Question from a Disciple:
THE OTHER DAY I TOOK A PIECE OF PAPER AND DID A LITTLE DOODLING OR FREE WRITING, AND I WAS PAINED TO FIND THAT I WAS FULL OF SELF-CONDEMNATION AND SELF-PITY. I HAD NOT A NICE WORD FOR ME IN THAT LONG NOTE. IS IT THAT I AM TOO IDEALISTIC AND SELF-CENTERED, AND IS THERE A WAY OUT OF THIS DARKNESS?
Osho’s answer:
“Everybody is brought up in such a way that everybody has become idealistic. Nobody is realistic. The ideal is the common disease of humanity.
Everybody is brought up in such a way that everybody goes on thinking that they have to be something, somebody, somewhere in the future. An image is given and you have to be like it. That gives you a tension because you are not it, you are something else, yet you have to be it.
So one goes on condemning the real for the unreal — the unreal is unreal. And the ideal goes on pulling you towards the future, out of the present.
The ideal becomes a constant nightmare because it goes on condemning. Whatsoever you do is imperfect because you have an ideal of perfection. Whatsoever you attain is still not fulfilling because you have a mad expectation which can never be satisfied.
You are human, in a certain time, in a certain space, with certain limitations. Accept those limitations. Perfectionists are always on the brink of madness. They are obsessed people — whatsoever they do is not good enough. And there is no way to do something perfectly — perfection is not humanly possible. In fact, imperfect is the only way to be.
So what do I teach you here? I don’t teach you perfection, I teach you wholeness. That is a totally different thing. Be whole. Don’t bother about perfection. When I say be whole, I mean be real, be here; whatsoever you do, do it totally. You will be imperfect but your imperfection will be full of beauty, it will be full of your totality.
Never try to be perfect otherwise you will create much anxiety. So many troubles are there already; don’t create more troubles for yourself.
I have heard.
It happened that bedraggled, worried Garfinkel sat in a train holding a three-year-old boy. Every few minutes Garfinkel spanked the child.
‘If you strike that baby one more time,’ said a woman sitting across from him, ‘I’ll give you so much trouble you won’t forget it!’
‘Trouble?’ said Garfinkel. ‘You’re gonna give me trouble? Lady, my partner stole all my money and ran off with my wife and car. My daughter is in the parlor car, six months pregnant, and she ain’t got no husband. My baggage is lost, I’m on the wrong train, and this little stinker just ate the tickets and threw up all over me. And lady, YOU’RE gonna give me trouble?’
Now what more trouble can there be? Don’t you think enough is enough?
Life itself is so complicated, please be a little more kinder towards yourself. Don’t create ideals. Life is creating enough problems but those problems can be solved. If you are in a wrong train you can change the train; if the tickets are lost, they can be purchased again; if your wife has run away, you can find another woman. The problems that life gives to you can be solved but the problems that idealism gives to you can never be solved — they are impossible.
Somebody is trying to become Jesus…. Now there is no way; it does not happen that way, nature does not allow it. Jesus happens only once, and only once; nature does not tolerate any repetition. Somebody is trying to become a Buddha — now he is trying to do the impossible. It simply does not happen, cannot happen; it is against nature. You can be only yourself. So be total. Wherever you are and whatsoever you are doing, do it totally. Move into it, let it become your meditation. Don’t be worried whether it will be perfect or not — it is not going to be perfect. If it is total it is enough. If it was total you enjoyed doing it, you felt a fulfillment through it, you moved into it, you were absorbed into it, you came out of it new, fresh, young, rejuvenated.
Each act that is done totally rejuvenates, and each act that is done totally never brings any bondage. Love totally and attachment does not arise; love partially and attachment arises. Live totally and you are not afraid of death; live partially and you are afraid of death.
But forget the word ‘perfection’. It is one of the most criminal words. This word should be dropped from all the languages of the world, it should be dropped from the human mind. Nobody has ever been perfect and nobody can ever be. Can’t you see it? Even if God is there and you come to meet him, can’t you find faults with his creation? So many, that’s why he is hiding. He is almost afraid of you. Faults and faults and faults. Can you count them? Infinite faults you will find. In fact, if you are a fault-finder you cannot find anything right — in the right time, in the right place. Everything seems to be just a mess. Even God is not perfect; God is total. He enjoyed doing it, he is still enjoying doing it. But he is not perfect. If he were perfect then the creation could not be imperfect. Out of perfection, perfection will come.
All the religions of the world say that God is perfect. I don’t say so. I say God is whole, God is holy, God is total — but not perfect. Although he may still be trying…. How can he be perfect? If he were, the world would be dead by now. Once something is perfect, death happens because there is no future, there is no way. Trees are still growing, babies are still born — things continue. And he goes on improving. Can’t you see the improvement? He goes on improving on everything. That’s the meaning of evolution: things are being improved. Monkeys have become man — that’s an improvement. Then man will become Divine and God — that is evolution.
Teilhard de Chardin says there is an omega point where everything will become perfect. There is none. There is no omega point. There cannot be. The world is always in the process; evolution is there; we are approaching and approaching but we never reach because once we reach — finished. God still goes on trying in different ways, improving.
One thing is certain: he is happy with his work otherwise he would have abandoned it. He is still pouring his energy into it. When God is happy with you it is sheer nonsense to be unhappy with yourself. Be happy with yourself. Let happiness be the ultimate value. I am a hedonist. Always remember that happiness is the criterion. Whatsoever you do, be happy, that’s all. Don’t be bothered whether it is perfect or not.
Why this obsession with perfection? Then you will be tense, anxious, nervous, always uneasy, troubled, in conflict. The English word ‘agony’ comes from a root which means: to be in conflict. To be constantly wrestling with oneself — that is the meaning of agony. You will be in agony if you are not at ease with yourself. Don’t demand the impossible, be natural, at ease, loving yourself, loving others.
And remember, a person who cannot love himself because he goes on condemning, cannot love anybody else either. A perfectionist is not only a perfectionist about himself, he is about others also. A man who is hard on himself is bound to be hard on others. His demands are impossible.
In India just a few years before, there was Mahatma Gandhi, a perfectionist, almost a neurotic. And he was very hard with his disciples — even tea was not allowed. Teal Because it has nicotine. If somebody was found drinking tea in his ashram it was a great sin. Love was not allowed. If somebody fell in love with somebody it was such a great sin that it was as if the whole world was going to be drowned because of it. He was continuously spying on his disciples, always sitting at the keyhole. But he was that way with himself. You can be with others only as you are with yourself.
But these types of people become great leaders because they create much guilt in others. The more guilt you can create in people, the greater the leader you can become. Because more and more people feel that yes, you can help them to become perfect. They are imperfect so you can help them to become perfect.
I am not here to help you to become perfect; I am not concerned with any sort of nonsense. I am just here to help you to be yourself. If you are imperfect, beautiful; if you are perfect, that too is beautiful.
Don’t try to become imperfect because that can become an ideal! You may be perfect already — then listening to me can create a trouble for yourself! This man says be imperfect! There is no need. If you are perfect accept that too!
Try to love yourself. Don’t condemn. Once humanity starts a deep acceptance, all churches will disappear and all politicians and priests will disappear.
I have heard.
A man was fishing in the North Woods and one night around the campfire his guide was telling him of the time he had guided Harry Emerson Fosdick on a fishing trip.
‘Yes,’ said the guide, ‘he was a good man except for his swearing.’
‘But look,’ said the fisherman, ‘surely you don’t mean to say that Dr. Fosdick was profane?’
‘Oh, but he was, sir,’ protested the guide. ‘Once he caught a fine bass. Just as he was about to land him in the boat, the fish wiggled off the hook. So I say to the Doctor, “That’s a damned shame!” and the Doc comes right back and says, “Yes, it is!” But that’s the only time I ever heard him use such language.’
Now this is the mind of a perfectionist. The Doctor has not said anything. He simply says,’Yes, it is.’ But that too is enough for a perfectionist to find fault with.
A perfectionist is neurotic. And not only is he neurotic, he creates neurotic trends around him. So don’t be a perfectionist, and if somebody is a perfectionist around you escape away from him as fast as you can before he pollutes your mind.
All perfectionism is a sort of deep ego trip. Just to think of yourself in terms of ideals and perfection is nothing but to decorate your ego to its uttermost. A humble person accepts that life is not perfect. A humble person, a really religious person, accepts that we are limited, that there are limitations.
Look… that is my definition of humbleness. Not to try to be perfect is to be humble.
And a humble person becomes more and more total because he has nothing to deny, nothing to reject. He accepts whatsoever he is, good, bad. And a humble person is very rich because he accepts his wholeness; his anger, his sex, his greed — everything is accepted. In that deep acceptance a great alchemical change happens. All that is ugly by and by disappears on its own accord. He becomes more and more harmonious, more and more whole.
I am not in favour of a saint but I am in favour of a holy man. A saint is a perfectionist; a holy man is totally different. Zen Masters are holy men; Catholic saints are saints. The very word ‘saint’ is ugly. It comes from ‘sanctos’ — one who has been given sanction by the authority that he is a saint. Now who can authorise anybody to be a saint? Is it a sort of degree? But the Christian Church goes on doing that foolish thing.
Even posthumous degrees are awarded. A saint may have died three hundred years before, then the Church revises its ideas, or the world has changed, and after three hundred years the Church gives a posthumous degree — a sanction that that man was really a saint, we could not understand him at the time. And the church may have killed that man — that’s how Joan of Arc became a saint. They killed her, but later on they changed their idea. People by and by came closer and closer to Joan of Arc and it became difficult not to accept her. First they killed her, then they worshipped her. After hundreds of years, her bones were found and worshipped. She was burned by the same people, the same Church.
No, the word ‘saint’ is not good. A holy man is a holy man because of himself, not because some church decides to award him sainthood.
I have heard.
Jacobson, aged ninety, had lived through beatings in Polish pogroms, concentration camps in Germany, and dozens of other anti-Semitic experiences.
‘Oh, Lord!’ he prayed, sitting in a synagogue. ‘Isn’t it true that we are your chosen people?’
And from the heavens boomed a voice:’Yes, Jacobson, the Jews are my chosen people!’
‘Well, then,’ wailed the old man,’isn’t it time you chose somebody else?’
Perfectionists are the chosen people of God, remember. In fact, the day you understand that you are creating your own misery because of your ideas, you break all ideas. Then you simply live out of your reality — whatsoever it is. That is a great transformation.
So don’t try to be chosen people of God, just be human. For God’s sake, just be human!”
Dang Dang Doko Dang
Chapter 10
Chapter title: Lady You Need Love!
In between what is called a realistic, empirical view and an utopia about issues of coming together in another, more human and more human, evolved way, there is an invisible dynamic happening. Always, I feel. Yet not always acknowledged. And if – not acknowledged – you can fuck up ´ideals and utopias´ ad infinitum, but no Healing worth its name is happening.
Individually as collectively.
In this topic quote and (hopefully) unfolding thread then in the HERE_NOW meeting point of a caravanserai, there may be acknowledged that in the very Response Osho shared with one of His disciples – and so with all of us – this invisible dynamic is happening:
Some call it Love, like me, I do; and an immensity of shared Acceptance.
I call it Wisdom too.
And I never met again one who happens to joint the Wisdom of the East so lovingly and organically with what the West has to offer so far (like ´primal de-conditioning processings´ or other de-conditioning issues, which I was reminded of, while reading the ´question).
Thanks for choosing the topic, Sannyas-News-Team –
Madhu
When creating a new musical composition I use listeners as guinea pigs. I listen to their feedback but, more importantly, I study their body language while listening to the music.
In modern times, with so much media at our fingertips, one side-effect is that people have increasingly short attention spans. Any piece of music over six minutes long makes most listeners get fidgety. They want to hear something else.
Once upon a time, thousands of people sat listening to Osho’s long discourses and loved every minute of it, laughter erupting at every well-timed joke. This article is based on an extract from such a discourse. Upon reading it I had a number of immediate impressions.
I think the whole thing could have been condensed into a few concise sentences. The jokes aren’t funny. It is one thing sitting in Osho’s presence, listening to him deliver these words live, and it is an entirely different thing reading his words decades later, when he is no longer with us. I suppose that is why I no longer read Osho books, too much mud to wade through to get to the gold nuggets.
If I were marooned on a desert island and given the choice between a hundred Osho books and the Beedie Wallah’s ‘I Am That’ I would choose the latter. Perhaps I too have inherited a shorter attention span, because my spiritual literature palate likes strong flavours, short, sharp and to the point. The Osho extract featured on this thread does not fulfil those requirements.
Osho says, “Once humanity starts a deep acceptance, all churches will disappear and all politicians and priests will disappear.” He was, of course, perfectly correct.
“When creating a new musical composition I use listeners as guinea pigs…. “(Lokesh).
Good to know where what you call your´creativity on various keyboards is rooted, Lokesh.
And you then say: “If I were marooned on a desert island and given the choice between a hundred Osho books and the Beedie Wallah’s ‘I Am That’, I would choose the latter.”
After a time, “marooned”, as you fantasise, on a desert island, I guess the first thing that would have been really changed is to use your audience as “guinea pigs”. With or without the beedi wallah´s book, ´I Am That´.
However, as time goes by today and knowing that that will not happen – you and your favourite buddhies will surely enjoy the next ´sannyas news´ thread, which is already on the go.
Your alpha male taste(s) for ´strong flavours, sharp and short and to the point´especially under the belt will be probably served.
Where you take your arrogance from, I don´t know really, but it’s quite some time I didn´t visit the monkeys in the Zoo.
Madhu
Ho-hum.
@Lokesh
Certainly the whole thing can be condensed even in one sentence:
Don’t go for perfection, go for totality!
What is the need in taking your Beedie Wallah book on an island?
Write “I Am That” on a paper and take it with you!
That’s enough.
Lokesh, you say:
“I think the whole thing could have been condensed into a few concise sentences.”
You could say that the reason that it is so uncondensed is because Osho was using rhetorical language.” *(See end of post)
If you look up the list of 160 recognised rhetorical devices, you will find that Osho, even in such a brief passage, is making use of quite a swathe of them!
Rhetoric is occasionally short, sharp and to the point, but generally only as another `technique` in the context of further elaboration designed to convince the audience and submerge them in a kind of surround sound of the speaker’s world view.
I don`t think that anyone, pro or anti, ever disagreed that he was brilliant at it! The style of such language makes it very difficult to forget the sense of what was said. It kind of insinuates itself into your memory in a way that music does.
(Of course, the debate of whether it works or not on the printed page is at the heart of various sectarian disputes in the Osho world).
Btw, talking about “so much media at our fingertips”, have you heard that Google has installed free internet access onto the whole rail network of India? You can go “online” for free anywhere.
Even the chaiwallahs are using online banking!
Mental!
Beam me up, Scotty!
*(“Compression of language and expansion of meaning.”
–Tom Stoppard
Shouldn`t be there.
But it`s not a bad idea).
Yes, Frank, good point.
The way Osho used words in his discourses to lift the listener into another world is the stuff of legend. Translated to the written word it no longer works for me, a pale aftermath of what was once pure brilliance. Same goes for the jokes. A lot of those jokes were terrible. What was hilarious was who was delivering the jokes.
That said, once in a while, something Osho said enters my life. Often this happens from an unexpected source, right out of the blue. Something simple I really need to hear, because I have wandered in an unhealthy direction. Some might call it magic or mystical. For me it is simply evidence of what a brilliant man Osho was, in the sense that although long gone he can still affect me on a deep level in a positive way.
Do not worry. This does not mean that I will start to speak about Osho in the present tense.
I appreciate the fact Lokesh has given the name of the book he would like to carry with in solitude.
Graceful would have been to share one’s own point of view rather than playing Mother Superior and Father Dodo to ridicule him.
In my case, I would like to carry three books:
Osho’s book in Hindi, ‘Kranti Beej’, ‘Seeds of Revolution’, from early days.
Second in Punjabi-Gurbani: ‘Hymens of Sikh Masters’.
And third one in English: ‘Bible’ by Jesus Christ
The Bible is quite a book. I rarely read it, but do appreciate the hidden aspects of biblical writing: Noah’s ark, eyesight to the blind, Pontius Pilate washed his hands and sealed his fate etc…
For those unfamiliar with it, I highly recommend reading the last third of the Urantia book, which deals with the life and times of Jesus the Christ. A truly remarkable piece of writing that can really move the reader.
In my heart, Bible is very precious not because Jehovah the witness brag about it but it is the central point of civilisation which has changed the fate of planet Earth.
When God created mankind in his image it must have given immense motivation to Christians to go on creating heaven on earth.
In the final count, it is the accumulated actions of followers which give meaning to religious books. Why not the tree be judged because of fruits? And fruits also show how laborious farmers are
I knew it wouldn´t take much of a time….
Shantam Prem – to pontificate about ´Gracefulness´ in communicating re topics here in the caravanserai you have no authority at all in my eyes as my heart of a female reader.
With very few exeptions I experience you as a writer, Shantam, sneaking in whenever you see a possibility to present your agenda of fighting in terms of what you may call ‘religious’ (political!) matters,´ and when you can combine that not only with very chauvinist attitudes as well as lurking racism, you seem to feel good, and look for companionship.
The Bible, Shantam, Lokesh – indeed, is quite a book; why don´t you create a topic about it?
Maybe especially about the issue of how many crimes or blackmailing and silencing etc. are happening up to nowadays and for millenia in name of the ´Holy Book’??
However, the issue of this topic in my eyes dealt with the poison of idolisation and ideologies and its after-effects on body-mind-psyche and dealt with Osho as a Master responding to His disciples, who were/are sick of it all.
It´s high time to stop with these kind of games.
That´s what he said (re quote) and He said it in the most loving and human relating way possible and was very precise to the question and precise to the painful quest of a (probably) ) western) disciple.
Your reactions, or to call me ´mother superior´(Shantam) or to bring Jesus, Pontius Pilate (Lokesh) here in the context of this issue and discussion (won´t call it sharing) just show me that a forty and some more year-old quote of an issue is quite a contemporary one, and the poisonous power-games are not over.
But again, it´s high time to stop these kind of games.
Madhu
Madhu enquires, “Lokesh – indeed, is quite a book; why don´t you create a topic about it?”
Because, Madhu, this is Sannyasnews not Lokesh News. I have written many topics and do not want to hog the scene. Seeing as you, Madhu, are asking such a question why not give it a try your self?
Answer, to declare no, I won´t do, is easy, Lokesh; I never referred to the Bible here in SN UK news, other than you did (very) sporadically, like recently. (Or Shantam did…).
Otherwise, I came to know personally on an experiential level how sannyasin were/are harassed by Christian priests and their followers, or other fundamentalists of all kinds and their followers.
So I am a bit touchy if these memories are triggered.
Madhu
Somebody should have told you that the ‘Bible’ is not by Jesus Christ.
It is a mixture written by some followers.
Satchit, are you really as stupid as you sound or are you taking the mickey? To say that the Bible is a mixture written by some followers is beyond understatement if you include the Old Testament.
The Bible is what it is. It matters not who penned it. What matters is what is written. The authors are lost in antiquity.
I believe that a man called Jesus once walked the earth. Others would disagree. What everyone agrees upon is the wisdom delivered via his parables. Even the simple ones like the woman who lost a piece of silver in her kitchen. She illuminated the room and found the piece of silver. She held a party for the whole village to celebrate this. Why?
Satchit, do you know the answer to this. I doubt it.
Lokesh, the question is always: are words delivered from an enlightened being or from an unenlightened one?
With Jesus, there is much speculation. One asks why should be the Old Testament part of the Bible? The only reason I can imagine is to acquire some Jews for the new religion.
Certainly there are a few deep statements in it, for example: love your enemy.
But mostly the level is of the level of the Grimm Brothers. Nothing wrong to take some fairy tales on a solitary island.
Satchit, your response is shallow.
Yes – shallow water is dangerous.
There are maybe some crocodiles waiting.
Shallow as in superficial.
Some say it’s deep, some say it’s funny, some say it’s superficial.
Who cares about judgements, Lokesh?
Now Satchit scrapes the bottom of the barrel with the non-judgemental card. That is just sooooooo seventies…like platform soles.
Looks you have misunderstood already the whole thing in the seventies.
Nobody talks about “non-judgemental” and surely you have the right to your own opinion.
Satchit, from where you got this fucking idea of enlightened man’s words and unenlightened man’s words?
Osho’s are enlightened man’s words.
Now?
Should the world make Mango Pickles out of them?!
What the sannyas community should do with these words?
Do you think Osho was a machine delivering words, albeit enlightened words, and doing nothing else?
You seem to have a lot of questions, Shantam. No knowing?
Enlightened words are fingers pointing to the moon, that’s the difference. You choose book No.1, ‘Seeds of Revolution’, so you know what I mean.
Perfectly correct, Sadgit!
It is perfectly simple.
Words that come from the enlightened one are enlightened.
Those from the unenlightened are unenlightened!
Simply repeat the words of the enlightened one like a devoted parrot and you become wise!
Yahoo!
Thanks, Yogi Bear, for sharing your deep understanding.
Follow the path of the honey!
Ma Satchit,
My questions are on the knowing of bookworms.
“‘The hymens of the Sikh masters’” -
Is that a typo, or is that the book that the line “Thou art twat” comes from?
Stuck on a desert island with only the Bible to read?
That`s literature 19th century prison style!
(Even happens in some US prisons today, have heard).
The Gospels contain a very small group of stories that have a handful of good parables but that`s about it.
Even the poetic flights eg in the OT, like Proverbs, are heavily loaded: idiotic, mysogynistic, racist, anti-life, dick-chopping rubbish.
Jehovah behaves like a senior member of IS all the way through.
The Ten Commandments, with their myopic exhortation to violence and mental slavery are sick-making.
Even the he New Testament ends with an apocalyptic vision that continues to curse humanity and fuel its self-destructive urges.
Horrible waste of paper.
Frank says, “The Gospels contain a very small group of stories that have a handful of good parables but that`s about it.” Found myself thinking about that over cafe con leche in the local pueblo.
I am surprised to hear that Frank writes off The Gospels just so. For me it is quite the opposite. It is not like I actually spend lots of time reading the Bible. I don’t. Nonetheless, I have to acknowledge that the Gospels are packed full of remarkable stories. The key to understanding them is to have the key.
Also other stories, like Noah’s Ark. This has nothing to do with lots of rain and a big boat filled with animals, washing up on Mount Ararat, and everything to do with the human condition, replete with three levels and a window on the top deck.
The flood refers to a peak in human ignorance wherein the mystery schools head for the hills with their teachings, there to await the abatement of the flood of ignorance, until a time when humanity is once again ready to hear about human potential etc. We actually live in such a time right now, therefore biblical teachings are as relevant today as they ever were. Of course these days we do not worship golden calves, but rather materialism in its myriad forms.
Lokesh,
Yes, stories can be read in a myriad of ways.
The Old Testament is a mash-up of Israelite history and myth, which leaves it broad for countless interpretations, like all myths, stories and dreams.
I just don`t like the main man in it and let`s face it – with Jehovah, everything is all about him!
The example of the golden calf story.
If you read it as relevant to today`s world (materialism etc.), I would say that that is you exercising your mythical/imaginative creativity.
Is that what the guys who wrote it actually meant by it?
It`s unlikely because, enshrined in the Ten Commandments is the ownership of one half of humanity over the other. I certainly wouldn`t be taking any lessons about materialism from those guys!
The undoubted huge influence of Christianity on the world is, in my view, much less the result of the Bible than one (eg Shantam) would imagine.
In the 14th century, Christendom is a plodding, Bible-based society. Islam is well ahead of them. Probably China, too.
The Renaissance hits. The Renaissance is where first the southern Europeans then later the north start to rediscover the philosophy, art, knowledge and wisdom of the pre-christian, pagan, polytheistic classical cultures.
This exercise, in the matter of a few centuries, blasts Christianity to the top of the pile and eventually morphs into it the brand of Christian/humanist/secular mix which is in ferment as we speak.
My point is this:
Taking a golden age from the past and ascribing it a special place of special wisdom is an imaginative way of opening up your world-view/mind/creativity.
That is what the Renaissance was. It’s not about history, in the final analysis, it`s about the people doing it.
My view is that Gurdjieff and his crew were attempting a similar thing.
This is the regenerating of the golden age of wisdom by holding the view that a golden age of wisdom existed in the past.`
Osho was different to Gurdjieff in that he used the golden past approach to some degree but he leaned more towards the New Man, Zorba the Buddha and an idea of spiritual evolution.
Ultimately, rooting for a golden past or a golden future are not as opposed as they might appear, unless one makes the mistake of literality.
It`s all about firing the imagination and the spirit of humankind in the present.
Good post with good points…ouch! sharp.
Yes, a good post, Frank.
However, there´s something that keeps me busy…
There have been about times in history around the globe, where – without any ´internet´ global connections via algorithms or similar of our ´Technology Age´, former artists, philosophers or Masters of Wisdomhave had same wavelengths in their sharings, as if just the ´time´ was ripe for it.
Same about the big Death of cultural peaks, their deteriorations.
And contemporarily – by the very wars happening nowadays – common mankind is onto total destruction of centuries ancient cultural heritage of mankind, the material as also the immaterial; very painful to be a witness to that.
Madhu
Cheers.
Madhu,I expect you are referring to what has been called the “Axial age” or “The Great Leap of Being” which occurred between 800 and 300 BC and was taken by some as being constituting a new shift of perception/consciousness,essentially from from societal to individual values. In this time,thinkers and teachers like Buddha, Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Upanishads,Zarathustra Lao tsu,Chuang tsu, Mahavira and some old Testament prophets all appeared around the world independently of each other .
This goes well with maverick neuro-historian Julian Jaynes` idea that around that period people also moved from what he called the bicameral mind , where people experienced themselves as receivers of messages/orders from gods which decided their every action,(ol` Jehovah being a classic example) to developing what he called `consciousness` which enabled them to meet the challenges of the changing realities of the world for which the old “wiring” was no longer suitable.
In this they/we started to become deciders of their own fate rather than basically slaves to the dictates of the gods (who are really just voices in your head, albeit experienced as “out-there”. All these teachers and teachings appearing independently of each other as guides for this process happened on the basis that they were responding to the evolutionary shift.
For example, “Be a light unto yourself” was an extraordinary, revolutionary and utterly new idea to people who had hitherto obeyed the voices of their rulers and gods that came to them from their temples which started as tombs of their earliest tribal leaders up to the god-kings of the larger bicameral cities and communities.
Another wacko history cum mythology?
Certainly, but it does attempt some clarification about how these guys all came up with something new, something less authoritarian,something essentially more human and more god-less independently without having access to the net.
btw It is amazing how much the `listening to the voices of the ancient gods` still holds sway.
Take for example male circumcision.
Literally billions are still having it done.
Despite medical opinion being against it,it is impossible to change(many have tried,even in secular countries) as the majority of humanity still prefer to take orders from a hallucinated voice heard by some Jewish guy in the desert a few thousand years ago!
Humanity eh?
Bloody `ell!
Hi Parmartha,
‘Hymens of Sikh Masters’ -
Is it in the right words frame to describe poetical expressions of Sikh Masters?
I am doubtful about the word “hymens”.
MOD: !!