although not in public lectures.
He also dedicated the nitrous books to Alan Watts – another famous psychonaut.
That was odd, because if you check, surprisingly you will find that Osho had little good to say about Watts in public lectures, but back in his tripping room it was a case of “in nitro veritas”.
So there you have it.
Osho’s favourite masters/teachers/authors from the 20th century…
William James -a variety of anaesthetics, psilocybin
Freddie Nietzsche – chloral hydrate, opium and an “unspecified Javanese brew supplied by a mysterious stranger from Amsterdam”.
Alan Watts – acid, dope, endless booze, baccy
Gurdjieff – insane amounts of booze, baccy, opium, caffeine
Ouspensky – nitrous, ether,lots of booze.
And Osho himself – pills and gas.
What is it all about?
That’s a question.
I suspect that this whole consciousness malarkey was dreamt up by a bunch of trippers, stoners, dopers, topers and abandon-all-hopers….
Freddie thought so…
“Under the influence of the narcotic potion hymned by all primitive men and peoples, dionysiac urges are awakened, and as they grow more intense, subjectivity becomes a complete forgetting of the self…”
William James, high on gas, had a revelation into the very nature of reality.
He wrote it down…
“Good and evil reconciled in a laugh.”
There’s your answer.
Yes, Frank, yes. And Osho was the biggest clown of them all. One has to simply love him. Cheers.
Frank says, “I suspect that this whole consciousness malarkey was dreamt up by a bunch of trippers, stoners, dopers, topers and abandon-all-hopers.”
Yes, that might well be the case, although not entirely. For sure, altered states are behind a lot of spiritual trips. I am glad I have the psychedelic experience under my belt, but it is only rarely that I go there these days. Today, I see it that sobriety is perhaps the greatest intoxicant. And thus the pendulum swings.
Frank says:
“Connections connections…It feels like I`m tripping.”
That is the wonder of Osho, Frank, that each sees himself in Him. What I think Parmartha is saying is that that it is possible that Osho concocted his own excessive drug-taking to wind up the goody-goodies.
A poke at Puritanism, and boy, did we need that!
Vartan,
Yes, I do see that.
The theory being that it was
like Gurdjieff “pretending to be drunk” as he (maybe metaphorically as well as in reality) threw Ouspensky’s baggage out of the window.
I don’t buy it.
Has it worked?
I`ve said it before,
If he had shaved his head, beard, kept the walrus `tache, swapped his robes for leathers, traded his Rolls for a Harley, had “enlightenment sucks” tattooed on his chest in Sanskrit and got down on the disco floor and punched a few Nazi salutes to Gloria Gaynor’s ‘I am what I am’ and AC/DC’s ‘Highway to Hell’, then it might have worked.
Speshully when taking into account how mind boglinly evolved you are.
…. highway to hell…
dhoo dhjoo
…highway to hell…..
Zen And The Art of Rolls Maintenance.
“You can be argumentative; you can discuss deeply. There is nothing wrong in it. The problem arises when you cannot do anything else but argue. Then you are missing something. For argumentation you are missing something which is greater, something which always comes to a non-argumentative mind.
Be rational, but always be capable of putting it away, because there are things in life which cannot be approached through reason. Don’t be limited by your approach – whatsoever it is.
The same is also true about religion; don’t be limited by that. Don’t be unable to live in the world because you are religious and so you have to live in a monastery; you have to escape to the Himalayas, you have to completely die to the world. You cannot relate to a woman because you are religious. You cannot have children because you are religious. You cannot have a beautiful house because you are religious. That too is nonsense. Again you are getting fixed in a certain role and you are missing your flexibility, that fluidity which gives you the enrichment of many dimensions together.
Consciousness is multi-dimensional. Whenever you become fixed in one dimension you are impoverished; your richness is lost.
I would like you to also become a musician. I would like you also to become a meditater. I would like you also to be a scientist. Bigger and greater possibilities are there and you should be able to flow from one to another easily, very easily, with no hangover about anything.
When you go to the lab you become a scientist. You forget all about God. Matter becomes your god. When you come home and you meditate, God becomes your matter. When you love a woman, love becomes your meditation. When you meditate, meditation becomes your love. If one can be available this way, it is the best way to be. So think about it!”
Osho.
Beloved of My Heart.
CHAPTER 10.
DON’T BE LIMITED BY RELIGION
It worked. Loads of presumably puritan-minded people left sannyas between September ’85 and 1987 – in droves. This was not only when it became clear that Sheela had got up to a lot of rubbish in Osho’s name, but how Osho himself had spent his time on the Ranch, when many ordinary commune sannyasins were working their balls off.
It offended their work ethic!! Tantra always offends people’s work ethics.
Osho wanted to get rid of puritans at that time, as much as earlier in the late sixties he had wanted to get rid of the Jains by talking freely about sex. That also worked very well!
Frank is showing a lack of considered judgement here.
Thanks, Frank. Not a take I share but well argued.
Just for the record there is one error: you say, at some point Osho must have said to himself
“I need to get my hands on some of this stuff.”
It was actually accidental how this turned up in Osho’s life and there is no reason to disbelieve Devageet on this, as he has obviously been truthful, against, so it seems, his best interests elsewhere.
He was the one who introduced Osho to nitrous oxide and this was in the first place to help him whilst receiving genuine dental treatment, as he suffered a lot of pain and some breathing difficulties, both of which Devageet and Amrito felt would be addressed by receiving treatment whilst on the N20. It apparently also alleviates asthma, which Osho was said to have also suffered.
When I was a boy, a long time ago now, English dentists used to use nitrous oxide fairly widely. I myself had it a few times in the dental chair, back in 1954! So it was by way of being a “regular” treatment in some cases when Devageet was training and practising as a family dentist, before his sannyas “career”.
I came across Devageet in the Resort since the seventies and when I met with him a few years back he mentioned the situation of his unpublished book(s). He gave me a copy to read. I liked both books he had written and thought they would have historical value sometime. Nearly against my will I promised to help him to get these books published for future generations. My idea was to help him develop the books to a point where we could find an established publisher somewhere. This was an extremely difficult situation I found out soon, with the book publishing industry in crisis. Now based on Devageet’s advanced age I surrendered to the fact that I had to do this myself, started ‘Sammasati Publishing’ and brought the book to life through a Chinese Printer (good pricing, solid execution).
I did not know what amount of work I was getting myself and our team here into. We are still looking for financial supporters to get his second book and Anando’s book on the market. It might happen or not. We will talk about this with Devageet in August. Anando’s book has her original notes from the Dental Sessions, which are massive and not really so interesting, so we found it difficult to create a book version from those.
Feedback for Devageet’s book has been very positive and although the project is commercially not viable we are happy for the responses we’ve received from Osho sannyasins and not-sannyasins. Devageet has opened a window to his soul and allowed us to enter the heart of an authentic disciple. As independent publishers we are not interested in any political plays, but like to publish some records of voices, otherwise lost. In May we will slash dramatically all sale prices of this book, so everyone will be able to afford to buy it.
Swami Anand Bhikkhu/ Sammasati Publishing & New Earth Records, Boulder, Colorado, USA
Bhikkhu,
However it happened, we at Sannyas News are extremely grateful you managed to somehow publish Devageet’s first book. It certainly contains, as you say, voices not heard before, and is definitely historically valuable.
You have done a great “service” to all sannyasins, and the value of that can never be underrated. The thanks of posterity may not seem so important for you now, though I predict they will very much be there. We do encourage everyone in our SN network to buy the book and/or donate to the costs of publishing the book.
Bhikkhu, I have this book.
I understand you do not want to be involved in the politics, but how correct, sincere or honest are these people’s books and memories, who were close to Osho and lived that behind-the-door life? Are they not then taken out of context? What if I wrote my book only telling the highlights, not the hardships, sorrows or any human details? Isn’t that kind of building the image of Osho, which is not real? Would that be harmful for us, kind of fantasy that does not really exist?
Fresch enquires, “Isn’t that kind of building the image of Osho, which is not real?”
That is a bit rich coming from someone who imagines that Osho is messing with her two decades after the man left the planet for good. Fresch, do you think your personalised image of Osho is the bona fide one,or what? Or are you simply confused?
I asked Bhikkhu, the publisher of the book, not a cat guru. Your (Mr. L) projection of Osho is different than my projection of Osho.
I happen to share Tan’s approach that you simply need to love him. But I wonder if I loved him less if knowing all the behind-the-doors happenings.
Fresch declares, “I wonder if I loved Osho less if knowing all the behind-the-doors happenings.”
In my case it did not make the slightest bit of differance to how I perceived Osho. He was more than entitled to have a private life, especially taking into consideration the amout of time he donated to public exposure.
I don’t really see it that I have a projection running with Osho. I took the best and left the rest a long time ago.
Fresch, having adopted a metaphorical style similar to Shantypants, meaning difficult to understand, could you explain what a “cat guru” is? I haven’t the faintest idea what that symbolises in your mind.
Did you ever hear “love is a projection”?
Mod deleted my message where I was more explaining the bridge between a cat farmer and a cat guru (twice). So, I accept that and move on.
MOD: FRESCH, WE DECIDED THAT HAD RUN ITS COURSE AS THERE WAS NOTHING OF WIDER INTEREST IN THE EXCHANGE.
It’s ok.
Having all the books of those who lived close to Osho is valuable. Just be a bit streetwise, Fresch, and ignore the adulation bits etc.
As for Swami Devageet’s book, it is the most valuable, as he clearly treads where invited to by his Master, even though other close companions of Osho, for whatever reason, did not want to encourage him at all.
I still think it unlikely that Devageet’s second book will reach the light of day. But one hopes.
Adulation? I am not just so much interested in what these people who were close to Osho say, because it seems they can just tell whatsoever imaginary stories, as we have seen. So, I do not really have any trust if there are no other witnesses etc.
So, why would all that kind of typical devotee book be of any interest? Why is Devageet’s devotee style so cool, but not Indian devotee style? is he your friend?
‘The God That Failed’ was more interesting, because the author was clear where he was coming from and it had life in it.
No, for example, the book by an Indian devotee, Swami Gyan Bhed, though much maligned for poor English, is actually very good if you don’t allow your mind to be diverted by his style. I would say it is of great value.
Devageet I have not seen for 30 years, though we were acquainted in a very small way between ’78 and ’86. The rest of the Inner Circle clearly did not want the contents of such a book to be in the public domain and he felt that Osho himself did want that. I happen to agree with him on that, that’s all. The fact that after much persistence it did happen says something about the guy.
Milne’s book was his fiction, and his extreme anger at being let down by his father figure.
He was a Scottish Calvinist whose puritanism came out very strongly when Osho invited him to a dental session. By his own remarks he hi-tailed it out of there. His puritanism was clearly shocked.
I clearly remember his unctuous tones in Pune One when he used to say every evening, “In darshan, one should not pass wind in front of Bhagwan”!
PM, I disagree with your take on Shiva. After watching ‘The Bodyguard’, ‘Secretary’ movie he came across as a pretty candid fellow. More than can be said for Sheela, who is quite clesrly not playing with a full pack, although not when it comes to running a business.
Shiva’s book was indeed bitter, but he was the first to present an in detail account of the not so enlightened master and you have to give it to him for that, because back then it was a very unpopular stance to take.
Yet re the title of the book, one wonders who it was that – allegedly – “failed”: the “God”? Or the ‘disciple’?
Or the ‘disciple”s concept of the master, ie as “the God”, perhaps?
Yeah, I am talking of the Shiva, High (MOD: FREUDIAN SLIP, SIR?!) Milne of 1976 to 84. He may have changed out of his skin since then.
I know there was a suicide attempt – after he wrote that book, which does not say that much for his stability and common sense.
I certainly did not like him in Pune One and thought his book was caught up in his own biography, as he, as I remember, lost his father when he was young, or had a very stern father, I cannot remember which. Osho was a soft toy replacement of that which exploded in his face.
PM, if you say all books written by people close to Osho are important, it includes Hugne (MOD: Hugh Milne?) , Sheela and some other people.
If we all are at the same level in human development or in our own meditation – the same way therapists describe THEIR position (in their own meditation) in their Osho therapies book also. Meditation is an individual process. So, what else would it really mean?
What is special (!) about the books by peoples who have been close to Osho IS that they have been close to Osho. So, let’s just be honest about that. Does he, Devageet, have anything new for me in that book? I probably read all them anyway.
Also, as Lokesh wrote, Milne did first time something different in HIS life. The general issue is, do you have anything to share that touches people’s hearts? Can you share about it with passion and honesty? Difficult. For all of us.
Osho’s dental chair was and perhaps is still displayed as one enters the Samadhi in the Resort. I tried hard but could find no pic, which I figure is significant!
Here’s a drawing of a dental chair and an invitation for someone to get a pic of Osho’s dental chair!
According to some commentators, pics of Osho himself in the dental chair did exist, but may have been destroyed. The book, ‘Notes of a Madman’, first edition, contained some neutral nature shots at various points, which the author of ‘Life of Osho’, Prem Paritosh, had reason to believe were to have contained pics of Osho in the dental chair, but were withdrawn.
Lekhak Sharnam Gacchami
(I go to the feet of the writer)
Pustika Sharnam Gacchami
(I go the feet of the book)
Sandesham Sharam Gacchami
(I go to the feet of the message in the book)
This quotation is from the full piece below.
“I have never planned. In fact I don’t know how people plan. But everything falls in line. Somehow the whole manifests and things go on happening. The beauty of it is that because you don’t have any plan, you cannot be frustrated. You can never be a failure.”
[The Tao group was present at Darshan. The group leader says: "I don’t know whether it s good to plan. I often have unstructured kind of plans and it makes for a kind of challenge. But there’s a part of me that resists this kind of thing."]
Osho:
“No, no need to resist. Nothing is wrong in planning. If you are not burdened with it, it is perfectly good. The problem arises when it becomes a tension in you. If you are playing it as a game, it is perfectly good. If it is a Leela, it is perfectly good. If plans are fulfilled, good. If they are not fulfilled, don’t feel frustrated, that’s all. While planning, don’t become tense about it. Remain relaxed.
The problem arises when you plan and the planning becomes so important that you are lost in it and you cannot keep your coolness. You become so hot and excited that you are almost feverish, ill. Then it is a problem. Otherwise, if you can remain cool, and plan, it is perfectly good.
Just try to remain cool and centred, and if you find it difficult, just leave everything to me. Go on moving and let things happen. They will fall in line. I have never planned. In fact I don’t know how people plan. But everything falls in line. Somehow the whole manifests and things go on happening. The beauty of it is that because you don’t have any plan, you cannot be frustrated. You can never be a failure.
In Persia they have a proverb: If you sleep on the floor, you will never fall from the bed. Perfectly good! If you don’t plan, there are no problems. All problems disappear. And whatsoever is good, happens, because there is no way to compare It with anything. Wherever you reach is the goal because you had no goal to reach in the first place. But that’s up to you. There are people who cannot remain without planning. Planning comes naturally to them. If it comes naturally and you can remain cool, perfectly good. I am not against it.
If it comes naturally to you, then not to plan will be against nature. That’s how I am contradictory. The problem is, if I look at you and see that planning comes naturally to you, the real thing is not how to drop planning. The real thing is to make you more cool, that’s all, and planning can continue.
One has to feel one’s type, and I can see that you are a planning type, so plan, but remain cool.”
Osho
Beloved of my heart.
Darshan Diary.
CH. 8
If You Love Me, You are Caught!
In Persia they have a proverb: If you sleep on the floor, you will never fall from the bed.
Sannyas version- If you planned your stay in the west through sham marriages, you will get deported.
Your non-reply to my last few posts addressed to you is noted, Shantam.
Same old, same old, eh? IE, when in a corner, play dead, or at least, invisible. Or put on a disguise (in this context, write about something else).
“In the matter of words,it does not matter if the underpants are outside of the trousers”
–proverbs of Al-jabbar of Jullundur
“When mangoes are ripe and swinging all around and bananas are turning to banana lassi in the pyjamas, who needs the holy chuddies?”
—Kabir Kebab of Kandahar
“Trust in Allah, but tether your camel toe”
Swami Shantam (88-90)
Replying to the posts point by point is a work, writing spontaneously is just unplanned action. Please bear with me my limitations.
Hopefully, I will reply. Sometimes I sort out the papers lying on my table too!
Sure, Shantam. Strange though, that the “work” appears to become much harder, much of the time impossible even, when you’re faced with rather tricky points to answer…Baffling, eh? If only Sherlock Holmes were an SN reader….
And btw, Shantam, a few days ago you declared you were radically revising your standpoint of the last 20 years (or words to that effect) and would very shortly be ‘making an announcement’ (as the pr for vip’s would say).
Nothing yet though. What happened – re-vision of the revision?!
The weird thing is, lads, that I was umming about in the last few days trying to fit together the concept of Verdi’s opera, ‘I Puritani’ and perhaps a Gilbert and Sullivan D’Oyly Carte Theatre production of Big P’s invitation to perform amateur dramatics online, given the very able blogworthy performances many of us create here . I never got round to it and have only myself to blame .
Unless the whole discussion of NO2 gives you the appropraite lift, and if the gassing about as inveterate blogaholics fails to fuse the neurons in ecstatic revelation, may I suggest some soothing reminder of what Oshoness can still transmit…by way of some musical reminder of what we are referring to with or without a canister of uht NO2-powered cream by your dental chair.
The video cannot be shown at the moment. Please try again later.
Geat song. Last nght was hanging out until dawn by a campfire, listening to tunes with some amigos. A classic, downbeat, live version of Clapton’s ‘After Midnight’ came on. When Eric soloed out I commented…”Hey, folks, listen…it’s a message from a higher dimensional reality”.
What was the message? Get up on your feet and dance. Eric Clapton has brought so much light into the world via the instrument he plays so well. In days of old Indian gurus were often musicians.
Fresch says:
“PM, if you say all books written by people close to Osho are important, it includes Hugh Milne, Sheela and some other people.”
Some books which were written by people not physically close to Osho may be even more important in the end to posterity. I would include ‘Life of Osho’, by Sam (Prem Paritosh).
All the books written by people physically close to Osho are important to take in, including the disaffected. I am not excluding them. Hugh Milne’s book seemed psychologically flawed to me, and pretty obviously.
The book by Sheela seemed an “in denial” document, and someone still suffering from some kind of post-traumatic syndrome.
Devageet’s book is interesting for the same reason that the books burnt by the Nazis were (are) interesting.
No one wanted Devageet’s book published and it was suppressed for 20 years. So one needs to find out why, and this string was a small attempt to elucidate and for commentators to explore that.
PM, you are yourself giving all the right reasons for all of these books. I hope you get it.
Shantam Prem,
Thank you for sharing (27.4.2014 at 9.36 pm).
Madhu
Fresch,
You seem to be the only one who has read the book and refer to the book mentioned – and as far as I remember you shared your impression of a “coolness” in devotion of the writer and questions you might have about this.
I cannot say anything about the book because I haven’t read it but say that every disciple’s connection with the master is a very unique one – and so is yours as well as mine.
And that is pretty intimate.
All other “stuff”, as you once mentioned, it is ashram politics (as it happened with this book) as also group dynamics.
Efforts to take over a certain role or being pushed into that…
or not.
What I did yesterday is to dive into ‘old’ threads here at SN of 2012 /13
and especially one about the questions how people are going and “doing” being very close to the master physically.
In His lifetime in the body that has been sometimes quite a hot seat in the public lectures – but there was ever to be felt the love in it when He said to EVERYBODY present in the silent or laughing audience to go within ONESELF to discover what’s triggered and meditate on it -
that’s the way to live everyday life too, isn’t it?
To live the love affair with wisdom and meditation is not so different as to live a love affair with everyday happenings AND it is very unique.
To deal with whatsoever ashram politics is a trap – that’s how I see it throughout the decades.
Re-lating a piece of art.
Love
Madhu
Madhu, you are writing about the same thing as PM; connection with Osho is intimate and nobody else can interfere in it. Therefore someone who has a skill to communicate it can write ”the book of the books”, most important story about it.
Madhu, I agree with you to some extent. But there is time to say no, there is time to withdraw and there is time to give unconditionally and there is time to give when it’s a dialogue; giving and receiving. That seems to fit with your partner, friends and community around you.
When I was in Poona, early 90′s, I never participated in politics, even when there was a lot of the same kind of discussion around like now. But I was very young and naive then. However, because perhaps for almost 10 years I have been more involved and I was sinking more and more into it, so I just had to become more aware what I was involved with. So, I got very disappointed with all happenings. To be honest, I was at first in shock, kind of zombie sad, then in rage. Then kind of helpless. What it reminds me of is as a relationship – a divorce – with a lover – I mean my own process in it.
Meanwhile, in the marketplace right now – it might seem superficial – but you know what happened with my ”hugging instructions” in my work project? I got totally screwed. I did a ”creative project”around it. And the whole concept was fucking stolen from me. I could bill something, but my so-called business partner took the whole concept of their ridiculous coaching for money-making, and gets tens times more than me. I cannot believe it. Fuck them. So, this is a friend since 25 years (not a sannyasin, but could be). And some fucking celebrate (MOD: WHAT IS THIS?) was writing a blog about it – on his behalf (is that the right word?). Shit, shit, shit.
You know we, sannyasins and ex-sannyasins, are so much ahead of all this “meditation in the marketplace”. And clearly, we have so much to give into it. I want to participate, but I really need to find a right way. This writing might irritate you, I understand, but I just need to do it anyway.
So, where I am at right now is more I am trying to learn not to make the same mistakes:), but especially go on and do something creative in my life.
Something new.
I do not want to resent, nor regret or deny my past, past friends or present friends. Of course it’s difficult because I try to stick to my old behaviour and people want to stick to theirs (if they were used to using me, why give up upon it?). So, most probably changes in people and circumstances are needed. And I need to get my ass up from the sofa too, own my thing. So, once again, I need to go over my comfort zone. Scary, but exciting too. I hope, not too much work, because after all I am very lazy.
Sorry about the long story.
MOD: INTERESTING STORY, FRESCH, BUT IS IT RELEVANT TO THE TOPIC?!
It is relevant to the topic, because publishing a book on meditation is the same way; we should be able to do it in a way that is interesting to people. And OWN what we actually have. I kind of failed filling in there, because I was in a hurry to express and I was also self-eantered, the mistake we do when dealing with the marketplace.
You know, this book about Osho Therapies should really be ‘Osho Meditations’, they are making a mistake and putting a wrong label on the book at the moment. More intimate stories should be really told as intimate….
“Devageet’s book is interesting for the same reason that the books burnt by the Nazis were (are) interesting.”
Seems an apt statement, coming from you, Parmartha, it’s kinda interesting! Maybe for this reason I shall try getting my hands on it in May / whenever the prices are slashed.
Thanx, Bhikkhu, for the info & your efforts.
Those humourless right-arm saluters never got their hands on this Allied forces training video though did they?…
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PS: Thanks for the drawing of the dental chair earlier…without it I wouldn’t have been able to visualise this topic fully in my mind’s eye…
PPS: Is it true SN is amalgamating with the Dental Chair and Flossing Gazeteer for future episodes?…In case you can’t imagine the headline photo for the next issue…here’s a taster…
http://www.midcontinent.org/rollingstock/dictionary/Images/hortons_chair.jpg
Vid: thanks. I liked the last line!
Maybe someone should publish my book too:
‘The Past Without Future’! lol
Shantam, if you get a publisher I’ll be the first to purchase it! lol
Marty, I died after I saw that vid. Thank God for Shantam I was resurrected!
“Devageet’s book is interesting for the same reason as the books burnt by the Nazis are interesting.”
Sounds a bit hyperbolic or even hyperbollocks to me,
although` it might boost sales a bit if you put it as a blurb on the back of the book.
And don’t forget that the only gas chamber involved was Osho’s.
.
Calling everyone a Nazi and a fascist who acts like a bit of an asshole makes people sound like
Neil from `’The Young Ones’!!
Lists of books (and music) to be banned were prepared by the National Socialists in the thirties and then bonfires were made in market squares. Of course, not all those who joined in the ‘fun’ were fascists, but the mediore, self- interested, and frightened also joined in…
I like jazz, swing, rock, blues and Mahler. We would not be living with those now if it had been Hitler who had triumphed in 1945, just as I was born. I have a feeling, Frank, you too have an eclectic taste in music from some earlier comments and also would not want to be without such.
non sequitur
Non sequitur has two meanings and uses.
One logical, the other literary. Which do you mean?
Non sequitur is Latin for
“it does not follow”,
as in:
It does not follow that because I find your idea that:
“Devageet’s book is interesting for the same reason that the books that the Nazis burned are interesting” to be bollocks
implies that I am in some way embracing the ethos of Nazi Germany.
And that if I wish to continue pogo-ing in my room to the Sex Pistols rather than being goosestepped and frogmarched down to the nearest concentration camp, I had better see the error of my ways and buy a copy of ‘Dental Chair’?
“God save the Queen
It’s a fascist regime….” !!
For the record, Madhu, I also have read Devageet’s book. I have also read his articles in Viha Conneciton magazine,(circa late 90′s to 2001). I think there were at least four after he left the Inner Circle, or was propelled from it. He served on the Inner Circle between late 1989 and January, 1998.
For the historical record, Osho asked Devageet to write a “subjective account of his life with the Master” in 1986. That turned into the book ‘Bhagwan, Messiah of Life, Love and Laughter’. This was completed in 1990. Extracts of it appeared in Viha, including the famous account of when Osho brought the two factions of power on the Ranch together, and banged heads, particularly Sheela, and even a little bit Vivek’s. This book still remains unpublished.
In 1989 Osho asked Devageet to write a book with the title ‘Bhagwan: the first Buddha in the Dental Chair’. When he asked Osho about the use of the word ‘Bhagwan’, he was told to retain it, though I note Devageet did not!
Just to underline that some comments above, whilst maybe well intended, don’t seem easy to decipher meaning. I think this is because people may see the board as a means of ‘spontaneous expression’ and also to raise issues within a string which have nothing to do with the topic. Please forward to the Editors new topics etc. for publication, rather than hinge them into a string.
This board is basically founded on the idea of ‘discussion’ and listening to others’ points of view in a more or less civilised way, and also following through and replying to points that others bring to one’s posts.
This comment is therefore also an appeal to work a little harder at making one’s meaning clear, and also to partake in the spirit of discussion. Even Einstein said that he would never have reached his ‘General Theory of Relativity’ without the discussions he had at a small after-work club, where he used to meet friends who were also interested in his subject area, for over a year before he started writing his General Theory.
Parmartha, you are right, the title was given to Devageet containing ‘Bhagwan’.
We had a few discussions about this and we as publishers felt it made no sense to publish a book on Bhagwan in 2013. Finally, Devageet agreed.
His second book, which probably was his first book, ‘Osho, Messiah of Life, Love and Laughter’, remains unpublished so far, but my suggestion to Devageet will be to release a download version only. It is a big volume, probably 500-600 pages and probably difficult to produce as a printed book. So if we all come to an agreement this book could become available in 2015. It still needs extensive proofreading work.
Devageet is without permanent residence and is travelling the world giving seminars, so the logistics are complicated. I also think there was nobody trying to stop his publications. It just took a long time to find a publishing outlet. There is a very small and limited market for these books.
I was talking to many publishers and nobody showed any interest in this.
Thanks, Bhikkhu,
and thanks for your honesty re the title.
I never really understood why OFI did not publish Devageet’s books. They published books from Maneesha, Anando and Amrito, which personally I found much less interesting! Do you know why they did not?
Bhikkhu,
Can you publish Shantam’s book, ‘Only Past, No Present, No Future’?
Lokesh’s book, ‘Shantam is an Indian’ – 2 million times 2 sentences on Shantam copy/pasted?
Madhu’s book, ‘On Conspiracy of Internet and Delicious Soup with Friends of the Past and Present. And Perhaps Future’?
Fresch’s book, ‘Housewife’s Tips on Awareness (and Practices)’ at SN?
PM, ‘My Life with Socrates, Einstein, Gurdjieff, Buddha, Mahavira, Papa-ji, teachers and post- suffering people?
Mod, the book, ‘All Secrets – Behind the Curtains at SN’?
Martyn – for him you need to produce the cd.
Kavita’s ‘One Line of Wisdom Every Morning’?
Arpana’s ‘Comic Cartoons for Shantam’s and Lokesh’s Books’? Then his own art exhibition with his own curatoring on the issue at moma.(MOD: WHAT’S THIS moma?)
Vartan’s ‘I Do Not Play With You Any More’, photo exhibition?
Frank’s ‘My Vast Wisdom – on Drugs’?
And, of course, Ashok’s ‘My Polite Sannyas Life’?
Bhikkhu, what would be your book?
Fresch, you have mentioned the Chuddie King several times of late and I not once.
I’ve already written two books……http://www.amazon.com/Mind-Bomb-Revised-Luke-Mitchell-ebook/dp/B004QZ9WTU/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1398790418&sr=8-4&keywords=mind+bomb
Good that you put that link again. I have it. I also remember ‘Osho Vanity Fair’ critics about it. You have to read it yourself.
Today was the first day in my sannyas life since January, 1990 when Osho left his body, that 3 (never before one) of my university friends (or any other friends) quoted Osho in Facebook, who did not come in contact with Osho through me or Osho meditations.
I was very surprised; I was like “what?”. I hope they find also these books and stories with people who have really lived that life. And get inspired for more than one-weekend therapy group. However, one who started it, just came out of the hospital from being burned out, ADHD case, even she is a very creative and intelligent woman. Of course. She must be ready for Osho’s ride.
No need to be sorry about what you called a long story, Fresch -
and as I feel it, no need to get a call by some school master!
(MOD: MADHU, SEE PARMARTHA’S POST (3rd PARAGRAPH FROM END), APRIL 28, 6.20pm)
I loved to hear about your life
and will try to respond a little later.
Also trying a small piece of art to connect that with the given thread subject.
For you, Fresch – have a good tea-time at home!
Madhu
Thank you for giving me the chance, Parmartha, for some insights of your work as a kind of accurate chronicler – and lover of truth.
As a newcomer in this caravanserai chat it’s always good to have some background information for some apparently strong remarks…or comparisons.
I need to read your response all again and to listen inside then.
For the moment, I want to say,
if famous Albert Einstein had had some more balanced state with his inner female…
instead of harassing and dominating his real wife…(historical fact!),
maybe then he could have foreseen some utter calamity we all know of – and
what he said later to have regretted very much,
although it was such an elaborate elite debating club outcome…of probably only male intellectuals.
Madhu
Maybe not such a good example for you, Madhu.
But maybe the discovery of DNA might be a better example. At least one woman was involved in the discussions and exchanges of views around this, and as I recall it was felt she unfortunately got little outside recognition. She did, however, get recognition from those males she was debating with.
Of course. the ‘father’ of this discussion method was Socrates. He sadly was much bullied by his wife and that is partly why he spent so much time out of the house, debating with whoever was around in the Greek equivalent of coffee houses at the time!
PM, it delights me that you would like the afternoon tea break to be like Einstein’s (or Socrates’s) intelligentsia circle; men talking about the important questions of the world.
But you still have the slogan, “All sannyasins welcome”, so I would very much like to read and write also (!) some ordinary, everyday stories, as Madhu also pointed out. They can be complementary, actually, if flowing. Also, perhaps this site could be then less violent too, less fighting or attacking. But involve more people, more stories, sharing and perhaps better arguing, in an intelligent way. At the best, ”cutting wood, bringing water” or making a dinner can be it.
On the contrary, even if someone tries to be ‘profound and philosophically deep’ it can easily end up being a ‘me, my cat and my grandmother’ story (a well known phrase among documentary makers and journalists).
I write here almost every day, everything is not exactly brilliant, so what? We can fail too. But let’s try not repeating, why not embrace diversity?
I wonder when anyone on SN actually went out and chopped some wood or fetched some water.
No, but I mowed the lawn and repotted the Geraniums!
Lokesh,
Yes, I have fetched water from a well…and I remember teeth (not mine) being removed by attaching a string to a door…plus Osho did play his role as a dentist too by removing a wisdom tooth as per Jyoti’s writing!
ONE HUNDRED TALES FOR TEN THOUSAND BUDDHAS by Ma Dharm Jyoti
Tale 88
After fifteen days, I have an appointment with the dentist to get my wisdom tooth removed, which is pinching me in the cheek. In the meantime, I go for my energy darshan with Osho. Osho has started giving energy darshan to sannyasins who are working in the commune. It is a technique in which the master touches the third eye center of the disciple to transfer his energy. I am called forward. Osho smiles at me. I bow down to Him and sit on the floor with closed eyes. He holds my chin with His left hand, pressing with his thumb exactly at the point where my wisdom tooth is troubling me. With the thumb of His right hand He presses my third eye center. My mouth goes wide open and my thinking stops. I can feel the flow of His energy penetrating my third eye center. When He takes away His hands I walk back to my seat like a drunkard.
When darshan is over I walk out of Lao Tzu and feel something in my mouth. I cannot believe my eyes when I find my wisdom tooth in my hand. There is no pain, no sign of any blood coming out. What a miracle!
The next day I ask my dentist to cancel the appointment and tell him what has happened. Being a lover of Osho the dentist asks me to tell Osho that He should not interfere in his business, otherwise he will file a case against him!
Thanks, Upnita.
Wisdom teeth don’t come out easy…so quite a thing.
Quite a story. Was it significant that it was a ‘wisdom’ tooth? Why do we have a picture of Osho on holiday, riding a horse of all things, attached to this comment? The mystery deepens.
The picture is photo-shopped as well.
Upnita, I do love this Jyoti’s book.
It’s also very typically acceped woman’s view towards Osho.
And I also have been wondering with all the book’s ”miracles” if they might actually be hers, Indian romantic and perhaps not so accurate, or at least exaggerated versions.
The book sure makes her special – even she being the most modest ‘Mother Theresa’ sannyasin ever. On the other hand, love makes you blind. And these days, i also wonder about the writer’s own investments.
There is a whole Osho ‘miracle industry’ developing in India and Nepal to cater for the Eastern sensibilities.
Fresch,
“It’s also very typically accepted woman’s view towards Osho.”
I sense you are using a trained masculine mind…
“Men for centuries have developed the thinking capacity of the mind and being men, they have developed a masculine mind. In many parts of the world girls still dont go to school.
Feminine education of the mind never happened in our culture.
Mind can be a very beautiful thing, it can be a helpful tool to live in the world but seems to undermine women.
Masculine mind thinks linearly and masculine consciousness is quite focused.
Feminine consciousness is relational..is nature focused?
Feminine consciousness it feels all different patterns of relationship and how they work together, it is not linear.
Women can be attuned to the magic of creation but have inherited this masculine mind which dismisses their own feminine understanding…”
“And I also have been wondering with all the book’s ”miracles” if they might actually be hers, Indian romantic and perhaps not so accurate, or at least exaggerated versions.”
Fresch, I can’t speak for Jyoti’s writings but I didn’t feel surprised at all…normal
happenings…our minds are
very censored.
Once I was looking after some garden festival…early morning before anybody arrived and a fairy just moved in front of my eyes…by the way I wasn’t on drugs!
One forgets there is an inner world and on a meditation path one can be attuned to many wonders….
Upnita, as I did write, I loved reading her book. And you can read Jyoti’s book just loving it.
However, these kinds of ‘coincidences’ are familiar to us all. Some call it ‘being in the flow’ or ‘energy happening’, intuition etc. But she gives impression interpreting all as ‘Osho making miracles’ – in a way true, but at the same time she does not really own it. Or making herself typically the most modest devotee ever.
It sounds a bit like ‘Me and My Osho’ (= me and my cat). If she had told some other similar kind of happenings in her life – as part of HER own process, not just being the nun of Osho, it would have made it more grounded and authentic, also perhaps easier to relate to for a reader.
Upnita, after I wrote that post about Jyo’s book, my own tooth started aching. I could not believe it. Well, I did not lose any and it ceased after 5 minutes. But, was I doing it out of guilt? Or what? Strange.
Parmartha’s article has raised the question as to why Devageet’s book did not reach publication via the OIF. I would not doubt for a minute that our Editor and host is well aware of the opaque nature of the stage scenery that is known as the Inner Circle, and of the possibility therefore that we could speculate forever and still be none the wiser. It might have just come down to a basic commercial decision as to which book they (IC) thought would generate most sales. I would love to be proven wrong here, by the way!
Never mind about that, of more interest to me is Parmartha’s clear recommendation of the book as being “a good read”, “interesting”, “more than anecdotal” etc. However, I do not at this point feel tempted to either buy or borrow it. Why? Well, having been exposed to Devageet’s professional wisdom on one occasion ( a men’s group that lasted a long 3 days), I have little desire to repeat the experience. Of course, there are other reasons too which I have previously indicated in other posts about the same person.
I do not, nevertheless, write him off as being ‘completely worthless’ (nobody is, but some come close), as on occasion I have enjoyed the pleasure of his company, and more importantly, he mine, in various social circumstances.
Therefore, a few tasty tidbits (more than the one used in another topic thread), from the book itself, a review or something similar, might generate more interest in ‘doubters’ (does not mean dubious characters), like me.
Thanks for your post, Ashok.
Actually, it has now been reliably pointed out to me, with reference to the Viha articles circa 1999/2001, that Osho told Devageet to “publish” his books with an outside publisher, because he thought that they would reach a wider audience that way. So they were all doing the Master’s bidding (on the face of it). A bit of a koan, I would think, for Devageet cos his first 600 page book could not be construed as of universal interest and, as pointed out here, it’s very difficult to publish outside of OIF, unless by way of self-publishing, which is also not what the Master wanted.
A three day group with Devageet is a lot more exposure than I ever had with him, so you can make up your own mind!!
I would say re the latter that the books of some people often belie what they actually are, when you meet them. With Ouspensky, for example, both Osho and Gurdjieff wondered how he (Ouspensky) could have written ‘Tertium Organon’ – Gurdjieff even went so far as to say he didn’t know or understand what he (Ouspensky) was writing, but it was the real thing all right!
Gurdjieff “wondering how Ouspensky could have written ‘Tertium Organon’ sounds like a large bunch of sour grapes from a man who wrote one of the worst books that I have ever (misguidedly) attempted to read.
Did you know that Gurdjieff contemplated suicide after re-reading the manuscript (not joking)?
The idea that people can write about something that they have never experienced is not that outlandish nor impossible at all.
It reminds me of the story about Dustin Hoffman and Larry Olivier, who worked on the film ‘Marathon Man’ together.
Hoffman’s part included a scene where his character was a guy who had stayed up for three days,so Hoffman, who was a method actor, stayed up for three days and came in looking suitably wasted…
“Why do you look so tired?” asked Olivier.
“I`m getting into the part you know, feeling it, living it”, explained Hoffman.
Olivier paused for a moment, then said,
“Try acting, dear boy, it`s a lot easier.”
Gurdjieff’s work had a lot in common with Stanislavski’s` method (the basis of method acting), didn’t it?
The idea being that you can act a part by accessing and acting the emotions of that part at will.
Thus Gurdjieff could throw a wobbler, bawl everybody out and then quickasaflash become calm again.
That’s method acting.
Osho’s train story about Gurdjieff “pretending to be drunk ” and throwing Ouspensky’s suitcase out of the window sounds like a classic case too, although` personally I think G probably cheated with a few large shots of Armagnac on that one.
It’s what all the satsang sit-down artists are up to…
They are method acting enlightenment…
Sit on your ass a lot. Move slow. Maximise presence. Nod. Go “mmm” occasionally and minimise blinking (All well known tricks from acting school).
You do it long enough, even if what you say has been parroted out of a book, you create a character. then less well-formed characters fall in with you and…
Beelzebob’s`your uncle…
You`re a New Age guru/teacher/enlightened one with a bunch of disciples.
That’s the way you do it…
Money for nothing and the chicks for free!!
Parmartha wrote: “Osho told Devageet to “publish” his book with an outside publisher because he thought they would reach a wider audience that way.”
If the info above is indeed reliable as Parmartha attests, that Devageet is the person with the power to decide who publishes ‘The Buddha in the Dental Chair’, then I think there is a certain irony in the way things have turned out.
Four or five years back the OIF sold the publishing rights for about 20 Osho titles I believe, to St. Martin’s Press, owned by Macmillan Publishers who have serious worldwide marketing and distribution clout i.e. a very wide audience.
Sammasati are minnows by comparison and by their own admission, ‘new boys on the block’. Shantam, in my estimation, was for once not so far off the mark when he opined, “I don’t think even Devageet’s book will cross one thousand mark.”
Devageet might have served Osho’s interests better by offering ‘The Buddha in the Dental Chair’ to the OIF, given their connection with St. Martin’s Press.
Devageet was initially not what Shantam calls a “trustee”, or what most of us call a Circle 21 member, when the names were originally put out.
However, it was a few months later that he was included.
I don’t know the truth of it, but have the feeling he was not that popular with some of the power brokers. I very much doubt whether they thought much of either of his books, and would not have taken them on or forwarded them to any mainstream publisher.
So this question, why OFI did not publish Devageet´s book.
Matter of the fact is OFI comprising team of two three people have gone very selective about Osho´s wishes.
For example, it is not just Devageet, Satya Vedant was also instructed to write a book from disciple´s perceptive about Master. Once Satya Vedant raised this issue, he was kicked out or one can say it was one of the issues.
During Osho´s lifetime, Rebel Publishing House, in-house publication, was doing this great work of bringing Osho books in a very aesthetic form.
Jayesh and his goons killed that publishing company too and off- shored this work to conventional publications.
Basically, Sannyas has been reduced to “How to influence people through books and earn money.”
Problem is there is not enough money.
I don´t think even Devageet´s book will cross one thousand mark.
Shantam:
It has now been reliably pointed out to me, and with reference to the Viha articles circa 1999/2001, that Osho told Devageet to “publish” them with an outside publisher, because he thought that it would reach a wider audience that way. So they were all doing the Master’s bidding (on the face of it).
A bit of a koan, I would think, for Devageet cos his first 600 page book could not be construed as of universal interest and as pointed out here, it’s very difficult to publish outside of OIF, unless by way of self-publishing, which is also not what the Master wanted.
As far as I know, Satya Vedant’s book was published by someone. Happy to be corrected.
I don’t like your abusive remarks in your fourth para. It is so unnecessary and you are just again allowing your aggression to focus on someone, something, without looking at why you feel to become moved in this way. How much dynamic did you really do in Pune Three? Or was it all silent dynamic? (That strange contradiction in terms).
On the subject of Nazi book burnings, I just realised that the book I have been recently reading was one of them.
It`s Freud’s ‘Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious’.
It’s the worst joke book I`ve ever read; a couple of lame Jewish jokes and that’s it.
There’s definitely a relation between his jokes and the unconscious.
I fell asleep on page 4.
But he was another one of these ‘wise men who was completely off his trolley most of the time.
Shooting coke non-stop and literally smoking himself to death.
This wise man /guru/ teacher thing is the same as rock ‘n’ roll, if you ask me. These blokes (still mostly blokes, the m/f split is still about equivalent to the UK Conservative Party) always seem to be on the look-out for a bit of the old Ian Dury…
And if they`re not whacked out of their brains on virtually every psycho-active substance they can get their hands on, the ‘clean’ ones invariably turn out to be sex pests or sex addicts or worst of all, tripping on pure power.
Is it puritanical to wonder what on earth is the connection between substance abuse and wisdom?
That’s why I say it’s like rock ‘n’ roll.
Nobody thinks that all the rockers being stoned out of their heads makes any difference. Probably extends the mystique…
we just love the music.
It’s the same with enlightentertainment.
I reckon Osho was like Jimi Hendrix.
Whether you think he was a god sending out divine tunes or a devil making a filthy racket, and whether you got rid of his albums long ago or still have his pictures on the wall at home…
the guitar will never be the same instrument again.
I`d say
he took it all too far
but boy, could he play guitar…
And as for another member of his entourage trying to write yet another biog in between pub gigs at the ‘Finger Pointing to the Moon’ sannyas pub…
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Frank, another entertaining post, you definitely have a point and the Ziggy Stardust quote is appropriate: “Became the special man, then we were Ziggy’s band…of gypsies that is.”
You recovered – Fresch (29. april 2014 at 3.09 pm)
Did I see that right?
Anyway, I wish you very well
and a good and lucky hand to choose your present co-operation partners.
I am amazed these days how moderation is functioning.
And just have a “tea break” myself.
Love
Madhu
Thanks, Parmartha for pointing out the harsh language in the fourth parag. If you say it is abusive, I can accept too.
Eye-witness of a crime or those who suffered out of it will have a tougher language.
What amazes me the most is why there is not a widespread revolt against the Jayesh management, though 99% participants of Pune 2 always discuss the downfall among each other.
Can this be the effect of Dynamic?
Does it mean it worked on all of them and not on me?
The memory of Osho Meditations is so much saved in my body cells, just to do them once in a while triggers the effect. Right now, my favourite meditation is to sit in almost empty churches. Centuries old churches and their aesthetic give me the home; home in exile.
I also like sitting in empty churches, Shantam. I used to organise silent walks with sannyasins on the South Downs which usually included sitting in an empty church at some point. In that location the churches were usually kept open, though no one ever seemed to use them!
Is there a certain wistfulness in your remark about being in “exile”?
Do you never go ‘home’, even for a holiday?
Large indoor public spaces, which are usually very busy, (If one can be comfortable alone) but first thing in the morning, especially Sunday morning
Shopping mall, for example.
First thing.
Full of energy. but still and calm.
For real.
(You can drown in the silence and vibrant stillness of
the Natural History Museum before the crowds arrive).
I don’t like the vibe inside churches myself, the silence always feels of an oppressive nature to me.
I prefer to hang out in church-yards.
One that I visit frequently has a grave for a certain
Sir Charles Edmund Pilkington Wyldbore-Smythe.
That always makes me chuckle, I don’t know why.
In India, I dropped by a few colonial graveyards and churches up in the Himalayas and in the south.
Some amusing ones there…
“Major Double-Barrel, died at the hand of an assassin, aged 83.”
“Sergeant Smith, killed by a bear whilst discharging his duty.”
“Captain Carruthers, died whilst out riding with the local hunt.”
The reality was, I later found out, that mostly these kind of epitaphs were euphemisms for “died of drink”.
It’s tough being an exile. even if you`re lording it.
Hats off to Shantam for his chosen sadhana of being a brown man in Switzerland and Germany.
I got a bit of racist abuse down there myself and I just had a suntan!
Yes, it’s a yogic feat that Shantam is managing down there…a discipline more arduous that lying on a bed of nails, living in a cave or viciously beating your own genitals (although` it sounds like he may have had a go at that too).
Keep up the good work, Shanty,
and don’t let those tick-tock teutonic robots grind you down!
Strange places, graveyards, cemeteries…They do tend to attract some rather ‘odd’ people…
Frank, you can count yourself lucky you weren’t ‘hanging out’ in Colchester Cemetery during 3 days, summer ’71, as you might well have been rudely awakened from your, er, ‘meditation’, by a fairly regular series of anguished yells and angry roars emanating from the vicinity of one or two of the small chapels therein.
Who or what could have so dramatically destroyed the silence of such an erstwhile haven of tranquillity?
Why, none other than the writer of this very post, age 23, who, desperate for ‘occupational therapy’ to provide distraction from what was the third year of ongoing acute depression/anxiety, unable to find any other inner resources to get through each day, had taken a job as an unskilled ‘gardener’ at the cemetery. The work, however, wasn’t enough to quell the demons within, hence my recourse to various chapels within whose protective walls I sought to offload the ‘devilish’ torment. But not for long…
Just three days into the job, I was confronted by my supervisor, following a complaint from a grieving visitor to the grave of a loved one. But not for the noise my spontaneous attempts at catharsis had been making, no, for something far more disgraceful…
Apparently, unbeknown to me, I’d been seen by this visitor, urinating close to the very grave he or she was visiting and I was informed that was that, I’d lost the job. My protests that “this job is the only thing that keeps me in touch with reality” (yes, I meant every word at the time) were futile. I walked out of that cemetery, with yet another blow to my fragile or barely existent self-esteem…towards another dozen or more ‘dead-end’ (!!) jobs, until finally, the Dawn arrived…
Early morning dynamic meditation, a two weeks introductory course at Bell Street, central London, April, ’73. Unimaginable relief, at last…
(PS: Better than any drug).
You’re British armed forces background, aren’t you, SD?
Did you do the peripatetic childhood routine? (I went to thirteen schools. Father was in the Navy).
No, Arpana, by the time I entered the schooling fray the old man’s service had stabilised in one place, after 28 years of moving around (including 3 years in Poona, btw – ie Poona 0.1, of course). My brother went to 4 primary schools though. Why do you ask?
I recognise myself in you, empathise regularly with remarks you let drop, then make a “wonder if there is a connection here with a forces background” connection.
Growing up round fathers who went though the second world war, in the armed forces, or were in the armed forces period, is not a gift of a childhood, although there are harder backgrounds.
(Would have spoken much less kindly of armed forces fathers at one time).
Is there someone in London offering three weeks Dynamic Meditation?
Here’s one for you then, Frank…
http://youtu.be/_DmeXeBZ5dU
Another question coming in my mind is, so many books with wise words; words leading to silence. Then dozens of powerful meditations and still there is a bubbling groups market.
Somewhere the thing is not complete.
Has Osho also told Devageet to develop some kind of therapy?
Shantam:
In answer to your question:
this link will take you to the Therapy that Devageet developed as a result of one of his last conversations with Osho.
http://www.omweb.com/osho/devageet/swami_devageet.htm
I don´t want to say anything about this link. Any visitor on this link can feel what kind of energy is coming out.
Please elucidate what you mean, Shantam.
It sounds as if you’re extremely sceptical, resentful even.
Btw, I’ve just written to DG, enquiring about his therapy, including its cost. I’m intrigued, though admittedly sceptical after all these years. If it’s both affordable and within geographical range (which I very much doubt) I’d be tempted to do it.
Resentful for what?
Sceptical. yes. It has reminded me the half-page advertisements of Ayurvedic doctors in India, who offer miracle medicines for Eclipsys, white patches on the skin, Prince William baldness etc. Herbs were discovered under the foothills of Himalayas by great yogis.
Effect within 24 hours. Doctor Sahib has no branch anywhere. First dose is given by Doctor Sahib himself.
I don´t say Devageet is into such kind of things. Just the webpage reminded me of the Indian kind of energy.
There wouldn’t, by any remote chance, be a certain amount of, er, ‘resistance’ to the emphasis in Devageet’s description of his Osho-inspired therapy on profound self-investigation, would there, Shantam?
Also, Shantam, why do you think Osho gave this method to Devageet?
I have nothing to add further to this.
I simply hate pick and select attitude.
I don´t think even in the nightmares Osho thought his creation will end up like this.
To check the inner calibre of this man, show me one sentence where he acknowledges being chosen as one of the trustees?
Therapy in the context of the Ashram premises has another meaning, now it is like chicken wings at KFC!
What do you mean by “pick and select attitude”, Shantam?
Shantam, do you think Osho would have expected or even wanted Devageet to remain in the ashram/Resort the rest of his working life?
You have such an inappropriately and absurdly narrow perspective on Sannyas, it’s as if you would prefer it to be confined to one geographical location – just as it appears to be in your own case, within the confines of your little mind.
Both email addresses appearing at Devageet’s info pages are out-of-date, it seems.
Does anyone know his current one, please?
Try emailing Sammasati Publishing and ask them to forward it.
As I remember, Osho felt that groups were useful to “clear the space” for meditation. Hence their widespread adoption in Pune One from around 1976.
Even “working” in the ashram at the time was referred to as “the group to end all groups”.
Many of Osho’s meditations were in fact “preparations” for meditation, if exactly labelled.
Osho applied himself to creating many of his meditation techniques after he saw how difficult meditation was for those who came as novices to meditations like vipassana and zazen. They were restless all the time and unable to reach any distance from the chariots of thoughts that invaded them.
What a wonderful tea break, wow.
What happened to Siddhartha? He never wrote a book about his life? Did he become an addict? I suppose so from his story.
When you say, “I suppose so from his story”, Fresch, what do you mean?
As far as the gossip line goes Siddhartha became a spiritual recluse in a surburban street, but can’t vouch for that gossip.
Maybe you have other information. If so, please share.
He was a great kid in the ashram of Poona One, but I thought he got too much attention after Osho gave him credentials. I think he himself said something like Osho was an old rascal to say so. Certainly a very mixed blessing for a young child.
That kid is a man in his forties now, but he was a model in New York for a time.
By all accounts, Sid is a pretty normal guy. He had his ups and downs in life and last time I saw him I found him to be a pretty sweet chappie.
By and large, the sannyas kids I knew as kids, who are now adults, seem sound enough to me.
Friends, whose kids I knew, without exception, don’t talk about their children as if they are a mess.
All pretty ‘normal’, at worst.
Sid Arthur?
Any relation to Pam Arthur, the landlady of ‘The Jackass’ pub?
She`s a lovely old dear, but don’t get her started about the 1980′s, you won’t be able to stop her!
Apparently,she had a wonderful time then on some ranch in America somewhere, was it Graceland or Neverland? I can’t remember…
Anyway, some place run by a drug-addled stage-performer in a sequin outfit with shoulder wings, surrounded by a load of mindless flunkies who just kept on supplying him with gear till he conked out.
Yes indeed, Fresch,
it’s coming closer to wonderful tea-breaks.
Love
Madhu
Rare are the mystics who create mystery school.
Once one has enrolled in one such school it becomes visible; books and newspapers are made from the similar stuff.
Meaning, MOD? I dont get it?
MOD: NEITHER DO WE!
Here is a utube of Devageet talking about self healing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIoPPn9rxDI&list=PLSkN_cIcfrkrqYe6jtzdtHxZU_
Shantam, if you want to communicate with the westerns be very specific. Talk point by point just like a seasoned lawyer presenting the evidence in murder trial.
No ambiguity, no poetry, no metaphorical double meanings.
Once an Indian master called his international cooking team and gave each of them one box of spices. Someone got turmeric, another got chili powder, one woman got garam masala and another one got cumin powder.
During the next Lunch, all the cooks presented their dishes. Master was just astonished, one dish has only the taste of turmeric, another burnt his mouth; there was only chili powder inside. He could not dare to try the other dishes.
Master enquired, “Why you have not shared the spices with each other, all the dishes could have become perfect?”
Someone answered, “Master, you did not tell us like that when you gifted us the precious present.”
MOD: SO PLEASE TAKE THE ADVICE AND TELL US ALL WHAT YOUR EARLIER POST ACTUALLY MEANs, PLEASE, SHANTAM!
Eastern mind uses many spices with dhal, burnt garlic and mixed metaphor pickle and after eating is farting like flatulent holy cow on sacred whoopee cushion…
Eastern man from the Jullundur is very much enjoying the smell and aroma of his own farts and with the generosity of an open sewer in the Mumbai slums wishes westerners to enjoy and share his poetic emissions and ejaculations, but western man does not realise that in the matter of words it does not matter if the underwear is outside the trousers”, and like logical lawyer who cannot appreciate the piss-poor putrid poetry of Punjabi punditry made of metaphors mixed in Indian cement mixer mixing contents of Indian public toilet with pick-and-mix words and therapies from books and newspapers of similar stuff!
I would say, please find a ‘lawyer’ in you, Shantam, at least here in Sannyas News’ and practise devotional creative writing in Taboban’s or Delhi’s Osho websites.
When I say a ‘lawyer’ I mean I wish more clarity and you being more grounded in your writing. So that I could understand your point too.
Now, people are not giving you the feedback any more, they gave for years (so, nobody is ”attacking” you), but you have not yet changed. Western people do not understand you. If you continue this way, kind of from infantile point of view – as if others should understand and accept any graph from you. You just make freak out of your self.
When you talk or write to somebody, it’s a two-way-street, you need to take the point that others understand you. That must be a challenge because you live in between two cultures.
Also, same, perhaps for those cultural reasons, be careful how you write about woman, for western woman it can sound offensive.
And when I read some of your posts here now, I can just see people shake their heads. I mean I do shake my head in disbelief. But you have to figure it out yourself.
Racism and utter contempt are happening on YOUR side, Frank
(1. may 2014 at 11.22 pm)
HOW COME ?
What is your concern ?
It is sick and sickening and no ‘West Side Story’ and not of help here.
That’s what I want to say to you.
Madhu
On the other hand, Madhu, I found it a rather invigorating read while taking my morning tea…
You’re too politically correct, it’s not “racism”, it’s ‘Shantam-ism’. If you can’t see the difference, or that he’s ‘asked for it’, then you’re part of the problem, as it were.
And don’t worry on Shantam’s behalf, he appears to have the hide of a couple of rhinoceroses!
I hate sickening racists and sexists
who come out with stuff like…
“Punjabis are the butt of jokes because they are total thicko morons who haven’t got clue what they`re talking about (but loveable in a kind of idiotic way)…”
“No matter how floaty and poetic they try to be, Teutons take themselves far too seriously and have absolutely no sense of humour…”
“English people are rational, cold and cynical and don’t like talking about themselves…”
“Boys just want to have a good rough-and-tumble’, whether it’s football, philosophy or enlightenment…”
“Whilst the girls just want to have a quiet cup of green tea and for everybody to be happy and get…”
It’s all just ignorant prejudice…
Erm…
Isn`t it..?
Frank, nature of the blogs is provocative – and therefore often fun. But sometimes it’s nice to have a tea break or Socrates’ evening. And make a point that all are welcome. I might have gone too far with it.
Agreed, not an atom of truth in any of that whatsoever.
This world is full of traps for the unwary – often enough set up deliberately by sinister forces – and the examples you’ve cited, Frank, are the sort of degenerate, ‘worldly’ prejudice that all those ‘on the path’ would do well to see through and renounce, once and for all.
Shanty Pants is obviously a trap set up by sinister forces. Probably MI5.
Incompetent sinister forces obviously ,
but nonetheless, just that.
Possibly a sinister double bluff by Jayesh. Hmm!!!
What would Jayesh sinisterly have to gain by using Shanty Panty Poopy Pantzen in a sinister double bluff to bore us all into catatonia?
I ask myself!!
I trust you caught the ‘ferrous’-like drift of my remarks, Arpana?
Indeed I do, SD.
When you’re a Jet you’re a Jet. I just met a girl called Maria…Oops! I mean Madhoo.
The price of Devageet’s book has now been lowered from $24.99 to $16.95. Visit the Sammasati Publishing website for more information.
Someone asked for a review of this book. Here’s a German one!
http://www.sammasatipublishing.com/german-review-osho-first-buddha-dental-chair/
And here is an Italian one…
http://www.sammasatipublishing.com/italian-review-osho-first-buddha-dental-chair/
Here is the only review in English I could find. It makes no reference to the history of the book and why it found such a difficulty to publish, and is not very good, but better than nothing maybe for those who want to read a review.
http://www.oshonews.com/2013/06/osho-buddha-dental-chair/
Many thanks for the effort, Parmartha. Whilst unfortunately, I have to agree with you that it is not very good, ‘something is better than nothing’, innit?
I was also interested to see Waduda in the interview – one of my sannyas friends witnessed her delivering a back-hand slosh across the face to one of her seemingly resistant participants in a group in Italy a few years ago. So her appearance did not add any weight to promoting the cause of Devageet’s book, I’m afraid.
Agreed, Satyadeva,
I am already part of this when I am joining the Caravanserai and its chat’s habitual procedures of tolerating climates and tunes of other spots of the last days (from Frank s – and not only his side I mentioned).
Like confronted to look at beforehand labelling “Teutonic characters” or swinging freestyle on German historical fascism while having quite blind spots about fascist verbal behaviour in their own area -
Mostly combined with male superiority in discussion threads.
You don’t know, Satyadeva, how often my teatimes were spoiled (just by reading) so to say
when you complain about your own then today.
And – but yes – I once again agree
when I open up the chat, and decision to post is happening,
I am part of it
even if I am just into reading.
A few days ago I mentioned to Fresch:
“Aahh, wonderful tea-breaks are coming closer…”
That was on account of some joy that was inside me happening
just by reading into one of the rare GAPS when a few chaps have been just sharing
instead of sticking to old habits (for years, it seems) to beat each other up verbally. Stuck in years old structures; obviously well known to the participants.
Once again,
It is very nice to feel gaps of this kind are happening
and if this here is a closed buddies’ companionship website you should make that clear in the invitation to this
and correct “ALL sannyasin and lovers of Osho are welcome”.
Up to the moment you correct the invitation
I feel welcomed
also
when I complain about racism splatting in lines.
Madhu
On green tea – this morning.
Madhu,
You are welcome here. And don’t worry about Shantam, he has a very tough side!
And Vartan – don’t worry about him, he has been hanging out with Dharm Jyoti in the English countryside for a few days. He also has a thick skin and I am sure will be back, let’s hope with a heartfelt story.
Not sure where Dominic went, but he has come and gone before.
Osho is the greatest in my heart not because of his audio, videos and books. Speaking religious stuff before microphone or without microphone is the USP of Indian religious scene. Nowadays, there are 30-50 non-stop tv channels where spirituality sprinkled with stories is dosed out by articulate orators. Most of the stories are usual ones. As a disciple, at least I have tried to create a new story about Master and the spices!
Unsurpassable greatness lies in the fact that Osho visualised a unique Ashram called Mystery School and seekers around the world started pouring in. One can listen to the talks from earlier years, when Osho was on the bicycle; to create His kind of Ashram was always around Him.
I cannot claim to be a personal cleaner, cook, driver, messenger, soap holder, toothpaste presser, doctor, nurse, dentist, gardener, washerman, tailor, financier, lawyer, real estate developer, political lobbyist, journalist or PR manager around Osho; but I have spent years which fled away like weeks in His ashram. Out of this gratitude, I always use capitals describing Osho and His work.
One common fact which I have observed, once people became part of Osho´s ashram, their fixation with books and audios simply dropped. They were buying the new editions not for reading but as a gratitude, as a support as showpiece.
Reality of the life is in living. Osho gave the opportunity to thousands to experience what no other ashram has ever offered. Books of any kind are pale.
Just to balance the argument a little Shantam, many people in the seventies came first time to the ashram after reading one of Osho’s books. I understand they still do come to Osho centres and the Resort after reading one of his books.
Shantam is a great example of Osho’s magic powers. All the above and he never actually met him personally. Remarkable!
Shantam did not met Osho personally…and Lokesh met Him personally.
And Millions of poor people who are investing their life and did not even see him a single time.
If I am a new person, after reading Lokesh´s comment, I will throw all Osho material in garbage or will look with sceptical eyes who claim to be with Osho!
I have said earlier, Shantam, I picked up a certain wistfulness and melancholy in the use of the word “exile” you make when describing your living on the German border.
Even homesickness…
If so, you still don’t answer my question – cos I want you to share a little at least of your own interiority. I could be sympathetic. I have felt homesick in certain countries, one of them was Germany when I lived there myself!
I just thought it might have a bearing on your interest in what is happening at the Resort, etc. and your desire to be there?
The problem for Devageet, and maybe yourself also, is that you treat Osho ‘as a person’, but by the time Geet met him, and also your good self (not in the flesh), he no longer was a person. The realisation of that is always a shock to those who think and feel in personal and devotional terms.
Fresch, I don´t mind if westerners don´t understand me. I have no investment and no interest.
Just keep your hand on your heart and ask yourself, “Have they understood Osho?” Specially the western men (not someone particular but archetype).
Case rested!
And someone like me going to Tapoban or Delhi will be like a man who is going to the Job Centre after losing a throbbing business. This much poor or needy I am not.
Sometime dignity lies in walking alone rather than taking your pants off for anyone and everyone. Come, come, come do Dynamic with me, kind of baby guru syndrome also I don´t have. Maybe Arpana can do such things if he knows how many steps are in Dynamic. If not, he can search encyclopaedia downloaded in his hardware!
Shantam.
You thick, fat twat.
Instead of whining about the ashram not
being as I wanted it to be,
and making that an excuse to not meditate,
I did Dynamic on my own, in my flat
in England every day for a year.
Parmartha,
Once during my early years of reading Osho, I came across a story: “Two hippies were begging some coins in Benares. They were looking from well-to-do families. When Osho enquired for the reason they answered, “Back home we lost the thrill of life, everything was available. Now there is an anticipation, some waiting how next meal will be purchased. So we are here.”
This story has stayed with me from the time I have read it.
There is a melancholy of being in exile, but also there is a sense of purpose behind. Life is such, do people not feel at exile and melancholic in their own cities among their own family members?
Most of my pain while being in Germany/Switzerland is not because of the life here but the money I lost back home by trusting some family members. As career prospects are nil for someone who does not have the compatible education and also does not want to hide 20 years of life in Pune from the CV and also who does not want to play little Indian guru; so this creates a mixture where pride gets hurt. Nothing else.
As far as Osho Ashram Pune is concerned, its downfall into the concept of resort is not my personal loss but loss for the humanity. Ask Devageet if you meet him.
Why I write the way I write and why not other beneficiaries, why I solely blame Jayesh and Amrito and not others who felt the pinch even more, is a matter of another thread.
But if you meet Devageet, ask him about his interview in Osho Times. I think it was after Osho´s ‘demise’.
He had tried to explain the concept and also how being in the commune, time clock runs seven times faster than the ordinary watch, therefore all get the impression as if within short frame of time they have lived Osho´s mystery school!
The life of years.
This is…
Ask him who stole the battery from the seven time faster clock?
The Chuddie King declares, “The concept of resort is not my personal loss but loss for the humanity.”
Even when Osho was alive humanity really wasn’t that interested in Osho. The most interesting Osho ever became to humanity was when scandal erupted on the Ranch. The general public enjoys a good story about the sex guru with 99 Rollers and his motley crew of psychos poisoning a whole lot of hicks in Oregon. In the guru stakes Osho was not that well known. Today, anyone under the age of 30 has probably never heard of Osho.
What is questionable here is this need to make out that Osho was such a famous guru. He wasn’t and isn’t.
No green tea any more, but chili back in the soup, I see. I have heard chili keeps you young.
P.S: Shantam, you can always start your own, just any meditation and as well as your own company. Sounds like excuses to me (this is actually SD’s sentence in this film).
“Osho was not such a famous guru and isn’t!”
Who has written this, Satya Deva or Lokesh? (Lol)
(Now when I take a jibe, I would not forget to write (LOl), so that it is easier to understand, it is not heavenly pronouncement but human wit).
I am sure Osho was using the similar technique at the very last months of His life. Before, starting the joke, He would say, “Now is the time for Sardar Gurudyal Singh” or “Bamboos are waiting silently for your laughter.” As a lifelong orator, he must have found out with gathering like this, one needs to alert beforehand, “It is a joke.”
Really, Osho was not a famous guru. Ramana Maharishi was. Marlboro man was. On Punja-ji, ‘Guardian’ even wrote a weekend supplement!
Osho really is not that famous, George Clooney is!
There are people, once they come out from their blindness and start seeing, they enquire innocently, “Why grapes are not that big as apples?”
Chuddie King, you are missing the point. Osho was more notorious than famous. I don’t have the need to compare him to any other guru, while obviously you do.
As for humanity, I am quite sure that Osho was aware that in regards to spiritual development, the dice are heavily loaded against humanity in the sense that humanity as a whole is far more predisposed towards living a mechanical existence, according to the laws of nature, and are seemingly content to do so. That is perhaps why Osho often said that he was all for the individual. With individuals at least a possibility exists for awakening to potential. That possibility does not exist for humanity as a whole.
What does exist with humanity is cash flow. Maybe that is why the old man opened the gates to all and sundry and why there has often been an element in the sannyas community who are not really interested in human potential, but like the feeling of belonging to an in-group or cult, which sannyas was for some time and maybe still is for all I know. I kind of doubt it though.
I surmise the hit of pure oxygen to flush the nitrous oxide out of Osho’s system at the end of each session was playing a big part in enhancing his sense of physical well-being, might well have been part of the draw.
Parmartha Swami –
Recordings, according to Devageet in his book, were made
of the dental chair utterances of Osho, and then Devageet checked his notes against the recordings (which would explain why those books read like spoken word transcripts).
However, the dental chair books are different in that Osho was talking to only four people (bet it pissed Sheela off that she wasn’t part of that elite little group).
Thanks, Arpana.
I had not fully taken that in (must have been the Ouspensky story with Gurdjieff that overrode it in my mind!).
Still reckon my main point that we owe a lot to Devageet in getting them together, especially ‘Glimpses’, is valid.
He comes across as a good guy.
I warmed to him and can really empathize with where he’s at about Osho.
I always trust Osho’s intentions.
Here is one latest example from my Facebook blog, how things are understood in cross-cultural context.
Post is:
It is no good, bus driver can have one wife and film actor too.
Famous people who are in the news for every sneeze should be given exemption. If they can have more cars, more homes, more fame, more adoration, why not more partners?
They are not going to be the burden on state exchequers!
German Swami*: Holy shit, Shantam Prem, I can not believe you said that. You mean wife is something like a car, house, that you can buy for a sneeze?
Shantam Prem: Swami, don´t make people think Germans have no sense of humour.
It is a satire, dear friend.
Sunil (Indian): Yup its a satire.
German Swami: Ah, good.
*Real name withheld
Started Devageet’s book last night and just finished reading it.
Made notes periodically as I worked my way through.
Here are the notes:
Some respectful impressions of the book (and not censored either).
He’s so desperate to describe how zapped he was by taking sannyas, meeting Osho, the language comes across as so over -the-top in the beginning, but I hear a sincerity in him and can relate to what he says. Was really moved when he talked about Osho telling him to give everything up to the wife he was divorcing. Could so relate to the power and true act of freedom of that.
He’s a pretty heady guy, and does a lot of declaiming about the world around him of the day and how fucked it is; across the early part of the book, in that ‘opinion and viewpoint spoken of as fact’ way.
Not the world’s best writer (and why should he be?).
I withdraw this. I’m beginning to really enjoy his style.
Would have meant more to me in the days when I had less respect for my own sannyas than I do now.
His description of mad and gorgeous Anado, his dental receptionist, who knew nothing about dentistry, had me in stitches.
(I’m starting to enjoy his somewhat breathless and gossipy style).
I was transfixed reading about Devageet’s first meeting with Osho. Had a big grin on my face all the way through.
I’ve been deluding myself I am past reading anything else about sannyas history.
Thanks, Devageet. Glad you wrote the book. Wonderfully immediate.
Lots of humour. I am laughing regularly.
Really felt for Devageet when he was describing Osho basically calling him names. Empathised, I suppose.
‘Books I Have Loved’. The number of the books. Sounds like Osho was just winding him up. Devageet got so serious about it, the perfectionist (as I would I).
Can’t imagine that anyone who wasn’t hugely interested in Osho and sannyas would be interested in this. (Mass market book it ain’t).
If you live in your head, have an inclination to analyse, reading this book will either be hog heaven for you, or you will freak out.
Heavy, man. Heavy.
Can really see why the powers didn’t want the book published, if that is so.
Shantam says:
“He (Devageet) had tried to explain the concept, and also how being in the commune, time clock runs seven times faster than the ordinary watch, therefore all get the impression as if within short frame of time, they have lived Osho´s mystery school!
The life of years.
This is…
Ask him who stole the battery from the seven time faster clock?”
Actually, Shantam, I don’t buy the view, if it was the case with Devageet, that the Buddhafield ‘speeds up’ personal development. My feeling was that it may have ‘seemed’ to speed it up, especially for those of a more manic (in the nicest sense of the word) disposition.
The little I knew of Devageet, he was, shall we say, a little excitable, and this sort of mood often permeated the whole ashram/Ranch.
It could well be argued that once people of a totalitarian disposition like Sheela and her gang took the reins that it actually slowed down the advancement of genuine seekers, whose trust, as mine, was severely shaken by the Ranch denouement. Even in Poona One there were autocrats, and the ‘compliance’ expected of ordinary commune workers was actually very unhealthy psychologically and did nothing for their personal development.
From ‘Notes of a Madman’, page 35
Osho says:
“Devageet, don’t be afraid. I know you love me. Leave me alone while you write your Notes. Ashu and I can soar higher…
Go to the stars
The rainbows
To the worlds which are beyond
Which I cannot describe, nobody can describe. I am a madman. It is not easy to deal with me.”
Good points Arps, I agree in many of them. I was also left with the impression Devageet doesn’t understand himself yet what there was for him (beyond / in addition to not being in the head and not being a dentist, but to tune into him in another level). That I find very sincere in the book.
This is of course speculation.
But sometimes I thought that what if some power-hungry people close to Osho could have been blackmailing him (Osho) with scandals like having a girlfriend, Vivek, or using laughing gas. And Osho’s response was always going public with exaggeration of the issue.
Like, for example, he gave that interview to a journalist inviting him (even to a male) to his bath or saying, “What makes you think I am celibate? Of course I have my cup of tea” (= have a girlfriend/sex life); and with the laughing gas he made a point of even publishing the books where he was under the influence of it.
Also, I always wondered why his dental chair is still on display on the way to the Samadhi. That chair is almost like a statement or device. What do you think? These can also be the reasons why book is not supported by Pune.
I also wondered why his dental chair was on display on the way to the Samadhi, but only momentarily.
Isn’t it to debunk the possibility of the usual sort of myth that arises after the passing of a master, that apparently almost unconscious process of wanting to transform him into some sort of ‘god’ to worship, rather than just an ‘ordinary man’? With typically ‘ordinary’ foibles – one might even, at a stretch, say ‘weaknesses’.
Not that it seems to have had the desired effect on the purveyors of “a miracle industry”! The real “miracles” have surely taken place inside people who came to him, anything else being just a sideshow, “for entertainment purposes only”.
This could sound a bit pompous, so bear with me. It’s sharing, not meant to be preachy.
My inner landscape has been transformed by
meditating and my connection to Osho, so even if he wasn’t ‘enlightened’ he sorted my head, heart and soul out, man!
I know I’m not superior to anyone, but also I know I’m not inferior.
Before Osho and meditation: Quantity.
Since Osho and meditation: Quality.
You all know that ‘the only miracle is love’. And still there is, as Vartan put it, a “miracle industry”, which is different.
Also, when you are in love (in woman/man) everything seems a miracle, which is also different. Love needs awareness, so true. Who said it would be easy?
Arps, what stopped you wondering about the dental chair? Or did you ‘just drop it’? What do you think, rest of you? It’s not exactly ‘normal guru behaviour’.
I read ‘Notes of A Madman’ in 1987.
The book has a very particular significance for me (I have a story about the book if you will, which I don’t want to write about at this moment).
I got involved with Sannyas News about three years ago and every so often the subject of Nitrous Oxide got, gets mentioned, and because of those mentions I discovered that when I read the book I barely noticed the issue of Nitrous Oxide.
I once quipped here that I wish people would stop going on about nitrous oxide, because I was developing a complex about not having a complex about Osho using Nitrous Oxide. (I respect that for other people it’s problematic, but for me its a non-issue and I don’t mean this makes me a better disciple than they are, I just mean for some reason I felt, feel untouched by the facticity of it and I have no explanation for this mysterious lack of concern).
Agree.
I never wondered why the Dental Chair was displayed. (Is it still?).
I saw it last in 2000 and thought, “Well done, Osho”!
Must have been an instruction left by Osho, to continue to blow minds….
Till 2007, dental chair was still there. I think big changes have taken place two or three years ago. The signature picture of this site is not any more part of that marbled room, once was lovingly called Samadhi.
Whatsoever management has done, it has not attracted people, neither new nor old. If Parmartha has not gone after 2000 it tells much. 99% of other contributors have the similar story. Many have not seen Pune after 1979 and yet can claim to know the latest real estate prices.
When there is love and magic, people can walk naked feet on the fire to visit that place!
Vartan says:
“There is a whole Osho ‘miracle industry’ developing in India and Nepal to cater for the Eastern sensibilities.”
I know very little of this, but why don’t you itemise and give some examples? I must say the Jyoti story feels like something Indians have said to me in other contexts, which I have always treated in a Albert Schweitzer like manner!
Here is the best song about miracles.
The video cannot be shown at the moment. Please try again later.
Vartan says:
“There is a whole Osho ‘miracle industry’ developing in India and Nepal to cater for the Eastern sensibilities.”
From where Vartan has got this information?
Are not cash crops called groups and therapies are not part of, ‘miracle industry’ .
Placebo effect is the same, packaging is different.
Just came across a photo at Facebook. I don´t know whether I should call it part of “miracle industry”. I have no idea too where the photo was clicked and who is the guiding force behind!
(Most probably the idea seems to be from Indian/Nepali and bowers can be from Russia or similar banana democracies; where women are beautiful and dream about miracles and have the tradition to obey the Charismatic personalities).
MOD: WHAT ARE bowers (2nd parag.)?
WHAT ARE bowers (2nd parag.)?
What can be the right word for these people in a heart shape around Osho sign?
MOD: Prostrators? Layers? (MAYBE EVEN liars?!!)
I was cleaning my kitchen and left in the middle to write this statement. Yes, it is not satire, no joke, but a statement.
Call it the effect of the above shared prostrated photo, I feel like saying deeply Sorry to Jayesh and Amrito, I have criticised so often.
Compared to the group leader behind this photo, they look so humane and innocent.
Such kind of nonsense will never ever happen in Pune.
It’s not about Jayesh and Amrito, but you are declaring your self pseudo and hypocrite. To some, Osho is as humanly and ordinary (like Lao Tzu) and for others he is the Everest ( like Buddha or even beyond) of bringing clarity to Human search for the beyond. For some, he is both. So what is wrong with the above picture? It’s so beautiful, creative and colourful.
Those who accept Osho as their master will get the guidance thru his words and his people (some authentic) even after his death. I am the living proof. That doesn’t mean I keep a picture / statue and pray. But I will bow down 1000 times to pay respect and gratitude when I feel like. I trust you too are such a fellow traveller/friend. But I disagree with you on this post because this to me is the confusion which is slowly destroying the work around Osho. Someone has to keep the flame alive. If Jayesh and Amrito are keeping it alive in certain dimension, let others do their work in their way. It has its own significance. It all leads to same place.
For example, there are some sannyasins who dedicated their life to explore the sexuality ( body and Tantra etc.) and Osho encouraged such people too. They may take a picture of making deep orgasmic love in front of OSHO poster or on a carpet that reads OSHO. For them making love is sacred…who are we to object?
Glad you posted that picture yesterday, Shantam Prem.
It’s titled by the graphic designer, “Truth Beckons” and also with a ‘name’, “Rajnish”, as far as I see it right.
In the middle, the digital native graphic designer (for a Facebook address, you also know ??) has compiled “OSHO”.
What my eyes see is
that a bunch of humans form as a group the symbol of
an empty heart
and without all that advertising that looks for me very beautiful and touching
though very intimate also as it is done in a probably ‘safe room’ and not on the streets of nowadays…
Then I read all or some of your mind interpretations, as well as accusing some unknown group leader and so on, so forth.
Well – nowadays, trillions of photos are shot any instant –
or even totally compiled on the computer and we rarely know the background of it or if people have been agreeing to get ‘into the world’ like this -
we often don’t know the time (of fabrication) – nor the place -nor the circumstances of the shooting – ever so often not even if the material as such is totally compiled in an office.
But we come to know lots of interpretations – lots and lots of…isn’t it ?
The latter shows mostly more of the interpreter’s mind or life – than of the mind or lives of the so exposed.
That a connected group as such form a -HEART- is for me a matter of fact.
If you sit in meditation with a bunch of people it’s sometimes miraculously sensitive.
That’s the power of what we sometimes call “buddhafield”.
Also well known is
how and when this beautiful longing to connect has been or is misused.
Seeing the foot you posted
I just loved the symbol of the ‘empty heart’ I saw in it.
And to talk about “misuse” I would need to habe more information about the compiler and/or the Facebook address where it’s coming from.
I see nothing wrong to BOW down to ‘THE EMPTY HEART’.
Yet
I felt / feel that’s something very intimate,
also momentary, in a way precious, and by that I mean maybe more protection to mind games of onlookers is needed as it is given?
And ?
Thank you for posting.
Madhu
Dear Parmartha,
I would like to address you too these hours – today -
If I have understood you rightly you yesterday posted that “the dentist’s chair” still has been quite two decades or more on the same spot,
interpreting that as
‘showing up a device from Osho’.
As far as ‘devices’ are concerned,
I remember throughout the decades UTTER MISUSE HABITS
of many of us amongst each other or as a kind of hypnotising ourselves and/or others – in various ways
and I would like to say
most of the times we know nothing or knew nothing.
Exceptional those very few devices we have been given face- to-face –
and even then
it is always connected with our capacity and stages of consciousness and understanding
and as well connected with our being grounded.
That also was a reminder from Osho when He talked about misunderstandings…
You then also mentioned Him saying, ‘then and there with this and that He has been having had the intention to get rid of the so and so’s.’
I also have heard that,
not so often but as a listener – I surely have heard that
and then always went inside to LOOK at what this again was triggering.
(Ooohhhh, that’s a thread inside of its own…and a long one – and I don’t want to go into that quite now).
Old, old stories.
What I experienced though – as a sannyasin and life-participant, so to say,
is also that opposing blackmail always has its cost
as well as the effort of going inside to find the source of SURRENDER what is original
and is a never-ending task. (MOD: PLEASE EXAPLAIN THIS, MADHU, IT’S NOT CLEAR WHAT YOU MEAN).
Moment to moment
also NOW-HERE for sure.
With the invitation to ‘sannyas’ I felt and feel invited to go the way a tightrope walker is going
to learn about the ART of bowing down without being forced (or blackmailed).
My experience is that in these rare moments bowing down simply HAPPENS.
That’s truly a piece of art, this ever ongoing search inside-outside.
I felt and feel invited to honour dignity instead of obedience
or getting stuck in a rebellious pattern – instead.
So many trial and errors I remember – so many
failures, but also the dignity of saying NO sometimes.
And I paid a lot I can say for the latter.
Also in the what we may call ‘sannyas realms’…the day before yesterday…yesterday…today…(?)and maybe tomorrow…(?).
There is no guarantee in any move – never (for bliss and reward or being ‘loved’, for example).
And there is so much love and gratitude for a Master like this
who encouraged me
for a path totally INSECURE.
Love – to you and to other fellow-travellers.
Madhu
– insecure and alive…here – and now the button to post…
sitting writing into the unknown….
Thanks your post, Madhu. I did not understand it all, but know it is well meant.
A Master, I think you will agree has to attract and repel. He has to throw his net wide and catch many fish. Then they have to be sifted, and those who he feels don’t have the potential have to be dropped.
As another Master said: “Many are called, but few are chosen.”
And then the problem how to drop them – offending their religion, or exposing their puritanism, and many more…some call these necessary strategies, “devices”.
Here’s another way of looking at the nitrous issue.
Good puritans are into suffering and martyrdom.
A good puritan wouldn’t have used nitrous oxide and oxygen to relieve his pain, but Osho has always exhorted us to use modern technology, says choose comfort over discomfort. He’s not a puritan.
Would anyone question his use of antibiotics?
A great chair to relieve back pain? (Technology that we take for granted.)
Why shouldn’t he relieve his pain and physical discomfort using modern technology, methods?
Doesn’t seem at all inconsistent to me.
Thank you, Madhu, for seeing in the above photo what I missed to see.
Big hug!
Will try my best, moderator/s
– your request —-
Aah, river of life these hours since posting this morning – quite spring-like…
But if I wait too long
no answer will come, I feel
so:
I wanted to express that the few times I bowed down (metaphor for what I might call the original surrender)
it was a happening and I was awake AND was lost as well and in awe – all of it -
which somehow gives a seemingly lifelong measure, an inner standard for the
r e a l and vice versa – the ‘false’ thing of a gesture or some ritualized habitude.
You never forget it when that has happened and in a way it’s also haunting you,
gives an imprint to your soul if you allow me that kind of romantic expression
which falls short like any other word or words -
So surrender this way has NOTHING to do with making yourself small,
neither with making yourself big – or ‘spiritually special’ – on the contrary…
It’s just beyond these categories – all categories
It’s not even bliss or something in this direction
Tt’s very sober and very drunk too.
I could go on and on and on
but I’d like to spare you as I have come to know (!) of some of the buddies’ here allergies…
But anyway, I love poetry – that’s for sure -
because it’s like music,
it sometimes comes close to what you simply love to express, also in words helpless…
So – another one (?)
it’s like that song title of Bobby I posted a few days or more ago
(he knows about ‘surrender’ too -
“When Eternity Penetrates Time”.
Quite a precise answer too, isn’t it?
From the many verbal roundabouts…from myself as from other fellow-travellers.
Love to you all
and love to the ‘moderation’ happening.
Madhu