The Co-founder of Sannyasnews, Swami Paritosh, published this article many years ago. We think however it still answers some of the points constantly reiterated by Shantam and others. At that time there was no facility for commenting on SannyasNews, so we republish it here with respect to Paritosh, who died a few years ago. There are a few dated things but we still think it worth drawing attention to his views. He was the author of the widely respected book, “Life of Osho”.
Things Fall Apart, The Centre Cannot Hold…
1. Decline and fall of organised Sannyas
Firstly, Poona’s had it. By most people’s book the regime there has long been questionable and the split between Indian and foreign sannyasins seems to have finally broken the back of the Koregaon Park commune. Moreover the increasingly inflamed political crisis of everywhere east of Instanbul can only mean that less and less people will be travelling to India.
2. Failure of Western Sannyas Organisations
Whatever’s happening to sannyas in India may remain a mystery – but the network of centres and communes in the West is unequivocally in chronic dis-array. The eclipse, even if it be only temporary, of group-based psychotherapy has robbed organised sannyas of both its economy and its cutting edge; and the White Robe Brotherhood has failed to provide the central sacramental role vital to an alive community. Many even welcome this, yet there is always that nagging doubt, especially to those who experienced the full blown energy of Osho’s Buddhafield, that much is missed by this fragmentation. Osho’s previously ‘mainline’ publisher, “Element” has gone bankrupt and his books, to the best of our knowledge, are available in precisely two London bookshops. What centres still remain are more notable for a dogged loyalty than any original creative response. Further the recent work of the (ex) sannyasins Mikaire, Nadeen, Tony Parsons, Maitreya, Dolano, etc., (though creating their own successful energyfields) have not seemed to renew sannyas, which seemed to be their early promise.
3. Clinging to the Wreckage
Where does this leave anyone for whom Osho’s ‘vision’ remains, in its essentials, the most heartfelt, intelligent response to life today? With a purely ‘personal’ relationship with Osho? With a shaky sannyasin old school net-work? Even the vital organisational bits, Osho Leela in the UK say, would seem arguably more influenced by Reich and Veeresh than by Osho… Yet this process of fragmentation and isolation seems insane: how can it be that so many people who are basically on the same wave-length, and have been through so much together, somehow fight shy of being part of a viable net-work of any sort at all? Why is this?
4. A Cultural Wasteland dominated by Our Price and Blockbuster
Paradoxically this doesn’t look quite so bad if you put it in its wider context. Internationally the wave of advaita, of the satsang movement as a whole, has collapsed; and in fact there doesn’t seem to be any counter-cultural movement with even a semblance of life to it. Nor for that matter, in the face of the crudest neo-Nazi politics from America, any substantial political dissent. We are living in a society dumbed-down beyond belief – a spiritual waste-land dominated by Our Price and Blockbuster.
5. A New Fourth Way?
What are we left with? At the end of his life Osho said that when he was gone he would be dissolved in all his sannyasins, and wherever people would meet them, there he would also be. Is it in this more subtle individual way that his vision remains imperishable? Or, alternatively, if organisational sannyas can no longer exist as an independant movement could it exist as a force entering the general counter-culture and acting as a catalyst? The movements sparked off by Gurdjieff, by Krishnamurti, by Adi Da, by Scientology, by neo-Buddhism, and more recently by neo-shamanism are all in basically the same parlous condition as sannyas. Could all the ‘cults’ enter into a real dialogue with one another and forge something new? Whatever happens to sannyas per se it seems unlikely that any future movement aimed at human freedom won’t reproduce many of its chief features. How could such a dialogue start?
6. Or Truly ‘Homeless Wanderers’ at last?
Or is it that Osho’s influence will be essentially dispersed and individual, like that of a Nietzsche or a Gurdjieff or a Reich? Yeats’ famous poem continues:
Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold, Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world…
In many ways quite a positive statement… Finally pushed beyond the pale of any organisation are we just to become freewheeling visionaries in our own right? In ancient India sannyas was traditionally the last stage of life – you became a sort of Ancient Mariner wandering the pilgrim trails till you dropped. Was this Osho’s last joke… that we were finally to have no more of a spiritual ‘home’ than a material one? Was this the, er, plan?
7. Invitation
It seems to us there are an awful lot of us scattered round out here, facing these and related issues. Sannyasnews would be most interested to receive any contributions to this subject.
“Freewheeling visionaries in our own write”
– that`s a good slogo for the “caravanserai”
****
“Meditation will get you through times of no organisation better than organisation will get your through times of no meditation”
– Freewheeling Frank
‘“Meditation will get you through times of no organisation better than organisation will get you through times of no meditation”
- Freewheeling Frank
More to you than mere quips, Freewheeling Frank.
Good stuff.
IMO
What was, and is breaking down, is the mala and red clothes, Poona-based sannyas of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, which was still going on by the end of the eighties and into the nineties.
We had a honeymoon after Bhagwan settled on the name Osho, and the shit began to hit the fan; as always happens after a honeymoon period comes to an end; and all hell breaks lose. (Sorry about the clichés. I’m tired).
And we are participating in the painful birth of the plain clothes sannyas of Osho, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh’s successor.
Hoo, Paritosh, Arps and Frank. No OIF, no Bollywood, no princess….
MOD: MEANING WHAT, PLEASE, FRESCH?
Why do self-sufficient meditators from the West not take a final step and make themselves free from the bondage of late Osho?
It feels like asking, ‘Does someone believe Osho has become Messiah after His death?’
It means, we have the hope he will redeem us after our death, just like Krishna will do for Hindus and Jesus for Christians.
Is it like this that in our imagination, the way Buddha will remain sitting before the gates of Heaven till his last Bhikhu has not reached, Osho will do the same?
Matter of the fact is MIND AND ITS EGO GAMES have destroyed the divine experiment of an extraordinary man.
The silent majority has to take some blame too.
I would say, Shantam, it’s not a good idea to get sexist with me. It will not help your princess.
Thanks for the article, SN. Well, I must admit I have not been aware about these cultural difficulties in sannyas. And so, I have been quite naive about Indian politics in this.
I understand Osho did not want cultural differences, but of course these exist, I was just being naïve about them. I might regret telling this, but it also gives me such a good laugh, so…
When I was last time in Pune, not long ago, one of my dates was a new sannyasin, Indian young man, 15 years younger than me, I am afraid. So, he told me he had tried to date a Chinese woman, who always asked him to come to her ”for meditation” (that’s the pick-up line these days, not bad). So, sometimes he went, sometimes he did not want to go. But always, every evening she was waiting for him at Plaza and if he did not come she was crying there.
They met in Mystic Rose. It’s difficult even for East to meet East.
“Could all the ‘cults’ enter into a real dialogue with one another and forge something new?”
I doubt it. Besides, who wants to join a new cult around here? Some are already in one, even though they don’t seem to be aware of it, while others want nothing further to do with cults for as long as they live.
The Osho cult could definitely take a few tips from the Raelians:
They`re good-looking,sexy nudists who strip off in public, work in the sex industry, campaign against female circumcision, get trepanned instead and worship space aliens and pleasure.
“If that doesn’t grab your interest,” one journalist observed,”you`re probably dead”.
They support human cloning and claim to have succeeded in cloning a human already…
Maybe someone should put them in touch with Brian and his gang….
Let me guess. Their phone number is 999.
Mind you, that sort of publicity, including the fact that ‘Rael` girls’ appeared in a ‘Playboy’ centrefold spread, does mean that 2/3 of the Raelians are male.
And if some are to be believed, we already have our own problems with aging Lotharios…er, I mean, Zorbas, who are resorting (sic) to attempt to inviagarate their um…’spiritual search’ by ‘meditating’ with young cuties from the mystic East…
Btw, did you know that Rolf Harris was a paedo baba devotee..?(True).
Which has reminded me: Last time I was in Pune, I was chatting to a young girl who then went off into a room with a wrinkly old bloke with a grey beard and a rather suspect twinkle in his eye, saying, “I`m just going for a rolfing session with…”
Now I get it.
Shantam Prem,
You are asking:
“Why do self-sufficient meditators from the West not take a final step and make themselves free from the bondage of late Osho?”
You are proclaiming you know about some ‘self-sufficiency’ trend amongst ‘western’ meditators, as well as in the same sentence speak of a bondage (of westerners) they would have to get free of (in a sarcastic form of undertone) in between the lines.
You’ve lived in the West for quite some time as far as I understand when reading rightly;
on the other hand, you proclaim to know (in a more than less sybillinic way ), who is spoken to be guilty that a profound vision of the mystic Osho could not be realized.
We are all interdependent also on this website here, and in the sharing -
if anybody – including you or me – would be self-sufficient, he or she would not write here –
you and me – and everybody is part of that human condition.
Also, a Master in the body is part of the human condition – and the long and very loving and respectful contribution of Neeten (the former thread), tried at best to relate to that fact of life (of spirit/s in the body /bodies as well as to environmental circumstances).
It’s up to you and to everybody to say goodbye to fantasies of ‘almighty-ness’) and other really very immature versions of that;
and it’s also up to you and to everybody, not to meet disillusion and frustrated expectations of how all should work out at large
with the fury of a very angry child.
It is true that loving is a bonding
and it’s also true that there is so much beauty in that
- can be like this -
Not only Neeten’s contribution but also Paritosh’s contribution with questioning one or another way of ‘paths of love’ amongst fellow-travellers,
are love letters in my eyes – being concerned,
yearning for meeting and sharing.
Love is but an open quest…
You, Shantam Prem, may fantasise that you have the ‘right’ answers to that quest,
but nobody has, including me,
and in that ‘not-knowing’ the chance of a meeting – maybe the only one!
Madhu
Nobody remembers where Plato comes from. And even if they do, they don’t travel to Greece for it.
If Osho had anything of his own to give for humanity, his words and meditations will survive, but as it seems already, nobody needs to travel to India for it. Good news.
Actually, Fresch, it’s truer to say that very many people remember where Plato comes from! Apart from philosophers, academics and other such seekers of truth, many have travelled to Greece for a taste of that extraordinary city-state of 2500 years ago. Haven’t you heard of the ‘Grand Tour’ of Europe, for example, taken by many upper-class people in the 18th and 19th centuries, highlights of which were exploring the ruins of ancient Rome and Athens?
My former Classics teacher did just that, for example, and could hardly stop talking about its effect on him for a long time.
(Mmmm, let me think, he must be at least 220 by now…About time I looked him up, I reckon)….
Osho´s words definitely will survive. Books don´t disappear that easily. They have unending lifespan.
About his meditation techniques I have doubt, for the reason, people offering them have some kind of repulsive energy. The wisdom is paper- thin.
Nobody likes to go closer to people with stinky armpits!
Why did I laugh out loud when I read those last two paragraphs, Shantam?!! Truly hilarious!
Ever thought of being a stand-up comedian? You wouldn’t need a script, it would be more than enough simply to ‘be yourself’!
One needs to ask, four-legged donkey is more useful in the long run or three-legged horse?
One most certainly does, Shantam…
(Hahahahahoho!! It’s the way he tells ‘em!!!).
Ever so often wondering, Frank, how your everyday life is looking like
as a human being and spirit trapped(?) in a male body.
It never comes along for me in your posts
if you enjoy moments of joy and contentment -
but sorry, maybe you spare that out for other realms of meeting others, beyond this caravanserai of Sannyas News website.
The aspects you brought in to this thread
(the biological genetic clone copying, not only for worldwide meat industry production, but also in the reproduction-line of our own species, is in fact quite busy – also besides the crackpots of the Raeliens cult).
The other point – the pharmaceutical doping – to enhance bodies for permanent action in performance of intercourse – is, yes, also in full gears.
And it’s quite obvious, that neither the art of loving nor the art of respecting each other, amongst as well as inside the sexes, have profited much from these productions fields and their consumers.
Yet
more kids are born – finally – and also the life design to cherish the small family as T H E way to be happy and content, are having a revival here;
getting more loose by chance, or when it feels needed, to go for a change to experiment with another setting.
Former sannyas kids – who felt “betrayed” in the hindsight of their sannyasin elders, preferring now a way to live like their grand- grandfathers and grandmothers.
Factually, but enjoying as well the modernised ways, so much of sannyas life has found entry into the wellness market in quite simplified as well as reduced ways, sometines fairly recognisable…
And sometimes peace amongst the generations or a kind of peace is felt after having had “family constellations sessions”, which after all have a strong Christian background, yet are promoted as if they are a “shamanistic approach” to the morphogenetic fields of families/groups/surroundings and so on.
The way Osho is talking “beyond psychology” – for me – is not at all outdated.
The ways he is sharing his insights about technical issues as well as struggles between ‘science and religion’ are as well not at all outdated.
And when He says, “life is not a problem to be solved but a mystery to be lived”,
it does not – in any time – deserve contempt!
And the amount of contempt nowadays acted out and lived out by people
has become enormous.
Also the sometimes very covert way to show it.
I cannot say, that you, Frank, are dishonest with the latter,
but as I said it, I often wonder what your everyday life looks like?
Madhu
P.S:
‘Respect’, I gratefully remember Him
defining as:
re-aspecting – looking again and again,
again and again and again and a…
so simple – and sometimes so difficult too if pain or anger or despair or bitterness is coming in the way.
Shantam, there is pic and memoir about Prem Paritosh (his nickname was Pari) from 2009, when he died, at
http://sannyasnews.org/now/archives/293
This was Pari in Poona one. Had he lived he would have been 73 today.
A few people asked about Prem Paritosh’s books, ‘Life of Osho’ and ‘The Acid’.
‘The Acid’ is available through Amazon and now called the ‘The Acid Diaries’, by Christopher Gray.
A few copies of ‘Life of Osho’, by Sam (Sam was his pseudonym), are still available through SannyasNews at £20.
The original version of ‘The Acid’ and also other copies of ‘Life of Osho’ may be available on Ebay, etc.
Are you aware there is a PDF available of this book?
Maybe you can link it somehow? We were not aware of it in present time.
http://www.wikifortio.com/793003/Life of Osho. By Sam.pdf
I have read both of Sam’s books and enjoyed them. ‘The Acid’ is quite unforgetable in places. At one point he is tripping on Hampstead Heath and looks at his hands, instantly realizsng he has turned ino a mole. I can dig it.
‘Life of Osho’ is a prety good take on the old man…one of the best and well put together.
While watching Champions League final, I was reading on the net, ‘Life of Osho’ too.
It is interesting book written in a lucid and heartfelt manner. A spiritual movement where not hundreds of thousands but few thousand educated and articulate people poured their whole youth should not have ended up in the state where it is now.
I don´t think there was any other spiritual movement or will be in the near future when youth of the West stand passionately for.
Alas, those who could rebel against the priests of their parents and grandparents simply became weak against the dogmatic eccentricities of their own priests.
Multi-tasking eh, Mr Shantam?
Your Master spoke against it frequently in one way or the other! Certainly does not contribute to a meditational way of life!
You’re barking up the wrong tree there though, SN – “a meditational way of life” is the last thing Shantam’s aspiring to. He’s a long-term, middle-aged fan who’s angry, in terminal shock even, – ‘disappointed’, as they say in football – at the way his club’s been taken over by foreign owners (you know, ‘the money men’), who know zilch about the Indian game, how it’s run and its great traditions, who have basically sold it down the river.
He’s just ‘gutted’, well and truly ‘gutted’, mate – I mean, who wouldn’t be? Think (or, if you ‘have to’, even meditate) about it: a club that in his youth won everything, every season, that seemed to be on the verge of ruling the whole world, sending its millions of fans and ‘fellow-travellers’ into paroxysms of ecstasy every day, even every time the Manager arrived to give his daily pep talk (and even afterwards, when he was leaving the media room!) – this great club has suffered continuous relegation for the last, what, 20-odd years, sliding right down the leagues until its present precarious position, where it can barely attract a few hundred diehards for home games and virtually zero away support!
A truly diabolical state of affairs. No wonder blokes like Shantam Prem, blokes who just want to support a top, top club – you know, a big club, a massive club – are on Prozac. And there’s only one answer…
If Hari Red Knapp can take QPR back into the Premiership, why can’t he do it for Osho’s Sannyas? True fans like Shantam know, “He’s got the Name, he’s got the Game! He’s got the Talk, he’s got the Walk!” Just like the old Manager!
Come on, Mr Jayesh, you know it makes sense, Hari’s the man to bring back the Glory Days to Our Club. Sign him up!
If all would consume written texts like you, Shantam Prem,
one would indeed not wonder about the outcome.
You share about your habits:
“While watching Champions League final, I was reading on the net, ‘Life of Osho’ too.
It is interesting book written in a lucid and heartfelt manner. A spiritual movement where not hundreds of thousands but few thousand educated and articulate people poured their whole youth should not have ended up in the state where it is now.”
Thank you for sharing and making clear what matters for you, and what not.
Madhu
Osho movement should not be like the Notts Forest, coming from nowhere in 1970′s to be dominant under ultra-confident leadership of eccentric maverick manager with unorthodox methods and devices, but who remembers them now?
Osho movement must be like Real Madrid, not content to bask in former glories but still pushing on for world domination with superstar and engine room Shantaldo flexing Lidl-induced six-pack and scoring heartfelt winning goals in imagination in front of TV screen whilst reading ‘Life of Osho’, Daily Mail and taking Prozac!
Also, global marketing presence by CEO’s of club necessary so fans from the Jullundur can run after Mercedes team bus holding onto the back and experiencing self-induced joy whilst heroes Oshaldo and Gareth Khanna sit in back seat…
Who needs four-legged donkey and three-legged horse when one has one-legged Punjabi in ass-kicking contest?
“What are you laughing about?” asks my wife.
I reply, “This guy Frank is really funny.”
“Oh God”, she groans, “not Sannyas News.”
Lokesh,
Sincerest condolences to the wife…
another Sannyas News widow!
I was missing Sunday laughter. Thanks to Frank and Lokesh.
Prozac!
I take sometime Ibuprofen.
Shantam, you’re a star!
Did you know Monty Python predicted the coming of Shanty Pantz nearly forty years ago?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjEcj8KpuJw
A fine choice, sir!
(PS: Shants, you’re NOT ‘King Arthur’, ok?!)
Me as King Arthur?
Before coming to this post, I have written a similar post in my facebook blog.
If there is a past life behind every present life, hypothetically speaking what can be the past life of Shri Narendra Modi (India´s new Prime Minister, the man with rocket-speed rise)? Or what can be the next life for late Shri Mohandas Gandhi?
Maybe it is the same continuity?
Who knows?
One thing is clear, no one rises so high without the extraordinary past Sanskaras and no sacrifice goes vein.
This is the wonder and mystery of soul´s journey and most probably topmost secret of Nature, how we the human beings move, rise and fall in life.
There appears to be a case of er, ‘mistaken identity’ here…Would someone please explain to Shantzy, er…you know…
Arpana!!
I’m beginning to feel like an anthropologist.
Actually, I ran into the reincarnation of Mohan Gandhi a while back.
He was in a bar listening to death metal on his I-phone whilst banging his head in time on the counter. He was wearing cut-off leathers and had a lot of ink on his huge, brawny arms.
Some Hare Krishna guy came up to him and tried to give him some spiel so Gandhi headbutted the guy, then he started laying into some Hell’s Angels. “I`m not lookin’ fer trouble but if you want it,you can f***in’ ‘ave it, come on then….”
Yes, this reincarnation thing is definitely about restoring the balance to life….
Frank,
You meet a lot of people in bars who threaten to head-butt someone or other in a Glaswegian accent, regardless of their incarnatory background.
I think we should be told.
Not only that, but later that night I saw him down the red light area drinking pints of barley wine with vodka Red Bull chasers, smoking GBH and having a right dirty laugh with a couple of the filthiest-looking slags I`ve ever seen…
It just goes to show you, in life, you just can’t beat the game…
The old yin/yang thing will come back to bite you on the bum eventually….
So what would you say is going on karmically, Frank, vis-a-vis Sannyas News and Shanty pants?
Arps,
I had to check through my Akashic record collection for that one…
Ah, here it is…
an old HMV album…
“Pune Pumping Phase (88-90)”
….pop it on the turntable…
Oh…
the record`s stuck…
the record`s stuck…
the record`s stuck…
the record`s stuck…
Frank:
“Ah, here it is…
an old HMV album…
“Pune Pumping Phase (88-90)”
….pop it on the turntable…”
All existing copies of that album stick in the same place.
This is amazing reading for me, especially because it starts with Osho leaving the body, the time I took sannyas. Shunyo was giving sannyas, it’s a kind of interesting detail that she used to be Osho’s laundrywoman (later I was living in the same apartment with her boyfriend in Riverside). However, she touched my forehead and you know what I was feeling, I was feeling like bubbles rising from my forehead up to the air. And also, my favourite photo pic of my son is when he was 3 years old, blowing soap bubbles in front of our then ‘massive’ book library.
One question: They said Osho had died at 17.00. And it was announced in the evening meditation. Was it the same evening or the next day that they announced it? Because I was sitting in front of the water fountains and Lao Tzu house during the lunchtime with some people (I was in the Pulsation group there) while some woman was really screaming like an animal suddenly – and it was not a ‘group screaming’. Later, I thought she must have been someone close to him.
Well, Sam is describing Osho ”being some mad doctor of surgery”, so funny and accurate. There were many short, hilarious stories like “all he does is watch videos in Oregon” (I have to see ‘Patton’), “there must have been experiences of satori of ordinary sannyasins in Oregon” (well, I think they published at least one kind of it in Osho News).
This is for you, SD: I have had this need to see Osho as an ordinary person. Perhaps a good lecturer of philosophy. But then the question arises, “What the hell am I doing here?” (as it did for Shiva). So true.
Sam’s description of ‘LSD experience’ as his own resistance is interesting. I had a similar experience in one long group: I saw people’s figures move and expand as in the movie, ‘Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs’ (= also a story about the poison), I heard my own voice when speaking to people as unfriendly, as if I was riding a truck over them, and when communicating with love as if honey was just pouring out of me.
I did not tell anyone, because I was taking care of people too, and I thought it would just get them worried about me. I never took any LSD.
“This is for you, SD: I have had this need to see Osho as an ordinary person. Perhaps a good lecturer of philosophy. But then the question arises, “What the hell am I doing here?” (as it did for Shiva). So true.”
I wonder why you addressed this to me, Fresch. Perhaps you might tell me….
By the way, one of the sannyasins I met when first time in Poona was an Australian who had had an ecstasy lab. He was running away from his partner, also a sannyasin, who was threatening to kill him and who’d also come to Poona. He told me they had had an incredible life for some time, but then things had gone wrong.
It was horrible to see. He said to me it had ruined his life and told me not to give up my studies. In one way I did, I got (in January, 1990) a scholarship to one of the best universities in the USA, all paid, fees, living etc. while I was in Pune, but I just threw it away. I never regretted giving up USA, but did complete my studies in my country later.
And I never saw the man again.
I am sorry, mod, I do not really understand what clarification you need.
(MOD: JUST WHAT IT MEANS, PLEASE, FRESCH!)
However, Pari’s book is raising the same question for me that I have been trying to understand for a long time: What gets sannyasins together and what keeps us, me, on our personal path? He seemed really to have tried to understand it and share about it. Think, if he would not have been able to put Osho quotes in his book just because of copyright issue. I mean, really, it seems more important than ever. On the other hand, now I understand more OIF’s way of changing commune into a holiday resort; it’s the normal way of life. Mysticism can be totally ordinary, just a ‘holyday’. Or as Pari points out, your work can be your awareness exercise.
Perhaps one of the biggest realisations from the past was for me when reading the book, that Oregon was not a “device” for us to see such an experiment would always fail, but really a sincere effort from Osho to see if it could be possible. He just ran out of time.
I can understand that you, Shantam, only want to work and support the stars of meditations like Neelam and Bollywood actor, that’s what most of the people actually do. At the moment, therapy trainings and festivals draw all people, what I hear in thousands, just exactly for that reason. In between or after, nothing is happening, only the craziest ones want to do Osho meditations. Also, festival organisers do not promote regular, cheap, self-help, being independent of the groups, Osho meditations. They are afraid they lose people and money. I know this from my own experience. People come to Osho meditations most often after they have read Osho’s books. Then they go for therapy and after a while disappear.
My understanding is that Osho meditations are not for beginners (only), therapists are not recommending them because they cannot charge that much money like in therapy, their answer is always, “you are not ready for them, you need more therapy first”. Nobody does therapy forever, so after some groups people go on to the other similar things – like regular Osho meditations, dynamic and kundalini – like 5 Rhythms, contact improvisation, or other gurus. So, there is an overall arrogance and self-indulgence in all of us why things are so boring in the sannyas network.
Also, it’s much the same thing that the commercial sannyas site only writes about the festivals and groups when advertising them, always before to attract people, never after, never anything else, but only for advertising. How fucking boring. It would be a bit scary to challenge it here at SN, would it?
I think Amrito wrote about it in the letter to the centres in the context that therapists should refer people to Pune. However, they (OIF) ended up being arrogant about it, so that flow just stopped, naturally. I can fully understand that. But, for the everyday meditations and possibility for people go deeper in their individual path with Osho has also almost totally ceased. It’s as if the only way is away from the sannyas way.
“It’s as if the only way is away from the sannyas way.”
Fresch, the above sentence of yours summarises the whole thing. Sannyas is a sinking boat. Blame goes only and only to human errors. Arrogance of meditation is much more than idiotic. It is outlandish!
There are a few crazy people who prefer to sink with it during rescue and repairing process.
Few people crave to be martyrs. (Maybe I am one of them).
A prime example of a sannyasin satellite without a centre.
Reminds me of a Kevin Ayers poem/song -
‘Once upon an ocean’
Once upon an ocean
We dreamed a ship to sail.
When it started leaking
We had to learn to bale.
All that mattered was
Keeping that ship afloat.
But we couldn’t work together
We became a drunken boat
Captain shouted out,
Nobody heard him speak.
Everyone rushin’`round going crazy
Trying to find that leak
Waves getting heavier
We didn’t stand much chance
Then we heard that familiar music
And we just had to dance:
Our ship is sinking but we don’t give a damn
No no no no no
Our ship is sinking but we don’t give a damn
No no no no no
Our ship is sinking but we don’t give a damn….
Dear SN moderators, dear friends,
These days, being enabled to get acquainted with tantric-reading-meals,
enjoying quite so much more than “bits and bytes” by the sharing of Neeten as well as Pari – both of these so alive and delicious.
Why words here-now?
Combining maybe by chance my gratefulness
and I am not only a ‘slow-food’ fan
but also want to share that
giving a kind of spice to the last ongoing comments of Shantam Prem or Fresch,
which are kind of reading food too but at the moment difficult for me to relate to.
What of it may be ‘more’ contemporary?
I at least cannot say,
but the ‘meals’ surely make a lot of difference for soul, body and spirit.
Giving my best “sincerelys” to you, friends -
and my gratefulness too.
Madhu
Looks like Frank is not just a satirist but poet too.
Nehru Gandhi regime has finally ended in India. Long cherished wish to see the inefficient and egoistic rulers becoming part of history finally can rest.
As an Osho devotee and world citizen I have two other small wishes for collective humanity:
End of cruel boy´s dictatorship in North Korea and management of OSHO Ashram, Pune in the hands of disciples’ representatives.
Let the whole Earth blossom in the shades of democracy and enjoy the fruits of meritocracy.
Over the years I have received many kinds of criticism for my work projects. Now that I have had the opportunity to ‘give criticism’ to other people, I have tried to do it in a different way.
Normally, people write what is good and what is bad, perhaps some analysis. I wanted to skip that, instead participate with the books and reflect from myself. Of course, I did end up being a bit of a lazy slob, so on the whole I did not get you understand my point. But it was fun. For me.
I understand, Shantam, that you are pleased to hope that the Gandhi/Nehru regime is for you hopefully ended.
After all, in 1984 many Sikhs were massacred by Indira Gandhi in Golden Temple, Amritsar, as I remember, and you are a Sikh. Also, a few months later, when she was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards, for three days Sikhs in Delhi were dragged into the street and killed by mobs. I think upward of 2,500. Terrible business all round.
Nonetheless, Shantam, our Master did have a lot of time for the Gandhis, and no time at all for the BJP! Morai Desai was hammered mercilessly by Osho in lectures in Pune One when he was Prime Minister…as I clearly recall. Mrs. Gandhi was praised and almost came to the ashram at the time.
Nationalism is always a form of bullshit.
One more thing I have been thinking about while reading Pari’s book is the ‘state of normality’. Few years ago when I was still participating in groups in one role or another, I saw therapists making these statement about them being “normal people” like the rest of us meditation cattle. The way they did it was, of course, as some kind of show. Many of them were claiming this in their books or videos also. It left me like, “what an earth is this?”. But after reading Pari’s book I understand, therapists and resort managers must be even more ‘normal’ than the rest of us. They make a statement being normal.
My mother, a left-wing activist, told how they were “helping” the workers. Later in life, she was really laughing her head off when telling, “actually they never wanted our help, on the contrary.” And I remember that entire phoney trying – how embarrassing. And yet, nothing else seems to work but somebody being a ‘role model’, a millionaire and cult leader star. Then people admire and follow.
Before Pari’s book, I did not realise I was also part of some sociological experiment of Osho, no, I always thought this is a purely personal path. So, we have experience of at least 3 sociological cultures: Indian guru leading a sex cult in India, Indian crazy woman leading communist city in America, Canadian cult leader setting and leading a resort in India. Which one you like? I am sure there are all same kinds of ‘model places’ in the sannyasin world now. To have a 2-week holyday, live in, be part of model community etc. Or stay in the air, internet. Incredible. He, Osho, seems like a spiritual octopus.
An observation about Paritosh, based on his life Of Osho.
He is so authentic. He comes across in the book as so authentic, real. Without any side.