First of all, thanks again for your post and your questions.

Regarding doubt:
You indicated that when you look inside you are sometimes faced with more than one possibility or many possibilities and you referred to doubting which is the “correct” one.
Great question. Doubt is a deep part of the mind.

In moments of indecision and doubt: Wait. Wait again. Wait still further. And then act. It doesn’t really matter how long. If you act and it later feels like a mistake, then you act again. Action purifies and shows you the way forward again. But as you know, when there is real trouble, a fire, for example, you don’t think about what to do, you act!

You give a great example about your child. And you worry that if you give too much attention to your child’s needs that you aren’t able to follow your natural pursuits. Great questions again.
You wonder about nature vs nurture debates and karma and destiny. These are largely intellectual debates and no one can offer you certainty in such a debate.

If your child needs to eat or sleep, where is the debate? The child must eat. Action purifies, because action is living in the moment. If you need to take your child to school, where is the real debate? You must act.

I’m sure you are too intelligent to know that your actions are not pre-ordained and that it is all destined, or to seriously think that it makes no difference to a child what you do as a parent. Such ideas are the total misunderstanding of what karma is and may be prevalent in the ignorant masses but have no place in any serious discussion. Of course it matters how you act as a father. You can only do your best. And I’m sure you are doing your best.

As a parent you have your duty to the child, to show him, to teach him and to guide him. Your guidance must be based on what you know about life, you have a real wisdom and it is never too early to speak to your child of Love and Truth. Experiment with ways to show him or her. I have found as a parent that I have made so-called mistakes, but you learn and it is always working out as it should.

May I suggest that you are indulging in doubt about whether you should be focusing more on meditation and music and other ideas about passion. We all live with doubt, but you can do more to lessen its effects by being true to the moment. If you wish to learn music, then follow your passion, do it and stop worrying. If it means you spend less time with your child, then so be it. Action purifies. You won’t have time to worry if you act!

The second example that you provide me details the story of someone who lives like normal people, lives and dies as so many do. You are worried by this set-up. Perhaps because it feels so meaningless. You are one of the few to question everything . Like me. And in doing so, you invite moments of great despair at the meaninglessness of life. As we question and doubt, so you are looking into the very real meaninglessness of it all. Many have reached this point. It may be the reason you started to read Osho, to seek answers to these great questions as to the purpose of life.

However, at one moment life feels meaningless in a negative sense and in another the meaninglessness and emptiness can feel positive. Do you recognise this? It all depends on your attitude. Where does the change in attitude come from? For me, it comes back to surrendering and accepting the meaninglessness or the emptiness. Osho was a great one for observing nature. Birds and so on. Do birds worry or think? Do they suffer like we do? He would draw our attention to their acceptance and how they expressed “living in the moment”. They don’t worry about emptiness. Nor do we need to. Surrender to the deeper truth of the meaningless or emptiness and ones attitude has changed.

The mind will always doubt and fear, but you express great joy at life. Focus on the good. Focus on what needs to be done. Don’t try and change what can’t be changed. The world cannot be changed but you are changing, you are growing. Don’t doubt!

Thanks for being my teacher again and showing me that I need to be more open like you.
It is a delight to hear from you and I’m only too happy to continue your discussion.
I will reply to your previous post soon.

Kind regards,
Simond

Hope everything is good at your end.

What a relief after getting a reply after 5 days of lull!

But what a disappointment to hear that there is something that led you to think that the editors of Sannyas News may not allow it to be discussed further. I wonder if that is the case, why they posted my letter here in the first place; after all, my letter was not a news at all?

I don’t know whether this assumption of yours stem from some hint that you got from some of the people here or editors of this site, or it is purely of your own assumption. I also don’t know whether this assumption of yours (if you assumed this on your own) stemmed from the fact that you may have got bored from this entire discussion now or you are genuinely worried that any further post on this matter may get the entire discussion locked, banned, or removed by the site runners.

My intent is – this discussion should be left to be as going on as it is going on now i.e. on its own destiny. If this discussion is bound to be discussed further it will become longer and richer with inputs from people of Sannyas and Osho world, or if it is bound to be not discussed further, still at least it will remain here lying as a discussion (like other discussions on this site are) to be read by future log-iners, readers, visitors, or seekers, or maybe even by more Sannyasins who have better or more to put to this discussion or at least have a good laugh on this.

I am not saying this because i have any problem in sharing my email id, i am also not saying this because i have any hidden or subconscious agenda to make a show-off of any kind or anything. I just believe that these are some topics which are more likely to be have a clarity if it is not stagnated within close premises of one-to-one conversation but to be put in an appropriate forums such as this site is. Moreover, it may be useful for an asker like me in future who chanced upon to come across this site and this discussion wondering in this World Wide Web like i do.

Therefore I got a bit disappointed with you post, sorry. However, I will still not leave any chance to go further on this even if it is one-to-one. Moreover, I could not disappoint you if you have asked something from me which I think I could give as little as my email id. My email id is – vivek.raj@@languageaide.com (please remove one @ symbol from the email which I put deliberately to avoid spamming).

Thank you and thank you everyone (excluding none) for putting up your valuable opinions, time, and efforts on this discussion and also thank you very much for bearing such a confused, bewildered, and foolish soul like me.

May everyone get what he or she deserves in life!

Thanks a lot!

Vivek

I am happy to respond to your letter. I wonder, however, if the editors of Sannyas News feel it is appropriate for this correspondence to be aired further? If they are, I’m happy to contribute publicly. But I recognise that the web site is a news site and each article has a shelf life. If you are happy to allow them to give me your email address, I will write to you there.

Thank you, Sannyas News, for allowing me to contribute at all.

Kind regards.

Thanks a lot for sharing your story and experience with me.

Thank you very much!

Currently, i am reading ‘Glimpses of a Golden Childhood’, recommended by Lokesh. Once i finish this book, then i will try the one recommended by Ashok.

Thanks for the link.

Thank you!

Thanks a lot for your response to my post, and i am sorry for the delay in acknowledging and responding so late.

I will respond para-by-para (your paragraphs are under inverted commas).

“Firstly, take very seriously Satyadeva’s advice to go and do some Osho meditations.”

Yes, i am taking everything seriously. Reading and writing everything seriously. Not a tiny bit of fakeness in it. Maybe some people themselves responding here just for the sake of responding, and maybe some people think that I am here just for fun, for show-off or cast a niche in the world, or for improving my English. Those could be the by-products which may or may not come along. But here I am, with all seriousness, to become a seeker, and to find the answers. When, where, why and by whom I will get those answers is a matter of my concern too.

So, yes, I am taking heed of all the advice related to doing Osho meditations. Currently, I do meditation at home and only for few minutes. But definitely I will change place and time in due course of time as and when it is bound to happen. Thanks for reaffirming that suggestion.

“Secondly, you seem dubious about Osho having ‘ups and downs’, although he claimed to be ‘enlightened’ and a practising meditator. Don’t be! In fact, see it as an advantage if you can…he was only human! Beware of those who sell themselves as being ‘infallible’ and of spotless moral behaviour (eg take a look at the Catholic Church past & present).”

I do not understand why it is questionable for the questioner to question even if he is questioning to the ‘Master’. Yes, i am doubtful about something he taught, something he spoke, some part of life he lived. So i can question when i have doubts. On some level, at some point, in some way, I feel connected with him, but I also see contradictions in his saying, teaching, in his life, which, i think, i have every right to get the clarity of.

“Thirdly, try not to get involved in ‘gaping at the fluff’ eg being lost in admiration for the copious number of books Osho was supposed to have read and written etc, etc.”

If you go by all the posts here I wrote, I am more into confusion and doubt and questioning him than in admiration of him.

“Fourthly, as far as I am concerned, embarking on the road of self-discovery, self-awareness and self-development is not about reaching some permanent state where you are floating around in eternal blissfulness. I wish that exalted condition were true, but after 14 yrs of meditating I have not made it yet! It is more about (I think Arpana has already said something on these lines…so here’s some reinforcement!), how you live your life, and about how you deal with the ‘ups and downs’ when they inevitably come up.”

So, now you are sounding interesting. 14 years you spent in meditation, and you are saying there is nothing like reaching some permanent state where you are floating around in eternal blissfulness. If there is nothing like that, then what is the role of meditation and enlightenment for someone who deals with his or her ups and downs without being stressed, for someone who is unaffected in his both rainy or merry days? (I am not talking about me here, but there are people who are indifferent in their varying situations, almost feelingless, and may still do not know even ‘m’ of meditation, or ‘e’ of enlightenment).

”Finally, I recommend some further reading for you: ‘Enlightenment – The Damnedest Thing’, by J. McKenna.”

Thanks for the recommendation. Currently I am reading ‘Glimpses of a Golden Childhood’, recommended by Lokesh. I would try your recommended book once I finish this one.

Thank you once again for your post and guide.

Vivek

But from what I’ve heard, read and seen these last 40-plus years, in all probability, yes.

Btw, I prefer the phrase ‘never unhappy’ rather than “always truly happy”, as “happy” somehow tends to hint at its opposite and they tell me ‘enlightenment’, being one with Life, and so on, is beyond such normal polarities of our psyche.