This year, Darya Safai, a Belgium-Iranian woman, joined that fabled Olympic tradition of protest and barrier breaking. At the Iran versus Egypt men’s volleyball match in Rio, Safai held a sign reading: “Let Iranian women enter their stadiums,” protesting the Iranian government’s refusal to grant women access to soccer and volleyball matches in Iran.
Since 1979, Iranian women have been prohibited from attending football matches. That ban was extended to volleyball matches in 2012. What is worse, women who have protested this gender apartheid have been harassed, arrested and imprisoned. In 2014, the Islamic Republic made its opposition to the presence of women in these public spaces clear when it arrested Ghonche Ghavami, a British-Iranian activist who had protested for equal access to a men-only volleyball match at Iran’s Azadi Stadium. She was arrested attempting to enter the stadium, charged with “propaganda against the state” and sentenced to one year in prison. She was held in prison for five months.
In Rio, Safai picked up Ghavami’s torch and helped shine a light on the Islamic Republic’s denial of fundamental human rights to women. By criminalizing women’s bodies and forbidding their attendance in men’s sporting events, the Iranian government is denying women access to public spaces.
And make no mistake — the ability to be in and be seen in public spaces is a fundamental civil liberty. To have access to public spaces is a critical human right; it means that society recognizes your worth as a person with a voice and the ability to contribute.
The policing of Iranian women’s participation is not just limited to sports matches either. In the Northwest Iranian city of Marivan, bicyclists gather and ride through town every Tuesday night as part of a “vehicle-free” campaign. Last month, an Iranian religious leader declared that women riding bikes was a sin, and for two weeks guards stopped female bikers from participating in the cycling event. Since the state-enforced religious edict came down, women and their allies have held multiple protests in Marivan demanding equal access to the right to bike.
Of course, any form of public participation by Iranian women have to meet the government-required dress code. All Iranian women, regardless of faith must adhere to hijab (modest Islamic dress that includes the headscarf). For Iranian women who are not observant Muslims this means their access to public space has been forcefully limited.
However, despite all of the Islamic Republic’s efforts to keep women out of public spaces and sporting events, Iranian women refuse to end their fight, as they took center stage at the Olympic games in Rio this year.
Just last week, Kimia Alizadeh won the bronze medal in Taekwondo, becoming both the first ever Iranian woman and the youngest Iranian to win a medal. “I am so happy for Iranian girls because it is the first medal and I hope at the next Olympics we will get a gold,” she said.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has made a public stance stating in its charter that it is “committed to the goal of equal participation by women in sport.” The IOC has set up the Women in Sports Commission to ensure its gender-equality policies are overseen and implemented.
Though a small and tacit gesture of solidarity, the IOC’s permission for Darya Safai to hold her sign at the Olympics will be remembered by Iranian women fighting for their rights for years to come, and it sends a clear message to the Islamic Republic. It is now time for the Olympic Committee to put their words in practice and explicitly support those who object sports gender apartheid. Gender-equality practices must be encouraged and enforced both on and off the field. The ability for women to participate and watch sports is nothing short of a pressing human rights issue, and the IOC has a responsibility to ensure that female athletes and fans can participate in the sports they love.
As Kimia and her fellow women Olympians finish their competitions in Rio, they have become beacons of hope to many Iranian women, demonstrating that even in the face of extreme discrimination they can aspire to achieve more. But equally as important, Iranians are looking at how those who dare to ask for equality for women are treated in the International domain — as we look back on these Olympics and remember what we’ve protested and celebrated, we should remember Darya Safai alongside brave Iranian women Olympians.
I recently asked an Iranian sannyasin how the scene was in Iran. He replied that it was good. I asked about women’s repression and he told me that when women get home they take off their burkhas and run around in mini-skirts, at parties also.
Many Iranian women like to cover themselves up, not in compliance with the law but because they get less hassles from the menfolk when they nip down to the market for veggies. No man wants to grab an ass in a bag because it might be the granny from next door.
Last week I played music at a small Iranian party. Lovely bunch of people. The men were all completely stoned, something I have noticed that is the case with many Iranian men, opium being their drug of choice.They also like to snap their fingers when they dance.
I have visited Iran three times in the distant past. From what I can gather it has not changed much. A lot of people in military uniforms and not the happiest country in the world. Yet, most Iranians I meet in the free world are often fun-loving and intelligent. They can also be extremely generous. Pity that they have to put up with so much religious nonsense back home.
Once again, I recommend watching the movie ‘A Sinner in Mecca’. Some interesting new insights as to what is actually going on during the Hadj.
SN says, “The play of western nations with Iran at the moment is just opportunism for the oil there.” That is not exactly true in the sense that the West needs Iran’s oil. It does not. There is plenty of oil elsewhere. Russia consumes a lot of Iranian oil. The West wants to mess that arrangement up because they want to bring Russia down.
Thanks, Lokesh.
Yes, people find ways round autocracy, as they always did. But the fact is that Iran is second to China in capital punishment, and the Mullahs hang people with abandon.
Women certainly need to be able to watch what they like in public, and I think the woman pictured in this string header brave.
The ‘normalisation’ of political relations with Iran is certainly much better for the ‘average Joe’ Iranian, and economically it will be much better. But people still turn up nearly every week at ‘Freedom From Torture’ here in London, telling of the barbarity of the regime’s prisons and the sadists that run them, and spend long periods recovering from their trauma. There are more people at FFT from Iran than any other country.
I am glad to be discussing something other than Shantam’s obsessions with the Pune Ashram; those ten acres should be forgotten now, the whole world is there.
PM says, “those ten acres should be forgotten now, the whole world is there.”
I do not think I will ever be able to entirely forget what happened on those ten acres. That said, I rarely consciously remember them. I do remember Osho once saying something along the lines of that we only miss people because we were not totally with them when they were present. I do not know if that is 100% true but I do understand what he meant. I could say that about the ten acres. I lived it, enjoyed it and was quite total about the whole process. I no longer have any desire to return to it. It is long gone.
As for Iran, we can only count ourselves fortunate in that we are not faced by the kind of man-made horrors that exist there.
Four years ago, I befriended two Iranian men in Sri Lanka. They had fled their homeland. They were both intelligent men and there was always a tragic shadow hanging over them, although not at first obvious. I could honestly say those two guys were the most kind and generous people I have met in many years.
Somehow, people who have suffered social injustice are more aware of the beauty of sharing, understanding that as long as you have something worthwhile to give you are doing alright, or something like that.
Couple of days back, I swam by a huge luxury yacht, probably amongst the most expensive in the world, about eight floors high, anchored in a local bay. As I drew closer to this ocean-going behemoth, I noticed a little balcony to one side of the hull. An elderly couple were enjoying their breakfast there. I asked myself, what kind of world do we live in wherein these two have a billion dollar ship to ferry them around, while on the other side of the Med kids are dying from hunger? Answer, it’s a crazy world, where fair often does not enter the equation.
Lokesh, if you have that kind of yacht, would you ferry immigrants in them?
Still, I can understand your feelings. You were not one of those who donated 20 cents in the purchase of record number of expensive cars for Indian master from still one of the poorest states in India.
World is always like this, and nature too. For every single lion and elephant there are hundred thousand lambs and pigs.
Except that the lion and the elephant take what they need, not what they ‘want’.
And Osho, of course, couldn’t give a damn whether he had those Rollers or not.
Shantam enquires, “Lokesh, if you have that kind of yacht, would you ferry immigrants in them?”
I don’t desire such things, so it will never happen that I will be in a position to ferry immigrants.
Perfectly correct, Shantambhai!
As it is written in Vedic jungle book proverbs of mighty Bhorat:
“Retarded buffalo thinks that by wearing holy underwear he becomes an elephant, but he simply ends up carrying around large pile of bullshit he cannot see!”
Yahoo!
Hari Om!
Again, Yogi, pure poesia showing the truth…totally, madly in love with you. XX
Faceless Tan is madly in love with faceless Yogi. Offspring of their union will be Ma or Swami or Maami?
Is rationalism a theocracy?
I believe so.
AND WHILE WE ARE ABOUT IT, and on a similar theme of the persecution of women in autocracies,
congrats to a woman refugee swimmer, Yusra Mardini, at the Olympics from Syria.
It is moving to see that her and her sister kept the overcrowded boat they were in afloat by swimming alongside it for many hours so it stayed afloat in their escape from hell.
I hope she settles in the UK, and with no problems:
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Rwefugee+Team+at+Olympics&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox.
To have a theocracy there must be a belief in God. Then you get prophets of God, holy scriptures that are the Word of God, special places to worship God, special priests, imams, etc. who lead prayers to God, and the creation of theocracies. By eliminating the belief in God, the whole edifice collapses.
“So I went to live in his house. He was an atheist; he did not believe in God. And he was interested in me because he thought I was also an atheist – because he had heard me speaking in the university and other places, declaring that there is no God. So he thought we were both atheists.
But on the way I made it plain to him, “You may be under a wrong impression. I am not an atheist. “He said, “What! And you declare everywhere that there is no God.”
I said, “Yes, I declare there is no God. That’s why I cannot be a theist; a God is needed to be a theist – to believe in it. But a God is needed also to be an atheist – not to believe in it. And there is no God, so I don’t fall into any category.”
He said, “My God! So you don’t fall into any category?” I said, “No.”
Osho, ‘Beyond Psychology’, Chap. 15
“To have a theocracy there must be a belief in God.”
Perfectly correct, Samarpan!
Please regale the ignorant baboons further with your mighty wisdom!
Is the Pope a Catholic?
Do bears shit in the woods?
All true seekers long to know the answers!
Yahoo!
“Is the Pope Catholic?” (Anand Yogi).
You are getting off-topic, Anand Yogi, but your question is being seriously discussed, by serious Catholics.
“It’s always been the jokey answer to a dumb question, but it’s now a serious issue for Catholic intellectuals who have been criticising and defending the Catholic bona fides of Pope Francis, especially since the pontiff released a landmark document on family life earlier this month that some say calls into question the church’s teachings on the permanence of marriage.
“Suddenly the rhetorical question, ‘Is the Pope Catholic?’ doesn’t seem so rhetorical anymore,” Claire Chretien wrote in a pointed critique at the conservative beb outlet, ‘The Federalist’.
“The unusual debate – after all, it’s not often that a pope is accused of heterodoxy – has grown so serious, in fact, that on Tuesday evening (April 19), the Jesuit-run Fordham University hosted a panel of Catholic experts titled: “Is the Pope Catholic?”
“‘Is the Pope Catholic?’ Suddenly a Serious Question”:
https://cruxnow.com/church/2016/04/20/is-the-pope-catholic-suddenly-a-serious-question/
Perfect correct, Samarpan!
However, the Pope is still a primate so would fit in very well with baboons of Sannyasnews!
Yahoo!
Hail Mary!
Amen!
Some kind of people don´t believe in God but they think last Gautam Siddhartha and Late Rajneesh Jain are everywhere because they have unique titles, Buddha and Osho!
To be true, I believe in God; the God who has not fathered Jesus and who has not spoken through some Arabian man.
But these aren’t necessarily exclusive though, are they, Shantam?
There may well be no God in the traditional, conventionally religious, guilt-inducing sense of the term, and, as perhaps you imply, men, not God, created Jesus or “some Arabian man” for multitudes to worship as his special envoy on Earth, as it were; while after they die as human beings, Buddha and Osho can be “everywhere”, if their words are to be believed.
P.S:
“Some kind of people don´t believe in God but they think last Gautam Siddhartha and late Rajneesh Jain are everywhere because they have unique titles, Buddha and Osho!”
Really? Can’t say I’ve come across anyone as stupid as that, Shantam. Where DO you find such people? Perhaps you’re attracting that particular type, for some strange reason I can’t possibly begin to imagine…or, you’re imagining them….
‘Conversations with God’, by Ronald Walsh
*Can ya dickory Red sock wot you’ve done, ya god?
You’ve gone and given Dolly primates complex Dahn The Drains wif sophisticated electrical pulses and have a butcher’s what’s ‘appened.
Were we designed ter forage for nuts and fruits in the bloody bloomin’ mountains, grains and beans or ‘unt for our food in the nude?
Did ya give any guidelines? Did ya send someone daahhhn wif stone Gary ter give us sum guidelines? Did ya give an ‘rab sum writin’ on the bleedin’ wall? Is it aw part of a divine plan?*
*Translation:
Can you clock what you have done, you God? You’ve given simple primates complex brains with sophisticated electrical pulses and look what’s happened.
Were we designed to forage for nuts and fruits in the mountains, or grow grains and beans or hunt for our food?
Is there an evolutionary theme to all this and did you give us any guidelines? Did you send someone with stone tablets or give some Arab some writing on the wall?
Is this all part of your divine plan?
If you can do something about the world, do it.
Today I posted this below…it is closer to our concerns in some ways, but not if one doesn’t go to the French beach. It gets less easy to turn away and believe in monastic introspection a la New Age drum and incense.. when the beach down the road is peopled by intimidatory civic-coded twats or les Twats.
The situations just get worse, so our responses should be a bit more contemporary – or book a ticket to somewhere where the inherited post-WW2 civic life still represents the social quiescence which we borrowed from a previous generation’s solution to conflict, but cannot make happen ourselves. This time round the conflict is amongst us in civic life and our empowerment in it the solution.
If you think aura soma psychic massage or a bloke in saffron red robes will oil away the differences, please do write in.
MAKE ALL FRENCH BEACHES NUDIST ONLY
————————————————–
(In response to this rubbish : http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/burkini-swimwear-ban-france-nice-armed-police-hijab-muslim-a7206776.html)
——————-
My reply :
This is the consequence of a rationalist state, France, utterly implicated in the last two hundred years of middle-eastern wars and intervention, since Napoleon, now in complete and comprehensible panic, resorting to bullying its own population through bourgeois fascism designed to attack the weakest, because it cannot prevent the revenge attacks of the lunatic terrorists.
Do you think French Muslims were not killed in those random ugly attacks? Of course they were, one of the first to die in Nice was a mother in full hijab, mown down by the terrorist truck driver. ……………………….
Apparently, on the beach, white French faggots spreading their fat pussy bodies roared with condemnation of this and other muslim women, certainly did not defend her.
I may not have anything in common with the Muslim dress code, I may and do condemn the notional repressive aspect of its patriarchal orthodox symbolism, I may disagree with a woman who wears it by force or choice and the plebean affiliation it represents. But I have not the slightest sympathy with the civic thuggery, the fat bourgeois bikini bitches and bastards who pride themselves on their superiority and employ ‘les flics’ to do insane intimidation across a whole section of ethnic identity, to sponsor what exactly?
I therefore condemn this law and voice my opposition to and support for this woman and others like her, as an atheist. These barely legal actions contain the very essence of a dim mentality, without solving anything. In fact, likely promoting the opposite.
This IS not so subtle Franco, Le Pen FASCISM of the governing rationalism. Which is why the Charlie Hebdo cartoon I posted the other day here (sic., blogsite) is significant. We are surrounded by endemically fascistic thugs of all sorts, but it is the corporate state criminality that defines, invents, creates the original menace and threat. The moment you run to the arms of the State thugs for protection, you are asking the same mechanism, which is implicated in the violence and its continued promotion, to protect you from its own consequences. It is an Hitlerian justification and leads to no good.
True change would be to involve everyone, not criminalise solely by appearance. This is what happens when you are rationally ‘superieur’ a la Francaise and emotively as thick as une piece de merde. The French citizens have an IMPLICIT RESPONSIBILITY To VOICE THEIR FRUSTRATION AT THE THUGGERY OF USELESS INSTITUTIONAL FASCISM AT EVERY LEVEL AND TO GET INVOLVED WITH ANTI-RACIST INTEGRATIONAL CIVIC LIFE AT ALL LEVELS ON A DAILY BASIS. IT’S NOT ENOUGH TO LET THINGS HAPPEN. THIS IS NOT GOOD NEWS. We become implicated in the consequences of this world more by what we don’t do or say than what we do.
Armed police force woman to remove Burkini on French beach.
Armed police have forced a woman on a beach in Nice to remove her burkini as part of a controversial new ban.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/burkini-swimwear-ban-france-nice-armed-police-hijab-muslim-a7206776.html
The French police have always been absolute thugs. About 40 years ago, I was sleeping on the very same beach as the one in the news article and, at dawn, was kicked awake, manhandled and evicted at machine-gun point by ‘les flics’.
And, like the cops in this story, they weren’t even the riot police (CRS), who will slap you around before you can say “merde” if they don`t like the look of you.
But really, people sunbathing on the Cote D`Azur with a headscarf wetsuit – what`s become of the world?
My mate at that time, Dirty Dave, was a bit of a shagmonster. One night he was canoodling on the beach late at night with some girl he had met in a bar when he crashed out. He was woken at gunpoint by the riot police at dawn who ordered him to stand up. He tried, but promptly collapsed and it was then he realised he was completely naked except for his trousers and pants that were wrapped tightly round his ankles.
Those were the days! Burkini – my arse!
The French cops are psycho for sure and the law against the burkini will just cause more aggro. But what about those going on the beach with the burkini on?
It`s about “freedom”?
I don`t really buy that one.
Verily, Frank , for we are all miserable swimmers…
bathed in the laugh of the law-d.
I like the story of Pierre pants down – very Nice.
This week’s caption competition – please write in with your entries….
“There’s nothing wrong with OUR habits!”
MOD:
For non-English friends:
A nun’s outfit is called a ‘habit’.
They`ll be demanding the implementation of Maria law, next….
PM,
I think it is more about obeying and applying the country’s laws.
For example, if you are caught drinking beer in an Islamic country, you go to the prison, or are beaten up by the people, etc…I was abused in an Islamic country about 30 years ago, I was using full burka but because of my height and ways some men just thought they could touch me in my buttocks, etc…And I couldn’t even complain…
If in this particular beach it is not allowed to wear a certain suit, just go to another one.
Cheers!
Tan.
I’m going to use long words in my reply…
One reason not to go to those plebean and retarded countries where westerners have no common emotive or sexual vocabulary is that they, the local populace, either hate you, want to exploit you as they themselves are exploited, or treat you like they themselves see life: as a pile of shit to get through. One reason any travelling of the world, to see goofy locals smiling into cameras whilst tourists sit in yoga positions and point at sunsets to the smell of cow dung permeating the beach, is not for the faint-hearted.
I’m not even at home in my ‘own’ country when I see the morass of nuclear family plebean dumbo-ness and self-satisfied gormlessness at airports, beaches etc.
That you don’t want to ‘protect’ or further empower a plebean, retarded, lumpen-tribal, anti-psychological, anti-libido, fantastical symbolic religiosity (anti-rational lunacy) with western liberal philanthropic bonhomie is particularly understandable with your and others’ exposure to the ‘incomers’ identity, when they clearly have no wish to be involved in change as we understand it, being essentially a victim from a non-integrated, created, imported underclass (1st, 2nd, 3rd or whatever generation, they remain identifiable).
I get and understand that visceral response, fear even.
Especially when the demand for integration is not met with a versatile combination of the highest values held in common and we cannot question identity openly on either side through the education system, interpersonally, with relevance and mutual support etc. Mutual aid is much more a factor of the underclass than it is of the bourgeoisie, always has been.
But the issue here is not of turning the other cheek or walking away. And especially not as a notional sannyasin, let alone a person.
Why, because ultimately this turning away leads to destruction, as we now know clearly. Osho really did not practise turning away, did he?
We are being asked to confront the very basis of oppressive stupidity in all its forms as we turn to the very last twenty years of global catastrophe. Whether you do that with a hop, skip and jump or via the style of the anti-Depression 1920s Berlin burlesque, or whether you get aerially bomabarded or something just as sinister in a metro is what we are considering here.
The nature of the mind-set that has changed the European map is that what she is I can be too, in an instant, given the fear and menace of that mind which is ramping up the pressure everywhere. FEAR prevents creativity and change.
Plus there is less and less to walk away to that isn’t subject to strife if you look. Even the beach itself is devoid of aquatic life because of every micro-decision we have allowed to be made since the 70s, made by people with law and power and violence against life.
The issue here is about coercion to dress and coercion to be undressed…it is the same coercion and fear as Arundhati Roy clearly stated this morning. That same mind-set again from whatever side has to be addressed. So use these events to discuss them otherwise they ARE USED AGAINST YOU, IN SURVEILLANCE, in education, in prohibition and in voting for the fascists at election times…in lying to and distorting that libido which you know is the sannyasin journey of self-discovery and recovery from those forces.
The solutions are many. Walking away to another beach might be feasible to someone, like not going to an underprivileged country for holidays and then wondering why it’s so shit in many ways.
If the opposite were happening and girls were being told not to show their legs or tits on the beach by roving fanatical thugs, I’d be singing a different tune. But I reckon things like that happen only when we have already undermined people long, long before.
The religious and local Mafia only arises when all other forms of civic security and empowerment have fallen apart elsewhere – and firstly in the ideology and feelings that you take for granted.
Tan,
Where I do agree that law can be used effectively in reducing the spread of the proverbial religious bullshit mind is in places like Holland where there has been victory against the cruelty of killing sentient animals in the Jewish and Muslim ways by a co-ordinated effort of animal rights EU MPs and party, and the constant propaganda of the right-wing press against ethnic privilege.
Again, it’s in the detail that these things work. Leonardo di Caprio has just allied himself with an anti-Beef Hindu Nationalist group…which is very problematic.
I’m not going to ferret out the links on google, but it’s all there if you do the research, and it was a delicate line of getting public consensus, but it happened in Holland. I also fully support Charlie Hebdo. I just think they could have done with a secret location instead of being sacrificed by a simple mistake of not having 1000 per cent security. Hindsight is no good nor is my advice here.
Being provocative is also fuelled by arrogance in some ways, and one should beware of the consequences. I don’t think Osho was either…but that’s fine too. otherwise he couldn’t operate in the way he did.
Brazil is facing its own huge problems with the murder of eco-activists there. The issues are basically the same, but one should use not refuse the debate.
I recently donated to an undercover animal rights film group. I’m happy to say they got a massive conviction for the owner of a slaughterhouse banning him for life from ever going into butchery again and with a heavy prison sentence. Little victories make it worthwhile. And the momentum builds…
As Havel said, you do something cos it makes sense, not because it’s guaranteed to succeed.
PM,
Thanks for your elaborated, beautiful and well written response.
I agree that most of the terrible social problems we are having, like refugees, suicide bombers, etc., are mainly the result of the westerns wars (Europe and USA) against the countries that they have interests in, one way or another.
Now, that we can live in peace together is another subject. In my experience, we can’t, and one of the main reasons, as you said, is religious arrogance.
So, only the law can be helpful, for a moment, of course! Because the western law is supposed to be impartial. XXX
Don´t count on the law (for justice), Tan.
The law ( or justice) looks very often just like just a paper, or metaphor-wise like a Swiss cheese with a lot of holes in it.
And in these holes we have worldwide, btw, the legal vacuums in which very many cunning, busy lawyers are doing THEIR thing for whatsoever extent of law-corruption they are paid.
Madhu
Our lives would be a damn sight harder without our ‘not good enough’ legal system, Madhu.
Madhu,
Just heard the news:
“France’s highest administrative court has suspended the burkini ban…The ban seriously, and clearly illegally, breached the fundamental freedoms to come and go, the freedom of beliefs and individual freedom….”
I totally agree with you that the law can be manipulated, but, still, it is the best in the world, if we compare with another cultures. Take my word for it! XXX
Good or even common sense prevails, thankfully.
A burqua ban, on the other hand, would be another matter though. I tend to think so anyway.
You both have not added a response button, Tan and Arpana.
Yes, Tan, I also know that France´s Court did a little ´last minute´ correction to the populists’ first reaction. Anyway, my statement was not that much about France but about what I’ve experienced here for quite a long while as a woman, right in front of my door and even inside, so to say.
However, Tan, I really came to know what you are talking about, when reminding me of ´other cultures´, as you put it.
Madhu
–
And Arpana,
Maybe you could drop your schoolmasterly, arrogant tone, interpreting or rating my words when commenting on stuff, which is not adressed to you?
That would be nice, if more of that which is called ´empathy´ could be passed over.
Madhu
P.S:
We here have to lose much of the standard of Human Rights in real-life that I grew up with – in pretty much confidence as a female.
And so the deterioration index happening is really PAIN, believe it or not.
However, for those who are coming here as new, the situation must often look like paradise. Wheels are turning in mixing and merging all kind of standards in everyday life, and what is pain for some may be like paradise for others.
@Madhu.
“And Arpana,
Maybe you could drop your schoolmasterly, arrogant tone, interpreting or rating my words when commenting on stuff, which is not adressed to you?”
Funny you should say that, Madhu. I always think of you as the Sannyas news headmistress.
Would-be headmistress, I meant.
Prem Martyn,
True, NOT good news!
However, this very pic seemed to have for me also some photo-shop ingredients and what shocked me also was this kind of artificial (rubber?) woman´s left leg with an otherwise empty burka-rubber suit laying on the beach, beside this all crumbled miserable-looking human gestalt, the face then pixeled, while we can see all other faces very clearly in their different expressions of all kinds of indifference as well as indignation. Ugly, indeed.
In the evening news we had some more of this and that from Nice in prime-time news, sent by some smartphone vid users, screams of little kids were to be heard and nobody knows what was what (and where).
Photo-shopped worked on, or not, burkini(s) or not, my own experience is – in everyday terms nowadays – that there is nobody by your side when you are exposed singularly in a precarious similiar situation.
Also the courageous voices in virtual chat-wise mode are missing then in reality – much more than less – and you are left alone in some calamity or other.
Otherwise, you have covered a sufficient lot around the whole stuff, like a brilliant social scientist, especially in your talk to Tan, and I won´t add some to that.
The latest summer holiday wave has taken its turns of what is called ´discussion´, and as you rightly stated, the essential markers of such are not discussed or named or scandals dissolved to make space for the better in terms of inter-relatings in human everyday affairs.
I don´t need to go to France to experience that.
Somebody said, the human pilgrimage starts right away then and there, where you take you first step in the morning, leaving your bed, to start the day. No need, he said, to look for some extraordinary pathways, somewhere else.
He is very right, I would say.
Madhu
This is the new age, man. People snap away on their smart phones. News is shared and people have become globally connected through interactive screens.
In a few years, people will be able to grow new arms or body parts and these items will be stocked in Argos and Amazon.
Gone are the days of ‘Knock-knock ginger’, hop-scotch and playing in the street with the yoyo.
Thousands dance to electro-techno beats with Sven Vath and smoke machines in Ibiza whilst homosexuals use the burka to smuggle themselves out of Syria, disguised as women in order to avoid being thrown off buildings by bearded Salafist psychonut fanatics who believe in blowing up body-parts and carnage and that they are heading for heavenly salvation in the after-life.
Thousands of young virgins await them and rivers of wine abound.
SS,
I totally agree with you, that’s why I was careful, using the expression “for a moment”!
Things are changing and changing fast, for better or for worse, I still don’t know, but with my Osho experience, maybe it is for worse.
And my indicator is simple, there are no going in, which always had been the Master hammering!
But, again, with my Osho experience, we never know.
And I think, maybe, we sannyasins should do something about it! Not the old shit like therapies, etc…We have to keep up with the world!
Cheers!
Tan says, “And I think, maybe, we sannyasins should do something about it!”
Any suggestions, Tan?
No, Lokesh!
What we all do, I am sure, is try to help ourselves, the Osho way.
Now, to keep up with this mad world is a different thing. Like you know, there are people creating small communes, living together, etc… and with great success, some of them.
And when I remember what Osho said and I quote with my words: “The healthy person has no concern what should be, his whole concern is the immediate, the rest is none of the person’s business.”
So, I am stuck! Can you help?
Cheers!
But Tan, you said:
“And I think, maybe, we sannyasins should do something about it! Not the old shit like therapies, etc…We have to keep up with the world!”
What’s happened? A woman’s prerogative to change her mind, perhaps?!!
Exactly, SD.
Satyadeva, I always change my mind in anything about Osho. My love to him never changes but the rest…
Cheers!
Tan says, “I am stuck! Can you help?”
Well, Tan, according to your choice quote that “The healthy person has no concern what should be, his whole concern is the immediate, the rest is none of the person’s business”, I cannot say anything, because being stuck is your whole concern and anything beyond that is none of your business.
Thus you leave yourself with no way out of being stuck, because you would have to move out of the immediate by seeing that you could get unstuck. In fact, you must have moved out of the immediate in order to realise you were stuck in the first place.
Anyway, how do you know you are stuck if you cannot leave the immediate to see that unstuckness could be a possible reality? No, Tan, unless you change your stuck attitude you will remain stuck for ever and ever. Besides, how can you possibly keep up with the mad world if you are stuck? Being stuck means you cannot keep up with anything.
Maybe you just imagine you are stuck. As one believes the world to be so it will appear. You believe you are stuck and that the world is mad and, abracadabra, just like that, you have it.
Here I am….
Thanks, Mc Loke! I will sleep on it! XXX
One way of asking Master for advice would be to take the locket of your mala in your hand and gently intone, “Bhagwan…”
This technique is described in ‘The Orange Book’ – from the seventies.
All the text is in orange.
Many meditation techniques are mentioned.
SS says, “One way of asking Master for advice would be to take the locket of your mala in your hand and gently intone, “Bhagwan…” ”
Ehm…I reckon if you believe that you are also capable of believing that there is an alien base on the dark side of the moon.
Osho is now deeply absorbed in the Brahman for eternity and we must not disturb his blissful absorption and waste his time with any trivial matters.
Like asking for for help if you lose your car keys or you dyed your hair and it came out the wrong colour.
Ask people like Sai Baba for these kind of issues…
I AM GOING SOON TO THE WEST. OSHO, IF I CALL YOU THERE, WILL YOUR HELP BE AVAILABLE TO ME, AS IT HAS BEEN AVAILABLE HERE?
“CALL ME ONLY WHEN IT IS ABSOLUTELY NEEDED, when you find that now nothing can be done. First try to do all that you can do. And out of a hundred cases, ninety-nine you will not need to call me. And if you have not called me for ninety-nine cases, you have earned for the hundredth case – you can expect me in every possible way. But don’t make it an everyday thing.
Let me tell you one anecdote – and it is a true anecdote. It has already happened. And I say it is true because it comes to me from a very reliable source: Kamal has sent this story to me.
One day, Swami Arup Krishna, alias Chainani, and Sadar Gurdayal Singh were coming towards the ashram. It had rained for two, three days, and the roads were muddy and dirty water had collected everywhere, and the gutters were overflowing. And on a banana peel, Gurdayal slipped. Not only that: a small coin fell from his pocket and was lost into the gutter.
He immediately cried, “Satya Sai Baba, Satya Sai Baba – help me!”
Of course, Arup Krishna was very surprised. He said, “Gurdayal, have you gone crazy? You are Osho’s disciple!”
Gurdayal said, “What do you mean? Should I call Osho in this dirty water in the gutter?!”
So remember it: whenever you need really, and it is not dirty water and a gutter, and not only a small coin is lost – then follow Gurdayal.”
Osho: ‘The Discipline of Transcendence’, Vol 3, Chapter #2
I dug out my old mala and gave it a go.
First, I got the message:
“Welcome to Oshcom services.All calls are monitored for copyright and trademark purposes.”
Then:
“If you have money problems please press 1.
If you have relationship problems please press 2.
If you have mental problems please press 3.
For all other spiritual enquiries please hold the line.”
“We are experiencing difficulties in connecting you due to Kali Yuga. Your enlightenment is important to us, please hold…”
Then I got through to what sounded like an Indian call centre:
“Hallo, this is Arun speaking, how can I help you today?”
Great one that, Swamishanti.
Much better way of getting some worthwhile feedback than from egocentric ex-sannyasins, who quite plainly don’t have a trace of self-awareness, and who spend their lives orbiting their own bottoms.
I am not in this kind of esoteric, SS. I heard it works! I don’t know.
Maybe I will try when very desperate!
Cheers!
Talking about women:
For you guys, here in SN, two beautiful women. Enjoy!
https://youtu.be/rMuTXcf3-6A
Thanks, Tan! Great production value for a 1988 recording. I saw Mercedes in concert in South America, and Joan Baez in concert in North America. I had no idea they ever performed together in Europe.
If you, the European ladies and gentlemen, are born again in 30, 40 years in the same continent, please get ready for the future.
When roots of one´s own civilisation are not protected, respected and nurtured, foreign elements take over that discarded space. Too much mind of the West can bring its own downfall.
The only future is in secularism; it means wear your religiousness under your skin. It is a matter of inner and not of display.
Just watched an excellent film set in Iran, ‘September in Shiraz’.