DANCING WITH MISTER D: Lokesh reflects
”If a person can enjoy and celebrate his death, that shows he has lived rightly; there is no other criterion. Your death will prove how you have lived.” OSHO
You have all probably heard an elderly person say something along the lines of, ‘You know when you are getting old when the policemen begin to look like kids and people you know begin to die around you.’ And so it is. Soon it will be our turn.
We recently had a post about Vimal dying and just a few days ago. Saahas died from cancer in the UK, quite a well known sannyasin on the international scene. Belonging to the extended family that the sannyas community represents it is getting to the point that you hear of someone you have known dying almost every week. Facebook has more than a little to do with this, although I find the whole thing undignified. A couple of weeks back, a sannyasin woman posted a message on Sahas’s Facebook page saying, ‘I heard you are dying. Have a good journey.’ Sahas was upset upon hearing this. Not difficult too understand. (Sahas was holding on to the hope that he could somehow beat the cancer at the time.) And I also think in part because it trivializes someone’s dying process to speak in such a flippant way,and the idea of going on a journey implies a number of givens that may not necessarily fit into one’s belief system.
Osho endeavoured to lighten up the whole death trip by turning it into a cause for celebration, but the downside is it might not be so easy to live up to that when wearing an oxygen mask and being jacked into a morphine drip to deaden what can be an excruciatingly painful process.
From all accounts I have heard, Osho died in a dignified and relaxed way. He certainly seems to have practised what he preached on that level and I take it as a source of inspiration. So let’s return to the above Osho quote and go into it a little. I checked out a few quotes and somehow felt this one was the most essential.
‘If a person can enjoy and celebrate his death, that shows he has lived rightly; there is no other criterion.’ Just so, but what exactly does it mean to live rightly? Perhaps some of you would care to share a few pointers. I recently read something by the Beedie Wallah that stayed with me, which runs somewhere along these lines, ‘Embrace everything that life brings to you and be kind to all creatures, this will also bring you to the true self.’ Yes, kindness rings a Tibetan bell. At the conclusion of the Grateful Dead’s last concert Bob Weir’s farewell words were, ‘Be kind’. Simple and good advice.
‘Your death will prove how you have lived.’ I believe that to be absolutely true.
I always loved The Grateful Dead. Unlike much of today’s music they sang songs about not only surreal but very real things, and it is therefore I bring about a conclusion with a few choice lines from one of their great songs.
Big wheel turn by the grace of God,
Every time that wheel turn ’round,
Bound to cover just a little more ground.
Whether or not you agree with that there is no denying the optimism of those lines. In popular culture you often see a public response to a person’s death with the following words. Have a good journey. Fly on etc..
What I find myself asking is where would one journey to on one’s flight. After all, the masters always say reality is always here and now. I think Ramana Maharshi captured it best. Ramana developed cancer and when his devotees voiced concern about losing him, he responded with the statement “I am not going anywhere, where shall I go? I shall be there where I am always.”
Perhaps, in my humble opinion, one of the most enlightening statements ever uttered. Maybe some of you would care to comment.
Saahas on utube:
“I am not going anywhere, where shall I go? I shall be there where I am always.”
Lokesh attributes this statement to Ramana Maharishi.
I think similar words are spoken millions of times by head of the familes or head of the religious cults, sects and schools.
Modern version can be said like this, ” Hay i am not going that far away. We will always remain connected via sms or skype. Here is my number for what´s app*. Interplanetary code is Meditation.”
To me, death is a totally individual / personal phenomenon, just like other living aspects of life & so there cannot be any generalisation as such.
As a child we were told, “It is going to God / Heaven”, then while growing I found my own way of dealing with it. Later I saw it as one goes/is where one one wants to be or not be & then I came across these few who know that there is nowhere to go, like the above mentioned by Lokesh & I am inclined towards this kind.
Thanks the post, Lokesh, a good one.
Some 30 months ago, according to western medicine, I was supposed to have had a near death experience. I had had a very major urine retention, had faled to get to an A and E, and for something like nine hours, may have been longer.
It was a very terrible pain. Never experienced something like it, before or since, and I have been told in other circumstances like dentistry that I have a high pain threshold.
Afterwards, when a young doctor finally got a foley catheter in me, I remember three things:
One, of enormous bliss from the relief.
Second, the doctor who attended me saying, “Well we got there just in time, your bladder was likely about to burst.”
And then thirdly, praying to God that when my time did come, please, please, make it painless!
So, like you, Lokesh, I am reminded that death certainly is not always pain free, and cannot always be contrived to be pain free. Crucification for example was always worse for the strong in fact because they took much longer to die. But Jesus’s life could not have been lived more bravely and creatively.
In the UK parliament yesterday a voluntary death bill was rejected. I am not so sure about this.
On Lokesh’s choice of Osho quote…. well, well, ? It all sounds very reassuring and mystically beautiful. but..
I suppose I might have been “meditative” in my pain and terribly restless hospital bed those 30 months ago…. but it did not happen, and so maybe the way I lived was/ or was not reflected in the way I was dying…but in my case I would take some persuading the two are connected.
”If a person can enjoy and celebrate his death, that shows he has lived rightly; there is no other criterion. Your death will prove how you have lived.”
Proved to whom?
To a panel of judges on ‘The Death Factor’, ITV, Friday 9PM?
I understand this quote more as an exhortation to live rightly than indicative of the need to prove one’s` place in the necrocracy.
Bringing the idea of death tends to add immediacy and importance to any idea about life.
It is a way of making words talk.
It reminds me of the utterings of that other legendary sage, Bul Shankarly:
“Football is not a matter of life and death, it`s much more important than that.”
It`s not literally true but it points to a truth.
Like a finger pointing at a moon-shaped leather sphere.
And before I forget, here`s another classic from ol` Rog…
Let me die a youngman’s death
not a clean and inbetween
the sheets holywater death
not a famous-last-words
peaceful out of breath death
When I’m 73
and in constant good tumour
may I be mown down at dawn
by a bright red sports car
on my way home
from an allnight party
Or when I’m 91
with silver hair
and sitting in a barber’s chair
may rival gangsters
with hamfisted tommyguns burst in
and give me a short back and insides
Or when I’m 104
and banned from the Cavern
may my mistress
catching me in bed with her daughter
and fearing for her son
cut me up into little pieces
and throw away every piece but one
Let me die a youngman’s death
not a free from sin tiptoe in
candle wax and waning death
not a curtains drawn by angels borne
‘what a nice way to go’ death.
Lovely to hear my sannyasin peers talking about these matters. There are so many ‘spiritual’ people around Glastonbury it’s almost impossible to take a view that there may not be anything after death. I think holding that view enhances life, a bit like Carlos Castenada said, you should live with death on your shoulder – if you think death is just a transition to more life it doesn’t have the same edge.
Pain is another matter. I’m a masochist, but proper pain, the kind no-one can stop, is terrible. The Buddhists have it right on this, old age, sickness and death, but I don’t think that justifies spending your whole life trying to attain a Nirvana which is not in this world. This world is a fantastic thing, to be human, corporeal with all its sensations and emotions, to love and be loved, even if only by a cat! I cried for 2 weeks when my last cat died, partly because I felt my stupidity had failed to get him an operation that might have saved him, but that’s another story.
Anyway, I still don’t really believe I’m going to die, but when I do I hope I will feel satisfied with my innings, will not be in too much pain, and I contine to believe that it will be the total and final end for me, the universe can continue as it seemingly always has done, without me in it. It’s the old philosophical chestnut: if the tree falls in the forest and no-one sees it happen, has it really fallen at all?
Maybe our conciousness consumates reality; without it, it doesn’t ‘exist’. If so, there is a strong reason for humanity to survive. I believe our one purpose in life needs to be to move humanity from its present self-destructive path toward sustainability, so that consciousness can continue for millions of years. I hope I’m contributing to that aim in my life, and if I have done that, however I die it will feel ok.
Roger that.
Nice to see a contribution from you, Roger. Oddly enough, I often wondered if you had passed on, as had not seen you running on the heath for many years! But here find you are in Glastonbury.
I have often speculated myself if the universe continues to exist without being observed.
My old Professor (now long dead!), Karl Popper, got very annoyed with me for suggesting such a thing, I think because it was very important for him that the physical world was actually totally independent.
If death proves how one has lived, for sannyasins it will be interesting to understand the death of Nirvano.
Who else was so close to Osho than her?
I seem to remember somebody on here saying just a few months ago that Nirvano, was bi-polar?
Maybe that someone was Arpana.
Was Lokesh.
He’s always name-dropping about Poona 1 and the old days.
Arpie, perhaps you could be the first to supply the readers with your personal vision of what exactly Osho means by living rightly.
Being as honest with oneself as is humanly possible.
Optimally honest at any given time.
In my view, Lokesh, you need to be put in your place, but I am coming at that from a place of unfinished trips about power-trippers and bullies.
That does not sound so good. Put in my place? Sounds a bit old school, something my dad might have come away with, ex-military.
Well, I can only wish you luck with that. Sounds like you have your work cut out for you. I had to deal with plenty of bullies as a kid growing up in Glasgow. I eventually learned to stand my ground. Some of the bullies ran away and others gave me a hiding. I still have a scar over my spine where I was knifed. Funny thing is though, I loved growing up in Glasgow.
@ Lokesh:
I lived in Glasgow as a skinny kid with specs, and near Glasgow. Met a lot of bullies. Unlike you, didn’t turn me into one.
I notice you avoided my point about being as honest with oneself as possible. Why am I not surprised?
Arpie, I did not avoid your point. Honesty is a biggie that, to be honest, I do not feel I have the time to go into right now. It is complicated. We are complicated beings.
For example, certain people think they are being honest when they dump their shit on others. Who needs that kind of honesty?
Then we have the issue of how deep does one’s honesty go? One can imagine that one is being totally honest about oneself, while ignoring the fact that we function a lot from our unconscious, which can be seen as a rogue nuclear submarine, cruising the depths, loaded with an atomic arsenal, ready to play havoc on the surface of the conscious, which represents, according to psychologists, only 10% of one’s mind.
So, taking that into consideration, how honest can we actually be about ourselves? Not very, is the correct answer. I could go into it further but, to be kind of honest, I would not want to risk boring anyone
“For example, certain people think they are being honest when they dump their shit on others.”
You, for example.
As for all the other qualifications, I very carefully said, “Optimally honest at any given time.”
Which covers all that as far as I’m concerned.
I’m not fully conscious. Sure, I screw up.
The day you show the merest hint of acknowledging you are not separate from the human condition…
Well, not gonna happen is it?
Arps, isn’t a large part of your resentment of Lokesh down to him having a very different attitude towards/relationship with Osho to yours? So each time he makes a, shall we say, less than ‘reverential’ remark about him you feel somehow ‘threatened’, perhaps even somewhat undermined at a significantly intimate level? Rather like someone making offhand derogatory comments about one’s parents, or lover – or anyone else one feels deeply ‘attached’ to?
Hence, through that particular, subjective lens, your view of him as “arrogant” etc. etc?
Poor Arpie, it would appear that you are lacking inspiration So, in an effort to help you see the light, I hearby dedicate this song to you, one of my all time favourites and the way these wonderful musicians do it makes it even more so. Inspirational.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xjPODksI08&index=2&list=PLC0A6F2B5A9E6A80D
I knew about her bi-polar condition, so it might have been yo.
Shantam, that depends entirely on one’s interpretation of what being close to Osho actually means.
So the truth has become subordinated to the interpretation…
Close to Osho means close to Osho, there is no other esoteric or parapsychological meaning.
Although she was Osho’s ‘carer’, he most definitely wasn’t hers. Perhaps any expectations that such close proximity to a master somehow guarantees or ‘should’ guarantee the mental health, emotional stability and overall well-being of a disciple are, like so many of our expectations about life, let alone a master, utterly misplaced nonsense.
I guess any such expectations of Osho might, for westerners, derive from deeply-held notions of the ‘Sunday School’ Jesus – you know, the one that would take care of us ‘for ever’, even after we die (as long as we ‘toe the line’ and behave ourselves, of course!).
Now, if you’ll kindly excuse me, it’s time to prepare for Evensong….
“…such close proximity to a master somehow guarantees…the mental health…and emotional stability…of a disciple are…utterly misplaced nonsense.”
Yes, SD, one cannot argue with the logic of your argument here.
I think somebody other than Lokesh (might have been Parmartha) also reported that Nirvano took her own life, thus conforming to the typical pattern and outcome of many with BP disorder, and thus lending further weight to your line of thinking here, I believe: that despite being close to a master (possibly enlightened), the devastating effects and course of a serious psychiatric disease cannot for the most part, in the real world, be overcome.
Nevertheless, at this juncture and in addition, bearing in mind the utterly indisputable and incontrovertible negative effects of mental illness on those person/s close to the victim/sufferer of the disease, it may be interesting, I think, to revisit Shantam’s starting point:
“If death proves how one has lived, for sannyasins it will be interesting to understand the death of Nirvano. Who else was so close to Osho, than her?”
If one were to approach this postulate from the perspective of Osho himself having suffered from a mental affliction e.g. he became delusional in the months before leaving the body and claimed he was Gautam Buddha, might this not lend a certain credence to what Shantam has invited us to contemplate?
P.S:
When you mention “Evensong”, does this refer to that ‘Whoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooosssssssssshhhhhhh’ (hope I got it right?) you employed on a previous occasion?
“When you mention “Evensong”, does this refer to that ‘Whoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooosssssssssshhhhhhh’ (hope I got it right?) you employed on a previous occasion?”
Er, no, Ashok.
Osho more than once mentioned that Nirvano was on the cross. I can imagine being so close to a Master, meaning so close to the Absolute that the mind goes absolute berserk in its swing from heaven/hell, fearing its dissolution. Nirvano must have intensely expierenced that, and being on the path, don’t we all?
To conveniently call that bi/polar misses the mark, then we put it in a box, the same attitude as the regular psychiatrist, who himself is bi-polar, as is the whole world!
Shantam, you are mistaken. Just for starters, close to Osho could mean physically, psychologically, emotionally or spiritually close.
Lokesh, Is Osho the piercing in the navel of the universe?
(Navel of universe must be Jesus Christ or the prophet from the Arabian desert).
What is the need even to think who is closer to Osho or not?
Let us presume some Mr.A or Ms.Z is closer to Osho in the spiritual sense – and then?
Hallelujah
Non-stop Om
Non-stop music from the world of Osho
or unending orgasmic feeling.
What is the significance if someone says, “He is closer to Osho”?
Shantam enquires, “What is the need even to think who is closer to Osho or not?”
Ehm…precisely, my dear Shantam. I could not say I have any need for that. I see such thinking as an abstraction. Of course, religion, deals a lot in abstraction. My god is more universal than yours, and if you do not agree we will go on the warpath to your village and wipe you and your puny god out. Ugh!
We celebrate Death.*
.
.
.
* Conditions apply.
(In case of bipolar, it is advisable to burn the body in the mid of the night, preferably with petrol).
Right-To-Die Bill Passes In California
The bill, inspired by Brittany Maynard, passed in the State Senate Friday.
Mollie Reilly
Deputy Politics Editor, The Huffington Post
Posted: 09/11/2015 06:56 PM EDT
The “death with dignity” movement marked a victory in California Friday when the state Senate passed a bill allowing terminally ill patients to end their own lives with the help of a physician.
The End of Life Option Act, which passed in the state Assembly Wednesday, would allow patients to seek aid-in-dying options so long as they are given six months or less to live by two doctors, submit a written request and two oral requests at least 15 days apart and possess the mental capacity to make their own health care decisions.
Gov. Jerry Brown (D), who attended a Jesuit seminary prior to his political career, has yet to indicate whether he will sign the bill into law.
The bill was inspired by Brittany Maynard, a 29-year-old San Francisco Bay Area resident who became the public face of the “death with dignity” movement after she was diagnosed with brain cancer last year. After discovering her diagnosis was terminal, Maynard moved to Oregon, where it’s long been legal for doctors to help patients end their own lives. Maynard died Nov. 1, 2014.
“I am heartbroken that I had to leave behind my home, my community and my friends in California. But I am dying and I refuse to lose my dignity. I refuse to subject myself and my family to purposeless, prolonged pain and suffering at the hands of an incurable disease,” Maynard said in a video message to lawmakers recorded a few weeks before her death. “No one should have to leave their home and community for peace of mind, to escape suffering and to plan for a gentle death.”
Maynard also personally lobbied Brown during a telephone conversation the week before her death.
Shunyo writes at length about Nirvano in ‘Diamond days with Osho’, towards the end, Chapter 20.
@Lokesh:
Good Lord, Lokesh!
‘Scar over your spine’ sounds truly dreadful, and possibly a ‘near-death’ experience. Taking into account this experience, one can see why you have chosen the thread title you have!
But, might I be so bold as to enquire as to the full veracity of your story here? Might you be exaggerating a tad in order to achieve sensational effect and thus draw attention and sympathy to yourself?
Hi Ashok,
Well, as a kid I was a keen swimmer. A constant in my life. So, I was up at Maryhill baths with my pals, none of whom, like myself, were inclined towards any form of violence whatsoever. We were a bunch of dreamers. Three of us eventually became sannyasins. So we were busy doing somersaults off the springboard when a local thug, called Billy Taylor, threw a knife at me. The blade hit me over my fifth lumber vertebrae and bounced off the bone and fell into the pool. My pals told me I should go get stitched up. It did not particularly hurt. I went home.
Couple of hours later it began to hurt. Somehow I felt guilty about such a thing happening to me. I said to my mum, “Mum could you have a look at my back, it’s a bit itchy.” My mum looked and freaked right out. Long story short. I was taken to hospital and stitched up. I lied about how it had happened. I can remember it was a Friday night and the A&E looked like a war zone.
As far as near-death experiences go in my life this ranks about a two out of ten. Well, I remember the time I….
Ta for that.
@satyadeva 14 September, 2015 at 2:49 pm
I despise anyone who sits in the pavilion and throws rocks at the players, but interesting that you buy into his schtick, that his criticisms are because he’s on a higher plane and mine are because there’s something wrong with me.
“…but interesting that you buy into his schtick, that his criticisms are because he’s on a higher plane and mine are because there’s something wrong with me.”
There you go again, taking purely personal offence, apparently uninterested in actually looking at the suggestion I made.
And where did I say, or imply, that he’s “on a higher plane” than you?
It’s simple:
Anyone who criticises or has a ‘non-reverential’ attitude towards Osho is, for you, ‘wrong’. So, by the same token, you then take any vestige of support for him/them as making you ‘wrong’, as implying that you have “something wrong” with you.
You who challenge damn near everybody, aggressively at times, never say boo to him.
You are an intelligent, perceptive man.
How can you not call him out?
How can you with your track record not call anyone that’s full of themselves out?
I don’t want to go on with this.
I’ll discuss it in private if you really want to.
He’ll be preening himself that he’s getting so much attention.
Well, for one thing, I don’t feel ‘threatened’ by what Lokesh says, I don’t find it emotionally ‘undermining’, or personally disrespectful.
In fact, I generally find his posts pretty good value – as I find those of quite a few others here, in fact, including yours, Arps.
“including yours, Arps.”
Likewise, SD.
SD, barking up the wrong tree, I suspect. For one reason or another poor wee Arpie has become a tad obsessed with me or, to be more precise, obsessed by an idea built around who he imagines I am or what I represent in his mind. It can happen.
I find something almost tragic about it.
One requirement to adopt such a negative attitude towards someone he actually does not know is basic stupidity. In my mind Arpana is not the sharpest knife in the drawer. I do not take any pleasure in saying that to someone but I feel at this juncture it is appropriate.
Arpana has been reasonably open about himself on this forum, to the extent that I feel I can guage to some degree where he is coming from. In essence, he is stuck with certain ideas that he picked up in he late to mid seventies in Poona One. This is easy for me to recognize because exactly the same thing happened to my first wife, who no longer talks to me because I told her as much and she did not like it.
Back in the days, projection, ego-trip, resistance etc were good points to work from. There have been a lot of developments since then. This a good because what worked once upon a time may well be redundant today and we have to move on and keep learning and not get stuck in the past.
Projection is one of Arpana favourites. He projects all manner of inaccurate nonsense on me, meanwhile safeguarding himself by saying anything that is too close to the bone for his self is all someone else’s projection. Hence his constantly copy and pasting people’s remarks back to them, because that way there is no chance of him actually taking something on board. Pretty basic stuff. It is also boring.
Almost all sannyasins’ relationships with Osho are imaginary. Now Arpana will not go into that too much because Osho is a big crutch in his life. Nothing wrong with that. I also went through a phase like that. Point is, the whole idea is to get rid of the crutch by learning to function as an organic whole without the need of a support.
The other day, I was in a small group talking about mystical experiences had around Osho. One of my associates told me that she never experienced any of that with Osho because her relationship was a business one and therefore she knew Osho the business man. She spent physical time with Osho discussing business matters. I found that interesting. She also said she had her satoris through doing Osho meditation techniques, not with being in close physical proximity to Osho.
We only understand others to the extent we understand ourselves and it still srprises me that so many sannyasins have not woken up to the fact that their so-called relationship with Osho is built on imagination. Osho said as much himself many times. Problem is with charismatic gurus is that a cult of personality can build up around them, which is actually the anti-thesis of the game.
Hence we have sannyasins imagining themselves to be doing Osho’s work, which is all just a product of imagnation. Osho left us his dream. He was a joker right to the end. I like a laugh.
Basically, I see Lokesh as someone who is completely stuck. I find myself asking how could someone who had contact with Osho carry on as he does?
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 often times accompanies it. Also that he can remain with a fixed perspective that does not allow anything new to enter.
Arpana,
The above statement of yours is very much fitting with the Complete Sannyas movement.
The ice in a freezer has more movement than Sannyas.
Cannot you see it?
I repeat…’ Hence Arpie’s constantly copy and pasting people’s remarks back to them, because that way there is no chance of him actually taking something on board. Pretty basic stuff. It is also boring.’
Yet, still you continue, in the sense you are saying exactly what I said to you. It is boring. There are other readers on this forum who are not in the least interested in your obsession with me. Or ‘putting me in my place’. I mean who do you think you are, SN’s policeman? Put yourself in the right place and you will see that you have taken a wrong turn and the need to put anyone else in place will cease to exist.
You seem to be in such a snit. Over a few remarks by little old me.
My suggestion to Arpana will be, “Please, book a ticket to Ibiza and spend some time with Lokesh.”
Just few hours together and I have a different picture. To be with a human being without the mask of any kind of celebrity is altogether a different experience.
Then, whatsoever one says or writes does not provoke as virtual beings or some kind of shadowy figure.
Hi Shantam,
I found myself thinking along the same lines this afternoon.
Difference here is that I find it difficult to see much heart or any sense of humour in most of what Arpana says. I always sensed you had a good heart, even though you sometimes write rubbish, still do at times.
Arpana takes things far too seriously. Kind of guy who needs to write a ha ha after he cracks a joke so that you know he is joking. Or maybe a wee smiley. Something adolescent in that sort of thing.
Beats me what he wants from me. Still, it prompts me to try and understand him, to a certain extent. Takes all types to make SN what it is.
You know when Lokesh 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 himself and whatever else sluggish shite fills his mind.
I rest my case.
Thanks, Lokesh for writing about death, and offering your views and opening up the debate about this subject.
With so many areas to cover, even the Rev is confused as to where to start.
The simplistic notion of celebrating death in the way it appears that Osho spoke about is just one side of the subject. Easy to celebrate another persons death and to wishfully look back on their life with sentiment as we so often do, when friends or family die.
Our own is another matter, as Parmartha so dramatically and honestly testified. Then the fear and the pain is close and real, whilst when we consider it intellectually or abstractly it can become pretty meaningless.
For those who have experienced a NDE and talk of white light and peace it clearly becomes a life changing experience to face what looks like death and return to life, with a new expansive appreciation.
I have no such experience, and yet I’ve faced life threatening moments, near drowning on more than one occasion and discovered a primal fear and terror at my predicament.
In life I’ve faced death of another sort on many occasions… The death of a relationship and the death of an idea, and the death of my more fixed sense of my identity. These are perhaps my closest experiencesof what death is.
As I’ve grown more distant from the selfish and self centred notion of myself, so I’ve felt less afraid and have become more practised in seeing how life never dies, and that however bad or afraid I have felt; the life in me carries on. ” I never die”. I, being my consciousness. I, being the life force of mind and feelings and sensations that is beyond sentiment and beyond my limited animal self.
I sense as we truly near death the terror diminishes and I’ve seen this as I’ve watched older people die, including my mother. For, however afraid she was, as the cancer came closer and closer to killing her, so she surrendered and her interest in me and in the family, in the dog she loved, lessened. Somehow, even in someone so deeply afraid and unconscious, was by the end more accepting of her real condition – the imminent death of her body.
The same is true to a degree as I currently observe the coming death of my very elderly father. Yet only by degrees. Because he still lives with hope, expectation and fear. He hasn’t yet reached the point of no return, like my mother did.
In our culture, our fear of death is deeply imbedded and in this age it seems we no longer have the certainty of religion and the dream of heaven to cope with death. I have no doubt that this intensifies our fear, and we can see how in other religions, Islam for example, death is not feared in the same way. Death brings martyrdom and the certainty of heaven, whilst for me, no such belief system provides such shelter.
I suggest that my fear of death is a necessary primal or animal reaction… And my drowning experiences confirmed this powerful fear as well as a powerful instinct to live. This instinct is largely natural and an animalistic response to death. If, I’d become closer to drowning or if I was facing death through illness I wonder if this slower countdown would provide a greater opportunity to reflect and to surrender more consciously?
I’m reminded too of dreams and nightmares that I occasionally have which always put me in dangerous, primal, scary situations, where I am faced with my unconscious fear of death, where I face my most intimate terrors. In these dreams I’m afforded the opportunity to see and face my most fearful situations. And when I wake I reflect and discover how my reason and sentiment fail to understand them. I just have to feel them and let them go.
As I write this, I allow the practise of staying in the moment, of relaxing, of slowing my mind, to reduce the primal fear. And I surrender to Now, ( to the sensation that almost all who read this, will know,) I discover there is only now and there is no death. It’s all a matter of appearance and illusion.
My only constant is the keep aligning my self to this knowledge of Now. Now, Now and Now again.
Life seems to be the testing ground to make me live and breathe from this awareness. As to death, it seems but a dream I fear, when I come out of Now and return to my clever and fearful mind.
Good post, Simond. Will perhaps get around to what I know about coming very close to dying. It was a very big wake-up call for me. One degree fahrenheit away from my brain getting mashed. Some might say it did. Whatever the case might be I lived to tell the tale.
Simond, you say:
“Easy to celebrate another persons` death and to wishfully look back on their life with sentiment as we so often do, when friends or family die.”
I have not found such experiences to be all that `easy`.
I have experienced the death of family members as more of a death for myself than nearly drowning, car crashes, dying on acid etc.
Someone is there,
then they`re not, for ever.
How the fuck does that work?
Cocks crow
Dogs Bark
This all men know.
Even the wisest
Cannot tell
Whence these voices come
Or explain
Why dogs bark and cocks crow
When they do.
–Chuang Tzu
Good Post, Simond.
Most discussions of death tend to ignore considerations of pain and fear, but I still say that it is only very, very unusual human beings that do not cry out on the cross.
I never really understand that phrase found in my memory from some poem or other,
“He looked so good in death” ….
Frank,
You make a good point, it is not always “easy to celebrate another’s death and to wistfully ( not wishfully – this was my mispelling) look back on their lives with sentiment”.
We have all identified and loved those who have died and death can tear at our hearts.
I don’t underestimate this and like you I have mourned the death of loved ones. This was part of my learning, and my coming to terms with the death experience.
I was referring – and this is no criticism of Osho – to the way such so-called celebrations were a focus of Sannyas.
I know, for Osho, that death held no fear, whilst this hasn’t been true for many of his followers. Including me.
At the public celebrations of death within Sannyas, many may have never known the person who had died, therefore they didn’t feel the loss in the way others who knew the person would. In this way they could celebrate “easily”. It was, in this sense, a meaningless celebration.
“Someone is there,
then they`re not, forever.
How the fuck does that work?”
You raise the most difficult and real of questions and the emotional response is both natural and evidence of our misunderstanding of death.
“Someone is there and then they’re not, forever.”
Is it this true? Yes their body is gone, forever. And if, as I suspect you have witnessed or seen a dead body, it is very clear that “no one” is inside that dead body. It truly is an empty shell.
“How the fuck does that work?”
I guess you are asking , so what the hell is it all about then? Is life so meaningless and empty and worthless – because someone has died?
And for a while it can appear so, especially if we are identified with that person so much. We will suffer this loss. And we all are identified with others, we have all placed so much importance on those we love, that we suffer their loss.
But you will know, having started this so-called spiritual journey, that this identification is part also of the problem?
You know that death is going to happen, to you and to all and everyone. Isn’t this life a testing ground, an opportunity to go beyond our attachments and discover something more eternal, more real and more present in ourselves?
I sense in your beautiful quote from Chang Tzu, that you too appreciate the deep mystery that life and death are.
The whys and wherefores remain a mystery yet we all can delight in that mystery as we embrace the moment, live for Now, and acknowledge death, on the one hand as part of life, and on the other as a deeply misguided myth.
Through your humour, occasional piss-taking of me and others – you are a good example of someone who doesn’t take it all too seriously, someone who already knows that no one knows why cocks crow and dogs bark.
Simond,
The `how the fuck does that work?` was not entirely an expression of loss of meaning as in life seeming “meaningless, empty and worthless, altho` that was a part.
It was desperation mixed with wonder and shock and a few other things. A difficult cocktail to digest.
I could avert it by being less `identified`?
Sounds a bit weird to me. Even Osho admitted he cried when his dad died,albeit,he closed the door and did it in private. Those kind of theories seem plastic to me.
If someone had approached me, after my mum died, and said, with a straight face with something like Samarpan`s line: “If we are not a physically encapsulated body-mind, then death is a fiction”, I would either have laughed or my knee may have inadvertently flown into his groin.
I don`t know. It`s a mystery!
My mother’s had to go into a home. This last week.
Definitely not something to be processed intellectually.
Lot of coming in and out of where I am at. Remembering. Forgetting. Lot of filling up going on.
Top posts, Frank.
Sorry to hear that, Arps. My sympathies.
Thanks, P.
Fortunately, her appreciation of small things never leaves her, and she has risen to her new situation very well, as well as she can.
Arps, my love, I know what your feelings are. Been there. Very difficult indeed. You put it so well: “not something to be processed intellectually”.
My experience is that the most important and meaningful events that happened in my life couldn’t and can’t be processed intellectually, so I don’t bother with intellectual shit any more! Anyway, my sympathies.
Thanks, Tan.
I intellectualised about everything before Sannyas. Thank God that’s long gone.
P.S:
My mother’s also losing her hearing and we can’t talk on the phone any more, so I write her letters. She loves receiving letters from me. ｡^◕‿◕^｡
Arpana,
They are pretty resilient old birds from that generation.
After my mum’s funeral we all came back to the house so people could take it in turn to get up and say something about her. Her oldest friends (in their 90s) who had known her since chool were there, they all got up and talked with very little prompting – they didn`t have to apply via Skype to a public-speaking workshop with “world-class” blaggers first!
Nice one, Frank.
)
This song beautifully captures, in an understated sort of way, the shock of someone’s sudden, unexpected death (in this case, the death of a brilliant young singer, Jeff Buckley).
I find these 3 minutes more effective than a thousand pages of intellectual discussion around mortality, transience, our foolish hopes and expectations, and so on…
https://youtu.be/6QkuThSrIas
(As usual, a lot better with headphones)
Always liked this song. Unfortunately, this is far from the best version. A Jacque Brel song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2W00Ces2040
Arps and SD, enjoyed both songs. Those guys know something…They don’t intellectualise, they sing kind of our day by day life. Beautiful! Thank you guys and whenever you feel like sharing a song, I will be happy to hear it! XXXX
Tan.These are all the tracks from the only album of Marc Almond I like from start to finish.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfLbugm7IaHl07WzLtkMKpqiRkFeGM_1E
“Don’t die before realizing your authentic being. Only those few people are fortunate who have lived with authentic being and who have died with authentic being — because they know that life is eternal, and death is a fiction.”
Osho, “Beyond Enlightenment” (1986, ch. 18)
If we are not a physically encapsulated body-mind, then death is a fiction. Even if we are only physical, saying: “I am not going anywhere, where shall I go?” seems a statement of the law of conservation of mass. Mass can neither be created nor destroyed, although it may take a different form, like Osho did. From my perspective we are not just a bag of bones. And speaking only from my experience, neo-sannyas was never about the physical (or social).
I first “met” Osho through books, and then I “met” Osho in physical form. There was and is a deep resonance, a synchronicity not dependent on the physical, a dance that continues today. I continue to meet Osho through many forms. If all that was and is “imagination,” so be it. Osho feels just as available now as in the 70s and 80s.
In my experience, neo-sannyas is not physical. It has never felt like being “stuck” … because I never felt I had a “relationship” with Osho. Besides, Osho always gave unconditional love… and freedom to move as necessary. For me Osho’s death is a fiction because that love and freedom are unchanged. Put another way, Osho dead is just as present as Osho alive: in laughter, in silent stillness, and yes, in celebratory imagination. Where could Osho go?
Thank you for sharing, Simond.
“I have not found such experiences to be all that `easy`.
I have experienced the death of family members as more of a death for myself” – Frank, I share the same kind of experience that you do.
@Lokesh & Shantam:
To me, we all do provoke each other at some time or the other, but that doesn’t mean we need to meet each & everyone. Ofcourse, if one has the inclination, time, money & need it’s fine. I guess we here on SN have that much ability to decide for oneself. I for one feel now it’s best the little one knows about anyone!
Cheers, K!
Cheers, Frankie!
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Love
Yatro
Administrator & Co-founder of OSHO Sammasati
Death; the Last bastion of human experience too has become a fucking business, a kind of how to fix Ikea furniture!
This is not a workshop about death.
This is about preparation for death, certainly by, and probably for, individuals well into their sixties and older.
How is that not OK?
Whatever the nature and value of this course, my initial response is “What a nauseating piece of promotion.” “World-class facilitators” indeed – what is this, some competitive sport, or what?!
Why do these people think they have to insult their potential clientele by promoting this as if it were toothpaste or something? I’d guess an American wrote that, but you can’t be sure these days.
Seen this?
http://deathcafe.com/deathcafe/2292/
“Death Café”?!! In Finsbury Park? Actually, somehow appropriate for that area…
But in a way I prefer their informal, ‘grass roots’-type approach to the would-be slick sales patter of the ‘Sannyas’ one. Interesting too that such initiatives exist. Although I’m not that keen on the obscure term “doulas” (which anyway refers to birth rather than death, according to Wikipedia).
No money involved. Same sort of thing as the Meet-ups movement really. Grass roots movements, utilising the internet.
SD, the ad does sound a bit American-style, but it`s also so British, isn’t it?
The “world-class” (read: spiritual upper class) facilitators appeal through ads in in-flight magazines to the aspirational spiritual middle classes to shell out vast sums to join the elite in an exclusive country pile in Devon to “leave their bodies” with Miten and Premal playing the “Moolah Mantra” in the background.
They wouldn`t be seen dead(sic) ‘croaking it’ in the rented flaky wallpaper function room of a Victorian pub in Finsbury Park with a bunch of benefit scroungers trying to gate-crash Nirvana for free while Chas and Dave knock out ‘Mustn`t Grumble’ in the background!
@ Frank ….10.55 am)
Hallelujah
(English midsummer-autumn version)
Aha!
Madhu,
I have finally found a way to your heart…
by taking the piss out of the British!
(An important, honourable and necessary step on the spiritual path, I may say. And a keen hobby of mine, too!).
“I have finally found a way to your heart”. How nice, and coming from Frank boy! You have never deceived me, Frank. XXXX
P.S. @ Frank:
We kindly inform you that you just did win a free flight to the Copa Cobana /Brazil and your flight neighbour will be Tan(ia).
Have FUN.
No, Madhu, not Copacabana, we are going down south and you are flying with us…I would love to give you a hug and show you a bit of Brazil as well. XXX
Thanks, Arps; sure is right in the heart of what used to be London Sannyas. I remember SD living round the corner from Blackstock Road!
Yes, ’tis sickening indeed!
The bit that really gets me is:
“If you would like to join the workshop, the next step is to arrange a Skype interview.”
What is the implication behind that prerequisite, I wonder?
Perhaps, that you need to be vetted first to see if you have the necessary knowledge, intellect and experience, before you can be allowed to form part of the illustrious group of higher spiritual beings attending the workshop.
It looks to me like it could be crass sales manipulation of those who desire to form part of some exclusive spiritual elite/hierarchy – ‘the chosen few’, who are the only ones capable of understanding what it is all about!
This may, in my opinion, appeal to those who wish to find a way of putting themselves above others – at least in their own minds!
I guess it might appeal to the elitist instincts of some who think that they are the only ones capable of understanding some obscure Chinese philosophical text.
God, Death, Love are few of those words where generalization kills their spirit.
They are individual experiences, always different in different situations.
For example, it is commonly said, ” Love is like Sickness.”
can someone tell, how many hundred kind of sicknesses exist in the world. Basically, two coughs are not the same.
Few sicknesses get healed within a week, many take months, few remain till the end.
Same situation is with death.
Because it is easier to live in a generalized society, death celebrations among sannyasins too became standard. Here grief became a kind of Taboo.
“If you die unprepared, you may get next birth in China. If you die prepared, it will be in Tibet or say, Dharamshala!”
This may be the final outcome of some seminar regarding death.
I was having a discussion with two friends of mine,one a Buddhist and one well into various current Indian gurus. They, like Shantam ,consider reincarnation as a clear unquestionable reality.
I said to them:if you think about it ,the doctrine of reincarnation is really just social conditioning. Now,not only do you have your native western conditioning,you`ve bunged a load of foreign stuff on top of it.Is that wise?
My friends disagreed vehemently. They claimed that the ancient wise men had discovered the truth by their inquiries – through extensive meditation they discovered this.
And then they disseminated it to the people.
I continued that it is true that the idea of transmigration had spread over the East because all the authorities,that is, the wisest people with the support of the most powerful in the land proclaimed the truth of it. In their day they were ultimate authorities. They were Popes,Shankaracharyas,scientists and the police rolled into one!
They ruled the roost in those days,and like todays scientists-they tell you stuff about the universe that you can`t really know yourself,and as a laymen you don`t disagree with Prof Brian Cox(famous astrophysicist) about the ins and outs of nuclear fusion do you?
In short,the ancient religious authorities had total power of authorisation when it came to what people believed.
People accepted reincarnation as true in the same way as before Galileo people `knew` that the sun circled round the earth!
To which I added: it is very strange to me then that these uber wise men in their total scientific/spiritual understanding of the true nature of existence were not able to discover and present the simple truth that men and women are essentially two parts of the same animal therefore equal in the eyes of `god` or anyone with half a brain still functioning.
How did their wisdom grasp one more difficult/unknowable fact and miss the obvious by proclaiming difference in status between the sexes as divine truth?
They sound like bullshitters to me.
Furthermore,Buddhists don`t mention it,but Buddha reportedly ummed and ahhed about whether to initiate women or not (Osho recounted this story)saying that if he did initiate women his religion would fade in 500 years.
Hello! That was 2500 years ago now and everybody and her dog is a Buddhist these days!
Conclusion: Buddha didn`t know what he was talking about.
Not only was he a dead-beat dad,slipping away from the palace and into the forest to dodge the CSA,but he may well have been just another misogynistic slaphead making it all up as he went along!
The moral of the story is,I suppose: before you slip into no-mind, remember to think for yourself.
Which is what Buddha said on his deathbed wasn`t it?
Frank, as usual , you give a wonderful twist and comprehension to some old adages, myths and stories.
How the Buddha is both wise and stupid, wise because as you say, he said think for yourself; and stupid, because he had to think about the effects of his initiating women into his ranks.
You refer to the parroting that is so often an consequence of any religion, and that reincarnation is largely now only just that, a belief system, rather than something known or understood.
And that religion is largely a way in which the rulers have controlled the masses. All good stuff in my book.
How can it be possible that a Buddha or an Osho or a Chang Tzu can, on the one hand be so wise and at the same time be so “stupid”? Isn’t this true for us too? How can I be so ignorant/ arrogant, on occasions, and how is that you can be so cynical occasionally, even spiteful ?
Don’t we all suffer from the same paradox? Aren’t we all products of our conditioning ? In Buddhas case, an environment where women were second class citizens? Does that excuse or in some way explain his attitude and behaviour ?
Or is it because you or I have placed these ‘great Sages ‘on a pedestal that we also quite rightly finally discover that they too are human, they too are full of contradictions?
My experience is just that: and you can see it in both the sycophantic and infantile responses of some of the correspondents here on this site, as well as in the overly cynical responses of others. Both responses are a product of this contradiction.
For some – belief in Osho is so great they almost never question or think for themselves. And others, hurt by his failure to solve all their problems, turn away and condemn him.
Both are natural responses, deeply flawed and part of the journey into discovering how to learn to be real.
As to reincarnation, we can debate until the cows come home, intellectually. There is always an argument for or against and both can be convincing.
I ask myself : why does an idea arise? Where does it come from in the psyche? Is reincarnation simply a way in which people can fool others, be comforted or be controlled ? Is it something we can discover before we die? Can we speculate on it intelligently or just out of belief?
Don’t we reincarnate every day? Or even in each moment? Could that be where the idea sprang from? Could it be truly an experiential discovery?
Don’t you sleep and die every night ? Don’t you truly die in each moment? If you are sensitive to the moment and the nature of yourself, is that your experience? For many people the idea is ridiculous. They know who they are.. They are the same today as they were yesterday. They are identified so much with their mind, their family, their ideas, their sense of self, that it never occurs to them that it’s not true.
Is that where the idea of reincarnation began? And from this, too people explored their minds to such a degree that they discovered hints that even death of the physical body didn’t end their identification with the self. That for some sensitives, they actually started to remember past lives.
Today, some scientists and psychologists are finding compelling evidence of the mystery of reincarnation, through hypnosis etc. I don’t know the truth of it. There is always an element of speculation in this area. In the same way as there is much mystery and confusion about aliens or visitors from the future. Who knows. We can but explore and keep our minds open to possibilities that are for most of us too scary to contemplate.
Thanks, Simond, for a very well-considered post.
The main thing about reincarnation is that it keeps people sleepy and tranquillised. So even, which I have every reason to believe, it is not true, it is good to behave as if it is not true anyway.
As Prem Roger reminded earlier, that saying of Castaneda, of always being aware of your own death sitting just behind your left shoulder is a great conditioning for waking up, even a little.
Thanks, Parmartha
I am guessing you are referring to the millions who do just believe. And you are right therefore to examine the idea with your intelligence and questioning. Then the question has greater purpose.
By the way, I’m reading ‘The Perfect Way’, it arrived today from Germany. If you can arrange for the wonderful site organisers to provide you with my email, and give me your address I will send it you.
The book has great insight and beauty and is a transcript of very early discourses to an Indian audience.
As a result, the tone is slightly different, Sannays had yet to be born, but the intimacy and hard hitting truths of the man are self-evident.
He himself comes across as supremely confident, humble and direct, all at the same time. His language can also appear softer, he refers less to other teachers but rests his teaching on his own subjectivity in a touching and moving way.
He also is talking to a confused audience, the questions are somewhat immature but he never compromises, he points directly to the truth of his own self-knowledge and leaves it to the audience to ‘catch up’.
It’s a delight to see just how sincere and direct he is. Even at this early stage of his teaching, all the genius of the man is clear to see.
I’m sure you will enjoy reading it.
Thanks, Parmartha.
If, as you say, it keeps people sleepy then it needs to be attacked. It is just promoting lethargy and dull acceptance.
By the way, I have got the copy of ‘The Perfect Way’, and if you can speak to those wonderful organisers they can give you my email and then I’ll send it to you.
Good read so far, the man was on fire with his love of truth in those days.
A PDF of ‘The Perfect Way’.
Only 160 pages.
You can get it printed for about a tenner.
http://www.wikifortio.com/736817/The Perfect Way.pdf
Frank, my love, you are sooooooo…enlightened. What about forget all about death business? When it comes, it comes, shit happens…tell you: go to Brazil, dance a bit, not bloody Dynamic, just dance, enjoy the beaches, the girls, the beers and you will die happy, I promise you….
V. good post, Frank. Thank ye.
Frank, have you read that top shelf Buddhist book, ‘Teach Yourself Not Caring’? It’s even better than ‘Not Minding’, by Lama Ron Hubbarsteward.
“Which is what Buddha said on his deathbed, wasn`t it?”
Were you the fly with the tape recorder to record what Buddha said on deathbed?
Anyway, does it matter what someone says in his lifetime or deathbed?
Is Buddha the first and the last commentator on the cricket ground of life?
I think The name or the brand Buddha has got more coverage than needed. As far as past life is concerned, it is an accepted hypothesis in Osho´s mystery school.
I won´t waste a single breath over it while talking with Christians.
Thanks, guys.
Now that you have revealed yourself in all your ‘Righteous Glory’, Mr Frank, it would seem that Shantam will no longer be able to refer to you as ‘Faceless Frank’, will he?
I would suggest, taking into account your self-revelation here, that from now on you be affectionately known as:
‘St.Holy Shit-Faced Frances’!
You`re not wrong there, Dougal.
Lol
“So even, which I have every reason to believe, it is not true, it is good to behave as if it is not true anyway.”
Parmartha, could this be said differently? I don’t know exactly what you are saying.
Immensely grateful, Lokesh, about the way you did set up this thread topic.
As I had just been surfacing from meeting ´days´ in retreat with other neo-advaita Lovers, Isaac Shapiro and Meike, his companion,
I have been quite incapable so far, to share ´pointers´ to the issue you invited us to here in this kind of algorythemic surrounding.
When reading your comment to some obnoxious immature Facebook comment of a sannyasin woman to a dying friend (Saahas), it felt to me that it must be good to have you as a friend beside the virtual plane. A friend whoknows some more about what is what and what is ´off the wall´, so to speak. And clearly speaks that out.
These days, I have been in awe, reading all that came up here – and no surprise that the ´Death- Issue´ is a ´Life Issue´ indeed; and what else can it be?
Reading you was like sitting by a river, hardly being able to get hooked by one or the other waves passing by, to respond to it.
Death, ´sitting on one of our shoulders´, as Roger rightly put it, such a strong Teaching, there may not be a stronger one, isn’t it?
Besides the death-related stories of my lifetime up to now, which I won ´t bother you with now, there stays one pointer permanently related to the issue:
It’s about the ´carpe Diem´ stuff.
Death of others we are related to, and also survival issues of or own or of other sentient beings exposed to calamities, tell such stories every moment and point out to the fact that nothing is really there to control and nothing to hold on to too, and nothing is really in our hands (so-called power).
And if you can rest with an awareness expanded, as Simond elaborated the point of ´dying and being resurrected moment to moment´, resting , not as an imagination intellectually (and thank you, Frank, for passionately ever again insisting on cleaning up some fake falsehood in that ideological burdened chapter of our all dealings with fear of annihilation).
As far as I am concerned, I sometimes feel drowned by the impression of so much unfinished business, of not yet felt or discovered or dissolved conditionings according to Life issues, that the main inner work seems be around reconciliation, dissolving and getting in Peace in Lifetime with myself and others, and not postponing Peace to an unknown and maybe unknowable territory called ´Death´.
I will stop here, loving it that my gratefulness has a send-off address, even to the unknown and unknowable web territory of individuals connected.
Imagine…
With love,
and have a nice ´Carpe Diem´ day, all of you!
Madhu
P.S:
Listened to the interview around the website of the London (global) Death-Cafe movement, grass roots happening indeed, and did like it, what the woman said there – easy to be misunderstood though, like much other stuff….
Good to know Madhu has got a spiritual shelter in the nest built by a couple.
Thanks, God there are compassionate people to provide new lease of hope to Sannyas Spiritual Orphans (SSO).
P.S:
Sorry for being cynical. But it shows the fact, sannyasins are like Syrian refugees because they are unable to get hold of their own Swami Assad!
Who you think, you are, Shantam Prem, to adress me with such a rubbish?!
Madhu
It was a spontaneous response after reading the name of Issac Newton!
Basically, i have addressed a common condition of Sannyas community. I am part of it too.
I don´t go to any guru, mini-guru, therapists, but it does not mean Osho brand is like a building promoter which could not deliver the product after foundations and walls. Naturally, we need to hire other companies to create the livable habitat.
Interestingly enough, most of the spiritual service providers of our time did not care a bit to visit Osho, and the people who were with Osho are giving them the privilege to finish the unfinished work of Osho.
Nature´s way of poetic justice!
Lovely post Madhu, and good for you, putting Shantam in his place.
Some people are to be ignored, and it takes courage to let them go, to avoid them altogether. He is one of those.
Delight in letting the energy of Shantam out of your life altogether. There is nothing to learn from him.
And in doing so, you inevitably find someone new and more worthwhile to contact in your life.
What a pissed off product you are, Simond.
“pissed off product” (POP)
Shantam, my friend, you are at times a true genius with words! I think your description of Brother Simond, in this case, is apt and fitting.
I seem to remember when I first came on this site that you referred to Lokesh as “an old cough-syrup medicine bottle”. Another creation of genius.
Your language is a true source of joy to me! This site really would not be the same without you!
Thank you, for being here.
But don’t you realise, Ashok, that Shantam invariably describes himself when referring to others in such terms?
Now, if there’s any ‘POP’ here, after many years of continuous (and thoroughly, repetitiously boring) anti-Poona regime rhetoric, it’s surely Shantam; in fact the description is Shantam-to-a-tee – perfect!
I see what you mean, SD. I think there could be something in what you say!
Intentionally ´ignoring´, Simond, is not the way it works for me;
I may know by daily experience in the body many ´Shantams´ or his numerous Facebook followers or ´friends´in my everyday surrounding.
There´s no way, to avoid in everyday life other humans who wish you dead and especially go into action by stalking for example or in other ways of ´street work´.
Otherwise, I know the role of being intentionally ignored myself too very well in my neighborhood here and there may be even people around them, who come very close to the identity , you show up here with, treating me over the years as “dead women walking” – or worse.
So – besides those kind of people here , who come deeply out of a muslim conditioning , or a christian conditioning or a neofascist conditioning , there are also former or contemporary Sannyasin or western ´Tibetan´Buddhists amongst them – in agreement.
That´s what I am facing for quite a while, here – where I am living.
Facing the social Death is just one of the aspects of the Death Issue as such; facing that your trust on some basic rules of inter-action is crushed , another one ; and the hurt may even go deeper.
Some of the contributors here confirm, that they have no interest to ever meet some other chat-contributors face to face (like Kavita recently )strictly denying a meeting on other planes than the virtual.
I don´t belong to those, although sometimes, it seems to me, some contributions , the way they are posted , could well come from my ´neighborhood´.
That´s the way ´trolling´goes on a virtual plane , doesn ´t it ?
To come back to the topic: Death has many layers and surely can be encountered on a daily basis as encountering annihilation.
Including facets of reality of annihilation, while being ´met´ anonymously on the street by a grinning IT-player, who enjoys to read your child-like letters to an UK Sannyas chat (or your private diary) without having been addressed or invited to do so.
Death-processing on a daily basis is the uttermost strong Teaching of having to bow down unconditionally and the processing happening deals with our resistance .
For some this journey can be easy; for most of us – not – , I guess.
To apparently meet in a virtual chat caravanserai is quite a good practice too .
Madhu
PS
…so . the breathing IN again , feeling as a resurrection is more an option for a ´ chariveti, chariveti´ (go on, go on) not a ideologic lullaby of a trance-like state, yet a profound awareness teaching as well…and thank you for reminding that the other day, Simond.
“intentionally ignoring, Simond, is not the way it works for me”
Beautiful words from a very beautiful heart!
There is a lot of love in you, Ma Madhu.
Best wishes,
Ashok
Madhu
Yes, ignoring people doesn’t work,does it? When we have to interact, we must do so.
Indeed we can learn from something from the most difficult of people and situations.
I have also found that there are situations and people who I may meet where I can limit my interaction with them. Being who I am often offends them anyway, and they find me difficult.
The other day, a strange, psychotic person at a party interrupted a conversation I was having with another person. He was offended by my conversation and he was offended by the intimate way I was discussing things with this other person.
I turned to him as he waffled away and just looked at him silently, with no aggression, just simply staring at him, listening but not responding. After a while, he stopped talking and just said, “Oh, I can’t mess with you, can I?
I just smiled and consciously turned my head, and said, “We are just having a real conversation here, if you want to contribute I’d be happy, but I’m going to continue talking now with my friend.” The guy just turned away and left.
It helps, perhaps, being a man, whereas your description of some of the people around you must make it more difficult for you. Women are generally seen as “the weaker sex” and it’s not in your nature to ‘confront’ people as I do.
I’ve found that bullies and trolls are attracted to those who they think they can dominate. They can’t dominate if you aren’t afraid of them. They aren’t being fed but the stress and tension they can pick up from those who are afraid or ‘fighting’ them.
It’s not easy, I know.
But where you can, maintain your poise and stillness, and know that I see strength and power in you.
Real confidence and power springs not from intellectual battles, debates, but from within you, by deeply confirming and consciously trusting your self-knowledge. In some cases this does mean standing up for yourself, as you did with Shantam..
The way you responded to Shantam, in a short, direct sentence, demonstrated that to him and me:
“Who do you think you are, Shantam Prem, to address me with such rubbish?!”
No, he didn’t apologise, but he got the message!
Bet that was really scary for him.
He probably thinks you’re a Jedi knight.
“Real confidence and power springs not from intellectual battles, debates, but from within you, by deeply confirming and consciously trusting your self-knowledge.”
I really can not imagine why people with so much inner power and inner clarity submit their ego, time and money before This and That teacher and repeat, “Two and two is the same as five minus one.”
Anyway, i would not have apologized to the Simond kind for point blank satire, but in Madhu´s case, it is different. She seems to be a nice, sincere lady, a reclusive Ma. I should not have been sarcastic for her venturing out for some human interaction.
Really Sorry
Entschuldigung
Tut mir Leid!
Thank you so much for taking that effort here, for you yourself and in this case for me too, Shantam Prem.
Feels sweet.
And yes, it is true, I am living kind of ´reclusive´ life here for quite a long time.
Love to write ´letters´ and love receiving too. Quite natural stuff, isn´t it?
With love,
Madhu
It`s all getting a bit lovey-dovey around here. Has someone pumped some unconditional love gas into the SN cyberspace or something?
Some of us negative, closed, unconscious, cynical bastards are twitching uncomfortably…
Whatever next?
Arpana and Frankie flying to Gibraltar for a quickie marriage…?
Peace. Love and donkeys, Francis.
…or Shantam attending one of Rev`s services and nodding along to the sermon.
“Would the congregation now rise and sing hymn number 69:
‘Oh Lord, we delighteth in letting the energy of Shantam out of our life altogether.’ “
You have got such rescuer tendencies.
Hi Madhu, good to hear from you. Looks like the thread worked in one way or another. Have not been tuning in to SN, but been on an amazing road adventure on mainland Spain with an amigo. The finale was sitting on the back of a ship watching the sun go down in a blaze of glory behind mountain peaks.
What a long, strange trip it has been and it certainly has its moments.
Yes , Lokesh, good to hear from you too.
As you did set up the operator and the phone, and we did out very best to ´hold the line´, didn ´t we ?
To-day, yet another day, and I am wondering , what comes next ?
It´s such a long longtime, I have not been in the countryside, not to speak about going alone in a car, letting the wind blow my hair and screaming out wild or talking loud to myself .
Or being STILL.
Thank you for sharing.
Madhu
I’m very worried about singing from the same hymn-sheet here…and as I find maturity and coherence an impossible task I have to ask your advice, fellow cunning punters.
Years ago I phoned up my old school to find out if one of my old school headmasters had died. When I discovered he had, I celebrated, albeit without champagne.
Several other people I have wished that they would drop dead so that I might celebrate. When they do and if I’m still around I will also relish the fact. There are those who would no doubt wish the same upon me. Good luck.
The length of time awaiting a winning result is often the only remorse for me in this.
I don’t wish anyone dead, but a number of individuals I have come across over the years wouldn’t want to be needing anything that really mattered to them from me.
“I have to ask your advice, fellow cunning punters.”/ Prem Marthyn
You really asked for advice, Prem Marthyn ?
Here is one:
See your Swiss Lover and companion, who, as far as I understood you rightly by some rare of your recent posts, knows to deal with gordic knots by ´one hug only´ or by sharing just the glance of one (loving) eye.
You are very fortunate to have such an address to go to, I guess.
You can be grateful about that, I also guess.
Madhu
I was helping some friends strip wallpaper one morning on the top floor of their house, and they had gone off to fix something for us to eat.
I realised suddenly, and this came out of nowhere, that I was going to die one day. Just like everybody else. I cried my eyes out. (I was one of the team. Had been doing vippassana every day for a while ).
That evening I wrote this.
Which I have resisted the temptation to edit:
I think a lot of death these days.
I’m nearly 40 now. You see.
It really has come home to me,
I’m not special. Death has me in its gaze.
All final goodbyes are a death. Do you see?
It’s over now. Another part will die.
Another hurt, another breath, another cold goodbye,
And seeing it’s another death won’t let me be.
I was born, I will, must die.
Death and birth, two sides, no rush.
I know I’ll get there by and by,
Why am I drawn? I’ll need a push,
it’s the adventure, risking death,
not clutching at life, or the very last breath.
(MOD:IS THE 4th lINE OK, ARPANA?)
Gaze means “to look steadily, intently, and with fixed attention”, but it does look wrong
No, Arps, it doesn’t look wrong at all! Death has us in its gaze, for sure!
I have noticed by your posts that you are a very sensitive guy! I think all artists are…I missed it in my life, poetry, painting,..
Anyway, thanks for sharing this beautiful piece of you. X
Thanks Arps, I will listen to your faves Marc Almond songs tonight. Cheers!
A few days ago I was reading about `Mike`, the chicken who managed to evade death – albeit only for a while , after losing his head.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-34198390
“Some of the contributors here confirm that they have no interest to ever meet some other chat-contributors face-to-face (like Kavita recently), strictly denying a meeting on other planes than the virtual.”
I don´t belong to those, although sometimes it seems to me, some contributions, the way they are posted, could well come from my ´neighborhood´. That´s the way ´trolling´ goes on a virtual plane, doesn´t it?
Madhu, seems you are triggered by my expression of my current station in life, Just need to let you know it wasn’t meant to trigger anyone. Just needed to let you know.
Thank you, Kavita (at 4.12 pm, yesterday).
Putting something approximately straight to the point, that we all are hooked when responding by more than less pre- conscious up to unconscious triggers, sometimes also trauma-related stuff.
We don´t know each other, mostly also when we would meet, after all, by chance, in the street, do we?
Yet anybody has the thirst or longing to be heard, to be seen and to be in contact. Human conditioning. Even the most cynical here as elsewhere are longing for that, denying it quite often more eloquently than most others; and maybe the latter are more connected with their deepest hurts (of feeling abandoned, betrayed, feeling lost etc.).
Anyway, we all are challenged at our places wherever, to deal with that. So are you. So am I.
And thank you for appearing here. To let me see and understand a little bit more.
Just a glimpse. But not less either.
Madhu
Madhu, this for you, I felt to share this on this thread:
“You will learn by reading. But you will understand with love.”
~ Shams Tabrizi
Thank you, Kavita.
Your pic and more contribution first sent me off to a quite shock and awe lane and a (seemingly) wrong psychic tunnel (my European conditioning) – but now it’s ´working´.
It´s a Biggie* – you know that, I presume.
Madhu
* Just now sorry about not having better words – just to give you a feedback of me as a receiver.
Thank you too, Madhu. I received you too, if there is something like this that exists!
I’ve just started up a business in Dorset offering pre-death celebrations for those in the final stages of the chronic medical condition of Terminal Regret.
The basic thing is that after much doorstepping and taking of opinions, my new company initiative has been set up with the express purpose of celebrating other people’s deaths before they happen. Many customers have written in thanking me for this “world class service”.
Just yesterday, I received a letter from a “Mrs Loveless” of Frumptinton-by-the-Wold, who writes, “Ever since Stan passed away I’ve never felt so free. Had I known such levels of awareness before I might have looked forward to him passing away sooner than later…I’m booking for the New Year’s knees-up immediately with all the ladies here at the home.”‘
And from another client, a Mr F of Frometumpton, who writes, “Janet has been bothering me ever since I put in for the divorce. Could you arrange for a near-death, World Class-experience drinking match for me and the lads in anticipation of the final settlement. Ta.
Places for my next course in celebrating one’s own death before others do, run by the international festering remorse expert from Russia, Mr Viekov Endiaev, are still available.
I was told that in my Grandfathers last moments he opened his eyes and said to family members gathered around his deathbed: “A golden angel has just appeared at my feet who has come to take me to heaven…” His eyes then closed and his life was over.
Although I wasn’t there I have no doubt that the story as recalled is true.
Accounts such as this are very appealing, giving hope to many who like to believe that death is not the end. With maybe something wonderful to look forward to.
In the years since, while attending a funeral, I heard a young child say: “Where has Grandma gone?” and an adult replied: “She’s gone to be with the angels.” Under the circumstances not an unreasonable thing to say, thinking that a child is too young to understand anything else.
Then it occurred to me that maybe when my Grandfather was a child there had been a death, and he had asked the same ‘what happens when you die’ question and to get past an awkward moment he was told about a golden angel taking you to heaven.
So I wonder which is more likely?
A golden angel did actually appear, or was it just a verbalised thought that drifted up from his subconscious now that his time had come. A thought innocently put there many, many years ago.
Anubodh,
It could have been just an old suggestion popping up..
Yet,I would say he probably did well to remember that rather than any number of other more negative suggestions that might have come his way in his life.
I am confronted with an inner question quite often: “Would it be i leave the body or will it be declared dead?”
Last sentences describing someone´s departure shows what kind of Spirit Passport one carries.
Perhaps it can be best described another way:
The body leaves us, not the other way round?!
(Not my original idea, of course, but I suspect it just might be the truth – depending upon what this ‘us’ actually is, of course).
The body -
It is like Bed ‘n’ Breakfast
Checkout time:
11.00 AM
It may be like Prison
One day janitor informs
Your time is over.
Body may be one night stand.
An sms reminds,
“On the way, bring some good karmas but not so expensive.”
Better late than never.