Lokesh explores:
“The people who have been holding power down the centuries have always been able to persuade people that whatever is being done, is done for their sake. And the people have believed it because they have been trained to believe.”
OSHO
Think for your self and question all authority
Timothy Leary.
Enlightenment and the ability to express it do not necessarily go hand in hand. It can happen that an enlightened [no sense of individual self, having merged with universal self) man or woman does not have any means to express the stateless state. It can also happen that a man or woman has an intuitive and intellectual capacity to describe enlightenment, while not experiencing the complete dissolution of separate self. Remember, Osho was a university lecturer, who might well of kissed the Blarney Stone, such a gift of the gab he did have.Taking that into consideration ask yourself, how can you know for sure that Osho was actually enlightened? If you are honest you will answer that you cannot know that. After all, it takes one to know one, and even if you/we are one you have not realized it quite yet, now have you? Saying that you could feel it does not cut the mustard either, because even our gut feelings can be way off track, or maybe that is just my experience. Do gut feelings recognize enlightenment? I have a gut feeling they might not.
Osho may well have been an enlightened man. Osho might have been a brilliant man who knew his subject, although perhaps not fully enlightened. It is therefore maybe not such a bad thing to question Osho. As the man himself said you have been trained to believe, and when it comes to belief he laid much emphasis on the fact that belief and doubt are two aspects of the same coin. From my own experience I would say that Osho actually encouraged his people to question him, a fact that might not appear obvious, but nonetheless it was there. In this instance I am not referring to questions posed to him in his discourses, but rather on a more personal level. Besides, unless you are a Catholic sannyasin, surely the need to enquire is a big part of the journey from here to here.
The other day, I read something from The Record of Tung-shan and it immediately resonated in my heart.
Like all good things in life, the beauty is to share and that is what I am doing now. Osho would have loved you to read the following, for within these words is couched something fundamental that anyone who is or has been involved with a spiritual master needs to hear…and hopefully understand.
‘What did he mean?’
At that time, I nearly misunderstood my former master’s intent.
‘I wonder if the former master was actually enlightened.’
If he was not enlightened, how could he have known to answer is such a way? If he was enlightened, why did he go to the trouble of answering in such a way?
‘What teaching did you receive when you were with him?’
Although I was there, I did not receive any teaching.
‘Since you didn’t receive any teaching from him, why are you remembering him in this way?’
Why should I turn my back on him?
‘Do you agree with him or not?’
I agree with half and don’t agree with half.
‘Why don’t you agree with him completely?’
If I agreed completely, then I would be ungrateful to my former master.
Lokesh
Your such a missionary; but why, being as certain as you are that you are right, do you need to expend so much energy convincing lesser beings youve got it and they havent? Hmm!!!!
Arps, there is something negative in much of your comments. Towards myself, others. Thing about adopting such an approach is that one does harm to their self more than anyone else.
Arps, I do not know you, but from your posts there is a strong suggestion of bitterness, that you are somehow carrying a big chip on your shoulder. Forgive me if I am wrong and spare me the tedium of copy and pasting my comment back to me because it is all just a reflection of myself.
I’m no missionary. In this instance I am applying myself to creating what I hoe to be an interesting thread for the other commentators to bounce off. You take it as an excuse to make a personal attack. Back to the frontline again. You seem to imagine yourself in some campaign, against what I am not too sure. Maybe it is a defensive mechanism of some sort…you know attack is the best form of defense.
I wish you the best.
Enough said.
Look in the mirror.
You have three kinds of posts.
Name dropping about Poona 1.
Blowing your own trumpet, and patronising and sneering at who ever it is you want to shut up..
Arps, you have a problem.
You mean I don’t share your delusion the sun rises and sets because you exist.
Maybe that is your problem.
Nothing proves enlightenment, either way, Lokesh.
You predicate your remarks, of course, on their being an enlightened permanent state. I would say that might be questioned, except at the point of death, but that does not seem to be your concern.
In a way this, ‘is anyone enlightened or not’, reminds me of the seventies, and many such discussions then. Maybe it is an old fashioned concern.
On Tungshan, I never saw my own association with Osho as a question of “agreement” with him. I just felt in tune with him and felt his overwhelming presence. Did you not feel that?
I’v wondered if their is such thing as enightenement, or if its a concept to draw us on like donkeys following a carrot on a stick.
If that is the case why not enquire as to how it could happen that such a concept came about in the first place and why donkeys get drawn on by carrots on sticks. I for one would be interested to hear what you discover.
The inverse is also true.
What would you do if you weren’t afraid ?
Settle down now all you Buddhists out there.. here comes some poetry…from Rumi.
“You suppose you are the trouble
But you are the cure
You suppose that you are the lock on the door
But you are the key that opens it
It’s too bad that you want to be someone else
You don’t see your own face, your own beauty
Yet, no face is more beautiful than yours.”
“Only from the heart Can you touch the sky.”
“People of the world don’t look at themselves, and so they blame one another.”
“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”
Great stuff.
PM says, ‘Maybe it is an old fashioned concern.’
I do not see what any of this has to do with fashion, old or new. Then again, enlightenment is definitely in vogue…everyone wants it and nobody can get it. Perhaps a few wee pointers, PM, you are surely a cutting edge authority on such matters.(That’s a joke by the way…in case you haven’t noticed some of the non-serious ones are taking themselves very seriously indeed.)
Truth is, I do see SN as a bit of an old fashioned forum, taking events long gone apart and piecing them together again. Yes, much of the material on this forum is definitely old fashioned. People harping on about their time in orange and mala etc. For sure not of great interest to many people under the age of 30. Bottom line is, I enjoy SN. Maybe I am old fashioned in this respect. As for the thread, it is as current today as it was a 1000 years ago. Well, at least in my humble opinion.
PM concludes with a question, ‘I just felt in tune with him and felt his overwhelming presence. Did you not feel that?’
Notice the past tense. PM is an intelligent chap. Don’t be taken in by this silly question. He is just playing the old-fashioned fool.
You clearly have some doubts over whether Osho was “fully enlightened” or perhaps not so enlightened as he thought he was, Lokesh.
Sri Aurobindo used to talk about
an “Intermediate Zone”, refering to a dangerous and misleading transitional spiritual and pseudo-spiritual region between the ordinary consciousness of the outer being and true spiritual realisation.
No doubt many seekers are bound to get into delusionary states which they mistake for enlightenment.
This is, after all, a very unenlightened world and we as a human race know very little about these kind of states.
I mean it’s not like we are taught about enlightenment in school(unless you went at Ko Hsuan perhaps).
In India there are thousands of unenlightened guru’s.
They have ashrams and can easily parrot transcendental knowledge of the ‘brahman’ and different teachers. Nowadays, many simple North American teachers with Christian conditioning can be found who visited Indian gurus such as Nisargaddata Maharaj in the 1970’s, and parrot their style.
Poonjaji, who many sannyasins visited after Osho left the body, apparently was the ‘real deal’ and was able to give many people ‘satori’ experiences or temporary states of awakening.
The problem was, some of these ‘satori’s’ would sometimes last for months and many people left Pappaji thinking that they were permanently awakened.
And Pappaji was keen to get rid of people once they had had their satori, apparently, too.
This is in contrast with Osho who used to always insist in pointing out if someone had had a ‘glimpse’, or sometimes “hitting” disciples like Somendra or Teertha who had had satori’s or who had felt they had attained full awakening.
I was reading an interesting article recently about someone who knew Andrew Cohen, and was also declared “enlightened” by Pappaji, and told to leave and “teach”.
This fellow never became a teacher like Cohen, (who a couple of years ago apparently left his guru position with a letter intimating that he had realised that there was still ego there and he hadn’t been as enlightened as he thought he was), but I got the impression that he never felt he was permanently enlightened, unlike Andrew Cohen did.
Was Pappaji giving people satori’s, glimpses of enlightenment, and then sending them away as if they were “enlightened”.
Is it possible for an enlightened one to get confused about another who is having a “temporary awakening”?
Here’s the article for you to read anyhow:
http://whatenlightenment.blogspot.co.uk/2005/10/tale-of-two-teachers_04.html?m=1
As far as I am concerned, I have no doubt whatsoever about Osho’s enlightenment, or that he was “fully enlightened”.
His enlightened presence is still around today and is still available to his lovers.
SS asks, ‘Was Pappaji giving people satori’s, glimpses of enlightenment, and then sending them away as if they were “enlightened”.’
From my time with Mr Poonja I can only say that people were experiencing all kinds of things. Whether he was actually giving people satoris is questionable. Around him it was relatively easy to feel/think enlightenment had happened, because entering a space of no-mind was going off big time.
One on one I felt that Poojaji was no different than Osho in respect to being representative of exactly the same thing energetically, spiritually etc. If there was a difference for me it was Poonjaji made it very clear that what was happening was you not him. Osho said as much but in a way did not make that so clear. It is a difficult subject, where language shows very quickly its limitations. Poonjaji was a great man. So was Osho. Difference there was that Osho made it more obvious. It actually took years for it to sink in that meeting Poonjaji was a great blessing. With Osho I knew immediately…well, once I overcame my original resistance.
SS concludes, ‘As far as I am concerned, I have no doubt whatsoever about Osho’s enlightenment, or that he was “fully enlightened”.’
That is one of the points of this thread. As far as you are concerned you cannot possibly know that. Koan-like it is, but it is now well established that the only person who can recognize if someone is fully enlightened is someone who is fully enlightened. You are someone who is fully enlightened, but you just do not know it. Such is our situation. I could not claim to say Osho was enlightened or not, because just like you I live in illusion and therefore caught up in what appears to be along with my accompanying certainties and doubts. Ah well…this too shall pass.
Lokesh,
Sometimes it can be difficult to tell whose fully enlightened or not.
Last year I realised that many of the great masters of the twentieth century, who many had regarded as “the real deal”, had one thing in common: a very shiny, bald head.
So I decided to release a range of egg-cups:
http://sannyasnews.org/now/now/members/swamishanti/activity/33837/
Perfectly correct Swami Shanti!
Papaji was perfectly correct when he wrote in the letter you have posted to the unenlightened baboon Karl stating :
`”..the student who abuses his teacher goes to the 7th Hell, where one is thrown into fire, and again revives, and again is thrown into the fire, this will continue for a million years in this Hell. Later he will be born into the pigs family.” [And on and on! ]`
These baboons grunting and troughing it in the spiritual pig-sty known as Sannyasnews who voice their impudent doubts about the full enlightenment of the mighty masters of Bhorat would do well to heed the warning!
A million years of 7th hell followed by ending up via the piggery as a cut-price Lidl pork pie must surely be enough to convince the baboons of the error of the egotistical ways of their mind!
Yahoo!
Perhaps what Papaji really meant was that after spending a million years being perpetually thrown into fire in the 7th hell, Andrew Cohen would be reborn as a pig into a pig family – but a `superpig`- like Oinkba, who is a satsang giving, flying astro-pig, a bit like Sonic the Hedgehog.
The video cannot be shown at the moment. Please try again later.
SS
“Andrew Cohen would be reborn as a pig into a pig family”
Papaji knew how to aim an insult!
You must have heard the story about the old Jewish woman, I can’t remember her name, who went to India in order to seek out a guru.
She was a tough old bird and she sought far and wide, checking Rishikesh, Tiruvanamalai etc. etc.
She eventually heard about a certain wise man and she immediately “just knew” this was the man she was looking for.
She went straight to where he was.
The guru had a fearsome reputation as a no-nonsense, crazy-wisdom exponen. With his unorthodox methods he had crushed countless egos with the skill and dexterity of a lizard dispatching sluggish mosquitoes in the hot season.
Standing in line to see the guru, the old lady was informed by the chief disciple that she could only speak one sentence to the master.
She was totally undeterred.
“That will be enough,” she said with a steely determination that impressed the other disciples greatly.
Finally, she was brought in front of the great man.
She looked him straight in the eyes and said:
“Hymie, you silly boy, stop this nonsense and come home with your mother immediately.”
Thanks, Frank.
Better then to sing along to a Master of the Art instead…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2kO_Jm96I0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSuCWq0ruuk
Lol, Frank,
One wonders what got Papaji so angry with Andrew in the first place.
After all, it was he who told Andrew that he was enlightened and to `go and teach`.
Did he later realise that this was a mistake, or was there another reason that they fell out?
Who knows?
Who knows? Not me.
Didn`t Cohen come back to Lucknow with his own posse looking for a face-off?
Cohen`s lot were pretty aggressive, if I remember rightly.
Wasn`t there an incident in the late 80s in a village hall in the West country where the police had to be called to break up a scuffle between Cohens` lot who had muscled in on a satsang of a rival gang headed up by some other obscure characters claiming enlightenment?
It`s amazing how many people bought into him.
To be fair ,in his favour ,I would say that
people who fell for his rap certainly deserved and probably needed to have their heads shoved down the bog and the flush pulled ,or whatever it was he was doing to them.
Frank,
It was the other lots who muscled in on Cohen’s mob – and the two mobs were as obnoxious as each other. The police were called on the other mob on other occasions.
I won’t name them cos it gives ‘em publicity.
And the shoving head down toilets is from Jenny James’s Irish primal community, with moderating interventions later in the community’s life by David Boadella, the neo-Reichianist who was then her boyfriend briefly. The community went off to Bolivia or Columbia, I forget…and her son was kidnapped and killed just a few years ago by a pair of sinister local thugs.
Agreement is belief.
Belief is containment
Containment is fear.
Fear is loss.
Loss is sorrow.
Sorrow is penetration
Penetration is yielding
Yielding is freedom.
Freedom is energy
Energy is trust
Trust is love
Love is All.
All is One.
Begin anywhere.
I was with the other mob, Prem Martyn, surprise surprise, but just for historical fact the police found the whole episode hysterical, as did I. Cohen was not so amused.
If I remember, Osho used to barge in and confront so-called gurus too.
All’s fair in love and war.
“All’s fair in love and war.” (Simond)
No, Simond, that is not true, what you say here with these words.
Madhu
Simond,
You could revise your own justifying concluding idiomatic aspirations and associative epithets more assiduously. Try :
‘Barking up the wrong tree’.
or
‘Elvis has left the building’
or
‘Jump on the bandwagon’
or
‘Not a spark of decency’
or
‘Pull wool over other people’s eyes’
or
‘Steal someone else’s thunder’
or
‘Taste of your own medicine’
or
‘Wouldn’t be caught dead’
Or even the more direct and courageous :
‘Let’s talk about this outside.’
If you equate Osho and Sannyas to that local personal history of yours, then I, for one, have to excuse myself from your maths.
Info:
“What Does it Mean?
‘All’s fair in love and war’ means there is no act that is too terrible or too great when you are going after the person you love or making war on your enemies. Usually the quote is uttered when someone is trying to justify bad behaviour.
While a case can be made that true love is worth any price, or whatever you have to do to win your war is necessary if your cause is just, a case can also be made to the contrary.”
Methinks you take it too seriously, Frank.
All I’m saying is that there are times when we confront/present to others how we see things.
The dialogue may take many forms. I’m not advocating war!
I notice my critics don’t seem to refer to how Osho used the most slanderous and vitriolic atacks on fellow gurus, both in person and in writing.
Surprising new footage of Simond at Andrew Cohen meeting in Torquay 1980s found: https://youtu.be/I-HiZZ41zHY
Rev:
He, Osho, never lived in Totnes and there were no gurus actually in Totnes.
You obviously haven’t read the well-thumbed top shelf book in WizardGaiaHealing Spiritual Incense & Wafty cds-cum-polite Bookshop, ‘A Field Guide to recognising a bunch of desperate English open-sandalled- and-socks proles in a reading room with a goon on a sofa’. It’s a gripping read.
Borrow mine.
Frank and Prem Martyn, just what is the problem? Events from such a long ago.
I’ve moved on. Just history, yet you guys are carrying such a weight of disdain and suspicion.
How, if you never lived in Totnes, do you know there were no gurus there?
Why such dislike or fear of any guru not known to you? Why so disturbed by others, like me, who have looked beyond the confines of Sannyas?
Just what are you threatened by?
“just what is the problem? Events from such a long ago. I’ve moved on. Just history” (Simond).
Hi Simond,
If that is so, why don´t you stick to your own counsel (for others) and just move on, instead of wasting your precious time? Here?
Madhu
You tell ‘em, Reverend. I’ve moved on from Sannyas and just to make sure you don’t forget I’m telling you for the umpteenth time.
Terrified of actually…sandals – open-toed ones in towns run by the Cake Mafia.
And people who have moved on…they just make me want to shove cake into their (ok, ok…the next bit contains anatomical references better shared on the blogging website Gurupmybottom.org.totnes…Signed, a self-moderator).
BELOVED OSHO, TO STEAL YOUR ENLIGHTENMENT I AM INCESSANTLY PRAYING. PLEASE OSHO, AT LEAST BLESS ME, SO THAT MY PRAYER MAY BECOME MORE INTENSE AND ALIVE. THAT’S BEAUTIFUL.
A disciple has to steal much from the Master, because there are a few things which cannot be given; only you can take, I cannot give. The nature of the thing is such that it cannot be given, but you can take. A disciple has much to steal from the Master. The question is very significant, and I bless you.
But prayer alone won’t do, because prayer belongs to one path, and enlightenment belongs to another path. Prayer is part of the path of the devotee, the BHAKTA, the Sufi. He says, “I don’t want any enlightenment. I just want to be playing with you continuously my Lord — a thousand and one games in a thousand and one worlds in a thousand and one lives. I don’t want to get out of the game, I don’t want to get out of this LEELA; it is beautiful. I want to remain a part of it. Make me worthy so I can remain always here and now, playing the game of hide-and-seek with you.”
–Osho, “The Beloved, vol 2″ (1976, ch. 2)
Just imagine us bickering about enlightenment till we are on our deathbed, coming to think of it, U.G was exactly doing that! The mind loves it, then it does’nt have to admit that it does’nt have a clue to the so called “problem”of enlightenment that it, itself creates, in order to keep us moving, and atract our attention and identification i.o.w the carrot! And b.t.w it is the same mindy mindy writing this down,explaining what a little bugger he really is! Naughty naughty! And then it has the cheek to say oooh, but you are not the mind,you are beyond it………………and so it continues, ad infinitum, Amen!
Karima…
UG was definitely as enlightened as Sw OkeyCakey Arun. And the definition is; only those who are unenlightened can recognise fellows in the same league of mindless thoughtlessness…
Talking of which brings us to the question what is there after mind ?
More cake of course!
Unless ……no-mind becomes a super erotic experience filled with a gushing tsunamic wave of moaning aching sweet intense love, emptying the bottom of the oceanbed until it crests upon itself in a foaming spuming mass of unbridled, heaving, writhing, consciousness,…….. then its better to stay with cake. Internal self pleasuring in different forms. (Anais Nin School of Movement, Zumba and Buddhist AvoiDance. )
Oh Martin, i’m foaming,spurning,unbridled,heaving and writhing that thou art so much clevererr than me-me-minimouse!
Karima, I never know with women if it’s a real enlightenement or a fake one!
I wonder if it’s because women take Osho’s advice to ”Live one’s life as if you are acting it, and when acting be fully alive in it.” (‘Theologia Mystica’ series ).
Hence the watchingness, or parallel view and the space of non-identification with responses, nor preferential interference with them, giving rise to the unitary dissolving vibrational presence of the containment of duality, orgasmically (apparently, but not on a bad hair day).
(PS: Whirling does it much better than that Advaita but-not-really-getting-it-stuff and…without obligatory holy-moly anal-arse-sitting or bald fat-git ominous-looking statues to haunt one with).
I always thought SN was a good place to start – not only for that acting out stuff, but we get to watch everyone else’s thoughts too as a bonus.
Now back to Frank’s favourite Youtube meditation….
”Karima, I never know with women if it’s a real enlightenement or a fake one!
I wonder if it’s because women take Osho’s advice to ”Live one’s life as if you are acting it, and when acting be fully alive in it.” (‘Theologia Mystica’ series ).”
Only if advices would work for men & women!
NEWS FLASH.
Today on Ibiza a great meeting took place. Hailed by The Funday Times as the most greatly anticipated East meets West union of No-Minds in the history of mankind, Shri Maharaj Shantam and His Wholeyness Skinhead Lokesh gave darshan to each other in the presence of millions of cicadas. The vibrational hum could be heard in Tibet’s Grand Potalla. Later in the afternoon, the two unwise men were invited to The Agha Khans daughter’s estate for fresh coconut juice. Surveying the vast spread of natural Mediterranean beauty before him Shri Shantam was heard to utter ‘ubelieveable’. Skinhead Lokesh enquired of Shri Shantam’s charming son, ‘How come your dad isn’t wearing chuddies.?’ The young master chuckled and replied, ‘That was just a device we created to get rid of the wrong kind of people.’ The two great no-minds parted, both agreeing to continue meeting up on the SN forum in an effort to promote world peace.
This is even better news than enlightened dentistry.
Sannyasnews does it again !
Great Stuff!
Ditto. Good bit of writing too, from Locki.
As far as Osho and enlightenment go. I don’t know about enlightenment but he definitely had “something different”. Part photographic memory and part hypnotism.
Perfectly correct!
Great photo! I hadn’t realised how handsome you are McLoke and love the hat! Sannyasnews’ love affair: Lokesh and Shantan. Have fun guys! X X
Celebrate… this one’s on me….
http://www.lassiwithlavina.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/a-traditional-dosa.jpg
Cosmos News : The Pope & Shankaracharya of Sannyasnews meet at the Earth’s Capital of Spiritual Junkies in S-pain to discuss devices of Enlightened Masters to further enhance their Enlightenment !
Aaaah, Love is, whatever we scream at each other!
I am bowled over by the hat, Lokesh! Great, mon! Looks a bit like the kind of thing that the Pope wears, dunnit? Where can I buy one?
Ashok, the cap is called a Hemingway. I bought half a dozen at an Army Navy store on Sunset Boulevard about 20 years ago. I only have two left. I gave the others to friends. By turning the peak up it looks just so. You can also wear it to one side, which aids in making the wearer look particularly daft. Well designed hat for sunny climate. I am sure you can purchase on Ebay.
Ya, that cap reminded me of the Pope & so the rest followed!
Ta. A sunny climate is generally where I am.
Cyberspace: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Sannyasnews. Its continuing mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to baldly go where no bald guys have gone before!
Nice one guys!
Paradox of the Self. ?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpUuvuPOnQU
( a mirror edit from Todd Solondz film 1998 Happiness )
Sannyasnews has come a long way Frank.
The technology has increased a thousandfold.
Back in the seventies, only a 250 mb hardrive was available.
Here is a pic of one of the Sannyasnews editors working away back then:
I don’t know whether i will be able to type spontaneously, ‘Few Hours With Lokesh in Ibiza.’
Therefore I write the last sentences of my unwritten article:
“Sun was very hot. On the parking place of tourist resort, we were taking the steps towards Lokesh’s car. Who knows, this may be our first and the last personal meeting. In few moments, only memories will be left.
My eyes were getting heavy with tears.”
As an Osho disciple, I expect not much. Tears of friendliness, love and thankfulness are enough.
Without Osho and this portal of Sannyasnews, it would not have been possible for two of us to connect like lost brothers meeting first time.
Thank you, Lokesh.
You are not just a name, a figure any more in my life. In your own words, “We have clicked like a small piece of puzzle in the big jigsaw of life.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUB1O2cT2gM
celebrate one all one all one all one all
“Come Healing”
O gather up the brokenness
And bring it to me now
The fragrance of those promises
You never dared to vow
The splinters that you carry
The cross you left behind
Come healing of the body
Come healing of the mind
And let the heavens hear it
The penitential hymn
Come healing of the spirit
Come healing of the limb
Behold the gates of mercy
In arbitrary space
And none of us deserving
The cruelty or the grace
O solitude of longing
Where love has been confined
Come healing of the body
Come healing of the mind
O see the darkness yielding
That tore the light apart
Come healing of the reason
Come healing of the heart
O troubled dust concealing
An undivided love
The Heart beneath is teaching
To the broken Heart above
O let the heavens falter
And let the earth proclaim:
Come healing of the Altar
Come healing of the Name
O longing of the branches
To lift the little bud
O longing of the arteries
To purify the blood
And let the heavens hear it
The penitential hymn
Come healing of the spirit
Come healing of the limb
O let the heavens hear it
The penitential hymn
Come healing of the spirit
Come healing of the limb.
“Lovers don’t finally come to meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along.”
–Rumi
“Same with `enemies` ”
–Franki
“Lovers don’t finally come to meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along.”
–Rumi / ‘Franki` – I rather prefer Frank, if you don´t mind.
This utter noble Truth you posted here, Frank, will not do sometimes to heal or to prevent a calamity.
It’s a long way short and a short way long to embody that, instead of talking it through.
The equally noble Prayer, Prem Martyn, you did post, may be helpful, and soothing it is anyway.
Otherwise, the story, ´Shantam and Lokesh and puzzle pieces of a jigsaw of Life´, as it has been shared then by both of them their very unique way, is the result of facing a meeting and quite a quite honest one, as far as I can see it.
And by that I mean fair. And in all its intimacies such a meeting needs to have.
It’s very good news that when these prerequisites are fulfilled that gratefulness and sharing of having been touched by heart even has its ripples to far, far away places, and has some echoes here and there.
Please, Prem Martyn, don’t be concerned about others’ “Enlightenment”
like about ´women´s fake´ as you put it – you waste time and energy, I guess, when you are strolling in these fantasy realms about for you mostly unknown female humans.
Your own contributions and staying with sharing your way is beautiful and quite often pretty much nourishing. And thank you so much for that.
Back to the issue of the string, I am closest to what Parmartha shared in the beginning, about Being in Tune.
I know that one of the rumour ´mental autobahns´of viewing us sannyasins from the outside is that most of us were ever so greedy to have ‘IT’ (whatever).
I clearly say that that neither is nor has been my experience, neither with myself nor with most of the beautiful people I was able to meet on the pathless Path.
I just wanted to say “hello” to you out there this afternoon; I read your posts like always with great concern and more than just interest.
And loved to feel a wheel turning.
And I love your written down Prayer for Healing, Prem Martyn.
I am going through very difficult times these years, inside/outside, and to be reminded ´that there IS another way to deal with such´, is very beautiful.
Summer Heat outside did cool down a little bit today; what a relief also that is.
We all are fragile, aren´t we?
With love,
Madhu
Always, Madhu, your posts contain the deep sentiment of woman, always close to the simplicity of your feelings and to the present moment.
It’s a pleasure to read this one in particular. As you dissect man’s obsession with enlightenment and our need to know everything.
Behind it all is Madhu, sitting silently waiting for man to see her and to go beyond our love of mind.
Thanks for acting as the reminder, Madhu.
Nice to see you`ve got a sense of humour, Rev…
Keep it up…they`ll be cramming in and spilling into the aisles for your sermons at St Barry`s Church, Torquay (tea, cakes, crumpets and a bloody good ruck in the village hall after the service).
I bet that adult can barely contain her delight at having managed to garner a bucket of your oleaginous approval.
Thanks, boys, your support is most welcome!
You lost the bet, Arpana, and that will be costly.
Exactly how much costliness, Ma Madhu?
Madhu,
Thank you for your considered, involving reflections.
Difficult times are dissolving times too. And we are bound to that dissolution as implicitly as those senses which attempt to define us. The great unlearning and it is constant.
I wish that Leonard Cohen’s song ‘Come Healing’ reaches far and wide. He is 81 and it is his wondrous contribution to love and lovers and redemptive understanding that astonishes me every time.
The imminence of surrender, through age, love and even departure becomes greater as the years pass, and we do not wish to be lost in old toys, old traits which lack space or fail to recognise.
Once love is given her dues, she repays the attention many, many fold, with unexpected surprise. To be mortal and coherent, not logical, just observant, is what songs do for me. They entrance, and help us to remember and forget.
Love
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nky_3iwJxic
Leonard Cohen interview
part 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44-xVe_vivs
Thank you so much, Prem Martyn, for sending these interviews, especially second part, made much of my late afternoon; timeless, even though from year 2001…
Was especially hooked by: “You (just) keep digging for the authentic tone,,,” or “I know that I´m forgiven, but I don´t know how I know; I don´t trust my inner feelings and my feelings come and go”.
Aaah, many more in the threshold you shared with us.
All-together…
Wish everybody here a good Listening or two…
Grateful -
Madhu
Marty, do you know where to get that table cloth LC mentions?!
You mean the table cloth with the nice cut glass and the life of loving acceptance and completeness?
If that’s the one you mean, I reckon you have to let it happen…including smashing the furniture, breaking the glass and wondering why, if that’s what’s happening too. There are no shortcuts unless they happen through grace or cruelty, maybe.
Many times you have to get rid of all the furniture and all the table cloths. The key, possibly, is indulge it all. I do.
No table cloths in sight. But who knows about tomorrow, I might be selling them!
Ya, it’s that table cloth.
PS: The naked table is mostly better & easier to clean, not that I suffer from severe OCD .
In any case, for me, only in imagination can one live without any kind of furniture!
“Difficult times are dissolving times too…”. That’s beautiful, PM, is it yours? Or is it some kind of poetry in English language? Or maybe somebody else? Clarify, please!
MINE ALL MINE! Please pay at the exit, we ask for a nominal £1.00 to cover printing costs, tea and hire of the SN Church Hall, plus your contact email address, phone number and favourite night out…erm, girls only.
A mad-dog hot summer afternoon in Lidl car park, San Juan, Ibiza…
A large man carrying several heavy bags of bargain frozen meat staggers up to a cool dude listening to ‘Sharp-dressed man’ by ZZTop on headphones under his Hemingway hat.
“Er…Namaste, gudentag, hola, yahoo, donde este la playa del toplesso titti con ripe mangoes in mango season?”
“Look, pal, ye need some proper swimwear fur that – you`ll nae get very far wi` a durty hanky wrapped roond yer baws.”
“But I am fully intending to be dispatched from this world into next life wearing thee holey underwear of my forefathers.”
“Fock me…it`s the chudmeister” (tries to run for it).
(Large man embraces cool dude vigorously)
“Oh my God, it is Osho`s will, my long-lost brother! Tears are running from the eyes like mighty Ganga in rainy season during outbreak of incontinence.”
“Alreet, get in the car an` I’ll show ye a good time, they’s moor topless titties doon theer than there`s gods in India, I tell ye.”
“Oh my god, this is better than Japanese Zen porn – it is like pumping season (88-90) again! And regime change actually was also not necessary!”
The Mustang roars away from the parking lot and the oddest couple since Yin and Yang cruise on down Sunset Strip in search of the ultimate medicine….
Frank, you are mean, but it is really, really funny. I am just picturing in my mind…and can’t stop laughing! You crazy guy!
Aye, right enough, pal, thon ulti-mate medicine, ye cannae beat it…but ye can try…hey!…There goes the ghost of Michael MacJackson.
Hilariusly good stuff from the uncle in the caring home.
I wish, J. krishnamurti, Osho and Punja ji were also there in Ibiza to gaze meditatively at the topless 4th chakras or Nisargadatta Maharaj not selling Cigarettes at Mumbai’s red light area but selling party tickets at Saint Antonio.
To Indians I will advise, spend around 1250 Euros for a seven day trip and you will have the 70 times more memory gathered in seven lives of that thing, in the voice of stage comedian in the resort I was staying, “Ladies, shake your melons, shake, shake, shake.”