Friends,
the Osho fragrance is spreading again in the air of London, something is happening, the caravan is on the move! The inexplicable pull towards “the man who shook the world” is palpable; the Osho magnet is again attracting people from all walks of live. Old acquaintances and new generations of Osho lovers are coming together to get inspiration, and drink from the infinite well of wisdom that Osho represents.
Osho is a contemporary mystic whose vision was way ahead of his time. It may still take a long time before society recognises the revolutionary ideas introduced by a simple Indian man, raised in a remote village in India. As a precursor in the history of mankind, Osho’s contribution to the enhancement of human consciousness will be, one day, fully acknowledged and not just by a few sensitive souls.
In fact, new generations are equally attracted to Osho even though his mesmerising physical presence is no more. It is quite a mysterious phenomenon, like many others in the magical world of Osho. Osho talks straight to the heart of whoever is receptive and with such a power that people who listen change their life forever.
This is exactly what happened to me, to my beloved companion Chetna, and many friends we met along the path. This mysterious pull, beyond comprehension, pushed us to organise Osho events in London and the UK with the simple purpose to get together, meditate and share with others this precious, and at times dangerous treasure: Osho.
We have been organising regular events in the last couple of years. At first, in the shape of an intimate gathering with fellow sannyasins and friends; slowly it evolved in a more structured form to reach out to a wider audience. What we have discovered, with a mixture of surprise and excitement, is that there are so many new people, young and less young, interested in Osho even though they have never been in the presence of the Master (by the way exactly like ourselves) or in an Osho commune.
We always thought we were “Osho freaks” to be with a Master who is not in the body; but the virus of the “Osho I am crazy for you” is a common trait shared by many. We quickly realised that in order for us and for our friends to grow and deepen our understanding of Osho, a regular gathering was absolutely necessary.
New generations are very open-minded and this, in fact, reflects the new conditionings of the modern day. Society has changed compared to the 60s, 70s and 80s. Yet, Osho’s message is fresh, vivid, alive, young, vibrant and appeals to contemporary generations as intensely as to the old. We believe that Osho’s words are eternal and charged with such light able to dispel even the thickest layers of darkness across countries, generations and conditionings.
Friends, nowadays sannyasins, Osho lovers and folk in general are coming together to enjoy and celebrate Osho. In London alone there are regular Osho events running from North to South, from East to West. We have a Meet Up grown to over 1,100 new members in London in just 2 years.
What we aim to do in our events, to the best of our ability and understanding, is to acknowledge the very source of it all: Osho. Since Osho left the body, we observed a general tendency to hide Osho as a spiritual Master. In some places Osho is almost removed and relegated in a dark corner.
We are so grateful to the man who inspired us and we feel the urge to share this with fellow travellers whose souls are seeking for just a little push to take a jump into the unknown. Seekers look for a Master and the Master works in mysterious ways. As sannyasins, if we keep hiding Osho to new generations, we snatch away the opportunity that Chetna and myself had to dive into Osho’s “pathless path”.
We strongly believe that “it is all about Osho”! We were both born in the late 70s when many started their journey at the feet of the Master. Osho is arguably the most controversial spiritual Master who ever walked the planet earth. We admire and honour the courage of all those sannyasins who dropped everything to be with the Master. It was not easy at that time to choose against the whole society, family and tradition. Nowadays I can have a smiling Osho picture sitting on my office desk and attract curiosity at the most, (investment bankers often think the “bearded man” is Chetna’s boyfriend). We have not been through the Oregon time and do not carry its burden. We love Osho! It is not a blind faith but rather a trustful heart. We do not want to focus on what went wrong, rather on the joy, beauty and richness that Osho brought into our lives. It is our experience that new generations are thirsty for Osho and his message.
Osho has introduced concepts that have been absorbed into the mainstream spiritual movement. Dance, celebration, catharsis are now accepted as meaningful elements of spiritual development. Osho experimented with the integration of psychological therapies to clear the path and facilitate access to meditation. The very idea of bringing meditation into the market place is now the formula proposed and adopted by almost all modern traditions.
If you feel inspired to connect or re-connect with the source, please support us. We run regular meditation events in London and the UK. I highly recommend joining us at the next Residential Retreat in July near London, which is the best opportunity to meditate together, share Osho, and enjoy his amazing energy!
With love,
Swaram and Chetna
Web: www.LoveOsho.co.uk
MeetUp: www.meetup.com/Love-Osho/
Chetna, Swaram,
If you could only see my smile….
Madhu
Madhu,
Please, take a chance, shift from Munich to London. I will have smile on my face to think one of us is not living a solitary life but among master´s people.
If you think it seems so great why not move here yourself, Shantam?
And if you don’t want to move then stop complaining.
But of course, you don’t think it’s great at all, you just use anything you can to promote your obsession. Which, of course, is a wonderful means (you think) for you to explain how unsatisfactory your life has become.
In fact, Shantam, in your much-proclaimed discomfort you are actually in a sort of rather convenient ‘comfort zone’. Not least because any overall dissatisfaction you experience you can simply explain away by blaming ‘the Pune Regime’!
Great news, guys. Hopefully, the S&N bonding team here have helped contribute to deepening the organism that is Osho.
The London All Weather Pub Crawlers and Tantric Cricketers Meet-up is on Tuesdays. Mostly we act as a mouthpiece and venue for the London Tea-Time Ayahuasca and Insight Nausea Recovery Group who also share our space.
Ma Tatianatarantella leads the free expression dance and laughter for singles and staying that way, whilst the Oregon Lesson Learners amateur dramatics and historical society usually are arrested in the foyer after acting out their lines.
Glad you back Marty to deepen it / whatever even more !
Thanks, Ryvita…
You really take the biscuit…
I thank you very munchly.
If that does not sound very attractive, then what, Prem Martyn? Very stylish and very British too.
Too bad that I missed some seminars at Hoggart´s End: “Beam your body to wheresoever, whatever and whenever.”
But if I think twice…being arrested in the foyer doesn´t sound like one possible option (of many) not really chilling.
So I guess I am at the right place here at the right time.
How generous and compassionate of you to let us all know about the schedule.
Madhu
Interesting article that leaves much to comment on.
The statement that immediately struck an odd note is the following:
“Osho is a contemporary mystic whose vision was way ahead of his time.”
Apart from the odd mix of tense, I also find this statement misleading. Osho’s vision, for want of a better expression, was precisely suited to the times he found himself living in. How else to account for his remarkable success while alive in terms of the way he impacted on such a diverse and large amount of people? He was doing the right thing at the right time. The times they may well be changing but they are not changing so fast that a lot of what Osho said and taught has become obsolete. It hasn’t. Saying that his vision was ahead of its time could be taken as a sign of an ego trip, maybe spiritual but still the ego is there, as in “I am capable of recognizing what is ahead of its time because I am ahead of the times.”
I dig Swaram’s and Chetna’s enthusiasm, yet can’t help catching a whiff of the born-again sannyasin vibe, which, if you think about it, sounds a bit born-again Christian. A few word changes and it could have been lifted from the God Channel. Who knows, being up in Scotland might be expanding my parameters on the cynicism meter.
“At the next Residential Retreat in July near London, which is the best opportunity to meditate together, share Osho, and enjoy his amazing energy!”
In essence, this sort of statement throws me back to the seventies, when I believed I was in the orange vanguard that was going to change the world. In retrospect, it was kind of ridiculous but a whole lotta fun. So twenty years after Osho died folks is enjoying his amazing energy. I have to chuckle. It is all in the mind. Could it all be a product of imagination? Whatever the answer is, it is certainly better than fussing and fighting.
Truth is that such outpourings no longer move me. Mind you, were I around the Residential Retreat in July near London I would be sure to join in. I enjoy a good laugh and am always in search of a good story.
“Share Osho, and enjoy his amazing energy.” The cult of personality no less. Never forget, the real guru is inside you. Anyone who tells you otherwise is a deceiver. Osho’s amazing energy is actually your amazing energy. Took me until my early forties to get it, so who am I to be pushy? Let the children play.
“The cult of personality no less. Never forget, the real guru is inside you. Anyone who tells you otherwise is a deceiver. Osho’s amazing energy is actually your amazing energy.”
If I am allowed then, to put this gold nugget in a nutshell on an extra serving table….
With Love,
Madhu
Lokesh: “Never forget, the real guru is inside you.”
Without going into the etymology of the word “guru,” one of the popular translations of guru is spiritual teacher. Using that definition, what does “the real guru is inside you” even mean? You teach yourself, fill yourself up?
Lokesh, you say you have heard it all before, so you don’t bother to watch videos, read books, or read Osho quotes. But when you say: “Never forget, the real guru is inside you,” it suggests perhaps you have not heard it all. Perhaps you have not heard Osho on gurus because Osho said no guru is needed.
Outside guru? Inside guru? Osho was against the whole idea of gurus:
“I am not a guru at all! The very idea of guru and gurudom is ugly. I am not teaching you anything, so how can I be a guru? On the contrary, I am taking all your knowledge away from you. A guru is one who gives you knowledge.
I am an anti-guru! I take away your knowledge so that you can again become innocent, so that you can again have the same awe and wonder as a child has. I don’t inform you, I transform you. And I don’t need anything from you.
The people who are gathered here are my friends, not my followers. I am not creating any following. Every sannyasin is absolutely equal to me.”
Osho, ‘Zen: Zest, Zip, Zap and Zing’ (1981, ch.12)
As time has shown, Osho´s friends were not each other´s friends…
Once ringleader left the arena, it become clear who is the goat and who is the tiger…
I am the elephant!
I will not answer any questions that come in a comment that contains any Osho quotes.
Well thought decision, Lokesh.
Aye, aye, cap’n.
Samarpan
You or I or anyone else could find a quote where he says exactly the opposite of what you have presented.
I suggest you explore what Lokesh might actually mean rather the quote Osho.
A dialogue and and an enquiry WITH him might resolve the question as to what he may mean. You never know, he might change his mind or you might change yours!
This is far more useful than throwing quotes around!
“I am not a guru at all! The very idea of guru and gurudom is ugly. I am not teaching you anything, so how can I be a guru? On the contrary, I am taking all your knowledge away from you. A guru is one who gives you knowledge.
I am an anti-guru! I take away your knowledge so that you can again become innocent, so that you can again have the same awe and wonder as a child has. I don’t inform you, I transform you. And I don’t need anything from you.
The people who are gathered here are my friends, not my followers. I am not creating any following. Every sannyasin is absolutely equal to me.”
Osho, ‘Zen: Zest, Zip, Zap and Zing’ (1981, ch.12)
Simond says: “You or I or anyone else could find a quote where he says exactly the opposite of what you have presented.”
This seems to be a popular conception on Sannyas News, that Osho can be made to contradict himself. It is true that Osho loved to intentionally contradict himself, but not on all subjects, and usually as a device to push buttons, or as play.
Really, Simond? Quotes exist in which Osho says “exactly the opposite”?
“I am not a guru at all! The very idea of guru and gurudom is ugly.” Can you find a quote where Osho says the idea of gurus and gurudom is beautiful?
“I am taking all your knowledge away from you. A guru is one who gives you knowledge.” Can you find a quote where Osho says his goal is to give us knowledge, to fill you up with ideas and concepts?
I checked through some of Osho’s books to see if I could find a quote where Osho speaks favorably of gurus. I found 40 quotes condemning gurus and no quotes in which Osho praised gurus in general.
In two quotes Osho was playing along, when the media asked if he was the “rich man’s guru” … he said yes, then almost immediately contradicted himself by saying he was also “the poor man’s guru.” He was being playful, welcoming a chance to openly contradict himself; he was not praising gurus in general.
Osho, overall, is consistent in his message. There are certainly not 40 counter-quotes praising gurus and gurudom. There is not even one that I know of, because Osho is consistent. When Osho was discussing gurus in general, all the quotes were condemning gurus.
I really want to explore this mistaken idea that Osho can be made to contradict himself. I have found no evidence to support SN conventional wisdom that for every quote there exists an “exactly opposite” counter-quote, an SN claim which you, Simond, are repeating.
What this claim seems to do is devalue Osho’s books and videos, to the point that it justifies anyone who wants to ignore the beauty, the fragrance, the variety, the flavors and colors, of Osho’s bibliographic fruit.
Osho valued books, Osho spoke millions of words, and Osho left a treasure trove, a beautiful bibliographic garden for us. I am not going to ignore that because of a mistaken belief that counter-quotes exist for any Osho quote someone wants to share.
I am a sannyasin in love. Osho’s words are poetry for me. I read them with great joy. I select them with care, as one would carefully select a rose from a beautiful divine garden to present to a beloved. I did not recognize your characterization of that as: “throwing quotes around.”
I am also rejoicing in the enthusiasm and love of those in London, who have never met Osho in the body, but, through the bibliographic fruit of Osho’s lifework, have savored Osho’s fragrance… proof that the divine fragrance of Osho is still available through books, videos, and quotes. It is still possible to use them to arrive at an essential… non-verbal… non-physical… invisible… communion with Osho. Yahoo!
From a partial search of Osho’s work I have found 40 quotes which are consistent in condemning gurus, and zero quotes which praise gurus.
Perhaps you, Simond, could share a few quotes where Osho speaks highly of gurus? If what you say is true: “You or I or anyone else could find a quote where he says exactly the opposite of what you have presented,” then it should be easy for you to do. If not, then your claim is at question.
I tried to find one, and I came up empty. Osho is consistently anti-guru.
Does this count?
‘The Great Challenge’
Chapter 7: The Secrets of Discipleship
Question 1: WHAT IS THE GURU/DISCIPLE RELATIONSHIP?
“First of all, a guru is not a teacher; a guru is a person who has attained to a religious mode of living. Religion is not information, it cannot be taught because religion is a way of living. The very presence of the guru is a communion. And to one living in contact with him, something is communicated – though not through words. The relationship is so intimate that it is less like teacher and pupil and more like lover and beloved.
The guru must himself be enlightened, he must himself have attained, because one cannot communicate that which one has not realized. Religious experience can be communicated only when it is first hand. A teacher need not be self-realized, but a guru must be. A teacher can give secondhand information from scriptures or traditions, but a guru cannot. A guru is a person who has realized truth. Now he is the original source; he himself has encountered reality, he is face to face with it. And the disciple comes in contact with a firsthand knowing because whatsoever is said or communicated to him by the guru is on his own authority”.
Madhoo asks, “Using that definition, what does “the real guru is inside you” even mean?”
We have all heard the expression, and that is good. There is no need to have an explanation as it will just become more knowledge and everyone already knows too much. Better just to remember the expression and then one day when understanding happens you will go, “Now I get it”.
So you have the knowledge and all that is now needed is to feel it in your heart and then you will understand that the real guru is inside you, because that is who you really are. As simple as that.
“Madhoo” didn´t ask anything of that kind, but as a real gentleman amongst gentlemen, Lokesh felt to ´answer.
Group-dynamics, that is called.
As simple as that.
Reminded me ofd the story of ‘The Circle’, a fabulous feature about a big Internet Firm for social media affairs .
It´s written by Dave E., who knows about hat he is writing. A man of compassion.
Madhoo enquires why am I “so easily upset”, and why do I “always experience the need to butter up the female commentators on SN?”
I suspect that these problems arise from drinking too much herbal tea and staring out of a kitchen window that is in dire need of a good clean with Lidl’s wonderful new product, ‘Miracle Wipe’.
I have been to one of Chetna’s and Swaram’s weekend gigs only a few months ago, and can recommend it. They are both very well organised without being egotistical, and sensitive to both young and old. Without running too tight a ship, they keep the energy moving with intuition and love.
They are also sensitive to the fact that old-time sannyasins may have had mixed experiences in the past of sannyas organisation/communes/etc., but still feel the connection to Osho, which they respect. An ideal setting in which to reconnect with oneself, and to Osho.
PM says, “to reconnect with oneself, and to Osho.”
I would be interested to hear what form this connection takes. Is it a bird, is it a plane, or is it the boogie man? What exactly does reconnecting to oneself mean? If a reconnection is needed what is it that is disconnected and from what?
Without a clear explanation “reconnect with oneself, and to Osho” communicates very little, because it can be interpreted in numerous ways. Born-again Christians speak in a similar fashion. Come on, PM, you can do a wee bit better than that, surely?
On your first question, Lokesh:
Sometimes it is easy to forget what a mystery and joy life is. So that is what gets disconnected. Maybe, Lokesh, you never experience that? Doing a meditation weekend, which clearly very good work and preparation had gone into, realigns one in that way; that was my experience anyway.
Maybe your second question, Lokesh, is more complicated as people here seem to have such varied views of Osho.
Basically, I had a lot of blissful moments with Osho, some unexpected, that came out of the blue when I was a young sannyasin and for which I will always remain grateful. Reconnecting with that feeling is something to feel grateful for.
Below a pic of my good self at the gig of Swaram and Chetna and pictures often tell the story more clearly!
Someone asked how old I am, having seen this picture? Obviously foxed by SP’s view that I am an old man on a crutch. Well, I am 70, but meditation has made it a young seventy, and, of course, a few slices of luck here and there.
Parmartha, for God sake, I never thought you are an old man on a crutch.
When everybody is going right, publish a site where left is as good as middle, one can only imagine a youthful heart behind this. In such inner space, years are just numbers.
Thanks, PM, for your sincere response.
My original question hinted at the following: something reconnecting to something else. I have found that which feels to reconnect is a completely false entity. Our personality ego/mind complex comes with our body and begins as an infant. Originally, we were innocence and openness incarnate and then the ego forms: somehow a necessary process in this world. Our innocent original seed of consciousness left dormant and forgotten.
For most, this remains the case for the rest of their lives. And then you die and the seed finds a new body and the dead ego once again starts to build itself, once more on the eternal wheel of incarnation. Once more the same repeats. and the same point it left off. Our only chance to break this cycle is to merge with our original seed of consciousness…the only place/thing capable of any kind of spiritual development. This rarely happens.
People like Osho are a reminder that development is possible. People like Osho are beacons of light that can inspire us to go within, find that part of our fractured selves that is eternal and capable of development. Something which is beyond the endless cycle of birth and death. To become identified with the teacher is a mistake, if taken as a human form, for what any real master is pointing to is formless. Hence we have expressions such ‘do not look at the finger pointing at the moon but look directly at the moon.’
This current article is typical of deification of Osho’s external form…a cult of personality. Osho’s real effort was to move us away from worshipping such a form. He was not joking when he said he was nobody…nothing, he was telling the truth. Paradoxical by nature, Osho actively encouraged worshipping his external form, drive-bys namestaeing from the driver’s seat etc. It was fun. If you are earnest about your enquiry you will let all that stuff go and see it as a stage one went through..childish, innocent but not something to remain the rest of one’s life with.
Fun and a great adventure though it is, the ‘surrender to the guru’ trip has one day to be left behind once you have learned to walk alone on the path minus the crutch that the guru represents on certain levels. You can look back if you wish and feel grateful for having undergone the beautiful process represented by the guru/disciple relationship, but your real home is here and now.
You come to realize that the relationship with the master was completely one-sided, in the sense that it was all your projection on the spotless mirror of consciousness that a true master really is.
Lovely post, Lokesh. Very clear, articulate.
Thanks, old man.
Cool, I am not that auld.
Lokesh, my “old man” terminology is a term of endearment and respect.
As one gentleman to another !
Sherlock D’Oyle here…
It may appear, to any ordinary observer, that indeed Swami Big P Grand Fellow of the Order of Horizontalists is merely conducting the society’s annual awards for their Truth and Lying-In Ceremony…. however, on closer inspection, suspiciously, there seems to be in the colour Dageurreotype from 1873, evidence that the Grand Master is indeed levitating a 3 and 1/4 pound brass statue of ParmaSambava by the power of Breath alone. It is this unique ability induced by a powerful combination of Lethargicus Maximus and a complete inability to Wake Up to London or the sound of an ambulance siren directly in the left ear , which renders this unique ability to all aspirants, inspirants and expirants of this venerable ancient spiritual and non-vertical practice.
It is time for the healing process of truth and reconcilation to begin…let bygones be bygones…But I must say levitating a 3 and 1/4 pound brass statue of Parmasambava by the power of Breath alone is mighty impressive.
Connecting with Osho is almost similar to being connected with Krishna, Buddha, Jesus; three top most connectors of ‘civilized world’.
I will say, few beings get this privilege in human imagination to rotate non-stop like communication satellites. (Un)fortunately, Osho has become one such, though not many subscribers.
That new people are still taking Sannyas and organising events for each other and talking about “Osho’s energy” or “that it is all about Osho” is interesting.
It has a ring of a Christian revival and definitely hearkens back to the 70s and 80s Sannyas movement. Glory be, and all that.
Clearly, for these people it is serving a purpose, perhaps it acts as a foundation for a more real and more contemporary search; one that will develop and morph or die in its own time.
I wouldn’t recommend it to the young people I speak to. Although I would suggest they read his books. They are a beautiful foundation and as I see it, are being read by all sorts of different people, with a fresh new approach.
The concept of masters and gurus and teachers is finished. There have been too many scandals, too much misunderstanding for these eastern concepts to work here. Just look at the sexual scandals of numerous Indian gurus, Tibetan lamas, western teachers from Da Free John to Andrew Cohen – they all show how the notion is dead.
Moreover, it isn’t working in the East either, where númerous scandals are and have taken place. And it’s interesting to note how no Indian teacher has reached across the divide between East and West since Osho died. I know of no one.
Yet nothing has yet appeared in the wider public sphere to truly fill the gap.
There are scandal-free teachers, like Barry long, but he’s dead. Byron Katie helps people, without putting herself on a pedestal. There are others and their approach is much more based on an ‘investigative’ aproach, rather than one where the teacher/master informs ‘ignorant’ students.
Almost all teachers, including Barry, whom I very much admired, tend in later years to become arrogant or to be frustrated by their followers. Their behaviour becomes erratic and unreasonable. I’ve heard (hearsay) how Osho himself admitted privately his own frustration at his diciples as he neared death. Like many before him, he finally recognised how divorced he had become from the razzmatazz of his creation.
My own approach is to explore with people, on the assumption that they already know the truth, that together we are revealing something they already know. The more I focus on the innate intelligence of others, the more it is revealed to me. We then discover and grow together.
I wish the London movement well, but my prediction is that this new development is really just a repetition of the past. Osho as a movement is dead.
All is left are some great books, books that are a foundation for enquiry.
That’s a legacy enough.
P.S. to my comments above:
I have no truck with the numerous non-duality teachers in the UK and USA . They are largely a by-product of all the other traditional eastern teachers; if anything, they’re as ineffective and confusing as the older gurus of the East.
The only consolation is that whilst numerous in numbers, they remain outside of the mainstream and pander mainly to a minority of ‘Eastern’-style seekers.
Just seen one Osho quote at Oshonews.
I wonder how sannyasnews quotation experts will fix it in the everyday life. It is pity Oshonews management team do not have comments section, which in the age of internet is quite a retro step.
http://www.oshonews.com/2015/06/your-coming-to-me-was-a-happening/
I think they are scared of attracting people such as yourself, Shantam!
But seriously, it is a bit odd and old-fashioned. They could simply have moderators who were more strict than the SN’s moderators.
It seems they are more interested in putting up two or more anodyne “articles” a day that could easily find purchase in in-flight magazines.
For young Madhu’s help: anodyne means rather boring and dull and meant not to cause offence.
And Shantam,
I thought you were supposed to be going to ask them, did you ever get a reply? And if so, please publish it here!
Thank you, Shantam, for sharing the link. From the linked quote I reprint this, which is apropos of the London phenomenon…and of anyone new to Sannyas who feels a heart-to-heart communion and falls in love with Osho via books, videos, and quotes.
“And this will be an absolutely invisible phenomenon.”
Osho, ‘From the False to the Truth’, Ch 14, Q 4 (excerpt)
Simond: “The concept of masters and gurus and teachers is finished. There have been too many scandals, too much misunderstanding for these eastern concepts to work here. Just look at the sexual scandals of numerous Indian gurus, Tibetan lamas, western teachers from Da Free John to Andrew Cohen – they all show how the notion is dead.”
Dead masters are certainly more attractive than live ones, as they can be more easily manipulated. There are millions who say they love Jesus, but not a single person alive has met Jesus in the body. Just as the market for dead gurus is thriving, the market for live gurus will never end either.
“People go from one guru to another, from one master to another, from one psychoanalyst to another, from one encounter group to another, because if they don’t go, they feel empty, and they suddenly feel life to be meaningless. You create problems so that you can feel that life is a great work, a growth, and you have to struggle hard.
The ego can exist only when it struggles, remember — when it fights. And if I tell you, ‘Kill three flies and you will become enlightened, you will not believe me. You will say, ‘Three flies? There doesn’t seem to be much to that. And I will become enlightened? That doesn’t seem to be likely. If I say you will have to kill seven hundred lions, of course that looks more like it!
…
And the priests and the psychoanalysts and the gurus, they are happy because their whole trade exists because of you. If you don’t create molehills out of nothing and you don’t make your molehills into mountains, what will be the point of gurus helping you?”
Osho, ‘Ancient Music in the Pines’ (1976, ch.2)
Swamishanti, this one’s for you :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n47meDyom9E
Thanks, Kavita.
Here`s something for you:
Swamishanti,
I have no idea what this image is portraying. Perhaps you can enlighten me?
My initial judgment is that it is some religious ceremonythat Osho would have ridiculed. But hey, do please put me straight!
Simond,
This is a picture of the `Annual Summer Conference of the Bald- Headed Ones`. I`m surprised you didn`t recognise it.
Yes, it`s true, Osho may have ridiculed this kind of event, but he was a `bald-headed one` himself.
The old tradition of Tibetan debate has its roots in a profound teaching for the monks of Tibet. It was intended to provoke real discussion about the nature of reality and the issues that many of us have struggled with in our lives. It has a great beauty about it, when and if it is engaged in with experience and self-knowledge.
This is the true history behind it. And I’ve witnessed it and seen it working beautifully. In particular, it was a mechanism for monks to reach a point in the discussion when all arguments had been presented, every angle covered – that they realised/experienced for themselves the futility of the mind – a satori, if you like. The profound recognition within that all mind is meaningless.
I’ve loved watching them – if only because the great tradition within the monasteries served its purpose well: as the delight and laugher of the monks often demonstrates, and still does.
But like many religious practices it is only valuable if it is real. In many cases it has become, like all religious practices, just a formality. It has become a parody of what it was once.
As with almost all religious practice, the debate has become overly based on dogma, on scripture, on commentaries from old dead monks and llamas, who were secreted away in monasteries, out of the world.
Whilst it may continue to provide some real teaching for a few monks (let’s not forget the scandals of homosexuality and scandal within the Tibetan monastic communities), what is it the relevance for modern man and woman?
Pretty little, I’d say.
Thank you for sharing. I shared that video here just for the fun of it & I guess SS also does that for the same reason.
I can relate to what you share here, let me share with you too that I/we here have seen the religion of Osho at different stages of its birth & its growth is/was inevitable, even though religion was not even the last thing I am/was looking for.
I have seen it very closely & would not like to associate myself with any external, ritualistic & public religious activity whatsoever.
For me, being here on SN is just a part of my inner exploration and I am sure Iam not the only one in that respect.
Samarpan,
Does this quote represent an ‘answer’ to the question I raised? What’s your opinion, feeling, understanding, judgments?
Rather than quoting Osho, or looking to him for guidance, what do you think? What is your understanding? Can you look at the subject without need for reference to a dead master?
Yes, he is dead, dead as Jesus or Buddha or anyone else.
He lives in you as a profound and deep form of imagination. Nothing more.
And don’t worry, it’s the same for me. If I emote, imagine or do any other trick with my mind, I’m doing that, using the imagination.
We are no different, if we use the mind in this way.
If I imagine Osho, or perhaps remember beautiful days and moments where I was touched by his presence and moved by ‘his’ energy – I am in effect just using my imagination. It’s not real. And it’s not reality.
I see many doing just that: living in imagination and in the past. Re-eemoting the past, regurgitating it, thinking it to be real. Within this forum, on the subject of Osho, this use of imagination to conjure up past feelings is particularly obvious to me.
The power of the imagination is immense and I am reminded of it in my own life too. I’m a victim of it like everyone else. And I’m vigilant as far as I can be about it.
You see for me, life and living is a reflection. An opportunity or actually a need in me to discover the truth in each and every moment.
I don’t quote Osho because as poetic and beautiful as his words might be, they are just words.
Living, talking, asking questions of you and of myself is where I see what I know and what I don’t know, in each moment. I discover my ignorance and intelligence with you, with the other.
We don’t need to quote others, we need to discover for ourselves! Wasn’t that one of his key messages???
“Yes, he is dead, dead as Jesus or Buddha or anyone else.
He lives in you as a profound and deep form of imagination. Nothing more.”
Simond, men and women who are really enlightened have transcended life and death.
This means that even if they are dead, masters like Jesus and Osho can still have a connection with their disciples which transcends space-time.
So, some sannyasins, even young sannyasins who never met `the guy`, do still have an energy connection.
It`s not just `imagination`.
Shanti says, “It`s not just `imagination`”.
Possibly. But does he really understand that or is it something he has just picked up along the way?
Swamishanti,
Thanks for your comments.
Would you be so kind as to tell me how you know that “Men and women who are really enlightened have transcended life and death”?
How do you know this as fact?
Is it your experience as an enlightened person?
Is it your belief system or is it a fact?
Or have you been told and believed this as a fact?
What does it mean to you, to transcend life and death?
Is this another belief system or a fact that you know and can demonstrate to me, or anyone else?
Do you see that we can believe anything we like? That the Moon is made of cheese, or that the Earth revolves around the sun, as many once did?
Can you tell me what an “energy connection” is?
And how it transcends space-time?
When you say “when people are really enlightened”, does that mean that there are grades of enlightenment? Or that some are more enlightened than others? How do you know this?
What form of enlightenment do you know about?
What is imagination to you? What does it mean?
When we remember something aren’t we using our memory/imagination? We don’t ever recall a full or complete picture of events or feelings?
This is the way, as I see it, that Osho used his fine intelligent mind to ask real and profound questions of himself and others.
He wasn’t bound by religious belief, he didn’t believe in anything…He discovered and explored from each moment, tirelessly and with utter passion. Until he found the truth of these questions.
That’s what I’m doing too; can we assist each other in this?
Simond,
Don´t you think Enlightenment in itself is one of the most Hocus Pocus invention created by Narcissistic kind of people? Where is the bloody proof that something like this exists?
Being a passionate searcher, can you take the courage to discuss this with some professor of the Psychiatry Department in London? After all, London is one of the biggest hubs for all kind of research.
Also please visit the site of Satyadeva´s favourite lady known as Mother Meera. Maybe you can check it out whether she is an Avatara (the divine incarnation) or just a lady from South India, where to believe in one´s Avatarahood is a cottage industry).
Great post, simond.
Dear Simond, you ask,
“Would you be so kind as to tell me how you know that “Men and women who are really enlightened have transcended life and death”?
How do you know this as fact?
Is it your experience as an enlightened person?
Is it your belief system or is it a fact?”
No, it is not my experience as an enlightened person, I am not enlightened. But I have had a few experiences of feeling Osho`s presence, since he has left the body.
I am not an Osho `devotee`, but I have had moments where I have felt Osho`s energy, or presence, and this is the same energy that I felt whilst in Osho`s physical presence in Pune in 1981 and in 1989.
I had also felt Osho` presence during Sannyas gatherings and group meditation events during the 1980s.
This has happened at times over the last seven years, when I have felt the connection to Osho through the heart, perhaps whilst watching a video of Osho that has touched me, or while listening to old Osho devotional songs.
I have also `felt` the connection with other masters who are not physically `embodied`.
And I know that many sannyasins also have a real non-physical energetic connection with Osho, that has continued to transpire since his death. For some of these sannyasins, the connection is pretty much all of the time.
The danger with connecting with dead masters is that once the master is gone physically, it is possible for the devotees to feel the presence of the master, and no doubt they will feel that this is something very special, but they can then go ahead and do absolutely anything in the master`s name.
The master will not interfere!
Create traditions, superstitions, that will not be relevant once the master has departed. And then we enter the realm of organised religion.
And these religions that center around long-departed masters always feel that their way is ‘best` and that their master ‘was the most enlightened`, or ‘the closest to God`, or whatever.
And then we have, ultimately, wars between the followers of these dead masters.
And that is why Osho encouraged people to find a living master once he had departed.
“Do you see that we can believe anything we like? That the Moon is made of cheese, or that the Earth revolves around the sun, as many once did?”
Absolutely. I am well aware of this. And I share your passion for questioning every belief unless it is your own experience.
“When you say “when people are really enlightened”, does that mean that there are grades of enlightenment? Or that some are more enlightened than others? How do you know this?”
I am not enlightened, and I don`t know this from my experience, but I have read some of the maps that yogis and enlightened ones have laid out over thousands of years of inner exploration, ie that map of the seven bodies.
Osho and other masters talk about three stages of `enlightenment’, which starts at the `fifth body`, with self realisation, and opens into the sixth and the seventh.
As I have read, from the fifth body corresponds with `self- realisation`, but if someone has reached this point, although they are `awakened`, they can still be reborn, until they reach the deeper dissolution of `full enlightenment`.
But hey, this is not my experience, rather just something I`ve read.
Osho talks esoterica below:
(Warning-Osho quote warning: If you have an aversion to Osho quotes, please look away now).
“The fifth chakra is the vishuddhi chakra. It is located in the throat. The fifth body is the spiritual body. The vishuddhi chakra is connected to the spiritual body. The first four bodies and their chakras were split into two. The duality ends with the fifth body. As I said before, the difference between male and female lasts until the fourth body; after that it ends. If we observe very closely all duality belongs to the male and the female. Where the distance between male and female is no more, at that very point all duality ceases. The fifth body is nondual. It does not have two possibilities but only one.
In that case how can we tell the difference between a person who has entered the fifth body and one who has not? The difference will be that he who has entered the fifth body is completely rid of all unconsciousness. He will not actually sleep at night. That is, he sleeps but his body alone sleeps; someone within is forever awake. If he turns in sleep he knows it; if he does not he knows it. If he has covered himself with a blanket he knows it; if he has not then also he knows it. His awareness does not slacken in sleep; he is awake all the twenty-four hours. For the one who has not entered the fifth body, his state is just the opposite. In sleep he is asleep, and in the waking hours also one layer of him will be asleep.
So sleep is the innate condition before the beginning of the spiritual plane. Man is a somnambulist before he enters the fifth body, and there the quality is wakefulness. Therefore, after the growth of the fourth body we can call the individual a buddha, an awakened one. Now such a man is awake. Buddha is not the name of Gautam Siddharth but a name given him after his attainment of the fifth plane. Gautama the Buddha means Gautam who has awakened. His name remained Gautam, but that was the name of the sleeping person so gradually it dropped and only Buddha remained. This difference comes with the attainment of the fifth body.
The fifth body is called the spiritual body because there you get the answer to the quest for “Who am I?” The call of the ′I′ stops once and for all on this plane; the claim to be someone special vanishes immediately. If you say to such a person, “You are so and so,” he will laugh. All claims from his side will now stop, because now he knows. There is no longer any need to prove himself, because who he is is now a proven fact. The conflicts and problems of the individual end on the fifth plane. But this plane has its own hazards. You have come to know yourself, and this knowing is so blissful and fulfilling that you may want to terminate your journey here. You may not feel like continuing on. The hazards that were up to now were all of pain and agony; now the hazards that begin are of bliss.
The fifth plane is so blissful that you will not have the heart to leave it and proceed further. Therefore, the individual who enters this plane has to be very alert about clinging to bliss so that it does not hinder him from going further. Here bliss is supreme and at the peak of its glory; it is in its profoundest depths. A great transformation comes about within one who has known himself. But this is not all; there is further to go also.
After the fifth the search is in order to be rid of the self. So there are two things: the first is freedom from something; this is one thing and it is completed at the fifth plane. The second thing is freedom from the self, and so a completely new world starts from here. The sixth is the brahma sharira, the cosmic body, and the sixth chakra is the agya chakra. Here there is no duality. The experience of bliss becomes intense on the fifth plane and the experience of existence, of being, on the sixth. Asmita will now be lost – I am. The I in this is lost at the fifth plane and the am will go as soon as you transcend the fifth. The is-ness will be felt; tathata, suchness will be felt. Nowhere will there be the feeling of I or of am; only that which is remains. So here will be the perception of reality, of being – the perception of consciousness.
But here the consciousness is free of me; it is no longer my consciousness. It is only consciousness – no longer my existence, but only existence. Some meditators stop after reaching the Brahma sharira, the cosmic body, because the state of “I am the Brahman” has come – of “Aham Brahmasmi,” when I am not and only the Brahman is. Now what more is there to seek? What is to be sought? Nothing remains to be sought. Now everything is attained. The Brahman means the total. One who stands at this point says, “The Brahman is the ultimate truth, the Brahman is the cosmic reality. There is nothing beyond.”
It is possible to stop here, and seekers do stop at this stage for millions of births, because there seems to be nothing ahead. So the Brahma gyani, the one who has attained realization of the Brahman, will get stuck here; he will go no further. This is so difficult to cross because there is nothing to cross to. Everything has been covered. Does not one need a space to cross into? If I want to go outside of this room there must be some place else to go. But the room has now become so enormous, so beginningless and endless, so infinite, so boundless, that there is nowhere to go. So where will we go to search? Nothing remains to be found; everything has been covered. So the journey may halt at this stage for infinite births.
So the Brahman is the ultimate obstacle – the last barrier in the ultimate quest of the seeker. Now only the being remains, but nonbeing has yet to be realized. The being, the is-ness, is known, but the nonbeing has yet to be realized – that which is not still remains to be known. Therefore, the seventh plane is the nirvana kaya, nirvanic body, and its chakra is the sahasrar. Nothing can be said in connection with this chakra. We can only continue talking at the most up to the sixth – and that too with great difficulty. Most of it will turn out to be wrong.
Until the fifth body the search progresses within a very scientific method; everything can be explained. On the sixth plane the horizon begins to fade; everything seems meaningless. Hints can still be given but ultimately the pointing finger breaks and the hints too are no more because one′s own being is eliminated. So the Brahman, the absolute being, is known from the sixth body and the sixth chakra.
Therefore, those who seek the Brahman will meditate on the agya chakra which is between the eyes. This chakra is connected to the cosmic body. Those who work completely on this chakra will begin to call the vast infinite expanse that they witness the third eye. This is the third eye from where they can now view the cosmic, the infinite.
One more journey yet remains – the journey to nonbeing, nonexistence. Existence is only half the story: there is also nonexistence. Light is, but on the other side there is darkness. Life is one part, but there is also death. Therefore, it is necessary also to know the remaining nonexistence, the void, because the ultimate truth can only be known when both are known – existence and non-existence. Being is known in its entirety and nonbeing is known in its entirety: then the knowing is complete. Existence is known in entirety and nonexistence is known in its entirety: then we know the whole; otherwise our experience is incomplete. There is an imperfection in brahma gyan, which is that it has not been able to know the nonbeing.
Nirvana kaya means the shunya kaya, the void from where we jump from the being into the nonbeing. In the cosmic body something yet remains unknown. That too has to be known – what it is not to be, what it is to be completely erased. Therefore, the seventh plane in a sense is an ultimate death. Nirvana, as I told you previously, means the extinction of the flame. That which was I is extinct; that which was am is extinct. But now we have again come into being by being one with the all. Now we are the Brahman, and this too will have to be left. He who is ready to take the last jump knows the existence and also the non-existence.
Whatever you have heard and understood should also be made your search. No, what I told you should become your quest. It should accelerate your search; it should stimulate and motivate your curiosity. It should put you into greater difficulty, make you more restless and raise new questions in you, new dimensions, so that you will set out on a new path of discovery. Then you have not taken alms from me, then you have understood what I said. And if this helps you to understand yourself, then this is not begging.
So go forth to know and understand; go forth to search. You are not the only one seeking; many others are also. Many have searched, many have attained. Try to know, to grasp, what has happened to such people and also what has not happened; try and understand all this. But while understanding this, do not stop trying to understand your own self. Do not think that understanding others has become your realization. Do not put faith in their experiences; do not believe them blindly. Rather, turn everything into questioning. Turn them into questions and not answers; then your journey will continue. Then it will not be begging: it will be your quest. It is your search that will take you to the last.”
Osho, ‘The Seven Bodies and Seven Chakras’, from ‘In Seach of the Miraculous’
Thanks, Swamishanti.
The last paragraph from Osho seems best to summarise the points we are exploring.
That it is best to use your own experience as the guiding light to discovery.
And his own warning against the cult of the Master and in believing anything that he says seems also to be spot on.
That many aren’t doing this is self-evident, amongst sannyasins and others alike.
The danger, as I see it, of trying to connect, reconnect or to “feel Osho” etc. is that we forget that all he was, was just a mirror. All we are truly feeling is our self, be it as a form of imagination or not.
It takes courage to question everything, something Osho accomplished, and you and I are attempting in our varying ways to do.
Thanks.
“The danger, as I see it, of trying to connect, reconnect or to “feel Osho” etc. is that we forget that all he was, was just a mirror. ”
It is a “Nothing is said…nothing is heard…and the hea-r , r, rt starts dancing with the master” feeling, Simond.
It is the “way of the heart”, and must be a feeling of “dissolving into the master”.
For those sannyasins who feel this way, they must be singing “heart to heart, mind to mind, body to body, it`s a love divine.”
Adyashanti talks about 3 stages of realisation:
The first he calls: “up and out”, meaning transcendence of the body/mind, realising that it is Consciousness. The “out” is via the 7th chakra. Most people giving Satsang are at this stage: ‘neti,neti, you are not your body mind’. And when in their personal life, emotional patterns arise that have themselves not been realised, they wave them away and do the neti, neti, or blame it on the unconsciousness of the “other”.
The 2nd stage is the opening of the spiritual Heart. Everything, all the emotional patterns of oneself and others, all manifestations are realized as the One. No projection or blame or separation is possible, because who would blame who, or who is seperate from who?
The 3rd stage is existential fear in the gut, a fist, a total no to Life, the ego’s survival mechanism. You cannot go to a yes with inquiry or meditation, you have to totally let it be and accept the fear in order to let it dissolve.
This is my interpretation of his words. He also says that these 3 stages can overlap each other, and can go backwards and forwards!
Thank you, Karima (13 June, 2015 at 7:44 am), for sharing some of your understanding/s.
I can relate to what you wrote, especially to your words:
“You cannot go to a yes with inquiry or meditation, you have to totally let it be and accept the fear in order to let it dissolve”.
Beautiful – for me – that your response appeared, just now.
Madhu
“Most people giving Satsang are at this stage: ‘neti,neti, you are not your body mind’. And when in their personal life, emotional patterns arise that have themselves not been realised, they wave them away and do the neti, neti, or blame it on the unconsciousness of the “other”. ”
I rather doubt “most people giving satsang” are fully enlightened. Most have probably had a large satori or are living in semi-blissful states on the edge of the mind.
Still, there are bound to be a few of the `real deal`.
But even ‘fully enlightened’ ones may not be as ‘absent’ as they feel! They love to talk about how they have “disappeared”, and perhaps how they “don`t exist”.
But if you try stamping on their feet you’ll soon discover that the ‘I’ very swiftly returns!
P.S:
I don`t know anything about `Adyashanti`.
Is he enlightened?
Can he knock us out of the mind for good?
Does he run satsang retreats?
(I know some teachers have started offering packages that include sports and games with their satsangs, during retreats).
Saw this one recently:
http://www.smilebox.com/playBlog/4e4449304d4463784d7a673d0d0a&blogview=true
Simond, Osho may be dead for you. Dead and stinking! But he is much alive for me, and many others. Imagination? Imagination, my ass! Living in the past? You must be joking! You talked bullshit!
Tan,
It would be helpful for me, maybe others too, to actually explore the issue and to offer your opinion by adding to the debate, with your reason and intelligence.
Perhaps you could explain what the imagination is, how you see it, or how for you connecting to Osho isn’t just imagination?
How is he alive for you? In what way? Isn’t it a fact that he is dead? Can you help me see otherwise? Can you assist me out of my of ignorance? Show me, using your experience and understanding?
If you only wish to quote Osho, like some others – that won’t help me. I’ve read many of his books, too.
If we are to grow and truly understand this mystery, we need to share and explore our understanding and our ignorance, with others.
Thanks in advance.
Tan, I disagree with your take on Simond’s comment. I can relate to what he says and it appears that you are only focusing on certain elements in his comment and ignoring others, probably because it suits you for some reason or another.
You say that Osho is very alive for you. That is a kind of general statement, which is open to interpretation. If you are sincere about what you are saying perhaps you would care to share how Osho’s aliveness manifests in your life.
I would be interested to hear about that, seeing as how you obviously believe this is not a product of imagination or having anything to do with living in the past. So, let’s hear about it.
Lokesh, Osho is all about here and now. We all heard it millions of times, he repeated and repeated and tried to make us understand it. How can memory and with it imagination be in here and now? Impossible!
Now, how Osho aliveness manifests in my life? Have you ever loved somebody? Have you ever felt the love of Osho?
Can you dig it, my dearest Scot?
Tan…Semantically speaking, without wanting to hijack now with words (and unless I send a dance video or leave a voicemail, I have to type, so here goes)…
Enquiry, of whatever form, into love is fundamental… But Love does not easily respond to prose or to that formal address at all.
That’s where merely cognitive or functional, solution-based and non-consciousness-raising therapy perhaps replaces analysis/process for the actualising of ‘Love in action’ or this permanently coherent original cause.
Start by being complete…and I will end there too after all is said and all is done. Experience cannot be learning, because time can run out any moment. But this can be redirected into timelessness in any moment through recognition of that.
The insight-energy which exists as both pre-existing cause and effect of analysis and Love (i.e. if I don’t ‘get it’, I won’t happen and when I am, I’ll ‘get it’) might be seen as an extension of Osho’s work. But it, insight, is likely to be in dynamic relationship with forms of being already inclined to providing a territory far greater than the map.
What does that mean? Well, in hypnotic terms it means that conscious thought has to be released from itself via some form of annihilation or the energetic form of insight in its purity on all levels – body/mind/heart.
Love is the most mysterious antidote to the self that we have. And yet love is not by itself driven to annihilation, at least not directly, unless impelled by presence. Love itself and of itself is not seen. But its effects are conditionally split into polarities of attachment and experience. Some loved, some not.
Linear analysis further dissects this, understandably, into areas of manageable self-interest. but the impending annihilation is still either experienced as fear and loss or as incoherence, hence more subjectivity.
Conversely, by intruding solely into objectivity or meaning, the risk arises of becoming identified with process without also annihilating the enquirer and object into Love but strengthening the fear/enquiry/ questioning.
Without presence the map is solely subjective, its promised treasured discovery impossible and impossible to hold. With objectivity, the nature of Love itself is scrutinized into dissection (remember that needle and thread and the scissors Tarot card symbolic imagery?).
So yet again, that unifying presence escapes naming, because Love and the knowing of her is both bashful, self-effacing, yet desires to be known in unique restoring unity.
A good cappucino is not all froth but composed of many elements held in perfect balance (soymilk for me, ta).
Here endeth the lesson. Now let us sing and dance with the ancient men and women who strum their balalaikas…for they know truly what a lot of balalaikas can do when strummed together.
PM, you said: “Enquiry, of whatever form, into love is fundamental…” Sounds ok to me, then I don’t get what you mean till the cappuccino bit. I prefer Irish coffee. And I agree with you about many elements held in balance…In my Irish coffee, composed of coffee, whiskey, sugar and cream (soya for me, as well, ta), the balance is hot, strong but sweet, with the right amount of cream floating on the top. Wow! Lovely!
Sing and dance with balalaikas? Are u joking? I very much prefer to dance in the sound of love. Have you heard it? X
Tan…Imagine there was no fear of imagining anything that you can imagine.
It would be endless dancing.
Tan, you say:
“How can memory and imagination be in the here and now? Impossible.”
Meditate on it for a while and you will notice that actually: where else can memory and imagination take place other than in the here and now?
If there is only the present, then imagination and memory take place in the here and now!
It`s a liberating insight.
The past and future exist in you and you are here and now! They are not `real`, but just like prosthetic limbs – useful.
The antipathy towards imagination shown by sannyasins and other seekers of the “here and now” is odd considering how imaginative Osho himself was.
Imagination is like a blade.
You can plough with it, cut the harvest, use it to build a house, cut your food etc. – or you can destroy things, slash your own wrists…
Condemning or avoiding all blades will not bring you to the here and now, but rather, the Stone Age!
Imagination is just thinking in pictures.
I’m inclined to agree, Frank, although there are surely levels of imagination, eg at one end of the spectrum, truly creative imagination, that of a Shakespeare or any true artist, informed by an integral intelligence, honestly facing the realities of experience, in contrast to pointless, even self-indulgent daydreaming and idle fantasy. The one of immense value, the other of no value whatsoever, apart from escaping from one’s reality.
Moreover, isn’t worry another form of imagination, the negative downside? So perhaps the more one indulges in the ‘inferior’ mode, however positively seductive that may be for the mind and emotions, the more one automatically becomes prey to the other side: worry, anxiety and all that desperate, life-sucking stuff that ruins our well-being.
I’d say you`re right there, SD.
If basic emotions or affects are hardwired into the body, eg anger, fear, shame. Then hate, anxiety and guilt are affect/emotion+imagination.
The basic animal affect doesn`t last long. Add imagination, which inevitably implies a conception or metaphor of time stretched out over past/present/future and you have our human sense of self with an enormous range. From flights of Genius and love to the hells of anxiety and hate.
My view is that once humans became aware of this, which i suggest started in the first millenium BC, with Buddha in India, Lao Tsu in China, Zarathustra in the Middle East and the pre-Socratics in Greece, then ‘religions’ that dealt with ‘consciousness’ (not just crowd control) were essentially efforts to mitigate the, as you say, negative or ‘lower’ effects of imagination by focusing on producing the ‘higher’ affects+consciousness which are ‘higher consciousness’.
So if ‘negative’ affects like fear and shame stretch out into anxiety and guilt, then ‘positive’ affects like joy, interest and arousal are elevated into bliss, meditation and love, and emphasised by those religious leaders.
I would say Osho lobbed laughter in for good measure too.
(In this context, Jesus Christ`s idea of forgiveness was also a way of trying to mitigate the effects of hatred and guilt stretched out over time by imagination).
Paradoxically, ‘going beyond the mind’ is only something that a fantastically evolved and creative imagination could have ever come up with.
Read the words of Buddha, Laotsu, Chuangtsu, Heraclitus or the Upanishads, Vedas and then onto Osho – I don`t see any evidence that being in the here and now means you have no imagination.
Hi Frank, welcome back, and I don’t get what you mean, so tell me.
Let’s call memory and imagination, mind, it will be easy for me that way.
You mean, the mind is taking over always, even in the moment of here/now?
You mean, the mind is always there in here/now just watching, waiting to take over?
You mean, there is no here/now, it is just time warp?
Frank, I know you are Yogi in disguise, so I hope you will bring much fun here in SN. XXXX
Hi Tan,
‘Mind’ is already too generic a term in this context as memory and imagination are not identical.to each other and not to mind either.
I don`t understand what you say about the “mind watching and waiting to take over.” Do you mean the “here and now” and “the mind” are locked in some struggle for the control of “you”?
This sounds like an imaginative possibility – characterising “the mind” as an entity that is “watching, waiting to take over”. I would go further into that imagination for a bit of fun and check out that story…it sounds interesting:
The good guy – the here and now, pottering along innocently, being stalked and watched by the bad guy (booo hiss, he`s behind you!)) who is just waiting for his wicked moment to usurp the present.
How does it end?
Frank, I can understand your point and I am going just to tell my experience. I am here in Wales looking after my son, who’s got a mental ilness, and I can see clearly that mind can create misery, bliss, imagination, enlightenment, everything looking really real.
If the mind is there, like your limbs, to be used when needed, the space left is filled with something else, and that is not imagination. My regards to Yogi.
Tan.
That sounds like a challenging situation. My best wishes to you and your son.
About the rest of it–
Arthur Eddington, the astrophysicist, described the universe:
“Something is doing we don`t know what.”
It could be that apart from our sense of being and existing, everything else is imagination.
I’ll ask Yogi what he thinks about it if I ever run into him. I don`t know what he`s up to these days – probably enjoying a jar or two of the old amber nectar with Swami Bhorat, I should think….
Aye, lass, I can dig it.
Sometimes I wonder what Satyadeva and Simond kind are doing at sannyasnews? They seem to be those activists who stand with placards before abortion clinics because it does not fit with their conditioning. There is some egoist attitude, almost like Mormons!
Having looked extremely deeply into this very important matter, Shantam, and realised the futility of expecting any sort of coherent response from you to ‘challenging’ questions, I’ve concluded that my sole purpose here is to make you so uncomfortable that you end up asking this very question, clearly wishing I’d simply ‘disappear’. Thanks for confirming I’ve succeeded!
No other group of people keep their chief of the staff alive as Muslims. My deepest, deepest respect for them in case founders of religions don´t die but leave the body, visit this planet Earth for certain time and then rest for eternity in their Villa in the sky…
My respect for Muslims is for the reason they don´t have voice or video recordings, they don´t have photos, they are so wise not to mix imagination and create statues…
If they are not in PURE SHUNYA then who else..?
They don´t proclaim, Mr. President is every where. They believe and live and therefore don´t hang around here and there, sitting in the so-so presence of this lady and that gentleman!
Simond: “Does this quote represent an ‘answer’ to the question I raised? What’s your opinion, feeling, understanding, judgments?”
Simond, I am not interested in endless comparisons of personal opinions, feelings, understandings, and judgements. Sannyas is simple, rich, and it is not worth the (impossible) effort to clumsily try to reduce sannyas to words.
Let me give you an analogy. For me,m Osho quotes are like appetizers. Osho discourses are like entree dishes. Osho books are like full course meals. I am sharing an appetizer with you in the form of an Osho quote. You are saying to me: “But Samarpan, tell me your opinion, your feeling, your understanding, your judgement about the appetizer.” We could dance around forever, going back and forth, and create more confusion trying to express something non-conceptual in words, but eventually you would starve to death if you refuse actually tasting for yourself. It may be a stupid analogy, which is proof of my inability to convey the wordless experience of sannyas with words.
Simond, have you ever known a couple who are obviously in love and have been for over 35 years? Is it your custom to say to them: “What’s your opinion, feeling, understanding, judgment about your love? You know, it could all be in your imagination?” Do couples actually try to convey their experience of 35 years of love using words? Do they ever succeed to your liking? Has anyone ever succeeded, to your liking, in conveying the experience of sannyas in words?
I have no interest in trying to describe my “experience”…all I can do is point to what nourishes me. If somebody says “I will not read Osho quotes,” I say hooray for them. That is their freedom.
But, there may be someone else for whom an Osho quote is beneficial. I am only sharing what I love and have loved for more than 35 years now. Not only the meaning…or the logic…or the argument…or the humour…=or the contradictions…or the knowledge contained in the words themselves, but their cumulative power to lead beyond all that. Osho’s words are capable of leading one to silence. That is my experience. Others are free to judge the living experience of Osho and sannyas as “imagination” or a “cult of personality.” I am free to continue sharing in my way. I see no problem. Do you?
Why are you resistant to an Osho quote? Are you only seeing words, Simond? Why do you want to pry into others’ inner experience, or suggest that their experience is all imagination, as you have done regarding those new sannyasins in London?
Why not celebrate with those who are in movement in London, instead of comparing them to a Christian revival…with a tone of (paraphrasing here) “oh how quaint, but the Sannyas movement is dead. Gurus and masters are passé,” thereby negating and denigrating the reality of what Swaram and Chetna are doing in London?
Are all Christians just imagining their love for Jesus? After all, no Christian alive today has ever seen Jesus, or heard Jesus’s voice, or seen Jesus on video. We don’t really know if Jesus even existed. But Swaram and Chetna have talked to people who saw Osho in the physical body, they have heard Osho’s voice, they have seen Osho in videos, they have read Osho’s books. I would never say they are just “imagining” all that. It is real. Their love for Osho is obviously just as real, not imaginary.
Samarpan,
Thanks for taking the trouble to reply. I appreciate your generosity in doing so.
As you say, we can enter endless debate about this subject or another. The forum is in effect an opportunity to do so, one that you partake in, as I.
“Simon, I am not interested in endless comparisons of personal opinions, feelings, understandings, and judgements. Sannyas is simple, rich, and it is not worth the (impossible) effort to clumsily try to reduce sannyas to words.”
Words, ideas, judgments, explanations, feelings – they are the mechanism towards building an understanding. Without them we are in silence. I’ve no problem with silence but it ain’t enough.
Osho, it is said, spent many years reading thousands of books, studying and analysing the words and feelings of others, cross checking his experience and ideas and his opinions with those writers. Learning about people and different ways of looking at every aspect of life.
In doing so, wasn’t he “trying to convey the experience of Sannyas?” He was trying to convey his experience of Life!
His earlier life is full of incidents where he challenged people and teachers. He was not unlike you or me, struggling to come to terms with the world, with people and interacting with them. This was his learning ground.
He offered himself to Life in all glory. And he, like you or I, would have felt all myriad of feelings and emotions in doing so.
Later on, he then spent how many years talking, discoursing on many subjects, using words to reveal his truth. He loved words. He loved analysing ancient scriptures and loved modern books of all kinds.
Don’t you see? He recognised absolutely the need to communicate, to interact with others. Only through this can any one of us continue learning.
To do so, he used words, like you or I.
Or we can be passive, and accept him at his word. Just glory in his enlightenement and do nothing for ourselves. Worship him as the master and do nothing for ourselves.
Accept blind notions like “Sannyas” without explaining this to others.
He didn’t do this, he went on and on and on and on exploring ideas, talking, giving himself, teaching, in order to convey the wordless state.
As for your comment about prying into others’ inner experience: Yes, I pry, intrude, explore with any and all, without reservation. Why not? Didn’t Osho do the same? He didn’t accept the conventions of Indian society, he personally ripped it up. He refused to get married, he disobeyed his parents. He wasn’t afraid to do so, had nothing to hide.
As I see it, intimacy of any kind is a form of intrusion. If we want to be intimate, we intrude, we ask, we judge, we give our selves.
Once again, thanks for your comments.
“As I see it, intimacy of any kind is a form of intrusion”…
What a horrible thing to say, this is not intimacy, is rape! Gross!!
Intrusion is intrusion, there is no kind of intrusion! I won’t share any kind of experience with you. Sod off, Simond!
SOS … Sod off Simond… It could catch on !!
Sent as a last message from the Ti-Tan-ic hitting an unexpected iceberg of thought somewhere near the frozen wastes of Blogland.
Welcome back, PM! Can’t wait for all the information you share with us, and of course, all your cheek!
“Do what you feel in your heart to be right – for you will be criticized anyway.”
Eleanor Roosevelt
Get your kit off and let them criticize, the heart will enjoy the ride anyway…
Eleanor Hawkins :
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-33112680
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3120488/Posing-camera-British-backpacker-Eleanor-Hawkins-three-accused-smiles-morning-strip-tease-trek-sacred-mountain-sparked-earthquake-killed-18.html
Tan,
Let me assure you, the intrusion I am talking about has nothing to do with rape.
Rubbish…I’ve met a lot of therapists and they often intruded – for a fee and a box of tissues.
This is the fullest emptiness on a virtual caravanserai table I ever saw here; inconceivably rich in spices, appetizers, recipes a la nouvelle cuisine, and supply for for meals lasting in its richness not only one life but uncountable other lives…
Not only Chetna and Swaram, having recommended to come for a ´meet-up´ outside closed rooms and to come with picnic supplies, will be enchanted, will they?
I am in awe – and in love and gratefulness too.
Madhu
What would we do without you, BIG sister, Tan(ia), reminding us, at least me, that if we meet outside a portable shithouse is also needed:
for the indigestibles or if we have stuffed in greed too much, or for a vomit here and there…if needed.
Brazilian-Indian spices are, maybe, best for any possible happening indigestion troubles.
Thank you for reminding…don´t stop that, please.
Madhu
I don’t quite understand what you mean, Madhu. You remain a mystery! But I like it! Like the idea of Big Sis. I am buzzing…X
“As I see it, intimacy of any kind is a form of intrusion” – Yes, pressed my button too, & after I read Tan’s response it clicked & I am now wondering how Simond/one can communicate without any kind of intimacy.
Spot on, my beautiful! X
Seems this Simond is some son of God, he thinks his writing/sharing here on SN is not an intimacy of any kind. Hope he finds further courage to explain why he thinks so unless he has taken some kind of vow not to be intimate, even virtually!
“The sannyasin also wanted to know whether he is allowed to criticize me.
I have no control over you, but any criticism is going to be against you, not against me. It is not going to
harm me at all. The whole world is criticizing me, and I am not even touched; there is no question of being
harmed!
So you can criticize, but remember it will harm you. Your criticism will take you away from me. Your
criticism will create a wall between me and you, and a bridge is needed, not a wall.
You can criticize so many things …. The whole past of humanity is available for you to criticize, and the
whole world is there to criticize me. Why bother to criticize me? You are here not to criticize, you are here
to find out the truth. Criticism is very easy. Understanding needs intelligence, criticism does not.
I have told you the story by the great Russian novelist Turgenev, ‘The Fool’.
In a village there was a poor man who was thought by everybody to be an idiot, and because everybody
told him that “You are an idiot,” he also started believing it. What to do? — if everybody is saying it,
everybody cannot be wrong. So he had accepted the idea that “I am an idiot.”
He would open his mouth and immediately somebody would say, “Stop! You are an idiot, you don’t
know anything. Keep quiet!” But it was hurting him very much.
A sage was passing by the village. He went to the sage, he told his miserable story. The sage said,
“Don’t be worried, my son, it is a very simple problem. All you have to do is this: whenever somebody says
something … don’t say anything from your side; just watch others saying things.
“When somebody says, `Look what a beautiful sunset!’, then you criticize. You ask, `What is beauty?
Why do you call this sunset beautiful? I don’t see any beauty. Where is beauty?’ Just remain consistently
criticizing. If anybody says, `Look at that woman! How beautiful!’, then criticize: `What is beautiful in that
woman? Just a skeleton covered with flesh in a bag of skin? What do you mean? What is beauty? That
stinking woman? Just open her up!’”
God was not very clever, otherwise he would have made us with zips! You can open the zip and look
inside, and that will be enough. All beauty will be finished. You will run away so fast you won’t look
backwards. What happened to the beautiful woman? or the beautiful man? Inside you are just bones, blood,
flesh. What is beauty?
That sage said, “Remember one thing: don’t make any statement on your side, otherwise they will
criticize. You just for one month persist in criticizing. Just move around the town, and anybody saying
ANYthing …
“Somebody says, `Service to the poor is good.’ Ask them, `What is good? Why are there poor? What do
you mean by service?’”
If death is the end, then what is the difference between the saint and the sinner? Both will die and be
finished. There will be no account taken that this is a saint, don’t destroy him; this is a sinner. If death is the
end, as the materialists believe, then there is no question of being saintly or evil. It is all the same. Death
equalizes everybody.
For one month he practised what the sage had said. The whole town was amazed how intelligent he had
become. “What has happened? What a miracle! Nobody can answer his questions!” They started saying
about him that he is no more an idiot, he has become a sage.After one month the sage came back.
He called the young man, and he said, “Are things okay?”
The young man said, “Great! Things are not just okay, but absolutely great! You have given me such a
secret. I have criticized everybody — the priests, the professors, the poets, the scholars — and they are all
defeated. Now they have changed their idea; they think that some miracle has happened to me: `His whole
personality has changed, he is no more an idiot. He is the most intelligent man, a wise man we should be
proud of.’”
The sage said, “That’s good. Now keep it up. Don’t make any statement on your own, just go on
criticizing.”
Criticizing is so simple. It does not need any skill, any art, any intelligence. What will you gain by
criticizing me? You will simply lose me.
I am not preventing you, I am simply making things clear to you. Are you here to learn criticism,
argument, logic? Or are you here to learn the art of going beyond the mind? It is your freedom. You can
choose the mind, or you can choose meditation.
This place is for meditation.
If you choose the mind, this is not your place. Perhaps in some future life … maybe you will become
more mature and understand the futility of all criticism, all agreement, all disagreement. They are all
mind-fucking! You have to go beyond it.”
Osho
‘Christianity: The Deadliest Poison and Zen: The Antidote to All Poisons’
Chapter #2
Chapter title: ‘Service With A Smile’
Seems Simond is the the true son of God or is still gathering courage? Whatever that be, I shall go on being intimate with him on SN, whenever I think the need be!
Just saw Lokesh’s post which says, “Madhoo enquires, “Why am I “so easily upset” and why do I “always experience the need to butter up the female commentators on SN?” ”
Madhu, I don’t think you have buttered me anytime, not that I need it, I could have been unresponsive to any stimuli on SN, it is what I unlearned here on SN itself.
Yes, Kavita, but why no mention of ghee? There’s the rub.
“butter up the female commentators…”
Hmm, that sounds nice. What does that involve?
Because, Loki, I have enough body fat already!
Does it jiggle when you cha-cha or shimi?
Of course it does!
“Osho talks straight to the heart of whoever is receptive and with such a power that people who listen change their life forever.”
This is exactly what happened to me & other international friends I have met at Tapoban.
Fortunately, there is a small Osho community here in L.A. & this post has inspired me to connect with them. I can say with confidence that my life is impacted positively, just by being around sannyasins/Osho lovers.