An Australian Sannyasin…

An Australian sannyasin,  who had just returned after a visit home,  had been interviewed on television in Australia about sannyas.

She said to Osho:

The media asked what your message was, and how it was for me. The hardest thing that I had to deal with — not just at the interview,  but all throughout — was that they implied that it was  a very selfish thing to be doing. People said that you’ve got talents to teach and to work with people, and here you are going off and dropping out in India. And I felt that really difficult. I just felt well, this is right for me; this is all I’ve got, and this is all I feel I’ve got to work for. But they didn’t really want to know. It was hard! For example my father said I should get a proper job and enough of this!

Osho Replied

They cannot understand — it is natural. And I can understand it is hard for you, but it is harder for them. They cannot understand… they simply think that you have gone crazy. They may not say so, but they feel that something has gone wrong, because they live in a world, in an established pattern, where everything is judged according to money.

1050_Greece

If you are making money, you are doing something good. The more money you are getting, the more valuable is your work. But out of sannyas you cannot get any money; in fact whatsoever you have got will be lost. So it is a disvalue. It has no market value — it is not a commodity. God has never been a commodity. And God has always been for crazy people; people who are not satisfied with power, prestige, money; people who really want something of the eternal — and are not concerned with the ephemeral, the illusionary.

But the world is settled with the illusion, and whenever somebody escapes from their circle, they all start crying loudly and making much fuss, saying that you have gone mad.
This is just to protect themselves, because if you are right, they are all wrong; you both cannot be right. If you are right then they are all wrong, and that is too much to accept. Their whole life is at stake, and of course they are in the majority. So of course they can simply prove that you have gone crazy, out of your mind.

And they will try to persuade you that you are talented; to become a teacher and this and that. But the greatest talent is just to be, and out of that being if something comes, it will come. If teaching comes out of it, it comes. But then you will not be a teacher; it will not be a job. It will be a vocation, not a profession. You will simply love to teach. You will find somebody and you will teach — and you will thank the person who allowed you to teach him, that’s all. If you feel like painting you will paint; but in the very painting of it is the result.

I was just reading about a poet who was telling his friends that he was writing a book. Nobody was interested. They asked ‘poetry?’ — and the subject was politely dropped. Many years he talked to people about the book he was writing, that it was almost completed, this and that, but nobody was interested.

Then the book was published and became very famous, and an award was given for it. Then all those friends started coming and appreciating the book. The poet writes that he was surprised, because when he was writing it nobody was interested, but when it became an award-catching thing they were all for it, they all started praising it. But it was not because of the poetry but because of the award.

People are interested in the results, not in the actual process of creativity. If you paint and don’t earn money, you are crazy. If you earn money without doing anything, then you are talented. The most successful person is one who earns much money without doing anything. And the failure is one who does much and earns nothing. I am a failure! (chuckling)

They cannot understand because much is at stake; they have invested their whole life. So feel compassion for them. Your whole being should express your joy — that is the answer. Don’t try to convince them — you cannot. If you try to be logical, they will be logical and you illogical. If you try to convince them, they will convince you.

You can convince them only if you are happy… so happy that they start feeling a certain guilt — that they have been missing something, and you have got something. So dance when they criticise, touch them with deep love. That will be a deep shock to them. When your father criticises, hug him and do a beautiful dance. Let him think that now she has become completely crazy! But he will feel the energy. He has to feel it — he is your father, he loves you. He will feel that something has happened… something tremendously beautiful, something of the beyond. This is the way you will be able to bring him to me — you will become instrumental.
They are all on the way… just go on being happy!

Osho from his book:  “Above all Dont Wobble”

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36 Responses to An Australian Sannyasin…

  1. Lokesh says:

    Cell fish, someone who uses their smart phone to the point of being rude.

    Osho’s rap here is fairly typical in addressing the subject. I think that a balance must be found between pursuing one’s creative interests, while also maintaining some kind of satisfying mode of employment that helps support yourself financially.

    I am not sure if I ever managed to find that balance in my own life. I have been told many times that I am an extremely creative person. Might be true, might not. In my time I have written books, painted paintings DJed etc. Currently producing my first album of music, hopefully to be released this summer.

    Creative people get too much respect just for being creative. I know from my own experience that my creativity is rooted in pure, unadulterated selfishness. I am creative because I enjoy the process of creativity. It is fun. Osho once said to me if you want to become acquainted with the creative spirit become creative yourself. He was right.

    Shantam recently asked me how I would define Osho’s work. I think the idea that Osho had some work to do is a misconception. From what I know of Osho the idea of work was replaced by the idea of play. Osho was a very playful man. He enjoyed to crack jokes, make people laugh and see his people dance and fall in and out of love. He sure knew how to throw a party.

    Celebration was and is the key to understanding where Osho was really at. He celebrated everything, even death. Herein lies perhaps the greatest understanding that Osho had to impart. If you make death a celebration fear goes up in smoke down at the burning ghats. Our seriousness in regards our idea of self is a prison. If you take death non-seriously you are in effect free.

    • frank says:

      That`s right. Pure play is by definition aimless – there is no future reward but the play itself. And celebration dissolves all division between mundane and spiritual.

      You get that at just the moment when the zen master whacks his zenstick on to your bass chakra and sets the kundalini racing up your backside to your head…
      Boing!
      Another one into the Void!
      Halleluia!
      Swaha!

    • Simond says:

      Hi Lokesh,

      Thanks for adding to the debate.

      The distinction between work and play may be a fine one. I’ve never really embraced Osho’s vision of work and play, or celebration for that matter.

      I’m not a miserable sod either, it’s just that turning work into play has always felt like a bit like the Nazis’ slogan, “work sets you free.”.

      Of course, altering one’s attitude to work is part of the process of accepting life as a whole, but it hasn’t necessarily made ‘working’ a matter of play or celebration.

      It seems that creative work also has its flip side too. Many creative artists, actors, thinkers etc. have found the creative act deeply unfulfilling as well…there are moments when we feel great pleasure in the creative act, but it can also lead to a deep misunderstanding, depression, and may become an eternal need to be different, special and unique.

      I like your appraisal as creativity being largely a selfish act and that people who are creative earn too much respect. (Selfishness being a wholly good thing. ‘Doing ur own thing’, as it were. Like you, I’ve found acknowledging my selfishness as a positive act, even if it has sometimes been confusing to me and others.

      I’m not sure Osho fully lived his life out as work as a matter of play either. He certainly enjoyed playing with ideas, and enjoyed having fun, he loved to talk and to share his understanding. But he also became frustrated by his disciples and by the lack of progress of the larger sannyasin family.

      You might say, that whilst he was deeply contented in his life, he also found the work of teaching unsatisfactory at times. He couldn’t fully live out his own teaching as work and play being one.

      Indeed, as I have studied the lives of many teachers of enlightenment, so I’ve noticed that, especially in later life, they have often become more embittered, angry and obsessive, as their teaching never seems to work as they’d hoped. It’s friggin’ difficult to get people to get it, isn’t it?

      In my own case, I’ve had moments of great doubt about creativity. The desire to be a somebody was also an impulse behind the need to be creative, and I was never a musician or artist.

      Learning to accept myself was a process of destroying myself, not creating more ‘Self’. It involved taking away cherished ideas and beliefs. This included sometimes learning not to follow my selfish impulses and obsessions.

      Of course, this process could also be viewed as ‘creative’, in that it required observing myself and others and engaging with people. The engagement is creative at some level and it was definitely a selfish act, one that gradually made my life better, and more productive.

      This little snippet from Osho on how to deal with parents’ doubt is very poignant and empowering. My mother was faced with three sannyasin children and all the social difficulty that wearing red involved. She gradually accepted it, but it must have been difficult at times. Especially when you remember how naive and unclear all three of us were about the process.

      That we were able to gradually explain and to grow into a little more rounded individuals helped her. Sadly she never lived long enough to see us in later life.

      • frank says:

        Simond, you say:
        “…as I have studied the lives of many teachers of enlightenment, so I’ve noticed that, especially in later life, they have often become more embittered, angry and obsessive, as their teaching never seems to work as they’d hoped.”

        Yeah, I sympathise with those poor old buggers.

        I really hope they managed to take enough drugs, shag enough birds, drink enough booze, accumulate enough cars, amass enough wealth and get enough attention from fawning disciples catering to their every whim, to make up for the hassle.

        Unenlightened disciples,eh?
        Twats!

      • Parmartha says:

        Thanks, Simond. A thoughtful contribution.

        • frank says:

          I must say that enlightenment teachers have a remarkably low success rate compared to teachers of other subjects.

          One pass in every 2500 years or so wouldn`t go down too well with Ofsted inspectors, for example.

          A lot of the students get restless and simply can`t wait that long for their E-level results to come through.

          Only the other day, I was talking to an old Pune 1 veteran who has been hanging round all the usual suspect satsang gurus – all the ammas and papas – since Osho died. He has recently declared himself enlightened.

          Knowing him personally, I asked him about it privately and he was quite candid:
          “Look, I`ve been on the path so long now, I got sick of being the guy at the back of the class. Every time I thought I had got something and said what I thought, I ended up either getting caned with the teacher`s zen stick or picked on by the other students saying I was “in the mind” and “coming from the ego” etc.

          But since I declared my enlightenment I come up with anything that comes to mind and you would be amazed – people lap it up like stray dogs on a dung heap. Declaring myself enlightened was the only way out of the double-bind, man. I`m free.”

          “You could drop the whole trying to get something/mind/ego/go beyond/transcend narrative altogether and just carry on with life, meditate and so on,” I countered.

          “Yeah, but I`ve been sitting in the same class for so long, what else am I going to do? Carry on working in a care home for minimum wage till I leave my body? Forget it. Now, I`m top of the class, just like that. And anyway” he added, with a wry smile: “How else would a grizzled old fart like me pull a chick 20 years younger than me who hangs on every word I say?”

          Yes, it`s true he is no oil-painting and enlightenment is one of the great aphrodisiacs, for sure.

          As he walked off with a youthful-looking, willowy blonde with waist-length hair cuddling up tenderly to his frame, he called back to me,nonchalantly:
          “I think it was Frederick Neitzsche who said:
          ‘One repays a teacher badly if one always remains nothing but a pupil.’”

          I immediately fell at his feet and it is said that at that very moment…
          no, of course I didn`t, but watch out for him, he is a rising star of the satsang scene, his name is……..

    • Parmartha says:

      I appreciate the post, Lokesh.

      It’s a good example to others of what we would like more generally at SN. We need to stop the spirit of endless bickering, etc. Some people who come to the site want to read thoughtful and insightful contributions, and would keep coming, but are put off by the unnecessary squabbling.

      • Lokesh says:

        PM, I can dig it.

        Frank, for me the whole enlightenment thing went in the bin, along with orange clothes and malas. It is just old hat, something for the baby boomers, who had everything, to desire and make an apparently noble cause out of it.

        These days it is more get on with your life, be cool, and try and put something back into the scene on a creative level to at least try and show some gratitude for having been born at a time when it was easily possible to have a relatively wonderful life.

        As for the bloke that declared himself enlightened, he would not be alone on Ibiza. Some pretty enlightened individuals living round here. The thing is, they do not make a big deal out of it, just share a hug and a laugh at the local market from time to time.

        • frank says:

          Right on, chaps.
          And back to the thread:
          Surely the play and celebration aspect is the absolutely key part of the whole 20th century mythological shift?

          Religion was always a serious business, with God reflecting the power structures of the absolute-power societies where the King or Overlord literally owned his subjects. This was the same all over from Assyria/Mesopotamia, the Hebrews, the Hindus.

          In the 20th century, something started to shift.

          Homo Ludens-playing man was postulated (Huizinga), rock ‘n’ roll kicked in -the six-string advaitist Chuck Berry discovered that he had no particular place to go and people were dancing in the streets. Rascal Saints appeared on the scene proclaiming the merits of DIY soul-making. Religious sermons became less motivated by gallic acid than lysergic acid, Alan Watts said, “Meditation is really supposed to be fun, and I have some difficulty in conveying this idea because everyone takes everything to do with religion seriously. And you must understand that I am not a serious person; I may be sincere but not serious, because I don’t think the universe is serious.” And people took him seriously.

          Osho did, and even dedicated a series of his own books to him when he was himself larking about at the dentists, of all places!

          Of course, the universe as the play of the god was an old Hindu myth, but, like masala dosa, they stuck with an old idea and never really thought to develop it.

          It got mashed up with Renaissance ideas of re-creation of self and hey presto – the new man with a bottle in his hand and a stunner on his arm walked into mythological view handing out free invites to a party in heaven which was to be held right here on earth.

          Even the word ‘celebrate’ was transformed.
          It used to mean just marking a moment in time.
          Now it means – well, we know what it means….

          • Simond says:

            Wouldn’t you say, however, Frank, that to really enjoy life, to celebrate it as you suggest, isn’t any easier now than it’s ever been?

            To enjoy the play, to love and to celebrate life, as it is, rather than through the veil of ritual, drugs, alcohol, whatever, isn’t easy.

            The drugs, the girls and the excitement that they bring are short-lived.

            That Chuck Berry gave birth to rock ‘n’ roll may have helped loosen the strings on Victorian morality, but has it, or has meditation the Alan Watts way brought any lasting end to the misery and confusion that many of us have faced?

            You seem to have followed a path of introspection and self-examination in addition to the joys of music, drugs and sex. You may indeed have earned the right to see life as a play and something to celebrate, as I hope I have. You certainly have a great sense of humour.

            As much as Alan may have described himself as non-serious wasn’t he also earnest and single- minded in his pursuit? Wasn’t Osho also incredibly purposeful? All those hours of meditation and self-enquiry allowed him to see the play of Life. He never avoided or disregarded the suffering that he also described along the way.

            To be in the presence of an Osho, with his love of mirth, to read his books, allowed many, including me, to see through the myth of religion. It woke me up to seeing life in a new way, but I, as you, had to go and live through it. We can’t avoid the serious problem we have that life ain’t just a bed of roses, or that our minds and our embedded beliefs also have created a lot of confusion.

            Yes, we need to see the beauty in life and to celebrate its mystery, but I’ve never seen anyone truly contented who hasn’t also had to go through a lot of shite as well.

            • frank says:

              Simond,
              I suspect that it`s a yin/yang job.
              Purposeless play and purposeful activity are like two legs, you need them both or else you limp and need crutches.

              Bidi baba nailed it with:
              “It is in the nature of being to seek adventure in becoming as it is in the nature of becoming to seek peace in being. This alternation of being and becoming is inevitable.”

              The right leg, like the right brain, is still marginalised. The current view is that it is a “useful part of development” when it is much more pervasive than that.

              For example, what are we doing here?
              Freud observed, “Creative writing is a continuation of, and a substitute for, what was once the play of childhood.”

              But the intrinsic value of play is undervalued so we don`t even know when we are doing it and that we are benefiting from it. Only if it disappears completely, as in the case of war-traumatised kids, we suddenly realise that life without it is living death.

              I`m not really being Pollyanna-ish and saying everyone should just have a lovely time. Shite exists and you need it to grow the flora.

              Trouble is, if you buy into the idea that flowers are just a transitory relief there`s a chance your garden just ends up with a pile of shite in it! That`s old time religion, for me.

              I don`t want to sermonise too much about play, so I`ll think I will go and listen to Johnny B Goode and “bring a lasting end to the misery and confusion I face.”

              Well, for 2.42 anyway.

          • dominic says:

            You have studied well, grasshopper. Feels like there’s a book in there somewhere!

            The brilliant Alan Watts – Sannyas before it was cool, zen fucking and double shots of malt koans…

            “His only mistake was in thinking that because Taoism/Ch’an (as opposed to the much more strict and rigorous “Zen” that would develop in Japan) didn’t have any ostensible hang-ups about “excess” that he could drink and fuck all he wanted. He thought, though he denied it several times, that those philosophies gave him a thumbs-up for a little old school hedonism. The truth is, you’re kind of supposed to learn that a life of any kind of excess is a fruitless one. Sex and drugs are fine in moderation (as is just about anything), but when that sort of stuff becomes the centrepiece of your existence, you wind up feeling a bit empty inside, and then you die in your mid-50s as an alcoholic and deadbeat dad.”

            Celebration and play is the way to go, but I can’t think of anything more dreary than enforced celebration, like shouting “Osho”, followed by a 2-3 hour zen discourse snoozefest, as the later talks often were. Plus the happy-clappy ‘join-us-we-have-cookies’ cult initiation of sannyas ceremony.

            Better not say anymore, otherwise Tan’ll be here in a minute, calling it a gayfest….

            MOD: WHERE’S THE QUOTE FROM, PLEASE, Dominic?

        • madhu dagmar frantzen says:

          The only stuff, Lokesh, that went into the bin about the big “E” were concepts about it – well, just to enter in new costumes again by some back door unfortunately and quite often.

          Ought to be that way? Maybe…and this dynamic might be the ´very´ old hat, you like to speak about quite often.

          If you are creative – and I guess you know about this happening, Lokesh – you might also know that that which comes into the world ´out of it´, is NOT yours. And yet is uniquely connected with your uniqueness as a sentient human being.

          That´s the paradox about – and – in the whole creative process. And that way, creativity is an utterly rare manifestation and yet abundant.

          However, manifestations are in company quite often of a – I would say, a divine discontent- as an energetically true and honest ( uncorruptable) ´companion´on the way.

          A way, comparable to labour, one can say; the male buddhies here might not like this word, but its the most fitting, believe it or not.

          And above that ´creativity is s a great Love Affair to Life itself.
          That´s the bliss and that´s the grace too. To be able to be part of it, is a Blessing.
          A special beautiful date in spring , March, 21 st, today , to remember ( although any day will do).

          If feeling ´excluded´, a hug on the market place wherever , might be a good rememberance.
          Or hugging the divine discontent-companion inside and making friends therewith.

          Sun is showing up just now here at my window.
          Sky is bright. Just one of the moment-to-moments, where eternity penetrates time.

          With Love,

          Madhu

          A P.S:
          For Frank – and Dominic too. I did read about your chat-exchange about my contribution(s)yesterday, before some of that was deleted (or moderated) and the way, I have been ´discussed´ by you both). Then I went out for a walk-about.

          MOD:
          WHAT’S “the big “E” ” (first line), PLEASE, Madhu?

          • madhu dagmar frantzen says:

            ´Big “E”´, moderators, stood in my post synonym for Enlightenment. A word quite often misused and ´flatlinered´, I feel – and sorry that I didn´t find a better way to express that.

            Madhu

  2. shantam prem says:

    If Satsang happens with empty chair, it is a homage to the one who was on chair.
    If not, it was a circus and man on the chair, ringleader.

    Disciples’ interaction among each other shows the quality of inner harmony/outer symphony.

    In spiritual terms, creativity is not to be the victim of solid ego but to give the direction to melting flowing ego. To have the control over one´s instincts and lust of many kinds is a creative work.

    Talking about music as creativity, world is bubbling with it. All the reality shows around the world are showcasing it.

  3. Lokesh says:

    Yesterday evening, I attended the monthly singing group in my ‘hood. Maybe twenty-five people showed up, over 50% sannyasins. Two great acoustic guitarists. At the end of the session we did Johnny B Goode. It was very moving. Everyone was jiving and singing Go Johnny Go! Absolutely wonderful.

    It was then that it struck me what the late, great Chuck Berry brought into the limelight. Good old Rock n’ Roll. The song over, I shouted, “Let’s have it for Chuck Berry!” Everyone looked up and yelled, “Yeahhhhhhhh!”

    Now if there is a religion to belong to it must surely be one that celebrates song and dance.
    Osho opened up a lot of doors. Ibiza is the dance capital of the world and a change is coming round the bend. More and more people are abandoning the sound temples and getting into Conscious Dance in the open air. It is a progression and Osho definitely set that ball rock and rolling.

  4. shantam prem says:

    May remind the bloggers on this day of 21st March, one young Indian man from middle-class Jain family got something which Gautama Siddhartha too got centuries ago.

    Gautama is known as Buddha, this Rajneesh Jain as Osho!

  5. Parmartha says:

    Like Gurdjieff, I think most of human life is “mechanical”, even within that wonderful world of social work/do-gooding. What is the good of a life devoted to say, teaching school children, if at the end one wishes one had given one’s all to being a ballet dancer?

    I get the feeling from reading about the life of someone like Gurdjieff he lived by a sort of faith that if money was needed it would somehow come through someone or something. He lost a lot, including two houses, in Russia, in 1917, but it did not seem to affect him or his work at all.

    We are not meant to be part of a Lowry canvas, but it happens to almost all of us. To live beyond this is sort of escaping the mechanics of society, and that is inevitably going to be condemned as selfish by those who envy the rareness of real freedom.

    The mystical take on this is that one surrenders the whole of one’s life to the higher forces – and one thing about that is one stops being a machine.

    • Simond says:

      Nicely said, Parmartha.

      • frank says:

        PM,
        The more non-mystical take might be that Gurdjieff did indeed have faith, but that faith was in his own colossal ability and talent to influence and get people to work for him and get things done his way even after things went pear-shaped (several times)

        In this, you could say that he had the faith of say, a poet, an artist or a musician who just “knows” that another poem, song, painting will come tomorrow, whatever the weather.
        This is about “God-given” talents to be who you are.

        Maybe even this is too flowery. Some people just have the knack of getting what they want.
        An amazing amount of (b)millionaires lose it and then get it all back again. Have Philip Green or Richard Branson “surrendered to higher forces”? I wonder.

        Indeed, has any of it got anything to do with the hypothesis of “mystical higher forces”?
        Probably not,if you apply Occam`s razor.

        • Simond says:

          Once again, Frank, you have surpassed yourself. You very often bring a sharp observation or two to the debates on SN – as well as a uniquely humorous angle that makes me have to think carefully.

          Highlighting one part of Parmartha’s take on” higher mystical forces” is a good example of your insight.

          On the one hand, I agree with you, such phrases have all the hallmarks of woolly thinking and can be very confusing.

          It’s the sort of term that Christians and other religionists might use to mystify and confuse. It might also be used by Islam to justify all sorts of madness in the name of faith.
          So I’m with you in wishing to seek other ways to explain life.

          In some ways I’m an empiricist, wanting to see and test, rather than believe. It seems like a good starting point – to test out, to be scientific and disbelieving.

          On the other hand, the empiricist can only experiment to a certain extent. They don’t ever, for example, seem to be able to prove or disprove that ghosts exist, yet people, otherwise quite sensible and down to earth, have experienced ghosts. So the way of the empiricist is only partly useful.

          And the rationalists, who often hide behind so-called empiricism, often come across as deeply suspicious and antagonistic to things they don’t understand rather than open and curious.

          So, as they dismiss things like faith, and suggest that one day, in the future, we might understand the truth about ghosts, for example. “One day” – being an excuse for saying that science will find a way to explain something, it’s just that we don’t yet have the tools or the science to ‘explain’ it today.

          So how do we deal with matters of faith, mystery or the unknown?
          I only know that I find myself sympathetic to both sides of the argument at times. Those who have a sense of real curiosity and are willing to change their minds seem a lot more likeable than those who take a position, wherever they stand on the spectrum of science vs. faith.
          I guess you might say in any one moment I discover my position and how I feel about the argument.

          And I trust that.

          • frank says:

            Simond,
            Yes, I think the science v. faith/spiritualist v. materialist/psychic v. sceptic debate is a dead end.

            In fact, science/medicine and religion, including the new age are, in many ways, competing faiths locked in a power struggle.

            To “escape the Lowryesque mechanics of society” as Big P says, it is most likely necessary to be able to navigate in and around both with care, and as you say, trust yourself.

            “To fail as a human being is to accept someone else`s description of oneself.”

            • frank says:

              Btw, Apparently Lowry is big in China these days, where people can identify with the scenes depicted.

              Industrial age Salford the size of China – what a thought!

              Beam me up, Scotty!

            • madhu dagmar frantzen says:

              “In fact, science/medicine and religion, including the new age are, in many ways, competing faiths locked in a power struggle.”

              You nailed it, Frank.

              However, there is an art of presenting issues and an art of listening on the side of the receivers, in my experience transforming ´competition´ into something like an evolutionary impulse.

              Rare are those who know to present issues beyond the energy of power plays and obvious or more hidden apparently competitive comparison.

              And rare are those who know to listen; who listen (or read) without sharpening their mental weapons while apparently using their ears (and eyes) at the same time with the weapons of contradiction to what is presented.

              If both quite rare phenomena are coming together, an evolutionary impulse might be happening.
              Individually as collectively.

              No forecast of a result possible though.

              We used to call it a Buddhafield.
              It’s indeed a mystical happening, just to indicate the ´Unknowable´.

              Madhu

              P.S:
              And Frank, don´t be shy to send further ´diagnosis´ re my writings into the chat here, if you feel so….

            • Tan says:

              Frank boy, Osho was saying that all the time…
              And? Anything to add?
              By the way, where are Satyadeva and Arps? Maybe they would add something. :)

    • shantam prem says:

      This is straight from the heart of mystic Parmartha!

  6. Lokesh says:

    Not only are humans governed by mechanical forces, but also the universe, extending into quantum mechanics. I do not get too into the mystical these days and in a way, PM is correct about surrendering to something higher, finer. But what exactly is that?

    The answer to that is for me answered best by Gurdjieff. In the natural progression of a human life there comes a point where the outer, ego, is sacrificed for the inner, spiritual essence. That is, if a certain level of self-awareness has been created.

    If this progression takes place, real spiritual evolution can happen. If not, as is normally the case, the wheel of life takes a spin and you end up back where you started, even taking into account that the you we are talking about is a fiction. Simple as that.

    • shantam prem says:

      Is there some religious person or cultist who has doubt about his/her real spiritual evolution?

      Lokesh, have you met someone?

      Can even the spiritual service providers be dead sure that their wheel of life is not going to take a spin or a tumble wash?

      In that sense, agnostic mind-set has better position: “I am trying my best but can´t say about the final outcome.”

  7. Lokesh says:

    Shantam enquires, “Is there some religious person or cultist who has doubt about his/her real spiritual evolution?

    Lokesh, have you met someone?”

    The people who appear most suspicious to me are the ones who do not express doubt. I had a run-in with a Protestant minister in Scotland a few years back. At one point he said in a very assured voice, “I have the Lord on my side.” He was so sure about what he was saying I thought to myself, “what an arrogant asshole.” The fundamentalists are the worst.

    I know a lot and have certain understandings about the nature of life. I also experience doubt. One thing for sure, there is not too much certainty in life. I am fine with that.

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