And thank you for the Osho quotes you found there too; it´s coming little bit to ´senses this way (and is informative too).

Seems to be little stormy these first winter days, ups and downs in temperature inside-outside, does well to cool down a bit, doesm’t it?

Madhu

Something like this will be the title of my article if I could write spontaneously about my experience and observation of 20 years in and around Pune.

In my understanding, present management is so shrewd and clever that under the titles of Osho books they have buried the whole life taking place around Osho.

Those who have written books only glorify their own journey without giving much hint about the real life happening around the master. Maybe they are ashamed and full of guilt that why life around Osho was not in the same style as with Buddha, Mahavira or Dalai Lama!

What to say about picture and glimpse of real life? One cannot even find archives of Osho Times.

In this sense, Sannyas News is more in tune with honesty and transparency, complete archive is available online.

I don`t know whether the temples that survived and are present today escaped desecration because they were hidden in the jungle, or whether the vandals simply ran out of time.

After all, they didn`t have any dynamite in those days, so the large stone temples wouldn’t have been so easy to demolish, unlike the Buddhas of Bamyan statues, which were destroyed by the Taliban in Afghanistan, or the recent destruction of the temples in Palmyra Syria by IS.

Apparently, the British were shocked when they `discovered` the temples again, hidden away in the jungle.

“After fall of Chandella dynasty (after AD 1150), Khajuraho Temples suffered destruction & disfigurement by Muslim invaders in this area, which forced local people to leave Khajuraho. As Muslim invaders had a ruling policy of intolerance for worship places of other religions so all the citizens of Khajuraho left the town with a hope that its solitude will not attract attention of mMslim invaders into the temple area, and in this way both temple and they themselves will remain unhurt. So from about 13th century to 18th century, Khajuraho temples remain in forest cover, away from popularity till it was rediscovered by British engineer T. S. Burt.”

(From ‘History of Khajuraho Temples’)

From Wikipedia:

“Khajuraho temples were in active use through the end of 12th century. This changed in the 13th century, after the army of Delhi Sultanate, under the command of the Muslim Sultan Qutb-ud-din Aibak, attacked and seized the Chandela kingdom. About a century later, Ibn Battuta, the Moroccan traveller in his memoirs about his stay in India from 1335 to 1342 CE, mentioned visiting Khajuraho temples, calling them “Kajarra” as follows:

“…near (Khajuraho) temples, which contain idols that have been mutilated by the Moslems, live a number of yogis whose matted locks have grown as long as their bodies. And on account of extreme asceticism they are all yellow in colour. Many Moslems attend these men in order to take lessons (yoga) from them.”

— Ibn Battuta, about 1335 CE, Riḥlat Ibn Baṭūṭah, Translated by Arthur Cotterell

Central Indian region, where Khajuraho temples are, remained in the control of many different Muslim dynasties from 13th century through the 18th century. In this period, some temples were desecrated, followed by a long period when they were left in neglect. In 1495 CE, for example, Sikandar Lodi’s campaign of temple destruction included Khajuraho. The remoteness and isolation of Khajuraho protected the Hindu and Jain temples from continued destruction by Muslims.Over the centuries, vegetation and forests overgrew, took over the temples.

In the 1830s, local Hindus guided a British surveyor, T.S. Burt, to the temples and they were thus rediscovered by the global audience.Alexander Cunningham later reported, few years after the rediscovery, that the temples were secretly in use by yogis and thousands of Hindus would arrive for pilgrimage during Shivaratri celebrated annually in February or March based on a lunar calendar. In 1852, Maisey prepared earliest drawings of the Khajuraho temples.”

OSHO QUOTE WARNING: LOOK AWAY NOW IF YOU DISLIKE READING OSHO QOUTES! :

“What kind of temples are these, in which each temple has thousands of couples carved in stone?
Full-sized men and women, so beautiful that once you have seen a Khajuraho temple woman, a statue, no woman will look beautiful to you! Every woman will look just a faded memory of something real. Those stones are so real …

I used to go to Khajuraho – it was very close to my university, just a hundred miles, so whenever I had time I would drive there. The guide finally became a sannyasin – because he was himself ashamed to show them to people; but I told him, “You don’t understand. You need not be ashamed.

These pictures, these statues, this sculpture is not obscene. There is not a single hint of obscenity, although they are absolutely naked in loving embrace, making love. But there is not a single hint of obscenity unless your mind is full of obscenity.”

(Osho, ‘Sat Chit Anand’)

“And three hundred years of British rule in India have destroyed India’s own educational system – which was a totally different thing. They forced the Eastern mind to be educated according to Western standards. They have almost turned the Eastern intelligentsia into a second-grade Western intelligentsia. They have given their disease of speediness, of hurry, of impatience, of continuous anguish, anxiety, to the East.

If you see the temples of Khajuraho or the temples of Konarak, you can see the East in its true colors.

Just in Khajuraho there were one hundred temples; only thirty have survived, seventy have been destroyed by Mohammedans. Thousands of temples of tremendous beauty and sculpture have been destroyed by Mohammedans. These thirty survived; it was just coincidence, because they were part of a forest. Perhaps the invaders forgot about them.

But the British influence on the Indian mind was so great, that even a man like Mahatma Gandhi wanted these thirty temples to be covered with mud so nobody could see them. Just to think of the people who had created those hundred temples… each temple must have taken centuries to build.

They are so delicate in structure, so proportionate and so beautiful, that there exists nothing parallel to them on the earth.

And you can imagine that temples don’t exist alone; if there were a hundred temples, there must have been a city of thousands of people; otherwise a hundred temples are meaningless. Where are those people? With the temples those people have been massacred.

And those temples I take as an example, because their sculpture will look pornographic to the Western mind; to Mahatma Gandhi it also looked pornographic.

India owes so much to Rabindranath Tagore. He was the man who prevented Mahatma Gandhi and other politicians who were ready to cover the temples, to hide them from people’s eyes.

Rabindranath Tagore said, “This is absolutely stupid. They are not pornographic, they are utterly beautiful.”

There is a very delicate line between pornography and beauty. A naked woman is not necessarily pornographic; a naked man is not necessarily pornographic. A beautiful man, a beautiful woman, naked, can be examples of beauty, of health, of proportion. They are the most glorious products of nature. If a deer can be naked and beautiful – and nobody thinks the deer is pornographic – then why should it be that a naked man or woman cannot be just seen as beautiful?

There were ladies in the times of Victoria in England, who covered the legs of the chairs with cloth because legs should not be left naked – chairs’ legs! But because they are called legs, it was thought uncivilized, uncultured, to leave them naked. There was a movement in Victoria’s time that the people who take their dogs for a walk should cover them with cloth. They should not be naked…

As if nakedness itself is pornographic. It is the pornographic mind.

I have been to Khajuraho hundreds of times, and I have not seen a single sculpture as pornographic.”

(Osho, ‘Light on the Path’)

“I used to go to Khajuraho often, because it was on the way to Chhatarpur, a small state where I had many friends. Mohammedans have destroyed seventy of the temples, and thirty temples were covered in mud to protect them from the Mohammedans, in the corner of a deep forest. So thirty temples are still there.

When for the first time I went to see, just on the way, I could not believe my eyes. Men and women are making love standing on their heads! Just to stand on your head is enough trouble; to make love…and both are standing on their heads – would have been a great practice, a discipline, a lifelong discipline.

You will be surprised…your playboys and your playgirls are nothing compared to Khajuraho. Two men are making love to one woman from both the sides. Three men are making love to one woman:

two from both the sides, and one from the mouth! And these are religious temples!”

(Osho, ‘Zen: The Mystery and the Poetry of the Beyond’)

“Kampf der restlichen Welt gegen die Selbstbehauptung des Einzelnen

Du sagst:
Hrrrr!
Hrrrrrr!!
Hrrrrrrrrr!!!! Rrrwah! Rrrwah!!!!

KAI!
KAI! KAI! KAI!
Du sagst:
Neff!
Nnnnnnn – Njiff! Neff!

Ich sag:
Du bellst vor dem falschen Baum
Du sagst:
OUAH – OUAH!
WAOUUUUUUH!

Ich sag: Tu n’aboies pas dans le bon bois.
Du sagst:
BOW! BOW – OW – OW!
Ich sag: You’re barking up the wrong tree, now.”

Judith Holofernes, German songwriter lady and contemporary lyrics author (female!).

Dedicated that quote to some of your barking-habits.

For you, from Madhu – via Ibiza.

MOD: WOULD SOMEONE TRANSLATE THIS, PLEASE?!!

So lots of stuff you sometimes seem to have in common.

Sometimes also in very bad taste.

Madhu

And thus Madhu sums up the situation in Syria. What to do?