Reflection from Shantam
Just saw this photo. Feels Nostalgic.
Normally nostalgia arrives when present reality is dust, whereas past was fire.
Continuity of the fire does not create nostalgia, it creates warmth, It creates ripple effects, it can spread like wild fire but not so the ashes.
Hugs are not books they are the essence of all books, all religious books.
Osho and His people gave the spiritual dimension to the hugs. Hugs were signature of Sannyas. Difference of opinions can simply melt away by taking someone in one’s arms.
Now we are back in an impoverished reality called Nostalgia!
Yes, Shantam, you have expressed it perfectly with your garbled words!
Since the alcoholic Anglo-Saxon baboons have destroyed our religion by drinking in and and even denying the existence of our holy of holies samadhi, even nostalgia is not as good as it used to be!
Anand Yogi,
I think you are going beyond limits. Through your words you don´t radiate sanity but Jihadi´s excitement.
Sorry to say, but feel free to ask your spiritual mentors. Their diagnoses will be the same as mine. After all, we all were from the same class!
Come now,Shantambhai. I have spoken the truth as you have yourself expressed it!
You seem to have forgotten your own sentiments on the matter!
I asked Swami Bharat about it.
He said: “This Shantam fellow is deserving only of compassion.
His awareness has become so dimmed that I doubt that the poor fool could tell the difference between Jihadi, a true yogi and a comical buffoon if one was staring him in the face or kicked him up the backside!”
Hari Om!
Yahoo!
A Hug is a Hug is a Hug
as a Rose is a Rose is a Rose.
We are flooded with plastic hugs, like plastic roses nowadays, but they are everlasting
and the latter also in many facebook postings or digitally compiled stuff.
The Hug, what is seen on the picture is a Real one, long ago.
SAmartphones, to perform a selfie during hugging, were not available at that time and in those surroundings, you can see very well in the pic that the surrounding people had better things to do than to be voyeurs,
and that points out a time and gathering of people who knew how to celebrate c o n t a c t.
I have been part of that time and space where hugging was a result of a climate, a happening, not a performance or something you needed to be taught in seminars like in a school, or buy it like under flat rate conditions.
To be nostalgic about it is not the way to regain a climate, not at all.
Some long decades and so much and also so different changes affecting us all.
Hugs of this kind historically have brought up much jealousy and envy on a broad scale in societies, but better said,
so much of very uncomfortable awareness about what´s missing was surfacing.
We are living, by majority’s choice, in a pornographic, totally voyeuristic time with all the technical stuff to go astray from sense and sensitivity. And anyone is affected to that, even if you don´t participate yourself – like in an open peep show.
The Hug that is a Real Hug has timelessness about it…is not a ‘quickie’, so to say.
As well as the outcome of such a hug is not necessarily sex, that was the very beauty and the dignity of it, creating the Climate I tried to speak of.
Who calls himself Yogi and who who calls himself Shantam here, proclaimed some Indian ‘holiness’, the fact is that the EROS being sculptured and having had Tantric Schools in India is not at all a living heritage in these cultures, not on a broad – nor on a small scale!
Up to the very sad, sad reality that rapes and violence in inter-sexual contacts in India (as worldwide) a very common thing.
If you see a Real Hug you simply enjoy and if you walk by it creates a smile on your face and you don´t peep-show it.
Real Hugs, a natural way, have become rare; performances though are flooding all kinds of media or can be seen in everyday life.
People here like the quick fake-hug – ‘as if’.
If you don´t cope with ‘as if’ you tend to be in ‘natural grown hermitage’ – to find a nice word for it.
And once again, there is NO way to regain lost sharing skills of sense and sensitivity by nostalgia.
WHAT IS, IS…
says Mister Fried, who happened to be a poet in England in very difficult times…he wrote a long love-letter
and the ways of Hugging – and also Hugging the apparently Missing – are many.
Madhu
So, not on a small scale, not only in so-called western countries, hugs of this kind have enraged negative feelings of jealous people or MISUNDERSTANDINGS, but more so in those countries who HAD a heritage in the ART of LOVING.
I was actually thinking about this topic myself today. Good to see here on SN. A melting, dissolving, eternal hug is like a thermometer to understand the sannyasness of sannyasin friends
. That tells if someone is holding back something or letting go.
There are times, I drove miles to get that one hug!!!!
Today, I was reading in the news a statement given by a veteran Indian actor about Hollywood actor Robin Williams, who died today:
“Hollywood film heroes were too scared to cry on screen. The Vietnam War changed the American psyche, Robin Williams brought dignity to male crying. I like him for his talent.”
Same way people are too scared to hug. Hope this trend change soon. Well, we see lot of ‘A’ hugs everywhere. Touching just the cheeks, giving an artificial kiss and tap, tap, tap on the back. We need the real hugs back in action.
Hugs.
Hugging celebration
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIUyp2XgdhE
Thanks, Newman.
The link is good. But I am not into formalised hugging in a structure like this.
Hugging should be spontaneous and is not a good response to every social interaction, otherwise it gets undervalued.
I once had an acquaintance who said in Pune one he “wanted” a dozen hugs before breakfast. Many people end up hugging when they don’t feel it, just cos it is the social convention. I suspect my acquaintance had a bit of the bully about him in extracting these dozen hugs because it had become the social convention.
Now, I ask you, did you ever see our Master hug?!
Parmartha,
I think you are right, when the hug is given in a formalized structure, it looses some quality.
No, I have never seen our master hugging. Why do you ask? Did he ever hug?
Growing up in India in a Hindu family it was very common to see a picture of Rama and Hanuman hugging, which symbolizes their friendship and deep association beyond friendship.
Now I ask you, Parmartha, did you ever see our Master getting initiation into sannyas?
Hugging certainly enjoyed a renaissance in the sannyas scene. In Poona One it was a common occurence to see people locked into a half-hour embrace, which occasionally made me cringe because at times it appeared manufactured, the thing to do. Cynical Scot that I am. Sannyasins hugging spread out all over the globe and today it is commonplace. It is a good thing. Back in the day it was about getting in touch with one’s inner child, or some such tripe. Now it is just a simple sign of affection. So, who can say Osho did not change the world by encouraging people to hug?
I have always been quite a tactile man and giving someone a hug comes easy to me. Recently I realised it is not always a good thing, because people at large occasionally misinterpret where you are coming from. Let me explain.
I met one Israeli woman a couple of years back. She is a bit of a nut, an ugly duckling and a socially unsophisticated person, a tank. She has a good enough heart. Whenever I met her I made a point of giving her a wee hug, which was my way of saying, you’re all right, I accept you for who you are. Couple of weeks back I ran into her at a small gathering and she got upset because I did not immediately give her a hug. It was ridiculous and left me feeling a bit weird. My wife pointed out that many people don’t understand the hugging thing that well. She is right. I’d given the woman the impression she was something special to me, when she is not. Lesson learnt.
Being able to touch a member of the opposite sex in a non-sexual way has always represented to me a sign of maturity. Hugging is good for you, that’s for sure.
As an Indian, I must say, once Indians from the countryside started coming to the Ashram like Nigerians in the West; hugging became the casualty.
If some westerners say, you Indians are sexually suppressed, I will try to defend by counter-attacking.
Matter of the fact is, Indian conditioning creates a country of sexually suppressed.
I can understand, returning back to India was Osho´s last choice. I am sure, western management would have acted in a different way, if Osho had left His body somewhere in His ashram in the West.
In India, it is a matter of survival for them to cook chicken in a vegetarian way.
“Did you ever see our Master getting initiation into sannyas?” – Shamtam
The answer to this depends upon your understanding of sannyas.
When Osho was eleven years old he sat regularly with Magga Baba, often in silence, just as we sat with Osho, often in silence. Osho visited Magga Baba daily for a while, just as we sat with Osho daily for a while.
Sannyas is a beginning and Osho’s journey began with Magga Baba under the neem tree. According to Bhed (2006), Magga Baba told Osho: “When you become void through meditation, you leave meditating and dedicate yourself to the welfare of mankind. Drench the whole world with love and kindness.”
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“Magga Baba with his extraordinary presence and whole being had to be visited at least once a day, being a kind of spiritual nourishment as he triggered in [Osho] hitherto unknown forces, and their company seems to have been vitalizing. With no one has Osho ever laughed like with Magga Baba, who was to him unequalled with no one to be put beside him at his level of consciousness.”
– Osho Source Book, 2014
Enjoyed it, if one can say so, that Parmatha and also you, Lokesh, brought a more ´microscopic’ way to look at ‘hugging’.
Yesterday-today – and maybe even foresights of tomorrows…in and outside Sannyas realms, the issue of the thread going on…
Was hooked, Lokesh, by your own words, “Cynical Scot that I am”, as then by the following:
“I met one Israeli woman a couple of years back. She is a bit of a nut, an ugly duckling and a socially unsophisticated person, a tank. She has a good enough heart. Whenever I met her I made a point of giving her a wee hug, which was my way of saying, you’re all right.”
Yes, you have cynical sides and I am glad that those are only facets amongst many others too I have come to know about so far.
What is unfolding though, is the fact that in the exchange and melting energy by hugging in a deep way – besides having feelings of pleasure – there is the chance of meeting your own as well as the other’s deep, wounded sides too – and to embrace that (and also the consequences to this) needs courage.
Thank you, Lokesh, for your honest report, which brought up a lot of cellular ‘memories’ on my side here, and that is enriching anyway, if comfortable or not.
Otherwise, I have been also reminded that before I started off to India, to meet Osho and to be part of the Sangha, I was (like many many others here I knew) into the writings of W.Reich – and this guy has such a lot so valuable to say about hugging and what is EROS and what is not.
So, the delusion that I was entering ‘Paradise-Resort’ of fellow-travellers these former days had been very, very strong…
So –
the journey continues, doesn’t it?
Madhu
Cool.
Hugging goes so deep, it can feel so good dissolving, becoming one with the ‘other’. And a good barometer of energetically sensing each other! Feeling accepted for being who you are. Such a strong symbol of Oneness.
I don’t know if Osho never hugged, maybe Nirvano? Perhaps in his case seeing that you are already One with everything, the need for hugging falls away!
Although Humaniversity hugging was in the context of an exercise, some of the ‘best’ hugs i had were there, possibly because the experience of pleasure and pain were lying so close to each other.
BELOVED OSHO,
WERE YOU ALWAYS SELF-SUFFICIENT EVEN AS A CHILD? DID YOU NEVER NEED CUDDLING OR HUGGING? WAS YOUR BODY FREE OF THIS DESIRE?
Unfortunately, yes. I don’t remember that I ever needed any cuddling and hugging. I say, unfortunately, yes. Perhaps I have missed something beautiful. Cuddling and hugging are needed by children because they feel so small, so fragile, so afraid of the big world around. I have never felt any fear, and I have had my sources of warmth within myself — as far back as I can remember.
–From Death to Deathlessness, chapter 5
Just saw something hilarious.
Call it whatsoever, remembered Osho. Most probably He would have taken this as part of the jokes during Zen series. I am imagining the laughter of packed Buddha Hall.
There used to be a box in the main office with the caption something like, ‘Jokes for Osho’.
KAMASUTRA LESSONS:
1. Kamasutra says: If you suck one nipple, the women herself offers the other one. And that was the origin of “buy one get one free”!
2. Did you ever notice: everything on a woman’s upper body starts with a ‘B’: Blouse, Bra, Bikini, Boobs & lower body with a ‘P’: Petticoat, panties, pussy…No wonder men suffer from high BP!
3. Before sex, you help each other get naked. After sex, you dress only yourself. Moral: In life no one helps you once you’re fucked.
4. Success is like pregnancy. Everybody congratulates you but nobody knows how many times you got fucked to achieve it.
5. What is the difference between frustration and satisfaction? What the Fuck! And What a Fuck!
6. 3 people having sex is a threesome, 2 is a twosome. So next time someone calls you ‘HANDSOME’, don’t take it as a compliment!
7. Life is like a dick, sometimes it becomes hard for no reason.
8. Practical thought: A husband is supposed to make his wife’s panties wet, not her eyes. A wife is supposed to make her husband’s dick hard, not his life!
Now that I’ve educated you, go ahead and educate someone else.
When a lady is pregnant, all her friends touch her stomach ad say “Congrats!”. But none of them come and touch the man’s Penis and say, “Well done!”.
Moral: Hard work is never appreciated – only result matters.
Closest we could find to Osho giving a hug… certainly, anyway, being hugged!