To Hell with Bhagwan

This press conference video below is from two weeks after Sheela left the Ranch, and on the same day that Osho dropped the requirement of wearing orange/red and the mala for sannyasins.

I was on the Ranch on that day. It was arguably a strange day, many people were rushing around getting or trying to get blue jeans, and others looking very lost.  On the whole I would say that commune sannyasins were in a kind of shock and also slightly manic in some cases, so not really a very stable type of day!  A minority seemed almost “relieved” that they no longer had to wear such colours, another minority seemed regretful, and missed the requirement.

What strikes me is how totally composed and unmoved Osho is in this video of the evening press conference on that day, and how good in every way Osho’s answers were to the two press guys. A contrast actually to his sannyasins in the streets of the Ranch on that day.

Someone has given the video the  title “To hell with Bhagwan”.  Not sure why, I listened to most of the conference but not all.

When Osho finally did drop the name Bhagwan,  many,  including people then in my circles would not drop the name “Bhagwan”.  That always felt strange to me, even just a week ago I heard someone talking of Bhagwan not  Osho!

 

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18 Responses to To Hell with Bhagwan

  1. Arpana says:

    Christ, but this event shattered me.

    I felt like a ghost. That I wasn’t corporeal for weeks afterwards. Really freaky; and then I gradually became aware of a sense of myself as a sannyasin, and everything started to coalesce again, until he began that bloody name changing business, and was all over the place for a lot of that.

    • Parmartha says:

      Thanks, Arps. Honest answer.

      Would be good to know how others also felt on that day. I was told by Paritosh (author of ‘Life of Osho’) who was living “in the world” as he put it, and not in communes etc., that there was a spirit of celebration amongst street sannyasins in London on that day! Paritosh often said to me that the experience of Osho and his “tricks” was different for non- commune sannyasins.

      Someone has told me that the phrase “To Hell with Bhagwan” was said by Sheela, when she was interviewed in Germany immediately after leaving the commune and the Ranch.

      I found the video moving. Energetically, I felt that Osho was pouring out so much juice.

      • Arpana says:

        We can still learn from considered reflection on those events, our past. So much went on.

        I have a feeling I was overwhelmed a lot of the time with what was going on internally because of what was going on with us collectively and around me/us.

        Taken me years to get my feet on the ground, and involvement with Sannyas news has played a part in that.

      • madhu dagmar frantzen says:

        Yes, Parmartha,

        Amongst other interviews Sheela has given in these former days you speak of, she has been performing a show with six or seven of her intimates, viewed by the cameras of one of the public tv (serious) broadcasters on the northern island, Juist: performing a spectacular burning of their malas and their sannyasin clothes on the beach there.

        The tv so-called documentary feature was broadcast some days or about two weeks later (1985) at prime-time: couch-potato time.

        Madhu

      • Tan says:

        Well, I was and still am going to follow him to Hell, if he is really there…:).

  2. prem martyn says:

    When you live in truth, you risk your arse. Therefore it’s all par for the course. Anyone who loves fire will know that and laugh brilliantly, mirthfully.

    There is no such thing as semantic, verbal justice for Buddhas either. But that makes them smile with dignity

    And these are not the stories that made Osho laugh, his laughter was far more innocent and childlike than this sad story of a truncated and poisoned vision. That he went all the way was his approach to a political spiritual vision. Not a room full of advaita nodders, whose community consists of digestive biscuits and a trip on the metro for watching in silence.

    This world made of rapacious vested interests and the dumb-arse plebs of any class is made of semantics. Mind. Especially from behind computers.

    Funadamentally, the hallmark of a coward is their self-delusion. But on the contrary, honesty is an expensive gift – don’t expect it from cheap, mean people.”

    You can’t betray living life unless you don’t (live a loving life). Then malice follows. Sheela and many, many sannyasins and people and anyone you care to mention thinks you can lie to get by. She talks like a housewife.

    And responding to that is living in truth. But you must be willing to fight fully with darkness at some point or it threatens to destroy creativity. So bring it on and prepare yourself for the Hero’s journey. O be One Kan U Be?

    The opponents’ lack of voice will wrap their solar plexus around that person throat, and force their mind to keep them trembling but still apparently smelling the control (of their own fear) through flared nostrils. Like on the previous thread. The Psycho Hotel where the veneer has to crack from its own inward pressure is very familiar. Two words. Films are full of this script. Osho wasn’t.

    I know people who lost their life savings on Ranch promises.

    But life has a habit of turning coal into diamonds when the heart is lived and not aborted like an unwanted foetus that aches for others lives in jealousy.

    So of course “love wounds and love scars”, but I would go to Hell With Bhagwan and with countless lovers again and again…than not put a foot outside a door of a suburbia prison.

    I’m sure you’d agree.

    • madhu dagmar frantzen says:

      Playing the ‘guerrilliero’ here, are you, Prem Martyn, in the virtual SN UK Chat, looking to heat up readers for whatsoever?

      According to the thread topic historical date, comes all a bit or very late
      (some more about thirty years late).

      And you in my eyes have no authority to judge about anything, not about a “housewife c***”, as you put it here, nor about (in your eyes) “cowards”.

      And the ´Hero´s Journey´ (Campbell, you are refering to?)is NOT (!) one about some extremely mentally, emotionally and spiritually truly disturbed kind of suicide bombers and fanatics who don’t give a shit as well for their own lives as well as for the lives of others, and think (imagine) they are brave. Or ´honest´. Or ´true love´(sometimes).

      So you may look, as well as others also could do, what YOU did or did not do some more than thirty years ago. That would be more honest in my eyes as to judge others (now), and many of those you did not or do not really know.

      So, I would recommend to you, read your Campbell again and maybe could evolve from this more modest, with more understanding, who knows?

      In the vid spot of the Press Conference here posted, I am seeing, besides the Master, some really stunned, pretty pale and moved faces (Indian Maitreya, Greek Mukta, hypnotherapist Santosh, amongst others) of friends already passed and are not available in that form to say something about NOW and the impacts of a ´NOW´, relatively speaking, and I am speaking of Trauma here (with capital letters).

      Otherwise, the fabuluous music group, like the dances before and after the Conference, shows us a lot of cathartic release and also tremendous joy that a certain phase came to an end.

      A phase – in my eyes – besides some thorough misunderstandings and some misuse of power (and authoritarianism and also crimes) etc. came to an end.

      And as we all know, who want to understand more about dynamics and our own roles in it and growing response-abilities (or not), the digesting process of integrating such is still happening. Individually as collectively.

      How you are in my eyes, Prem Martyn, are pumping yourself up sometimes like a very Loud-Speaker, with that ´know-it-all´ energy – I feel sometimes simply:
      OFF THE WALL.

      Maybe you impress others by this pattern. Or people who don´t know a ´thing´ by their own experience of what is the theme here.

      My own impression is that you have the possible tendency of quite a fanatical approach and the ´love´ you are talking about quite often comes embedded in hate – or discrimination – speak, as if you really imagine to be able to classify others’ love or intentions.

      And who are YOU?

      Would be good if you stick to your own. More honest, I mean. Exactly that which you recommend to others.

      Madhu

      • shantam prem says:

        One warrior woman Madhu is enough to bring the pot of boiling emotions of fellow men on the cooling plate.

        In Germany such women are known as Emancipated Fraüen; very civilized to the level of militancy.

        In my reading, Madhu post is more sensible. Martyn sounds like obsessive/ compulsive personality. Being one such personality myself, I have empathy and repulsion for such people.

  3. sw. veet (francesco) says:

    “I just wanted to emphasize the fact that whatever FBI, state government, are trying is against American constitution and its values. Their effort is to protect the criminals, give them immunity, and charge innocent people. The whole idea is how to destroy the commune. That we are not going to allow. I have my ways how to stop it.

    …The whole world, the whole world’s intelligentsia, will be against it. All the intelligent people in media will be against it. America will lose its credibility.

    …Now I have chosen a totally different kind of group — well educated, coming from rich families, having no inferiority complex, very creative”

    Wow…it looks so long ago.

    “And I keep tomorrow always open. And I am not a very consistent man. Tomorrow I may change. So those who have purchased clothes other than that may be at a loss. Yes! I am not saying…yes. So tomorrow morning, who knows?”

    Yet, so current.

    Love,

    VF

  4. shantam prem says:

    Let us presume, master has left his body not in Pune but in Rajneeshpuram, among His people.

    Then?

    Those who blame Sheela and America can run their imagination to create an honest scenario mixed with little bit of wishful thinking!

  5. Lokesh says:

    Great vid…I actually watched it for five minutes. The old boy looks wonderful.

    Osho wanted his people to be individuals, which makes me wonder why there exists so much resistance in some sannyasins’ minds to the very thought of the idea.

    • madhu dagmar frantzen says:

      “Osho wanted his people to be individuals, which makes me wonder why there exists so much resistance in some sannyasins’ minds to the very thought of the idea.”(Lokesh)

      Maybe the reason you asked for lies in exactly that, Lokesh:
      That (if we leave out maybe social bots just now) Individuals are posting here and responding, who are not clone copies of ´your stance on it all – and/ or are living and did live up to their own understanding and possibilities of adapting or coping with circumstances – different from yours.

      Madhu

    • kusum says:

      Love, caring & compassion for others are also as important as being individual. Even though sometimes one has to put the other first. That is humanity.

  6. Arpana says:

    Well, in yours and Shantam’s, Lokesh, it doesn’t seem unreasonable to refuse to be a clone or imitation of what you both delude yourselves you are.

  7. Bong says:

    Can you guys keep your responses brief and to the point I am busy recruiting teams of smart creatives for logos and other projects and think that what you say is important just rather

    l
    o
    n
    g
    w
    i
    n
    d
    e
    d

    I think Osho was shortsighted on money and his succession plan stinks of bureaucracy and pre-think.

    Where is my cash?

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