“Osho can we betray you?” Reading around on Sannyasnews, and also on other sites which allow moderated comment, it seems a common question. Also rival groups of disciples accuse each other of betrayal of Osho. Quite an accusaiton, and meant to hurt. Even Sannyasnews has sometimes been accused of betraying Osho, especially in its early days….. Osho’s answer on “betrayal” is interesting….
Osho:
-”…you can betray me, but you cannot hurt me. I have trusted you, not because of you, but because of me. And I am still there, the same.
See the difference. To trust a person is possible in two ways: either because of his trustworthiness — then there is danger, there is risk — or because you enjoy trusting. The trustworthiness or unworthiness have no relevance.
Secondly Gurdjieff and all these people took their work very seriously — the transformation of man, the transformation of human society… they took it too seriously. And when people did not live up to their seriousness they felt that something is basically wrong with man, that nothing can be done about him. Then a great hopelessness arose in them.
It cannot happen to me, because I am not serious at all. I do not think that existence has given me a certain responsibility, to transform man or human society. Who am I to bother about all this? One day I was not here — the society was there, man was there, existence was there…. One day I will not be here, so just for a few days in between…. And existence has not given me any job that has to be done. Why should I be serious? I am simply playful.
If everybody betrays me I will have the last laugh; I will enjoy that moment too. I will say to myself, “Great! I love to play; I played well. And these people were good; as long as they could continue to be with me, they managed and continued — in difficulties, in troubles. When they found it was too much, they went on their own.”
Beyond Psychology, Chapter #29
Chapter title: Come a little closer
26 April 1986 pm
Parmartha,
How you are going to prove relevance of this quotation, post master´s demise?
From the contents it is clear, a living master is addressing his disciples. It does not give any hint where an author is speaking with the readers of his books.
The Osho quotation does not matter.
Everyone knows what the word ‘betrayal’ means, and many on both sides use it in the present tense and times.
SP, can you translate the Hindi at the bottom of this rare photo of Osho with a bicycle in the text? A member of the SN collective apparently found it on some old Indian’s web page…I like it!
The words below the photo mean, “Osho with his well-known bicycle.”
Two years ago, when I have seen photo first time, immediately I shared as cover photo on facebook. After seeing again here at snews, I have again highlighted this.
It is a touching photo, showing the roots of Osho, the ground reality of the master who was always luminous even before rags-to-riches story unfolded.
To forget Osho´s humble beginning is not only unjust to man and the master Osho but also to the disciples who come mostly from the humble background and have contributed their money and heart to create the property portfolio under the name Osho Foundation International.
I don´t think Jain family has invested even 100 rupees into the commune-turned-Resort whose market value is not less than 750 Million USD.
“To forget Osho´s humble beginning is not only unjust to man and the master Osho but also to the disciples who come mostly from the humble background and have contributed their money and heart to create the property portfolio under the name Osho Foundation International.”
Careful, Shantam, your hard-done-by victim act is showing (yet again).
I don`t think Osho came from a “humble background” at all, his was the richest family in the village, they had enough money to send him to university, and later, in his travelling days, he always had lots of wealthy family and contacts who supported him with places to stay.
He was used to living in a certain standard of luxury!
To be ´humble´, Swamishanti, is not necessarily connected with being humbled and undignified through life´s circumstances, poverty etc; but it is very commonly ‘mashed’ that way.
Humbleness, I suppose, has so many layers as the meaning of ´trust´, upon which we have been given some little glimpses in the thread topic plus the Uruguay lecture parts you added.
Madhu
“To be ´humble´, Swamishanti, is not necessarily connected with being ´humbled and undignified by life´s circumstances, poverty etc; but it is very commonly ‘mashed’ that way.”
I agree with you, Madhu, but I was disagreeing with Osho having “humble beginnings”, in the context of Shantam’s post. “From humble beginnings” or “from rags to riches” in that context generally suggests someone that has gone from having very little to having a lot (not the case in Osho’s situation. As I pointed out he came from quite a well-off background).
As far as the other meaning of ‘humble’, I would not describe Osho as being humble at all, he had much more of a loud and proud persona (at least in public). Proud to show off his collection of cars to the world.
Sorry, “Uruguay lecture parts?” I don’t get that bit.
I refered to ‘Path of the Mystic’, Swamishanti, one of the three ´books´ which were spoken in Uruguay; and the tiny quote of the thread topic relates to that.
Madhu
I pushed out a big long quote yesterday, and it was very satisfying.
Now we know where He got the idea for his “Estop!” part of that meditation, from George Gurdjieff, one of his major influences, and in in that way, influencing many Osho-heads too.
We also heard about Edison, who worked out how to turn on light-bulbs – a transformation and a major step forward for the current dominant species of upright walking and talking beings on this planet, and the beginning of the ‘electric era’ as we know it.
Now we have a ‘Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy’, like Douglas Adams predicted – and now Osho sannyasins use different `bots` to communicate on the cyberspace.
But SS, the Gurdjieffian origins of “Estop!” have been known for many years. Like Edison and electricity!
@swamishanti.
“I pushed out a big long quote yesterday, and it was very satisfying.”
Yes, you did, and it was indeed impressive. The definitive opposite of what the Rev.Simond gets up to thinking about it.
You push out. He pushes up.
Thanks for the translation, SP.
Judas, in the ordinary sense of the term, betrayed Jesus, and with a kiss. (And some have compared him with Sheela’s betrayal of Osho).
One might question Jesus’s judgement of human character in chosing Judas as one of his inner circle of disciples…as one might question Osho’s judgement in choosing Sheela.
But without such misjudgement in Jesus’s case we may never have come to know of him, and in Sheela’s case we might all be living in a city in Oregon, but still in a sense closed off from the wider world, which would not have been good.
Things get a bit more complicated with people like Simon Peter, who is sometimes said to have betrayed Jesus by denying him thrice on the night of Jesus’s arrest, but of course later going on to create the early Christian church, and being crucified by Nero for his efforts.
I myself have heard defenders of the current rulers of the Osho church accuse others of betrayal. Betrayal, that is, of the dying intentions of Osho’s work and the creation of a religion which was certainly not Osho’s wish.
On the other hand, I have heard those who want to establish a religion accusing those who don’t of a betrayal of Osho…
Disciples of the Buddha divided into many sects after his death, and apparently accused each other of goodness knows what….
Osho was of the “better to trust and be shafted than never trust at all” school. Like Confucius, who said: “It is more shameful to distrust our friends than to be deceived by them.”
If one is betrayed, you can…
Either go on with the permanent outrage of a victim of mankind’s greatest calumny and sin
or
Go with the twist in the tale that moves the story along, and consider that a story without a bad guy isn`t much of a story anyway.
Even if it’s difficult, it`s still a no-brainer.
Re ‘Sapiens’:
His idea about stories being what set our species apart from all others on Earth is very compelling. All those stories that drive the different aspects of our behaviour: stories from the tribe (family, from school, from the media). These direct our decisions, often without our realising it.
Then there are the biggest, farthest-reaching stories of all! Stories about money, religion, nationality!
Yeah, and betrayal is the ultimate Christian no-no story. Judas, Dante’s worst hell in the Inferno etc.
Then it turns out that JC probably set it all up himself to fulfil the prophetic stories from the Old Testament.
It`s a play within a play. An onion-skin production. Keeps bums on seats at ‘The Globe’ and they keep coming back for more. 7 billion at the last count!
“The world`s not made up of atoms, it`s made up of stories.”
(Muriel Ruyseker)
A regular comment here is that Osho was naive in the US of A, but I often wondered if he wasn’t manipulating (not the details like the attempted poisonings, but broadly speaking). That he set out to have himself martyred by calling Reagan etc. names.
(Kids in the playground with a small gang know not to take on the big bully with a huge gang).
MOD:
NOT SURE EXACTLY WHAT YOU MEAN HERE (IN RELATION TO REST OF FIRST PARAG.), Arpana, BY That he set out to have himself martyred by calling Reagan etc. names. PLEASE CLARIFY
Well, to continue with the playground analogy:
Reagan and the American government were the big kids. Osho, the little kid, with the little gang, insulted Reagan the big kid and his gang at every opportunity. (He set out to rattle everyone’s cage in India. Succeeded).
How could he possibly not have known what was going to happen by carrying on like that? Ergo he got what he wanted.
(The master of his own hagiography).
It’s possible, I suppose, but Osho and virtual (or, as it turned out, in a sense) martyrdom are a very bad fit.
No, I just think he was a bit out of his depth over there, America being a long way, in many respects, from India, and paid the price for that inexperience.
Para 1: Yes.
Para 2: Yes, maybe you’re right. No way of being sure.
This conversation has made me aware of all the stories Osho tells. The very obvious stories, like zen and sufi vignettes The less obvious. The jokes are stories. Makes me laugh.
Something really enjoyable about seeing this sitting under my nose after all these years, and this might not have happened if the avuncular, sagacious (snigger) Scottish crofter hadn’t mentioned the book.
Agreed, Arps, and the bottom line is the beliefs and values the stories crystallise. Including, of course, those beliefs and values we create from our own private and personal stories, many of which, on examination, can be highly suspect!
Yeah. Absolutely.
A lot of his western followers see him as being martyred, and I personally am unconvinced. But that’s a story that comes out of growing up around grown-ups in authority who were ‘Christians’ The Christian story.
My impression is he did a lot of things that fitted our stories, to catch us, to keep us with him.
He manipulated us. In my view, not to any selfish end, for our good; which I have no doubt others will disagree with.
“My impression is he did a lot of things that fitted our stories, to catch us, to keep us with him.
He manipulated us. In my view, not to any selfish end, for our good; which I have no doubt others will disagree with.”
(Arpana)
I have to disappoint you, Arpana, I wouldn´t disagree here.
However, as long as we stay more or less fixated (in comments) on some individuals of that multi-faceted Sangha around Osho there may be all possibility to stay stuck, in ever repetitive circles?
For me, letting go of all expectations and surrendering to being betrayed is quite a ´biggie´ as life-issue. Painful.
“Peeling an onion”, we used to say, didn´t we?
Not really knowing about the next moment.
Madhu
“I have to disappoint you, Arpana, I wouldn´t disagree here.”
Why would that disappoint me?
Osho informs and delights, as usual.
No one can betray him because he can’t be offended or hurt by what others do or say to or about him. He takes no offence as to what others think or believe. They can think or say what they like. He isn’t defending a position or an idea, he is simply being himself.
The charade or play that was Sheela and her machinations may have occasionally disappointed or surprised him; after all, he was human like the rest of us. But these are the mere dramas that we all fall into and out of, as we live through life. And he, like the rest of us, never stopped learning.
Occasionally, some sannyasins here like to think they must defend his legacy or protect him against those who criticise him. They would do well to see he doesn’t need nor care either way.
Rev. Simond,
This comment says so much more about the role you are desperate to occupy here at Sannyas News than it does about Osho or Sannyas, or anyone who posts here.
As usual, Osho spins his web of contradictions and can mislead through the confidence and quality of his oratory!
There was loads of stuff about the creation of the “New Man” at one point, for which Osho seemed to want to take final responsibility…not so different from what he criticises Gurdjieff for here: which G called the “Transformation of Man”, and which G also seemed to want to take responsibility for….
I don´t know if you are into world’s literature, Parmartha, me, I sometimes am.
And when the book of an Israeli, Amos Oz , title ” JUDAS” , appeared on the screen, I had to read it.
And it is very worth reading it! Giving the myth of Judas´Betrayal ´quite another flavour.
This author gives peace a chance, his very unique own way, and his way of putting up the myth ( with so many wars in its shade!) another way, reminded me to loosen some mental screws of very collective mental fixations around that all.
Maybe you or others here are interested?
Madhu
P.S:
“While we are making plans (´concepts´) Life´s just happening”, said John Lennon (wasn´t it him?). Sad enough that this wise bard had to leave (was murdered) so early….
BELOVED OSHO,
IN A BOOK I READ ABOUT GURDJIEFF, IT WAS SAID THAT TWO OF HIS DISCIPLES, WHO HAD BEEN WITH HIM FOR A LONG TIME AND IN A VERY INTIMATE WAY — FOR EXAMPLE, DE HARTMANN, WHO PLAYED HIS MUSIC — SUDDENLY LEFT HIM.
CAN YOU EXPLAIN WHY THIS SEEMS TO HAPPEN AGAIN AND AGAIN IN THE MASTER-DISCIPLE RELATIONSHIP?
“Turiya, the question is something of deep significance and with profound implications. It is something in the very nature of things that this kind of thing happens again and again, and will continue to happen again and again; it cannot be stopped.
De Hartmann lived with George Gurdjieff for perhaps the longest period of any of his other disciples, perhaps forty years or more. He was a great genius as far as music is concerned, and he was playing music for special meditations, which Gurdjieff had devised. The music was also devised by Gurdjieff; de Hartmann had to bring the device into reality.
Gurdjieff was a strange master, everything about him had the quality of strangeness. He himself was not a musician, but he understood what kind of vibrations could create certain states in man. His understanding was about man, his meditation, his mind, the possibility of his receiving certain vibrations and being affected by them.
He would explain his whole program to de Hartmann, and de Hartmann had become such an expert that he would make it a reality. But de Hartmann was not a disciple –this was where the trouble arose. He had come to George Gurdjieff to be a disciple, but his genius about music took him on a different route: rather than being a disciple, he became an associate. He started working for Gurdjieff insofar as he needed music for his special dances, and he forgot completely why he had come. Gurdjieff reminded him many times: “de Hartmann, you are a perfect master as far as music is concerned, but you had not come here to play music. And now your ego is feeling so fulfilled and contented that you don’t want to sit among the disciples. You have forgotten that your basic motive was not to play music here.”
The separation was bound to happen one day, because finally Gurdjieff became very hard. And he said to de Hartmann, “You have to stop music completely, because music has become a barrier. Your music has helped others tremendously, but for yourself it has become a barrier. You stop music completely! Burn all your musical instruments.” This was too much for de Hartmann. He was not an ordinary musician.
He left Gurdjieff rather than leave music.
And because he had lived for forty years with George Gurdjieff, and had remained in a very intimate relationship… but not as a disciple, remember — that was forgotten; that was why the problem arose. The intimacy was because of the music; Gurdjieff needed a musician. He was taking his disciples around the world, showing people the immense effect of vibrations. In New York, in one of his shows, the disciples were dancing…
They have to dance intensely and totally; they have to forget the whole world. But if the music stops, then they have to stop in whatever position they are in — if the hand is up, it remains up; if their eyes are open, they remain open, they don’t blink — a total stop. If one leg is up in dancing, it remains where it is.
And when the dance came to its climax, he gave the indication to de Hartmann to stop. As the music stopped, every dancer had to stop — just like statues, as if suddenly they had become marble statues, no movement.
It is a tremendous experience. In that gap, when all movement has stopped, you simply feel your existence, your isness.
But when he said to de Hartmann to stop… the dancers were moving in a certain round and they were so close to the edge of the stage that with the sudden stop, one dancer fell from the stage. Because there was no way, you could not do anything — whatever happened, happened, you had to stop. On top of him, another dancer fell. A whole line of dancers went on falling from the stage, as if they were dead bodies.
The people who had seen that show could not believe… the silence of the disciples, their becoming centered, created a new vibration. Even the people in the audience who had no idea of any meditation certainly felt a new breeze, a silence surrounding them, and a peacefulness.
For years, the intelligentsia of New York talked about the dance. They could not believe what had happened; it was simply sheer magic. But nothing happened to de Hartmann. He was just a technician: he played the music he was an expert — and when the indication was given he stopped it.
But he remained in close proximity to Gurdjieff for forty years, and people naturally thought that he was a disciple, and a very close disciple. And when he left Gurdjieff, he maintained the illusion — perhaps he himself was in the illusion — that he was a disciple, that he had learned everything that Gurdjieff knows… forty years is enough. That’s why he went to America to open his own school.
A desire to become a master is a simple ego number.His statement, Turiya, when he said to people, “You are more important to me than Mr. Gurdjieff,” is simply shameful — but this is the category of the Judas.In every master’s life there are bound to be Judases. It seems to be the law of nature that the people who come to a master don’t come with the same motivation. A few come to seek the truth, a few come to learn how to be a master.
In the life of Basho, one of the great mystics of Japan, there is a beautiful incident. He was sitting with his disciples and a man came and he said, “I also want to join.” Basho said, “There is no barrier; the doors are open, you can join. But let me tell you: disciplehood is an arduous thing. Are you ready for it, or is it just curiosity? If it is just curiosity then don’t waste your time, because soon you will have to leave. If it is a sincere search that you are ready to stake everything — life included — only then can you be a disciple.”
The man said, “I am not prepared. I never thought that to be a disciple costs so much.” And then he said, “Then what about the master? — I can become the master. If it is easier, then I can drop the idea of being a disciple; I can become the master.”
Basho said, “We will not prevent you from being a master, but unless one has passed through the arduous path of disciplehood, one cannot be a master — although it is very easy. If there was some back door, I would have allowed you in. But there is no back door; you will have to come through the right channel of being a disciple.”
The man said, “Then I will think it over, and I will come again,” and he never came again. A few people simply come to the masters because they see a certain dimension of fulfillment for their ego, their ambition. To them, it is the same: to have power, prestige, respectability, richness, or to be a great master with thousands of disciples. They have no desire to know the truth, no search for knowing oneself. To them, to be a master is just like any other ambitious project of the world — to be a rich man, to be a politician, to be a prime minister, to be a governor. And you cannot prevent them, because sometimes when they come and they try to understand, they change. They see that when they came they had come with a wrong motive, but now that motive has been dropped. So they cannot be prevented from the very beginning… and one never knows when they will change; it may take years.
The master has to be patient. But these people are in a hurry, because life is slipping out of their hands.
Judas betrayed Jesus not for any other reason. It was not for thirty silver coins that he betrayed Jesus; he betrayed Jesus because he was the only educated disciple. He was more educated and cultured than Jesus himself. Moving with Jesus, seeing his teachings, he could easily visualize himself as a great master, greater than Jesus: “Because this man is simply a carpenter’s son, knows nothing much; still he has created a great stir in the country.”
It was a very simple arithmetic: Judas could see that if this man is removed, he can prove himself to be a great master; but if this man is alive he will always remain a disciple. Either he had to revolt against him and create a totally different following, which is more arduous… This was far better, if Jesus could be removed in some way. And Judas was bound to be the leader, with an established following. It is just like a shop with a credibility of hundreds of years — rather than opening a new shop… You may be offering better things to the world, but still, the old name has a credibility, an established credibility. The competition is going to be tough and very difficult. The best way is somehow get the name of the old shop — just old bottles filled with new wine. Nobody bothers about the wine, everybody looks at the bottle — but the bottle has to be old. The old bottle is the proof of old wine. Simple logic…
And to remove Jesus was easy, because the Jews were after him and things could be done in such a way that nobody would ever know that Judas had done it.
But he forgot one thing: nobody would ever know that Judas had done it, but how can Judas forget it? That realization came only later on. That realization came only when Jesus was crucified. Judas was in the crowd. He could not believe that he had done this — just to become a master, he had betrayed a friend, a master who loved him, trusted him. And now he forgot all about the old ego trip. Something new that he had never thought about, a great repentance, a guilt… within twenty-four hours he committed suicide. De Hartmann was not a disciple at all, but he knew certain techniques that Gurdjieff was practicing with disciples. He had become a technician. Because he had to supply the music to every technique, he knew the techniques in every detail — but he had never practiced them; his work was to supply the music.
But this is how the mind deceives you. Your own mind leads you astray.
De Hartmann could not prove himself to be a master — without Gurdjieff, the music fell flat. He knew the technique, he knew the music, but he was not aware that the technique, the music, all were alive because of the living presence of a master. He was only a technician.
That is the difference between a technician and a master. Now if something goes wrong with the electricity any technician can come and fix it, but that does not mean that he is Edison who discovered electricity. Although he knows everything, he is not Edison. That master touch will be missing.
It took three years for Edison to discover electricity. He started with many colleagues and students — he was a professor. And by and by, because every experiment went on failing, people started deserting him: “He seems to be mad, he is trying to do something impossible. Hundreds of experiments have failed, but that man seems to be strange… every day, early in the morning, he comes back to the lab with the same enthusiasm, the same zest.” All his colleagues were feeling that it would be better to do something else — “We are wasting our time.” They were all frustrated. Except for Edison, nobody had any enthusiasm, and within three years all his colleagues and students had left.
But Edison continued, and one night at three o’clock… the whole night he had been working, because he was coming so close. And that was his logic — he was saying to his colleagues, “Don’t desert me; you are deserting at the wrong time. We have tried hundreds of experiments and they have all failed. That means that the one experiment which is going to succeed is coming closer. Finally we will sort it out. We are dropping those which are going to fail, they are not on our list anymore. The list is becoming shorter — soon we will be able to find the right method.” They said, “Three years have been wasted, and we cannot imagine how long this `soon’ is going to take.”
And that night he started to feel from the very beginning of the evening that he was coming closer: “Things are fitting; the puzzle is to be settled tonight.” He went on and on and on, and by three o’clock he saw the first electric bulb. It was so much light! No human eye had ever seen it before; people had seen only candles. His wife was sleeping in the other room. She had been calling him again and again — “It is time to go to sleep.” He said, “Not tonight; you just go to sleep and don’t disturb me. I am so close, and I don’t want to miss. Tomorrow things may be different, I may have forgotten something. Today I cannot leave it.”
At three o’clock, suddenly the light… It was almost like lightning in the house. The wife said, “You idiot, put that light out! Neither are you going to sleep nor will you allow me to sleep. And from where did you get this light?” And he was sitting with unblinking eyes in a state of awe… unbelievable! It has happened!
And the poor woman was saying, “Turn the light off.” He said, “This light is never going to be turned off. Now it is going to be on forever and ever.” Now every electrician knows — but he is only a technician, he is not an Edison. He can fall into the illusion that he is also as knowledgeable as Edison himself, but the charisma is not there, the genius is not there. Those miracle-making hands are not there.
De Hartmann tried hard in America, because in America Gurdjieff had been such a success. He went through the same cities giving the same shows, but everything fell flat. He could not figure out what was wrong — because the songs were the same, the dances were the same, the music was the same, the musician was the same… “And that man Gurdjieff was not doing anything, he was simply standing there. All that he used to do was to tell me, `Stop!’ Just that much, anybody can do. And I myself know at what point he used to say stop, so I stop myself at those points, exactly at those points — but the magic is not there.”
He forgot that he had never been a disciple — and he had become a master! He forgot that he had been only a musician. If he had remembered that he was only a musician –and in that too, he was brought to such refinement by Gurdjieff, not by himself — things would have been different.
Turiya, the same thing happened with Ouspensky, who was really a disciple.
De Hartmann can be simply cancelled; he was never a disciple. But Ouspensky was a disciple, and one of the foremost disciples. But again, something took him away, and that something was similar to de Hartmann’s music — that was Ouspensky’s intelligence. He was a world-famous mathematician, a great writer. Even before meeting Gurdjieff he was known all over the world. Nobody knew Gurdjieff.
In fact, it was Ouspensky who made Gurdjieff’s name known to the world; the whole credit goes to Ouspensky. In this whole century there has not been another writer of the same caliber. He writes with such authority, with such beauty — and that became his fall, because Gurdjieff became famous through his books.
Gurdjieff was not a writer; he had no special talent which is recognized by the world. He was purely a master. He could transform human beings, their consciousness, but that is not an art recognized by the world.
And when Ouspensky saw that he had made Gurdjieff world-famous, why should he bother? He knew everything about what Gurdjieff was teaching, he had written everything; through him the whole world knew about the teaching of Gurdjieff… “I myself can teach.” He started a school in London. And such ungratefulness… he would not use Gurdjieff’s full name; he would simply call him “G”. Just to avoid the full name, Gurdjieff, he would use only the first letter, G.
And he made it clear to his students, that “Gurdjieff was right as long as I was with him. I left him because he started going wrong. So his teaching is valid till I left him — beyond that, it has no significance.”
But he was just a schoolteacher, a professor, with no aura of a master. It was really ridiculous to see him pretending to be a master, because even in teaching higher principles of consciousness he was using a blackboard. Just the old habit of being a mathematician… So he would write on the blackboard, as if the people who had gathered were students. He would not look into anybody’s eyes. He was not an impressive personality. He would have been perfectly good as a professor in a university, but to be a master, to belong to the category of Gautam Buddha, Gurdjieff and Krishnamurti, is a totally different matter. He tried hard, but he could not manage anything; nothing happened.
And you will be surprised to know that the whole world condemned Gurdjieff, nobody condemned Ouspensky, nobody condemned de Hartmann. In fact, they had nothing worth condemning either. Gurdjieff had a teaching, a methodology to transform humanity.
But these persons wanted to be masters. Seeing the power of Gurdjieff, they became power hungry. Seeing his influence, they started feeling inferior; they wanted to move away and create their own sphere of influence. They all failed.
So it seems to be in the very nature of things that this will go on happening. Wherever there will be a master, there will be Judases, Ouspenskys, de Hartmanns.
With Mahavira there was Goshalak.
With each great teacher, these people have followed like shadows — hungry for power.But to be a master is not an ego game. The power of the master is not of the power of the ego; it is the power of his humbleness, it is the power of his nothingness.
So these people will continue to happen, but they don’t make even a dent in human evolution. They simply spoil their own life and a great opportunity that was given to them.”
From ‘The Osho Upanishad’
“As usual, Osho spins his web of contradictions and can mislead through the confidence and quality of his oratory!”(Parmartha)
Yes, Parmartha,
However, His, Osho´s “web of contradictions” had an organic flavour IN it, and the Love was tangible, wasn´t it?!
We have to face where we are in danger towards going now, chat-wise,
parameter-wise, and when I read what Swamishanti contributed to our ‘newmen’ ways to pass on something and over into a pretty anonymous ´void´ like here, I have been freezing.
No rage against ´the virtual machine´, just freezing:
“Now we have a ‘Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy’, like Douglas Adams predicted – and now Osho sannyasins use different `bots` to communicate on the cyberspace.” (Swamishanti)
Happened to find this today (excerpt of a longer article in a computer experts magazine, and would like to quote it: ‘The Rise of Social Bots’ by Emilio nFerrara, Onur Varol, Clayton Davis, Filippo Menczer, Alessandro Flammini.
Communications of the ACM, Vol. 59 No. 7, Pages 96-104
The Rise of Social Bots, illustration
Bots (short for software robots) have been around since the early days of computers. One compelling example of bots is chatbots, algorithms designed to hold a conversation with a human, as envisioned by Alan Turing in the 1950s (s.33).
The dream of designing a computer algorithm that passes the Turing test has driven artificial intelligence research for decades, as witnessed by initiatives like the Loebner Prize, awarding progress in natural language processing.
Many things have changed since the early days of AI, when bots like Joseph Weizenbaum’s ELIZA 39 mimicking a Rogerian psychotherapist, were developed as demonstrations or for delight…
Key Insights
Today, social media ecosystems populated by hundreds of millions of individuals present real incentives — including economic and political ones — to design algorithms that exhibit human-like behaviour.
Such ecosystems also raise the bar of the challenge, as they introduce new dimensions to emulate in addition to content, including the social network, temporal activity, diffusion patterns, and sentiment expression.
A social bot is a computer algorithm that automatically produces content and interacts with humans on social media, trying to emulate and possibly alter their behaviour. Social bots have inhabited social media platforms for the past few years…
Engineered Social Tampering
What are the intentions of social bots? Some of them are benign and, in principle, innocuous or even helpful: this category includes bots that automatically aggregate content from various sources, like simple news feeds. Automatic responders to inquiries are increasingly adopted by brands and companies for customer care.
Although these types of bots are designed to provide a useful service, they can sometimes be harmful, for example when they contribute to the spread of unverified information or rumours. Analyses of Twitter posts around the Boston marathon bombing revealed that social media can play an important role in the early recognition and characterization of emergency events. But false accusations also circulated widely on Twitter in the aftermath of the attack, mostly due to bots automatically retweeting posts without verifying the facts or checking the credibility of the source.
With every new technology comes abuse, and social media is no exception. A second category of social bots includes malicious entities designed specifically with the purpose to harm.
These bots mislead, exploit and manipulate social media discourse with rumours, spam, malware, misinformation, slander, or even just noise. This may result in several levels of damage to society.
Campaigns of this type are sometimes referred to as astroturf or Twitter bombs….”
I quoted that tiny part of the article not without reasons. As much of the virtual interactions (fights) which are ever repetitive here seem to have the characteristics of a machinery functioning, with only very small – hardly- if ever – recognizable alterations.
Wondering if it is still possible to share, and to share a way that feels human, and human in a way where acknowledging the other as a Human Being too is possible with these communication tools too?
I am concerned that the latter is not lost all the way.
You don´t appear as a cynic (in my eyes of reading), Parmartha; that´s why I address this post to you.
Wish you well.
And wish you well, all of you here.
Madhu
P.S:
What is Human Transformation all about, being exposed to a ´social bot´?
And are His words, “Only losers can win this game” still relevant in such a factual context?
It was the title of a Darshan Diary and Darshan means an energy transfer, doesn´t it? An energy transfer for me has been always been a function of Love and Appreciation.
Madhu,
You seem to be complaining that everyone who posts here behaves as if they are on line. How else can we behave?
How can we behave as if we get together at my place and share food on a regular basis, when we don’t and are unlikely to?
You seem to be complaining that we don’t behave in the most idealistic way that went on at Poona 1, but it wasn’t ideal all the time Madhu.
Sometimes people were crabby and unkind, bad-tempered, mean-spirited and vindictive. Negative and aggressive, women included.
Plainly, you dislike how we behave here, so tell you what, Madhu, write down your list of what you want from us, in detail; then at least we will all know where we are failing in your eyes.
(Just for the record, Madhu, I doubt if many of the posters who use Sannyas News got through life without having to deal with a myriad of people telling them they weren’t good enough as they were. How are you different, Madhu? We’ve all lived with people like you all our lives going on at us we aren’t good enough).
You, Lokesh, Shantam, and Lokesh’s butt plug, the Rev. Simond – if you dont like it here why don’t you all fuck off?
Douglas Adams conceived of the idea of ‘The Hitchikers’ Guide To The Galaxy’ as a small, hand-held device that supplies information on different subjects around the galaxy, at the touch of a button. Nowadays, we have the smartphone and the search-bots which provide us with different entries and info.
However, ‘The Hitchhikers’ Guide To The Galaxy’ only provided one answer or entry to a particular subject, whereas your computer will provide you with thousands, sometimes millions of often contradictory pieces of information and different portrayals.
There`s about seven billion heads in this world and that’s a lot of different takes on things.
You used your bot to search for information about ‘bots’ and you came up with the piece above.
If someone looks for ‘Osho’ they may find a portrayal of a man who learned hypnosis at a young age, slept with lots of female disciples, and asked his `mediums` to come to darshan without wearing their knickers, and later became a total junkie who constantly inhaled nitrous oxide and got addicted to collecting the same model of Rolls-Royce.
Or, you may find descriptions of a rare master, with a powerful enlightened presence around him that still continues to connect with people today, a genius who spoke on a vast and wide range of topics and matters.
If someone looks up ‘Sai Baba’ they may find a description of a small man with an afro who appeared in someones meditation room out of the blue one day, and cured her of cancer, or you may find tales of someone who slept with young men and performed magic tricks to con people.
So it all depends what your ‘bot’, your ‘Hitchikers’ Guide’ gives you. In the end, talking to real people and learning from our own experiences are probably best.
“So it all depends what your ‘bot’, your ‘Hitchikers’ Guide’ gives you. In the end, talking to real people and learning from our own experiences are probably best.”
Thanks for relating to what I posted, Swamishanti – I suscribe to your last sentence.
Madhu
SS,
I think you should count yourself lucky that Sai Baba never got hold of your `bot` !
“SS, I think you should count yourself lucky that Sai Baba never got hold of your `bot’!” (Frank).
Yes, I agree here with Frank, Swamishanti.
However, sitting here inside on this rainy Sunday, having just this very morning (late, I presume), discovered a lot of malware in my computer/communication-system, feel helpless and discouraged.
Re-read the report I found and quoted, about ´Social Bots´again, as also Frank´s recent pretty clear insights, like:
“The British enlightenment game just can`t seem to shake off the scourge of hooliganism, and it’s back to the bad old days of the 70s and 80s with vicious rivals attacking each other with an arsenal of weapons stolen from old encounter groups. They have been sharing their feelings of aggression and chanting cod-psychology slogans at each other as they stick the boot in on each others` projections and trample each other`s ego-structures in another night of violence at Sannyasnews.”
Asking myself, what is ´betrayal´, if one is betrayed? Like being taken hostage in a way or similiar (real) stuff, and that for even totally untransparent reasons, or just free-floating (malign) madnesses showing up by IT-technical actions (programmings)?
The now following thread topic is not answered yet – unusual, isn´t it? It’s about Insecurities.
And once again I would say that Insecurities are and have been ever present; there is a need, though, to find a trustworthy environment to grow into maturity in the human realms with Insecurity.
And once again, I am ´banging on´ here about the Sangha, Frank, as you put it.
Sangha still is (for me) a meeting place for friends and fellow-travellers, real humans, I suppose.
Madhu
Osho talks about Hugh Milne’s book, ‘Bhagwan, The God That Failed’:
“You have seen Shiva sitting here for almost seven years, and his gratitude was as deep as it can be. He would have died to save me. But you are not aware of the whole of your own mind. He came to the commune in America, but the whole set-up had changed. He wanted, there too, to sit by my side, to have the same power.
He used to think that he loved me – if he had loved me, then there would not have been any problem. He loved his own power. He was the chief guard in the ashram, but by the time he reached the commune, other guards, more efficient, had taken his place. He was not made the chief guard. Then all his love disappeared, all gratitude disappeared.
“He has written a book against me now, full of lies, with no foundation in truth. But he has to justify why he has left. Still he is blind, still he cannot see that it was power that was keeping him here and it is power that is now taking revenge.”(‘The Razor’s Edge’ 6)
“Shiva has written a book against me, full of lies. I have told the English sannyasins to sue him in court, because what he is saying is utter nonsense.”
And you can see the cunningness. In Poona, every evening I used to have a meeting for people who were taking sannyas. It was an open meeting – almost sixty, seventy, sometimes a hundred people would be present. One dozen people or maybe more would be initiated. And ten sannyasins were dancing as mediums to create a vibrant energy.
And Shiva has written in his book that every night I need ten women, without making any reference to the fact that those ten women are mediums and they dance in an open place with one hundred people watching, a dozen people present to be initiated. He does not mention that; he simply mentions every night I need ten women.
Can you see – can a person be more ugly? And he used to trust in me so much that he used to say that he can give his life – and this is what he is giving! And there are thousands of things which are absolutely wrong, fabrication, fiction, from his own mind. Love is beautiful when it is there, but soon it becomes bitter.
Trust is beautiful when it is there. But its test comes when an opportunity arises such that if you still go on trusting you will be putting yourself in danger, and it no longer pays. At that time, trust can become just its opposite; it becomes a revenge. It becomes an argument to satisfy oneself that, “I am not betraying: in fact, I was wrong in trusting the man; the man was wrong.” Now he has to prove to himself and to others that the man was wrong: “I have not betrayed, I have simply discovered that the man was wrong.”
It is just to feel not guilty. It is an effort to whitewash, to wash your hands which are full of blood. But no lies, no allegations, can make any difference to the fact that you have betrayed – and in betraying you cannot harm me. Nobody can harm me. You are simply harming yourself. Now you have destroyed your own capacity to trust, and if the bridge of trust is destroyed, you will never be able to go beyond it.
And it is strange: the people like Shiva, who lived almost six, seven years with me – if they could not discover all these facts then that they are “discovering” now when they are not with me, it only proves one thing: that they are retarded. It takes seven years to discover? Things which you are talking about now you must have “discovered” five years before. At that time you could not manage to expose them? That was the right time.
It is a psychological thing to be understood. Many more books will be written, many more articles will be written by sannyasins – just because they have trusted and now they are betraying. Some reason has to be there for why they are leaving me. Without a reason, they will feel guilty, and if there is no reason, they have to invent it. They have to create lies.
Love is not very reliable, but useful.
Use it, and move to trust.
But trust is also not hundred percent proof.
Move beyond.
Then you cannot fall; then there is no way of going back. Then it is something which partakes of eternity.”
(‘The Path of the Mystic’ #25)
I didn’t know that Osho asked English sannyasins to sue Hugh Milne over that book. I guess it didn’t get anywhere.
I remember that Hugh claimed that the meaning of ‘Bhagwan’ was “The Lord of the Vagina” in the book, something that I had never heard before, and I once saw this claim that Bhagwan Rajneesh was known as “The Lord of the Vagina” again in a Christian publication, a book about cults, that someone showed me once.
Had not read this before, Shanti. Interesting.
Hugh Milne was a bit disturbed and very serious, I always felt so. But somehow it went unnoticed in Poona 1, and possibly by Osho himself.
Bodyguards are always a bit dangerous. I think Indira Gandhi got slaughtered by her bodyguards.
Milne made many exaggerations, which amounted to lies about Osho, and they were unforgiveable. e also tried to commit suicide AFTER he had written that book. Well, we all know what Judas did!
Maybe I am wrong, correct me if it is not the case, but Hugh Milne didn’t try to commit suicide.
What I was told was he had a voluntary admission to a psychiatric hospital because he was afraid that a sannyasin would kill him after the book was published. A very cowardly act for a bodyguard, I suppose! He was and maybe still is very much pissed off with Osho!
In Maneesha’s book (Juliet Foreman) she claimed that Hugh Milne had tried to commit suicide by “disembowelling” himself. (Not sure exactly what that means or what it would involve).
Perfectly correct!
Hugh Milne certainly attempted to disembowel himself! As an exponent of martial arts he attempted Hari-Kiri, but he missed, and that is when he changed his name to Hugh Janus!
He utterly betrayed and ruined Osho`s work, which was going perfectly well when he appointed psychopathic serial poisoner, liar and larcenous felon Anand Sheela to assemble a coterie of criminally disturbed individuals and bio-terrorists to murder local dignitaries, poison the unconscious masses and abuse American public on speed on primetime TV whilst he publicly applauded her and said she had not gone far enough!
The ignorant will never be able to understand that it was all a device to make 200 people enlightened, to satirise American consumerism, to prevent global suicide, to be only survivors of AIDS epidemic, to provide safe haven after nuclear holocaust and earthquakes, to deliberately provoke Ronald Reagan to crucify him and to awake his disciples from utterly confused fantasy thinking!
It all worked perfectly correctly!
And it is true, as Parmartha clearly points out, that on his return to the UK Hugh Milne was “acting bizarrely”! He appears to have got a job, found a visible means of support and betrayed the non-bizarreness of following the dictates of the enlightened one by prancing around in a mal-fitting nightie with no underwear on, shagging himself senseless in the name of total surrender and thumping and breaking a few bones of guys and gals in his role as ashram stud-cum-bodyguard!
He has now become an osteopath, but in his 7 years in Pune, under the guidance of Osho, he had already learned everything he needed to know about the most important bone in the body!
But the betrayal continues!
The baboons at the Resort who have also betrayed Osho and must also be disembowelled!
Shantambhai and Thakkar are the heroes for the job! Like Shivaji, famed prince of Maharashtra, they must also disembowel the invading forces, regain control of mighty Bhorat!
In Osho`s vision which is also my vision, they will ride into the ashram on the back of a heavily-sedated elephant with police-escort, wearing turbans made of disembowelled entrails of alcoholic baboons and with 10000 buddhas cheering them on and ushering in a new thousand-year yuga of super-consciousness!
Yahoo!
Hari Om!
Brilliant.
Luculentus !
Hi Tan,
I never heard that. I was in the UK at the time.
The then word on the block was that he was for a short time sectioned (compulsory admission) after an attempted suicide and bizarre behaviour in the UK.
Obviously, it goes without saying, Lokesh, you know as much about Jesus as you do about Osho, which makes you oh, so very uniquely placed to make a comparison.
Perfectly correct, Lokesh. On the ball as ever. But I do tbink you’re going to upset Arpana. He will be offended to be sure….
Arps says, “Obviously, it goes without saying, Lokesh, you know as much about Jesus as you do about Osho.”
Obviously? Really? Well, Arps, if you say so. If I were asked about it, I’d say it is more a case of how well you know yourself. JC could well be a mythical figure. During the time he was supposed to have lived there were a couple of dozen chroniclers living in the Mediterranean Basin and not one of them mentioned JC. That is a bit strange, because someone walking on water would be big news, even today.
As for Osho, I will put it like this. Much of Osho’s private life remains shrouded in mystery. The people who spent time in close proximity to Osho all present somewhat conflicting pictures, to a lesser or greater extent. One conclusion that one can draw is that Osho the public figure and Osho the private man were quite different people. Then again, like all else in life, it is all some kind of reflection of where you stand on a personal level in life.
Which brings me back to your comment, “Obviously, it goes without saying, Lokesh, you know as much about Jesus as you do about Osho, which makes you oh, so very uniquely placed to make a comparison.”
Okay, I admit it, it is true. Then again, would you not agree that we are all “uniquely placed to make a comparison”? Is there any real need to make comparisons in the first place? I would say yes, because all logical thought is based on comparison. If we were unable to compare we would be unable to discern the difference between what is true and what is false. Which, going by some people’s comments on SN is obviously a…em…er…wee bit of a problem.
Lokesh, you come across as such a know-all.
You don’t seem to have developed any capacity for recognising your opinions are only that.
It’s a bit sad that a man of your age can be so stuck in the notion that your subjective opinions are scientifically objective.
Lokesh, for what you have withdrawn your witty post about Osho being remembered in the league of Buddha and Jesus?
This present post is more relevant together with the first one in the morning.
I accidentally deleted it. It will be remembered as a lost masterpiece, especially by my big fan, Arpie.
“If we were unable to compare we would be unable to discern the difference between what is true and what is false. Which, going by some people’s comments on SN is obviously a…em…er…wee bit of a problem.” (Lokesh)
I disagree here at this point and in this context, Lokesh. My own experience is that when I am into ´comparing´, I mostly go far off the track, yet – true – comparing happens, no doubt about that.
Best results for my own intuitions about anything are when I am aware of it, and let it pass…and manage to stay open for whatsoever comes. Maybe comfortable, maybe uncomfortable.
And also that will pass; so I am glad that your very last sentence you finished with about degrading “some” contributors in a way which is repelling me, will also pass.
Otherwise, I did like your pretty enlarged self-conscious input to the thread, and due to that, I remembered the read of the book of Amos Oz, which I very much enjoyed, if one can say so.
So, thank you for this.
Madhu
Oh////ehm…yes, Madhu, I am glad you have straightened that out. I am sure it is a great relief to have passed that one. By your description it certainly sounds like a biggie.
I heard him saying…”YOU CANNOT BETRAY ME, YOU CAN ONLY BETRAY YOURSELF.”
Vijay, you are hearing things.
Simond, I believe it is more the case that Arpie is already upset and for some reason, unbeknowest to me, I often get cast in the role of de upsetter, mon.
Amuses me, in a positive way, how you shut things down by playing the sage, avuncular old crofter.
Thanks, Parmartha, for another wonderful post. I always look forward to SN posts, and send you my heartfelt thanks, though I don’t verbalize it every time.
Here is one piece, so extraordinary when one sees in the context of the quotation of the main string as well as giving a clear message.
On 26 Sept. 1985 Osho gave freedom to wear any colour and also freedom to wear mala or not; people clapped.
On 8 Oct. he says no Buddhafield…now clap…
8 October 1985 I am in Rajneeshmandir…
“You have been clapping because I have dropped red clothes, malas. And when you clap, you don’t know how it hurts me. That means you have been a hypocrite! Why have you been wearing red clothes if dropping them brings you so much joy? Why have you been wearing the mala? The moment I say, ”Drop!” you rejoice. And people rushed to the boutique to change their clothes, they have dropped their malas. But you don’t know how much you have wounded me by your clapping and by your changing.
Now I have to say one thing more, and I would like to see whether you have the guts to clap or not: that is, now there is no buddhafield. So if you want enlightenment, you have to work for it individually. The buddhafield exists no more. You cannot depend on the energy of the buddhafield to become enlightened. Now clap as loudly as you can. CLAP!…
Now you are completely free: even for enlightenment only you are responsible. And I am completely free from you. You have been behaving like idiots! And this has given a good chance to see how many people are really intimate with me. If you can drop your malas so easily…
Even in my own house there is one sannyasin who immediately changed to blue clothes, with great joy. What does it show? It shows that those red clothes were a burden. She was somehow managing to be in red clothes against her will.
But I don’t want you to do anything against your will. Now I don’t want even to help you towards your enlightenment against your will. You are absolutely free and responsible for yourself.”
On Hugh Milne,
one can update oneself at this website below: the biographical details there do not mention Osho or mental health difficulties.
I see he mentions Betty Balcombe who, as I remember, other sannyasins also saw in London in the eighties; I think she claimed to be some kind of healer/psychic. Sounds like she helped him.
Two things occur to me:
Someone could contact him and see if he has any self-criticism of his views as described in ‘The God that Failed’ and how he himself now responds to the view that he betrayed Osho.
Second, that maybe be he deserves a degree of congratulation in putting his life back together, making a living and doing his cranio-sacral work, and getting patients, etc. after the problems he clearly suffered in the mid-eighties.
http://milneinstitute.com/hugh-milne/
Maybe an enlightened man cannot be betrayed, the betrayer just betrays him or her self in so doing.
But his ‘work’ can arguably be betrayed. One cannot imagine that “The God that Failed” for example, turned many on to Osho, and must have turned many off.
Easier to betray a man with 12 followers, confined to minor and limited area of the world, and no meaningful records of what he had said available, than a man like Osho, who had produced 400 volumes of discourses, available in various forms, which were more widely available than the Christian Bible after a thousand years, and whose followers were more widely spread around the whole world while he was alive, than Christianity was after 1000 years.
Few people have the idea spirituality means reading philosophy. They think influence of their cults is directly proportional to the volume of books.
You keep repeating this ad nauseam, Shantam, because you are not involved in any ‘live’ Sannyas scene. In fact, according to your very own argument you yourself are living very ‘unspiritually’, spending all those hours stuck in front of your computer, imagining – absolutely wrongly – you’re doing ‘very important work’
Because the truth is there are plenty of places you could go to all over the world and participate to your heart’s content – IF you really wanted to.
That’s why I have no time for your complaining as it’s based on a lie and an absolutely false perception that Sannyas and ‘Osho’s work’ depends upon what is or what’s not happening in Pune.
SD, are you involved in any kind of Sannyas scene or taking active participation in any social or religious activity?
And please ask the same question to scripture readers of Sannyasnews, where they have seen the Osho disciples last time?
Anyway, first of all, I want to know from you, Satyadeva, how you spend your days, months and years?
Dear oh dear, if there’s one thing Shantam can’t stand it’s the truth, even when it’s glaringly obvious. Blind as a fucking bat, apparently, inside and out.
Anyway, Shantam, although your questions are just a way to avoid facing what I put to you, let me say one or two things in response.
I’m not ‘socially active’ in Sannyas simply because I choose not to be at present, partly because I’m involved in other things, eg part-time work. If I were to choose otherwise it would be a simple matter, for example here in London, where I could go to the Saturday morning meet-up and at other times do active and other meditations at various venues. And/or group events.
However, what I or anyone else might or might not do has absolutely nothing to do with this issue. You’re the one, not me, who’s wasted space on here year after year, constantly complaining, constantly moaning that Sannyas is dead, that all is lost because the Pune ashram is run by ‘white bastards’ who, you imply, have therefore ruined your life.
As I intimated earlier today, just a few moments’ examination is more than enough to see that these chronic complaints are just utter rubbish. That you persist in them amounts to one protracted, lame excuse, a self-hypnotic means that you’ve employed for years to avoid being responsible for the shortcomings of your life. The easy way out, and all that unedifying resentment the opposite of admirable.
Satyadeva,
You are a little frog in a pond, have no idea what it means when man-made drought dries the river’s bed.
There are people in majority who treat Osho as one man word factory; I treat the Osho who dared to create a world out of His words. So it is a natural protest against the degradation imposed by disciples.
Have you ever seen any of my posts where I complain against priests and politicians of any other religions or countries? I won´t. They were not with a living master, they have all the rights to distort the original according to their mind and market demands.
I protest because I see how limbs of an emerging young entity have been distorted through plastic surgery.
Satyadeva, I have the right to speak about Sannyas mind and its gutter politics and skin-deep love and peace of Mas and Swamis. I never learnt any kind of ‘touch and hand job’ healing methods as it was a trend in sannyas community, I prefer to be a political and social thinker.
Yes, of course, Shantam, you have the perfect right to live in a self-made dream world where you’re the hero fighting ‘injustice’, but the fact remains that if you REALLY want an ‘old-style’ commune to GROW in there are plenty to choose from in the Sannyas world, in and out of India.
Your fixation on the Pune ashram betrays an unhealthy attachment to a particular place, a particular environment, a particular set of circumstances, now long gone, whether you or anyone else likes it or not.
Limiting yourself to that indicates restricted vision, a sense that you can only be ‘happy’ in a certain situation that clearly represents a ‘comfort zone’ for you, somewhere that you can think of as ‘home’, where you imagine you’ll enjoy a certain status as some sort of ‘senior disciple’, similar social standing having eluded you in the outside world. All bullshine, by the way.
But your idea is also practically flawed, as you are, in my view, extremely naive to imagine any attempt at resuscitating that era is likely to be anything other than a failure, or a lukewarm copy, at best. Osho is no longer present – why expect the young or even the 40-pluses to flock to over-polluted Pune in similar numbers to 30-odd years ago?
I fear your stubborn refusal to see the realities of the situation (including yours) for what they are will prove (is in fact already proving) your undoing. And that will be no one’s responsibility but yours, however much of a victim you like to think yourself.
“I never learnt any kind of ‘touch and hand job’ healing methods as it was a trend in sannyas community, I prefer to be a political and social thinker.”
Apart from putting down your one-time ‘friends’ in Sannyas with a typically rather unsavoury innuendo, it would be hard to find a more obvious example of delusion than you calling yourself “a political and social thinker”, Shantam!
All the ‘thinking’ you think you’re doing is just one continuously recycled emotional complaint, which boils down to “I’m unhappy, I’m lonely, it’s THEIR fault!”
“Beware politicians’ promises of a return to the good old days.”
(Philip Oltermann)
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/sep/11/beware-politicians-promises-of-a-return-to-the-good-old-days
Self-explanatory really, but not for everyone.
Dear Parmartha,
I mentioned in one of SN comments, addressed to Madhu, that I was blessed to have met Beloved Osho before running into Sheela’s and Shiva’s writings. It was highly likely that if I had seen Him through Sheela’s and Shiva’s eyes before experiencing him first-hand, I would have dismissed him as an impostor. Then, I strongly felt that I was destined to meet Him the way I did.
Such is the way of Existence. Whosoever is meant to meet a true master will surely meet one. Nothing can block his/her way. This is a great lesson I have learnt. Now I no longer worry about who is saying what about Him. Yes, whenever needed one may clarify things.
In the ultimate scheme of things, a true seeker will definitely get a true master.
Osho is not a word factory who brought hundreds of book titles out of oratory. In my heart, Osho is a master who gave reality to His words. He created the world out of his words.
Because he was creating the world out of his words, he created powerful enemies in the other establishments. Religious competition is bloody more brutal than the business rivalry.
There is a heaven and earth difference between the world and the words. In my opinion, to give too much importance to words is a betrayal with the work of Osho and more than that is a betrayal of one´s own creative capacities. After all, to create a new social and political order of living is much more creative than to create pharmaceutical combinations or pixels in the mobile phone.
Here it will be important to mention, Ramana Maharshi, Sai Baba, J.Krishnamurti, Punji ji have not taken any effort to create new way of living and relating.
To Osho it matters not whether he has left the body or has died or is born again. So betraying the master is not a question in the present scenario, betraying oneself and others is.
Shantam claims that “Osho created the world out of his words.”
Shantam, could you explain what that means?
Shantam continues, “Here it will be important to mention, Ramana Maharshi, Sai Baba, J.Krishnamurti, Punji ji have not taken any effort to create new way of living and relating.”
I believe I am correct in assuming that Shantam is implying that Osho did make an effort to create new way of living and relating. If I am correct in my assumption, Shantam, please give a couple of illustrations that demonstrate how Osho created a new way of living and relating that is happening now.
As usual, you repeat yourself to the point of cariacature, Shantam. And as I keep on repeating, there are plenty of Sannyas-inspired communes where you could try your luck instead of wasting your life with this tedious rhetoric.
You bitterly criticise others for focusing on “words”, but I’m afraid that’s all you ever do, and to no avail whatsoever.
Shantam, dear boy,
What I have noticed in life, talking to a lot of people, is that if you want something the thing to do is take a small step towards it in your life right now.
For example, if you want to have a love affair with a beautiful woman you will need to strike up a conversation, ask her to join you for a cup of tea or something, as attempting to convince people that you can`t attract her attention because she is being stalked by other white guys with more expensive lawyers won`t work!
Even if there was regime change and you went back to a new Pune, you would not last long because in your life you are no longer that person. You have become quite a loner whose default position is to rail against the wrong. I would comfortably put a bet on you falling out with the likes of Thakkar and his ilk in no time.
In this you are like Madhu, who bangs on about the “sangha”, but, with her real-time attitude, faced with a real life sangha, wouldn`t last a minute and would run a mile. Probably has dome already by the sound of it.
If you want it, do it in real-time.
Get in touch with real people and live “Osho`s new way of life” in any small way you can. The comedy baboons of SN will never take you more seriously than as a video of a fat bloke slipping on a banana-skin in endless repeat mode.
Maybe you don`t try it in real life because if you did you would find out that it is all a fantasy?
“In this you are like Madhu, who bangs on about the “sangha”, but, with her real-time attitude, faced with a real life sangha, wouldn`t last a minute and would run a mile. Probably has dome already by the sound of it.”
You may be right here, Frank, it´s true that the very last decades and years I couldn´t commit to gatherings and meetings, I have been joining sporadically.
I would like to better understand, what your last statements means, didn ´t manage to get the idiom (?):
“Probably has dome already by the sound of it.”
Would you mind to find other words for what you expressed here?
Madhu
Madhu,
I made a a typo error of ‘dome’ for ‘done’. “Probably has done already by the sound of it” is correct.
It means that going by what you have written in your posts you probably (faced with real-life ‘sangha’) have already not “lasted a minute and run a mile”.
You appear to confirm this observation in your last post.
If you are not really a “sangha type” in real life, why expect “sangha type” interaction (in your view) on SannyasNews? It sounds like totally self-defeating thinking to me. Like being gay but wanting/pretending to be straight.
If you are a lone wolf, a kickass individualist, a butterfly, a sole trader, just passin` thru, or whatever, then come out of the closet singing “I am what I am!”
Why bother to waste your energy taking an imaginary sangha situation as the ideal benchmark for yours and everybody`s life?
It`s a recipe for frustration.
Thanks for responding, Frank. Guess I know what you are talking about in your statements and valuable questions.
Like: “Why bother to waste your energy taking an imaginary sangha situation as the ideal benchmark for yours and everybody`s life?”
The latter is not supported by my life story these decades, since I was ´gone´, how I put it recently, when trying to describe what happened when I sat as His very feet, decades ago.
The shocks that followed, ´intrinsic, ´extrinsic’ though, asking to be embodied or ´adapted´, how Prem Martyn once put it. Inter-relating.
I am not an island, like anybody else too. And this spot here has seemed to be the only one I’ve found, talking Osho Neo-Sannyas-related issues through, also – amongst other stuff – quite hard stuff, so to say.
Your question is relevant, not only for me, I suppose. It´s an alive question, more a Quest, finds responses moment to moment.
Thank you,
Madhu
Cheers, Madhu.
Frank, I am curious to know from you or anyone else about their getting along with others about Osho´s new way of life.
This is what I am saying time and again: it is over. The leaves on the branches can not stay green for long if roots are poisoned.
If roots get healed, leaves and flowers and Osho way of life may blossom again with new insights.
“I believe I am correct in assuming that Shantam is implying that Osho did make an effort to create new way of living and relating. If I am correct in my assumption, Shantam, please give a couple of illustrations that demonstrate how Osho created a new way of living and relating that is happening now.”
Dear Lokesh, let me take this point from end first.
A new way of living and relating which was called ‘Neo Sannyas’, which was growing in Osho´s presence, has almost disappeared as Nokia has gone out of the market. Nokia became obsolete because Samsung and Apple brought new generation devices, smart devices. In Neo Sannyas case, there was no competition from others but internal bleeding.
Now let us think in this way, has Ramana Maharshi created some mini-group in the prevalent big circle of Hinduism? Or J. Krishnamurti or Punja Ji?
One man created the way of life where name was changed, clothes were changed, developed its own rituals, special days of festivals; for what were these things?
It is almost like a joke, Where Tom insists he was not married with Mary.
So Dick asked, “Did not you and Mary went in the church together. She was wearing white, you were in a navy blue suit?”
And Tom says, “But it does not mean we are married?”
Dick asks again from that Sunday, “Mary is carrying your family name. Is this not marriage?”
Tom remains adamant, “So what? We are good friends but not married?”
“One man created the way of life where name was changed, clothes were changed, developed its own rituals, special days of festivals; for what were these things?”
If those are what you think ever constituted the essence of Sannyas then you’ve made a serious error, Shantam. One all too typical of a conventional ‘religious’ mentality.
No wonder you’re living in a drought-hit river bed….
Shantam, your need to employ such a metaphorical way of communicating has the effect, at least in my case, of not really understanding what you are talking about. Why not take an example from Osho and use plain simple language that anyone can understand?
It is up to you, of course. Maybe you do not wish to be understood. If so, carry on up the Khyber.
I return to my first question…
Shantam claims that “Osho created the world out of his words.”
Shantam, could you explain what that means?
Great joke.
YOU CAN LOOK: EVERYBODY’S HANDS ARE BURNT. But you never look at your own hands. You always look at others’ hands and you say, “Yes, their hands seem to be burnt — but I will be more clever, I am more clever: I will carry the torch and run against the wind, and I will show you that I am an exception.” Nobody is an exception. Existence does not allow any exceptions. Your hands will also be burnt if you are running, rushing against the wind and carrying a torch, a burning torch. Lust is rushing against the wind. Nobody has come out of it unburnt.
But people go on looking at each other. Nobody looks at himself. The moment you start looking at yourself you have become a sannyasin.
I was reading:
Mrs. Cantor suspected her husband of playing around with the maid. Having to spend a few days with her sick mother, she told her small son, Harvey, to keep an eye on poppa and the maid.
As soon as she returned she asked: “Harvey, did anything happen?”
“Well,” said the boy, “poppa and the maid went into the bedroom and took off their clothes and…”
“Stop! Stop!” shouted Mrs. Cantor. “We will wait until poppa comes home.”
Poppa was met at the door by his irate wife, cringing maid and confused son. “Harvey, tell me what happened with poppa and the maid,” stormed Mrs. Cantor.
“As I told you, ma,” said Harvey. “Poppa and the maid went into the bedroom and took off their clothes.”
“Yes! Yes! Go on, Harvey!” said Mrs. Cantor impatiently. “What did they do then?”
Replied Harvey: “Why, mother, they did the same thing you and uncle Bernie did when poppa was in Chicago.”
Everybody goes on looking, everybody goes on seeing others’ faults, flaws, foolishnesses. Nobody looks at himself. The day you start looking at yourself you are a sannyasin. The day you start looking at yourself a great change is on the way. You have taken the first step – against lust, towards love; against desire, towards desirelessness – because when you see your own hands, they have been burnt so many times, you are carrying so many wounds.
Looking at others is just a way of avoiding looking at oneself. Whenever you criticize somebody else, watch: it is a trick of the mind so that you can forgive yourself. People go on criticizing others; when they criticize the whole world they feel very good. In comparison they can think they are not worse than other people; in fact, they are better. That’s why when you criticize somebody, you exaggerate, you go to the very extreme; you make a mountain out of a molehill; you go on making the mountain bigger and bigger and bigger, then your own mountain looks very small. You feel happy.
Stop this! This is not going to help you. This is very suicidal. Here you are not to think about others. Your life is yours. Thinking about others is not going to be of any benefit. Think about yourself. Meditate about your own self. Become more aware of what you are doing here – just hanging around? Or are you really doing something? And the only thing that can be relied upon is awareness. Only awareness can you carry through death, through the door of death – nothing else.
Osho
‘The Discipline of Transcendence’, Vol. 3
Chapter 3, ‘There Is Nothing Like Lust’
“Looking at others is just a way of avoiding looking at oneself. Whenever you criticize somebody else, watch: it is a trick of the mind so that you can forgive yourself. People go on criticizing others; when they criticize the whole world they feel very good.”
Thanks for quoting ´such and such´, Arpana; nice it is to presume that what you pass over to others, with the one or the other “fuck off” outburst included, you may – by chance – also apply to yourself.
Madhu
You haven’t actually read this, have you, Madhu?
“Looking at others is just a way of avoiding looking at oneself. Whenever you criticize somebody else, watch: it is a trick of the mind so that you can forgive yourself. People go on criticizing others; when they criticize the whole world they feel very good.”
Applies as much to you as anyone.
The thing you miss, which is almost dumbfounding to me, is that Madhu is simply asking you, Arpana, to examine how critical and sometimes aggressive you are. It doesn’t matter if others are avoiding looking at this question for themselves. That is irrelevant.
She, like me and others, are suggesting that YOU look at yourself and how YOU interact with others here.
“Madhu is simply asking you, Arpana, to examine how critical and sometimes aggressive you are.”
No, she is not, Rev. Simond. That’s what you want.
I am not superior to anyone who posts here, Rev. Simond, nor am I less than anyone who posts here.
I know myself at least as well as anyone else here knows themselves, in the moment, or in an ongoing way, and very specifically as well as you know yourself, at the bare minimum.
I left you and the Lokeshes of the world behind when I took sannyas.
You have nothing to offer anyone here, apart from the ego support you give Lokesh, who is too immature to tell you to go away.
The British enlightenment game just can`t seem to shake off the scourge of hooliganism, and it’s back to the bad old days of the 70s and 80s with vicious rivals attacking each other with an arsenal of weapons stolen from old encounter groups. They have been sharing their feelings of aggression and chanting cod-psychology slogans at each other as they stick the boot in on each others` projections and trample each other`s ego-structures in another night of violence at Sannyasnews.
It started when Bhagwan`s bitter Brummie boot-boy launched an explosive attack on a Scottish skinhead and have-a-go advaitist and his feared right-hand man and one-time West Dorset satsang enforcer, and it remains to be seen whether Big P, self-styled guv`nor of the sannyas underclass, will have to step in and restore order.
Authorities say that legendary hardman and no-nonsense disciple of Russell Crowe and Barry Long, Slasher Deva, Mad Dog Maddie from Munchen and the odd Punjabi racist have been spotted in the area, and their taste for a bit of aggro is epic, so let`s hope it doesn`t get completely out of hand….
Having myself ‘seen the Light’, a rather more genteel image comes to my mind, a reworking of that old sketch where John Cleese and the two Ronnies declare which class they belong to and hence, who they’re superior or inferior to.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VxkltwS9g0
Where, instead of class the self-identities are based on ‘awareness’ or ‘levels of consciousness’.
Unfortunately though, the following scenario is far too idealistic as each ‘contender’ would be bound to argue his superior psycho-spiritual credentials.
Never mind, we can all dream of a more self-aware world, eg…
“I am a top seeker, exceptionally self-aware, highly conscious at all times, and therefore I am superior to him”, indicating the next in line, who states, “I am an average sort of seeker, quite aware, fairly conscious, but all too prone to periods of total unconsciousness, so I’m inferior to him” (pointing to the first speaker) “and superior to him”, indicating the next one in the line, who declares, “I am one of the sannyas underclass, I’m just an utterly unaware, unconscious twat (and by the way, I blame the Pune regime for making me like that, the fucking unconscious bastards”).
“Never mind, we can all dream of a more self-aware world, eg…”
Yes, we can, Satyadeva.
And what a laugh from an unexpeted corner; no way to not fall in laughter-love with John Cleese and the two Ronnies….
Madhu
Maybe, Frank boy, you would like SN to be a kind of a virtual Auroville?
Aye, right, and there is nothing quite like a Glasgow kiss for opening the third eye and raising awareness.
Actually grew up in central Glasgow, during the fifties and early sixties. In those days gangs ruled the streets with heavy vibes. I am still friends with two people from those times, also sannyasins. As a kid I did not like violence in the least. In fact, it is only since joining the SN Crew that I have developed a taste for a bit of bovver.
Feel a bit sorry for Arpie getting beaten up by the heavies, but can’t say he didn’t have it coming. Still, a fractured ego and a six-inch permanent smile is no laughing matter. I am sure that the staff at Caravanserai will soon have him ready to return to the street.
He better be careful though, I hear The Rev wants to put paid to him with a hotshot cocktail of selfless love and compassion. Heavy shit, man.
Me, before I became an SN skinhead.
A much more realist image of Lokesh.
Lokesh.
Interesting how whatever you have to say about Sannyas and sannyasins and Osho always reflects well on you.
You told a story about some not-up-to-much old sannyasin recently, and lo and behold, you came out of it a shining diamond, of consciousness and superiority.
Yes, strange, is it not, Madhu, that I had similar thoughts on reading Arpie’s latest cut-and-paste outing? I thought, of all the people posting on SN that could do with letting that Osho quote into their heart it is poor Arpie himself that it applies to most.
Of course, Arpie will be the last person to admit it and will completely miss the irony of the situation. His problem, I suppose.
You are beyond parody. Hilarious.
I am not superior to you, Lokesh (nor to Madhu for that matter). Nor am I inferior.
That will be the day you show any sign of self-awareness.
Another point here…
“Looking at others is just a way of avoiding looking at oneself. Whenever you criticize somebody else, watch: it is a trick of the mind so that you can forgive yourself. People go on criticizing others; when they criticize the whole world they feel very good.”
“It`s all your projection” etc.
How would a group of people subscribing to these ideas fare in any situation where there was disagreement and difficulty about what to do?
Not very well, because in that psycho-spiritual hall of mirrors the shadow in the mirror is always somebody else`s in an infinite regress!
As an insight to be applied experimentally to further intelligence, the statement works. As a statement of some kind of absolute truth it creates strife.
Figure that one out.
Frank, no need to figure it out because it is obvious.
Once upon a time, it’s all a reflection of yourself was big news, it was also fun and and an excuse to get away with almost anything socially. Also, ultimately it is somehow true. Then again, not being able to criticize because it is all a projection is strictly for the dummies in the class.
Perhaps having dropped one’s critical faculties because it is all a projection- type mind-set was partly responsible for what happened on The Ranch. So many apparently intelligent people working and living together did not have the gumption to unify and say, hey, this is wrong, negative, crazy and nothing to do with why we joined the commune, so what’s the fucking game? But they did not.
Today, I occasionally run into someone who is still working from their old sannyas programmes in a negative kind of way. You know, you tell them something they obviously need to hear and they come away with something like that is just your opinion, or the classic that is just a projection etc. It is very limiting.
Ha ha. Frank’s remarks have put you on the defensive.
Bit of desperate rationalising happening, just in case; you being so far above the psychology of ordinary people.
Blind spots or what?
Faceless Frank has wisdom like a tiger and courage like a snake. Always operating undercover, hidden under the earth.
Is there a single contributor at sannyasnews who has somewhere about our faceless frank?
When the time comes to go up, such contributor will deserve a standing ovation in obituary at Osho News Voyage section. (My immense regard to the team of Oshonews for this thoughtful regular feature).
Oh dear, you are fantasising about my death (again).
Was it something I said?
Now look what you’ve done, Frank. Putting Lokesh on the defensive with your thoughtlessness.
You forgot to add a caveat:
‘This does not apply to Lokesh, who is above the human condition. This only applies to run of the mill people.’
‘Hypocrite’:
A person who claims or pretends to have certain beliefs about what is right but who behaves in a way that disagrees with those beliefs.
“It is very ugly way to use cut/paste of spiritual texts to prove one´s superiority and spit on others in an indirect way.”
P.S:
Original quotation created by seeing life.
Talking about bots, I’ve come across Osho’s book, ‘Hari Om Tat Sat’, his talkings to Maneesha in 1988.
I am amazed, once more, with this crazy Indian who used that great intellect of his to help people’s subjectivity. Sometimes I think he should have gone to Sciences, because he was a visionary.
In page 248 of this book he talks about the future of the computers and he could predict many things. Not Star Trek business….
Tan, Osho predicted so many things that luck would have it that some of them actually came true. Some of his biggest predictions were concerning global catastrophes. As far as I know, none of them came true.
My take is that it is a Sagittarian thing. I love making predictions and once in a while one actually comes true. My big one for this year is that quite soon before the American presidential election in November something very unexpected will happen that will change the game big-time. Aieeeeeeeee!
“In page 248 of this book he talks about the future of the computers and he could predict many things. Not Star Trek business….”
I came to know that you are not into quoting, Tan, but could you make an exception and post that page? Here?
Thanks for mentioning it.
Madhu
Ok, Madhu:
SS is right, Osho talked in 1988 about apps. and etc. – not a big deal.
What I thought was fantastic is that in 1988, Osho said that he was in absolute support of mechanical brains taking over the work of human intelligence, and he gave reasons for it. Really great!
So I looked through the ashram records and found this one from 1975:
“Sooner or later man will devise small computers which you can carry in your pockets. They will carry all the knowledge of all the libraries in the world. It will not be necessary to teach it to you: you can simply push a button on the computer and the computer can supply you the knowledge.”
Osho, ‘Journey of the Heart’ (1975)
We are not quite ready for a human cyborg relations like C-Threepio yet, but in Japan intelligent androids, manufactured by Honda, are already becoming available.
There is a film, ‘Robot and Frank’ (no relation to SN Frank) about the relationship between an old guy and his bot:
https://youtu.be/KsCMFm6Xuk4
I remember reading something Osho once said about vibrators in 1973, he was talking about how in the West women are using these now, and they can de-sensitize the women and that men wouldn`t be enough for them anymore…All total rubbish, of course.
As far as Osho being in favour of “mechanical brains taking over the work of human intelligence”, well, I guess he never watched the Terminator….
@ Madhu and SS:
.
Google: ‘Hari Om Tat Sat from Osho’ and you can find the book that Swami Rajneesh kindly posted
Now, SS, how do you know that vibrators don’t de-sensitize women? Have you had a look in the market?
And, SS, please, what has ‘Terminator’ anything to do with bots? Give me a break! XX
Well, several women told me that they prefer the “real thing” to vibrators.
As far as androids are concerned, those Japanese bots may be cute but check out this to see what could happen in a future zone:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ih_l0vBISOE&client=mv-vf-uk&safesearch=always
MOD:
TRY ABOVE LINK (FIRST ONE DIDN’T WORK).
‘Hari Ohm Tat Sat’ as a PDF:
http://www.filedropper.com/hariomtatsat
That`s clever, Tan, you`ve suggested what he (Osho) was talking about, without actually making the quote.
I guess you are talking about him on about something like “And in the future, we will have small computers, with all the information, all the luxuries…and just small computers with all the information that will fit in the palm of your hand”. Something like that….
Has also predicted when other cults will have their own 24×7 TV channels my people will create a radio, Osho Radio.
BREAKING NEWS OR GOSSIP:
One of India’s finest legal brains, Mahesh Jethmalani, is going to fight the Osho fake will case against the beneficiaries of this will.
I hope in a true fashion of criminal cases, lots of dirty laundry will be washed out.
It would be better if Ram Jethmalani fought the case, his son’s recent record is not that good. Anyway, All the Best to both sides!
Guess for me to it’s best being an observer/watcher.
Very right, Kavita.
Beware of premature ejaculations, Shantam…You and your partners-in-outrage could be set for a major disappointment.
Besides, even if the case were to succeed I doubt that the quality of your life would necessarily change that much. Are you really salivating at the prospect of all those Indians flooding into the place, with relatively few foreigners to make it worth your while bothering?
It is a privilege to feel at least one Swami Satyadeva gets enough feeder from my posts.
I sometimes wonder whether SD has some interpersonal relations. Such theoretical knowledgeable persons repulse any real-time communication. One has to be human to play the human life, he is more a teacher who knows how to correct answer sheets.
Such puerile abuse is the last resort of the one who can’t find an adequate response to a challenge. Typical Shantam, absolutely par for the course.
SD, first of all, I am not a person who loves challenges. And even if it is, it must be from someone who has some gravity, some fearless standing, some personal opinion and courage to stand with the opinion. Real people with real opinion attract condemnation too.
To be true, on this site, Lokesh is one such who brings his IN out honestly.
MOD:
POST EDITED (AS WE’VE SAID MANY TIMES, MAKING AN ISSUE OUT OF PERSONAL PHOTOS OR THEIR ABSENCE WON’T BE PUBLISHED).
Just more empty bluster, Shantam.
“I am not a person who loves challenges…”
Which, translated, amounts to “I’ll say any old self-aggrandising, portentous nonsense (seasoned, of course, with gratuitous abuse) when it suits me, to avoid dealing with difficult issues for which I can find no adequate response.”
P.S:
You “love challenges” when it suits you, Shantam. As it’s suited you for many years here at SN to campaign against the people whom you think have ‘betrayed Osho’ (and ruined your life).
You don’t appear to realise how self-servingly contradictory so many of your posts are, which is one reason why you get, and will continue to get, unless you change your ways, so much ‘stick’ here.