In this little known, but valuable interview, Jyoti, the author of a 100 tales for 10,000 Buddhas, speaks, amongst other things, about the early days of dynamic meditation when no music was played at all..
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I like these stories of small kindnesses (from Jyoti).
They mean more to me than the records of early dynamics!
I feel that a life of small kindnesses is the greatest treasure.
It reminds me also of my major dislike of Islam, but here Osho doesn’t bother about the religion of his Muslim watchman, but his moving heart.
Tale 52 from Jyoti:
‘Today is the last day in Pahalgaon. With Osho, sometime it feels the time has
stopped and at other times it feels it is running very fast.
While I am busy packing, I hear the voice of the Muslim watchman, who is standing at the door. I ask him to come after an hour to help us carry our luggage to the car. As a token of his services, I give him twenty rupees, which he receives with thanks and leaves.
We are sitting on the verandah with Osho, ready to leave. The watchman comes and salutes Osho saying, “Aleikum Salaam”, meaning “Peace be upon you”.
Osho smiles at him. He asks Osho if he can come to Bombay to serve him. I can see tears in the watchman’s eyes. He is deeply touched by Osho’s love. Osho blesses him by placing his hand on his head, and asks me if I have given him some money. I tell Osho about having given him twenty rupees.
Osho says, “Give him twenty more”. Twenty rupees is quite an amount in those days. People hardly give five rupees as baksheesh to their servants. Osho has the heart of an emperor who is always ready to share to the maximum. I give the watchman twenty rupees more. While receiving it he holds my hand and starts crying. It touches me deeply and tears overflow from my eyes also.
Thank you beloved master, for giving me this opportunity to open my heart to a stranger”
Yes, Parmartha,
Simplicity and kindness, as honest and as simple life sharing about long decades in our ´caravanserai (like to be listened in this interview with Dharm Jyoti) missing all traits of mumbo jumbo fantasies or fighting moods with changes is indeed quite rare in our books and rare in the ´eastern´ as the ´western´ sannyas tribes , isn ´t it ?
That´s what I got out of it , looking, listening and enjoying especially her modesty; she is obviously spared from the greed to be very special and just looking to meet sannyas friends on the path of Life and Lovers of the NOW.
Without neglecting ´history.
This is heartwarming. And heart healing too.
Madhu
The five stages of dynamic meditation can be seen to parallel the five stages of the neo-sannyas movement:
Stage 1. Chaotic breathing = Osho traveling to and fro all over India.
Stage 2. Catharsis = intense energy of Poona 1 darshans with Osho.
Stage 3. All-out effort of Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! = the Ranch years.
Stage 4. Stop! = the “Where in the World is Osho?” World Tour.
Stage 5. Celebration, music, dance = Poona 2 and now.
I have done various forms of dynamic over the years, both historically, and other slightly different forms from the creative impulses of various group leaders.
Frankly, the best was always the four stages one, both then and now.
In the four stage dynamic(15 minutes each), cartharsis, then hoo hoo, then standing still, and then complete floorbound relaxation works very well ‘as a meditation’! The meditation proper occurring in the last stage of that format.
I never understood the fifth stage of dancing in this context. the separate Nataraj meditation did all that latter for me.
I have never done the 4-stage DM, you mention here Parmartha, only the 5-stage. I am now motivated to try the 4-stage version though, to see if it makes any substantial difference to my experience, given what you have written.
In addition, though I have never performed DM in silence, I guess it could probably be likened to submitting a post here to SN, sometimes?
Particularly, 2nd stage catharsis, which is probably what Madhu, is referring to when she writes of “traits of mumbo-jumbo”, I suppose.
Finally, re. the final dancing stage, I can only comment that if having given the previous stages adequate energy and totality, then my body seems to take on a mind of its own, by which I mean that the dancing happens by itself, led by spontaneous impulses.
At this point, my mind seems to adopt the role of spectator, just observing what is going on! This witnessing however, does not occur if I have not sufficiently exhausted myself.
Parmartha, I have done it both ways and prefer the five-stage Dynamic. The last stage is return, kind of like the tenth picture in the Zen oxherding pictures, going back to the world, not retreating.
In the evening meetings of Pune 2, when Osho led us in Buddha Hall in the gibberish and let-go meditation, there were four stages with the fourth being a return. 1 Gibberish, 2 Moving-In, 3 Let-Go, 4 Coming Back. After the Let-Go, “falling like a bag of rice,” we entered into the state of silent stillness.
Osho didn’t leave us in that state. There was a resurrection, a return. Osho said: “Come back” with the reminder to carry the glimpse of silent awareness one may have had into everyday activities. Beautiful! And just as relevant today as 30 years ago. Personally, my favorite nowadays is the gentler Gibberish Let-go Meditation.
Could the 5th stage, dance, signify merging with the wholeness / no-wholeness?
Everybody is being manipulated.
Our whole society depends on manipulating.
Parents are manipulating their children, politicians are manipulating the masses, priests are manipulating their congregations.
Even children start manipulating their fathers, their mothers… very small children. Even a child six months old starts learning how to manipulate. He knows that if he smiles he is going to get toys, sweets, hugs, kisses. He had no desire to smile, but he has learned a certain exercise of the lips. It is just there on the lips, an exercise — he just opens his lips. It looks as if he is smiling, but if you look into the eyes of the child you will be surprised — there is a politician.
A six-month-old child has to become a politician: What kind of society have we created?
He manipulates, and you go on rewarding his efforts of manipulation. Slowly slowly, he may forget that his first smile was false and all other smiles are just a continuation of his first smile. Perhaps his last smile when he is dying will be also just a continuity of the I first.
Osho.
From Misery to Enlightenment
Chapter #11
Chapter title: Consciousness: the only criterion of virtue
Well and good. I also think Osho did his share of manipulation, although I do not see it as an altogether bad thing. In fact, in many cases quite the opposite, because it was manipulating for the individual or greater good. Well, at least that is how I view it, although many would disagree.
Out in the world, Osho was an active manipulator also. Unfortunately not an ace manipulator, especially when it came to trying to manipulate the American authorities. Out of his depth after spending his life in India where legal manipulation is, for the most part, based on bribery in some form or other. Backsheesh.
People are often stupid and there is nothing wrong in a wee bit of manipulation to help steer them in a better and more healthy direction, which brings into question the issue of democracy. America brought democracy to Iraq and it was the worst thing that ever happened to the Iraqi people.
Osho was no democrat when it came to running his commune. He was, to all intents and purposes, a dictator, albeit a benign one. So, Osho’s rap on manipulation could well be viewed as a manipulative effort to conceal his own efforts at manipulation. An inside job.
Manipulation is what Osho did/ does all the time, but not for his own ends.
How can you know that for sure? You say Osho ‘does’ speaking in the present tense. What exactly does that mean to you? To me it means nothing.
You mean because it means nothing to you it shouldn’t mean something to me.
You dropped Sannyas the end of the seventies
I didn’t.
Arpana
Try and explain – rather than just react to Lokesh.
See him and his judgements as part of a test for you. At the moment you just react with anger.
And whilst your stay reactive to him, however false and fake you might feel him to be, you can be sure you will continue to meet him or someone like him, until you remove the power he has over you.
You can’t do that by fighting him, you have to embrace the wider deeper message of what he represents to you.
Simond, I am going into my ill will towards monomaniacs. I know exactly what I am doing. I don’t want to Watch, I want to react.
Good stuff Arpana, keep reacting and following your instincts.
@ Simond. ‘Good stuff Arpana, keep reacting and following your instincts.’
I bask in the warm glow of your approval.
Forget safety.
Live where you fear to live.
Destroy your reputation.
Be notorious.
-RUMI
Arpana.. that’s self congratulatory of you. Which is fine as a piece of self sponsorship but it doesn’t begin to scratch the surface of the symbolism and use of ideaology involved.
I just had dinner last night with a bunch of so called sannyassins… all meat eaters…sannyasins? my tits. !That, my condemnation, is a similar piece of polarisation and it works for me and I have no problem in wanting to completely destroy their version of sannyas, similar to wanting to destroy anyone or anything that I decide is worth destroying.
The only difference being is my hate is blatant and enjoyed by me…whereas theirs is furtive and displaced onto blood sucking and laughing at dinner over death barbecue fumes with not a single reference to their act. Mutually defined sannyas..? Gimme a break.
Not sure what you’re referring to, PM.
Arpana…
Sannyas only exists in your construct. There is no generic form of it, just an occasional reference or intimacy. Therefore you can define it as you please. It’s that etheric and mostly mutually unrecognisable, especially en masse.
@ prem martyn.
Yes I agree. But that is what we have, so that is where we work from.
Guess I got more than a glimpse what you are referring to, Prem Martyn (3.54 pm).
You are honestly, mainly sharing your ambitions to destroy whatever you feel worthy of destruction like an IS fighter (after training) quoting then – maybe Rumi – to flavour it.
Too many ´temple knights´ of this kind on tour, I say, too many! Being addicted to spiritual violence these days. Wherever!!
Madhu
Madhu, you have always had a massive inferiority complex with me. Enjoy it.
Arpie says, ‘You dropped Sannyas the end of the seventies I didn’t.’
Bully for you.
I have never considered the idea of dropping sannyas. It just never occured to me, because I have no need of such a milestone and simply cannot relate to this ‘drop sannyas’ shite, which sounds to me like a throwback to Poona One days, as in….did you hear Swami Bozo dropped sannyas?… well, hardly surprising, everyone knew Bozo missed.
That you, Arpie, hang onto what sounds very much like a crutch to me is your business as is imagining Osho is still working on you. I ask you what good is any of that stuff doing you, because you come across like you are wound up tighter that a watch spring.
You say, ‘You mean because it means nothing to you it shouldn’t mean something to me?’ This comes across as extremely narrow-minded thinking, because you totally misinterpret my question, which is based in pure curiosity, with nothing malicious behind it. Your uptightness blinds you to this. You see me as some kind of enemy, although you actually know very little about me. Is this where you are at, even with Osho working on you. Does not seem to be the right medicine, let alone the ultimate one.
So I ask you once again, ‘You say Osho ‘does’ speaking in the present tense. What exactly does that mean to you?’ I am curious how people like you envision what it is Osho is doing.
Osho, after all, again and again, said that he was not, ultimately speaking, doing anything at all. So how does your vision fit into his vision, taking that into consideration. I would appreciate a sincere response, instead of your usual pissed-off two line reactions. To coin your own words, ‘Nice shift of perspective.’ Yes that would be very nice indeed, were it to actually come from you.
Defensive. Hahahaha!
Arpana, try and answer the question that Lokesh put to you, about what you mean exactly when you write that Osho still speaks to you.
An explanation of this statement would be of some interest to me, and perhaps to others too.
However, I feel that sincerity is not what your game is really about here, is it?
It is much more likely I believe, that your true purpose
was brazenly indicated in your initial post on this thread – something to do with manipulation, wasn’t it?
Is that what you are doing here? Manipulating people
so as to foster the kind of massive attention that Shantam often inspires?
Interestingly, I seem to remember that a couple of weeks ago, you accused me of attempting to make a bid for the Chuddie Meister’s crown, didn’t you?
I remember thinking at the time, that you had shown your own hand! True? Yes?
@ Ashok says:
9 September, 2015 at 6:04 pm.
What on earth are you going on about? A lot what I say to you is just banter really.
@ Ashok.
Arpana. What do you mean exactly when you write that Osho still speaks to you asks.
Ashok I’m answering your question.
I still regularly come across remarks Osho makes that resonate with me. He said something only the other day that lead me to understand something about a matter that was good to get a grasp of, in personal terms.
I experience myself as being in a relationship with him, although I don’t actually like writing that down, because it sounds like a load of old new age tosh when spoken out loud. This the sort of remark that should really only be said in private, to someone you’ve know a long time, communicated with for years. ( Getting something across to a friend in private is a world away from communicating here)
I know Osho is dead intellectually, but my irrational side, (and happy with that), experiences him as very much still alive. For me. (Yes. I know. More new age tosh. Just cant manage to express this better. )
@ Ashok.
I’ve never been particularly caught up with him as a physical presence. Even at the ashram. Might be something to with me wearing glass, so even as close to him as I was in Darshan he just appeared a blob, a blur; so my sense of where he was at internally didn’t change when he died. ( I had internalised him so strongly by the time he died his death didn’t change anything for me.)
Arpana,you say:
“I know Osho is dead intellectually, but my irrational side, (and happy with that), experiences him as very much still alive.For me. (Yes. I know. More new age tosh. Just cant manage to express this better. )”
I postulate that everyone here has dreamed and probably still does, now and again, about Osho.
If you remember enough dreams, this is a certainty.
In these dreams Osho will be most times alive. The dreaming experience that takes place in the `unconscious` or `right brain` or whatever, is perceived at the time that it happens as real by `you` the dream ego.
People have these kind of experiences with all people that they were close to who have died . They are often felt as meaningful,significant,vital.
They are `real` on their own terms, Not real in the way that you can show in the 3D conscious world.
When people try to literalise these experiences like spiritualists and the like do, the mystery and the poetry of the dream world is lost, at best,like a clumsy `explanation` of your favourite poem,painting or song.
At worst,like the dogmatic assertion of an absurd article of faith.
`Osho is alive`
is true in the sense that love is a rose and death is a door.
The literalising of experience literalises the experiencer.
Poetry becomes idolatry and the idol is really the `I`.
@ frank says: 9 September, 2015 at 8:13 pm.
Great post Frank. You’ve excelled yourself.
Classic rationalisation. Gets funnier.
Arpana,
What you have written is open, honest and vulnerable. And it matters not whether I or anyone else believes you or not. What is important is that you reveal yourself. Only then can a dialogue and a discovery or exploration with others take place. And only then can you feel free.
If you are condemned or trashed , you find out again whether your idea is true or false. That’s all that matters in this journey of self discovery.
I don’t condemn or trash it or you.
My understanding is this: and its up to you to show me whether it’s right or wrong, if you wish to.
You see yourself in relationship to Osho because as you read him, the words and the extraordinary simplicity of his understanding resonate with you deeply.
You feel the words as true for you, and they take you into the truth that is already in you. They still you, they empower you. But the deeper truth is that they just reflect your truth. They are you.
The ‘ mistake’ you make is personalising this. Believing that you are in some way in relationship to a man, a guru or whatever. Perhaps even someone is ‘ more’ than you.
This is unnecessary, as once the truth is revealed by someone, if you see it as true – it becomes your own truth.
And there is no relationship needed or desired.
Osho spoke for years and many times indicated that he did what he did, for his own pleasure, for his satisfaction, to make himself feel better. What could be wrong with that? He told us time and time again that he had no relationship to us or to anyone.
The “experience” of him being alive is just your own sensation of life, and not him at all.
I, too know how difficult it is to describe these subjective realms of the mind, the difficulty in putting in words what is, often indescribable but I can assure you, that in this recent post, your endeavour is successful and your desire to do so, moving.
Frank.. In the canyons of the heart, we disperse.
That’s why this can soar, into the sun, because this becomes light and lighter over and again.
laughter is so effortless then ….where is the what .
@Simond. 9 September, 2015 at 9:23 pm
“The ‘ mistake’ you make is personalising this. Believing that you are in some way in relationship to a man, a guru or whatever. Perhaps even someone is ‘ more’ than you. ”
Your taking that too literally, and I question that you are in a position to say what is the right way. What is mistake, not mistake You have to stop addressing me/us, as if you know. From here, at best, you know no more or less than the rest of us. (I accept your good intentions here. )
The problem with this kind of rap is that it presents manipulation and manipulators as the preserve of priests, families, politicians etc, ie `them`. Yet, everybody manipulates, however `enlightened` or not.
If you look at the word etymologically, it comes from the Latin for hand, it means basically `using the hand`. A biologist will tell you that the design of the human hand is a defining feature that separates humans from other animals along with language and having a sense of humour.
Non-manipulative humans are like barkless dogs!
Woof woof!
Nice shift of perspective.
Arpana correctly quotes how Osho describes how everyone uses manipulation for their own purposes, even the so called innocent children.
We manipulate to survive and this is pretty much unavoidable. But I love how Osho shows us how this can become habitual and has negative consequences, children for example cry to get attention for food etc. But this soon has the potential for psychic manipulation of adults and their environment.
Might we say that there is no “good or bad” manipulation, but that we need to be conscious of its affects in order to fully understand it? To no longer be a victim of it.
Lokesh suggests that people are stupid and that there may be nothing wrong with an element of manipulation,but there is danger when people think they are cleverer than those so called stupid people.
Doesn’t it lead to arrogance ? To knowing what is best? To a personal quest for power ? And isn’t that a feature of many gurus and teachers ? As he suggests didn’t that arrogance affect him too? In his misunderstanding of the west ? In how America would respond to him?
The more I think I know what is best for others the closer I get to acting arrogantly. I have to keep this arrogance in check. The more I think I know, the further I am from staying true.
Manipulating others for their own good…
Bend over, this is going to hurt me more than it hurts you….
I am crushing your ego out of my immense compassion…
etc etc
All the religious/spiritual abuses come from this point.
At least they could have the self-awareness to say `I am manipulating you because if you act according to how I want you to act it will benefit me even if just on the level that I will enjoy that I have had an effect on you`
Mind you,I would never expect that degree of intelligence from the sort of cretins like Bodhi Moron ,who comes on here sometimes,and doesn`t realise the utter stupidity of having a go at people by saying they`re `coming from the mind` and `having an ego`etc…
Barkless dogs again.
Make sure they don`t creep up behind you and bite your ass!
You might get spiritual rabies.
P.S:
I thought that the experience on the Ranch was a painful inoculation for spiritual rabies.
Did I get that wrong?
Arpie says, ‘You dropped Sannyas the end of the seventies I didn’t.’
Bully for you.
I have never considered the idea of dropping sannyas. It just never occured to me, because I have no need of such a milestone and simply cannot relate to this ‘drop sannyas’ shite, which sounds to me like a throwback to Poona One days, as in….did you hear Swami Bozo dropped sannyas?… well, hardly surprising, everyone knew Bozo missed.
That you, Arpie, hang onto what sounds very much like a crutch to me is your business as is imagining Osho is still working on you. I ask you what good is any of that stuff doing you, because you come across like you are wound up tighter that a watch spring.
You say, ‘You mean because it means nothing to you it shouldn’t mean something to me?’ This comes across as extremely narrow-minded thinking, because you totally misinterpret my question, which is based in pure curiosity, with nothing malicious behind it. Your uptightness blinds you to this. You see me as some kind of enemy, although you actually know very little about me. Is this where you are at, even with Osho working on you. Does not seem to be the right medicine, let alone the ultimate one.
So I ask you once again, ‘You say Osho ‘does’ speaking in the present tense. What exactly does that mean to you?’ I am curious how people like you envision what it is Osho is doing.
Osho, after all, again and again, said that he was not, ultimately speaking, doing anything at all. So how does your vision fit into his vision, taking that into consideration. I would appreciate a sincere response, instead of your usual pissed-off two line reactions. To coin your own words, ‘Nice shift of perspective.’ Yes that would be very nice indeed, were it to actually come from you.
Frank enquires, Did I get that wrong?.
Ehm….somehow I kind of doubt it. I never went to the ranch, so perhaps you could enlighten me.
“Ehm….somehow I kind of doubt it. I never went to the Ranch, so perhaps you could enlighten me.”
You’ve changed your tune. The last time the Ranch got mentioned you patronised the shit out of Parmartha, who was there.
Looks like that nice shift in perspective is not something poor Arpie is capable of coming up with. Which means we can look forward to the same old, same old in the form of snidey one-liners and copy and pasted Osho quotes that he does not seem to question in the slightest. Ho-hum. Well, can’t say I did not try.
Basically, I see Arpie as someone who is completely stuck. I find myself asking how could someone who had contact with Osho go for such a lame game? The answer that comes back is that he has become comfortable with being stuck, because that way he can avoid change and the discomfort that oftentimes accompanies it. Also that he can remain with a fixed perspective that does not allow anything new to enter.
You know when he feels threatened because he follows the old adage that the best form of defence is attack, and thus finds himself permanently lodged in a muddy, frontline trench in an imaginary war based on defending Osho, Sannyas, himself and whatever else sluggish shite fills his mind.
Suggested reading, Chogyam Trumpa’s ‘Six Lokas’, and how it happens that one falls from the Deva realm into the Asura realm is recommended reading in this case. Then again, maybe such reading will not cut the mustard because it is not produced by Osho. Fucked if I know and fucked if I care.
Yes you do care. You wouldn’t react this way if you didn’t.
Re the Ranch..
We know now that it was all part of a master plan to get rid of religious crap.
Osho always said you have to do stuff first in order to to go past it.
God is a duff fantasy
Religion is a game for grownups who have forgotten its a game.
Religion retards.
Krishnamurti knew it and said it…
so did Osho.
The difference was, Osho set up and conducted a massive situationist real-time psycho-drama to actually prove it !
i wanted castle in the air
but it disappeared without a trace
i wanted pie in the sky
but you gave it me in the face
!
—Roger Mcgough
The blog has discussed four versus five stage dynamic, but seems like one of Jyoti’s points has been missed.
Basically the early dynamic meditation led in person by Osho had no music accompanying it. At Mt Abu for example it seems that Osho talked his way in Hindi through the whole thing.. . . Must have been a very different experience.
Also, at different times producers have overlaid the dynamic with recordings of Osho’s voice in both Hindi and English… … someone told me that they are available through Keerti or Arun.
One other thing for those creating meditations… the earliest dynamic was four stages, and all 15 minutes in length. I often found the 10 minute stages too short, so clearly I was a four stage man!
The first time I did an Osho meditation was without music, Kundalini in fact. Was speechless for the rest of the day, and caught a bus to a park miles from where I lived, so I could be out and about on my own. Was one of the first times in my life I was at ease alone, actually didn’t want, or need anyone to talk to.
Deuter talks about meeting Osho and creating the music for the meditations:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JImajAma80I&client=mv-vf-uk&safesearch=always
Thanks for the link, SS
All this aspirational so-called love blossoming silence is nothing more than auto-erotism. It should have no more privilege in the real world than meeting your closest friend and sharing tea, a favour, paying their bill at a restaurant, inviting each other to the music gig, even , and yes even being or becoming animal-centric/compassionate/vegan and being provocatively so.
The rest is desecrating life as we know with an overlay of proto-identification gone berserk, under the guise of heartfulness. My bloody foot. The stinking amount of bourgeois mutual masturbation in Sannyas must be revealed for the hypocrisy that it is. Like the buddhists or christians.
I’ve just had dinner with those who would call themselves Osho disciples. Every single one a meat eater. Obviously, the auto-erotism didn’t go very far then, did it, beloveds?
I WANT meat,someone else doesn’t Want meat, or whatever – what is the difference, apart from the fact that I like condemning the one who wants what I
don’t want, or doesn’t want what I want?
Isn’t that a recipe for division, war, mostly in my/ourselves? Bloody awful!
Karima, it’s time to declare the contemporary sannyas hypocrisy meat eaters war for what it is. Masturbation over suffering. Get out of your semantic bollocks and stop defending those, maybe even yourself, who suck off vegetarian/ vegan lifestylers and animals because their spunk is in their heads, because they can fool you with their conscienceless arse and pictures of a bloke with a beard, to blow job.
The young Osho grew up with a group of jainas that were strictly vegetarian.
He said that they would not even use tomatoes in their cooking because tomatoes had the red colour, and looked too similar to meat.
Once, the young Osho was camping in the outback somewhere, in some hill-station, with some Hindu friends , who persuaded him to eat some tomatoes that they were using in their cooking.
They had cooked the food late, at the end of the day, so the meal was not ready until nightime.
Eating at nightime is also forbidden to Jains, and Osho was reluctant to eat the food, but his friends persuaded him.
Osho said that after he had eaten the meal , the first time he had eaten tomatoes, he had vomited the whole night, although his friends were fine, but he was was vomiting , just because of his childhood conditioning that it was not ok to eat tomatoes.
P.S:
In case you were wondering why Jainas aren’t allowed to eat after dark, it’s because they don’t want any insects or living creatures to accidentally get into their food whilst they are cooking.
I actually had the experience after completing a two-day water fast, a few months ago, whilst walking in a field, of a small insect flying straight into my mouth, and down into my stomach.
This happened on the day that I broke my fast, and I had been enjoying feeling very purified, and although I had tried to cough the little fly out, I had to accept that one of my first meals was some living protein.
And this, by the way, is why some of the Jain monks cover their mouths with a small piece of cloth, to prevent any insects accidentally flying inside.
You seem to know a lot about Jains, SS. Have you ever visited Ranakpur in Rajasthan? The place Osho ran his first camp.
If I had another life I would visit. I have seen pictures of the Jain Temple there, amazing. Its interesting, for his first camp Osho choose a very Jain village and the camp must have attracted mainly Jains. Also the publication of those first camp talks was down to the Jain community.
I never visited Ranakpur, but years ago, whilst staying on a hill station named Matheran, close to Bombay, I met an Indian man who happened to be a Jain, and who told me that Osho used to stay with his aunt when he visited Bombay in the sixties, apparently his aunt was very wealthy and owned a large property in the Juhu area of Bombay.
The guy was spiritual and interested in the work of UG Krishnamurti, but not particularly into Osho.
He told me that his father had been involved with both Osho and J. Krishnamurti in the early days, and that his father had met ‘Rajneesh’ personally , when he had stayed in Bombay , and that he told him that he was “very magnetic”!
But the guy felt that Osho had been very good in the beggining, but later had “lost his sense of what was right and wrong”.
I got the impression that he felt that Osho may have been “corrupted” by his western disciples.
Still, unlike his father he had never met Osho, and he was very into the teachings of UG Krishnamurti.
readable and interesting reflections, SS. Thanks.
It’s not ‘someone’ else. as a person who has that choice ( choice as ‘fuck-it yeah lets have a barbecue’ )…it’s you have the consciousness to notice the animal does not invite being killed as per its screams, the industry of suffering, the indulgence of boring farts in the airport or at the chi chi cafe munching on a pig’s arse, while smearing sun tun lotion over their tits at the beach…
It is ‘someone’ but not as you refer to as the indulgent equation of humans only being someone – but every sentient animal in your consciousness of feeling is someone too. Very someone.
Get real after all these years, there’s still time. Or change religion and dump the species-centric, ego-fuelled eyeballs of associated Osho proto-love.
If you want to talk about veganism and sannyas, etc Martyn, then please send the editorial team an article. Sometimes your interests just take you well off topic, which we dont want.
@Arpana
Thanks very much for taking the time and effort with your various responses, Arpana.
I am very happy to be found wrong in questioning your motives on this occasion, as what you wrote made for very interesting reading for me, and is appreciated.
As I think I have a better picture now of where you are coming from, hopefully I might be better able to rein myself in from going off on one of my regular fantastical little mind-trips in future! (Please note that I did say, hopefully!).
Best rgds,
Ashok
Thanks for getting me to make the effort to express it.
Dynamic without music ?
I came across my first experience with that indeed fabulous meditation structure end of seventieths last century .
Unfortunately in a german ´Sannyas Centre´in the bavarian countryside;
we – (60 participants of a two week´s packed ´Easter Energy Event´, composed like the Pune group setting “Awareness and Expression “.(which I did participate in Pune later).
In Bavaria we were all ordered to be naked and most of us (like me) took the jump to experience that.
While we were catharthing (or imagining to open up to what came up) the meditation leader walked all around the sticky turmoil happening with his cymbels – or took the voice to scream into the ones or other ears from very near (we all had blindfolds) and shouting “give it all, spit it out ” etc .
I was extremely shocked by his behavior , him, running around in the midst of our sweaty bunch of uproar and turmoil and having fun to do that.
Only later (after the rebirthing part of the group , which had also been very , very intense) , I found out that he used to look for women he wanted to fuck, whenever there would be a possibility .
After a five hour or so very long rebirthing part, he came to my matrace and shifted his strong and heavy body on mine, and I haven´t been yet in my senses , as the rebirthing part was (and ever is) something you need lots of time to re-gather yourself again.
But what to do; he was sexually aroused and was in his ´mood. (he was the centre leader).
Took me much effort to get rid of his enormous weight and crumbled then like a ´babe´looking for some way to digest it . All.
I can say, that the ´Dynamic`is indeed a very strong meditation,
yet my entrance into it has been very much shadowed so to say, and I am sorry to say, that I never really recovered or totally erased the memories of perpetrating so called meditation leaders ;
be it the way , these first experiences have been accompanied with –
be it later, when I came across meditation ´leaders´, who used to rate the participants after the dynamic meditation in the associated coffee bar or at the breakfast tables…
I am writing here some ´black book´indeed, and don´t mind, if you don´t want to publish that.
It was then and there that I decided , I have to go to Pune , India, see the Master, a Master, who had touched my Soul , see the place , and see and experience other nations of Sannyas-friends and also other surroundings for meditations – other than the german ways in that historical time.
So my first step into “Dynamic” kind of happened with the ´wrong foot , to put it friendly – and up to nowadays and for many reasons , it is not one of my favorites.
Sure enough, it has been good, that at that time , I had been already in my trainings of Gestalt Therapy (Fritz Perls Institut) – and I just mention it here, to make clear , that I have not been shocked by carthathing or this structure of the meditation processing as such.
Nowadays, still very much appreciating the inumerous invitations to go ´IN´, the Master shared with us all, I grew up to much more disillusioned awareness about the energetic FIELD – so to say and my capacity to deal with it.
You – Parmartha – you do speak sometimes of the calamity ´cases´, but I want to share, especially according to the issue of ´Dynamic´, how important that is , that one is able to let go in a trustworthy surrounding.
And above all, without any rating about anything from anybody.
I sincerely was attracted by Jyotis contribution the way I shared above, but I mean the whole of it, all these stories of kindness and modesty.
The ´Dynamic´ages ago, how it was lived then and there is just a tiny part of it, I feel. And all is storytelling of Intimacy and touching my heart.
The ´silent Dynamic´(second stage) often happening here amongst the pretty inner circle of regulars ; quite often my difficulties with that – up to , that it´s paining me inside.
Then I go at best capacity inside to look why i am so ´hooked´here and there.
In silence then, I sometimes end up with the NOW; and Peace and just gratitude of being part of a caravanserai ´whatsoever…´
sometimes not ending in silence like obviously now , and then revealing indeed old rotten stories of mine , like the one , I mentioned just now.
Put it on the virtual table… a little story amongst millions of others
Madhu
Thanks Madhu, a story worth the telling.
There were some casualties of cathartic meditations, and catharsis in general. I knew a few from the Reichian centre here in London, totally outside of sannyas.
The main thing is the wisdom and discrimination of the group leader or therapist. They should not have encouraged people who were not ready, etc, or accepted them as their clients. Their decisions based on wilful ignornce or financial greed, or sometimes ideological craziness, like “EVERYONE benefits from catharsis”!
‘There were some casualties of cathartic meditations, and catharsis in general.’
Would you care to elaborate on the above, PM?
Hi Ashok,
Yes, I led loud five stage dynamic with music for about four years in the mid-90s in Jackson’s Lane, Highgate, London. Most people realised it was a play, but not all. Some lacked ‘maturity’, and a few had had mental health problems, etc.
The meditation is definitely not for those on medication for depression, etc, and maybe not for those on any sort of medication, as those western drugs are much more powerful than most taking them realise!
Once only, I realised that some kind of psychotic episode had been provoked, and did my best to get the guy home, etc.
In general, especially with the Humaniversity in its early stages, I did seee casualities amongst acquaintances. I remember three distinctly. I reflected on all three, that they were not ‘ready’ for such stuff, and that commercial considerations may have led them to be accepted in those groups, etc.
But if I am wrong on that, then it means that the ‘therapists’ who were involved had poor judgement or lacked life experience, as they allowed those guys to take their courses/groups.
In Pune 1 there were also a few casualties that I knew. Two ended up in the local Pune mental hospital before friends, etc. got them back to the West. Of course they may have suffered breakdowns whatever they got into, there’s no way of telling, but they should not have done groups like encounter and primal.
Osho did allow Indians to do all the meditations, and the dynamic was used in his early camps, and I believe there were a few casualties there. Later, in Pune 1, Laxmi instucted that Indians were not allowed to do the Esalen-type groups, and I could myself see the sense in that.
What is behind your question, Ashok?
@Parmartha:
Thanks for that.
I have often wondered if cathartic practice might have some negative effects, but having never seen any concrete evidence myself, I was curious to know what shape and form it might take.
“Most people realised it was a play, but not all.”
Not sure what you mean by “a play” here, Parmartha. I never regarded dynamic as just ‘playing around’ or indulging in some kind of ‘energy play’, or whatever, for me the purpose was always pretty serious, ie freeing myself from whatever was screwing me up, and I gave it everything I had, as per instructions!
I recall a young ‘veteran’ of very early 70s India advising us newbies at the Bell Street, London centre in ’73 to “breathe until you die!” in the first stage, as all would flow from those initial 10 minutes – and I tried hard to do just that. Hellish, but it worked.
But you probably mean something else?
I have wondered if dynamic was especially for anyone who suffered from, the ‘if it hurts and makes me miserable and I hate it, so it must be good for me ‘syndrome. A puritan’s wet dream really.
Over and above that, if we were inclined to be in our heads types, well, no being in your head doing dynamic. Sheesh.
Well, yes, dynamic suited me perfectly in that respect, Arps, but for me it was not only “a puritan’s wet dream”, it was a miraculous ‘life-saver’, a ‘gift from the gods’, as it were. I’ve already mentioned this more than once at SN, but in true ‘repetition-for-emphasis’ mode, I repeat:
Dynamic meditation, practised totally, at least several times a week, often nearly every day, for about 15 months, rescued me from 4 and a half years of debilitating, dysfunctional depression (all the negative influences in my young life finally ‘putting the boot in’ – and keeping it there) that had descended on me shortly after my 21st birthday, and which a considerable amount of individual and group therapy – including an ongoing group with Veeresh (pre-Sannyas), 48 hours ‘marathon’ encounter weekends and 1-to-1 sessions including bio-energetics, both led by Ma Yoga Sudha (pre-Sannyas) and over 3 years of 1-to-1 NHS psychiatry sessions – hadn’t managed to shift.
In fact, within a few days of starting the initial 2 weeks course at the Centre I noticed very beneficial changes, telling a friend, “My body’s starting to un-suppress itself!”
It was one of the most wonder-ful periods of my life, a psycho-physical ‘rebirth’, with multiple spin-offs, a significant part of the beauty and the value of which was that it arose directly from accessing my own vital energy and didn’t depend on anyone else, notably including realising, for the first time, the therapeutic benefits of let-go dancing – not to mention being opened up to the magnetic attraction of ‘Bhagwan’ and his world….
The wet dream remark was aimed at me really, but I agree with you. If you go for it and stay with it, it’s amazing. Gave me a groundedness I’d never had, although the committing to something so challenging until it’s done is also part of what increases the groundedness imo.
Took me to a place from which I never fell back, although that has happened a number of times since I took sannyas, and I was always frightened of that happening (Myth of Sisyphus).
One of the reasons, meditation, cathartic meditations don’t work well for people in some cases, in my view, is that they quit when the going gets most difficult, when the shit hits the fan, after the honeymoon phase, which is the moment they most need to keep going to find the calm after the storm as it were.
This comment was for Ashok.
So, do you mean, Arpana, that specifically I, Ashok, have to ‘keep going to find the calm after the storm’?
Not specifically you. No.
Only you can find that out.
This is an individual trial and error process.
However, if I can do it, I can see no reason you can’t.
A powerful story Madhu..
You always speak with such generosity and honesty about the suffering and joys that you have faced. Such is life?
Your tale reminds me why I so often felt out of place around some sanyassins in the day.
There always were some strange folk attracted to Sannyas, some very damaged and hurt, and the group leader with his lists and wandering hands was one of them – and in a position of power and authority.
My own experience of dynamic was largely negative, I never liked it although of course I thought I should do it. In the early 80′s it seemed an obligatory part of the groups I did and was central to the precepts behind Sannyas.
These were that we were all “messed up” and needed primal work outs to even begin to start the real “work “on ourselves. Dynamic would sort it all out!
It was a legacy of that fantastic work done in the 60′s and 70′s with primal therapy etc etc
It came across as a strategy of “one size fits all”!
Even as I participated in this strategy I wondered at the falseness of it. I could see how many people forced to “spit out their anger “were making it up. “Anger”, was not the the reason for my questions about Life.
Anger just kept alive the pain and confusion.
Dynamic, it seemed to me reinforced anger. It fed it, and kept it alive.
The evidence was all around me, knowing as I did some men, in particular who had done dynamic for years. Even today some continue to practice and believe that all their anger has yet to be “released”, without asking themselves if it ever will ?
Having said that there are today still people I respect who tell me that dynamic was part of their healing and helped them. They tell me about their deeply repressed childhoods and their need to discover their pain and release their anger. Dynamic, helped in this process.
What can I say ? It’s not my experience but what do I know?
I was also surprised reading here how Osho encouraged his Indian followers to do dynamic. What was the motivation behind his thinking ? And did it help ? Perhaps someone could enlighten me.
Thank you for more than ´reading´, Simond.
With love,
Madhu
Simond:
Osho did allow Indians to do all the meditations, and the dynamic was used in his early camps, and there were a few casualties there. I remember one story of some rich Indian guy being brought there by a friend, and stripped off during dynamic, and refused to put his clothes back on, others might know the source/story better than me.
Later in Pune 1, Laxmi instructed that Indians were not allowed to do the Esalen-type groups, and I could myself see the sense in that. (As a reminder: One never knew abut pronouncements from Laxmi, whether Osho had instructed her to say so, or just gave her leave).
I remember the discourse where Osho talks about the tale of the guy who took all his clothes off, I have it somewhere on video , it is one of the Bombay ones: “Beyond Enlightenment”.
Osho was laughing as he recounted how he encouraged the participants of the camp, which was on Mt Abu, to just do whatever they felt like for a while. Someone took his clothes off, someone climbed up a tree and threw coconuts at people, and someone else ended up trying to push Osho’s car, or Osho’s drivers car, off a cliff!
I think that after that camp Osho was dissallowed to hold any more camps there.