Cashless with Osho …. by S K Saksena
Here in India today, in the midst of present demonetisation, the word ‘cashless’ is much in currency. The government is sparing no efforts to turn the nation almost cashless. How does one feel when one is cashless? This reminds me of an incident from my younger days.
Once, during summer vacations Osho visited our home in Civil Lines, Delhi. After discussing matters philosophical with my father, he turned to me. UNESCO was to hold a conference in New Delhi, and they had advertised for volunteers. He asked, if I would accompany him to find out what this was all about. I readily agreed.
We walked up to the bus stop at Exchange Stores. We took the bus to Connaught Place. Inside the bus, he told me that he had no money and asked me to buy the tickets. When we got off at Connaught Place, he asked me how much money I had left. I showed him the coins I had. ‘Let’s finish it off at India Coffee House. Having bantered over coffee, we were on the road with empty pockets. “Now we are really free. Money is such a burden” said Osho!
S.K. Saksena
I was trembling at the thought of going all the way back home without money. But he was nonchalant. Asking our way around we landed up inside an imposing building, where the Unesco interviews were going on. The peon would not let us go in, as we had no appointment letter.
Osho coolly asked him for paper and pencil. On the paper he wrote “Madam, some appointments are made in heaven. We two, are that appointment”. Both the peon and I were amazed, that we were called in immediately, out of turn. The Greek lady interviewer was obviously curious to meet us.
She soon realised that we were just educated idlers and not interested in any job. She called for tea for us and expressed her curiousness about India and was awestruck by the country. Having had tea, with thanked her profusely and walked out.
The prospect of how to reach my distant home, without money in my pocket was secretly gnawing me from inside. ‘How do we go back home without money’, I asked him. ‘Don’t worry. Let’s find out where the DGCA office is’.
Enquiring here and there, we finally walked up to the office. There he asked for Capt. Karnik, who came out cordially to meet us. Two long lost friends had met, amongst much merriment.
Incidentally, Capt. Karnik was one of the three survivors of the famed Kashmir Princess crash over Bay of Bengal. They swam nine hours in the dark to the Burmese shore. Chou En-Lai was to be on that flight, but he was forewarned about the sabotage attempt. Karnik entertained us over tea and described in detail the ill fated flight.
Rajneesh piped in, “Thanks for the tea. But we did not come here for tea. Have us dropped. We have no cash”. Karnik obliged and got us a car for the rest of the evening. Osho was relaxed and kept joking. But I was mortified, for if my mother realised that both of us were roaming around in New Delhi irresponsibly, without money, she would have given us a terrible verbal spanking.
Such things often happened whenever Osho was around. He was a non conformer to the core!
So much security and ego identity connected to money/possessions. Money as a possession. Where do money and possessions begin and end?
Existence will provide is all I can say. It will not provide what you want, but what you need.
Spiritual seekers have mostly contempt for those who pour their life to become money magnets. Quite often, to compensate this lack of will, there is a common utterance, “You can’t take the money with. You come empty hands, you go empty hands.”
They presume those who have money are not aware about this! Moreover, there is a selfish illusion, prayers will go with, hours spent in meditation will be registered in heavenly Treasury.
The seekers also fail to recognise that the heavenly treasury is here and now, it never has been elsewhere. Multitude are the ways of self-deception a.k.a maya or whatever you want to call it.
Sammasati, do you have anything to say that is not a cliche? Most of the kids on SN have been round the block and visited the dark side of the moon and you are coming away with here and nowitus.
You say, “Multitude are the ways of self-deception.” Perhaps you need to meditate on that one a bit more.
I’m just mirroring the banalities in the comment that I commented on, so nothing new. Maybe you should examine why you are so upset about it.
True, nothing to be upset about, as you are not mirroring anything, as you claimed to do.
And alone look (also) at this again:
“Existence will provide is all I can say. It will not provide what you want, but what you need”.
And Lokesh, I guess, is not upset either, nor am I.
Madhu
Oh dear, I would like to say more, like Existence will not provide what you want, but what you need, but you do not realise what you need, but I will not because I am so upset. I think I will take an aspirin and have a wee lie down in my sarcophagus…or something like that. Om…love.
My comment on Existence is so wrong then… my apologies (sarcasm intended). The guy is worrying about getting home after spending his taxi money, Osho not one bit, and things sort out.
@ Sammasati 13 January, 2017 at 9:32 pm
“My comment on Existence is so wrong then.”
Yes it is, Sammasati. Because you’re a very naughty boy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zjz16xjeBAA
“Most of the kids on SN have been round the block and visited the dark side of the moon and you are coming away with here and nowitus.”
Actually, you just proved my point, cliche or not. There is no need to go anywhere, definitely not to the dark side of the moon, if it carries along such detritus.
Big P,
Do you have any more S K Saxena stories.
Enlightentertainment at its best!
Nice wee Osho story. Seems a lot of people knew Osho. Ehm…no surprises there.
I grew up in Glasgow. I never met Billy Connolly. Over the years I have met dozens of Glaswegians who were, according to them, very good friends with him to the point that they often got very drunk with the Big Yin. I have heard this so many times that I am left with two conclusions: Billy was an alcoholic, who got pissed drunk every night. People are telling whoppers.
The above story is no doubt true. Yet, there are many other Osho stories that are obviously fiction or overblown.
The overblown or fictional accounts are often told by people who have something to gain from it.
Fortunately, Osho told me I am a very special kind of guy and that the secret knowledge that he imparted to me and me alone should be in no way shared without first receiving lump sums of money. Call toll free. 0800-IAMYOURGURU.
Haha! Gorgeous story.
Wonderful story. In a way, he is correct. Osho did not idolise money, but he valued influence. It is said influence is better than power. I am sorry I am not richer! €£¥₩ (What does this ₩ symbol mean?).
Rather than discussing how money doesn’t exist when you play trust games, it would be more useful to discuss how money systems actually work and notice how much the Ashram was and is dependent on various evangelical beliefs about need and value and work when in truth it depended fully on bourgeois identity and the huge scope for self- improvement, much like the American belief of protestant pain, gain and servility.
There was never any transparency in the financial model the commune used and no co-sponsoring of projects elsewhere.
It almost invented the relationship between self-aggrandising therapy and private wealth without any corresponding examination of that relationship.
I am glad that microcredit banks exist. I am glad that you can now crowd-source. I am glad that the notion of a universal wage is gaining traction especially in Finland and with a pilot scheme in place in Scotland.
I am ashamed at the lack of outreach and transparency such a model as Sannyas had in its heyday. I remember the London days of the best that sannyas money-making could offer was a pyramid cash scheme or hourly cleaning contracts or selling detergent door-to-door for some evangelical American exploitation business. It crossed over into the ‘Yes We Can’ tripe of those mind control 80s groups.
The idea that spirituality has any relationship to wealth or benign material blessing without any mutual aid is the muck that Sannyas can do without.
Had it not been for the sheer daily hard work of my partner through professional skills and my own mixture of luck, gifts,embattled legacy and previous investment at opportune moments, we would not have been able to smile, let alone trust. Enough of the role-modelling guff beyond some pleasant storytelling.
Thanks.
“The idea that spirituality has any relationship to wealth or benign material blessing without any mutual aid is the muck that Sannyas can do without.
Had it not been for the sheer daily hard work of my partner through professional skills and my own mixture of luck, gifts,embattled legacy and previous investment at opportune moments, we would not have been able to smile, let alone trust. Enough of the role-modelling guff beyond some pleasant storytelling. (Prem Martyn)
Thanks.”
Thanks? For what, Prem Martyn?
Why don´t you yourself offer a thread topic here, beyond ´role-modelling guff´, all transparent, all translucent, sharing your deep and experiential, grounded ‘update’ on Sannyas here on UK Sannyas News?
That would be very nice. Looking forward to such.
Thanks.
Madhu
You never walked through the ashram gates in 1974, Martyn – obviously.
There were no groups on offer, just meditations and Osho talking in his prime – and like a good busker – just for free….and never even a single moment I had a feeling of being ripped off in any way.
I never got to Osho through psychotherapy, etc., just a love of life and travelling on the road. But I realise that later some did. I understand even then that the therapy was cheaper than in the West, and clearly many seemed to seek it and also seemed pleased with the product. Many of the therapists were working for their keep, and so I never felt that it was like some rich man’s indulgence in London’s West End. Far from it, in fact.
PM and Madhu.
I cannot compose extended conversations on most anything that I write here. So I generally seem to write to myself – which seems appropriate in this element. As it’s really me with me in this room here as the dominant reality.
So although I’ve tried to tap some replies back to you both, I’m not convinced of my efforts so deleted them.
Just know that these last 18 months I went out of my way again to meet up with the Osho world and made some nice new connections.
And that’s what matters. To me.
Long may the adventures continue.
Take care.
Re Prem Martyn says:
14 January, 2017 at 11:55 pm
Prem Martyn,
Why not give a little effort for discernment a try?
I am a human being, female, quite of some age, writing on a widely Sannyas and UK related caravanserai web-chat for about three years now.
Did so to maybe better cope with some Sannyas-related traumata and the fact being more or less treated as a ‘pariah’´ from the side of former sannyas friends, as well as maybe better to cope with the fact of being stalked and cyber-stalked.
The latter being an ongoing trauma in itself, with which no fortunate resistance and lawyal aid did successfully happen so far, unlike in your case (you proudly reported us about recently).
However, I am writing. Up to today, this very instant.
Reading you over the years here, I experienced you in a kind of bipolar paradox stance. Jubilating the one day about some of the meditation offers and fellow travellers, cursing it or them the other day.
As I am neither a cow, nor a pig, nor a hen, etc. nor a laboratory rat, whom you would probably go to fight for their animal rights ( the only really consistent stance about the living entities in you, I’ve found in these years), I wouldn´t count on you when I am worse treated in social affairs than a rat in a social lab, and you came to know (or know) about that.
On the contrary, if such would serve one of your adventurous crowd-(?) sponsored businesses, my impression by now is you wouldn´t wait a second to happily misuse me as a person like an inanimate target or object.
As I am not a ´social bot´ either, I have (not nice!) feelings about such stuff happening.
And as I am not fortunate to fight robot-like intruders, not like you obviously did (your statements recently), in my case helplessness, sadness, anger and yes – also rage – have become guests in my inner-house.
I have to befriend these feelings according to these matters and call for my inner peace-committee to get again strong enough to meet outer perpetrators on the streets then (mostly grinning, btw).
So – what matters for you, Prem Martyn, may differ from what matters for me, and may also differ from what maybe matters for Parmartha – at least on a superficial, or maybe also essential level.
Yesterday evening, I listened again to Osho´s take on: ‘Choiceless Awareness’. And once again feeling from my heart that listening a business man, or to a teacher and the listening to a Master is not the same. And my gratefulness about the latter is beyond the mind. Fortunately.
Madhu
I wonder if the stories would have been written if Osho had not become famous. Would his memories of young Rajneesh have made young Rajneesh appear to be so remarkable if not for the fame?
Arpana, you already know the answer to that.
Actually being able to lend people money or even give it away is a great trust exercise. Anyone round here played that game? Anyone ever been shafted or gifted by mere mortals on the path?
I’m sure there’s lots of that variety of blessing too.
I have been shafted quite a few times in different ways…but also gifted. Should i make a wonder tale out of it for the boys and girls, sprinkled with truths and learnings?
Ok, here goes…
I reckon if you ain’t toxic you’ll make your own luck. (Use picture of kitten playing with ball of string and post on fb).
A friend, not a sannyasin ever, hates all that introspecting; gave, loaned me £500 to get me to Poona at the end of the 70s, and I couldn’t pay him back for over thirty years; and I gave him £1200 back about 8 years ago, and the memory of that had been like a millstone to me, but he never mentioned it once. Very liberating.
That’s very reassuring and a kindly, friendly tale too, Arpana.
You know we all have amazing stories of coincidence and opportunity, sometimes making me feel there’s so much more living to do, listening to others’ inspiring stories of living.
The best aspect of life in Poona at its absolute best was that sometimes we got to see how well intentioned human beings can be, ourselves included, even if we didn’t always manage to pull it off, live to that all the time. And there was something so simple, so straightforward and not calculating about that aspect of us all.
That´s very beautiful expressed here by you, Arpana (at 3.19 pm): “well intentioned human beings”, you speak of.
Often hard to feel that here on the SN UK website of contemporry ´times´ as well, but sometimes it happens, even for me. And even now.
A mystery school.
Thank you for posting this.
Madhu
I liked the story for another reason so far not mentioned.
This story, and a few others I heard from those who knew Osho prior to his enlightenment, remind me of ‘me and my friends’ when I was a student or layabout in London circa 1964-9. Somehow getting around without the fare, how many ruses did a few of us know about unmonitored back stairs at stations, or dodging ticket inspectors, or getting a coffee or even a meal through entertaining talk to … in coffee houses…
That also gives me the double feeling that Osho was the right teacher for me, cos he had lived something like the same way….
Yes, indeed.
“Educated idlers” is how Saxena described himself and the young Rajneesh. I`m sure a lot of baby-boomers could relate to that epithet.
It reminds me of a school report of mine, must have been in the 60s too, where the Headmaster was so sick of me he summed me up in 3 words: “Almost absurdly idle.”
I treated it as a badge of honour altho` I`m still a bit disappointed at the “almost”!
I have a very particular idea about how you were in school, Frank, and you have just confirmed that notion.
Even now some of my friends manage to get free lunch or drinks from me. No big deal really.
“That also gives me the double feeling that Osho was the right teacher for me, cos he had lived something like the same way.”
I think the RIGHT TEACHER has explained around 101 times the difference between teacher and master. Anyway, after death matters not what one calls.
Those who squabble about vocabulary are off the planet…I find ‘Master’ a distasteful word as it implies in ‘English’, the dominance of a slave….
Why some Britisher disciple has not dared to increase the general knowledge of their “Master of Masters” that ‘master’ is a dirty word?
If we take the distastefulness to its final conclusion, it is already a slave mentality to allow some teacher to change the name and allow the cow bell-like mala to hang around one´s own neck.
Disclaimer:
Just want to say, my logic is not against Parmartha´s personal choice of the word, ‘teacher’.
Few people can use any word, still they pour their love and devotion in every gesture. I am sure most of the writers here are of such type. Wonderful seekers.
I also know few people who never use past tense for Osho yet live with this understanding: dead men don´t walk.