The last country Osho visited (and ever visited outside of India), was Portugal. He had previously been deported or refused entry to 21 countries in 1986… . . Something which SN considers is often forgotten.
He never gave a single talk in Portugal, he is reported to have said the country was inimical to meditation. (recorded in Shunyo’s book). He sat for some days simply looking out over a pine forest. Eventually cloud cover came to the house he was living in, and it disagreed with his asthma. He then never then left his room.
This proved to be the end of the “World Tour” Osho had undertaken earlier in 1986. He was eventually also asked to leave by the Portuguese government. It was the last straw in a long saga that had been unfolding since the end of Rajneeshpuram, the Oregon Commune, in the Autumn of 1985.
At that time Ma Yoga Neelam was traveling separately in Europe. Osho asked that she be called to Portugal immediately. He had decided to go back to India and she would accompany him. The rest of Osho’s entourage would have to use their wits and follow on when, and however, they could manage. As it happened nearly all of them reached Mumbai within a month or so of him, but those were uncertain times. For all disciples, in or out of the entourage!
Neelam with Osho in early life
SN raises the question of why there has been negative comment about Neelam in the past years. After all she alone was called by Osho to be his single companion of return to India. One might at least hesitate taking into account Osho’s obvious high regard for her.
Neelam in later life
Briefly Ma Yoga Neelam met Osho for the first time in 1969 during Osho’s visit to Ludhiana after which her inner journey and love affair with Osho and his work blossomed. In 1972, Osho initiated her into sannyas after which she regularly visited the Pune Ashram until 1981. When Osho left for the USA, she stayed in his commune for three years from 1982 to 1985 in Rajneeshpuram, Oregon.
She came with Osho to Mumbai in Nov 1985, and was then appointed by Him as his personal secretary for India. When Osho finally came back to Pune, Ma Neelam continued to work as His secretary, taking care of His work in India. Osho appointed her as a member of the Inner Circle and when He left his body in 1990, she continued staying in the commune in Pune until 1999, doing the work given to her by Osho.
From 1996-1999, each year she went to eight different countries of Europe to lead meditation events. In 1999 she left the Pune commune. Since then she has been conducting meditation camps all over India . She now lives in the settlement of Osho Nisarga, Dharamsala, in the Himalayas.
SannyasNews
Neelam Ma, when I first met her in the early 90s, was very much in love with her energy. At that time I was totally new to the Ashram & now when I think about it she has been such a lovely catalyst in my experimental inner journey & always has showered her love(very soon I realised she is like this with mostly all the persons she met) & she’s always given me a kind of concern, care & protection whenever we have met.
She has this overflowing love energy according to my experience, which is very unique to her. Of course, all the men & women Osho chose or were existentially close to him physically have a very special quality about them ( not that we all don’t! ). Anyway, He was such a gambler – in a way He had nothing to lose!
Would like to share a photo of Annie Besant. I always saw the facial resemblance to Neelam, probably many have seen that.
Kavita, thanks for sharing this photo and your insight about mix-and-match.
I was also mix-and-matching two persons’ energy: Saddam Hussain and Narendra Modi!
I am curious who will leave the comments and extend the string. Most of the bloggers on this site have no idea who is Neelam and her work and contribution to Osho movement.
It is a sad state, for the regular contributors film lost the story after Laxmi and Sheela, or the day they booked one-way ticket back to Europe and America.
Sometimes I wonder why they use the term Osho. They have seen, met and sat with Bhagwan Shree. Here I remember my only meeting with Sheela. I stopped her and asked why she calls Him Bhagwan and not Osho. In a firm, clear and polite way she answered, “I don´t know Osho. I know only Bhagwan.”
Great are the disciples of last 25 years. Neither they know Bhagwan nor Osho, yet many of them feel him everywhere.
A typical racist assumption on the part of Shantam, the priests’ arse-licking booby.
Arpana, it’s more of an uninformed nonsense!
That is really good-natured of you, Kavita.
Are you so brain-dead, Arpana? Any casual reader can see clearily who is a priestly ass-licker on this site. Again, my observation is you never had a proper boyfriend/girlfriend. People in relations have some quality in their words.
Hardly one sees any gravity, any self-thought. Give some thought to the emerging political development in your home country. It is no wonder, land of Socrates and Kazantzakis has lost the edge.
Why self-thinkers have no Greek blood any more?
You spend a lot of time thinking about other people’s sex lives, don’t you, Shantam?
You arrogant, priests’ asshole-licking booby.
One more set of mix-&-match.
Just for you, Shantam.
Chud Burger declares, “Most of the bloggers on this site have no idea who is Neelam and her work and contribution to Osho movement.”
In my case, he is absolutely correct. So what? The whole article inspires no interest in me whatsover. According to Kavita, Neelam is a very loving person. I am sure she is telling the truth. Once again, so what? Osho attracted thousands of wonderful peple to him.
If I were to be inspired in any way by this kind of Osho trivia it would be to write an article that might inspire a bit of intelligent commentary, debate or controversy. I am sorry to say that this current topic appears to me like scraping the bottom of a very rusty barrel.
It is notable that Shantam and Kavita are the only ones to write anything with much content, which comes across like belonging to some form of spiritual social club.
I hope editorial team of Sannyasnews will take notice of Swami Shri Lokesh of Ibiza´s statement, “The whole article inspires no interest in me.” Next time, explain to such people what role other persons have played in Osho´s movement.
Arrogant and puffed egos need to be told in a story form about the contents of the movie they left in the middle with like-minded husband or wife, girlfriend or business partner.
One of Osho Ashram´s USPs was “Lost and Found Department of Cosmic Souls.” Even Neelam found her companion/s like many many others. Kavita too, Shantam also.
Chudo, the idea that if you move on from dedicating your life to what can be learned from a spiritual teacher to a new phase in one’s life represents some sort of a failure is an extemely narrow-minded perspective to have adopted. It can also signal that one has embraced a cultish mentality.
You speak about “arrogant and puffed-up egos”, but what of your very own brand of egotism? To me, it appears that you actually do not have much experience of egoless, or beyond ego states in your life.
You confess that you have little or no time for meditation in your life and I doubt that you have explored the doors of perception via the avenue of psychedelic drugs. Taking that into consideration, where exactly are your comments being delivered from that you feel that you are fit to pass judgment on what represents egotism or not?
I don’t expect any kind of coherent response on this as I have pretty much written you off as a stupid man who blurts out whatever comes into his head with little regard for what feedack he receives.
Why someone like you became involved with Sannyas in the first place is a mystery to me and not something I am particularly interested in. Wise guys always attract an element of the lunatic fringe, which is more or less where I feel you belong. No big deal.
It’s actually doubtful whether Shantam even understands your first two paragraphs here, Lokesh. Anyway, even if he grasps a glimmer of what’s put to him, invariably he no doubt very quickly consigns it to his mental trash-can, as being ‘just more bloody nonsense from one of those utter treacherous bastards’.
You see, as a much-decorated (in his own mind) veteran Osho Movement Politico-Spiritual Pioneer of the Pune Ashram mid-1980s/90s Campaign, he’s now – at least in his imagination – leading the, er, Resistance, fighting a deeply heroic battle against the execrably excremental colon-ial forces of Evil and Indifference and he just can’t spare the time to attempt to cope with such, er, ‘mind bombs’…
Besides, his underground bunker is built of several miles of reinforced psychic concrete, which permits nothing but ‘self-authorised’ notions to enter his personal control centre – well, except for those takeaways, of course…
Colonial Government Agent Arpana has had him sussed for a long time, realising that Shantam’s communications, his verbal onslaughts against his bitter enemies, are in fact simply descriptions of his own self.
I hear Ladbrokes are offering 100,000,000-1 that he eventually realises this (before he shuffles off this mortal coil). Don’t think I’ll be risking a hard-earned £1 on that one though….
SD, you are no doubt correct in your observations.
You are wise not to waste a squid on the Ladbrokes bet. You stand a 600% better chance of winning the Euromillions jackpot.
I won a poker tournament on Friday night and am still feeling pretty chuffed about that. Ah, the small things in life.
Lokesh, ideally I prefer not to be clubbed with any social spirituality whatsoever, but just jumped in for the fun of it.
In fact, you are only half-right, Shantam & I have written – not sure of any content, but so what?!
Friends of SN,
In the range of Osho´s secretaries, Neelam was, for me, the most órdinary-extraordinary; I would say the least power-stricken of these women (you forgot Kaveesha, by the way).
When I met her more closely, in 1987, I remember it was like meeting anyone else I felt spontaneously attracted to in the course of time. At that time, she had a German boyfriend and both of them very honeymoon-like sweet, and we had a little ordinary chat somewhere in the Garden.
Never I could have imagined that kind of beautiful, éveryday-every moment contact with any other of the named women. Ordinary and loving.
The fuss of later troubles and fights, mentioned here, I didn´t want to follow to the fullest, but I remember that pain of mine, that beauty goes down the drain altogether.
When I’ve recognized that Neelam has moved and opened up some other beauty-place-garden, I’ve loved to hear and see that from afar, as I haven´t been in India for so long time; but see that former friends of mine are travelling and even contributing there.
What I loved meeting Neelam is that I never felt any fundamentalism in her ´performance´, so to say. Neither in ´ancient’ times nor now.
Osho´s world tour, Sannyas News, is not forgotten, also not some shock and awe happenings like in Crete, 1986.
Most of us really are not able to dig it all , or contribute ´valuable stuff’.
Those who could share more, don´t share here, and so what?
And so it might be better not to fuss around endlessly (there I am just with Lokesh).
I am writing about this issue only because Neelam was one of those whom I very much appreciated – and what was special about that was that she seemed to be neither Indian nor western, just one of the many from so many different corners of the planet, we all are (have been), to meet and share some very blissful moments as opposites too.
Every now and then, I’m looking at websites or reading articles, feeling a pain that is very sweet too, being ´familiar´ at Heart to the one or the other.
This weekend, as I saw it, some of you English natives celebrate having been able to meet Vereesh, whom I also came across, long ago.
So, there is coming and going all the way.
From your side, contributors here, I don´t know anybody in particular; however rarely that also happens, this tingling in my Heart and feeling a familiarity I cannot and will not name.
Sunday afternoon, Sun is coming out and brightening up some snowy courtyard here.
I wish us all well.
Madhu
Thanks, Madhu, nice contribution and nice vignette about Neelam.
This is one such rare post of Madhu, I could read from first word till last. It does not push buttons of my sarcastic self.
Neelam’s ‘work’ looks good to me. See her meditation centre in the Himalayas at
http://oshonisarga.com
‘Worthy of respect’, and through it she has and does something ‘for’ Osho.
The box Shantam puts the SN bloggers in is entirely mistaken. I know most of them and they are actually very varied, and of varied backgrounds.
Actually, speaking for myself, the post-central (Pune) commune work of Shunyo, Anando, Neelam, Maneesha has my greatest respect.
It is also noticeable that they have all gone off and ‘created something’ rather than hang on to the old Pune Resort or ashram, whilst still bringing the full flavour of Osho to their independent ventures.
This makes a lot more sense than eating takeways in front of the television on the German/Swiss border, and trying to repair one’s sense of loss by resetting up some past good time.
“It is also noticeable that they have all gone off and ‘created something’ rather than hang on to the old Pune Resort or ashram, whilst still bringing the full flavour of Osho to their independent ventures.”
As have you and Dhanyam, and others whose names I don’t know.
Arps, my dear, very well said. Those people are the ones doing Osho’s work, without asking for anything, sometimes working very hard and giving their free time, just out of love. Respect!
>_>^ ^<_<
Dhanyam and Avinasho at Viha as well.
Sarlo at Living Osho.
Lets make a list.
Computer brain cannot go beyond three names.
Dear boy, rest of the names you can find from Yellow pages.
Thanks, Arpana and Tan.
I welcome your mention of me, Arpana, though I do not sit in the first row, my work is really a part-time thing, but it has lasted for many years.
Other parts of the SN network also need acknowledgement, particularly Dharmen, who worked on the old Osho Times in Pune, and has worked part-time on SN for many years.
Dhanyam and Avinasho certainly need acknowledgement and have ‘served’ Osho’s work very much since 1986, and in a full-time way.
People who buy breast or leg pieces of chicken from a supermarket have not seen in real life how poultry farm looks like.
There is even a similar joke: A villager uncle visits New Delhi and asks host´s child, who is studying in convent school, “Do you know from where comes the milk?” Child answers spontaneously and innocently, “From Mother’s Diary.”
Parmartha, I respect your devotion to Osho, one can say lifelong devotion, but it does not mean you know the nitty-gritty of life around Osho.
When you guys were getting settled back in the service of Monarchy, I was investing my years in the soon-to-be-doomed project around Osho and I am proud and feel blessed.
Shunyo, Anando, Neelam, Maneesha have my greatest respect too. With a heart-centred management, these four women would have created thousand times bigger wave of meditation than all the South Indian Ammas all together.
Yes, they have still created something. Executives of Once Harold’s store are selling towels on their vans!
I appreciate entrepreneurship of people!
Osho Ashram or Resorts, what is this nonsense you guys are talking about?
It is just a miniature property, Donald Trump´s driver can buy this with his bonus!
By giving Indian names, Osho may have felt, in this way blood and soul of India can be transmitted to the West.
Compassionate Idea?
Surely it is (was).
What a surprise.
Shantam, the arrogant, parasitical, priest’s arse-licking booby has written something negative about the ashram.
Just thinking, Lokesh, you should be given the responsibility to approve of the topic here on SN; sometimes I very often wonder if back then you hadn’t got malaria/typhoid in India, Osho would have chosen you as the Chairman of OIF!
Yes, Osho loved such people in position who were good in wheeling and dealing. Street-smart brains are the darlings of all kind of leaders.
And Lokesh, I think he has the capacity to attract money.
Money is the multi-vitamin for meditation!
To be honest, Kavita, I really could not be bothered. Far too complicated. That is one interesting aspect of ageing, you don’t wish to waste time on the unimportant and you can take much pleasure from the small things in life.
Yes, dear, small things, it’s always been for me too, age has never been a factor & at same time every age has its pleasures/pains. Yes and with age one is/can be much more clear vocally and virtually expressive in this age/time, if one needs to be.
“That is one interesting aspect of ageing, you don’t wish to waste time on the unimportant and you can take much pleasure from the small things in life.”
I had a conversation the other day about that very notion, El Loko.
Great minds think alike…
As for the fools, let them get on with it.
During last one week, I have written on my facebook page so much against Narendra Modi, the biggest bully of Indian politics. i just thought how Parmartha is right in his gut feeling to pinpoint the shadowy side, this not so gentlemanly side of him.
I have also observed, more than 90% Osho disciples from India do not like this man. They don’t like his energy, his aura, his Saddam Hussain kind of over-confidence.
So Parmartha, I withdraw my comments where i have tried to bring counter-logic in favour of India’s Prime Minister. I don’t consider him my PM.
Shantam, if my observation serves me right, this team left on their own accord, I was guarding at the Lao Tzu gate then.
In any case, isn’t it best to let the concerned parties deal with this on their own?s
Sorry, but couldn’t help myself from expressing my observation.
Kavita, I have no interest in the welfare of concerned parties, neither I wish doom for them.
They were chosen as disciples’ representatives and they let it fall without any remorse, without any diligence.
Results are clear and obvious. One of our common friends will leave Pune after 27 years to be near Braham Vedant’s ashram in Gujarat.
Yes, I am hearing about that since quite a while; they should have left long ago, why did they wait so long?
Shantambhai!
So finally the years of hanging around with cynical unspiritual ex-sannyasins, baboons, ex-baboons and other representatives of the spiritiual ignorance of the West in the spiritual cess-pit of Sannyas News has terminally infected you, and like a deeply spiritual inhabitant of the sub-continent who goes to a Gay Pride march in the perverted West and ends up stripping down to his chuddies and singing, “I am what I am”, and catching AIDS, you have poured shame on all those of us such as Swamis Arun, Bhorat and myself who had such high hopes for you!
Our dream is now crushed, like Osho’s dream, by arrogant and puffed egos who, like Greece, cannot pay their debt to Osho but insist on trying to write it off!
Your obsession with the Queen of England and her family was always unhealthy and should have been a warning sign to us. We here, amongst the Nine Men of Ashoka, did not realise that this obsession also extended to all English queens and their marital arrangements, such as Elton John!
But alas, it is too late.
You could have been a contender for the Yogic Crown and a place on the Board of the Ashram, but now you have condemned yourself to a karma of several yugas of TV dinners, news channels and Japanese Zen porn!
Kali Yuga is certainly upon us!
Anand Yogi, just need to know, are you from Nepal/UP border area? You sound like a typical hardcore Punda from this area.
Kavita,
He’s from Primrose Hill in London.
Oh my gosh! Does this mean he’s an SN old sinner? I’ll leave it at that or else I’ll miss the fun!
Seriously, Lokesh, what do you mean, are we ending up in a bet and poker room setting?
´Plug and p(r)lay’?
Could be, couldn´t it?
Madhu
Texas Hold ‘Em is a great and complex game. Mirrors life perfectly.
On our own, we are not egos but beings. Bring five such people in the room and their ego enters too. Ask their opinion, and ego will start asserting. Similar situation was created when Neelam was unceremoniuously kicked out from Osho Commune International’s premises.
Parmartha and ohers may not be aware, Jayesh regime issued full-page advertisement in Indian national newspapers to discredit Neelam. It is one of its kind event in the history of now on the way to grave, Neo-Sannyas.
They did it as pre-emptive strike, thinking Neelam, being one of the high-profile faces of Osho work in India, would create a kind of shit-storm.
Incidentally, just day or two ago I have asked administrator of Osho Nisarga to scan me that newspaper ad, I want to use it for an article, how politics works in the name of meditation.
Shantam, you arrogant, priest’s asshole-licking, parasitical, fanatic booby.
If Jayesh had given Neelam £9999, as a gift, you would wet yourself with rage, malice and venom because it wasn’t £10000.
Blinded with rage, Greek loser won’t be able to see, but others can observe how projections are reflected.
Individual’s stupidity or intelligence reflects his country’s state of being too. Oh, Greece, you are not a tragedy any more but clueless nation.
Sannyasnews blog is a tool for self-analysis. Readers and contributors are equally benefited.
Please, Lokesh, could you specify that a little more?
As I am not in finance transactions, have never been.
And I’m asking myself of what kind of ´life´ you have been speaking of, and what mirror just now you have been looking into?
Madhu
I only use a mirror in the morning for shaving. As for reflections…all the time, everywhere.
Cool, Lokesh, cool like a razor blade.
You may be saying that I have been asking for a response like this.
But there you would be wrong.
Madhu
Do you know why two wrongs don’t make a right?
Could someone who has done any of the programmes offered at Osho Nisarga, Dharamsala, in the Himalayas, please share your impressions? What are the costs for those programmes led by Ma Yoga Neelam?
http://oshonisarga.com
and
https://www.facebook.com/yesoshonisarga
Of course, Shantam, I am aware of the ballyhoo when Neelam left the ashram in 1999. What I think is good is that she has never dwelt on it beyond the moment she left. Just got on with her work for Osho and chose a good place like Dharamsala and the Himalayas.
That Pune place you covet is really polluted now, and not healthy. In fact, it was distinctly unhealthy the last time I was there in 2000, now it must be like Beijing. The Himalayas – well, still a little fresh!
Parmartha,
First of all, Pune place is not just a place but a world heritage site. Not so many places on the Earth get pilgrimage status. I also agree places of pilgrimage of one person are just places for another.
It is the love and devotion in the heart, which decides many things.
Chairman Jayesh knows it too. Osho Pune is the most visible and only brand in the kitty of sannyasins. This is the brand nurtured and nourished by the master in collabration and co-operation of His own people.
Without this reality, Amrito and Jayesh and his team would have shifted to Florida or Byron Bay long ago. Sannyasins love to do sunbathing. Naturism is in their genes. Why not build Osho Meditation Resorts in liberal countries of the world?
Property prices in Spain or Greece are little more than free in comparison with Pune. Why not to shift the base?
What stops?
Contemplate over this, please.
Rest we discuss later.
When the master has passed away, and especially after 10, 15, 25 years, the reality is that most disciples just aren’t that bothered about re-congregating at his former residence.
It’s just the way it goes, not a question of ‘should’ or ‘should not’, it’s simply how things are, ie it’s time to live without the master’s physical presence, for better or for worse – you know, the so-called ‘ordinary life’. And nothing whatsoever to do with no ‘celebration days’ or no photographs to devotionally drool over.
Shantam, your obsession with a place, your sense of loss, of anger – of grief – your insistence that it’s ‘wrong’ that things are not the same now as they were while Osho was alive, your hankering after a past that’s inevitably gone – ie your longing for the impossible – would seem to indicate that you didn’t absorb enough, didn’t ‘learn’ enough while around him all those years; even perhaps that the whole motivation for your ‘sannyas’ was somehow false, built on shaky foundations, on a basic misunderstanding: an over-dependence on belonging to a large, socially exciting, ‘permanent’ community, on joining some sort of embryonic ‘religion’ rather than ‘seeking the truth of your own being’.
Apart from having little other apparent purpose to live for, isn’t that the true reason why you feel ‘high and dry’, adrift without a paddle, lost? And because the truth is hard to face and harder to accept, you prefer to get angry, lay blame, pine for the past, view yourself as a ‘victim’, turn the whole enterprise into politics – externals, surface superficialities that you mistakenly take for ‘Real Life’ – and thus lose yourself even further?
If you were truly a ‘seeker’, you’d either be wholeheartedly following whatever Osho taught that would lead you deep within, or you’d be in search of another teacher.
But it seems you’re doing neither, just wasting your precious time and energy farting out a load of hot air, getting absolutely nowhere, within or without, while kidding yourself you’re doing something ‘important’.
And do you really believe your claim that you write the ‘best posts’ at SN?! The vast majority of them are sheer nonsense, from a misunderstanding mind. Tragi-comic is the description that comes to mind, I’m afraid.
SD,
He’s never agonised over the free will/ determinism dichotomy, futile and frustrating though that is, and
I have just realised, after so many years of that one, that so much understanding about cause and effect can come out of that, and he has none, no understanding about the delusion of control.
Jayesh simply does not have the power he ascribes to him.
Q: Why do you say that free Will exists ?
A: Because I have to.
Men must be taught as if you taught them not, and things unknown proposed as things forgot.
Alexander Pope
And all who told it added something new, and all who heard it, made enlargements too.
Alexander Pope
Excellent. |;-)
Satyadeva, do you ever feel embarrassed by your fetish of psychoanalysing the others without even knowing them?
Were you ever married, ever divorced?
Do you have children, grandchildren?
Is there someone in your life, who feels happy to be around you?
Is there a single social project in your life, which is bigger than your limted self?
Can you answer these simple questions?
Shantam, do you ever feel embarrassed by your being an arrogant, priest’s asshole-licking priest, and a parasitical, fanatic, hypocritical booby?
“Satyadeva, do you ever feel embarrassed by your fetish of psychoanalysing the others without even knowing them?”
“Embarrassed”, are you, Shantam?! I wonder why…
As for your other questions, the answers are yes, apart from marriage, although that’s not a prerequisite for commitment; and re children etc. I can only offer two abortions.
Will that do to satisfy your oh-so-conventionally stilted, nineteenth century mentality?
Yesterday evening, while brushing teeth, I thought what kind of smug jerk Satyadeva is? Can he dare to do psychoanalysis of inflated ego of Lokesh? Most probably not. There he is meek and weak and looks for his acknowledgement through flattery. Lokesh comes out as a confident, all-knower spiritual mafiato. To be in his good books is good for survival.
Can Satyadeva be compassionate enough to teach a little puppy chained near the garage door, not to bark always?
Can Satyadeva be courageous enough to use his tools for himself?
Rarely i have seen him coming out from the camouflaged blanket.
Are you having Saturn Retrograde in your chart, Satyadeva?
El Chudo understands very little and it is therefore that he is stuborn about the little that he understands. Were he to come to understand more, his stuck attitude would change, but I am afraid that would be asking too much of the poor fellow.
This is what I mean you are, Lokesh: a bully, wise man with fragile ego.
Don’t take it as insult. It is in nature of things.
Even on a platform of few people, immediately tribal mind becomes reality. Lokesh has taken a leadership position to provide shelter to a few unsure people, who want to be sure about their growth.
A fragile ego!
You must be joking.
Me joking?
Looks like…tough ego is more suitable.
Idiot you are not for sure to claim egolessness while communicating.
“And this may be a trick of the mind — looking for motivation in others. You may be using others as
scapegoats. It is one of the great psychological truths about the human mind that whatsoever you want to
hide within yourself you start projecting onto others. Whenever you start seeing something in somebody
else, remember it as a message. Go immediately withinwards – it must be there. The other is functioning
only as a screen. When you see anger in others, go and dig within yourself and you will find it there; when
you see too much ego in others, just go inside and you will find ego sitting there. The inside functions like a
projector; others become screens and you start seeing films on others which are really your own tapes.”
Osho
‘The Art of Dying’
Chapter #8
Chapter title: ‘A Child on the Seashore of Time’
Well, that’s more than enough for Shantam to scream, “Aaaaagghhh, psychoanalysis!” – and escape into his Daily Mail….
Re Satyadeva’s post, today, 6:18pm…
Daily Mail is the problem.
“Lokesh has taken a leadership position to provide shelter to a few unsure people, who want to be sure about their growth.”
More self-created tripe – for self-defence. Shantam, do you realise how transparently laughable are such ‘knee-jerk’ reactions?
Pure invention, ie total garbage, as too often is the case with your posts, Shantam. You have the blind confidence characteristic of one whose perspective is so narrow, so limited, that you regard any criticism as evidence of the critic’s innate pathology.
You’re unwilling or incapable of seeing this, of course, imagining that this denotes ‘strength’, whereas in fact it indicates downright stupidity.
Simply laughable.
Say anything, invent anything that suits you – whatever happens, don’t genuinely look at others’ criticisms, eh, Shantam? Far too potentially threatening….
Every place on Earth is a place of pilgrimage. This Earth is so rare, so totally unusual in a universe of rock and extreme heat and extreme cold, how could it be other?
This stuff about world heritage is nonsense.
With time, age and experience, many colourful things look nonsense.
Is this not one of the biggest nonsense ever happened on this Earth that few thousand western people spent their whole life with Indian names under the influence of an Indian with hypnotic oratory skills?
‘Is this not one of the biggest nonsense ever happened on this Earth that few thousand western people spent their whole life with Indian names under the influence of an Indian with hypnotic oratory skills?’
No.
(MOD: SOME EDITING)
Could someone here, in the SN community, who has done any of the programmes offered at Osho Nisarga please share your impressions?
If no one in the SannyasNews community has done any programmes at Osho Nisarga, why have you not? Does non-participation have to do with India, or with Ma Yoga Neelam, or with Neo-Sannyas, or with Osho?
Prem Martyn,
The two quotes you added today (7.51am and 8.21 am) can invite for a ´peace train´ to step inside again; amazing, surprising…
Wherever your ´office’ may be, I wave you a hello with the two quotes and will paint them rainbow-coloured, if you allow….
Madhu
Dear Satyadeva,
Every now and then, also today, I am enriched and reminded by your contribution/s you dedicated to Shantam Prem, as I know by experience the traumatic tunnel views being expressed then in repetitive word-salads and aggressive impulses of bitterness and pain. Expressions you every now and then respond to.
The reason(s) for that are quite different to those from Shantam Prem´s life story (obviously). The reason, however, I write, is to open up the perspective to the scapegoat issue again and its functionality for the rest of the group (team).
From my very early childhood I had this strong identification with scapegoats, people excluded, harassed and humiliated, even sometimes killed by a mob.
Sometimes in a way also that couldn´t (can´t) be diagnosed so easily as here, because it is anyway such a complex happening.
Other times, I found out (through the wise Man/Humans/Masters) that above the fact, that no human is an island, which I knew before, the way priests, politicians and sometimes some (maybe many) teachers or therapists too are in need to have a ´juicy example’ to deliver their message and for their performance.
When I look at what Lokesh added again (to me), to conclude who is the boss, so to say, I can see it too.
As long as we here in the so-called Sannyas ´caravanserai´ have at some point ever-fixed reactionary verbal loopings, we obviously need it at a group level.
Sad enough.
You reminded me again of some traumatic tunnel views of mine, which are less part of my contributions here but are written in my private diary…or simply by going through it in silence, according to my best capacity.
To be reminded again and again, to look again and again into the psychological impacts, is very valuable.
And thank you, that you quite often take that role of a reminder and doing it quite respectfully (most of the time).
Anyway, it´s a reminder for everybody, including – besides Shantam Prem – me, also anybody, I dare to say.
What I really loved about the Master was that when He used (quite often He did that) a special person of the Sangha, to expose him or her, He very often added that it is for everybody present that He talked.
So, while He was in His body and available for those to Hear, this flavour of His Sharing with us has been of tremendous importance for me as it has also been for others I used to know or come across at that time.
So, Satyadeva, you have not only been gifted today with a reminder, but also with that precious memory (of the latter) mentioned. A memory of the whole caravan….
Have a beautiful Day!
Madhu
“The reason, however, I write, is to open up the perspective to the scapegoat issue again and its functionality for the rest of the group (team).
From my very early childhood I had this strong identification with scapegoats, people excluded, harassed and humiliated, even sometimes killed by a mob.”
Madhu, if you’re aligning Shantam Prem’s situation at SN with such people’s plights, then I think you’re very much mistaken.
He’s not “excluded”, neither is he “harassed” without cause, and frankly, any ‘humiliation’ he essentially brings upon himself by virtue of what and how he communicates here.
Moreover, he is free to come and go as he pleases, and answer his critics as he wishes; no one puts a gag over his mouth or locks him in or out.
Apropos of nothing much, this photo moved me as I was sent it by a friend and I thought I’d share it.
I guess it symbolises many things; for me today, it was the power of life, that through it all, life survives. In the next post I shall add what Osho once said.
This is from him:
A further reminder from my friend today was sending me a copy of the Peter Gabriel song, ” Mother of Violence’, with the words:
“Fear, fear, she’s the mother of violence.”
I am deeply struck by this today. That in fearing, I am violent, not only to myself, but to everything.
You are an inspiration, vicar.
I refer you, Arpana, to something you posted earlier today. Could it refer to you?
“And this may be a trick of the mind — looking for motivation in others. You may be using others as
scapegoats. It is one of the great psychological truths about the human mind that whatsoever you want to
hide within yourself you start projecting onto others. Whenever you start seeing something in somebody
else, remember it as a message. Go immediately withinwards – it must be there. The other is functioning
only as a screen. When you see anger in others, go and dig within yourself and you will find it there; when
you see too much ego in others, just go inside and you will find ego sitting there. The inside functions like a
projector; others become screens and you start seeing films on others which are really your own tapes.”
Osho
I’m hardly a good christian vicar.
I suggest, Arpana, if you look inside yourself you see yourself as virtuous, insightful, clever, witty, intelligent, rightly angry with ignorance, a defender of truth. You display aggression to those you don’t like, you are sarcastic and delight in your own self-importance.
You display almost no vulnerability, but prefer to attack others – rather than reveal your own simple, true, and sensitive nature.
All attributes and behaviour of a good christian vicar.
Think of the lilies…the birds…
He’s makin’ it up as he goes along…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9czBBKof7Yo
Nearly choked laughing at this film when I first saw it.
I was visiting London at the time.
Why you don’t look in the mirror?
Why should I?
My job is to sell the mirrors!
Mirror to the photo camera, “Why can’t you be like me? I never save the images.”
Camera to Mirror, “In your brain there are no pixels.”
Vicar Simond,
“I suggest Arpana, if you look inside yourself you see yourself as ‘Virtuous’.”
Definitely not. What is virtue? In fact, thank God for being free of such immature nonsense. I value plurality and diversity. We all make a contribution (although I have yet to work out what worthwhile contribution is made by Shantam). (MOD: SOME EDITING HERE)
“Insightful, clever, intelligent” -
Yes, I agree.
“witty” -
Occasionally.
“Rightly angry with ignorance” -
Yes. Intolerant of ignorance, especially that which seeks to dominate (see my remarks about the booby Shantam).
Not always comfortable with that aspect of me, I must add;
but there you go. I forgive myself for being imperfect.
“A defender of truth” –
What’s truth?
“You display aggression to those you don’t like, you are sarcastic” –
Yes, absolutely true.
“Delight in your own self-importance” –
I am not the most important person at Sannyas News. Definitely not the most important sannyasin. Not the most important person where I live, where I hang out. I am not a central figure anywhere.
Certainly consider my viewpoint, which is all it is, as valid as anyone’s, excluding specialist information.
“You display almost no vulnerability” -
I am very considered about what I say. I have taken a pop at everyone who posts here regularly. Annoyed them, and have regularly been put on the back foot by their ripostes.
I have on occasion roared with laughter, despite myself, at the wittiness of the put-downs I have been on the receiving end of.
I don’t seek to win. I just want to play, to join in. Sannyas News is a very robust forum.
“but prefer to attack others – rather than reveal your own simple, true, and sensitive nature” -
Bit manipulative that.
“All attributes and behaviour of a good Christian vicar” -
Whatever.
HERETIC – did not know the meaning of this word. While reading the meaning I realised how important this word is for the seekers of truth and specially, Osho disciples or others who pour tons of energy in reading, hearing, praying, contemplating, meditating.
Heretic
1. A person who maintains beliefs contrary to the established teachings of the Church.
2. A person who holds unorthodox opinions in any field.
3. A person who holds controversial opinions, especially one who publicly dissents from the Officially Accepted Dogma of their sects, cults, religions and something called ‘Resort’.
Maybe we can ask whether Osho was (is), heretic or conformist.
And what we are or who am I?
P.S:
I know a bit how well-read and shrewd Neo-Sannyas mind acts.This mind is going to say, I am neither heretic nor conformist. I am simply Aware!
Here we go again…more self-dramatisation and self-concocted reasons to hijack the topic and twist it towards Shantam’s personal obsession. In other words, more utter tedium….
Entitlement
Entitlement or a ‘Sense of Entitlement’ is an unrealistic, unmerited or inappropriate expectation of favourable living conditions and favourable treatment at the hands of others.
Description:
Because of the elevated highs and lows in mood that people with personality disorders often experience, it is not uncommon for them to attach an elevated sense of importance to their own emotional needs. They may appear at times to care only about their own desires and needs at the expense of other people around them or they may habitually prioritize their own needs above those of others. This trait is often referred to as a ‘sense of entitlement’.
Sometimes, people who suffer from personality disorders seem to have no sense of shame nor scruples. They are not afraid to ‘make a fool out of themselves’, it’s always the other who is to blame when something goes wrong. That in-built “what would other people think of me if I did this or said that?” can sometimes appear not to exist in them. This makes it more common for them to tread into territory most people would avoid.
The ‘Compromise Effect’
If you are the type of person who usually tries to meet people halfway, you may be susceptible to giving away too much to people who have a sense of entitlement. That is because if they make 10 unrealistic demands of you, you may be inclined to give away 5, just to satisfy your own sense of fairness. This is known as the ‘compromise effect’ and is frequently demonstrated by parents of spoiled children.
Compromising with a person who has an acute sense of entitlement is a form of Intermittent Reinforcement.
Intermittent Reinforcement
Intermittent Reinforcement is when rules, rewards or personal boundaries are handed out or enforced inconsistently and occasionally. This usually encourages another person to keep pushing until they get what they want from you without changing their own behaviour.
Examples of a Sense of Entitlement
A Sense of Entitlement is particularly common among people who suffer from Narcissistic Personality Disorder, Histrionic Personality Disorder, Dependent Personality Disorder and Borderline Personality Disorder.
What it Feels Like
The sense of entitlement is often interpreted as selfishness by those who are closest to them. However, the personality-disordered individual may forcefully and even convincingly defend their position. The disconnect often occurs when a person who suffers from the personality disorder feels the need more intensely than is normal for most people – even to a point where they attach a sense of desperation or adopt a crisis response, where immediate bystanders see no crisis and are willing to apply Situational Ethics, sacrificing long-term goals for short-term relief.
Coping with a Sense of Entitlement:
What NOT to Do:
Don’t give in to unrealistic demands just to keep the peace.
Don’t expect a personality-disordered person to reciprocate favourable treatment you show them.
Don’t try to use logic to argue your way out of it. That will only be interpreted as invalidating their feelings and result in a Circular Conversation.
Very interesting – what’s the meta-cognitive source material?
Don’t understand the question.
He means to say it doesn’t seem you have written it !
Thanks, Kavita. Here’s the link:
http://outofthefog.net/CommonBehaviors/Entitlement.html
Yes, Satyadeva (5 February, 2015 at 8:34 pm), I more than less agree, I had been simply referring to the fact that if an exchange amongst people gets stuck in ever-repetitive patterns, everybody present is part of being ‘stuck’ in one or the other way.
And I have been trying to express the inconceivable apparently that to easily detect (Shantam’s) stubbornness gives some others the ´opportunity’ to present themselves the way it´s happening.
But also the group as such, quite often losing track of the issue, being more than less just concentrated on that ´fighting’ mode.
However, all this may be more comparable with a machine, where some screws are too fixed or too loose, and the virtual way of communication may function that way…that´s one of the many reasons I love it when one is capable to meet one another ´face to face´.
When I decided finally to join the chat, one year ago, I did it because I had been reading it for quite a long time before that like one of the silent onlookers.
I am not a fan of any peepshow game events and had been looking for a possibility to express and be visible for me and others too.
The past year has been and is a strong experience of disillusionment re the issue of virtual communication as ´debating’ forms.
I value these experiences though very much as they bring me more in touch with what is disappearing more and more (not only in my ´case´): the loss of direct contact in the body. And the consequences it has when communication is more than less ´anonymous´, and by that I mean when it’s not any longer to be valued feedback-wise by other senses than pretty much autistic ones.
The latter – after a half-night’s sleep – could be a reason why ´stuckness’ sometimes seems to be irreparable?
In documentaries about Tibetan monasteries, I did see this beautiful debating of disciples, facing each other, the clapping hands, the laughter too ; and maybe that touched the dream I had in joining this Sannyas virtual caravanserai.
You know, I loved Simond´s contributions to the issue, and I may not be as ´robust´ as this Sannyas tribal union asks (apparently) as a prerequisite.
The contribution touched my heart. And the song line, ´Home is where the Heart is´ is not an autistic song line.
That´s why I like standards to look at habits and patterns in virtual exchange and communication, focusing on that, especially when communication gets extremely stuck.
Madhu
The flying rumours gather’d as they roll’d,
Scarce any tale was sooner heard than told;
And all who told it added something new,
And all who heard it made enlargements too;
In ev’ry ear it spread, on ev’ry tongue it grew.
Thus flying east and west, and north and south,
News travel’d with increase from mouth to mouth.
Alexander Pope, 1711
Paraphrases from Chaucer’s ‘The Temple of Fame’
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In the 1700s Pope might have had a valid concern about “adding something new.” When it comes to Sannyas and Osho, it is not the case. Alexander Pope lived in a “mouth to mouth” time. Osho lived in a time of electronic mass media, audio recordings, video recordings, etc. The words of Osho are preserved intact. If anything, we worry about Osho’s words being excised from publications, contrary to Pope’s assertion of “enlargements.”
Not to mention Pope’s other beliefs, which are diametrically opposed to Osho’s later teachings on Zen (Osho’s Pune2 words to “his people,” not the earlier Pune1 God-talk, when Osho was seducing people of all paths into Sannyas).
For example, Alexander Pope was a garden variety dualist/Catholic who believed in the existence of a God of infinite wisdom who created the world. Mr.Pope’s traditional and limited religious vision/knowledge/experience cannot compare to Osho’s much more ample and grounded Neo-Sannyas vision.
Once Pope admitted the existence of an invisible Divine Creator Being, who is all-wise, all-knowing, and all-loving, Pope was stuck. He had to busy himself writing essays to try to justify that invisible being’s ways of relating to humanity: a stupid waste of the life energy of a talented writer, in my opinion.
Fair enough, Samarpan, if one takes the Pope quote literally, of course things are radically different in today’s media-dominated world, which is also a place where (as we see at SN every day) any fool can broadcast any half-baked rumour, opinion or personal obsession far and wide, at any time of day or night.
But I’m not sure Martyn was using it specifically re Osho’s output (no doubt he’ll confirm or deny), but rather as a wry and probably cynical aside on how so-called ‘news and views’ proliferate, not least at SN, pulling in the ‘punters’ and persuading them to give their tuppence-worth.
More seriously, this effect extends into the wider world, especially around events and topics carrying a high emotional charge, fanning prejudices and incipient violence, as seen so often these days (eg in the recent attacks on jews in western Europe, following the ‘Charlie Hebdo’ outrages).
Thus, through our wonder-ful technology, vast numbers of people can be almost instantly ‘infected’ by what amounts to sheer poison. Which is no doubt playing its part in hastening our collective doom….
PS:
And of course Pope’s religious views appear ludicrous to us – but he didn’t have much else, if anything, to go on, did he?!
The literary turn of debate is welcome. Makes a change from the stone throwing of street fighters.
One thing I would say is that rumour still prevails everywhere. Including in Sannyas. Remember you not the tales about the Resort being sold – much excited some at the time? But now, some years later, nothing.
Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of mankind is man.
and
The vulgar boil, the learned roast, an egg.
( both Alexander Pope quotes… )
And this my penned contribution from my quilled desk:
If one is forced by injunction’s doubt to stoop and ask another’s ploy,
Enquire then with grace’s favour,
As by their merit,
Accusations of intrigued complicity
Will by the wayside fall
When as failing to trip,
They trip unto themselves,
Withal.
‘Twas but a jest to carouse by turn that most endearing of our humours,
To talk in rhyme and haiku’s prose,
Replacing such that conflict may be uplifted and…reposed.
“PS: And of course Pope’s religious views appear ludicrous to us – but he didn’t have much else, if anything, to go on, did he?!” — Satyadeva
Hmmm… well, yes, Pope did have much to choose from in 17th century England, but Pope remained a mediocre Catholic. Voltaire wrote letters to Pope. Voltaire said of the Vedic literature: “The Veda was the most precious gift for which the West had ever been indebted to the East.” How is it that Pope managed to miss the Enlightenment? And apparently the Vedas?
Pope, being an educated man, could not have been ignorant of mystical religious options available to him that came out of the Renaissance, or mystical options from religious dissenters of the Protestant Reformation, or those alternatives that came from the Orient.
In England itself there were options like the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). Osho put the ma’s in charge in the commune. Quaker women in the England of Pope also had a major role, in being responsible for the spirituality of the larger community. Osho has spoken very favorably of the Quakers’ practice of sitting in silence. Pope? Not so much.
Besides all the above-mentioned options ignored by Pope, there were the native Celtic and pagan traditions. But Pope, not being a spiritual seeker, was apparently not impressed by those options. Pope was content to remain a Catholic.
Pope could not have been ignorant of the Freethinkers movement, which was challenging biblical literalism, challenging church authority, challenging church dogma. That movement was contemporaneous with Pope, having started in 1600 with the execution in Italy of Giordano Bruno. Freethought was alive and well in England at the time of Pope.
Osho had no problem with it, Osho relished modern freethought. But Pope instead busied himself writing ‘moral’ essays and philosophical poems based on the assumption that man is fallen and needs salvation.
Pope DID live in a time when he had much to go on, but chose to ignore it. His buddy Voltaire had a clue; why not Pope? England was in a state of religious turmoil, yet Pope managed not to embrace any of the religious alternatives of his time. No, in my opinion, Pope was a coward and chose the safety and security of elitist Catholic religion.
Re this minor side-issue, no doubt all that was going on in Pope’s time – btw, 1688-1744, not the 17th century – but surely it was at nowhere near the level that ‘alternative’ spiritual movements have enjoyed in later times, especially in the last 40 or 50 years? Our generation has arguably been fortunate in that respect, enjoying far greater opportunities to read, search, practise, travel, explore…
But anyway, why condemn Pope – or indeed anyone, however intellectually or artistically gifted – for not being a ‘spiritual seeker’? It would seem he knew no better, or – like the overwhelmingly vast majority, including now – simply wasn’t that bothered i.e. he had other fish to fry, as it were. Seems to me that if it’s not your time, it’s not your time….
It was his surname that made freethinking resistance useless…
From whence the phrase, regarding the obvious, “Is the Pope Catholic?”
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