Osho and Baba Hari Giri
An Early dispute with a leading Sikh, Osho speaks of the Encounter.
The Golden Temple in Amritsar, Punjab, is the main Sikh temple. One man in Punjab was the most famous saint in Punjab, known as the Lion of Punjab, Baba Hari Giri. He was not aware of me, and it was just a coincidence that we met in a conference. In Amritsar they have every year a Vedanta conference, and we met there.
It was just a coincidence that he spoke and I was to speak after him. And I criticized him point by point. The organizers were simply frozen to death, because that man was respected in Punjab. Thousands will be ready to die for him. I was not known in Punjab at all, that was my first time to be in Amritsar.
The golden Temple at Early Morning
And I criticized him so totally, even on small points, that they were afraid that there is going to be a riot immediately. And I don’t have not even a single person who knows me. An ancient Vedanta story he has told. The story is that ten blind men cross a river, and after passing the river they think it is better to count. Perhaps somebody the river has taken away. The current is strong and it is rainy season. So they start counting. But the count always comes to nine, because everybody leaves himself out. He starts from the other, ends with the last, does not count himself. Naturally, it is nine.
One man sitting on the bank was watching the whole scene. It was hilarious what they were doing. They started crying and weeping that, “One friend is lost.” That man came and he said, “Don’t be worried. I will find your friend. You stand in a line. I will hit the first man on the head with my stick and you say one. I will strike the second man twice, you say two. Third three times, you say three. You count how many times I strike and you speak the number.” And they were immensely happy because the last man is found. The tenth man got ten hits.
This is an ancient Vedanta story told for centuries. Nobody has ever raised any question about it. I asked the people, “This story is absolutely idiotic, because how did these people know that they were ten? Had they counted before entering the stream? If they knew how to count before they entered the stream, how did they forget it? How did they know that they were ten? And Hari Giri has to answer it, otherwise?, telling such idiotic stories and making them into great philosophy!”
He became so furious, knowing perfectly well that now there is no answer. If these people count themselves before entering the stream, then naturally they will be able to count afterwards. If they had not counted, then how did they come to know that they are ten?
He simply walked from the podium, and I told him, “This escape will not help. I have discussed every single point that you have raised. If you have any guts? and you are known as the Lion of Punjab, the whole pride of Punjab is at risk? then don’t escape. Come back.”
And he would not come back. He simply escaped. And I asked the people, “This man you still want to call the Lion of Punjab? And I will be here ten days and for ten days I will wait. If he wants, this challenge is open for ten days. I am ready to fight on every ground.”
And the problem is that I am not against the essential message of the Upanishads. But what these people are doing has nothing to do with the essential. They are making the nonessential more important, because the nonessential helps them to exploit people. The essential will not help to exploit anybody.
The man simply escaped. Ten days I was there in the conference, and even the organizers were surprised that not a single Punjabi stood in favor of him. I asked that anybody, if he wants to accept the challenge in place of his guru, his Master, I am ready. Those one thousand people? one hundred thousand people just remained silent. In ten days time I was able to manage that what I am saying is the real essence of Vedanta, and what you have been told up to now is not the real essence.
The real essence is the same whether it is Vedanta or Zen or Sufism or the songs of Baul or Kabir. It doesn’t matter. If anybody who has really attained, experienced, then he will agree with me.
Osho
The beauty of insight. That which was not obvious seems so obvious once recognised, noticed, perceived.
Although to be honest, Osho, that’s a bit rational. I think you’re forgetting what space-cases us ordinary people (not Lokesh, obviously) can be. I don’t mean ordinary, like you and Lokesh, I mean ordinary, like people like me.
So ordinary and humble as you, eh, Arpana?
I guess you’ll be off to midnight mass tonight to express your humble ordinariness. I’d say you were undoubtedly very ordinary.
Those who know do not speak and those who speak do not know. It’s an old Taoist saying, but it’s a load of rubbish; those who know do, can and should speak, and those ordinary, humble sorts like Arpana, well, better not to open your mouth and reveal your ordinary and self-centred thinking.
Oh, and a very merry Christmas to ye all.
I am rather getting the impression I am in the doghouse with you, Reverend Simond. Praise the Lord. Hallelujah.
It`s amazing, isn`t it?
How many angels can you get on the end of a pin?
How many advaitists with dementia can get across a stream?
Etc etc etc.
Religion, eh?
Bloody `ell.
Come on, Shantam, up to you to lighten the mood a bit.
Tell us a couple of good Guru Nanak jokes….
I would say, Frank, that anybody who is ready to execute torture or is serving an ideology to legalise torture in the name of whatsoever, including and not excluding the ´advaita logos´, has lost his or her marbles, as one says. Or has lost his or her humanness.
The hidden story behind that story of a mass assembly and conference and the combat between a high priest with an upcoming new Light in Punjab long ago here in that historical quote, is – in my eyes- presented by:
“The real essence is the same whether it is Vedanta or Zen or Sufism or the songs of Baul or Kabir. It doesn’t matter.”
More – pointing with a finger to the moon – cannot be said, I presume. Leaving such – at any time (!) – to the ability to respond of each and everybody in a present audience. Mere spectators – at any time (!) – won´t get the juice. But maybe ready to take the juice at another time and in another situation.
Who knows it, Frank? Do you?
There is Beauty in the inter-dependent setting. Unpredictable by the mind.
Madhu
Guru Nanak is walking naked down Princess Street, Edinburgh. He has his erect penis stuck in a Wellington Boot.
A police officer gets a hold of him and says, “What do you think you’re doing?”
Guru Nanak smiles and says to the policeman, “Nothing, officer. I’m just fucking aboot.”
How do you burn Guru Nanak`s ear?
Phone him up while he`s doing the ironing.
A downright egomaniac and a faceless creature can create jokes which are not fitting in context at all.
It is like telling a joke:
A Scottish woman who was walking without knickers under her Sari during one sunny day in Edinburgh felt horny to see a bald old man looking like some Indian.
She introduced herself in a naughty way, “You are bald above, I am bald below. You want to see?”
The bald old man said, “I am realised, being from India. You cannot tempt me through such things.”
The Scottish lady said, “There are exceptions to rule. Tell me one about you.”
The bald holy man said, “If you want to get me, call me Papa Ji.”
Mythology says, many dickheads got much energy of wisdom by looking at the bald head photos and reciting Papaji, Papaji….
Perfectly correct, Shantambhai!
Again the Scottish and Anglo-Saxon baboons of her Majesty show how they have abused the freedom that Osho has given them by, instead of meditating and following master`s guidelines, they have sat about doing nothing and spent their life joking and fucking a boot!
As Madhu makes abundantly clear in her catchphrase::
IT IS NOT FUNNY!
Those who understand how religions evolve know that Guru Nanak never fucked a boot! Does the declaration of an item of holey underwear as a holy icon sound like the idea of someone who was fucking a boot?
Fucking a boot in such places as Edinburgh may be deemed amusing, but in mighty Bhorat we frown upon such behaviour!
Shantambhai may have fucked a boot a bit in pumping phase (88-90),but only in service of higher cause of contemporary spiritual movement, and his fucking a boot has created situation where holy Amma Merkel is making regular charity payments for sponsoring religion of true believers of mighty Bhorat online!
Yahoo!
Hari Om!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/indiahome/indianews/article-3525422/SGPC-asks-Supreme-Court-ban-joke-websites-portray-Sardars-persons-low-intellect.html
It wasn`t very PC for Osho to have a go at a guy who couldn`t even count to 10.
Couldn’t stop himself, could he? Like the proverbial ‘beggar on a tenner’, he seemed to jump at any situation which provided the opportunity of publicly ‘bigging himself up’!
Why? Perhaps he was a narcissist? Perhaps he had low self-esteem, and taking others apart systematically, point by point, made him feel better about himself etc. etc?
The most likely in my book is that by being aggressively controversial, he knew this tactic would keep the cash-till bells ringing and ringing and ringing away! The ‘free-sex’ stuff was also a business ploy, designed to ensure a ready supply of customers.
Total trash, Ashok.
SD, thank you for noticing me! P’haps, at this point I could just remind you of some wise words that ‘Our Frank’ came up with on the previous thread:
“In some ways the hecklers say you have something.”
Merry Crimbo, Yo’ Ol’ Bastardo! xx
“In some ways the hecklers say you have something.”
Not in all cases though, and certainly not this one.
To claim the then Acharya Rajneesh, later Bhagwan Shree, was a “narcissist” who “had low self-esteem” and whose primary goal was making money is just specious, clever-dick nonsense, more suited to a tabloid-reading mentality than to someone who likes to call himself a sannyasin.
Perhaps you think spouting such garbage makes you into some sort of ‘rebel iconoclast’? Are you really that shallow and that stupid – or are you simply ‘on the wind-up’?
Whatever, I think you’re being a prize fool with more than a tendency to become “inebriated”, as Disraeli once said about Gladstone, “by the exuberance of his own verbosity”.
Whoah! Arse-cock!
I will not be quoted as some kind of scriptural authority!
Having hecklers can also mean that you`re just a dickhead.
Anything can go either way.
Or the other way.
Play the 2-4-2 Frank…keep ‘em zigzagging. Asscock’s on transfer from Sligo Wanderers…
http://ship-of-fools.com/gadgets/toys_pets_games/114.html
Try to get a grip and come to your senses, Swami Satyadeva! (I fear it may be too late for you, however!). Your employment of a B.Disraeli quotation reveals the pretentious and pomp-ass psyche of a stuffed-shirt with a very starchy collar! Pray, tell me, is Disraeli, another of the ‘hero’ figures that your ego
regularly prostrates itself before, whilst you raise your fluffy little bumkin high, in unquestioning and dutiful submission?
You accuse me of being a ‘wind up artist’, it would seem, because I dare to question the motives and actions of a person who at times displayed some rather odd and unusual behaviour, not to mention having got involved in, (perhaps directing), some rather illegal, ‘murky’ dealings.
Therefore, I put it to you, Sir, that you are a ‘wind out perpetrator’ (blowy kind), releasing noxious scorn, whilst crying “profanity and blasphemy” in the direction of those who do not adhere to your line of grovelling and over-reverential obedience to your ‘Master’!
You, Sir, sadly, are just another ‘Holy Cow-boy’, of immature and fragile ego, kidding yourself on that you are an experienced church elder!
Just more verbose garbage from someone who clearly doesn’t have a clue. You are so laughably wrong on all Osho counts, yet clearly think you’re a bit ‘special’.
And that’s all the response your latest, self-aggrandizing, tabloid-style foolishness deserves.
Em….
“Christmas in Japan
Only 1 per cent of Japanese people believe in Christ. Even so, most Japanese people decorate their stores and homes with evergreens during Christmas.
They enjoy giving each other gifts, and this is the part they celebrate.
They have a Buddhist monk called Hotei-Osho who acts like Santa Claus. He brings presents to each house and leaves them for the children. Some think he has eyes in the back of his head, so children try to behave like he is nearby.”
That is an amazing feat of photoshop. Brill.
Hi guys, don’t like this thread.
Can anyone tell me what comes first, the thoughts or the feelings? I have researched on the net but not happy with what I found, and there is plenty! Maybe someone can tell me what Osho said about it? I couldn’t find anything significant from the old boy.
Maybe Arps?
Cheers!
Sometimes one or the other:
Feelings trigger thought. Thought triggers feeling. Feelings trigger feelings. Thoughts trigger thoughts.
Among so many geniuses that speak like idiots or idiots who pretend to be geniuses it is difficult to say something without sounding like a heckler…
Anyway:
Perhaps the key to this encounter might be the one that the TV says:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/sikhism/people/nanak.shtml
About the autopoietic questions:
It is undecidable if you are not sure if the person who makes it is a genius or an ass(hole)…although this does not exclude that sometimes the genius could die like a donkey.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buridan%27s_ass
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_G%C3%B6del
When a man with a rose meets a man with a holy book the man with the holy book escapes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuoQQsHUmZE
Ciao,
VF
A friend said that the sannyas world is just a forum in which individuals have an opportunity to work out their ego problems, and some have bigger ego problems than others.
VT
Genii can be assholes.
Assholes can be genii.
Doesn`t work in logic
But works in reality.
Re Buridan’s ass:
THE TENTH SAYING
JESUS SAID:
“IT IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR A MAN TO MOUNT TWO HORSES AND TO STRETCH TWO BOWS; AND IT IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR A SERVANT TO SERVE TWO MASTERS, OTHERWISE HE WILL HONOUR THE ONE AND OFFEND THE OTHER.
https://justpaste.it/TheMustardSeed
Thanks for this quote again, Arpana.
Quite a seasonal greeting for these last festive hours.
Bright sky today here.
The winds are more gentle as yesterday.
Window is open and the wind is playing music with the small hollow bamboo sticks I´ve fixed on the ceiling.
I am out then for a walk.
Madhu
I first read this in 1981, Madhu.
Stayed with me all these years. (This edition).
Funny, I think that Satyadeva edited this edition.
He will no doubt confirm or not!
I edited the first edition (’75), but after a while other editions listed a different editor. Once I did a fairly quick check and noticed no changes to the text although aspects I wasn’t involved in (presentation, cover etc.) had been altered.
You did a fine job, Sir.
Precious.
@Frank
Yes, the reality could be frustrating, despite the logic that you use.
Btw, about undecidable sentences:
About whom are you talking right now?
Ciao,
VF
Until now I have not felt any human entities behind whoever is writing behind this “Frank” but IT takes the trouble to make me notice. This seems to me its message: I wrote something illogical, very familiar, with the usual baboon refrain about IQ, so when in doubt let me try to make a new friend. I could discover just an algorithm behind “Frank” (why Frank? no sannyas name? Ex-sannyasin? Pune123 tourist?).
No, no, I would like to know ‘as who’ he/it is speaking: if the genius of logic or if red ass monkey.
Whilst on the subject of challenging behaviour…heres a self satirizing christian site on the nature of religion and comedy.. Their top twentymost offensive jokes…
http://ship-of-fools.com/features/2005/laugh_judgment_results.html
A view on fanaticism and the lack of self satire…
http://ship-of-fools.com/features/2015/religion_must_be_a_laughing_matter.html
Anyway, if you had too many sprouts and mince pies its time for a game….fun for all the dysfunctional family….
http://ship-of-fools.com/gadgets/toys_pets_games/160.html
Thank you for all of this, Mr Martin!
Good stuff, eh?
About the main article:
One can look this way about the generous spirit of those who were giving their stage to some obscure philospher of that time to share the wisdom and put others down.
What to say about outsiders, the foundation in the name of Osho has no ethical sense and courage to discuss with fellow disciples.
Just imagine a debate shown live on YouTube between Resort spokesperson Keerti, representing breakaway cult and Shantam as one for the disciples without affiliation to any group.
It is fucking easy to hide smallness behind the larger-than-life religious founders though this is not effective anymore with contemporary spiritual movements.
@Prem Martyn
I agree with you, there’s nothing sadder than those who do not know how to cry, and consequently, laugh.
It seems to me that we are on another type of ship, it depends on ‘how far sailors can fly’.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzCkOnGfkGg
Love,
VF
Even in the universities, during debate competition students also criticise other competitors in the debate. And Osho was a professor with brilliant mind so naturally he could argue very clearly.
Did you ever watch a doc, Kusum, shedding some light about the art of ´debate competitions´, one to one and face-to-face – out in a courtyard of a Tibetan monastery? Not unlike the setting of the ´ Who-Is-In?´ group?
Switching partners to the tune of a bell. Looks like a dance then, the whole body is involved. When the debate is finished, sometimes ripples of laughter.
Some bricks of the mind walls may have been taken out, examined, controversially investigated, thrown in insubstantial ‘ping-pong’ accompanied by passionate gestures into the air.
A play, not to be taken seriously (in the end), by the final tune of the gong.
Has been infectious – we the audience watching and listening as in a cinema in the West have been laughing too, having been having a chance of watching a practice to disidentify with the mind, while using it.
The virtual stage of an online chat would give us theoretically all possibilities of practising the latter.
It does not happen though. Or very very rarely happens. Obviously.
Maybe the reason is that we are not in consent to a frame and some rudimentary rules of respecting each other as sentient beings? Or can´t hold the line of a topic? In agreement to hold the line?
Mostly just ´rapping our way through, not unlike the Pink Floyd album, ´The Wall´?
That´s (necessary) kids play.
Of grown-ups?
Madhu
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8cLMyDaOlo