What Osho Means to Me Now: Simond

I was a Sannyasin for some years during the 1980′s , perhaps during the most expansive time in the period of Sannyas and Osho. The period spanned my twenties and into my thirties,  and was a period of great change within and without. It was during this time the Sannyasin experiment was played out on the world scene, where the therapy business expanded within Sannyas, and Osho was discussed and dissected by the media and became known to a much wider public.

It also saw the move from the  ashram in India to the USA and then the final return of Osho to India.
I was party to the experiment of Osho’s. And it was an experiment, a journey, for him and for me and for many others involved. At the end of it I was no longer a Sannyassin, I had changed my name back to the original,  but I was forever in gratitude to Osho, and I still am.

As I grew in self understanding, as I practised the techniques of self enquiry he had suggested, as I grew through relating with others, so my ability to discriminate or view the circus around and within Sannyas developed.

I no longer thought as a young man, easily impressed by my so called peers, but began the process of seeing through some of the simplistic notions I had once believed in.

Foremost amongst these was seeing that any teacher or master I came into contact weren’t impregnable, weren’t without faults or without the influence of the culture and mores of their past conditioning and upbringing.

Whilst Osho had once appeared to me as the pinnacle of consciousness, I now began to respect him more,  but follow him less. Yes, he’d offered a path, but it wasn’t the only one. He too had altered his views, “made mistakes”, he was as human as I was.

What he demonstrated to me, was his undoubting knowledge of a place beyond the mind, and a remarkable ability to express his love of truth. He was a beautiful, inspiring wordsmith, with a mind able to dissect profound texts and make them his own.

He loved and lived the truth to the best of his ability, but there were other teachers also attuned to help seekers like me, who had been alienated and confused by sexuality, by bad parenting, by issues of love and pain and man and woman. Nevertheless his influence and ongoing message was a constant reminder and inspiration.

These issues of western alienation and confusion had been, to some extent ignored, and out of the reach of Osho’s understanding. He was an easterner, moulded and fashioned by the east, whilst I was a westerner.
So often on the Sannyasnews web site, we see the debate and difficulties faced by followers of Osho from east and west, who often see Osho in very different ways.

In the east, ideas of surrender and the master are more highly regarded. We in the west are more moulded by ideas of individualism, and have less respect for authority as a whole. We are suspicious ( rightly ) of those who demand we think one way and not another, and we can be over cynical.

The battle rages on within these SN pages, with little likelihood of resolution. To me, it is irrelevant, east vs west is just another symbol of the battle within each of us.

The goal always was self realisation or enlightenment, where there’s no east or west.

For the east, the idea of enlightenment is such a grandiose and elitist phenomenon, rare and seldom attained. Osho seemed to reinforce this view: and more often than not pooh poohed other teachers or masters, especially modern day ones. He rarely acknowledged any of his students or disciples who got close to, or even suggested they had realised the truth, but would occasionally delight in telling us tales of semi illiterate or uneducated people he had met who had ” attained”.

At the same time, he was forever reminding us that the goal was achievable and in essence profoundly simple. What would confuse me is that the goal isn’t so difficult after all, if we simply practise self enquiry, if we simply negate all our belief, if we simply allow the moment in, live in the present, as far as is possible. Simple? Eh?

Whereas once I believed in enlightenment in some of the ways Osho had described – being in  a state of pure joy, bliss etc, because Osho appeared to suggest it as such, I began to see this was fanciful and would always remain outside of my experience. No such state exists or ever has. Osho loved poetry and he loved exaggerating. And he never truly lived in the west, when he was there he was always surrounded by love and support and he didn’t worry or think about electric bills, or work. He was elevated by his position, and seldom out of his comfort zone, ( except late 1985 in the USA ). It’s no wonder his description of enlightenment is unique to his experience and conditioning.

I continued to ask myself and discover if the term was actually of any use in the west,  and whether the term was even appropriate to the new teachings I was involved in. The idea that there is a  final conclusion or realisation to understanding and living the truth, or attaining a complete sense of enlightenment seemed outdated to me.

After all, most teachers who describe some moment where they realise the truth and have now completed their transition from “unenlightened to enlightened” ( under the Bodhi tree) also discover that life and consciousness move on. They are still faced, by the ongoing issues and choices that life presents to them, and continue to learn and morph their understanding to the new conditions they face in life.

They continue to learn, make mistakes, alter their views. If they don’t, all the evidence is that they stagnate, and get frustrated. The list of teachers who have have been affected by this appears pretty much endless, from da free John to Andrew Cohen. And in his own way Osho expressed this too. With his emphasis on Sannyas, on surrender, on his being the only path, to the white brotherhood and the ringing tones of Osho at the end of his discourses, so I saw him becoming more and more caught up in his own self importance – which was in direct contradiction to the profoundly simple, delightful message he had once so beautifully demonstrated.

Today there is no need for Sannyas, no need for the master-disciple relationship, which was outdated once the numbers of followers had grown beyond the ability of one man to engage with them.

We may be moved by our memories of the man, we may relive these, through imagination and dreams, but we no longer need to view him or anyone else as the “pinnacle of consciousness”, but to remind ourselves that he demonstrated a great truth, and lived joyously and totally. Our job is to do the same.. As he said on a number of occasions, (sorry no quote,) “forget me and live your own understanding and truth”.

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68 Responses to What Osho Means to Me Now: Simond

  1. Arpana says:

    The rev. wrote this sermon.

    • prem martyn says:

      Simond,

      It all depends.

      If you are answerable to the end of suffering or the beginning of self-satisfaction.

      We have hiatuses in life that veer left and then right. Sometimes we proselytise, sometimes we look for the releasing gag of having been there and done that. But none of it is a solution, because life is bigger and especially as condensed attitudes of themselves convince the proponent less than they do the intended audience, usually.

      My own understanding is that we communicate that which we have little use for any more, tending to keep the real diamonds locked away within and slightly out of reach. Osho attempted to remind me of that and the sheer bloody hard work it is to not veer too much away from social accountability when sponsoring new forms of relating.

      However, he too saw the limits of earnestness very well as just another religious obligation.That obligatory earnestness also became a flag in Sannyas, which thankfully died a death in many of us.

      We have babies and bathwater. I like to think that sannyasins still have something lovely and wonderful to offer that is represented in the best of all people elsewhere too. There is no division, as Tan mentioned to me in the last blog title. Which is why, perhaps, we also,virtually, linguistically rely on humour to resolve the inconsistencies and lack of actual interaction here, so as to create a positive, emotive confirming effect, out there.

      But mirth and earnestness also point to something else…and that, in B.Long’s terms even, cannot be ‘pinned’…nor should it be.

      Primarily working on the emotive body, not the cognitive mind that describes instead of emotes, are aspects of different patterns which we are always using anyway. I don’t think that either will lead to the end of suffering but talking about things and laughing about them may well be a necessary coping mechanism, neither of which can replace the originality from which we stem and yearn for in our discomfort of solitude, unhinged from love.

      I wouldn’t give it a second thought in terms of living life fully as much as one can, which is totally free and unprescribed by anyone, if we have the luck of the draw to call upon that. That’s plenty to discover already.

  2. Prem says:

    Simond, if you are reading this: bro’, you are still in the mind.

    35 years of meditation and you have only withdrawn into your own ego and western conditioning that you don’t need a master – but you can’t see that right now, your own ego is the master, and your mind is the master.

    What a bunch of projections and mind-stuff you wrote.

    • simond says:

      Hello Prem,
      Please forgive me, as it seems you know me, but I don’t recall you. I have two brothers, both of whom have been sannyasins, and one is still. In any case, if you’d like to add a bit more to your short critique, I’d be grateful to read it.

      You suggest I’m in my mind and ego and that I have written a “bunch of projections and mind- stuff”. Would you like to explain and expand in order to help me better understand? The terminology is a bit obtuse to me, can you help?

      Thanks.

  3. shantam prem says:

    Simond,
    I may not agree with you fully but I appreciate the tone and the sincerity shown by you in this prose.

    Why one should judge you? You have all the rights to play your cards in your way.
    While reading your text I remembered Osho’s words similar to, “In the other religions there is only entry but no exit, in Neo-Sannyas there is an exit door too.”

    I will say, in spite of dropping sannyas and reverting back to your original name, you being still attracted to share with sannyasins is enough an applause for Osho and His people.

    If you and many other gentlemen have found better bunch of people, you have not been here but writing and sharing the notes with the disciples of Eckhart Tolle or Mooji!

    • simond says:

      Thanks, Shantam. You are right, I am attracted to share myself here. I have sometimes wondered why and have yet to answer the question fully.

      I enjoy the sincerity and honesty, wisdom and humour of some contributors. I’m also sometimes amazed and aghast at some of the anger and vitriol and sheer ignorance, of others.

      I know this is all part of my learning, and it seems to be this aspect that keeps me here.

      I also loved Osho!

      Thanks again.

      • Arpana says:

        Same for all of us Rev., although we aren’t all up against the idea of being above it, or feel the need to keep telling everyone we are above it all.

        Sincere, not putting-you-in-your-place point now.

        Is there not a problem here, which relates to an essentially Christian mindset, that nice equals good, equals spiritual, equals religious. Nasty equals bad, equals not spiritual, equals not religious.

        I put to you that what goes on here is pretty balanced between nice and nasty, but because of that nice equals good, nasty equals bad mindset, you/we are much more likely to notice the nasty.

        Why is vitriol intrinsically wrong, in the immediate, as part of all the other? This is just a small site, with a few people. Why make such an issue about it? (I’m thinking out loud now). Sannyas is either AND or. Nice AND nasty. All the opposites. About totality, authenticity. Christianity is about good OR bad.

        Just a thought.

        P.S:
        The Christianity point is not aimed at you specifically. Anyone in their twenties and above, early eighties, would have been inculcated with Christian crap in the West during childhood, in one way or other.

        • shantam prem says:

          These are original words of Arpana, almost like quotation from Osho:
          “Sannyas is either AND or. Nice AND nasty. All the opposites. About totality, authenticity. Christianity is about good OR bad.”

          Just to make the history up-to-date, I would like to add, these sentiments were in the foundation of Sannyas. What we see now is debris fallen on each other. Sannyas is more or less an expired product as far as mainstream West is concerned, and I don’t think the supply will ever come again in the shelves.

          When a ship sinks it can be photographed, but when a way of life sinks, one can still believe it is somewhere.

          • Arpana says:

            Shantam,
            You will never succeed in turning Westerners, or Indians, into clones of you.
            You are not an Osho sannyasin. You are poison, not antidote.

            • shantam prem says:

              When master is dead and the high priests are drunked, Arpana kind of disciples get the control over the register; who belongs to the sect and who not.

              I really don’t like to hurt the bleeding sentiments of others. You are free to call me any name. Any reader can feel the pathetic attitude. It needs compassion and not anger.

        • Simond says:

          Arpana,

          You asked why or whether “vitriol is intrinsically wrongyou seemed mto suggest that Sannyas is about determining or exploring a balance between ” nice and nasty”. If I understood you correctly you wondered if being authentic and real meant that there is a way to embrace both sides? You certainly don’t want to repress yourself, after all, that’s the background we have all come from, isn’t it?

          I sense from this, and from other posts, recently, that you are questioning some profound ideas about morality and authenticity. Good on you. It’s a brave step to open your mind and feelings to such questions. Also a bit scary too. There aren’t easy answers that I know of.

          How does it feel to be angry or vitriolic? How does it affect you? How does it feel to face other r and vitriol? When someone is “unkind, aggressive, mean, cruel, spiteful, vicious, nasty”- what is happening inside you?

          One way of thinking is to accept that anything I feel, I am responsible for, it’s all happening in me, ‘all my problem’. So if someone abuses me, I should accept it and see it as all my problem. If I’m hurt or wounded, then it’s my issue, my problem and my concern. I can’t ask anyone to stop, because if I’m hurt, then I must have something ‘to learn’. If I react in anyway it’s my problem.

          Conversely, see it from the other side, a side that I’d guess you know well…Where you are being criticised, where you are being attacked for what you think or feel, for being stupid, mean, weak, nasty, angry, for being aggressive, where you are being humiliated, how does it feel, Arpana?

          Is it still just all your problem? Or are they doing something to you?

          Now let’s look at it from the other side: You want to explore the aggressor, you want the freedom and power to bully, to get angry, to seek revenge, to act with vitriol, to criticise others, to bolster your ego. Nice, eh? You might enjoy the feeling of power it provides. Does it win you friends? Do you get a good reflection from others?

          There’s many sayings that explore these issues, and I’m sure you can find some from Osho himself:
          What comes around, goes around.
          Do unto others, as you would have done to you.
          As you sow, so shall you reap

          But you know all this, Arpana, I don’t wish to insult your intelligence. You know it intellectually but you also feel offended and confused by some of the harsh comments to you on this site. And occasionally you submit to cynicism, criticism of others, to reacting strongly to things that I or others say.

          I can’t find the answer for you, but I trust that you will.

          • Arpana says:

            Good post. Best you’ve ever written.

            “but you also feel offended and confused by some of the harsh comments to you on this site.”

            No, I don’t. I don’t experience myself as being particularly on the receiving end of harsh posts.

            I find sannyasnews a rewarding site to participate in.

          • Arpana says:

            I’ve just realised.
            You’re trying to rescue me.
            You’re a rescuer.
            You did that when you first posted here, with various people, but haven’t for a while so I failed to notice your little game.

            I’m embracing my inner utter bastard. I don’t need rescuing, but thanks anyway.

            • Simond says:

              Arpana,
              I’ve yet to know anyone, including myself, who hasn’t needed rescuing.

              No shame in that.

              All you’re doing is finding any way you can to justify “embracing your inner utter bastard”.

              Good luck with that!

        • Ashok says:

          “Just a thought.”

          Like Shantam, I didn’t know you had that kind of thought in you, and am therefore pleasantly surprised, Mr Bible Puncher!

          Can’t disagree with the thought either!

  4. Kavita says:

    Sincere post by Simond.

    “Today there is no need for Sannyas, no need for the master-disciple relationship, which was outdated once the numbers of followers had grown beyond the ability of one man to engage with them.”

    But who is anyone to decide that?

    “forget me and live your own understanding and truth.”

    This I would agree more with.

    Just a little sharing re. to Martyn’s “If you are answerable to the end of suffering or the beginning of self-satisfaction”…

    Yesterday we had a Society/House meeting in the evening where I share residence with my mother. It is very rare that I attend this, unless my mother is unable to attend & yesterday was one such occurrence.

    One of the main problems that was discussed was the lack of space for vehicle parking and as usual there was hardly any breakthrough, but another, undecided date for the next meeting was decided. After the meeting was over the Secretary of the Society was asked by a passer-by ( a relative of one of the residents) if any solution was reached, to which the Secretary replied smilingly, “There is no solution to anything”!

  5. shantam prem says:

    Simond is a ex-sannyasin. He has dropped his sannyas name.
    Arpana is a sannyasin, the Greek living in Queen’s England.

    Most probably they are of the same age.

    Now the question is, what difference does it make if one is sannyasin and another not?

    Maybe some can explain the difference.
    Is it like someone is employed and someone is on benefits?
    Is it like someone has the reservation in the train, another has lost the ticket?

    There must be some subtle or visible difference between the haves and have-nots of the world.

    As far as this Shantam is concerned, around 30 years ago i was in a three days meditation camp where I got the initiation into Sannyas at the age of 22 years 9 months and 8/9 days.

    What it means now, I have no idea.
    Maybe this experience can make me eligible to be the chairman of Osho Foundation International. If not, an Independent service provider! lols

  6. Lokesh says:

    Well thought out and well written article from Simond.

    Osho was very much a zeitgeist. I recently watched a German series called ‘Deutchland 83′. One character becomes involved with the ‘Bhagwan Cult’ and goes to live in a sannyasin community. Although containing some historical inaccuracies it is quite well done. I found it amusing. In retrospect the whole thing looks a bit corny, although it was very much in tune with the times.
    Osho found himself doing the right thing at the right time. He clicked into the post-hippy era perfectly and took it all a few steps further. That time is gone.

    I have been accused of being anti-Osho and an ex-sannyasin here on SN. I see that as a basic misunderstanding on my accusers’ part. I see myself as somewhat privileged in that I actually spent real time with Osho, sat at his feet, touched them, conversed and laughed with the man and basically lived out my need for playing the disciple of an apparently enlightened man. Where that need arose and how is a mystery. I had it from an early age.

    Of the many things I am grateful to Osho for, perhaps the most significant is his allowing me to live that scenario out. It also left me very clear about my relationship with Osho. I loved him like a great friend, which allows me to feel confident in speaking about some of the bullshit he came away with. I am sure all of you can relate to that in purely human terms. A good friend to me is, amongst other things, someone who you can joke with and have a laugh with and about. Osho made a strong point of not taking oneself too seriously. For me, that includes not taking Osho too seriously either.

    Some of my contemporaries experience the need to have Osho as some cosmic big brother, guiding them through life. I do not. If Osho is who he said he was he is long gone now and is no more. The goose is out because it was never in in the first place.

    One of the things Osho helped liberate me from is the need for some external authoritarian figure who knows what is best for me better than I do. Remember, a great master is not the one who gathers the most disciples around him, but rather the one who creates the most independent masters in their own right.

    Another thing Osho was instrumental in was helping me kick my addiction to bliss states. Once upon a time, I was an altered states, bliss junkie. I have come to see that truth has little to do with feeling blissed out and everything to do with with the bliss of being ordinary, nobody, a conscious grain of cosmic sand in an ever expanding multiverse. No big cosmic flashes of pure white light any more, just day-to-day life in its magnificent simplicity and infinite mystery.

    I am sure that not everybody will agree when I say the time of the gurus is all but gone. These wonderful men and women who dedicated their lives in an effort to raise man out of the mud he was born into is done. They came and went and cannot give any more than they have. We have all the tools at our disposal to liberate ourselves.

    We all know about chakras. To think our higher chakras are not open is a mistake. They are wide open and transmitting all the time. All that is needed is the ears to hear. People like Osho have done their work by bringing us to where we are now. The rest is up to us. Nobody external to us can do that for us. It is an act of laziness and immaturity to believe they can. The masters can show you the right path to take, but ultimately it is you alone who must walk it. Happy trails.

    • shantam prem says:

      Lokesh, can you imagine a scene where a 50-plus woman in her changing years tells her daughters, “God has made us women free from the monthly trouble”? What you will say to this mom?

      What you have written is a subjective state of mind, it has nothing to do with the general needs and longings and yearnings of others.

      It can be 3.24 PM in Ibiza and also in Switzerland from where I am writing, but this is not the time all around the globe.

      Many factors play the role in shaping anybody’s present state of being.

    • Ashok says:

      “I have been accused of being anti-Osho”

      It has always been clear to me, Lokesh, since I first came on this site, that you are in fact an Osho lover!

      Which, as I have said before on numerous occasions, means taking him on balance as the man he was, and being prepared to accept that he was less than infallible at times! Obvious, really, isn’t it? Obviously not, for some!

      Those that accuse you of being anti-Osho, for having the temerity to dare to debate/question/criticise some of his actions and tell it like it really was, are themselves, I would argue, anti-Osho!

  7. Lokesh says:

    Shantam enquires, “Can you imagine a scene where a 50-plus woman in her changing years tells her daughters, “God has made us women free from the monthly trouble”? What you will say to this mom?”

    Ehm…no, I can’t imagine such an absurd situation.

    “What you will say to this mom?”
    Ehm…er…how about, “Missus, can you tell me the winning numbers for next week’s Euromillions?”

  8. Antonio says:

    I read the book ‘My Life With Osho’ (written by Dr. Azima Rosciano, who has lived 12 years with Osho) and at one point he says that Osho was part of the Tibetan tradition of Guru Rinpoche, and Norba Rinpoche was one of his teachers. Can someone confirm?

    This is very strange because I had also heard from another person that he had travelled to Tibet, Osho never said anything about it or not?
    Sorry for my English.

    • Madhav Krishna says:

      Osho was more of a Kagye when it comes down to Tibetan lineages, the tradition of Tilopa, Milarepa and the Karmapas. Also, his set-up of meditations and therapies was/is a modern way of what Marpa did with Milarepa to get him beyond his karmic dark zones. From heavy duty karma yoga, to sublime surrender…

      Can’t remember him talking about Guru Rinpoche or Padmasambhava and his key instruction, Dzogchen, which is one of my favourites at the moment.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dzogchen

  9. Lokesh says:

    Yes, I can confirm that Osho was part of the Tibetan tradition of Guru Rinpoche, and Norba Rinpoche was one of his teachers. I know this because back in those days I ran a brothel across the street from the Potala in Lhasa and often saw Osho, in those times he was known as Lobsang Hooflung, crossing the street arm-in-arm with Norba Rimpoche, Norbert for short, on their way to the Flying Pig, the local boozeria next door to my whorehouse.

    I was never honoured by Lobsang and Norbert’s custom, I believe they might have been gay, but they often namasted me as they went to and from the pub. I remember them as kind gentlemen who respected everyone, including such a lowly born one as myself.

    • frank says:

      Ah, yes. Nobby Norbu, he of the toothless grin, and the rest of the Tibetan Boozist lads: Guru Rinpoche, Chogyam Drunkpa, Djorgi Dorjeff, Lobsang Rampage, Big Tashi, the Delboy Lama, Chopper Tensin, Captain Haddock and Mme. Blavatski…they were all there…

      I spent many a lost weekend with those guys in the temples, chang shops, opium dens, whorehouses and kebab shops in the streets behind the Potala in search of the ultimate medicine.

      ‘The Bardo’ in Padmasambhava Street was the favourite haunt – you needed your wits about you in there- a lot of seriously dodgy and scary-looking characters hanging about! We had some pretty amazing seshuns and pujas where we would invariably end up in a stupa, spending a lot of hours on the mat. Happy daze!

      Nobby had some pretty amazing siddhis that he had honed from his years of meditation high in the Himalayas. He could spend hours out in the freezing cold wearing nothing but a wet blanket and smashing empty bottles of chang over his head to keep warm.

      On the way home from the Potala gin palace and other venues in the lower astral, Djorgi Dorjeff would kill a yak or two with his mental energy, which was pretty handy as by that time we were feeling pretty peckish.

      It seems like another lifetime now, mind.

  10. Kavita says:

    Lokesh, thank you for the ‘wake-up laughter’!

  11. Ashok says:

    Good article, Mr Simond!

    A sensible, real and grounded approach to Osho, dealing with the man himself, instead of the figure-head, and whatever other nonsense some are inclined to project on him!

  12. shantam prem says:

    Simond´s title is ‘What Osho Means to Me Now’?
    Basically, what Buddha Can Mean to anybody or in that sense, Jesus or Steve Jobs?

    In a way, Buddha, Jesus, Steve Jobs are more in our lives than Osho.
    why?
    One can discuss the reasons.

    This is one of the shit effects of Resort that creation and idea of Osho has gone down the drain.

    Simond, Satyadeva, Lokesh, Arpana, even Parmartha have no first-hand experience of final years of Osho´s work and what kind of Factory He was determined to leave behind?

    From the posts, it looks faceless Frank was all the time there but what he writes while sitting on his bed supported by NHS is quite amusing, but content-wise. thankless parasite´s appetite.

    Matter of the fact is, Osho is projected in the world as prolific author and inspiring speaker. Maybe in the eyes of clergy, this is the most deserving place for a Philosophy lecturer.

    True masters don´t leave behind just books but disciples who radiate their fire or water.

    Banta Singh boasted before his friend, “I am sleeping with a woman who has Aids for last many years. In reality, neither she has ever fallen sick nor me.”

    Sometimes, transmission of energy is like this!

  13. Madhav Krishna says:

    The goose is out.

    Poona ashram, even in early times, was a kind of spiritual madhouse for all kind of messed-up people from all over the world who had the chance of a lifetime to meet a soul-doctor of the calibre of Bhagwan. As in any clinic, it is not the goal for the patients to stay there, unless they are very sick, but to get out as soon as possible and find their way in real life staying healthy. That was Bhagwan’s wish from the beginning. Not a cult around him or the place where he stayed.

    Over the years, people tended to permanently hang out around him and he had to invent all kind of means to kick them out by blowing cosy mindsets or cosy resorts. To be utterly free of any need for an outer refuge like his person or the ashram, being centered in my SELF admidst any circumstance is what he transfered to me. Meeting him was a door to that, which I’m utterly thankful for.

  14. madhu dagmar frantzen says:

    Dear Simond,

    Responding to your long post (as a topic) has been/is kind of difficult for me, for several reasons.

    Felt more like a clean autobiographical essay; pretty nothing there to comment about, more like a curriculum vitae like what one writes for an institution whatsoever about life chapters.

    What reading brought up in me was the question which Shantam has been asking lately: Why do we write here, each of us, you, me, anybody?

    Liked your response that an answer to that didn´t yet fully unfold, but is moving you too.
    And then you added: “I know this is all part of my learning, and it seems to be this aspect that keeps me here.”

    I don´t know what you are learning here: In this ´thumbs up or down´ or being ignored and all in-between, in form of creative writings on some tablet to go. Would be interested though, to listen-read your response to that.

    According to me, I experience in the course of time every now and then issues of my co-dependency quite another way, as when meetings in a face-to-face and body-to-body realm are possible.

    And I experience also kind of repetitive ‘circling a prey’ (as Arpana once put it) – circling in each and everybody (me, for sure, meanwhile included) – as also issues (topics) which come again and again in other costumes, so to say.

    `What is a Buddha-FIELD?´ is just one of them.

    When I feel frustrated and can´t leave it to connect to the site at all, I scroll about history of the website and its less than more changing writing regulars for so long years now.

    Sometimes, as in the last days, I’ve been in awe. And in wonder too, about our obviously ever- refreshing reliance here.

    The Human, I heard the other day, is the only animal with the innovative capacity of a story-telling animal in terms of changing the ways things are manifesting.

    And Kavita shared these days intuitively what her wise (?) housekeeper lady smilingly said at the end of a house meeting:”There is no solution.”

    Well – and another wise woman once said: We might have to sort out at best where is our response-ability, where is that, for ‘the other’, and where do we simply have to leave it to ´God`( the creational force)?

    Don´t you worry, she is not a Christian missionary at all. Me neither!

    Writing on a cold, dumpy, rainy, dark grey autumn afternoon…feeling warm though…took me quite some deliberate effort to say ´YES´ to this time of the year in the climate zone…a love-issue, one of the numerous…of loving what I feel very uncomfortable with, but cannot change at all….

    Madhu

    • frank says:

      Madhu, you say:
      “The Human, I heard the other day, is the only animal with the innovative capacity of a story-telling animal in terms of changing the ways things are manifesting.”

      Looks to me like you have answered your own question re: “What`s it (SN) all about?”

    • shantam prem says:

      Madhu,
      One autobiographical essay from your side will be a welcome read. As it looks, prime of your youth you have spent around Osho and his people. It must be once in a many lifetime event to learn from the combi packet of love, devotion, meditation and Sex.

      To be true, i have not read some honest reflection up to now. I wonder what kind of guilt or shame is holding the people back.

      • satyadeva says:

        “To be true, I have not read some honest reflection up to now. I wonder what kind of guilt or shame is holding the people back.”

        I suggest that this is almost certainly because probably very often you don’t read others’ posts properly, invariably just skimming over them – or even ignoring them altogether if they seem to threaten to undermine your beliefs etc.

        Because you’re too full of your own fixed views and standpoints – with a chronically frustrated voyeur’s predilection for the pruriently pornographic.

        Hence, your post is just pure, unadulterated bullshine, Shantam. Like most of your other half-baked, unconsciously self-descriptive efforts.

    • Simond says:

      Dear Madhu,

      What I am learning here and what you, or anyone else is learning here on this site, may be very different. Each of us is unique.

      Well, I’m self-employed and have time on my hands and whilst my partner is out and about I have time to dabble in Sannyas News. I’ve seen the forum as an opportunity to write and to read others’ comments. To digest them, feel them, and then deal with them, as best as I can. Any forum, be it online or face-to-face, is an opportunity to test and challenge myself, to learn from others, to be humbled and to face down my doubts and fears. Life is one big learning ground

      I sense your fervent desire to be heard and to contribute. You often finish your posts with a delightful comment on the weather or a short anecdote about what is happening in your life, all of which mark you out as deeply present and awake to the moment. Only you do this, and I like it. Such comments reflect a deep sensitivity that I sense sometimes troubles you. You are like others that I have met, who are so sensitive as to have been doubted and been damaged by others’ opinion of you.

      Yet you are also strong, forceful and not to be messed with when you feel misunderstood or when you are crossed. And your comments are exclusively personal and deeply felt, in contrast with some others on this site who are intellectual and separate. I like that too.

      I like the so-alled contradictions that you present. Sometimes I’m baffled and confused as to how to respond or if I even need to – but as I indicated earlier, it is this aspect of the site that is my learning ground.

      On some occasions you appear confused by ideas that are less grounded in the moment. Like “what is a Buddhafield”?

      Where does such a question arise from? What use is it? Aren’t there more real, simpler questions than these? There is no Buddhafield, it’s just a made-up idea.

      I believe that questions of this sort are a deflection from deeper underlying doubts.

      Surely, the real questions are:
      What makes you happy? Or unhappy? What makes me feel lonely and separate from others, and how can I address them? Is this the forum to address such questions? Why not? Alternatively, are you meeting people? Asking them the same questions and getting some answers? If not, why not? What is stopping you?

      The only purpose of this site, this forum, or the only real purpose, as I see it, is to sort out these questions. Like you, I’m fortunate enough to be doing just that, as well as I can.

      • madhu dagmar frantzen says:

        “On some occasions you appear confused by ideas that are less grounded in the moment. Like “what is a Buddhafield”? (Simond)

        Dear Simond,

        The quest about “Buddhafield” I had been finding, when scrolling into SN History Channel (March 2009, a topic formulated by Shantam Prem).

        And whenever I look into the yearly loops of repetitive issues/topics and kind of repetitive responses, I am in awe about the morphic fields about regulars as well as about some who hop in for a time being; and I am in awe too, sometimes in pain, about regulars like Shantam Prem, for example, leaving me (when re-reading ‘old’ stuff with questions like:
        Oh, what happened in the life of him (or others, or myself ) in these years which passed?

        A Buddhafield, for me, is not a mental, intellectual idea, has never been, so I am not confused about it at all.
        Just a beautiful way, to try at best to find a word for something very precious, unknowable by the mind and yet tangible, feelable . Also in the body – as a well-being.

        You can call it a morphic field of consciousness also and it’s quite connected to the body we are living in.

        One can say it’s a field of loving awareness, when being together, an attentiveness, NOT being multi-tasking, letting go of the enduring inner chatter, open up to a void together. Giving up focusing and yet get focused, both of it.

        Silence has many realms, sometimes it’s very noisy, sometimes there is a gap of Nothingness, so many layers, so many layers.

        It’s the most healthy, the most nourishing, the most dignifying, endlessly vast spaciousness I came to know, to be with others. I knew it as a child in aloneness as a refugio – it was then and there to know it with Osho in midst of all the fellow-travellers as a celebration with others.

        And I still like to call that a ‘Buddhafield’ then, although I know that all words fall short. Trying to give a glimpse of description of a spaciousness where nobody is busy ‘sorting out’ or ‘sorting in’ questions. Questions just dissolve and that´s an inconceivable juicy relaxation, and sometimes you may even feel like having been bathed in Love.

        In rare moments it also happens that when you come back again you happen to have found an answer, like finding a marvellous sea-shell on the beach, and that may be even an answer to a question you never had asked consciously in your mind before. And is yet important as a life-issue. Such surprising gifts it can contain. All of it happens – as if you have had been plugged-in to a greater wisdom.

        You see, Simond, I am in love with a ‘Buddha-FIELD’. A mystery, a miracle. An energetic FIELD. Very human.

        It’s a very Impersonal Happening, though. The Master is as part of it, as anybody else, yet the intentions of everybody to be really present in the there-here-now of these moments is needed.

        It;s a fragile happening also, fragile like the flavour of a flower, or the breeze of a wind passing, or a smile on a face which comes from deep inside spontaneously and not ‘painted’, coming from a source unknown and unknowable.

        A precious gift.

        Then and there you just know that you ought to be HERE and that there is no need from your side to prove it or to perform anything ‘special’.

        And ‘acceptance’ then is not a mental, intellectual, hardcore gymnastic but a blissful by-product of such moments. For free, so to say.

        Beautiful, isn´t it?

        Madhu

        P.S:
        Some other response to your II. stroke is on the way, but didn´t appear up to now.
        My social situation at the moment is pretty much exhausting and I need some more walks by the river…
        Love it, Simond, that you put some focus on ‘respect’ and ‘sensitivity’ here at SN…no human is an island.

  15. Arpana says:

    Shantam,
    ONE autobiographical essay from your side will be unwelcome. As it looks, prime of your youth you have spent around Osho and his people. Once in a many lifetime event to learn absolutely nothing.

    One day you will have to face your guilt and shame which is holding you in the mire of your self-importance, and the yearning for the sexual experiences of your youth at the ashram.

  16. shantam prem says:

    My God! What a bunch of idiots are following me. These people don´t have even basic courtesy not to unleash their mind over the contents of the post which is addressed to someone personally.

    I wonder about the school and the teachers they went to for education. Can I teach some netiquettes to the mediators, it costs a little patience to wait when someone has addressed something to someone. Maybe the other person is not on the computer or contemplating over the answer.

    Will you feel ok if your partner/neighbour opens your letters? Stalking gentleman called Satyadeva can answer this.

    • satyadeva says:

      Shantam, it seems you’ve forgotten, deliberately or otherwise, the sort of place you’re writing at, an open forum, and that therefore your posts are subject to the scrutiny of all and the response of anyone so moved.

      In fact, it’s clear enough that your pained ‘outrage’ is just a convenient, defensive front, a way to deflect attention from the points I raised, which are too close to the bone, too embarrassing for you to answer – the same old, same old Shantam avoidance strategy, the same old Shantam bullshine!

      And it seems you need reminding that you wrote this:
      “It must be once in a many lifetime event to learn from the combi packet of love, devotion, meditation and Sex. To be true, I have not read some honest reflection up to now. I wonder what kind of guilt or shame is holding the people back.”

      Can’t you see that such a comment does not apply to just one person but it virtually sits up and begs for a response from the entire SN clientele?

      Fool – not only do you not read others’ posts, you don’t even realise what you’ve written yourself!

    • anand yogi says:

      Perfectly correct, Shantambhai!

  17. Arpana says:

    My God! What an idiot you are, Shantam. You don´t have even basic courtesy not to unleash your mind over Sannyas News.

    I wonder about the school and the teachers you went to for education.

  18. shantam prem says:

    Spiritual Search in Our Time

    *Read the scriptures which have the tagline: Advaita, Zen, Sufi, Osho, Gurdjieff, Sidoka, Maruti, BabaJi, Papaji
    *Be part of two or three facebook groups
    *Enrol in one or two weekly events based on dancing, Kirtan, Tantra, Yoga. Meditation is also ok
    * Be in the mailing list of people who want to share their wisdom
    * Get personal counselling, sometimes known as Darshana/Deeksha from one of them
    *Spend one or two weeks per year in a retreat conducted by someone from a faraway country
    * Hold your job tightly
    * Be faithful to your partner, if there is one

  19. prem martyn says:

    The Reverend Earnest Merryweather will today be available to parishioners in the vicarage, dispensing gratuitous earnestness and column inches of reverential humility a-propos of raising funds for the rebuilding of the Nissen Hut reading and tea-room which was gutted by fire by hooligans, ruffians and scoundrels with nothing more on their minds but mindless entertainment at the expense of others.
    They really are appaling and not even in the hour, let alone the moment, unlike the Reverend.

    Yours, with profound circumspection,
    The Parish Committee

    Let us sing now Hymn number 365 (no giggling please),
    ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’

  20. LaserCut says:

    Hahaha…

    I am amused to see the ‘sannyasins’ indulging in mental crap exchange and talking of things about Osho…rather than the inquiry of the self.

    Life is not about digging around the body named Osho…but your own being. Move on in life towards the self-evolution or else you lose time playing with the ashes while the opportunity called life passes by underutilised.

    If you are able to see deeper, then the point of discussing Osho will seem utterly stupid and trivial.

    May sense prevail over the so-called ‘sannyasins’.

    • shantam prem says:

      Wow! What a name, Laser cut. I have seen such ‘names’ in the comments section of many news sites and also porn sites.

      In the news sites, Frank and Laser cut kind of names write all kind of satires on all kind of people. Even at the untimely death of someone, these parasitical people won´t hesitate to share their wisdom: “There is no untimely death. It is always on right time.”

      In porn sites, such people write the filthy comments. There at least they show some part of their anatomy, ‘Banana in the hand.’

    • Ashok says:

      Hello Laser cut!

      There is much wisdom in your words, with which I cannot find fault!

      However, as far as the last sentence is concerned, I feel you may be erring on the overly-optimistic side, here and elsewhere in Osho-dom!

    • Swami Anand Yogi says:

      Well said, Lasercut! Your message penetrates to the very core, unlike a mere papercut, for example.

    • swamishanti says:

      Lasercut –
      Aren`t you a member of ‘The Transformers’?

  21. shantam prem says:

    It seems like sannyasins and ex-sannyasins have worked so much in the inner realm others will take many lifetimes.

    Therefore it is simply our right to expect we are gonna get sea-facing villas on the planet O-o 111231. This is the planet where Osho may have gone back and is busy to create Oshopuram for His people.

  22. It’s strange to see people the likes of Lokesh so interested to mention that Osho is in fact FALLIBLE! Wow! What an amazing insight! All this comes, of course, from Lokesh actually being privileged to have been in close proximity with Osho all those years ago…as one of those famous chosen few. Amazing to see the ego at work in these things. This is the same authority, Lokesh, that knows me well enough to call me a CHARLIE! Wow!

    Now he, along with Simond, and all those others who agree with Simond, don’t need Osho anymore. Of course! Makes perfect sense! For They are not stupid, or Charlies, they are all the new race of learned professors in the art of Holy and Absurdism Bullshit and other Osho Affairs. They are the bishops, rabbis and of the Neo-Sannyasin that was initiated by the Master of Absurdism…Osho Himself.

    But they think now they are being just as absurd and witty as the Master Himself…Alas, if only they had had just a glimpse of what it means to be absurd! One thing is certain: they wouldn’t be taking themselves so seriously. And I would be able to LAUGH at one, or any, of these posts!!

    Wasn’t it my learned freind Osho Himself who laughingly declared himself a joke and who said that only the Pope is infallible? Who wittily and decidedly declared himself an absolute charlie, incapable of even buying a vegetable in the market for his mother when she needed somebody to go shopping for her cooking?! Poor thing, I don’t envy Him having to be in the presence of the likes of Lokesh in those early days in Poona 1 and before. The Learned Ones…

    And Learned Ones, one more thing: don’t give me that “you just don’t understand our humour, nudge-nudge wink-wink” baloney.

    • frank says:

      Vedant Sajjad,
      Did I miss something?
      When did Lokesh call you a Charlie?
      You seem a bit miffed – I wouldn`t take it too seriously, we are all Charlie here.

      Also you say:
      “I don’t envy Him having to be in the presence of the likes of Lokesh in those early days in Poona 1.”

      But you do envy Lokesh his close contact with Osho, don`t you?
      As you rightly say: “Amazing to see the ego at work in these things.”

    • Ashok says:

      To Vedant S:

      ‘Twas I, I think, in response to Lokesh, that used the word ‘infallible’, and to be precise, the exact words used were ‘less than infallible’.

    • Lokesh says:

      Vedant, I do not recall describing you as a charlie, but going by the above it would be an appropriate enough description of you.
      You describe me as someone who saw himself as, and I quote, “one of those famous chosen few”. Gimme a break. The whole chosen few number belongs to a cultish mind-set. I am neither famous nor one of the chosen few and your comment betrays your extremely limited take on things.

      Your inability to laugh at any of the comments says more about you than the comments, because some of them are most definitely humorous. What it does say is that you are suffering from an underdeveloped sense of humour. Your comment above underlines this unfortunate fact because it is serious and lacking in any form of humour.

      Interesting how often Osho repeated that seriousness is the shadow of ego. Perhaps an old dog like you could learn a few new tricks on SN. Not that anyone round here would give a fuck about that, because you are just another fish in the tank; a serious one, which is about the only thing that distinguishes you from anyone else.

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