Shantam does a spot of house painting

A Day in the Life….

The other day I got the services of a sannyasin (ex?),  acquaintance for painting the flat. I have known this person for more than two decades. During his Poona visits during the last of the 90s he used to stay in my flat.
To hire a professional painter is beyond my reach,  and to do it myself was not an uplifting thought. So I asked Shunyo and he agreed to do the painting,  in a perfect German way @20 euros an hour.

While working together I enquired, “Do you have any new guru after Osho, or someone you are spiritually attached to?”

His first reaction was, “Not really, but yes, for many years I have been visiting a man. He is not really a guru type but quite an influential being in his own way.
I asked, “Where does he live?”
“He is from Austria, but unlike Osho he has no fixed address. He travels around the world.”
I asked, “How old he is?”
I became even more curious when a  67 years old long- time Osho disciple said, “Oh, I think much younger than you, maybe 35, 40.” I asked his name to check in internet but forgot in few hours.

Next day, I asked again, this time with pen and paper in hand.

To satisfy my curiosity, Shunyo invited me to join their coming celebration for 10 days in July/August. “You need courage to come closer to Thomas. He can blow your mind off.”
“Mama Mia”, I exclaimed and “How many people will be in the celebration?”
“Around 1000-1500 people. Many will come from America, Canada, Israel and other countries.”

When a young European gathers thousand-plus people around him in Germany, it is almost like 30,000 Indians gathered around their guru.

The name of this European teacher is Thomas Hübl.
I don´t think this guy has written some kind of spiritual best-seller like ‘Power of Now’, yet seems to be quite a hit among the western seekers.

Have any of the bloggers heard this name before or have some personal experience?

After spending few minutes on his website were enough for me. His reach and success proves a simple Maxim: ‘Hundreds of books cannot replace a living spiritual teacher/master/guru.’

 

 

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10 Responses to Shantam does a spot of house painting

  1. frank says:

    “He can blow your mind off.”

    Satsang junkies, eh?
    They`ll do anything to get a fix.

  2. madhu dagmar frantzen says:

    No, Frank,
    the human mentioned here, from Austria, has something to share and to say; Satsang ´junkies´, as you put it, wouldn´t feel easy with him at all, I guess.

    Listening this morning to some of his contributions on the web, I was reminded of the German fellows I’ve met who are with Ken Wilber, but for me, he was much more enjoyable to listen to than those.

    It´s much more than an eloquent web-performance, like is happening all over the place, so to say, and I understand that he is attracting quite a bunch of people looking for a spiritual shelter as a gathering of friends.

    And the latter is needed, very much so.

    We are living in precarious times, and rare are humans who are skilled in inviting unifying (be-friending) issues, instead of actions in form of bashing.

    In the latter you seem to be a champion here, but you are not alone in that.

    A pity is that.

    Madhu

  3. Parmartha says:

    Could be a tricky question from our house painter.

    It is very little known, but Thomas Hubl is or was a follower of Paul Lowe.

    One reliable source has it that Paul Lowe supported and fawned upon Thomas’s “potential”, and actively encouraged him to become a ‘teacher’.

    SP knows that there are bloggers at this site who have a very mixed view of Paul Lowe! Being authenticated by Paul Lowe would not be seen as a plus mark.

    • satyadeva says:

      While I will get around to take simond’s advice to give Paul Lowe another chance by viewing his latest offerings at youtube, my first effort was unpromising, as I just had to switch off after less than a minute of seeing him sitting there blandly going on about how he’d woken up with ‘vibrating energy’ in his body, then noticed similar vibrations in the outside world when he opened his curtains. There’s just something about him…

      And reading Veena Schlegel’s excellent ‘Glimpses of My Master’ these last two days, it seems she wasn’t too keen on him either, back in the day, 1974, where first, he tried to insist upon being in charge of ‘Kailash’, the extraordinary rural farm experiment in deep Maharashtra, despite Osho having appointed another man, Veetrag (a former airline pilot, who was an early ‘dynamic meditator’ at the ‘Nirvana’ Centre, London).

      Then, in a place where all had to be created from virtually nothing, requiring much very hard work in difficult conditions, Mr Lowe apparently was far from keen to get his hands dirty, which, reading between the lines, clearly didn’t go down too well with Veena.

      But yes, of course, ‘water flowing under bridges’ etc., he might have changed since those days…and since Pune 1…and since the Ranch….

      • satyadeva says:

        Btw, Shantam, I think you’d very much enjoy Veena’s book, ‘Glimpses of My Master’. For instance, she and you seem to share similar points of view re ‘The Resort’, although, unlike you, after years of disillusion, she’s managed to reach an inner reconciliation about all that.

        Might be well worth your while to get hold of a copy, as her well-written story is quite something, that of a true, even intimate disciple, who went the whole way.

        • shantam prem says:

          If by chance, this book comes in my way and hooks me with the first page, I may read but to spend 12 Euros for someone´s memorials is not my way, specially when I have my own life story on the similar lines.

          In every situation, people react in different ways. Few reach inner reconciliation with their fate, few fight till the bitter end.

          I think every man should have some reason to fight for, some issue to stand for, some values as precious as one´s life.

          • satyadeva says:

            “If by chance, this book comes in my way and hooks me with the first page, I may read but to spend 12 Euros for someone´s memorials is not my way, specially when I have my own life story on the similar lines.”

            “Similar lines”, eh?
            I somehow don’t think you were one of the very first to be in close contact with Osho in the early 70s, neither do I recall you ever having actually met the man, let alone having been one of his ‘carers’, clothes designers/dressmakers, or book editors.

            Did he ever get you to leave India and run a pioneering meditation centre in a major western city in the very early days of Sannyas?

            Were you part of the Kailash experiment in rural Maharashtra in ’73/4?

            Did you live in his house for years in Pune? Were you, perhaps, a close colleague and friend of Vivek/Nirvano, Osho’s ‘partner’?

            Don’t think you ever went to the Ranch, did you?

            Shantam, your bone-headed stuborness is simply foolishness. Ultimately rather sad, in fact.

            If you were at all open, instead of thinking you already know it all, you could learn (and enjoy) much from Veena’s book (and her other ones).

          • satyadeva says:

            “I think every man should have some reason to fight for, some issue to stand for, some values as precious as one´s life.”

            Thus speaks the politician mind…

            You, Shantam, are an example of one of those well-meaning but unintelligent people who, focusing on externals, will create an ‘exoteric’ religion out of the life and work of a master who wanted nothing of the sort, enough damage having already been perpetrated by similar enterprises manufactured by similar minds to yours.

            As Amrit Neelamber says, you are stuck in your Indian/Sikh conditioning – a prisoner imagining you’re free.

            And not only that, but also a prisoner calling for similar ‘life-sentences’ for others!

            Imagine that:
            Stubbornly committed to fighting for the right to perpetrate sentimental claptrap and outdated, unintelligent ignorance upon the world – presumably, all in the name of ‘freedom’, but of course!

  4. shantam prem says:

    Parmartha, this is worth an information that Paul Lowe is basically the spiritual dad of Thomas Hubl, the way Punja ji is Papa ji to Ganga Ji, Lokesh Ji, MooJi…

    Because ‘master’ in English sounds in the context of slavery and on a more honourable level as schoolmaster, it won´t be inappropriate for a while to coin a new phrase, ‘Spiritual Dad’!

    Unfortunately, from the house of Osho, top of the range therapists are creating their names without mentioning too much of their not- so-reputed Dad.

    Other day, I was checking the price of ‘Path of Love’ group run by Turiya (she never mentions as being chosen as one of the Inner Circle members just like the Dentist and many others). About a week costs 1499 pounds or Euros, plus living expenses extra.

    One thing which is significant is that all the spiritual service providers create a shelter for people to come out from their capsuled life.

    Desire to be part of a bigger whole, specially when one does not have a stable family life, is a longing in majority of the people.

    Persons who become channels to create tribe are ‘Reverend’.

  5. samarpan says:

    Thomas Hubl was interviewed on ‘Buddha at the Gas Pump’ in 2013: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ua4MBJTvKc

    The first question:
    Did you have a formal teacher? Hubl answers no, but says influences were Ken Wilber (western transpersonalist), Sri Aurobindo (educated and lived 14 years in England), Ramana Maharshi (“who is painting?”).

    Mostly, Hubl says, he had “a very strong inner guidance.” Later in the interview Hubl does mention Paul Lowe as recognizing him and opening the door for workshops (one day costs from $140 to $200, according to his website).

    Overview of Hubl’s teaching (summarized from the interview):
    1) We need to look at our individual development and at our shadows. Suffering comes from what is held back.
    2) If we deepen our awareness, more information is available to us. If I am present enough, we can have a deeper understanding of each other’s perspectives. “We developed loads of exercises.”
    3) In the last years I am talking more about mystical principles. If we align with them, less suffering.
    4) The transcendence part, stillness, breakthrough…
    5) Service, so that it doesn’t just stay ‘my meditation’, ‘my practice’.

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