24 years after Osho’s death, it is worthwhile to ask the question: ” What is Osho´s Work.” ?
There are more than a few people organisationally engaged, who say they are doing “Osho´s Work”.
I am asking is it an inner calling, the way it is said of some priests - “He followed his call from God and therefore dedicated his life to serve humanity and spread Jesus’s message” ?
Sometimes I wonder, is what is being talked about a self created profession? Could it be that the words “Osho´s Work” is some kind of title, like the way opticians, pharmacists, teachers, astrologers, and hand readers use the word work?
I also know, this term “Osho´s Work” may not become universally adopted, as some seem to avoid it. However it clearly is going to stay. and to be used by the majority of organisers.
My question therefore is, can there be some quality control assessment or monitoring process on the question of “Osho’s Work”?
Buttressing this seems to be “Official” workshops addressing meditation and therapy. For example, Resort courses to ‘certify’ Osho Meditation Facilitators.” And Three year degree courses for “Osho” Therapists, and so on.
It may be my personal prejudice, but I don´t feel any wow or appreciative feeling in my heart, when I listen to this term “Osho´s Work”.
Quite often it nauseates me!
PS- Comments welcome for and against!
Shantam
Once I tried to introduce Dynamic meditation to my professional colleagues. Believe me, it was such a disaster. I told them to breathe out fast and chaotic and they just breathed normally or just a little bit faster.
Long story short, Osho is not for everybody – period. Those who are drawn deserve to be helped, guided and nourished. Osho takes care of the most part thru his books and electronic media. But a living being carrying some light of what Osho made to experience in his presence, would be of great help.
A commune offering all the techniques which combines the meditative, psychological and physical would be ideal. A place where Veeresh, Arun / Jyoti, Margot Anand, Milarepa et al live together and transformation happens like wildfire.
Blooming happens like spring. In our native language in India we say Things are growing as “3 flowers and 6 fruits”. It’s simple.
“Osho’s Work” is part of ‘The Great Work’ and as we have shown here there have been many who have taken on the task of advancing the understanding of the human condition. Osho (like many of his predecessors, whoever you choose them to be) was above all a rebel, and his message, above all others, was one of rebellion.
Anand Newman says:
“A place where Veeresh, Arun / Jyoti, Margot Anand, Milarepa et al live together and transformation happens like wildfire.”
There is, it’s called The Earth. Any of today’s seekers who is looking for somebody like Osho and cannot find Osho, does not deserve him. I cannot be clearer than that.
It is simple.
No one is doing Osho’s work. Only Osho can do Osho’s work.
What people are doing is according to their understanding. Please don’t drag Osho into this.
People are not doing Osho’s work, they are doing their work. Osho is gone, he has nothing to do with what these people are doing.
The term “Osho’s work” is used to give legitimacy to their personal unconscious understanding.
The term is simply disgusting. It is like a Christian who says he is doing “God’s work”
I’m sure God is up there in the clouds, saying “I swear, I have nothing to do with this fellow. He is not doing my work. I did not tell him to burn witches and kill people. I swear I didn’t”.
Good post, Greg, stripping away all the bullshine and, in essence, unarguably true.
Except that I think it’s somewhat harsh to apply such a sweeping judgment to every single person who’s doing Osho-inspired work, in whatever form it might take.
After all, while Osho was here he encouraged many to set up centres for meditation and therapies, which, as long as people faithfully followed his guidelines, surely qualified as doing his “work”. And if it was the case then, why should it not also be so now? The key criterion is surely a certain purity of heart, a putting aside of ‘self’ to serve the master.
However, unfortunately, of course, therapists have tended to take on far too much of a ‘priestly’ role, so that in sannyas circles it would seem it can tend be hard to see the wood for the therapeutic trees, as it were.
Personally, I find the prospect of such people swanning around the world charging exorbitant fees for a few days’ work (nearly always in the most beautiful, exotic places – but of course!) thoroughly unedifying. As if a few days here and there is really going to fundamentally help anyone much, but that’s another issue.
But anyone who sets up a genuine Osho centre for meditation and makes that the priority, or who even simply organises meditation sessions open to all, is surely doing “Osho’s work”. One prime example from my early days was ‘Nirvana’, the small central London centre opened by Shyam Singha and run by Veena, back in ’73. There was a purity in that very small space that seemed to somehow expand its dimensions and Osho was well served there.
Greg says:
“People are not doing Osho’s work, they are doing their work.”
Osho’s work was for people to be doing their work, so if they are doing their work, they are effectively (also) doing Osho’s work. A conundrum indeed, Greg.
That is your best post ever, Vartan.
As far as Greg’s post goes it is good, but presents an incomplete picture. To say that, “the term “Osho’s work” is used to give legitimacy to their personal unconscious understanding” might apply to some, but not all, and if it were so does that not include the fact that Greg is also speaking from his personal unconscious understanding, as he puts it? Or does Greg see himself above that?
I don’t see the term “Osho’s work” as disgusting. The Work was an expression used by the Gurdjieff school and is perfectly justified, because it is all about people working on themselves.
Greg says, “It is simple!”, as well it might be, but not that simple.
It is simple really.
The mind tends to complicate things if we think about it.
Nobody is doing Osho’s work.
There are some people (more or less competent) who are CONTINUING Osho’s work – but it is their own thing.
They are not doing Osho’s work, they are continuing Osho’s work, according to their understanding.
Greg, do you believe that everyone on SN is simple-minded?
Unfortunately, you are not simple-minded.
You are very complicated-minded. I see comments from people who do not meditate at all and have very cunning and complex minds.
Thanks, Greg, but it would be good if you registered here, rather than use the cloak of anonymity.
Just one rider to what you say, many great people have lived and live who never knew meditation, or called it that.
Or in fact ‘practised’ it. Not that somehow or other they did not live spiritually adventurous lives in some way.
Those who see themselves as ‘meditators’ and seek refuge in such a label are very often expressing their own elitism in an unconscious or even conscious way.
They are also often escaping or suppressing an embrace of their more tantric and ‘Zorba’ side.
Bla bla bla….same as most comments on this forum…just bla bla bla… pretentious idiots, ‘know it all’ morons.
What I said was very simple. Funny that you don’t understand a simple thing.
Your mind is too complicated.
This post reminds me of the ‘Friends’ episode during which Phoebe took up with a therapist, and the therapist pretty evidently expected to take over as king of the gang.
On realising, towards the end of the episode, he was making no headway in making the gang worship him, he flipped out on the sofa in Central Park, and gave them a hysterical lecture about the pathological co-dependency that was their little crowd. Hilarious.
It is a point of interest that it is Shantam who wrote this article, because often I have asked him what he is talking about when he refers to “Osho’s work” and not once has he given a clear answer.
To say that it is a conundrum is quite to the point on a certain limited level, because in a way it is a riddle, something to which there is no clear answer as such…if you keep looking out instead of in. Perhaps this has something to do with Osho himself, who once declared that his whole work was to confuse you in order for you to drop your knowledgeability.
Going by what goes on in Osho’s name today I think it fair to say that in terms of confusing people he succeeded magnificently. One only needs to read some of the posts here on SN to see how confused some of his sannyasins are, the author of the lead article being a prime example.
I have often described Shantam as a very confused person. So much of what he says is full of contradiction. Well and good to a point, but to remain confused is to remain stuck. Osho wanted to confuse people in order for them to abandon their head and seek the heart. It was a means to an end, not an end in itself.
Fundamentally, Osho was for inner change via the path of meditation. Shantam imagines himself to be a devoted disciple of Osho yet admits that he is more interested in outward change, his campaign for regime change in the Resort etc., which is basically politics, making Shantam a politician, a class of people who Osho declared to be utterly stupid, their whole effort being tied in with lower chakra power trips.
As I see it, Osho did not lay down a concrete foundation as to what the nature of his work was, if such a thing exists. If it does, it had to do with meditation. It does not require an organisation to help people to meditate. It is an inner calling. Unless one sees and feels that the outer world is a tale told by an idiot and the only place to go that is worthwhile is in, then one will never feel inclined to enter the world of meditation and remain content to pass through this world in a dream. That is what most people do.
A conundrum is a situation where there is no clear right answer or no good solution. Therefore I say there is no conundrum surrounding anything that could be desribed as Osho’s work. The man spent his whole public life encouraging people to meditate. If you don’t understand that was the most important message he wished to convey then you must not only be stupid but also deaf and blind also.
Good post, Lokesh.
Cool.
You can get at the most 4 out of 10 for this post. Lokesh´s clarity does not show confusion, but a smugness of an illiterate; that which I know, I know very well, that which I don´t know has no meaning.
Still, I will say, out of available writers here, Lokesh has the capacity for thought-provoking writing. Others are good human beings and most probably, deep, very deep meditators!
Who is Greg?
Old timers are jumping as if lost cousin from second world war has come home with his Vietnamese wife and five children!
To me, he seems to be the person who is sharing room with Frank in the old people´s home.
Can you tell something about you, Mr. Greg?
Burn witches and kill people and paedophile priests; those who think impact of Christianity in these terms, most of the times are psychiatric cases, unsuccessful in their academic and professional life.
Such people were looking desperately for alternatives: Osho and other Indian gurus gave the impression, with us, you can have cake and have it too, and we will bill it to your parents’ account!
Ah yes, I can remember when I was an innocent choir boy, being buggered every Sunday by a paedophile priest as I bent over saying my prayers to holy mother Mary. All that changed when I heard of Indian gurus. It was like a brilliant light shining into the dark cellar that was my life.
Of course, being a Westerner I was naturally wealthy, with nothing better to do than sit and eat my cake (prasad) at the feet of the enlightened one, Osho. How the Indians must have laughed at us poor Westerners, travelling all the way to India for something that they saw as their birthright. Indians are naturally wise and have been practising holy enlightenment techniques for centuries, like ringing brass bells, saying namaste instead of houllo, rubbing holy cow’s hindquarters for prosperity, maintaing a caste system, circumnambulating phallic symbols, suppressing women, wiping their bums with their hands and then serving food…hold on, this is going in the wrong direction.
I will begin again.
The inhabitants of the Indian subcontinent are the most enlightened people in the world and the only ones capable of understanding Osho and………..ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.
People like Lokesh create the impression as if they know the essence of Osho and that is meditation, and “YES, WE ARE MEDITATING.”
Old Indian proverb is, “When you carry half-filled pot on your head, water creates noise.”
Who discovered Meditation?
Osho.
Who invented meditation?
Osho
What was before Osho?
Prayers.
So you guys are in meditation?
Of course!
Thus answered, ‘Swami the Witness’.
You might make a more impressive case, Shantam, if you ever provided any shred of evidence of what constitutes your own particular ‘path’. Apart from ultimately useless, pointless rants about ‘Sannyas politics’, of course.
I mean, what the hell is Sannyas for you anyway? Endless laments for a lost, never-to-be-recovered past, a personal ‘golden age’? Together with anger at how certain people have prevented its resurrection?
By pouring scorn upon meditation you’re digging yourself a rather large hole – the one where all fools eventually bury themselves. And it seems you have no way out….
He’s a Gurdjieffian device.
The equivalent of digging holes and filling them in again.
He’s Gurdjieff’s Russian.
Nothing for him here, but he won’t be hurt.
A Gurdjieffian device for Sannyas News.
By Jove, I think you might be on the right lines there, Arpana…
A brilliant insight indeed!
See how the man digs! Wow!
I mean, can you dig it, man?!
WorK is a four letter dirty word…
It has nothing to do with my version of sitting around with friends taking the piss out of each other, opening a favourite bottle of something in front of a photo of Osho and saying, “Cheers, mate”, before going to bed with your favourite girl ( or guy ) and enjoying the mysteries of the beyond.
Which reminds me of the other four letter word…
LOVE
Seekers coming together, living and seeking together is not a new phenomenon. It’s been there from Buddha thru Gurdjieff thru Ramana and so on. One point Osho has always been emphasizing is, “Bring meditation to the market place”. I also like to say, “Bring market to the meditation place”.
People spend a couple of grand year after year on vacations until they run out of the vacation spots, looking for the beauty outside. If there exists one place where they can come and see that they carry the beauty within. A Hawaii/ Las Vegas of meditation, inner sciences , mystery school that is open to all public. An Oasis to drink the divineness, irrespective of what religion one belongs to. Sure, people will flock and “market can be brought to meditation place”.
Buddhafields are all well and good. But they very often, like communes in general, end in disaster. This is because they are ‘societies’, and wherever there is a society then politics is endemic.
I can see how you might think, Anand, but as you are a disciple of Osho, then bear in mind that he said more than once he would not have visited the then ashram in Poona when he was a seeker, in fact he would not have touched it with a bargepole!
Our personal meditation is doing Osho’s work, to work on our selves. If we then can share something out of it with other people, that’s a plus, if people get also attracted to meditation and Osho’s work expands, even better…Simple.
I just saw a movie about Beethoven; he is saying, “The secret is between the notes, in silence, God talks to your soul in silence.”
(In “her” movie he / she said the same: ”Silence is between the words.”). I could not believe it, I am in total joy. That’s sharing meditation; it doesn’t always have to be connected with somebody’s name, even Osho’s name. Earth is one community.
I am curious to know are there sannyasins who have the yearly membership for some fitness studio?
Fitness studios are the new churches, in sannyas lingo, Resorts. They have the best package, attract more people, are on the expansion spree and offer Meditations too!
It may be a mental shock for some “Rajneeshies”, who think others have no idea how to even spell ‘madtaition’, what to say about sharing?
Sometimes, I think if Osho Foundation International has its way, they would prefer people around the world to pay some fee in case of laughing or crying!
Shantamji enquires, “I am curious to know are there sannyasins who have the yearly membership for some fitness studio?”
My six month subscription to the gym just ran out. Now the time draws near for a daily 3km long swim in the sea.
Osho left various instructions as to how ‘his work’ should be continued. Those who know those instructions and promulgate them are clearly doing his work, as that is the word (work) that Osho himself used.
Shantam and others don’t like this because they have their own view of what organisers should be doing in the Sannyas movement. This includes their own views about malas, colours, pics of Osho, fossilisation of White Robe ceremonies, sannyas ceremonies and all manner of things.
They are all considerations and views based on the ‘history’ of how things used to be. This is what is usually called, in most contexts, ‘conservatism’, and it always attempts to destroy the radical and the truly rebellious.
Parmartha,
Have you heard Osho (!) saying he gave these instructions to these specific (!) people how to continue his work?
No, you have not. You have heard these people (!) saying, ”Osho said so”. So, by all means you can believe them (!).
But I am not a believer. It can be true or not true.
I was already before few years ago wondering this ”I leave you my dream” stuff. And then when things were escalating with copyrights and other smaller events all the way to the so-called ”Osho’s will”, nothing that they seemed to be doing was feeling clear for me.
I also watched the funeral video again a few times. If you watch it, you can see Amrito reading events from the paper, but he is not reacting or giving any response to Osho’s last words, it looks as if he is behaving according to the script. So anyway, I never heard Osho saying, ”Believe me”, I definitely never heard him saying, ”Believe in my post office”.
So, I am not a believer. But it’s ok, if any of you choose to be so.
For me, it sounds limited and, as Lokesh put it, ”on the outside”, if Osho’s “legacy” would be only on people organising his meditations or therapies. Meditation is individual, inner process, which is ”the work”, the rest is side-effects and outcome. And now more than ever.
Sorry about the exclamation marks.
“Osho left various instructions as to how ‘his work’ should be continued. Those who know those instructions and promulgate them are clearly doing his work, as that is the word (work) that Osho himself used.”
Wow!
Living in Denial has many advantages. It is basically the first and fundamental ingredient of a religious believer!
To me, it has the ring of truth.
Having been around Osho in the flesh for a number of years, I know he was always changing things, and often in a big way, and adapting new techniques etc. If his instructions included that sort of guidance, then it makes sense. Certainly not to leave things in aspic as they were on the day he died.
I know he was always changing things, and often in a big way, and adapting new techniques etc.
Alas, this ended within years of His death!
Chuddie King declares, “Living in Denial has many advantages. It is basically the first and fundamental ingredient of a religious believer!”
Well, at least the master of the absurd knows where he stands on the banks of de Nile. I am left wondering if he is a Monkees fan. As in…”And I saw his face and now I’m a believer.”
Rebellious is to make designer babies through not the usual, animalistic way!
(I won´t elobrate further. I don´t want to be blamed for sexist remarks).
(MOD: CAREFUL, SHANTAM, to elobrate CAN MAKE YOU BLIND, YOU KNOW!
OR DO YOU MEAN elaborate?)
Thanks, Parmartha, for being a good English teacher.
(MOD: IT WOULD BE HELPFUL IF YOU’D EXPLAIN THE UNCLEAR WORD(S) IN YOUR PREVIOUS POST).
“Bear in mind that he said more than once he would not have visited the then ashram in Poona when he was a seeker, in fact he would not have touched it with a bargepole!” – Parmartha
Thanks for bringing this up. I am not sure if I comprehend that fully. Day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, we are doing the same profession or living in the same house or living with the same partner or eating the same food. Why only one visit to the spiritual centre? Maybe What Osho says is Symbolic, ie that you are never the same person when you enter the ashram next day and the ashram is not the same either.
In spite of all dirty politics and ugliness, we still continue to live in this world, so what if there are some politics in the Ashram? Is that the reason to abandon it?
Please comment….
Newman asks, if there are some politics in the Ashram? Is that the reason to abandon it?
It could be. Others like myself just grew out of it.
A.Newman wrote: “…so what if there are some politics in the Ashram? Is that the reason to abandon it?”
Well, in my own case it would be one of the reasons, but not the only one. Add on the filthy polluted air of Poona, which is guaranteed to make me sick within 10 days of arriving; the poor selection of therapists and groups now on offer – not to mention the low quality of the facilitators; the abusive attitude and behaviour of the staff in general; the Methodist Youth Club type of straight, conventional and boring wankpots that flock there in large numbers these days; the over-the-top pricing etc. etc.
Hell on Earth! Time to move on.
And believing in somebody, anybody, is the beginning of the politics; giving the space for politics or priests to exploit you. I am out of it.
There is no need at all, Anand Newman, of either the ideas or alternatives
you have put into words like this:
“Bring meditation to the market place.” I also like to say, “Bring market to the meditation place.”
We ever have been “marketplace” and/or also part of the “market” at any time.
What meditation offers/can offer is
sometimes seeing that issue through kind of magnifying glasses,
facing the pain and also joy of it.
And if we visit a place or let us say ‘school’ to deal with these facts of life in a human body with a strong longing to reconcile or another way to r e s p o n d
to that as that one we grew up with,
that is a very beautiful intention which brought us ‘on the go’. We sometimes call that ‘searcher’ or ‘lover of truth’, yet being in the neighbouring cell of identification – being ‘special’, so to say,
to get stuck in that…
But also that is part of the marketplace and the market,
and the market has become as big as anything nowadays as we more and more are up to realise what we have unavoidably (!) lost on these ways.
The word ‘conundrum’,
‘riddle’,
and, I might add, ‘koan’ also,
is very well chosen for this thread, I feel.
What I read so far is like the sound of a river – riveting.
And the last days
just to balance some of my pain here – I have been deep in research about the river-ings of the caravanserai and it helped me to get a little more acquainted
where many of the judgement ‘dances’ are coming from.
I would not at all cherish the virtualising of human affairs on the big, big IT market (like Fresch seems to be doing like with ‘HER’),
but posting here – me – for sure is part of it.
So how to write a love letter to Existence and to fellow-travellors?
On a rainy morning
first spring blossoms are gone
others are on the go
and the roots of the trees and bushes and the grass leaves are deeply enjoying the rain
and I can see that looking out of the window
and the glass of the window is crystal sparkling where daylight from the
today ‘invisible’ sun is meeting the raindrops on the glass.
By Grace
I can sit here to post to you,
by Grace I’ve had breakfast already.
The forecoming days – when that is by Grace allowed to happen -
I will attend here the documentary film festival
to look at how others of the huge amount of fellow travellers see ‘the world’ and its people.
By Grace this post will reach to unknown and unknowable friends.
I wish you well and hope you have a good day
– wherevever – and however you are -
Love
Madhu
Anand Newman (strange name, are you aware that Devageet’s second name is Newman?!), I don’t understand your reply.
Osho was saying that as a seeker he would have no need or call for a commune such as the one that exists and existed in Poona, because he found he could make greater strides on his own, and also such places one way or another suppressed individuality.
However, for those who like such things, yes, of course no harm in it, unless as in the Ranch phase of the commune they did harm to others.
How to avoid such harm is a whole ball game of dialogue, but basically there has to be a democratic flavour, and politics kept very carefully in its place.
You contribute, Lokesh:
“Newman asks, if there are some politics in the Ashram? Is that the reason to abandon it?
It could be. Others, like myself, just grew out of it.”
My question to you is,
you grew out of…what?
As long as you contribute
and contribute your sometimes really spicy comments,
to get threads going and to refer to their contributions in sannyas, post-sannyas, beyond-sannyas issues,
you are quite IN it,
isn’t it?
And sometimes your spice is arrogance.
Why not? you may say.
I don’t know…just feeling that every so often when arrogance comes into play
threads are deteriorating (when I remember the issue, the subject of thread),
and the whole then going kind of down the drain into personal and personified fights.
Over the years there seems to be quite a fixed role schedule then
and rarely place for a SURPRISE.
And surprises are
how I feel it
NEEDED – because any surprise – like someone leaving a fixed group dynamic role pattern -
is or can be very beautiful happening (for everybody then).
Madhu
P.S:
I loved in my research the days before to read some of your ‘oldies’…
sharing
Madhu says, “My question to you is, you grew out of…what?”
I grew out of the need of looking to an authoratarian figure who I took to know was best for me, belonging to a spiritual cult, group, Osho’s meditation techniques, believing Osho was some sort of buddha-type being, the limitations of the sannyas scene, reading Osho books, watching Osho vids, somehow believing Osho was ‘above it all’ and such things. I just don’t need such things any more.
And thus you could say that I grew out of the ashram…like a walking carrot. No need to become attached to a vegetable patch, and there are is always the danger posed by white rabbits.
I’m not saying I’m anti anything, just a big enough boy to stand on my own two feet and find my own version of what I take to be truth. No big deal. We all have to grow up one day and say goodbye to our fairy godmothers and godfathers.
One of the biggest spiritual tragedies gripping the spiritual man is his self-induced belief to be better than political man.
Is there a way out to live without politics, is there a way out to reject the gravitational pull of the Earth?
Matter of the fact is there is no need of politics if one is living in the solitary confinements aka contemplations. More than one person in life or on the Earth – kind of politics enters. Only question is if it is based on communication or coercion.
When I look at Sannyas life, its smugness is the cause of its downfall. By holding Osho books on the head, collective Sannyas wants to protect itself from the rain shower.
It is very easy to remain happy and contented in a feudal and tribal set up. You rely upon the wisdom of your tribal elders; has someone seen any sadness on the faces of Afghans, Pakistanis or 80% of the Indian population?
To remain politically unaware has its advantage.
I must say sorry, before saying it. Parmartha reminds me of that citizen of feudal set-up, where no one questions the authority of the higher priest or local politicians. They must be following the guidelines given few centuries or few decades ago.
Dilemma arises when individuals have to interact with other individuals. In this set-up, some political development is a must. One of the reasons most of the sannyas relations end up in disaster is the lack of political mauve ours. (MOD: WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?) Politics and relations are based on the art and science of give-and-take.
Seems like Lokesh is the only person on this blog who has some kind of stable relationship. I want to know whether it is just a lottery or there is some kind of patriarchal, matriarchal or democratic set-up in his company of two.
Whatsoever it may be, politics seems to be functioning in a healthy way!
The basis of politics is about power, ie who has it, who doesn’t, who wants it etc. I suggest, Shantam, that your overriding concern for such issues derives from your uncomfortable personal sense of being, in various ways, ‘disempowered’, including, as possibly indicated by your would-be light-hearted question to Lokesh, in your marriage (par for the course in long-term set-ups where the love hasn’t been kept alive. Or are you already separated?).
All that, plus your apparent total lack of any genuine spiritual practice (how can one assume differently when you consistently fail to respond to questions on the topic?) adds up to a picture of a man floundering in a sea of mental mediocrity, the nature of which is obscured from his sight by all the hours spent stubbornly typing nonsense at his computer, imagining he’s contributing something of significance (apart from – unconsciously – making people laugh). That, plus retreating into his memories of ‘the good old days’, of course.
Digging a hole, day after day, imagining you’re building a tower…What a way to live, after all that time around Osho….
What an utterly charming and beautiful answer to my question, Lokesh,
seeing ‘you’ like “a walking carrot” made me send a laughter to the rainy sky
and don’t you be worried about the “white rabbits” they are as fantasy material as your carrot…you know, don’t you?
Made me paradoxically feeling ‘home’, then – reading here – after a short shopping trip for nutrition in the city
as for the spirit
AND as for the body too…
many tourists are on the go –
you also may have May-spring-rain?
It has been marvellous to feel that, skin-wise….
Madhu
P.S: For Lokesh and whomsoever else it may concern,
carrot-wise,
as a human woman these days I love carrots,
to smash them into a smoothie with lots of ginger, an apple or two,
vanilla – maybe cinnamon – just a little salt,
nuts and maroccanian mint,
add a little bit of honey and some lemon juice
maybe some yoghurt from the happy cow or some sweet cream.
As a rabbit
i would get stomach-ache -
so…it’ s not pure food – but delicious.
Madhu
MOD: NO MORE RECIPES, PLEASE KEEP CLOSE TO THE TOPIC, OR THEREABOUTS!
dear Shantam Prem, ( at 9.07 am , may 7,)
I once heard a wisdom whisperer say,
if something is ending, something is ending IN YOU!
I remember the sternness of sound (good schock…)
and I remember what uncomfortable statement that was for me.
It is still working thoroughly – sometimes more, sometimes less…
That kind of samasati – if you allow me to use such a big word for it…
sometimes I find out that it is like the medicine which – in the beginning tastes very bitter but the longer I take it – the better the healing.
You want to try?
Some?
Of that, too?
Love
Madhu
Shantam, I must say I kind of feel for you. Because I also had an illusion of sannyas as an ever enlightening friendship meditation circle. And an illusion of practising meditation would just lead me the way and solve everything in my life. I also had an illusion that people close to Osho would be somehow special; especially if they meditated, they would be ‘advanced’, mature.
Some time (not so long ago), all these illusions broke. My illusions. I was very angry. I was also posting here, writing how angry I am about ‘Pune organization’, about the will, copyright etc… For what? They are not behaving the way I want. They seem as greedy and self-centered as anybody else. So, my investment was not met. I felt betrayed. I felt betrayed, because I was a blind believer, not focusing on myself, but also looking for some kind of role model. That expectation I put on Osho, too. My role model. Osho. I am a fan, fan of Osho.
That’s why I started to look who are these people close to Osho, really? That’s why I dropped all ‘techniques’ that I had been involved in – involved intensively. To see who am I and what I project on the outside. Now I see I did have a kind of divorce, my essence was turning something else. There was a lot of pain. For broken illusions. So, good, they are gone.
I am not a great believer in therapy any more, but I must say, one thing this Svagito & co. are doing fresh in their book is that they emphasise it (being a therapist) is only a skill and as people on the path we are all alone, not comparable etc. So, they own any negative stuff on their part as individuals. I like that very much. So boring to be a role model for anybody.
This is a bit long, and not really for you, Shantam, of course. But pls save me the pain reading your end to the world lasting divorce of OIF. I try to grow up, how about you? If you are not into meditation, get a girlfriend.
For me, my best friends are sannyasins or people around meditations. There is so much happening there. With people and within my self. It just feels so much more real and new.
Fresch, this is really a nice post, from the heart of a woman.
Few feminine men like me want to fight too, when the cause is right.
Secondly, as a principle, I won´t say and have neither said, “Am I into meditation or not.” Just to say is too kinky for me. and also I know many, who walk with the billboard of meditation yet…!
Meditation is not like Viagra, to make people rise, when it is really needed.
As far as girlfriend is concerned, from the time I started writing at Sannyas News I had three beautiful relations, went out from them in a typical sannyas fashion. When I look back, don´t feel proud about.
Reconciled to the most challenging and enigmatic woman of my life; offered her marriage and offered her divorce less than 2 years into marriage and that too after a family holiday to India. When I look back, I don´t feel proud at all, on the contrary ashamed. So I am single for last 18 months as an act of repentance.
Just came home, after wooing a new woman and writing this post.
As far as boring people with the same political stuff, let me beg a pardon and ask, please post the links or original sannyas articles from various websites, which one finds not boring, thought-provoking and heart- provoking.
I want to see such articles and would like to know, are these articles authentic from the heart or just bluff from the big mouths?
Maybe two days ago, Parmartha,
you responded to one of my posts; you said you don’t understand what I mean/meant, yet you felt my writing is “meant well”.
Here in Germany – as times go by – such is a kind of idiom to share in utter
politeness with another human
that the person is seen as an idiot (but harmless, nice),
saying things which simply don’t fit.
Very often I have to look at dictionaries and then inside also
to understand words and also then be still to sometimes feel about stuff what’s hidden IN BETWEEN words.
To know a language as mother language is to know the flavours of so-called idioms too,
best learned via personal contact in the body, I feel,
when you hear the sound and you see the language of a body too.
We don’t have that here
and most of you
I don’t know from that experience.
Threads here are full of it – babylonianism…
double and triple and x-cell meanings, not rare but common.
I know English quite well for the simple reason that as a sannyasin this was the language for friends and fellow travellers – and I love the English language too,
but ever so often I miss the idioms because the dictionaries are not that elaborated.
For the word “conundrum”… that took me one and a half hours – just to look over the many, many possibilities to understand its inter-connection with complex issues.
Well – see – I have been ‘hooked’, I want to share
by your words “well meant”.
I see it also like this:
We all are quite often in babylonian language issues – besides the issues that are posted as subjects of the threads
(and please, moderators, don’t ask me this time to specify this).
And I mean ALL,
also those who have English as their mother tongue.
Nice to meet
anyway
sometimes,
or just loving the feeling of that – for the time being -
Madhu
Thank you so much for your afternoon SHARING, Fresch.
Rain is falling here,
making music.
Few birds in the tress shuffling their wet feathers,
yet singing.
How about your place in your HERE-NOW?
Birds too? Rain? Music?
Tea for one, or even for two? Or many more?
Wish you well,
Madhu
And a PS for Fresch -
The Tibetans have a wonderful term,
‘taking refuge’, and by that is not only meant to take refuge in a way of hiding or escapism,
but then and there it points to the fact
that we are helpless so often,
are in need of shelter (also a spiritual one)
and are also in need of friendship and support and are NOT self-sufficient.
Till now,
I just love this way of putting ‘human condition’ into words.
Sometimes
we might have a rough way of cleansing, ‘to throw the baby out with the bath water’.
And then it is good to remember such words,
for me at least.
Instinctively, I have felt sometimes irritated by self-appointed ‘advaita celebrities’ of the West.
And then remembering the modesty of Tibetan wisdom, as well as the sangha ‘invitation’, like the one I mentioned above,
was sometimes of help for my wounded heart.
Madhu
Thanks, Madhu, here it’s sunny, but really cold.
Lately I have studied physics with my teenage son for his exams and I read about the energy evolving into something new needs a lot of fire. It’s like a wave, but it always comes down too. To get condensed. The same happens in your brain too. So, sometimes you need to cool down after a lot of fire. I had my lowest point last autumn – gazing at the white wall period. Now it’s going up again, with the new direction. I am still supposed to have stressful time, but I kind of gave up on worrying about it and I am in a strange way instead laughing about it. I wonder why.
And Madhu, I have heard it before that I do things in a too intense way, somebody close to me said that when I am supposed to look out of the window, I jump out of the window. But I must be a cat being alive. Which reminds me that I love Osho meditations and I just could go around again for another intense few years.
Your recipe for smoothie was interesting, Osho legacy smoothie. I’ll try some version of it, perhaps a bit more simple.
I like your stories and sharing.
Parmartha, I hope you are not just a little bit chauvinistic, perhaps with your longing for philosophical evenings, so sometimes I also feel kind of an attitude coming from you like, ‘Can you, woman, just shut the fuck up while we men talk serious issues?’
I agree, Fleschie,
Big P and the lads getting drunk on the divine and shooting the shit on ‘philosophy evening’ as they prop up the bar here in the ‘Finger Pointing at the Moon’ freehouse sannyas pub are just a bunch of sexist old fogeys, for sure.
On the other hand, me, I`m a radical feminist.
You have to be these days to get a shag!
Frank, what makes you think I am not having my cup of tea?
Tracey to Sharon at a party: “Don’t know about you ge-ww, but I need a good stiff shag right away.”
Sharon: Yeah, so do I, but steer clear of that Darren, Trace, he just fucks ge-wws an’ leaves ‘em on their arses!
Tracey (eyes lighting up): Oh yeah? Which one’s him then, Shazz?
Sharon (laughs out loud): Come on ge-ww, surely even YOU can do better than DARREN, ya randy little slag?!!!
Dearest Fleschpot,
I never suggested that you are “not having your cup of tea”.
I suspect that what you are referring to is more usually expressed by another breakfast-based idiom: ‘getting your oats’.
I have the sneaking feeling you may have not quite got the attempt at humour in my post.
The humour (I had hoped) may have been arrived at thus…My attempts to claim to be a “radical feminist” would first be seen as a way of my attempting to prove to empowered women (like yourself and your friend, Maddie) that I am sympathetic to their cause, therefore they should not see me as a sexist chauvinist pig. Yet this façade would be quickly undermined by the admission that the real reason that I was actually affecting this stance was just to “get a shag”, therefore revealing that, in point of fact, my attitude turns out to be just as much a sexist one as ever. even as sexist as Big P and his macho cronies at the bar.
Cue…(in my narcissistic mind)…laughter…
Wow. that was hard work.
The work of explaining a joke is certainly as much of a conundrum as Osho`s work,
in fact, it might be exactly the same type of thing, trying to explain the most cosmic joke of all…
Hats and tea-cosies off to all who have undertaken this work. It’s bloody hard graft and needs a lot of determination….
Dear Frank,
Congratulations, you have been shortlisted for an ASPA* for your sterling efforts to bridge the PSCG** that so often severely hampers effective communication in important matters such as today’s topic.
As you will surely understand, whether or not you actually receive this prestigious award does depend upon the recipient of your explanatory notes fully understanding and accepting their implications, which, as I’m sure you’re already aware, is far from guaranteed.
However, a damn fine effort anyway.
*Advanced Spiritual Practitioners Award
**Psycho-Sexual Cultural Gap
Stop that smirking, you two.
Yes, Arps, true, Frank and SD are a bit smug… Or smag? It’s difficult for a woman to write here….
Don’t be so daft, Fresch.
You’re one of the regulars here.
Your contribution is as valid and appreciated as anyone’s, or not, as it were.
Everyone gets it in the ear at Sannyas News.
Even the old barfly Frank gets told where to get off every so often.
In view of the last-but-one post, it is with profound regret, Frank, that the Committee is unable to proceed with your otherwise well-earned ASPA.
Full marks for your effort though, your work-rate and commitment can’t be faulted, you spotted the psycho-sexual cultural gap and put it in…
Funny old game….
SD, thanks for the award.
But the credit goes to Sigmund Freud and his book, ‘Jokes and their relation to the Unconscious’.
It’s full of stuff like that.
Altho’ by coincidence, I just came across a story about dear old Siggy that raised my respect levels for him exponentially.
It`s an anecdote that deals in national and racial stereotypes,and as such (if you haven`t heard it already) I imagine that you and all the rest of the racist, sexist hooligans and skinheads propping up the bar at UKIPNews will be able to appreciate and greet with cheers of “Two world wars and a World Cup, oik! oik! oik!”
In 1938, Sigmund Freud literally gambled his life on the premise that Germans have no sense of irony or humour.
Before leaving Austria, as he was a Jew the Gestapo forced him to sign a document confirming that he was leaving of his own free will, in perfect freedom and under no pressure whatsoever.
Freud duly signed it, and added at the bottom of the page:
“I can heartily recommend the Gestapo to anybody.”
Is that true, Frank?
So many humorous layers.
That’s you. Not him.
Got you written all over it.
You can google it.
Described as apocryphal.
Made me laugh.
You’ve set me off on a new reading line.
I like this story about Freud, Frank. Funny and made me laugh, even if so-called “apocryphal”.
If true, showed a certain ‘Mourinho class’ I would say, similar to his last public statement about referees!
What kind of tea they serve you there, Frank?
An elderly couple was sitting together watching television. During a commercial, the husband asked his wife, “Whatever happened to our sexual relations?”
After a long, thoughtful silence and during the next commercial, the wife replied, “You know, I don’t know. I don’t even think we got a Christmas card from them this year.”
Fleschie,
I`m shocked…
I had no idea that you had access to the CCTV in my sitting room!
The only reason you get to post here on ShantamNews, Frank, is that you might well be an acronym for the one we know as Parmfranktha… it’s the only way I can explain that there exists in the blogosphere a bipolar self…one who writes only mirthfully and one who only writes mercifully with pure compassion…for those who will blog after him….
Maybe open for the Frank-mentioned book by Freud in this string, Martyn. Maybe an apposite one for you also as a stand-up comedian!
Sorry to disappoint, but Frank lives in middle England and as far as I know, I don’t know him from Adam!
Also, as I have said before, but you don’t believe me, I am not a ‘MOD’ person in our collective.
For the record, Fresch, I am not at all chauvinistic and am known to be so by female friends.
If we at SN collective were just into philosophical evenings then that is how the blog here would be defined. We are not, and several women are honorary members of the board.
My instinct is to be generous about the words “Osho’s work” and not too definitional. For example, does Shantam or anyone else think that Arun in Nepal, or Keerti in Delhi are not doing Osho’s work? They have their imperfections but so have we all.
I would also say the people at the Resort are doing Osho’s work. They also have their imperfections, but their stickability and longevity of service cannot be denied.
Like all these semi political things, criticism arises frequently and loudly, but even if such people attracted to such roles were changed, then the pattern is the same as in mainstream politics.
A freshly elected or installed administration are popular for a few months but then become as unpopular as the last. The new administration at the same time realise how much applied tireless, selfless work and actual admin ability is involved in making a good job of such roles. This is never fully evident when one is sitting on the opposition benches.
Regarding changes in power, Sheela’s manipulation of the situation in 1980/81 to replace Laxmi as Osho’s Secretary, and also to take Osho to America, is a case in point. Laxmi ‘served’ Osho tirelessly and largely without ego. As it proved, going to America was a mistake for Osho. And also Sheela proved a maniacal housewife rather than a good egoless administrator and her administration was almost certainly corrupt and tainted with a sort of stress-induced madness from the beginning.
Sorry, Parmartha,
As far as I experience it by reading,
there are bit more sane days and quite insane days on Sannyas News Caravanserai
and in the often mentally visited realm of judgment days – not to call them ‘the last judgment days’…
The offers like “”maniacal housewife” – “stress- induced madness – from the beginning”,
and on the other side, “good, egoless administrator(s)”, to name only just a very few of them,
are mostly like undefined balls thrown like in the playing of ‘völkerball’ – that’s how we called a rather rough game played by kids from six to eight or nine years old – where who was HIT by the ball had to quit…
I hated that game as a small girl and avoided it whenever I was able to.
The majority though loved it – catharsis- promising procedure with the after-effect sometimes to get tired and exhausted into a merely endowering (MOD: WHAT?) ‘peace’ for a couple of minutes…stroking the parts of the body where the HARD ball had met the flesh.
What a “good, egoless” administration in play is
can be found out every moment anew,
also what then and there means ‘egolessness’.
What is a KOAN on its own – has ever been
nothing to do but mistakes, it seems
(including my writing – here-now…). (MOD: WELL, YES, MADHU, COULD YOU EXPLAIN THESE LAST 2 PARAGRAPHS, PLEASE?)
When coming home late yesterday evening after having had challenging and difficult situations with stalkers of the so-called ‘new media entertainment businesses’ (fun-loving manipulators….’playing, or what THEY call play…).
Film-makers as well as business administrators of the ‘doc-business’, as well as the brand of new scholars in this area
(makers who see themselves as kind of marionette puppet play organisers in need of ‘human information material’, so to say – to get their logistic play on the computers going (instead of screens and kind of fair theatre plays like in ancient times…(Shakespeare indeed long dead – so sad…)
And coming home and read posts from the day – here then –
my first RE-action has been to vanish sannyas postings from the screen,
as I – and you – can realise – that didn’t last long
and so I once again say to the fresh morning:
there seems nothing to do but mistakes
YET
the way to deal with that
can be human or pretty inhuman (far below any belt as we say here,
or unfair
you also can say,
or very unproductive (counter-productive)
as you also can say and so on and so on…)
What a ‘good administration’ is
I don’t know
but I came to know life situations of inter-human flow by grace,
where ‘administration’ as such was hardly feelable as restraint
because enough people have been sticking to values of human exchange.
Fairness is one,
the mistreated value of loving and respecting – other ones.
If a majority leaves some standards of just these few,
the missing becomes visible in endless and so often totally fruitless discussions
and judgmental (often very sick roundabouts).
The issue of a ‘good administration’ can be opened up in the very present moment here-now
because any present moment is mirroring any past and inheriting all the failures
and the happy moments too.
All are simply repeated and that goes as long as it goes
till the lesson in school of LIFE is successfully finished.
And when the lesson in it is successfully finished
we don’t need to brag about it any more.
There’s all possibility to find in me some traits of a nagging, German neurotic “housewife”,
when I say
I am sometimes fucking missing that some of the males here
also look in the mirror.
Madhu
Rainy Morning Blues….
Madhu, are you telling us that Sheela didn’t fit that description? And that neither did Laxmi fit what was said about her? If so, you’re on very shaky ground.
As for your anger at yesterday’s comments from “some of the males here”, well, again that old psycho-sexual cultural gap comes into the equation, I’m afraid. Not the least of its symptoms being a sometimes radical misunderstanding of humour and shades of language.
Unlike Frank, I’m not going to attempt an explanation, but rest assured, as Arpana indicated, there’s no fundamental malicious intent. I must say, you (and Fresch) do ‘go on a bit’ and you’re hard to understand at times, but you both contribute value here (now and again – joke, ok?!).
I am surprised by your response, Madhu. Can I say please dont ‘identify’ with all women, or with all men. There are a thousand and one differences.
I am not being abusive by my descriptions. Laxmi did have sometimes an egoless flavour, it is a compliment. It would apply had Laxmi by chance been a man.
Even Sheela I have a little compassion for. She was certainly the wrong woman in the wrong job, but that happens, it could have been a man just the same.
‘‘राजनीति जितनी स्वस्थ हो, जीवन के सारे पहलू उतने ही स्वस्थ हो जाते हैं।’’
“When politics is healthy, other aspects of life become equally healthy.”
Who said this?
1 Buddha
2 Ramana Maharishi
3 Shri Punja ji
4 Amma/Meera/Bhagvan/Sadguru
5 ……..
6 ………
And who said this?
“Politics is for the mediocre, the unintelligent. It attracts thoroughly mediocre minds. For those uninterested in, incapable of entering their own interiority. Just look at your politicians!”
Shantam scores yet another own goal…
He thought it was all over – it is now!!
Shantypants, who gives a shit who said this? Sounds like you are desperately trying to come up with a prop to back up your failed crusade that nobody but you is interested in.
Have you not noticed, the more he’s dismissed,
the more his pseudo-intellectualizing escalates.
He’s compensating, and I surmise, unwittingly;
trying to win the approval of those who are so scornful of him, trying to prove he isn’t as thick as he is seen to be.
Let’s not forget though, as Arpana’s highly acclaimed research study has recently revealed, Shantam is “a Gurdjieffian Device”, specifically designed for, er, ‘digging holes’….
People who have not even dug the earth for planting potatoes claim to know the art of digging interiority!
We all need illusions to cope with outer life and inner limitations!
Man with potato chip head will be the one to appreciate salt. I ask you, westerners, what is wrong with curry-flavoured chips, even with lots of E numbers?
“People who have not even dug the earth for planting potatoes claim to know the art of digging interiority!”
You mean people like, er, let me think, er, oh yes…
1 Buddha
2 Ramana Maharshi
3 Shri Punja ji
4 Amma/Meera/Bhagvan/Sadguru
5 ……..
6 ……… ?!
His fucking metaphors are such a joke. Entirely based on his facile racist prejudices about us whities.
It just so happens that as a teenager in Pembrokeshire I used to spend summer holidays digging up potatoes to get pocket money, and I am prepared to bet anything that I have dug up and collected more potatoes than he has, to the tune of 1000 times.
I also worked in a store as a student, worked on the fruit and veg department. I humped hundredweight sacks of potatoes round on a daily basis when I was at work.
Clear off, Shantypants, with your shitty racist comments.
(MOD: LAST PARAGRAPH EDITED).
Well, Arpana, taken literally his comments are pure bullshine, of course. He simply has no clue how many of us have lived, no idea whatsoever.
My experience when younger is similar to yours, ie a fair amount of manual labour, in farms, on roads, in parks, in gardens, in a shipyard, in removals etc. And oh yes, those 3 days in a cemetery….
In my twenties, SD, I was involved with a fairly large social circle of lefty intellectuals, and was known to be pretty intense about such things, but I was always the first person who got asked for help when anyone was moving to a new flat, because I was always willing to roll my sleeves up.
I have lost count of how many friends I have helped to decorate their new hovels, because as you know, in our day (did I really say that? LOL ) we didn’t stay at home with mum and dad, and whine about how we couldn’t afford a mortgage, we moved into shitty, but not always, flats, cleaned ‘em up, and made them central to our young lives.
The camaraderie of a group of friends helping each other move to a new place, helping each other decorate the new place, is one of the great joys of life, that poets never write about.
A few days of egoless harmony amongst people who hadn’t even heard of meditation at that time.
“The camaraderie of a group of friends helping each other move to a new place, helping each other decorate the new place, is one of the great joys of life, that poets never write about.”
You have written in, Arpana!
For me, this is your best post till now, no reaction but straight from the eyes to the head and heart.
Parmartha, I believe you…it’s the first time I’ve read that you’re not a mod…
Me, a stand up comedian?..You must be joking….
No one knows Frank’s ID then…which makes this blog the seeker’s equivalent of ‘The Prisoner’ series, as I said before, but no one believes me….
Must dash, the audience awaits…in class teaching the Queen’s Onglish….
P.S: Here’s a reminder of what old Gizas look like when they join forces in the shadow of everlasting truths…
The video cannot be shown at the moment. Please try again later.
This string has sometimes moved to a parallel discussion about the importance or love of communes.
I finally found something I remember Osho saying but could not get the reference. I now have. It is when Osho (from the book, ‘Light on the Path’) actually announces that he had DISSOLVED the communes. Not often quoted, and certainly skirted by those like Arun, who keeps creating them, and those like Shantam who wants to remodel the Resort into something approaching his own love of the Pune 2 commune.
Osho said (I think in 1986/7):
“I had made the communes so that five thousand people could live together…Now I have DISSOLVED THE COMMUNES, because now I want the whole world to be my commune…
Wherever there is a sannyasin, he has to be my mirror. And time and space make no difference. If he is available to me, he is as close to me as you are (here).
And now I have millions of sannyasins around the world…These people are going to create a network of energy (a Buddhafield) enveloping the whole earth….”
(from ‘Light on the Path’, Chapter 13)
In my childhood, there was a joke. Couples used to go to village astrologer to enquire, “Boy or girl?”
His answer used to be always the same, “Boy no girl.”
In general, people were satisfied. 100% in the beginning, 50 % few months later. Which Indian of that time would not have been happy to know, “Boy, no girl”?
Those who come with the complaint, for example if they get the daughters, he has to explain them that his prediction was right. I have told you, “Boy no, girl.”
Any relevance, MOD? Can’t see it myself!
MOD: WE THOUGHT SHANTAM WAS MAKING SOME SORT OF STATEMENT ABOUT HOW WORDS AND EVEN STATEMENTS ARE UNRELIABLE, BOTH HOW THEY’RE USED AND HOW THEY’RE INTERPRETED. SO IT JUST SNEAKED THROUGH!
SOUNDS PRETTY SPECIOUS TO US HERE IN THE 24/7 OFFICE, BUT IS THAT CORRECT, SHANTAM?
Yes, Parmartha and the moderator, joke submitted by me was for this reason. More than with anyone else, Osho´s words leave much space for commas here and there.
‘Light on the Path’ is one of the books of a three part series of discourses, I think from Uruguay.
One needs to look at the context and circumstances too.
Parmartha, read the above piece from Osho again and see how much energy Osho poured in to create worldwide Buddhafield and where it has landed after his departure.
Just make a rough survey in London area to find out how many people still exist who use their sannyas name?
Buddhafield?
Is there some facility for simple Dynamic or Kundalini meditation in London?
Most probably, if you ask some old-timer about doing Kundalini in London, you may get some address in Brighton or Manchester!
Bullshit, Shantam.
There are at least four places that offer kundalini, dynamic etc. and related activities in London. And the Veeresh-inspired Humaniversity also has a strong presence.
It’s as Osho said in ‘Light on the Path’, many, many individuals are his mirror all over the world. It’s just they are not acting under the umbrella of any central organisation. Which is also a good thing in my book.
Anyway, how about you. Why are you not running a few meditations in that wasteland called Switzerland?
Before I could formulate my thoughts into words, by chance I came across 9 minutes of documentary video. It is on my facebook wall, “Once There was a mystic on this earth….”
I hope, Parmartha, you will enjoy the video and feel how Osho rebuilt His commune, His ashram and how aesthetically.
If I ever run a meditation, it will be only in the premises of Osho Commune International, Pune and as an extension in the world.
You are an elitist, Shants.
Unless someone tells you this and you know it and understand it, then you will never shed it.
It doesn’t matter at all where you meditate, or who you do it with, if they are sincere.
The Chuddie King says, “Buddhafield where it has landed after his departure.”
By all accounts, not nearly as bad as before Osho’s departue.
The Ranch was supposed to be a Buddafield and almost turned into a killing field.
It is NOT from Uruguay!!!
I got such a lot out of this book, this series of three.
They have a feel of Darshan Diaries,
because Osho was talking to such a small group of people.
All filthy, smelly, disgusting white skins on SN have moral obligation to question why it is that Gunga Din, Osama-bin-Laden, Mother Theresa, President Obama, Denzel Washington, Mahatma Gandhoo, Mike Tyson, O.J. Simpson, Nelson Mandela, Jimi Hendrix, Martin Luther King, Osho, Poppa Chubby, Swami Rajneesh and Charlie Chan have all been persecuted for their beliefs and great love of curry-flavoued potato chips and chuddie burgers. Failure to do so will result in an eternity spent in the mighty incinerator. May God have mercy on your soul.
Parts of this quotation rather beautifully sums up what happens when I unexpectedly see, hear the word ‘Osho’. (Definitely a geek and always have been, but wasn’t sure till I read this).
“Being a geek is all about your own personal level of enthusiasm, not how your level of enthusiasm measures up to others. If you like something so much that a casual mention of it makes your whole being light up like a halogen lamp, if hearing a stranger fondly mention your favorite book or game is instant grounds for friendship, if you have ever found yourself bouncing out of your chair because something you learned blew your mind so hard that you physically could not contain yourself — you are a geek.”
The Mary Sue defines what it means to be a geek, a beautiful definition that falls (un)surprisingly close to what it means to find purpose and do what you love.
(↬ It’s Okay To Be Smart)
(MOD: “The Mary Sue”? ALSO, HOW MUCH OF THIS IS A DIRECT QUOTE?)
The lecture series books He speaks in Uruguay, dear Shantam, is
‘BEYOND PSYCHOLOGY’
‘PATH OF THE MYSTIC’
‘TRANSMISSION OF THE LAMP’
and all this is indeed “light on the path”, Shantam Prem.
Another one of unending invitations.
Madhu
Thanks, Madhu.
A KOAN is a KOAN, is a KOAN, moderators,
unsolvable, either by mind or by words;
I BET you know that!
Being a fan of Charlie Chaplin, I am on ‘caravanserai stage’, confessing that his very talent is not mine.
But I try and try and try
and that goes as long as it goes – I don’t know myself how long -
and I am glad that the old ZEN masters who throw stubborn disciples out of four storey buildings so to say
are a bit more modest these days….
Yours sincerely,
Madhu
PS:
Silence is the answer (and probably you know that as well, don’t you?).
MOD: PLEASE TRY TO EXPLAIN THOSE 2 PARAGS, MADHU (ALSO endowered). IT’S NOT A KOAN AND SN PREFERS POSTS TO BE CLEAR, NOT TOO OBSCURE TO UNDERSTAND.
I really don’t know, Satyadeva, as well as Parmartha too,
why you brought in your response to my ‘Morning Blues’ post
Sheela as well as Laxmi.
Neither of the two
was on my mind when I just posted about my very own experience
of ‘administrating’ my daily life inside-outside sannyas and beyond sannyas realms.
So it’s up to you and your fantasies or to thinking on your side what you made out of it.
It is true though that sometimes I miss like anything being more in living
(NOT ! – virtual contact) with a buddhafield of fellow-travellers.
Evening Blues….
Madhu
Well, Madhu, this is what you wrote earlier today, where you objected to these descriptions of Sheela and Laxmi…
“As far as I experience it by reading,
there are bit more sane days and quite insane days on Sannyas News Caravanserai
and in the often mentally visited realm of judgment days – not to call them ‘the last judgment days’…
The offers like “”maniacal housewife” – “stress- induced madness – from the beginning”,
and on the other side, “good, egoless administrator(s)”, to name only just a very few of them, are mostly like undefined balls thrown like in the playing of ‘völkerball’ – that’s how we called a rather rough game played by kids from six to eight or nine years old – where who was HIT by the ball had to quit…
I hated that game as a small girl and avoided it whenever I was able to.”
So I can’t see why you think critical comments about your comments are irrelevant.
Dear Satyadeva,
Your critical comments of my yesterday morning post are not irrelevant ;
after a few hours of sleep I can follow your misunderstandings (as I experience it) much better.
Yet – my way to deal with ‘rotten’ or ‘not rotten’ administration issues may have taken or may take other ways as you may take.
So I might give that another morning try:
On the Ranch, for example, I have been so very often much more shocked by the mass of fellow-travellers who – in blind obedience followed rules and – how I felt it- forgot the reason why we all had come together longing for ‘another way and vision’ to live and celebrate.
Sure enough, some of my remarks then and there have been reported as utter nuisance…and much more like this… but indeed I found few also very loving friends in those precarious times.
As here now these years I follow more or less the SN-chats there are quite a lot pointing with the finger to ‘German fascist history’.
BUT one good fruit of what is called German history (and it was quite large Spanish and Italian history as well) is
that the generation (straight after war) I belong to has a pretty good inner shit detector.
And mine is fabricated with alarm-alertness on the string, that when there is fascism climate on the go
WE ALL are responsible and cannot hide behind some leading figures and are called up to examine thoroughly the way every one of us contributes
knowing or unknowingly to some puffed up ‘leading figures’
(that I might call ‘inner administration’).
To just discuss ‘leading figures’ who have become protagonists of a fascist CLIMATE is how I see it important,
but much more important is to look at that what’s really uncomfortable and that is how we all have contributed in numerous ways that a project with a start-up of a beautiful vision of togetherness and LIVING
went down the drain.
I see it as a symptom that the now following generations of sannyas quite often just ‘pee’ on us (oldies) drastically said
and some have the imagination they can just use the ‘nice stuff’ and leave the ‘rest’ in some immature contempt expressed for those who were “misled” as many like to see that.
That kind of dealing with the issue will keep the carousel turning I would say
up to the moment when these ‘better-knowers’ themselves have to find out that they are not free from fascist tendencies either.
All over the world you find this happening – in any kind of market place or business
and all the spiritual realms are not exceptions
(on the contrary – as the fish stinks from the head – like wise and simple people say).
Did not have sleep enough this night, Satyadeva, but I wanted to give it another try – and as I know that my day then will be without the computer.
I say hello to you,
“I saw your request” – and it’s relevant, but we may have to find a way of communicating beyond misunderstanding.
Good morning
so far…
I am off soon –
and may you and you all have a beautiful day – full of life and unexpected nice surprises…
It’s your English breakfast sangha day isn’t it?
So sometimes better have a chat eye-to-eye and hand-in-hand, isn’t it?
Madhu
And P.S:
Another one, Satyadeva:
Also the follower ‘fish’ of whatsoever virtual SWARM
may stink individually “from the head on”,
and through human evolution we have characteristics of ‘fish’ but we are not ‘fishy’, are we?
It’s just a very good metaphor,
especially nowadays in digital natives’ tribal so-called facebook ‘unions’.
And I’d like to make it clear: it’s just a metaphor for some also insane but very seductive development…
Haaaa! Enough now…really pretty close to toooo much….
Madhu
I don’t really understand this, Madhu: fish, stink, heads, facebook unions, seductive developments…
Wotsit mean, eh?!!
Epilogue
Legacy of Osho´s work
When God father´s son creates successful pizza chain, does it mean he is carrying the legacy of his father?
I can still accept this, but God father´s son indulging in petty crimes…It is too much!
It is my perception!
BUT it is clear that SWARMS of fishy metaphors on this caravanserai buddhafield are not the sole preserve of brown-skinned sexists and swarmis who do not look in the mirror of fascistic tendencies!
WE ARE ALL responsible for full English breakfast sanghas and smelly fish-and-chip-headed protagonists of ‘German fascist history’ whilst not looking in the mirror and drinking swarm beer with King Parm Arthur and his boogie knights of the carousel round table and ‘West-Side Story’ racists on YOUR side.
I would like to make it clear that the ‘administration’ of the understanding of the communication of the misunderstanding of the NOW…understanding is happening
HERE AND NOW
Looking outside window on a blue Monday with birds SWARMing, tweeting, and emailing words which cannot express as these fingers type
“the fish in the sea is not smelly”.
A KOAN is a KOAN is a KOAN, moderators.
I would like to make it clear that native digital tribes of facebook unions have gone into egoless administration from the stinking from the head-on of a “maniacal housewife”, but I simply have a cup of tea and with my good shit-detector on mentally visited judgment days and choose a perfect metaphor for this insane seductive development…
When the seagulls follow the trawler it is because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea.
Still got the blues.
Silence is the answer…
You probably know that by now!
At some point in this string, Shantam says that the book, ‘Light on the Path’, by Osho, was from when he was in Uruguay. He says this because in his own mind he wants to put in context what Osho was saying about the dissolution of the communes (Osho was speaking from Uruguay in mid 1986).
However, ‘Light on the Path’ represented talks from Nepal, Dec 2nd, ’85 to Feb, ’86, when Osho was actually speaking to quite a big audience and from a country where eventually the most communes in the world were created! So much for surrender to the Master!
I do wonder why people like Shantam do not check their facts, and just say what comes into their heads to defend a position. I fear, Shantam, you would have made a very poor barrister, if that, as you say, was your direction before you met Osho.
Trained as a barrister?
You will find that the correct spelling is barista.
Also, I heard that it didn’t go too well:
he got the sack, as the ‘White Ladies’ he tried to make were shaken but not stirred…
These days he just churns out ‘White Elephants’
ad infinitum….
Skol!
Dear Satyadeva,
Your post:
“I don’t really understand this, Madhu: fish, stink, heads, facebook unions, seductive developments….”
Nothing can be done about your understanding, hopeless case.
Madhu
Madhu, although I often quite like your unusual posts here, at times I read and re-read them before I fully grasp what you mean to convey, eg your “koan” the other day and now the one in question on Saturday, which I must have read three or four times, before deciding it wasn’t clear enough to understand.
Rather than hitting out blindly, as you appear to have done tonight, I suggest you take responsibility for not communicating what you actually mean in that earlier piece.
Writing in an obscure way so people have to somehow guess the meaning doesn’t indicate clarity, in fact it suggests quite the opposite. Maybe it’s partly a language translation issue, but it also seems like an unwillingness to spell things out, in favour of hinting at things via unfortunately dodgy metaphors. But the effect is not what you intended, as you can see via Frank’s response tonight.
You often write interesting enough stuff in your own unique style, so why not have another go at explaining that “koan” and what you were getting at today?
(Otherwise, I’m sorry, I’ll just have to give you extra homework, until you ‘see the literary light’).
Parmartha, you may be the editor and proprietor of this site, don´t forget Shantam is the engine, the most prolific author, at least on this site. So have some mercy in case of one or two tactical mistakes.
You are quoting as if Osho left the body after the Nepal talks.
I cannot say about Lokesh or Satyadeva, they had already left the Osho world before its expansion spree. But it is really sad that your personal involvement ended with Rajneeshpuram.
OSHO`S BODY PASSED THROUGH THE GATE WHERE OSHO COMMUNE INTERNATIONAL WAS WRITTEN WITH GOLDEN LETTERS.
“Parmartha, you may be the editor and proprietor of this site, don´t forget Shantam is the engine, the most prolific author, at least on this site. So have some mercy in case of one or two tactical mistakes.”
You’re confusing quantity with quality, Shantam, because few of your posts amount to worthwhile reading.
Moreover, that plus your consistent avoidance of others’ tricky (for you) questions, tends to disqualify you from the sort of preferential treatment you think you deserve here (imho).
You come across as something of a fantasist, drowning in your own self-importance (or digging an ever deeper hole for yourself).
The mark of a man of zero meditativeness (and proud of it, apparently), I’m afraid.
Such nonsense, Mr Shantam.
I have been involved in sannyas ever since Osho left the body and continue to do so. Some of it was in quite an intense way by initiating and running Osho meditations and considerable networking in London and the UK.
Your identification of sannyas with five acres of ground in a now very polluted bit of a very crowded Indian city amazes me, and shows how little you have actually heard Osho.
You could have apologised also for getting your facts wrong, your initial post was misleading.
Another recent example was when you refused to believe the story about Osho getting thrown out of his lodgings and reading ‘Tertium Organon’ all night under a street light. I was amazed by this, I could only put it down to some kind of Indian social class/caste pre-orientation.
Your self-view that you are the “engine” of this site shows a superiority complex extraordinaire.
I am, by the way, ONE of the Editors of SN, and it’s run by a small collective. There is no proprietorship involved.
Dear Satyadeva,
Your say:
“You often write interesting enough stuff in your own unique style, so why not have another go at explaining that “koan” and what you were getting at today?
(Otherwise, I’m sorry, I’ll just have to give you extra homework, until you ‘see the literary light’).”
My question:
Who you THINK you are?
Madhu
P.S:
Or do I have to give Inspector Barnaby a call in England who sometimes also deals with criminal affairs in the so-called spiritual groups? Especially when they indulge in threatening…and more?
Achtung! I’m your Englische teacher, I know everything, you insolent, ignorant little fraulein!
So – if you don’t like der ‘polite way’, ve haf der uder vays to ‘persuade’ you…
Now get on with your homeverk, vile I report you to der Authorities. Schnell, ja?!
(What’s happened to the Germans? It used to be such a wunderbar country. Ach, how I loved dose orange uniforms und dose flags…Und dat lovely little Fuehrer…).
Words lose the spice if there is no provocation!
Wrong, Shantam.
The truth needs no ‘spicing up’, no phoney marketing package ploys, it’s enough unto itself.
In other words, contrary to the “sell ‘em anything you gotta sell” business world out there…
It’s the sausage, not the sizzle.
You, sir, are deficient in the former, and display far too much of the latter.
SD, I am an apprentice from the school of Osho. Truth is salty, spicy, sweet, bitter and tangy and sometime tasteless too.
I know, there are many other schools too, few are even run by Ms. Hairy Armpits!
Bullshit, Shantam. You’re talking about people’s emotional responses to the truth, not the truth itself.
Be advised, I know, I’m the ‘God of Truth’ himself –
At your service, sir!
What you mentioned herewith, Greg,
is so evident as simple; nobody would deny it.
“They are not doing Osho’s work, they are continuing Osho’s work, according to their understanding.”
As you happen to happen on this website here, I might ask you, in what category you are including yourself?
Madhu
A musing about Osho’s work,
with particular reference to Oregon:
The larger the number of people falling over themselves to be
near you, be your friend etc., the equally large number of people who hate you, want to tear you down. Equal number of enemies you make.
Was he trying to teach us this?
I think it’s too easy to imagine all sorts of such ‘conscious motives’, Arpana, while the truth might well simply be he ‘went with the flow’ (as was his wont) – and took a risk, seeing it as a huge potential opportunity, both for his people and to ‘spread the word’.
What you’re suggesting implies he knew all along (or at least much of the time) what would eventually happen, which is too far-fetched for me to accept.
It seems to me more likely that he was out of his depth in the West, through sheer lack of personal experience over here – and simply chose the wrong ‘chief executive’ in Sheela.
That’s gambling for high stakes, I guess – no guarantee of winning, but hopefully, an experience to learn from anyway (like everything else in life).
“What you’re suggesting implies he knew all along (or at least much of the time) what would eventually happen, which is too far-fetched for me to accept.”
I agree, but am convinced he expected the unexpectable, that he cranked up the likelihood of unforeseeable consequences, set out to ensure those, ensure random happenings that had to be dealt with spontaneously by him and us. Ensure even more unpredictable consequences, that would have to be dealt with spontaneously and without using our standard scripts.
However, the perfect storm tuned into a tornado; but in fact some of us did learn from those events.
Could you give one or two specific examples, please, Arpana?
Of what people learned?
Of when “he cranked up the likelihood of unforeseeable consequences, set out to ensure those, ensure random happenings that had to be dealt with spontaneously by him and us. Ensure even more unpredictable consequences, that would have to be dealt with spontaneously and without using our standard scripts.”
Because until the major troubles started, he didn’t really do a lot, did he?
Apart from appointing Sheela and apparently encouraging her to be ‘extra-controversial’ Maybe that’s what you mean?
If so, he made serious errors of judgment, didn’t he? Unless you believe setting much of the conventional world against him and the whole enterprise through gratuitous insults and the rest of the arrogant nonsense, was somehow beneficial?
As far as I understand, by the time the Ranch began, in the region of 75% of the individuals involved with sannyas were in their twenties. Osho was giving permission, actively encouraging, all those mostly western youngsters, who came, I put to you, from a broadly repressive, conservative, ‘Christian’ background (whose parents, to a huge extent, had been connected to the armed forces for one reason or other, and all the authoritarianism in that) to go into, behave in ways – just sexually, for example – they had been told they shouldn’t throughout their childhoods.
It was OK to behave in a way that wasn’t ‘nice’. To express anger. Put it out. He gave us permission to be loving. To be naked en masse. We could dance in the rain, without being labellled insane. A storm of energies, creativity was released. It was beautiful, mathematically exponential, not arithmetical, multi-dimensional, a storm, but like everything, there was a dark side. There always is. It is inconceivable to me he didn’t see that, didn’t know he was creating a beautiful, dangerous storm.
If you call people names they get pissed off at you. He called Reagan names. He set out to provoke the American government.
(I know that If I go into a pub frequentwd by racist thugs and tell them they are racist bastards and that I want them to rot in hell, they are going to beat the shit out of me).
He encouraged us to behave in a way that Christians call good and bad. How could this not release a storm? And in some cases, the storm released was appalling. It seems inevitable, in hindsight, that some seriously shitty stuff would happen, along with all the good stuff.
I don’t believe for a minute he specifically wanted to set in motion what happened, the poisoning etc., but I can’t believe he didn’t know he was unleashing what we called dark and light. Maybe he sees dark and light differently to us. (For some people. the Ranch time was the peak of their lives. Parmartha has spoken positively of being at the Ranch).
I trust Osho’s intentions absolutely, even if I don’t know what the fuck is going on at times (often). I am at ease with uncertainty now, as I wasn’t then.
In my view, he was cooking something that was beyond what we call good and bad, right and wrong.
I don’t believe he’s moral as we are. Probably more Benthamite, ie the greatest good for the greatest number, and playing a long game.
You’re judging him as imperfect. I say to you he is not motivated by a need for our aproval and need to fit our ideas of perfect.
I would say I’m seeing him as ‘imperfect’, capable of making mistakes, Arpana, especially in worldly matters. Which, by the way, doesn’t mean that I question his spiritual authority, his consciousness, his greatness as a master.
Whereas you appear to see him as necessarily incapable of any error of judgment, interpreting anything that might appear ‘flawed’ as part of some inscrutable plan, beyond our capacity to understand. Which to me says as much, or more, about your personal need than about the nature of the man himself. (And no doubt you’ll view my comments in similar light!).
To SD
2 June, 2014 at 12:26 am.
He said of himself that he was perfectly imperfect.
Yes, Arpana, of course most people involved in sannyas by 1981 were young, although I doubt if as many as 75% were still in their 20′s, for many were well into their 30′s by then.
Also, don’t forget that Bhagwan/Osho was sort of ‘riding the wave’ of the 60′s and 70′s, that he didn’t ‘invent’ the huge upsurge of rebelliousness against the repressive past; by the time of the Ranch, western youth had been at it in ever-growing numbers for 15 or more years, in fact ever since the mid-to-late 50′s. It was the zeitgeist, which he exploited to the full, as you vividly describe.
So what did bring down the great collective enterprise to give birth to the ‘New Man’, that was the Ranch? You cite this unleashing of powerful psychic forces as inevitably bound to bring forth ‘the shit’, yet the damage at the Ranch was ostensibly perpetrated by very few individuals, not by the vast majority. Perhaps though, this isn’t so surprising in a large community run – with delicious irony for a place whose ultimate purpose was absolute inner freedom – on very authoritarian, even ‘fascistic’ lines.
Yet still, all are somehow implicated, since, as others have said, it’s arguable that Osho’s experiment in Oregon, despite its extraordinary practical achievements and the hugely positive experiences people enjoyed there, ultimately failed due to an all-round lack of personal responsibility, a failure to challenge external ‘authority’ (so at odds with all the much-prized internal freedom from authoritarian conditioning so eagerly claimed by so many), together with a common underlying sannyasin mentality of at times almost childish self-indulgence (closely related to the ‘anything goes’ ethos you outline, the negative extremes of which also often enough tended to degenerate into a sort of ‘emotional fascism’).
In a nutshell, too much unbridled emotion, not enough balance. And, most paradoxically (though not if we factor in the ‘childishness’ aspects) too much deference to authority.
Such tendencies helped to foster and were themselves fed by an over-idealistic, immature view of who and what the master is/was, ie ‘The One Who Knows Everything’, ‘The One Who Will Protect Me’ etc. (you know, variations on ‘The Ideal Daddy’) and therefore of what the ultimate object of the exercise was/is.
Arpana, I’m sure we all “don’t doubt Osho’s (past) intentions”, but perhaps he might have somehow averted the ensuing “road to Hell” by sounding more warnings concerning such matters. And/or by simply being more in touch with what his chief executive & co. were up to. Instead of seemingly having been ‘caught napping’ when the truth came out and then berating the obvious ‘criminals’.
If he had, then Sannyas as a movement might look very different now. And even Shantam might be ‘happy’ (but maybe that’s stretching things a bit!).
At the risk of going over old ground already covered here and elsewhere, another key factor that probably tended to foster a certain personal irresponsibility at the Ranch was one common to large groups, ie the sense that ‘the group’, the community, the huge, ‘extended family’ will somehow take care of everything, so that ‘I’, the individual, don’t need to be too personally concerned in what’s actually going on, as “I’m safe”, nothing bad can touch us, can reach me (especially, in cases like the Ranch, where ‘God Himself’ – or his ‘Divine Representative’! – had not only set this up for us, he was there, in person, so how could anything go wrong, it was unthinkable!).
Such a ‘comfort zone’ can be deadly, as seen in the excesses of Nazism etc., or even, at a lower level, in mass hooliganism, riots on the streets. There are few things more unreliable, more potentially destructive than a large crowd, when provoked.
And at another extreme, mass passivity can lead to equally destructive outcomes.
Diverging a bit, perhaps one of the intrinsic flaws of Sannyas as a movement is its very size, which makes it next to impossible for all voices to be heard, and likewise very difficult, probably impossible, to be run on anything approaching ‘democratic’ lines.
Add to that the inbuilt autocracy of the Master being necessarily at the pinnacle of the pyramid and, even after his death, the ‘shadow’ of dictatorship is almost bound to remain. With no ‘easy’ answers, apparently.
(Shantam, please don’t respond!).
You have ideas as to how he should have behaved, and I don’t.
You feel qualified to say how he should have behaved and I don’t.
My starting point is that my inner landscape has been transformed by contact with him, by making use of his meditations, sannyas etc., my inner landscape that was a morass of hangups when I came upon him.
That’s it. I am anchored in that, and that I trust his intentions absolutely.
As I said, who among us would ever doubt his intentions?
And who would ever doubt the great good that many received?
I benefited as well, but here I’m trying to look at the whole picture, trying to put aside subjective bias. Doing that, it’s hard not to realise that he was neither ‘omniscient’, nor ‘omnipotent’, just a highly evolved being who at times could get external things wrong – and to others’ considerable cost, by the way.
To me, it’s just convenient ‘double-think’ to deny any mistakes he made were somehow part of a secret ‘master plan’ that we can not possibly conceive, let alone begin to understand. That’s just another childish symptom, isn’t it?
Look, I don’t doubt your sincerity, your discipleship at all, it just seems, in this respect anyway, you might be mixing up a sort of rather sentimental emotional attachment with love, thus, to some extent, obscuring ‘reality’.
I don’t disagree with that, but I don’t see that the bad things that happened make his whole project a failure.
Neither do I (as I thought I’d made clear).
Ok, but my impression of you has always been that you consider the whole project a failure becase of the Sheela business at the Ranch. But because you’re not rabid about it and still make a contribution here, I’ve not given it that much consideration.
No, not at all, Arpana. For a start, how can the whole thing be a failure if it went on to flourish in Poona 2?
There’s been far more good than bad, despite the critical points I’ve outlined today.
Dear Satyadeva, dear Arpana,
Visited your ´tea corner´ at the caravanserai, reading your left-overs with bits and pieces which I am very much concerned about…
Can follow both of you, as well as I appreciated that Pari changed the direction of finger-pointing to some imagination of ‘infallibility’, to point to ourselves.
Also invited us, by his inner work, to go beyond being stuck in pointing to some ‘celebrities’ in the sangha. To change that direction of pointing at each of us, to meditate about issues given by life itself. That’s what makes his report quite what I call growing towards maturity.
I remember so well when Osho said, what has “consciousness” to do with knowing that your room is bugged?
Nothing! Was and is the answer.
And another issue I remember from Pari´s left-overs, concerning ‘devotion’:
A story about when Ma Prem Jyothi massaged His feet and He was recalled, having spontaneously said, “Now you massage my feet and how long will it take, you come up to my neck?”
Soon – as Pari recalls it – He smoothed such sharpness of His words, then and there, but it is a very, very relevant story (would be so, even if invented!).
Both of what I have mentioned here has been my concern looking inside in so-called Pune I, as in Oregon, as in so-called Pune II, as until nowadays, up to this moment.
After passing the ‘Gateless Gate’ the first time, the thrill, I felt, for me, was to meet people as fellow- travellers, whom I had met before and without having arranged to meet at this place;
either I knew them from some psychotherapy trainings, or also from some other earlier, more hippie-like trails, and they (old and new friends) all were aged around their thirties, or older.
And what connected us, if we talked at all, was that in spite of having had the possibility of being well-skilled, we had been in a divine discontent about the skills of universities.
“Love-understanding-meditation”, how Vereesh did and does like to put it, had not been offered in other ‘schools of life’ to that amount and at that time, preparing so-called grown-ups for the market-place – and the necessity to deal with challenges for body-mind-and-soul.
Nowadays, that is becoming slightly better…and after our trials and many errors, some after-borns are standing and dancing on.
(And judging sometimes mercilessly – that´s obviously not so much of a change in the next generation´s attributes, in spite of all these family-constellation efforts…).
To encounter these challenges of the market-place, inside-outside, we need much more than the capacity to use a smart-phone app, so to say…
Want to end up now in expressing my gratitude for being able to address some issues where I in ‘sannyas-life-story’ belong to the “Clan of Scars”, as Clarissa Estes put it, when inviting for a Pow Wow – a meeting of the tribal gathering for a council.
Her approach, to encourage, to be loving to your old wounds and not negate them, has been a very healing offer for me,
still to be refreshed by myself at any given moment.
Love,
Madhu
And a P.S. came up:
Any work with others in a role of psychotherapist DROPPED me -
I couldn’t say that I myself dropped it – to make that clear for you. Yet I am my best client, so to say, as I never lost interest and made an effort to stay in contact with the latest developments in healing.
What Parmartha – as far as I understood him and his way of expression – said about “the big group” of communal affairs as inter-actions and relating, I could underline with my experiences.
Sure enough, it is true that some of my scars, resulting from wounds, resulting from shocks I wasn´t able to cope with, have had some enduring effects up to now.
That´s the way it is.
I couldn´t dare to say that I am living that part of a love-affair with the pride of some indie aborigine, one of those who is embedded socially with his tribe.
The very latter, I confess, I miss like anything, quite often.
On the other hand, growing older, also these precious moments are increasing now and then, coming as unpredictable gifts, not to be kept getting hold of – they come and go; that´s their NATURE.
And I will forever be so grateful to a Master who encouraged me to live the ‘Present Moment’ – like He did, not only not-teaching us – but BEING it.
So I survived stuff I never ‘thought’ I could survive.
So that´s a gift of life, isn´t it?
‘And I will forever be so grateful to a Master who encouraged me to live the ‘Present Moment’ – like He did, not only not-teaching us – but BEING it.
So I survived stuff I never ‘thought’ I could survive.
So that´s a gift of life, isn´t it?’
I can relate to that.