SN Editorial: On The Confounding of Medicine
When many of us lived around Osho, one was not particularly aware that Osho himself was so much in favour of holistic/alternative/complementary medicine.
Hippocrates, said to be the Founder of Modern Medicine
In Darshans Osho often used to recommend taking straight medical complaints to a western style Doctor… and seemed to have some faith in it himself, as when he got ill he basically got advised by a straight English MD, Amrito, , and as far as we know took his medicines for diabetes, for example, conventionally.
For Osho International to produce a compilation of extracts from Osho called “From Medication to Meditation” is a leading contradiction, and shows some over- simplistic thinking. Osho was often very ill, and apart from the swimming he is said to have done in his private pool in Oregon, one never heard of him taking even light exercise after his ministry began.
It strikes one that the question of meditation and medication is a lot more complex than the Osho International Title implies. One little heard view in all this is not of the either/or variety. Namely a healthy scepticism towards both allopathic and holistic medicine. Often each will, in various dresses of hubris, “take on” many illnesses, but when they are honest with themselves, after some cure or other, the very best physicians say it is the body that has cured itself, and the medicines were peripheral.
It may be that meditation has some good effects on the body, it may not be, given the poor health of many practitioners, including Osho. One feels that humanity is at the very beginning still, of fully understanding health and ill health, and it might be best to start with humility, and with a full awareness of the failures of all types of treatment for many diseases at the present time.
Even though I have not been around Osho when he was physically around, I have heard all kinds of stories from disciples who were present or claim to have been in close proximity during that time. Dr. Amrito was not the only doctor, I doubt if he took to him fully, he did have a few local doctor disciples & local doctors who were inspired by him & Iam sure he naturally absorbed some of their essence, from them too.
Other teachers / practitioners / masters have not really been as much in my attention, so can’t say anything. Of course I do not claim any authority on Osho either.
My own experience is meditation & medication has its role when we are totally helpless, which is / becomes a choiceless option .
It’s always a good thing to get back to basics, I find, when dealing with such complicated issues as the body.
Thankfully, I was able to borrow Frank’s library card to take out some really handy books. I’ve just finished reading the one he lent me on ‘Favourite Japanese Tasty Tao-Time Cake Recipes’, followed by ‘Traditional Japanese Sonnets, Songs And Tunes For Doctors’, ‘Outdoor Wooden Toilets and Poems of Scatological Medical Analysis’, and another one here below on the history of folk-tales of Japanese medicational meditators: ‘Bed-Time Suppositories for Children and Adults’, in traditional Zen short -syllable form, to connect this new and previous topic for discussion, together.
http://www.thelondonegotist.com/sites/www.thelondonegotist.com/files/images/1069728.preview.JPG
One suspects that the inventors of this mantra were talking about mental health? If so, my feeling, as someone who has worked professionally in this field is that all forms of neurosis can be tackled without medication, but in psychotic illnesses medication is often very useful to allow a patient to at least minimally function without resort to restraint and hospitals, etc.
On the physical health front, I remember reading in the nineties some Swedish research about dynamic meditation – does anyone else recall it or know it? The claim as I remember was that their research showed that it relieved some physiological symptoms like high blood pressure. Of course, to be 100% sure of this one would have to have a control where another group just did one hour’s full exercise a day to compare.
I doubt whether any form of sitting meditation has much effect on physical health one way or the other, but active meditations may well do. In fact, in the case of the former, all those pot bellies of the Buddhas might speak against it!
Well, Parmartha, to approximately simulate the structure and nature of the dynamic, the control group would have to do only 45 minutes of exercise (you’ve missed out the 15 mins. of actual silent meditation!). Also, the exercise would need to be as intensely aerobic as the dynamic – at least for 20 mins., equivalent to the first and third stages – and include a period of 15 minutes of complete rest, after the first half an hour.
I’d say it’s highly likely that similar results would be found when comparing the two processes. Although the release of pent-up emotional energy in the cathartic stage of the dynamic might well make a significant difference in people with a lot of that stuff to throw out of their systems, so therein could prove the dynamic’s health benefits for high blood pressure conditions.
To be more statistically rigorous, I suggest that the control group (exercise) should consist of exactly the same people as the meditation group, performing the processes on different, preferably alternate, days.
Alternatively, they’d have to do the dynamic for a fixed period, eg a month, then the exercise for the same period, but starting a few weeks or so after the dynamics, in order to try to achieve similar conditions. And no dynamics to be done in the interval, of course.
Now, you avid scientific researchers, meditators and/or exercise freaks – don’t all rush!
“I doubt whether any form of sitting meditation has much effect on physical health one way or the other, but active meditations may well do. In fact, in the case of the former, all those pot bellies of the Buddhas might speak against it!”
Many studies have shown that Maharishi’s TM – which is nothing but the most profound relaxation, not ‘real’ meditation at all – has significant positive effects on physical health, as well as on overall mental health. It certainly worked for me in one or two periods, in fact it transformed my life, from stressed-out, low-energy, unhealthy, to the opposite poles.
Perhaps Osho’s Nadabrahma might work along roughly similar lines – plus ‘awareness extras’, as it were – if performed every day for a while?
As for those pot-bellied ‘buddhas’, well, the traditional idea is that these characters (if they actually ever existed) were so filled with the joy of being, so relaxed and free of tension that they had no need to hold in their bellies, which they exercised through laughter, ‘belly laughs’! Stress-free as they were, they were probably exceptionally healthy as well!
SD,
My impression of all monastic traditions, not just Buddhist, is that they are pretty oral and produce people with fat bellies!
Not sure about the Maharishi research, think it was all done by devotees!
Osho himself used to run around eight miles morning and evening during his crisis years, 19 to 21. He said it was to keep him in the body.
No doubt it would have helped to calm his mental agony also, as it would have ensured some sleep. But the intention would not have been fitness and good health of the body or mind, just release from intense mental suffering.
One assumes that his adoption of this two-fold jogging each day was not dissimilar to us doing dynamic and kundalini back in the day, and with the same beneficial relief.
I think you’ll find that much research on the effects of TM has been done by independent people, eg at universities, not only by the Maharishi’s group, so there’s no reason at all to doubt the results.
Besides, as far as I’m concerned, I know these findings are true from my own years of experience, they really don’t surprise me at all. As I’ve said before here, for quite a while the method was far more beneficial for me than any Osho meditation (and one thing I did enjoy in Sannyas was the meditations).
Re dynamic/kundalini etc. doing a vaguely similar job to Osho’s solo jogging, well, yes, up to a point, I suppose. But apart from the clear-out of garbage and general energy-raising and well-being achieved therein, there were/are other ‘inner factors’ involved, ‘special effects’ (!) one might say, something to do, I think now, with creating new neural pathways in the brain and nervous system.
I recall almost fainting once during the silent standing stage of kundalini, very scary it was, with yellow light filling my head. I said it felt as if I were “almost going mad”, but Osho simply said it was “something else”, without feeding my curiosity further.
Re the scientifically tested effects of meditation practices, much research has also been done on Buddhist lamas and other such adepts. So there’s doubting the health (and other more esoteric) effects of it all.
Then in the last 20 or so years the technology of so-called ‘brainwave entrainment’ (eg of Holosync and I-Awake) has successfully mimicked the impressively beneficial effects achieved in long-term meditators’ brains and bodies, providing more therapeutic benefits for the bodymind (although it seems to me that focusing only on such data misses the fundamental point of ‘real’ meditation, the ‘flight of the alone to the alone’ etc. etc.).
You are right, Big P: Buddhists, on average, are a bunch of pot-bellied slapheads, and most independent research links that to supersizing rather than enlightenment.
On the other hand,if you do the research, there is a statistical link between enlightenment and being of short stature and having a larger than average cranium.
‘From Medication to Meditation’
‘From Sex to Super-Consciousness’
‘From Darkness to Light’
‘From Falsehood to Truth’
‘From London to New York’
Who writes about the infrastructure development, investment, lifelong work of innumerable number of people?
Therefore just books are porn.
Bible is not. Behind every single step civilisation has taken during last 2000 years, verses of Bible have inspired, motivated, joined people together.
“Graphorrhea is a communication disorder expressed by incoherent, repetitive rambling, specifically in written work. Some ramblings may follow some/all grammatical rules but still leave the reader confused and unsure what the piece is about. The causes of Graphorrhea are poorly understood but appear to be related to frontal lobe structures.
Other symptoms include words that avoid any logic or reason and random words that mimic language but are essentially meaningless.
Graphorrhea is a symptom of underlying illness and should be treated by a medical professional. Several possible causes respond well to medication.”
See also: Logorrhea, word-salad, aphasia, cluttering etc.
Many bullshitters from India or abroad use a simple common method to impress people. Start criticising the bad effects of western medicine and brainwash people in the name of herbal, or even better call it Ayurveda.
Osho never used cheap gimmicks to propagate India´s greatness in this way.
Somewhere I feel, Osho was more honest and scientific-tempered than all other Indian gurus.
From my side, I can say, I like to try over-the-counter medicines of all kinds. When problem becomes too much, mostly I go to a normal doctor.
Just recently went to homeopathy doctor, after 3 and half years, for Bach flowers combination, as emotions and feelings were bleeding at the sudden downward dive of the most cherished relation of my life.
As you obviously know, Shantam, one of the main points in favour of ‘alternative’, or, to use more appropriate terms, ‘complementary’ or ‘holistic’ medicine, is its treatment of the ‘whole’ person, including psychological and emotional considerations, not merely the patient’s physical symptoms.
As I’ve discovered, through acupuncture (mainstream for centuries in China), homeopathy and Bach remedies, that’s of immense value, particularly as so many ailments are caused primarily by psychosomatic factors. The issue is whether many of these are successfully treated before they grow or mutate into serious chronic conditions and diseases.
But what use would a man like Osho, a man with no such ‘neurotic’ or other adverse, stress-related bodymind symptoms, have for such treatments (with, in certain instances perhaps, the exception of acupuncture)? If his body was sick or faulty, he only actually needed specific treatment for it, not for his mind or emotions!
So no great mystery there – and surely no evidence to infer that he’d necessarily advocate that what was good for him was necessarily right for everyone (as it most certainly isn’t)?
The article is on the right lines refuting dogmatic approaches and suggesting that there’s still much to learn about what works and for whom in the domain of our health. As so often, it seems to be a matter (with apologies to people with heart conditions!) of ‘different strokes for different folks’.
I did a little research on the sannyasin obituaries section in Oshonews, and a very high percentage of those listed there have died of cancer (most, actually) and (unusual for westerners) very few from heart/cardiovascular—effects of Dynamic, dancing etc? Could well be.
If you are in a car crash, get a horrible virus, catch a nasty bug, or need surgical intervention, say, if your wife chops your dick off, then western medicine is the one for you.
I don’t think acupuncture or Bach flower remedies will do much good there.
But, for example, if you`ve got any psycho/nervous/crazy/sleep problems…stay away from the white-coat boys!
I can’t believe how many azepams (Osho`s fave alleged tipple, valium, is one) they are still handing out. Anyone with half a brain knows that that stuff causes way more misery than it helps.
And SSRIs (Prozac). It`s an epidemic. There`s millions of depressed people who have been chemically neutralised and going about looking `normal`. The scary thing is that the doctors completely ignore the guidelines laid down by the research and go on prescribing all this stuff for literally years longer than they should (no vested interest there) and they will deny flatly that there is any danger.
Then there`s the use of the ‘chemical cosh’ stuff for psychotics, that P mentioned, which is actually contra-indicated for dementia yet they use it ‘off-license’ all the time.
Medicine, fuelled by ultra-capitalism, is a social and political problem as much as a medical one.
Power is an issue. Specialists are little gurus who swan around followed by their grovelling entourage and rarely, if ever, have their prescriptions or anything else challenged.
Going from “Medication to Meditation” in this context would mean having self-awareness, owning your body, making informed decisions and not buying into the medical matrix…
At least, not until the wife gets the carving knife out….
Frank, in case your obituary comes too in OshoNews sooner or later, have you already given some photo snaps and biographical note to your near and dear ones or the director of your old people´s home?
My sediments entirely, Mr Frank.
Wonder what Anand Yogi’s take on all this might be….
Only hope Anand Yogi is not all fart & no shit!
Again, Kavita, you are disgracing the religions of Mighty Bhorat by sinking to the level of the revolting toilet-obsessed baboons for whom the only metaphors that adequately describe their experience are scatological ones!
You should immediately join Shantam in church and get on your knees and pray! It is no surprise to me that a man nourished on the gauaka of holy Bharat can understand so clearly the utter necessity of Christian churches.
Fear not! The stories of sodomy and abuse that surround the Catholic Church are leftist homosexual logical- mind propaganda from those who have never meditated, much as the West has slandered Modi by pretending that he is a bigot and a genocidist in an attempt to stop him securing the Muslim vote!
The truth that Shantam has stated eloquenttly is that everything in the West comes from the Bible.
Liberation of women to choose their partners. Freedom of religion. Freedom.
The aeroplane he flew to the West on.
The contraceptives he has used
The internet
Even Lidl…just to give some examples.
They were all clearly mentioned in the Bible!
But smug and ignorant psycho-analysts can never understand what a simple man who wishes to be dispatched into the next world wearing the holey underwear of his forefathers can understand:
How religions evolve!
Oshoism has failed and if Shantam has to become a Christian it will be the fault of the mismanagement of the ashram by those who, insted of following Shantam’s advice, simply said:
“Chuddies!”
Yahoo!
Hari Om!
Jesus Saves!
Shantam for Pope!
Frank, after seeing Shantam’s constant cry over & over again, sometimes I feel & think, if only I could, I would let him have his wish, at least for a day. But then my inner beggar’s voice tells me, “If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.”
Frank,
You could always ask for your level of awareness to be tested next time you’re in the clinic. It’s free for writers of a certain age.
A lot of bloggers here actually suffer from commune-icable disease and are regularly tested by others – who in turn contract their downloaded virus by reading online. Awful, unthinkable.
And as regards the cancer stuff…I’m sorry, Frank, but you need to go back to your statistics – the great proportion of people who read Oshonews actually die of boredom.
“The great proportion of people who read Oshonews actually die of boredom”
Martyn, this is a boundary on a no-ball!
(MOD: THIS IS A PHRASE FROM CRICKET, MEANING SOMETHING LIKE, ‘Yes, absolutely and obviously true – easy target, but well said, sir!).
Marty,
You’re right.
I stand corrected.
Marty, just came online for the day, now, after a trip to Sinhagad and was totally fagged out when I read this:
“And as regards the cancer stuff…I’m sorry, Frank, but you need to go back to your statistics – the great proportion of people who read Oshonews actually die of boredom.”
I was instantly rejuvenated, I really enjoyed that & immediately a question just popped out: Could it be that mostly all people die only of boredom?
”Martyn, this is a boundary on a no-ball!” – Shantam, I am clean bowled by that one!
(MOD: WELL, WE’RE NOT GOING TO EXPLAIN THAT ONE!)
Kavita, Accha…Head wobble, toothy grin from me, smell of diesel as I whip out my oil-soaked rag to clean the windscreen with…
Ah, India – Heat, Dust, Empire, Cricket…
Re the boredom stuff…You might well be right, but SN is the only remedy known to medical science, where of course boredom becomes an aim in itself…and is transformed into…celebratory…euthanasia….
P.S:
Look for the obituaries in our sister magazine, Sannhaemmorhoids News.
Ah, United Kingdom – Cold, Less Dust, Cricket …
transformed into…celebratory…euthanasia – how wonderful is that for a few!
Thank you for the Head wobble – back & the rest.
Yes, it makes sense.
“One feels that humanity is at the very beginning still, of fully understanding health and ill health, and it might be best to start with humility, and with a full awareness of the failures of all types of treatment for many diseases at the present time.”
Whosoever added these lines at the ´finale´ of this thread, I am grateful for his/her, or their good ´spirit´!
However, re the ways ´health´ was defined in different ´Ages`, from the point of view of us now, when looking at our ancestors, who were able to cope and survive(biologically)under very different circumstances (climate conditions, social conditionings etc. etc.)…In the holistic way of looking at it, we are just now the living ´heritage´, ever changing. Just up to this very moment, Here-Now.
Health challenges also change with us. Mentally, psychologically, physical and yes, also spiritual aspects changing this way. Changing with our field surroundings; any moment, yet we may not be aware of it, or not capable to realise it.
Concerning that issue, I sometimes feel we, as mankind, go spiralling ways and sometimes, like nowadays, I feel shocked by the biotechnical approaches to human ´health´, which I feel quite prominent these last decades.
A German female writer (Julie Zeh), whom I appreciate very much, wrote just a few years ago a book about a ´dictatorship for ´health` for this time, now-here.
For me, ancient wisdom of indigenous tribes worldwide telling all our medicine story is worthwhile honouring.
My own experiences as a woman, growing old and getting acquainted here in the West and in a highly technically developed country, are more than less discouraging, as the medical ´understanding´ of a human body and looking at it, resembles more quite often looking at a machine, where an engineer, a mechanic, is needed.
Once, I have heard, “First, healer, heal thyself”. I can´t and won´t forget that one.
And medicine (healing) history is full of amazing stories of that kind. From the so-called lowest levels to the so-called highest and vice versa. Because it is ONE.
This is not an easy thread to go (for me), but I give it a try and send a thank you to you, Frank, in special, as I enjoyed your yesterday´s and today´s diagnostic sharpened verbal instruments – for diagnosis of this-and-that.
And I want to share with Lokesh that I didn´t forget about your questions, they are working inside.
Patience as a patient – and patience is not just a word. That I have also heard, so grateful for that!
Madhu
Madhu, don’t work too hard.
Q:
IF FAITH CAN MOVE THE MOUNTAINS, WHY CAN YOU NOT HEAL YOUR OWN BODY?
A:
“I don’t have any body.
This feeling that you have a body is absolutely wrong. The body belongs to the universe; you don’t have it, it is not yours. So if the body is ill or if the body is healthy the universe will take care of it. And a person who is in meditation should remain a witness, whether the body is healthy or ill.
The desire to be healthy is part of ignorance. The desire not to be ill is also part of ignorance. And this is not a new question — this is one of the oldest questions. It has been asked of Buddha; it has been asked of Mahavir. Ever since there have been enlightened persons, the unenlightened have always asked this question.
Look… Jesus said faith can move mountains, but he died on the cross. He couldn’t move the cross. You or someone like you must have been present there waiting. The disciples were waiting because they knew Jesus, and he had been saying again and again that faith could move mountains. So they were waiting for some miracle to happen — and Jesus simply died on the cross. But this was the miracle: he could be a witness to his own death. And the moment of witnessing one’s own death is the greatest moment of being alive.
Buddha died of food poisoning. He suffered for six months continuously. And there were many disciples who were waiting for him to do a miracle. But he suffered silently and died silently. He accepted death. There were disciples there who were trying to cure him, many medicines were given to him.
A great physician of those days, Jeevak, was Buddha’s personal physician. He used to move with him wherever he went. Many times people must have asked, “Why does this Jeevak go with you?” But it was Jeevak’s own attachment. Jeevak was moving with Buddha because of his own attachment, and the disciples who were trying to help Buddha’s body remain alive longer in this world, even if only for a few days more, were also attached.
For Buddha himself, illness and health were the same. That doesn’t mean that illness will not give pain. It will! Pain is a physical phenomenon, it will happen. But it will not disturb the inner consciousness. The inner consciousness will remain undisturbed, it will remain as balanced as ever. The body will suffer, but the inner being will remain just a witness of the whole suffering.
There will be no identification — and this I call the miracle. This is possible through faith. And no mountain is bigger than identification — remember. The Himalayas are nothing; your identification with your body is a greater mountain. The Himalayas may be moved or not moved through faith, that is irrelevant, but your identification can be destroyed.
But we cannot conceive of anything which we do not know, we can think only according to our minds. We think according to where we are; the pattern remains the same.
Sometimes my body is ill, and people come to me and they say, “Why are you ill? You should not be ill; an enlightened person should not be ill.” But who told you that it is so? I have never heard about any enlightened person who was not ill. Illness belongs to the body. It has no concern with your consciousness or whether you are enlightened or not.
And sometimes it happens that enlightened persons are more ill than unenlightened ones. There are reasons…. Now that they don’t belong to the body, they don’t co-operate with the body; deep down they have broken themselves from the body. So the body remains but the attachment and the bridge is broken.
Many illnesses happen because of the separation that has happened. They are in the body but their co-operation is no longer there. That is why we say an enlightened person will never be born again — because now he cannot make any bridge with any body again. The bridge is broken. While he is in the body, then too, really, he is dead.
Buddha attained enlightenment when he was near about forty. He died when he was eighty so he lived forty years more. On the day he was dying, Anand started crying and said, “What will happen to us? Without you we will fall into darkness. You are dying and we have not yet become enlightened. Our own light is not yet lit and you are dying. Do not leave us!”
Buddha is reported to have said, “What? What are you saying, Anand? I died forty years before. This existence was just a phantom existence, a shadow existence. It was running along somehow, but the force was not there. It was just a momentum from the past.”
If you are pedalling a bicycle, and then you stop and there is no pedalling, you are not giving any co-operation to the cycle, it will go on moving for a little whole just because of the momentum, the energy that you gave it in the past.
The moment someone becomes enlightened, the co-operation is broken. Now the body will take its own course. It has a momentum. From many lives in the past, momentum has been given to it. It has a life span of its own which will be completed, but now, because the inner force is no longer with it, the body is prone to be more ill than ordinarily. Ramakrishna died of cancer; Raman died of cancer. To the disciples it was a great shock, but because of their ignorance they could not understand.
One thing more has to be understood. When a person becomes enlightened, this is going to be his last life. So all the past karmas and the whole continuum has to be fulfilled in this life. The suffering — if he has anything to suffer — will become intense. For you there is no hurry, your suffering will be spread out over many lives. But for a Raman this is the last. All that is there from the past has to be completed. There will be an intensity of everything, of all karmas. This life will become a condensed life.
Sometimes it is possible — this is difficult to understand — to suffer in a single moment the sufferings of many lives. In a single moment, the intensity becomes much because time can be condensed or spread out.
You know already that sometimes when you sleep you see a dream, and when you are awake again you know that you have been asleep for only a few seconds. But you have seen such a long dream. It is possible that even a whole life can be seen in a single dream.
What has happened? In such a small period of time how could you see such a long dream? There is not a single layer of time as we ordinarily understand — there are many layers of time. Dream time has its own existence. Even while awake time goes on changing. It may not change according to the clock because a clock is a mechanical thing, but psychological time goes on changing.
When you are happy, the time flows fast. When you are unhappy, the time slows down. A single night can be eternity if you are in suffering, and a whole life can become a single moment if you are happy and blissful.
When a person becomes enlightened, everything has to be closed: this is a closing time. Many millions of lives have to be closed and all the accounts have to be cleared, because there will be no chance any more. After his enlightenment and enlightened person lives in a different time altogether and whatsoever happens to him is qualitatively different. But he remains a witness.
Mahavir died of stomach pain, something like an ulcer — for many years he suffered. His disciples must have been in difficulty because they have created a story around it. They could not understand why Mahavir should suffer, so they have created a story which shows something about the disciples, not about Mahavir.
They say that a person who had a very evil spirit, Goshalak, was the cause of Mahavir’s suffering. He threw his evil force on Mahavir and Mahavir absorbed it only because of his compassion — and that is why he suffered. This shows nothing about Mahavir but something about the difficulty of the disciples. They cannot conceive of Mahavir suffering so they had to find a cause somewhere else.
One day I was suffering from a cold — it is my constant companion. So somebody came and he said, “You must have taken somebody else’s cold.” That doesn’t show anything about me, it shows something about him. It is difficult for him to conceive of me suffering. So he said, “You must have somebody else’s cold.”
I tried to convince him, but it is impossible to convince disciples. The more you try to convince them, the more they believe that they are right. In the end he said to me, “Whatsoever you say I am not going to listen. I know! You have taken somebody else’s illness.”
What to do? The body’s health and illness is its own affair. If you want to do something about it, you are still attached to it. It will take its own course; you need not be much worried about it.
I am only a witness. The body is born, the body will die; only the witnessing will be there. It will remain forever. Only witnessing is something absolutely eternal — everything else goes on changing, everything else is a flux.”
Osho, Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2, Ch. 34
Thanks, Prem.
Well chosen piece from Osho.
As the incomparable Hoo Flung Dung said, while taking his meds, “While you are busy creating your own reality, reality is busy creating you.”
Immanence and transcendence…very nice thought for the day.
P.S: Do you have the winning numbers for the Euro lottery, ta?
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-nature-nurture-nietzsche-blog/201004/is-the-universe-conscious
Yes, they are 8 9 24 25 36…the stars are 2 8.
P.S: Do not share this classified info with anyone, especially people who are ill.
Thank you, Prem Martyn for your added link.
Do you remember Stephen Hawking’s ´The Universe in a Nutshell´?
Plus the recently-posted interview in Osho News on youtube, in which Stephen Hawking gives a warning to the interviewer, who tried to be extra smart? It´s worth listening to and watching that again.
Sorry that I post without having any clue about some winning numbers of whatsoever lotteries.
Have a nice day.
Madhu
“Sorry that I post without having any clue about some winning numbers of whatsoever lotteries.”
Madhu, you should ashamed of yourself.
(MOD: YES, LOKESH, WE’RE SERIOUSLY THINKING OF BANNING MADHU FOR THIS OUTRAGEOUS STATEMENT).
And quite right too! Some people have no shame. I am considering writing a letter to my local conservative MP, The Right Honorable General Bunkum. Madhu has gone too far this time.
“(MOD: YES, LOKESH, WE’RE SERIOUSLY THINKING OF BANNING MADHU FOR THIS OUTRAGEOUS STATEMENT).”
Take Care, Mod(s).
Effects of Osho´s words on the overall health of His readers is quite an interesting subject.
Yes, Shantam, absolutely fascinating…
Mind you, it depends whether one is wearing overalls whilst reading, of course….
….or chuddies.
“Re the boredom stuff…You might well be right, but SN is the only remedy known to medical science, where of course boredom becomes an aim in itself…and is transformed into…celebratory…euthanasia….
P.S:
Look for the obituaries in our sister magazine, Sannhaemmorhoids News”
Thank you, Prem Martyn, Kavita, Lokesh and not to forget the Moderators, to give such deep insights about the ways your humour goes into action.
Madhu
Where East meets West
medically speaking…
and laughter is the best medicine…
(contributions by SN’s resident Doctor, Dr. Hu. S. Yin)
Waiting Room Worries:
http://www.engrish.com/wp-content/uploads//2011/12/ChineseHospitalSign.jpg
Doctor’s Surgery Reading Material:
http://www.engrish.com//wp-content/uploads/2010/10/bill-has-a-cock.jpg
Travelling between hospital departments can be confusing, so take care:
http://www.engrish.com/wp-content/uploads//2014/06/the-moron-and-the-psychopath.jpg
“Fetal Heart Custardy”?
Wasn`t that a school dinners desert…along with “Dead man`s leg” and “Leper`s buttock”?
Frank: re the FHC
Actually, it’s when someone dies, suspiciously, in a police cell after being cardiac-arrested under the affluence of inkohol.
When you have nothing to write, simply write-”Chuddies”.
‘CHUDDIES’
To promote a company at stock market, to have a university, to build a political party or to create an Ashram*…
In my feeling, the last is the most difficult and rarest of the rare task if one is sincere to oneself and others.
Ashram is that place where medicinal effects of meditation can be felt, studied and observed.
(* Ashram is also a synonym for Church)
If you mean that no one can meditate successfully unless they’re in an ashram then you’re sadly deluded, Shantam. Although it might be true for you, or for beginners who might at first need a community to grow in – but meditation isn’t your thing anyway, is it – so how would you know?
If it were true then we’d all be virtual ‘slaves’ to an ashram – or, like you, to the concept of an ‘ideal’ ashram (your sentimental, unrealistic yearning to escape your present circumstances by repeating the ‘best’ part of your past).
Meditation is not something extraordinary; more or less, it is like over-the-counter medicines. Hundreds of millions of people use this.
My point is, very few people have given their life to build some kind of hospitals of inner journey.
In the West, Catholic Church and other off-shoots have done this. Instead of being smug, try sometimes to visit a church and meditate there.
As I can presume, after reading the above sentence, parrot mind will start chattering.
For meditation, I don´t need to go anywhere. I do it regularly while brushing teeth. It is called Tratak!
Shantam, if “hundreds of millions of people” meditate, how come the world’s in such a sorry state?
What you call ‘meditation’ sounds like day-dreaming to me.
As for citing the Catholic Church as an example – well, if that’s the outcome of the sort of earnest (fake) ‘religious’ enterprise you’re advocating and/or longing for, then all I can say is God help us all….
“Hundreds and millions of people” are not meditating. I am sure, very sure. Even my wife thinks so.
She said to me, “Sweetheart, how lucky we twin souls are. Great master gave us the right key of meditation to open all the bliss locks.”
Excuse me, Shantam, you wrote this earlier:
“Meditation is not something extraordinary; more or less, it is like over-the-counter medicines. Hundreds of millions of people use this.”
Christ Almighty, no wonder you gave up the Law – or, far more likely, the Law give up you!
World´s most wonderful statements are hidden in the veil of irony. The art is to see the irony.
But no, it can not be seen by those who are confident enough to drive their patrol vehicle with diesel!
I hope Satya Deva and Lokesh get this. These two gentlemen and a lady are too much Pandits.
Shantam, you’re far too deep, far too complex, far too clever for the likes of us groundlings at the Theatre of Love, Life, Laughter and, er, “Irony”.
I’m more of a pawndit.
The lady is a Pundit !
Must watch photos…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2852739/Nepal-devotees-sacrifice-thousands-animals-Hindu-ritual.html
Enjoy your next kebab!
Hinduism, like all the other religions, needs to be exterminated with the same will as these butchers.
I am surprised that Martyn has not commented. One can imagine he would be as appalled as me.
To highlight the history of the past, Osho intended to create museum of stuffed animals. People who were in the discourses during last months of His life can remember how He used to introduce animals.
This project too has been put in the garbage bin. Management must have thought guru had become senile in his old age.
Maybe he was.
And the management would have known as they were the ones supplying him the gear!
And tbh, Shantam, judging by your graphorreal posts, one can easily detect a bit of senile, or maybe in your case, penile dementia!
Have a nice kebab!
Oh, I`ve run out of things to say…er…I know…here`s one…
Chuddies!
Thanks, Frank, I almost ran out of things to say. Thank Osho for chuddies. Osho, Osho, Osho, Jai Chuddies!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTTBPELubFI
Nice one. Made me laugh.
Well as Ram Dass (Richard Alpert) repeatedly has said after his crippling stroke: “The body had a stroke I did not have a stroke”.
And I guess this insight is the essence of ‘from medication to meditation’. But that is ofc not a view one can expect to find at SN!
Well, it’s one thing to wisely repeat the words of a sage (also using them to demean one’s utterly ignorant peers), quite another to speak directly from one’s own experience – isn’t it, Heeren?
Quite right, Heeren. I quite agree. I like Ram Dass, but he is a long shot from being enlightened.
As a matter of curiosity, are you also gay? Not that I have anything whatsover against people being gay. Just curious, that’s all.
Perfectly correct, Bodhiheeren!
Bodhiheeren is one who speaks the truth!
He is not just some guy who is irritated by SN and tries to pull some spiritual one-upmanship by reminding readers of a spiritual truth that he has read about in books and of which he has absolutely Zero experience!
Not at all!
I remember many moons ago outside the disco in Amsterdam when this hero of transcendence and superconsciousness was involved in a scuffle outside a bar in the red light area. He was set upon by some drunken sailors and in the ensuing fracas, he was kicked in the balls…and I remember clearly his calm words:
“The body has been kicked in the balls, I have not been kicked in the balls”, as he slid like a lotus into the mud of the Heerengracht!
And it is said that the sailors became enlightened at that very moment!
Bodhiheren is no fantasist parroting words of others in a pathetically futile attempt at holier-than-thouness!
No!
He talks the talk and walks the walk – although on that particular night the walk was a little gingerly!
Yahoo!
Hari Om!
Ram Dass – not enlightend.
Sham Dass – enlightened.
Bhagwan Rajneesh- enlightend.
Rajneesh von Maxico – Doubtful enlightend.
Shantam – too far away from enlightenment.
Lokesh – his wife’s opinion matters about his enlightenment.
Oddly enough, when he was young Ram Dass did believe in miracles as applied to health, and itemised a lot of ‘stories’ in a book called ‘Miracle of Love’, about his guru, Neem Karoli Baba.
I must admit the whole idea of miraculous healing very unappealing. Most illnesses originate at the deepest level in some body-mind thing which can only be overcome by the person themselves and radical changes to how they are in the world, not in the laziness induced by so-called miraculous healers.
I don`t think Rammed Ass knew what he was on about.
When you`ve got a load of acid in your system weird shit happens all the time,`specially up in the hills!
His latest book, ‘Still Blagging It Now’ is due for publication, I hear.
Just another Yankee hustler doing the Hindu shuffle and using an old blanket boy as his credit card so he didn`t have to do a proper job.
Nice one!
Respect!
As far as I remember, Shantam Prem, no animals stuffed, more ´a show´ with big toys; Avirbhava had been shopping, which she loved very much.
When I remember the vids rightly, which I saw here at the TAO centre, I remember especially the big dragon fly above the heads of the Zen-in-Za listeners, laughing and enjoying.
Me, here in Germany at that time, I found myself in a mood like a clown, watching the vids with one laughing and one crying eye, and I don´t know why.
On another day of these ´series´, Avirbhava and Anando having been hiding inside a big Unicorn, to join the evening meeting with the Master as a surprise happening, but in a way had not been accurately synchronised with…something. And how lovingly He commented on that…
And these days (evenings) remembering are now as if coming from another ´world´, just precious moments, long, long gone and having entered the stream of so many others of This.
If you hadn’t have mentioned it, I wouldn´t have remembered.
So thank you for this.
Madhu