Shantam Prem hopes that maybe this little piece can “stimulate a brainstorming discussion.”
He writes:
I hope fellow writers don´t quote books of Osho but from their own real life perspective, I would like to start a discussion on these two topics:
Has, with the passage of time, the Neo-Sannyas spiritual movement started by its late founder, Osho, during the 1970s, evolved into a cult, sect, religion or mixture of everything in a ‘potato chips kind of fluffy packet’?
Also, what does Osho actually mean in reality?
Is he alive somewhere directing the show from the hidden cosmic ‘Villa’ or is ‘He has left the body’ just a poetic expression? Is not ‘left the body’ synonymous for simply being dead?
N.B:
I have written ‘Villa’ as Osho was not the one who preferred a hut or a cave. He was fond of the finest things of life and got them through His genius.
If you tick the boxes on what represents a religious cult, sect, the Sannyas movement ticks most of the boxes. This has little or nothing to do with the passage of time, it has been like that since the get go.
“What does Osho actually mean in reality?” That depends on what you perceive reality to be. For me, Osho was many things. In a nutshell, the most remarkable man I have ever had the good fortune to meet.
If Osho was who he declared himself to be he has no existence now as a personality, and therefore no longer exists. I see people like Osho as representatives of an impersonal benign force that permeates life…universal love. Osho has returned to his true home now, a place beyond the limited ego self, beyond name and form.
This placeless place defies description. Words were never intended to describe the absolute reality. Human terms for such states are captured best by Hindu and Buddhist texts, in particular Mahayana Buddhism. If you go beyond the need for words, Zen is the door. For me this is simply knowledge. It is okay as far as it goes, which is not too far. Unless you can verify by your own experience that something is true or not, it will not be of much benefit to you.
A few days ago, I had a very powerful experience that shook me to the core. For a few moments I thought I was going to die. Heading into the Light I prayed to live in my earthly form a little while longer. Obviously my wish was granted. I laughed about it. I cried about it. Returning to the world of name and form I was glad there was nobody around to witness what I was going through, because I would have appeared like a madman.
When I was with HWL Poonja in Lucknow I entered a state whereby I saw that there is no need to sweat the big stuff in life: death, life after death, enlightenment, what is life’s purpose etc. That insight has stayed with me. We are here to live a human incarnation and all that is involved in the complex process, especially learning. Contact with people like Osho and Poonjaji has helped me see that life is a blessing, a miracle, something to feel grateful about, something to celebrate, an infinite mystery and we are all part of it. Keep it simple. It is the journey that counts.
Shantam concludes by asking, “Is not ‘left the body’ synonymous for simply being dead?” No, it is not. Saying someone has left their body implies that there is something leaving the body which is not dead or dying. Of course, physical death is a reality. From what I have seen I am 100% certain that there is a part of us which physical death cannot destroy. Whether or not that is something which is immortal is another question. I doubt it is personal. Recent experiences have been showing me that there is a wee touch of the personal moving through various physical incarnations but it is not distinctly personal…just a wee bit. 7
Ultimately, nothing dies. There is only life, and life is change. I will leave you with the last verse of ‘Crown of Creation’ by the Jefferson Airplane. Those wonderful artists knew what they were singing about:
Life is change
How it differs from the rocks
I’ve seen their ways too often for my liking
New worlds to gain
My life is to survive
And be alive for you
Aah ah ah ah….
Article about cults, which supports your opening remarks, apart from the quality of how easy it is to leave the cult. Well, on that front leaving is a non-issue, and I think that fact undermines all the rest.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2009/may/27/cults-definition-religion
However, there definitely was a time when there was something going on with some people, which I assume you will agree was stopped by the leader; but that central core was encircled by a mass of varying degrees of confused individuals, myself included, bawling “Stuff the Rajneesh Foundation” and going their own way, away from the central core of then ‘cultists’, which has been dispersed.
Best book I have read on the subject is ‘The Guru Papers’.
An impressive statement, Lokesh.
Re your close-to-death experience I would say, either go for a check-up to your local doc or you have rejected enlightenment.
But I can understand, postponing enlightenment in old age makes sense.
And now to Shantam:
Where is Osho? To be honest, I don’t know.
Could be that he is dissolved in the Ocean, in God.
Could also be that he has moved to some other planet, the universe is big.
And what’s with the Neo-Sannyas movement?
The movement is a young movement – 50 years is nothing compared to other movements like Christianity or Buddhism.
Who knows, when we are reborn in 300 years maybe half the world does dynamic. Life is unpredictable.
Who knows, criminal justice system gets some shade of wisdom and esoterica?
Defence lawyer proclaiming, “M’Lord, it is simply unspiritual and of lower mind to blame my client as murderer. He is not, he simply helped the deceased to transform into higher realms. Nothing dies in this world, only the forms change.”
Hindus are repeating immortality of the soul for last few thousand years:
nainaḿ chindanti śastrāṇi
nainaḿ dahati pāvakaḥ
na cainaḿ kledayanty āpo
na śoṣayati mārutaḥ
Translation of Bhagavad Gita 2.23:
The soul can never be cut to pieces by any weapon, nor burned by fire, nor moistened by water, nor withered by the wind.
If it is not a style exercise, to ask myself what it is or what will become Osho, then the question should refer to my need, if there, to share what Osho was/is for me and what I want him to be for others, ultimately if I want to be part of the mirror’s chain in delivering the inherited dream.
The existing structures, made of Meditation Centers and Legal Copyright Office, will continue to work trying to balance (I hope) commercial/material needs with the human / spiritual ones, trying to stay in the frame of what honestly each of us could interpret to be the vision of the Master, the New Man.
Perhaps much of what Osho will be, which is by what kind of channels he will be enjoyed by future generations, will depend on the outcome of the legal battle in India, what will be identified as the official corridor of mirrors, in which his smile will reverberate.
I will give you some examples of how nothing seems to me more uncertain than the form that Osho’s presence will take (MOD: or will be?) in the spiritual life of the future society:
In Pune, 15 years ago, during a Satsang of a Osho’s disciple, I met a young Indian boy who had never entered the Resort, and in that Abc F.’s terrace a picture of Osho near that of Ramana and other babas was the frame of that class of enlightening aspirants.
Another example is how in my small town Osho is usable in a new age centre with his techniques conducted by a non-sannyasin woman, never been in Pune and never done the O.M. Training, unlike me.
With sannyasins friends, who live thanks to the work with Osho and Yoga, but always chased by bills, we never managed to create a community despite the declarations of intent, I also feel to be judged by them sometimes as a rival, an obstacle or a pain in the ass;
I have not been to Sedona but certainly the most emblematic experience for me, of how vast is the galaxy of approaches that claim to be inside the Osho framework, is that i lived in a therapeutic community inspired by the work of its charismatic founder, a sannyasin whose work says to be inspired by the Master.
Theoretically it is an approach officially recognized by the Pune Bosses, since there is an open collaboration between the two realities.
The subject is delicate, because I have actually seen people come to the door crawling, because drugs and other addictions, and go out with a renewed vigor and dignity.
Yet putting therapy at the center of activities, instead of meditation, Imo is a clear forcing that sooner or later will present the bill, if it is true that we can observe the therapy provide a map of the mind from which we must learn to do without, if therapy groups one day should finish.
To invest too much, not just as a compassionate healer, in that map and on the ability to understand and prevent mind’s mechanisms can be a sign of an attachment, perhaps to the small or big advantages which that power gives.
Very little intelligent thinking has gone into what exactly a `cult` is. In fact , `cultish` behaviour and thinking is extremely common in a variety of forms and is an essential component of the social animals that are human beings. It`s basically the natural in-group/out-group human tendency complexified by belief and ideology.
People believe that because of the existence of a word (cult), a clear entity ‘out there’ exists. `Hypnosis` is, in a way, similar. Hypnosis is taken to be a special state, outside of normal experience by most people. Enquiry has shown that in fact it is not possible to separate hypnosis from everyday life. There are everyday trances that everyone experiences, like when driving and being lost in any activity. It`s part and parcel of life
Yes, there are extreme cases, and the relatively unusual is focused on, whether it be, in the case of hypnosis, people drinking urine and savouring it as champagne, or clucking like chickens onstage, or Jim Jones handing out Kool-Aid, but this obscures the fact of universality of the experience in other more common forms.
The idea of ‘cult’ is a projection by those who over-identify with the viewpoint of individual responsibility/authorship onto those who appear to throw responsibility. Of course, this is a projection because that is how all societies, religions, armies, nations etc. etc. actually work.
Look at Islam: apostasy or ‘trying to leave the cult’ is punishable by death in Afghanistan, Iran, Malaysia, Maldives, Mauritania, Nigeria, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, United Arab Emirates and Yemen. Jim Jones is a smalltime nobody by comparison.
And the Catholics, headed up by an infallible guy, are for sure fulfilling pretty much all of Rick Ross`s list and guaranteed to be abusing some kids within a few miles of where you live, to boot.
There has to be a receptacle for the unacknowledged parts of self/society. Cults act in this way for society. Cults are ‘the Devil’ who lives in the shadow. A convenient shadow for the powers-that-be.
Nevertheless, on the other side of things, to deny one`s own cultish behaviour, such as many cult members do, simply shows lack of self-awareness. For example, to deny any cultism in Osho`s Sannyas, as many do (even as a ‘device’, when at the same time subscribing to Osho`s `device` of ‘giving a taste of fascism’) is just plain daft.
Sannyas was/is a cult. But having come across various others in my time: Catholics, Jehovahs, the Army, Moonies, Hari Krishnas, Premies, prehistoric schooling in the 20th century to name but a few, I can definitely say it was/is one of the best cults going! Yahoo!
Cult pride!!
Apparently, after the Buddha died, his movement split into 36 sects, and I’m particularly aware of this because I remember some years after Osho died a spokesperson, some guy who was living at the ashram, said in an article how we aren’t doing too bad because this hasn’t happened to us.
However, I have wondered if in fact we have actually split into thousands of different sects, and that Osho would have wanted this to happen, because this mitigates against the possibility of a monolithic religion developing; and further mitigation against that is that we actually come from a culture of confrontation, disagreeing bluntly, to each other’s faces, rather than behind each other’s backs, a culture that developed in Poona One because of groups.
(May have been a side-effect, but it seems our culture of confronting each other and being blunt is a good thing in that sense, because in my experience collections of sannyasins don’t form really steep pecking orders, they tend to be much shallower, like a flattened pyramid if you will; and I don’t mean this absolutely 100%, but to some extent; although this is surmise, is observational and anecdotal).
Buddha, Buddha. Buddha…Apparently, swamis know more about the life and times of Mr. Gautama the Buddha than their own patriarch.
History has mentioned about Buddha´s last meal; in case of Osho, we know only the well prepared script by the personal physician and the finance whizz-kid.
A few people have this notion, in 2500 centuries, their Osho will be as well known as the Buddha. Hopefully, I am not being chosen as Dalai Lama of Osho in 4500.
I believe in that future which will show minimum interest in the past scriptures and won´t glorify the long gone people of previous era. If posterity can live their present without going gaga over the past, I feel Osho has done a tremendous job to change the behavioural patterns.
Perfectly correct, Shantambhai!
It is true that new research shows that Buddha died from eating a poisoned bacon sandwich. Also, Osho was poisoned!
It seems the irrevocable fate of great enlightened ones to be poisoned! For this reason, Swami Bhorat sends his heartfelt warnings to you to be careful when re-heating “2 for 1 Meal-Deal Lidl Osho meat pies™ in microwave!
Yahoo!
Hari Om!
When things are new then they are always called ‘movement’. Where does Sannyas move now?
Satchit, it seems Lokesh has forgotten this, that every religion was a movement during its founder´s lifetime.
Most of his wisdom was acquired during 1970s. After that, he has not seen the sequels, only read the reviews in the papers.
Satchit, beware. Do not be conned by Shantam, the great deceiver. His honey-dripping tongue is forked. He is El Diablo incarnate. He is very aware of your having wrested his crown and is preparing to strike you down. Soon the full extent of his wicked onslaught will be revealed. Do not rest on your laurels, having claimed the Champion Chump of SN title. Be vigilant, like a watcher in the slums of your being.
Already Shantam’s nonsense is reaching new heights. Take the following as an example:
“A few people have this notion, in 250,000 years, their Osho will be as well known as the Buddha.”
Satchit, to maintain your grip on the King Chump title I suggest you do the following:
Parrot as many wise sayings, that it is obvious you do not understand, as much as possible. Always come at other commentators with short, sharp answers that sound smart and make you look utterly stupid.
Good luck, my friend. You will need it when locking horns with the incarnation of pure evil that is Shantam. Stay as unaware as possible. Talk as much rubbish as much as you usually do. And feel that Osho is with you. Then perhaps you will remain King Chump for a little longer. Namaste.
Come on, boy Lokesh,
Who did write lately “Sannyas is a movement, not a religion”? This I call really parroting.
And who was then so cunning and deleted his message again? It was the one and only Mr. Lokesh.
I still ask you, where does Sannyas move now?
You are the champ, Satchit. Is it lonely at the top?
Not really.
El Loco, called the Super-Champ, is still above me.
Shantam, I think you are too much interested in political Sannyas.
Osho tried his best to bring religion to the level of science. The idea punctured. The beauty of science is the humility to accept mistakes, failures and go on improving after learning from the previous mistakes.
Osho went on improving his Vision about His place. He left His body after completing His Work. But the bloody chief disciples and masses of believers: they talk about their “Science” but they are very terrible in scientific thinking.
Politics is a science of policy making. Here, sannyasins have shown their foolishness from the time of Rajneeshpuram to Resort in the art and science of policy making.
Politics is a science of policy making. Here, Shantam has shown his foolishness from the time of Rajneeshpuram to Resort in the art and science of policy making.
Notice to readers:
Text with low emotional impact; without insults, massive use of the translator but little coffee in the cappuccino – in short, no claim to overshadow the work of private school writers.
Imo, in the case of Osho and his people/work, one should distinguish between ‘politics’ and ‘policy’ ie between efficient use and effective use of resources.
Obviously, I refer the two terms to the formal and non-substantial aspect of modern Democracies, which love to fill their mouths with the Separation of Powers, especially between State and Church.
In reality, it is the economic structure that decides the Politics and all the policies that derive from it.
For example, with good words, Politics attacks the “Islamic State” (or Rajneeshpuram) but then supports Israel and its policy in favor of the Jewish fanatical Hebron colonies.
Malicious people think that if there was no oil under that land (Middle East) it would not be so sacred.
Another obvious case of how the Democratic spirit is contradicted happened with the financing of the Polish Solidarność by the Vatican State, when the Pope was the anti-Communist Wojtyła and the banker was the US cardinal Marcinkus.
But do we want to talk about the meeting between Reagan, Wojtyla and Ratzinger where they talked about the old guy? (I occasionally make this hypothesis: And if the Sheela gang had agreed to take the blame for false accusations to arrest Osho in exchange for their freedom and money?).
Theoretically, the more a society tends towards a Theocracy the less it is dominated by the principle of Market efficiency, unlike a Lay State where the policy of a Cult/Religion/Sect must take into account the limits set by politics, for example in fiscal matters or of commercial accountability.
In reality, with globalization (Financial Casinò) the game between priests and politicians is much more oiled: the logic of profit puts them both on the same level, both sacrificable to the narration of the moment, with the paradox that before the Reign of Finance, if a politician was corrupt that would have contradicted the principle of efficiency while today, if a lobby writes the government programme to a politician that principle is exalted.
“Imo, in the case of Osho and his people/work, one should distinguish between ‘politics’ and ‘policy’, ie between efficient use and effective use of resources.”
Veet, aren’t “efficient use and effective use of resources” the same thing? Or do you mean to distinguish between ‘politics’ and “efficient use and effective use of resources”?
Maybe you could expand on that (and the rest of your post) and its relevance re ‘What Has Neo-Sannyas Evolved Into’?
“The terms effectiveness and efficiency, often used indistinctly as synonyms, actually reflect two distinct concepts. Efficacy indicates the ability to achieve the set goal, while efficiency evaluates the ability to do so using the minimum essential resources”. Mypersonaltraining
“If two athletes aim to run the 100 meters in less than 10 seconds and succeed in their intent, they are both effective; between the two it will be more efficient what will have achieved the goal with the minimum expenditure of resources (time dedicated to training and costs for technical material, coach, nutritionist, supplements, etc.)” Arcanetwork.
Thanks, Veet F, that’s a useful distinction.
“Politics is a science of policy making. Here, sannyasins have shown their foolishness from the time of Rajneeshpuram to Resort in the art and science of policy making.” (Shantam Prem)
Satyadeva, it was my reply to the exchange of opinions between SP and Arpana.
I think I have already expressed my thoughts in the first comment to the post in question on this page: for me, Sannyas is sharing, what evolves are the tools in effectiveness and efficiency (for example, today there is also the web to convey the vision of Master, and sometimes I’m in wonder about the results that produce the small iconoclastic tavern show that happens here).
I have only specified that if an entity or a sannyasin subject has no accountability constraint towards its community of reference, it could not only be not very effective in its sharing but also disperse the resources with its inefficiency.
But if you ask me a closed question I answer you.
Once again, ‘Osho’s vision’ returns to SN, courtesy of Veet. So far, when asking on SN what Osho’s vision is exactly, there has never been much of a coherent answer.
So, Veet, could you be so kind as to explain what you mean by Osho’s vision?
Your definition of the New Man can easily be misinterpreted as ideal. And Osho does not like ideals.
Satchit, it happens when you have to use ideas.
But if you can improve my definition I would appreciate it.
Veet, I think one can only give hints, no definition. Like parts in a jigsaw puzzle. For example, the new man is not nice, he is not your uncle. And he is playful. And he is relaxed. Out now, clearing the snow away from my car.
Well, that sounds just like every uncle I ever had…Must run in the family, I guess….
@Satchit. 4 February, 2019 at 11:15 am.
“The new man is not nice, he is not your uncle. And he is playful. And he is relaxed. Out now, clearing the snow away from my car.”
I like this. Augments the remarks made be THE VF, nicely.
MOD:
Why “THE”, Arpana?
I’m not sure, Satchit, that if I had used hints you would not have said that my answer would have been evasive.
@Veet 1:36
Yes, could be.
Can one learn something from this for oneself ?
Satchit, before I answer you, can you prove that you are not part of the legions of Lokesh coming out thanks to peristalsis?
I knew that geezer Perry Stalsis was up to no good. What a duplicitous bastard, eh?
Never realised Lokesh attracted so many gays though….
@ Veet 2:11
Maybe time for a small Osho quote:
“The enemy is a hidden friend, the friend is a hidden enemy.”
From ‘Hidden Harmony’, chapter 1
Squawk! Keep it up, Satchit. Shantam is off licking his wounds, dejected that you are the champ. Treat yourself to a large bowl of bird seed. Hail, Satchit! Squawk!
I think you’re being idealistic now, Satchit.
Given Veet Francesco was asked to come up with a definition for Lokesh, who was trying to catch VF out, as in Lokesh always has an agenda; and given English is VF’s second language, that was an OK definition.
@ Arpana 11.28
Lokesh always has agenda? There is still this 50/50 possibility the he is one of the new men.
@ Satchit. 4 February, 2019 at 1:02 pm
You can be really amusing sometimes, Satchit.
(*≧▽≦)ﾉｼ))
MOD:
Usual question, Arpana!
Arpana:
It means I am pissimg myself laughing.
And giving you, Satchit, the benefit of the doubt as to the seriousness of the remark.
@ Arpana 1:10
Yes, I know, Arpana.
Btw, I think Veet does not need your protection.
The baby has to grow.
Satchit,
Standing shoulder-to-shoulder against shadow forces is not protecting.
Arpana, yours seems to me a good definition of Sangha, in defensive mode.
@sw. veet (francesco) 4 February, 2019 at 1:58 pm
‘Defensive’ has a very particular connotation for me, about which I could write pages; and I have a feeling the way you have used the word here is different to my connotation, so can you say that differently?
Arpana, I think I have no idea what you would write on those pages. Maybe if you asked me what I would write on my pages…but I think we would be slightly off-topic.
That old spinster of SD is spreading the rumour that we want to adopt an old Punjabi child.
@sw. veet (francesco) 4 February, 2019 at 3:11 pm
Re SD:
WHAT?!!!!!!!
It’s ok, Arps, Veet’s confusing me with Perry Stalsis.
I can’t understand why, SD. You’re nothing like Perry!!!
Satyadeva, give me some feedback when my Britishism hits.
Arpana, I have no idea on which page of your book you could have related my comment. Relax, we are friends, just friends.
@VF, 4 February, 2019 at 3:11 pm
Gurdjieff used to say to his disciples, the first thing, the very, very first thing, “Find out what your greatest characteristic is, your greatest undoing, your central characteristic of unconsciousness.” Each one’s is different.
Somebody is sex-obsessed. In a country like India, where for centuries sex has been repressed, that has become almost a universal characteristic; everybody is obsessed with sex. Somebody is obsessed with anger, and somebody else is obsessed with greed. You have to watch which is your basic obsession.
So first find the main characteristic upon which your whole ego edifice rests. And then be constantly aware of it, because it can exist only if you are unaware. It is burnt in the fire of awareness automatically.
Osho
The Book of Wisdom
Chapter 9: Watching the Watcher
Arpana, in my case it is sexual sadism towards a woman who has overcooked my very expensive spaghetti.
My mind is boggled, VF.
Cruelty because of your noodle being limp.
Two questions: What has Neo-Sannyas evolved into and Where is Osho now?
Who cares? Life moves on. Car with burst tyres won´t move even if one sees some religious jewellery hanging near the driver’s seat!
Shantam is like a car with a burst tyre, and no amount of flatulent, self-important posturing on his part will change that and will get him moving.
@Arpana
“SD Puts a lot of energy into keeping things going here.
If I ran the site I’d make decisions some who post here
would not like. So fair enough really.” (Arpana, in Caravanserai).
True, long life to SD, long life to SN, and long sleep to me!
My way of loving him is to be an honest mirror, not to hold back what I see/feel; for example, I did not know he was a teacher.
The theme is still the one that, perhaps a bit too randomly, I tried to express in the comment about the request for “scientific Policy in the world of Osho” by Shantam.
The key concept is ‘accountability’, the same as in Politics in Democracy. With the difference that Politics, in a Democracy not just in words, has the power to arrange the resources and common rules within which the Policies must be expressed.
But there is also a minimum of political autonomy (power to allocate resources efficiently) in applying a Policy. For example, in Pune, talking to a long-career accountant, he explained to me that there is a strong bond between the Resort and the political will of the city.
If that political will is corrupt and wants to blackmail the Resort using inflated bills and various authorizations granted at a high price then all accountability is absorbed by this type of underground mediation, and the prices of the Resort are skyrocketing.
If this is true, I would argue that the Resort would do well not to forget that if that is the most efficient way to manage resources it is not the most effective way to express the radical nature of Osho’s vision in this area. Osho’s political vision after the planetary persecution linked to the facts of Oregon can not be to yield to the blackmail of politics.
This deserves a public debate within the Sangha, a minimum of accountability that is the opportunity to form a shared and well-structured position to put on the plate of political contention.
Another way of wondering how Neo-Sannyas evolves is to begin to ask, at the moment here just privately, if it is in my name that the Resort should accept compromises, not very honourable, with politics (small “p”).
Can the sannyasin change himself by ignoring the finger in the ass, the world interfering with his/her peristalsis?
Sannyas News is not a Democracy. It is and always has been a well-intentioned autocracy, well intentioned as regards those who run it.
The ashram is not a Democracy. It is and always has been a well-intentioned autocracy; and in my view this is the best that’s possible; the least bad of available options.
I no longer have a set of parameters against which I measure everyone, myself included, and everything, which if I could only make manifest would result in a perfect world; in fact, I think the idea there is a Utopia is a big barrier to that coming about. (I am using ‘Utopia’ as a blanket phrase for perfect). And that doesn’t take into account no two people agree on what ‘perfect’ is.
I am more substantial, grounded and clear because of interacting with people with sannyas names at Sannyas News, by treating people as individuals, and by attempting to respond to them as they are at any given time.
Well said, Arps, pretty well exactly as we agreed earlier today. Cheque’s in the post!
“The ashram is not a Democracy…”
The obedient servant of autocracy has forgotten the word ‘was’.
For here and now worshippers there is no past tense, there is no history.
Shantam, the would-be autocrat. You wish. LOL.
No, dear, Shantam is truly democratic.
Shantam won´t forget his spiritual master has left a body of 20 people chosen from just 5000 available disciples to take care of the day-to-day management of His new creation created from scratch after the destruction of ill-conceived project in USA.
With His whole wisdom, an autocrat master left behind a democratic body. This is in accord with Nature.
UK with Brexit is a good example where democracy leads to.
Swami ji, do you have some better alternative than democracy?
Yes, Sure. Osho has talked about meritocracy.
Swami ji, can you give the example of meritocracy functioning?
Yes, sure. It is in Pune at Osho Resort and also in Venezuela!
Swami ji kind of people pull the hair from their nose and drop it in the cup after sipping half of coffee at Starbucks!
Thanks for that hilarious image, Shantam. I almost choked on my toast reading that, first proper laugh of the day for me!
Swami Shantamji, you are funny.
“Osho has talked about meritocracy.”
Talking about going on and still having all the lectures on your brain hard disc?
Yes, Satchit, indeed He did talk about ´meritocracy´.
And – no – I suggest, it neither was about talking and talking, nor having “all the lectures on brain hard discs” – and the latter, you know (by left-side-brain) , I guess.
Quite recently Anand Yogi reminded us that the brain has two sides, and amongst other reminders I loved that too.
And then again, there is this stuff, we call ´embodying´…
And then again there is this mystery about ´timing´…
And circumference…
And then – on the very top of it all – I´d say the flavour we call ´Love´, which in no way can be measured.
Truth is, however, that we all ´love´ at the level of our conciousness, don´t we?
All in all, it’s a mystery what we may call ´meritocracy´.
To give a very temporary example:
I´ve been in awe and thrilled by a fifteen/now 16 year-old Swedish teenie appearing unexpectedly on the public stage, so to say, reminding us all worldwide, as well as the climate conference crowd, then after that the industrial/commercial crowd, to come to our senses here on the planet. Incorruptible! Meritocracy! Surprise!
Her name is Greta and she seems to be quite an old Soul.
Heart-Beat….
Madhu
Madhu, mostly it is not a good idea if one responds to a text which is meant for somebody else (in this case for Shantam). You misunderstood something.
Btw, certainly I know Greta, an impressive person.
Yes, Satchit, she’s so sweet!
Obviously, she must be a bit crazy if instead of being like everyone in the chain ‘born-shopping-die’ she cares about irrelevant things like sustainable growth: she needs a diagnosis.
.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greta_Thunberg
.
It seems to me, SP, that the outcome is always random when a word/concept is abstracted from the context represented by Osho, which includes, beyond words, his facial expressions, tone of voice and gestures.
In fact, ‘meritocracy’ is a criterion of functioning applied to a political system and not opposed to it: for example, the pharaoh could reward the slave who complained less.
MOD:
Post edited (irrelevant to topic and to Sannyas).
Veet, are you copy and pasting this sort of thing? Sounds somehow phoney.
Try reading it when you’re sober, Lokesh.
“Yes, sure. It is in Pune at Osho Resort and also in Venezuela!” (Shantam)
“UK with Brexit is a good example where democracy leads to.” (Satchit)
Venezuela and the UK are two great places where you can meditate freely, ignoring the irrelevant finger of the market/politics creeping into the buttocks.
I begin to believe it is true that even in the Resort it is better not to relax too much.
It is sad to see the irrelevance of Osho’s teaching in the life of some sannyasins. People who can not go beyond propaganda and see the plot of power that drives the economic structure of the world; or, seeing the mechanism, naively think of blocking it with the wingbeat of a Satori.
The other possibility is to be part of the system and find it convenient, recognizing that Osho was a drug addict who organized freak marriages and that Oregon is part of the country of freedom, a former colony of the oldest democracy in the world.
Ok, on this last point the propaganda is not univocal.
MOD:
Post edited. No irrelevant politics etc,. please, Veet.
Hi, Veet Francesco,
There is simply NO way to fight propaganda with propaganda, and that´s what you are doing. Mostly.
I remember what moved me in the 70s to take off to India, to meet the Master.
It was the despair, having come to really know by experience how the so-called left wing stances and the so- called right wing stances have something in common: Fanaticism. And violence!
That was, still is – sometimes – hard stuff to swallow, to really swallow!
Work of this kind inside in progress.
And the need to listen to some wisdom-whisperer inside-outside fresh as fresh can be.
Waving a ‘hello’ to you from my work-space -
Madhu
Ciao, dear Madhu, the opposite happened to me:
I went to Pune whenI was perfectly inserted into the institutions, with a good salary, many girls, a cynical asshole that hid his heart in a fanatical way.
I left everything for a jump into the unknown, such was the trust in the old guy, still with me, never looked back.
Hug
Dear Veet Francesco,
I wrote something addressing you, you understood something else, which I can capture by your first sentence (“the opposite happened to me”).
Satyadeva´s medicine seemingly works better in my eyes – IF you then take it!
And I got really angry when seeing the statement about Greta you shared with Satchit. It’s not at all the case that this young women needs “treatment”, but others do! And she is not “sweet” BUT sweet (smallest of the smallest invention of a Thurday morning KOAN). You don´t know a thing, I´d say, re that matter. But maybe it’s ‘gender stuff’? Could well be.
Anyway, as Osho once said: “Patience is not just a word.”
I´m back to my Inner work-space now (after my cappucino, the tea meditation).
Busy – and anyway, waving a ´GOOD Morning “hello” to you, wherever you are.
Madhu
Dear not-sweet Madhu BUT very sweet Madhu,
Your thesis is that we can not talk about bettering the outside world without making fanatical propaganda, as happened to you.
My thesis is that fanaticism does not depend on which field you dedicate your attention to but from who you are.
I note that today the dominant fanaticism referred to the outside world is called neo-liberalism, while the inner counterpart of this tendency, cause/effect of it, is a cynical, post-modern empty fanaticism: nothing matters because everything matters.
I’m waiting to take SD medicine; first I have to understand what kind of doctor he is, and how he cares for himself.
I did not say that I shared Asperger’s Syndrome diagnosed for Greta, in fact I was polemic about this point, being ontologically rooted in the spiritual experience, so all the attempts to ‘confine – define – predict’ the human being with the limited tools of the mind make me smile: assuming the spiritual and not fanatical drive, about wanting to improve the world, by Greta.
For me, at most one can describe people’s temporary tendencies, starting from the existential perspective, but when this is absent, one is victimized by the fashion of the moment, or by the legions that jump out here and there with funny sounds.
“It’s fine to feel like an alien, it’s not something wrong at all. You should feel that way, because this world in which you have to live is not a world that allows you to get in tune with others, with their ideas, with their behavior. This is not a just world – I mean that it is not a world on a human scale. And you would like to stay in this world and feel part of it? It will be natural to feel like an alien. But it is something that should make you happy. Stay in the world without belonging to you … I do not send you into the world because you lose yourself; I send you to the world because you remain yourself despite the world around you”. (Osho)
My feeling is that today external (worldly) circumstances are greatly affecting the spiritual community in such a way that in order not to be aliens with the world we prefer to be aliens among us of the same Sangha, but mainly by becoming aliens with respect to the Master himself.
In my opinion, this happens when someone wants to castrate the political implications of the vision of the Master.
For a group of English gentlemen, suffering from avoiding compulsive laughter, the definition ‘politically incorrect’ would have an exclusively recreational connotation, as for them, moreover, almost everything about Osho.
While, not castrating the rebel that is in us (those with the brain not dependent on blue pill), leaving free to resonate with the Master’s voice, trusting in the scope of its compassion to challenge the veil of Maya of the soap opera in which we are immersed, we could find different reasons (politics) to explain the sudden deterioration of a 58-year-old man.
Perhaps, to somebody else, the non-recreational reasons for Osho’s incorrecteness had been captured, judging them not at all “irrelevant”.
MOD:
Veet F, please explain the last parag. as it’s not clear what you mean.
VEET F:
I played rhetorically on a secondary (irrelevant) uncertain hypothesis in order to highlight what is for me the foundation and main thesis, ie:
Someone may have considered that “politically incorrect” referred to Osho not as one who just says dirty words but as “politically dangerous”, for the narration of propaganda that must hide the power structures and its plots.
Or:
Someone found him dangerous regardless of his dirty jokes.
“It is sad to see the irrelevance of Osho’s teaching in the life of some sannyasins. People who can not go beyond propaganda and see the plot of power that drives the economic structure of the world; or, seeing the mechanism, naively think of blocking it with the wingbeat of a Satori.”
You vastly underestimate the intelligence of “some sannyasins”, Veet. And, I suspect, vastly overrate your own capacity to make any significant difference to the world, beyond what might arise from a lot more inner work than you appear to have done up to now.
It’s a common enough symptom: someone begins to free himself of a few hang-ups, fears, releases some inner burdens, feels better, gets a taste of more inner freedom, perhaps meditates a bit, or even a lot – and then thinks they’re fit to diagnose and ‘treat’ what they see as the pathology of the rest of the world.
One teacher I knew used to call this syndrome ‘guru-itis’, born of a certain self-grandiosity, perhaps hiding under the guise of “the new man”: sincere, absolutely; ‘passionate’, certainly (albeit at the effect of an aberrant emotionality that would often, even ultimately, make this ‘revolutionary’ not a lot different from, in fact disturbingly similar to his/her alleged ‘enemies’*) – but also naive enough to believe implicitly in his/her own ‘propaganda’.
Point of info:
As far as I know, Osho never advocated investing one’s energy in joining any ongoing political ‘crusade’. He was ok with taking action here and there, eg on specific issues, but otherwise seemed to regard ongoing political involvement as a drain on energy better applied to ‘the inner journey’.
But perhaps your immediate personal circumstances over in an Italy in economic crisis is driving you to opposite conclusions. So maybe you need to go ahead and live out your psycho-spiritual-political ‘revolutionary’ ideas and fantasies to see exactly where they get you and others, and learn from that, very likely the hard way.
* See ‘Animal Farm’, for instance, by George Orwell. Or ‘Doctor Zhivago’ by Boris Pasternak. Neither dealing with overtly spiritual inspiration, but nevertheless highly instructive about the effects on all involved of the extreme pursuit of worldly ideals.
If I recall rightly, Osho thought politics was a game for dummies, low chakra power trips. It is rare for me to see a politician who looks like someone I might know. Look at Britain’s PM or the president of USA. These people are absolute creeps.
Only politics I was ever interested in was ‘The Politics of Ecstasy’ by Timothy Leary, and that was decades ago.
Lokesh, maybe you can come out a bit from your higher pedestal and don´t chew that much Osho’s words which fit with your concept.
Osho was sitting in the room, people who were managing the show on realistic level have to deal with political system with the political mind. Is there any other alternative?
On a village to the capital level, someone has to manage the system so that few others can meditate or spend their life looking at the ocean and the stars.
To create better human values is a work of monks & sannyasins. In the past too, monks in monasteries have put the foundation of all that what is now being taught at universities.
Politicians are like shopkeepers, they sell what comes from the factories.
So people who feel proud to be religious and feel a bit superior should not criticise political class unless they have better moon to show.
This post is very much relevant for neo-sannyasins. They should contemplate first over their state of affairs.
How a few other spiritual movements are working silently in their territories is visible if one visits the internet or the geographical site of Auroville, a city under constant development as per the vision of Sri Aurobindo. That is a fine manifestation of western disciples cherishing the vision of their Indian mystic.
Surely there the residents don´t rip off the knickers of visiting ladies as is common in the black buildings of Resort in the name of Osho.
Judging by your last paragraph I take it you’ve no immediate plans to take up residence in Auroville then, Shantam? Despite how utterly wonderfully the place is run?
Anyway, the first thing to grasp about politics is that it’s all about power:
Wanting it
Working and scheming for it
Achieving it
Keeping it, and…
Trying to increase it.
Your analysis above seems a bit simplistic, as if politicians are mere ‘middlemen’, passing on this and that to the people, like “shopkeepers”, as you say.
Surely you know it’s more complex than that, with all sorts of different groups and vested interests, economic and others, struggling to achieve influence and gain for themselves and their ‘clientele’. With deals, short and long-term being made, honoured and reneged upon, lies and convenient half-truths peddled, backs stabbed and advantages seized. In other words, the usual human cess-pit!
Why then, be so outraged, or even surprised, at the fate of the ‘Pune 21′? It happened, no one in that ‘august’ group could apparently be bothered to challenge the way it went – it was seemingly pretty well inevitable anyway.
Par for the course then.
So you’ve been upset for many years because of this ‘coup’? Big deal – do you imagine Life gives a stuff about your disappointment, when you’ve drunk from its very stream for so long? Not a chance! Get over it – or waste the rest of your life in resentment.
SD, deep down I have no resentment about the decline of Sannyas and institution created by Osho.
Nature has not done injustice. If someone puts diesel in a petrol car, it won´t move, even if that car belongs to any master of all the masters.
What enrages me somewhere is the false bravado and smudgy attitude of cultist people. I was part of the movement which has become cult so it is fun to poke fun.
Basically, I have no expectations, unlike many sannyasins who cultivate this dream that if they remain obedient to the church of Osho, master will work as their saviour, will bestow enlightenment on them, will make them free from life and death.
I wish to follow truth as much as possible, it matters not it leads somewhere, it surely chalks out its own path.
The car moves. Only Shantam has a special idea how it should move.
Satchit, dear, create a string and you have the right to decide how car should move.
Those who have written big or small articles know it requires driver´s concentration to create starting lines.
Shantam, car moves by itself.
Drivers are no more needed. When I am in the mood I will write article – but first address is needed where to send to.
MOD:
That’ll be provided soon. Sorry, there’s illness in the SN admin camp this week.
Shantam says, “I was part of the movement which has become cult so it is fun to poke fun.’
Shantam, Sannyas was pretty much a cult right from the start. Osho told us it was not a cult and many sannyasins believed him. Which just goes to show how powerful his power of persuasion was.
The sannyasin movement had quite a strong impact on the world at large for a relatively small movement. That impact continues to this day, although I believe it has very little to do with the current mainstream sannyasin movement that exists.
It was all very well and believable when Osho was alive and telling us we were the vanguard of the new man. Today, that sort of thing sounds like pure bunkum. To hear a misguided chap like Veet going on about “the new man” and “Osho’s vision” is fairly typical of the newbies who think they are on the cutting edge of something special, something new, being part of some super sangha etc., makes my teeth hurt. It is just so corny.
All those great ideas ran their course and something good came out of them. Now the page has turned and those ideas that were once cutting edge have turned into something that no longer belongs in the times we live in, because there are other things going on, new ideas, new insights, new tools to be worked with etc. that are more useful, beneficial, healing and fitting for the challenging era we now find ourselves living in.
Some of those things were in fact part evolutionary offshoots that were rooted in Sannyas. Of course, Osho also spoke about subjects that are eternal, universal and are always relevant. There is no denying that. Thing is, a lot of the mainstream mind/no-mind set that came out of Sannyas is now defunct and people who still believe they need to propagate that sort of thing have become anachronisms. It is just so much old hat.
We have to adapt to the time we live in, not hold on to a load of nonsense that reached its sell-by date back in the early nineties.
Someone asked me the other day what the meaning of life is. I thought about it and said, “Learning to let go.” Sannyasins speak a lot about ‘let go’, but many seem to experience difficulties when it comes to letting go of the past.
Shantam, it seems to me very cultish your approach towards a renegade of the Osho cult.
It is enough that He in his most inglorious moments throw a bone at you and you run happy towards him with increased salivation.
If you were not there to provide his last dialectical/intellectual shelter (in reality it is you who say yes with your head to his superficial and generalizing bullshit) perhaps he would finally find the courage to let the cult go and try something more suited to the karma of its legions, which means choosing between Jehovah’s Witnesses and Scientology.
Do you think that the cheap iconoclast is a resource to prevent the decline of Sannyas?
“It is inevitable”, Shantam, as taught by the pragmatic school of extreme Thatcherism, an offshoot of TINA.
“It is inevitable” re to changing material circumstances: if you were born in the caste of the untouchables or in that of the aristocrats “it is inevitable”, nothing can change the material circumstances. This is the same last thought produced by the head of Louis XVI before rolling in the basket: “It is inevitable that the king remains myself”.
“It is inevitable” that a peaceful person is arrested and poisoned in prison.
“It is inevitable” that politics corrupts.
“It’s inevitable”…there follows a long list of pleasure-loving impotence.
BUT
It is not inevitable that you can not drink from a different source than the ‘pensée unique’ mainstream one (“take care of your own business, don’t give a shit about the rest and live happily” – Totò Riina).
Veet F, in your zeal to defend/propose the concept of revolutionary change (and to pigeonhole me as some sort of agent of ‘Thatcherism’ or the like, hence an ‘enemy’, which, btw, I find both absurd and most amusing) you seem to miss the nuances of my comment re the ‘collapse’ of the ‘Pune 21′. But perhaps I didn’t make it clear enough.
I said, “It happened, no one in that ‘august’ group could apparently be bothered to challenge the way it went – it was seemingly pretty well inevitable anyway.”
I was suggesting that, given that particular group of people, the situation they were in (eg some of whom perhaps might not have even wanted to be there in the first place, others possessing both the will and the resources to dominate and even take over the proceedings), let alone the intrinsic difficulties inherent in their task, many of which are common to all such groups*, the outcome wasn’t really that surprising.
However, that doesn’t necessarily imply all such circumstantial events and outcomes are “inevitable”. Situations might be similar but have different key aspects, leading to different results. As one great political philosopher said, “It all depends….”
*Look, for example, Veet, at the ongoing disagreements, failures to achieve consensus on every topic discussed, and deep personal animosities here, amongst a bunch of people who’ve been long exposed to the same source(s) of superior wisdom and profound enlightenment.
Doesn’t that make you stop and question some of your assumptions? Or do you just shrug off such evidence, tell yourself, “They’re just ignorant, castrated assholes, they don’t know what Osho wanted or approved of, I’m – or I’m becoming, or at least I want to become – the ‘New Man’, so I know better, I’ll do it differently, I’ll fight and I’ll win (etc. etc.”? If so, good luck, mate, you’ll need it!
.
@SD:
I can’t remember the source of the following, unfortunately, but if my memory serves me correctly, as you are moving towards suggesting, a group of 21, as a sociological phenomenon, will always break down into about 5 sub-groups, and the groups will be in a hierarchy.
Then, and this is only my opinion but I tend to the view that there was no solution to running the ashram which was perfect, which would have functioned objectively in a perfect way; and certainly that there was no solution to how things were managed which would not have provoked resentment and bitterness and jealousy, condemnation and disapproval, at least on the part of more than some.
Exactly, Arpana. There was and is no success possible.
Same as with the Ranch. Failure and success meeting.
Yes, that would seem to be the case, Arps.
“Ah, no, Satyadeva, in fact I had associated them (The ‘Pune 21′) generically with the management of the Resort (Inner Circle).
I will go deep on the topic (‘Pune 21′) and in I will reply”.
Any links about ‘Pune 21′?
P.S:
Glad to know you’re not an enemy, a cold-blooded reptile who works for Rothschild.
But sad to know that you have to run like everyone else to pay your bills, perhaps regretting that you voted for Blair.
Dear Satyadeva,
Finally we have a theme and two points of view on it.
For me, the social experiment that happens on SN is a demonstration of how social relationships based only on thoughts and words are far from the reality we can experience in a space of the Sangha like Pune.
So Pune matters.
If the same relational difficulty happens inside and about Pune then Sannyas itself goes into crisis.
I call this a political problem, because the causes, as I wrote, can not be limited to the policy.
Are you saying that it is inevitable that I should find all this fun and that I should toast with Ibiza sangria?
Veet, the regular contributors here have all spent a long time at the Pune Ashram/Resort, the majority having imbibed the living presence of the master. Which I suggest tends to undermine your argument. Unless, of course, you’re proposing that we should all go to Pune, meet and exchange ideas (etc.) in the flesh and hence ‘live happily ever after’?!Rather like the ‘Inner Circle’, perhaps?!
Moreover, you yourself have a few places to go to in Italy, eg Miasto etc., don’t you? And there are other places around the world for those so inclined. Why make Pune so vitally important?
Satyadeva, I state that for me, Pune matters, like any other space dedicated to Osho, even though Pune and Miasto are special places for me.
I am sorry for the war in India between the two factions because I think it affects the spirit of the Sangha as a whole. We can ignore that conflict or take a position like Shantam, but we can not ridicule one of the two positions without having direct sources of what is happening, of which the lack of accountability is the first fact.
For me, what is happening, even before the final sentence of any court, is a defeat for all of us, damaging the evolution of Neo-Sannyas. Here there is someone who cares about living Sannyas and has no head addressed to the past; with the consideration about the difference between a virtual and a substantial community, I thought above all of those who have never been there.
It is a paradox that after all the groups and the years spent absorbing the living presence of a Master like Osho, who showed us all our subtlest plots of power, today is happening exactly what in any church happens after the death of the founding leader.
Veet, talking about the evolution of Neo-Sannyas?
You should care more about your own evolution.
Maybe it was Osho’s will that two factions exist, what do you know? At least it was the will of Existence.
How about accepting life as it is?
“How about accepting life as it is?” (Satchit)
No, no, NO…do not throw yourself down…react! You can, You can, YOU CAN!
P.S:
“Veet, talking about the evolution of Neo-Sannyas?” (Satchit)
No, it’s the topic.
I tell you a secret now, Veet, but keep it to yourself:
The two factions were planned by Osho, because competition stimulates business. Pssst!
Have a good read of the words of this Dylan classic, Veet…
https://youtu.be/oKlM3U72QtQ
Scuse me for butting in. Loved that song most of my adult life. Prefer The Byrds version myself:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3ChFfKsaXI
Thank you, Satyadeva, a beautiful song.
I have no idea how my thinking translated into English words can sound, but if it is true that the effect is an annoying, too serious Manichaeism then I would understand your paternalism.
The same paternalism of Dylan towards himself that at 23 years (it was 1964), in full cold war and racial segregation, 4-5 years before the youth revolution, wrote a song to deny his political phase, inaugurating a new phase, no more the censorship on television, or break with the record company: a rock star was born!
Perhaps Dylan was too young and too serious to make us believe that his choice to break with the socio-political song was dictated by artistic needs or by a growth of awareness, rather than by Jewish pragmatism.
Everything was clearer a couple of years later:
“When I had the motorcycle accident…I got up to regain my senses, I realized that I was just working for all those leeches. I did not want to do it. Plus I had a family and I just wanted to see my children. “(Dylan, 1966).
Religion comes after the family.
“At the time of his thirtieth birthday, in 1971, Dylan visited Israel, meeting with Rabbi Meir Kahane, founder of the Jewish Defence League based in New York.”(Wikipedia)
Then he changed flag:
“There was a presence in the room and there could be no other than Jesus Christ.” (Dylan, 1978)
Anyway:
“Bob Dylan was a supporter of the Chabad Lubavitch movement, and he took part privately in some Jewish religious event, and in September 1989 and September 1991 he appeared during the Chabad telethon.” (Wikipedia)
Who is the youngest and most authentic Dylan? With my English I struggle to recognize it.
A couple of years before he spoke like an old boy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCxi5VOYKOY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pG6taS9R1KM
Here’s a friend of mine (ex-sannyasin), Gino (formarly Prem Rajan) commenting on this track (echoing my own sentiments):
“Truly Sublime! This is what we all came to this earth for, to share in Genius. Somebody that can put into words and music the inner feeling of a generation. But not only a generation, he also expressed something of the eternal humanity of all of us.
This in time sometimes happens, Shakespeare did it with his plays, Da Vinci with his painting. Now we have Dylan with his poems and music. He was asked where his songs came from. He said he didn’t know. They just came. Listen and watch the short interview below. His music still sends shivers down my back!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_wAZ02JUtM
I’ve read that interview. Incredibly moving; searingly honest; but he kept exploring, despite the loss of that which he had no control over.
If someone likes to create joint article, ‘Role of Self-Deception in New Age Spirituality’, I will be glad to do brainstorming together.
Otherwise, I will submit to editor a few sentences and a lovely Osho story heard in 1989 to roll out the new article.
I think ‘Self-Deception in New Age Spirituality’ is enough as title. A few lines I will scroll for discussion to move.
I think ‘self-deception’ needs to be discussed in all its variables. I can offer myself as model to see the visible traits. For my side, I will use life stories of professionally successful people to point out their self- deceptive traits. I think this quality used properly is also very much part of the basic flour of branded cookies!
What a magnificent youtube add-post, you (or whosoever) chose, Satyadeva! And same goes to Arpana, with the ´ant-stuff’ (at SN Caravanserai).
Veet declares, “Today is happening exactly what in any church happens after the death of the founding leader.”
That is a revealing statement, because Sannyas was never meant to be a church in the first place. Of course, Catholic sannyasins have created a church out of Sannyas. For that they must pay the price by going to confession and chanting ‘Hail Oshos’ for their sins, missing the mark.
Reminds me of a Depeche Mode number…
“Your own personal Jesus
Someone to hear your prayers
Someone who’s there.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpYW3qng78E
Re Lokesh and Catholic sannyasins:
This is projection. You were a submissive, Catholic sannyasin yourself when you were at the ashram in the 70s, and you have been repressing this ever since you ran away, so you’ve been projecting onto anyone who doesn’t kiss your ass ever since.
Well, Lokesh,
Nothing wrong about the longing to be seen, to be heard, looking for someone who´s there.
You wouldn´t write almost daily for a very long time in this SN/UK Chat (amongst millions of other opportunities to have a choice) if you would be spared from this very human conditioning that we are all ´social animals´. No exceptions.
To defame those as “Catholic sannyasins” – be they called by you “newbies” or also others who are emotionally stuck in your eyes when they recall the Mystic´s inspirational talks or actions – makes it difficult, if not impossible, to relate to one another in the here-now. At least, not as long as we´re writing here.
I´m writing because I´m a social animal. That´s it. Why are you writing here?
Would love to see your response to that.
Madhu
Madhu enquires, “Why are you writing here?”
Amusement. I often work hard physically all day. Writing and reading on SN is something I do for enjoyment in my leisure time. I do not take anything being said on SN seriously. If I went by what Shantam says here on SN I would think he was a nutcase. Because I met him I know he is a good man and loving father. Same goes for everyone else who writes here. I have never met most of them but am quite sure they are all good people at heart. I tend to find something I like in most people I meet. Makes life easier.
Thank you, Lokesh, for taking your time to respond to my question (was not an “enquiry” as you suppose, it was a simple question).
I´m not able yet to take SN as an amusement though, but I´m getting slightly better.
The stuff published here – let´s alone take Prem Rajesh´s opus ‘The day we got guns’, for example – touched very traumatic memories and that was not the only stuff I´m still digesting, as I have been there, experiencing. And not second-hand through some gosship. As well as other stuff Parmartha offered.
There have been only pretty few of the contributors touching my heartbeat even though it’s viral space.
Quite often – from the very beginning – your contributions belonged to that. Same with Parmartha, whom I´m missing. Sometimes. His dry and sober little comments here and there. Also I´m missing some women contributing.
Feeling ´home´ sometimes, I can say.
But again, you´re probably right when saying, “I have never met most of them, but I´m quite sure they are all good people at heart.” I take it as a friendly reminder, as I´m not able yet to surf some waves here as a woman with my life´s attrocities I have had and have to encounter.
The human heart (the manifold actions and expressions it triggers) and the HEART of the HEART SUTRA is not the same.
More of a challenge than an amusement in my life´s experience.
Madhu
P.S:
I mean this one, Lokesh:
GATE GATE PARAM GATE
PARASAM GATE
BODHI SVAHA
Gone, gone, gone beyond
Gone altogether beyond
Halleluhja
(Has nothing to do with magic mushrooms and similar, or a kind of Californian instant enlightenment kick).
Felt some hours later to my post that I feel a need to make that clear.
It’s a sannyas website after all, and even when it’s all evolving and evolving and being played with and sometimes played with false cards, so to say, why not ´remember the ´Buddha´ in us from time to time…?
With Love
Madhu
Madhu, just for the record, to enquire means to ask. You asked something of me. Simple or complicated makes no difference.
While we are at it, you say, “a woman with my life´s attrocities.” “Atrocities” is a very strong word. I wonder what extremely cruel, violent, or shocking acts are taking place in your life, or have taken place. Are you sure you are not exaggerating? You are not exactly living in a war zone.
When I see my life or the lives of other sannyasins, I ask myself, were we wounded hearts who came to Osho or His soap opera and left as people more wounded?
It is so so easy to blame the system, the government, the Reagan, the Pope the Sheela, but not the Bhagwan, not the Jayesh, not the Amrito.
Fuck…What a journey of twisted truth!
Sannyasnews is wonderful miniature history of Guinea Pig Rebels!
When I see the life of Shantam, I see a fool who came to Osho and never took responsibility for anything that didn’t suit him in his life, and is still blaming everybody he can think of, rather than face up to the fact his life stinks because of him.
Fuck…What a journey of twisted truth!
When someone throws back your sentences on you with a twist, it is a compliment.
To Shantam, re 9 February, 2019 at 12:10 pm:
And this comment exemplifies your capacity for self-deception.
Self-deception is such a thing, you don´t need to have Sikh conditioning; Jain conditioning is as good as Christian conditioning to magnify and glorify one´s own tiny existence and makes others’ world small and meaningless.
Not-so-Neo-anymore-Sannyas has taught us self-deception too.
Why not be honest?!
I agree, Shantam. Magnifying your own existence and talking every one else’s life down is your primary characteristic.
It is enough, Arpana, mind your own business.
Let me say, I have no wish to interact with you, though you won´t be banned in the revived Osho commune where I have also some say about management policy-making.
In your dreams, Shantam. More of your boundless self-deception.
Where the fucking followers feel enchanted with their broken status quo; such people are disgrace, whether in India, Venezuela or anywhere.
It seems late Mr. Jain was creating tigers out of wolves by altering their names!
Shantam is a disgrace, always whining because he can’t get his own way.
It seems late Mr. Jain created an even bigger whiney baby by giving him a new name.
I´m not exaggerating, Lokesh, and thank you for asking.
Frau Dagmar Frantzen never exaggerates. If she has seen Shantam stalking her in Munich last year it must be so.
Question is, no one knows who she is, how she looks, what to say re her street and flat in a big metro city?
After all, Munich is not facebook where you can stalk anyone´s account who writes publically.
If some sannyasin lady talks about “atrocities”, was Sannyas headquarters in ISIS-occupied territories?
Lokesh, I must always detect your twists against the things said by others, mine in this case.
Lazily leaning on your beliefs you ask, not only me, with paternal self-sufficiency, about the evidence that could push you to leave your comfort zone; you’ll know well that there is no deafness worse than..?
When they asked Marx exactly how communism would have been and evolved, he replied that his task was not “to prescribe recipes for the tavern of the future.” I believe Osho would subscribe to such an answer, well aware that man is not predictable, even when animated by good intentions.
It is inevitable that by managing Osho’s legacy one will have to make choices, then use power, but it would surprise that despite books and groups, someone looks at power as a goal and not as a means, like any other church.
That’s what i said.
Response to Lokesh:
If everybody, everything is a stepping stone, so was Osho. The only thing I feel about ‘him’ is gratitude. Gratitude that he was such an important stepping stone for me, through his compassionate, outrageous behaviour, using any device to try and show me who I really really am.
I see on this site a lot of squabbling about the interpretations of ‘his’ ways, behaviour, teachings then, and how it should be applied now. On and on and on. It’s the same thing that was done with Jesus Christ through the Bible, and the numerous churches, sects, cults that sprang up after he died.
As I see it, the Master can never be a cult, but the interpretations of his teachings always certainly will! Even when he is alive, but at least in his presence he can give us the shock treatment to bring us back to who we are Now!. When he is dead we are left with our own (mind) devices!
In the end, I see it is trusting myself; nobody, neither Osho nor any other guru can do this for me. And as Osho said himself, it is the flight from the alone to the ‘all-one’ ultimately that matters!
Yes, Levina, I subscribe, as long as I keep my eyes closed or if I live on the island.
Then there is the world, with its power conflicts. If also the world matters for you, then the Indian war is part of the world.
If your gratitude for Osho also includes the Sangha, then also this second one, for those who will arrive after. may matter.
The question of the topic is how Neo-Sannyas will evolve; you answer that you trust, but in which of the two factions?
Hi Veet,
At this stage in my life I’m going for myself. With eyes wide open my world at this moment is very simple if I don’t believe my thoughts about how I, the world should be.
Are all the discussions on SN not about that? Also how so-called Neo-Sannyas should be? Honestly, I don’t care, and I don’t care about ‘the world’ because I see this so-called mental caring in myself simply as a belief, which makes me suffer ’cause I cannot change the world or somebody else for that matter, only myself!
This doesn’t mean I live on an island, and if help is needed in the moment I can be practical about it. And that feels good. What doesn’t feel good anymore is the endless minding someone else’s business, I see it in myself, here on SN, on the world stage, etc. There is a topic about Neo-Sannyas, a worldly disaster, or a football match and you get comments on comments on comments ad infinitum. I have said, so far, this comment!
@Levinia.
”What doesn’t feel good anymore is the endless minding someone else’s business, I see it in myself, here on SN ”
Bravo, you, for being so honest and not trying to pretend you’re apart from what goes on here. But actually, people do write interesting and insightful comments about life, the universe and everything as well. People post incredibly funny comments here, genuinely funny comments, not vindictive and cruel. People share really interesting music here. This site is so much more than just squabbling and pettiness; and isn’t there a danger of making it much more important than it is, and at the risk of sounding cheesy I keep remembering the phrase ‘roses and thorns’.
Pretty much anybody over about 50-odd from the West comes from an essentially Christian society where we were taught and expected to be nice and hide the not nice; and I think that there is something to be said for people being blunt and straightforward the way they are here. And I do think it’s important to place varying degrees of bluntness in the context of everything else which goes on. Easy to lose sight of the goodwill and allow it to be overshadowed by the bluntness, and notice I use the word bluntness, rather than a more negative term.
A lot of what gets posted here, which includes this most recent post of yours, is because we actually care in a way that is nothing to do with being self-centred and self-serving, and a lot of what gets posted here is because Osho and Sannyas matter to them.
P.S:
I’ve come to terms with not fitting anybody’s idea of ‘perfect’ any more, or trying to any more, not even my own ideas of ‘perfec, that’s gone as well.
Good post, Levina.
Hi Levina,
If I can add something to what has already been said very well by Arpana, I would say that it is true sometimes thoughts take over, especially in a virtual space made of writing, where to interrupt them never happens, unexpected feedback, a facial expression, a breath, a smile, a hug…
Yet there are differences in the way of producing thoughts, depending on how much you can witness them, that is, how much you feel you are not dependent on them.
For example, now that I have ‘flu (I recently ate meat and other poisons) I do not have much energy to devote to the creative process of translating my point of view into words, preferring to enjoy my thoughtless healing process.
Each of us contributes with our own unique point of view, with our own ability to make it into thoughts and words, but it is inevitable that describing what is here and now implicitly describes what is missing here and now.
It seems to me, it is my point of view, that we are united by the same destiny of slaves, living in the same system of globalized capital that discharges the costs of its malfunctioning on you and me.
For me, this is a good opportunity to meditate, but with open eyes, to distinguish between acceptance and resignation, between celebration and despair.
Veet, as you know, the entire world has been largely built on the violence of greed, exploitation and injustice (etc.) for many centuries, millennia even. In our times, depite some positive influences, we’ve all seen the overall crisis worsening, in many areas, no need to elaborate here.
What on earth makes you think you can stem the tide, and make any significant difference, apart from whatever you can do within to dissolve your personal contribution to the above-mentioned pathological symptoms?
And, by the way, how does the ‘slavery’ you cite affect you personally, directly, on a daily basis? If not at all, or very little, then I suggest you’re in danger of becoming just another deluded ideologue, playing with ideas, concepts – perhaps to provide a sense of purpose that you might otherwise lack?
Shantam, perhaps he believes in the laws of attraction and karma 50%/50%.
If one day in Ibiza they will want to build a resort on his and neighbouring land, in order not to appear as a dummy by collectively opposing the political decision he would rather expiate the bad karma by coming back to Scotland by swimming.
Shantam, you do not need an organization, ashram or spiritual city to be in place in order to make it possible to meditate. That is something you can do without all that.
Lokesh, create a string out of it. It will be fun.
On similar thoughts, I have written a few lines to submit to editor. My feeling is we need to create shorter, concise and to the point threads.
“If I recall rightly, Osho thought politics was a game for dummies, low chakra power trips.”
Lokesh, I think here you understood something wrong.
Osho did not ‘think’ this, you were trapped by his words.
He did talk in this direction to decondition political minds with their ideas to change the society, as I see it.
The goal was inside, and out of the centre everything is possible.
Thank you, Satyadeva, for your relevant words, that push me to do better, using more precise words to say that a slave is a slave is a slave…
Do not forget to express what Sannyas means to you today, beyond your precious diagnoses, so maybe some ideas also for me to mirror you.
Btw, thank you for recognizing that my aberrant passion is sincere.
P.S”
To be more precise, Satyadeva, I am interested in your point of view not on how relevant my person is or how much it is that you suppose to be my crusade, but possibly as much as my analysis can be (relevant).
I’m talking about the non-irrelevant role that our Sangha could have in proposing in our days the contribution of Osho’s vision, considering that you do not consider itself irrelevant. It’s not, is it, SD?
Veet, once more, talking about Osho’s vision. Veet, I ask you again. What is this Osho’s vision that is so important to you?
There are quite some of our brothers and sisters, Shantam, who ´flew over the cuckoo´s nest´ in the course of these decades and there is painful evidence that those – being stuck in their authoritarian patterns – don´t see this, blinded by fanatical ambition, jealousy and whatsoever sad imprisonments. The latter, easy to recognise by their ever bullying, cyber-mobbing chat-stances.
That´s awesome and painful to see.
Arpana, you seem almost proud of your implicit servility; long live Robespierre!
@sw. veet (francesco) 5 February, 2019 at 3:52 pm
If you say so ✌(-‿-)
“My way of loving him is to be an honest mirror, not to hold back what I see/feel; for example, I did not know he was a teacher.”
Veet, honesty is fine, but requires honesty with and about onself as well, it’s not a one-way thing. You often come across as ‘hard done by’, verging on a ‘victim’ identity. As if you have to constantly be on the alert for people taking advantage of you, misusing or exploiting you in one way or another. For instance, your rather suspicious, even at times hostile attitude to me in my admin role here at SN. Are snidey passive/aggressive remarks (examples provided, if you wish) honest, or just devious ways of ‘dumping’ on people?
Do you realise this? Or is the ‘background’ emotion (ie essentially suffering from the past, perhaps at the hands of ‘authority’?) so strong that you are unable to separate from it when responding to the relatively simple realities in front of you, eg here at SN?
Along with this seems to go a certain misplaced idealism, a drive for a ‘perfection’ impossible to attain, when a more pragmatic, common sense attitude, understanding the realities of the situation, would be more appropriate. Again, for example, in how you think SN ‘should’ be run.
Or even, perhaps, in what seems to be your striving to ‘become’ the ideal of “the new man”. Maybe worth considering less emphasis on ‘becoming’, more on ‘giving up’ what doesn’t work, eg certain patterns of chronic negativity, emotional self-indulgence (common enough in people heavily into group therapy) or believing in the ‘ideal’?
It seems to me that you have compiled a list of things that you do not like about me, you do well to empty the bag, now you should feel better.
In the bag there is no way, not even by mistake, one thing you like about me and now I can not fall victim to victimization or depression, but not even say something aggressive or annoying because it would fill your bag again.
I propose for the future, alternatively, that you from time to time contribute with your arguments opposed to mine, if you think dialectical conflict is useful; for example, I also support class conflict, unlike those who parrot the Iron Lady with her TINA* – if that’s what you mean by “common sense attitude”.
For me, meditation is the art of being with what is there, so being sannyasin is also taking responsibility for using my/our power to make the world a little better than we found it. I do not know if your critique of my misplaced idealism is an invitation to the prevailing pragmatism today, castration of every rebel.
And for me to act as a mirror does not mean making a psychological diagnosis as you do, but this is a common attitude of those who have made many groups, so you can be self-indulgent about this.
As I have already written, I am ready to give my contribution also material to SN, and you go very well as Admin. I thank you for the work you do, especially when I’m bothered by your comments, but this is not the case I refer to when you intervene to express indulgence towards the action of “dumping” on people by self-styled ex-sannyasins and various renegades.
As you have already done with me I would like to read the profiling of the other friends of SN, if this is your way to contribute intellectually to the formation of the virtual reality of this small corner of the web.
Big hug, love, yours, VF
* TINA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_is_no_alternative
It is not correct, Arpana, in an ideal space with zero friction a fart matters.
@veet francesco. 5 February, 2019 at 2:51 pm
Fantastic metaphor, but to which of my posts is this referring?
@ Arpana 1:45
No, it’s the way of the Jedis in ‘Star Wars’
Perfectly correct, Arpana!
The shadow forces of evil must be repelled!
To the barricades, O heroic guardians of the ultimate truth of mighty Bhorat!
The high priests of anti-Sannyas must be crushed in order for Osho`s vision to shine forth! The disgusting forces of destabilisation and ex-sannyasin devil-worship masquerading as British humour must be ethically cleansed from SN for all time!
We must, as VF so clearly writes, not allow non-sannyasins to come here to judge with their parameters the disciples of Osho!
We are not a cult!
It is indeed a joyous day for the new man as these heroic new men unleash new weapons against the heretics every day!
Let the true apostles destroy the apostates!
Satchit`s parrot replies will certainly send the unconscious devils packing with the force of Long John Silver in an ass-kicking contest! Then Arpana`s genius trick of repeating what everyone says back to them will strike fear into baboons of all shapes and sizes who will come to know what kind of intelligence they are dealing with!
And if all that fails, reams of mind-numbing, pretentious, pseudo-intellectual prose from the heart and other lower chakras will certainly bore to death any stragglers, forcing them to flee!
This maquis of super-consciousness will certainly rebuff all the creeping forces of the Devil!
Onwards, Osho soldiers!
Yahoo!
Hari Om!
Have you ever thought of starting your own cult, Anand Yogi?
Would be awesome!!
Utterly correct, Arpana!
But,unlike western baboons who change their religion like they change their underwear and girlfriends, one day blowing the Pope and kissing his ring, the next falling on knees in front of lingam of Indian guru, I am committed for life to the cult of my guru, Swami Bhorat, as envisaged by the wise men of ancient Bharat who realised that freedom can only come through total fan-club levels of devotion to an all-powerful master!
It is certainly a great thing that disciples such as you and the other new men on this site do not make the errors so common of westerners of being a light unto yourself, thinking for yourself and stringing coherent sentences together, which are all simply the mind working with the cunning of a devil!
I am a great devotee! I cannot hide my pride in the fact that I have been singled out to be buggered senseless by the ever-compassionate Swami Bhorat every morning and evening for the past 30 years and am now paralysed from the waist down, yet I still speak glowingly of the master who then, in another amazing display of compassion, has installed wheelchair access into his bedroom!
How unlike wretched high priests of anti-Sannyas, baboons and failed disciples with over-sized craniums who ran away in the 70s and 80s and have attempted to destroy Osho`s vision ever since by twisting the words of truth of the master`s message of love, life and laughter by spending their lives loving to have a laugh!
Yahoo!
Hari Om!
I am sorry not to capture all the nuances of your soul, Anand Yogi, but the simple fact that you do not have a big skull makes you sympathetic. Like anger, even my compassion does not need so much to be triggered.
Your creativity is always welcome, Yogi bear, speaks my parrot.
On the contrary, Anal Yogi, I only ask that I could answer you with the same expressive freedom accorded to you, although I do not want to hide like you behind a nickname. Don’t you feel at home with Osho?
Regarding what the favourite hole of your brain has launched in my direction, I make you softly notice that the world does not stop laughing after a 10 strokes swim in the Straits of Dover.
Without any commitment, apart from the one with your ego, shameful about the risk of being exposed and labelled (with any label, except the one suggested by your ego, ‘label desecrator’ in this case), your neuronal implant is safe from any intellectual effort, then from any possibility of appearing pretentious or brilliant…What is the name of that game – ‘Seek & Try’, or ‘Leela’?
Who of us two does not want to play totally, pendejo?
Satchit, in fact I was sleeping like a baby, something must have awakened me; usually it’s when I can not take the position of SIDS*, fighting something much harder than me and Lokesh’s head.
*SIDS: sudden infant death syndrome
This is the position where I wanted to place the comment ((copied and pasted below) that I mistakenly sent above (it could be deleted, MOD), otherwise it is not understandable, missing the support of things said before and in the right order:
“This clarification, thanks to Satyadeva, gives me the opportunity to focus on a question for Shantam Prem:
I would like to ask SP, if he shares the usefulness of the distinction made by me, if his criticism is directed more towards the Resort in its efficiency or effectiveness.
If he is more worried about money being stolen or that Osho’s message gets corrupted, for example with a job of re-editing (imperceptible twists)”.
MOD:
Veet F, surely this comment was already in the right place (9.28pm last night), after Shantam’s general criticism of the ‘regime’ (8am yesterday)?
@MOD:
“if he shares the usefulness of the distinction made by me.”
I was not sure that SP and other friends had first read my comment below, where I talk about the distinction between efficiency and effectiveness with SD.
Osho went on improving his Vision about His place. He left His body after completing His Work. But the bloody Shantam: he talks “Science” but he is very terrible in scientific thinking.
No need for modesty.
Satchit, I like your way of prodding Lokesh -funny.
From what I have seen it is the only way to get him out of his emotional register, the one he elected to impress people here, which oscillates between cynicism, judging others and romanticism, in whimpering about his frailties of an elderly man.
In this he also pretends to be sophisticated, relying on some friendship here that forgives his predictable superficiality.
I speak, above all, of his bold intellectual dishonesty, as when he pretends not to know that in SN “i’m sorry” normally has the emotional impact of a belch.
Geewhizz. Looks like Veet has joined the fight for the crown. Starting to look like a tag wrestling match…with no ref in sight.
Well, Lokesh,
Never forget Shantam´s tribal facebook set-intrigues; and that stupidity in combination with some IT skills (maybe de plus some IT hacking skills) sells nowadays.
I met ´Shantam´ in a fairly bad disguise at a Munich bus stop near my home here a year or so ago and I met by chance also a woman named ´Rita´ who helped him to harrass me that way. It was winter time like now and I won’t forget it.
What I also won´t forget is that his former meeting with Sheela in Switzerland, which he then put as a youtube stance onto the internet, he had done with a hidden camera and which is clearly to be recognized (also by his ‘followers’, who complained in the comments area about the ‘small picture of the target’ (her)).
And even if I really don´t like Sheela at all, the least to say – and by experience I can say – is that Shantam (the so-called ´interviewer´) showed by the tone of his voice that he is an asshole of a spy and nothing else – not unlike some of the so-called ‘secret services’´of all kinds are assholes as well!
One should indeed know that when visiting a viral caravanserai like ours. Doesn´t necessarily mean that one is spared.
But feels good to say it now.
Madhu
P.S:
No ´crown´of whatsoever is waiting for whomsoever re whatsoever issues, and I´m really pissed off by some of the ´competition-lines’! In general!
Oh oh, looks like Satchit and Shantam might have another challenger in the ring. Once more SN is heating up. Get your motor running!
Madhu, have you tried to put less coffee in the cappuccino?
A comment like yours, why should it encourage newcomers to the caravanserai more than those of SP?
Do you really believe that the present or future of Sannyas is this atmosphere within the Sangha of total distrust, with peaks of paranoia, as you described?
Do not be afraid to write my name, I am not an exalted pacifist like you but a non-violent one, and then a woman (if she does not want) one should not even touch her with a flower.
Thanks, Veet Francesco, re your recommendation on the ´cappucino-level´.
1. You might be right there…
2. I didn´t join this UK/SN Chat (more than 4 years ago) to take a role to encourage newcomers but for the reason that stuff was (sometimes even now is) brought onto the surface, which moved and moves me the last decades. And wanted to share and come into contact this way.
3. There is no paranoia happening on my side if I state that stalking and totally untransparent communication (even intrigues and harrassments on the street-work level) have become major issues these last decades – as we all are part of it in our immaturity in coping with the technical digital progress. And sannyasins (or ex-sannyasins) are not an exception. (Some of the former qualities of honest face-to-face meetings of our tribe, so to say, went down the drain, I felt/I´m feeling!).
4. You say, Veet Francesco: “I´m not an exalted pacifist, like you, but a non-violent one…” Well, I don´t know, I neither perceive you as “non-violent£ nor myself as an “exalted pacifist”- so nothing can be done at the moment about that.
You wrote a private email to me yesterday; I didn´t like that and sent it to the waste box, but I´m glad that you did publish your thoughts now IN the UK/SN chat caravanserai. That´s the place to be for such, I suggest, there to be viewed by everyone.
Btw, your long response to the topic moved me and it was about the first time of getting the feeling, the opportunity to become more acquainted with you as a being with flesh and bones, so to say.
And thank you for this.
The topic itself, presented as Shantam Prem´s ambitious fantasies about ´past-and-future´, brought me indeed to put up the verses of B.B. – you obviously read what I posted (cited as a quote), and thank you for this!
What B.B. therewith shared with all coming after him I’ve felt deeply connected with for a long, long time in my life (even before I joined Sannyas!). And it has stayed with me, in gratitude, that someone more talented as a wordsmith found/finds a way to shed light about what we call ´the human condition´. That´s contemporary stuff. even if the very poet has passed on.
And more of it, is – maybe – to acknowledge it as an antidote to ANY fanaticism, I´d say. And the latter is urgently needed!
Uuuuh, I’ve had two cups of cappucino already today, Veet Francesco…Uuuuh! And I admit, I simply love that bitter taste of goof coffee beans. But who knows if and when a change is happening re that.
Thanks anyway, for inspiring me to respond the way you did.
And may you have a beautiful day, wherever you are.
Here at my place, it’s looking grey as grey can be and it’s rainig tiny little drops of a winter day in february…cool as cool can be….
Madhu
Excellent post, Madhu. I really enjoyed the Brecht quotation.
I had a part in ‘The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui’ years ago.
Agree, Arps, good contribution from Madhu.
Thank you for your answer, Madhu.
Btw, even here rain and grey sky, but after a session of Ashtanga Yoga I feel like a lion and I can feel the sun behind the clouds.
Yes, now I also deserve a cappuccino.
Is Ms. Madhu writing comedy or she needs psychiatric intervention?
Re what will become of Sannyas in the future? As chance would have it, I had a future-life progression therapy session yesterday. Under hypnosis, I travelled forward in time to 2171.
I was expecting to find a world where more than 50% of people did dynamic, everyone was walking around with their feet 2 inches off the ground, you could cut the bliss with a bread knife, government was headed up by gorgeous tantricas with beaming smiles, the police helped old ladies across the road and then went back to the station to play tarot cards, and footballers hugged when they had just conceded a goal…but this is what it was really like:
My memory of the future was of getting out of an electric rickshaw (which a sign on the back indicated was “Hypothecated to the State Bank of Osho”). There were pictures of Arun and Kirti with garlands round their necks hanging over the window. The cabbie, a guy dressed in red wearing a mala, started to talk to me: “I am from Oshoite family” he said, chest swelling with pride, “I hate Sunnyasins”. He paused, spat forcefully onto the ground and growled “Sisterfuckers.”
He proudly pointed to his vibhuti-stained windscreen picture of the Samadhi (now relocated in Delhi) and proclaimed proudly, “Whoever owns the stick owns the buffalo.” Then he lit some incense, and as he mumbled his mantra, “Shri Ram, jai Ram, jai jai Osho, Yahoo Yahoo” in reverend tones, I couldn’t help noticing a little doll of a bald man with a long beard hanging from his rear view mirror, whose hat lit up in flashing neon every time we went over a bump and mechanically spoke the words “I leave you my dream. I leave you my dream.”
He dropped me off at a chai shop where the first thing I noticed on the wall was a large calendar with a picture of a blue-skinned Osho sitting cross-legged in a Rolls Royce in a marble hall with Om signs emanating from his folded hands and then another picture of Osho from the Ranch days surrounded by maroon-uniformed guys with sub-machine guns and the sutra “Death is the biggest illusion” written in Arabic-style script above it. I noticed that the bottom of the poster read: “Calendar sponsored by Osho aggregates and pharmaceutical/ industrial/military corporation”.
The maroon-clad chai shop owner greeted me: “Hari Om, Yahoo, Jai Osho.” He had a Kalashnikov phaser slung over his shoulder and in the back of the shop I could see an old picture of a distinguished-looking white man with a beard which was riddled with bullet-holes and had obviously been used for target practice, with the slogan “Death to alcoholic baboons” scrawled under it.
The chai-wallah put the kettle on. The sound of rumbling phaser-fire from the nearby raging battle slowly but surely started to grow louder and louder until it seemed to be outside the very door of the shop.…
The chai-shop owner turned to me, clutched his mala and, fixing me in the eye with a psychotic glint, demanded menacingly:
“Are you ready to die for Osho`s vision..? Is there anything more worthy to die for than the truth?”
That`s when I came back.
“It is believed that the Devil says lies but it is false, since the whole world knows how to discover lies; the Devil takes the truth and gives it an imperceptible twist.” (Sri Aurobindo).
Frank, maybe your caricature is the result of a long process, twist after twist.
“It is believed that the Devil says lies but it is false, since the whole world knows how to discover lies; the Devil takes the truth and gives it an imperceptible twist.” (Sri Aurobindo).
Marvellous insight.
The Devil rules!
“Posterity”, Shatam Prem – so I read it today in the Wiki British dictionary – “waves no garlands for imitators.”
After having had short glimpses approaching invitations for some sanity (Lokesh and especially Frank and his kind of team…Yogi and some others, I guess) I´ve been looking for the prosa-petic verses Berthold Brecht left for those who came after him. I´d like to have that re the thread topic here:
“Truly, I live in dark times.
An artless word is foolish, a smooth forhead points to insensitivity.
He who loves has not yet received the message.
What times are these, in which a conversation about trees is almost a crime.
For in doing so we maintain silence about so much wrongdoing!
And he, who walks quietly across the street, passes out of the reach of his friends, who are in danger.
It is true: I work for a living – but believe me, that is coincidence.
Nothing that I do gives me the right to eat my till.
They tell me to eat and drink, be glad about what I have.
But how can I eat and drink when I take what I eat from the starving and those who thirst have no glass of water?
And yet I eat and drink.
I would happily be wise.
The old books teach us what wisdom is:
To retreat from the strife of the world, to live out the brief time that is our lot without fear, to make our way without violence, to repay evil with good.
The wise do not seek to satisfy their desires, but to forget them.
Truly, I live in dark times.
I came into the cities in a time of disorder, as hunger reigned.
I came among men in a time of turmoil and I rose up with them.
And so I passed the time given to me on earth.
I ate my food between slaughterers.
I laid down to sleep amongst murderers
I tended to love with abundance.
I looked upon nature with impatience and so passed the time given to me on earth.
In my time streets led into a swamp.
My language betrayed me to the slaughterers.
There was little I could do, but without me, the rulers sat more securely, so I hoped.
You, who shall resurface, following the flood in which we have perished, contemplate – when you speak of the dark times, you have escaped,
For we went forth, changing our country more frequently than our shoes
Through the class warfare, despairing that there was only injustice and no outrage.
And yet, we knew:
Even the hatred of squalor distorts one´s features
Even the anger against injustice makes the voice grow hoarse.
We, who wished to lay the foundation of gentleness, could not ourselves be gentle.
But you, when at last the times come that man can aid his fellow man
Should think of us with leniency.”
Berthold Brecht in ‘The Danish Exile’, 1939.
Okay, Madhu, that was what Berthold said, what do you have to say about the topic? I’m interested in your point of view.
I never expected spiritual master to be a magician or a messiah.
Osho by and large did not nourish this idea. He was speaking rationally, intelligently. Other than Rajneeshpuram misadventure, he created His ashram the way someone creates modern day hospital or a company headquarters.
What Lokesh mentioned in the first post, something like “Saying someone has left their body implies that there is something leaving the body which is not dead or dying”, implies one thing: it is true not just for Osho but for Ronald Reagan and Pope the Polack too.
As far as shape of the work created by Osho, as I see, under the non-charismatic, fearful, vindictive and adulterous management, Neo-Sannyas is not a movement any more but one of the cults on the footnotes of fast moving humanity.
Few Indians will surely try to keep the flame alive by keeping the movement as a small religious sect.
Says Shantam, the non-charismatic, fearful, vindictive and adulterous nonentity.
When Arpana throws the same words back, it means original words have done their work.
How people protect their rotten priests; too deep a conditioning from the tribal times.
When Shantam throws the words like this around, it means he is as always avoiding facing the truth.
He is a rotten priest; with too deep a conditioning from the tribal times.
Yes…yes, Arpana. Great to see your support of Shantam, a fearful, vindictive and adulterous nonentity. Just the sort of feedback needed to help him regain his Champion Chump title. Now, that is what I call true brotherhood.
Shantam needs no help from me to prove he’s champion chump toothless baboon of all time.
You, Lokesh, are closer to taking his title than Satchit and Veet Francesco.
MOD:
Ok, can we stop the name-calling now, please, gents, and get back to discussing issues – or is that impossible?
At one level it’s very amusing – and maybe all that in itself is a pertinent comment on the topic, ‘What has neo-Sannyas evolved into?’?! Is that so?
You, Lokesh, are closer to taking his title than Satchit and Veet Francesco.
Arpana, flattery will get you nowhere.
I’ve noticed you do this before:
You get pretty heavy at times, and then suddenly you flip into good-natured leg-pulling and the more you do it, the more good-natured you get.
I’m just amused by your recent sallies in my direction, your sallies at VF and Satchit; your truth speaking to Shantam.
Arpana, Shantam is in reality a very sweet bloke. Of course, there is this nasty spy business with Madhu, but she might just be making that up because of Brexit.
I didn´t make anything up, Lokesh.
However, some here and you too, did/do like to see it that way…
And that´s your ´business´….
Ehm…er…well, terribly sorry, Madhu. I really thought you were making up the spy story about Shantam because of Brexit.
Shantam, Sannyas cannot be a movement of a group.
At the most it can be a movement of the individual to more understanding, from the outer to the inner.
Keep it up, Satchit. Hold on to that crown for as long as you can.
Football fans will appreciate that the situation with the SN Village Idiot Crown is much like the Premier League – it`s just got a lot more competitive recently. Shantam finds that he is no longer “The Special One” and that his style is becoming hopelessly outdated due to an influx of continentals who are threatening to leave him trailing in their wake as they introduce their own unique groundbreaking brands and styles of idiocy to the mix.
If he`s going to claw his way back to the top he may have to completely reinvent himself, Gary,and at his age that may just be a bridge too far.
Mind you, if he manages it he will certainly go down in history as one of the true greats. It`s early doors, of course, and don`t forget that it`s a brain of two halves.
Yes, Frank, it’s early doors, right enough. I’m torn between Break on Through, Strange Days, Texas Radio and the Big Beat.
I tell you this:
No eternal reward will
Forgive us now for
Wasting the dawn.
P.S:
Cancel my subscription to the resurrection.
Lokesh,
The one writing here under your name will not resurrect anyway (so your wish is already fulfilled from your first breath to your last, and you know that, I guess).
To embody such truth, however, is yet something else.
And I love that you – here and there – show up with gratitude towards those who did take care of your growth,
as you did in your first response to the thread topic, which touched me deeply like some of the other contributions.
Would be beautiful if it all turns out well for a little while on these bumpy roads from ´Here-to-Here-and Now.
As such feels well for a wounded heart.
Madhu
Satyadeva, you know by any chance if Frank is a sannyasin in the flesh or is it just part of the nickname legions who comes up with a fart by Lokesh?
It does not seem fair to me that a non-sannyasin comes here to judge with his parameters the disciples of Osho.
Do you guarantee for the offences that he spreads on SN?
Or do you advise me to use a nickname to bless his mother? Canadian mother, maybe?
MOD:
Veet F, no one around SN knows Frank, but we’re 99% certain he has impeccable sannyas credentials and is definitely not Lokesh!
‘Frankly’, I don’t think you quite grasp his particular brand of satirical humour.
@MOD
Ah, ok, calling people “idiot” is funny, let me try…
“I hope you are not so idiot not to grasp my humour.”
MOD:
I refer the honourable gentleman to my previous comment.
“Is Ms. Madhu writing comedy or she needs psychiatric intervention?” Both.
Shantam, you will never get your crown back by asking sensible questions. Try some good, old-fashioned racist comments. Worked in the past, why not now? I know you have it in you…so let’s have a broadside and see you back in the throne room where you belong. Bombs away!
Arpana asked me to do a humanimetric test, the verdict was INFJ.
It seems that the description coincides with the perfect sannyasin, one of those who have the responsibility and the pleasure of sharing the love and the vision of the New Man.
I ask to all the ‘unworthy (according to me) contributors to SN’*,who suspect to be such, to give the test, and received confirmation to move away from this sacred place.
http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/jtypes2.asp
MOD:
Re last parag., VeetF:
Do you mean you’re asking, or that you’ve already asked via this test?
* This description was substituted for hostile asbuse.
@MOD
Maybe I was not self-ironic enough and I do not see the relevance of your question; it is obvious that mine is a logical forcing, which should amplify the implicit (forcing) in every judgment.
You did well to censor me, in fact I had not thought that if I had played the role of the asshole I would have taken away space from others.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glCPkrtNBZo
MOD:
Post edited.
Veet F, the meaning of the last parag. of your previous post is not “obvious” at all – that’s why I asked you to clarify it.
Perhaps you mean “receive”, not “received”?
@MOD
To me it sounds more tautological to the past verb, but I do not guarantee my British sense of humour.
MOD:
Veet F, take another look, it’s pretty simple. And don’t worry, no humour involved here!
”It seems that the description coincides with the perfect sannyasin, one of those who have the responsibility and the pleasure of sharing the love and the vision of the New Man.”
VF’s words. Not mine.
✌(-‿-)✌”
Do not be humble, Arpana.
My full sannyas name is Swami Prem Humble Arpana, yah know, VF!
Cult* it was from the very begining – a no-cult-cult!
For me, Neo-Sannyas has always been ‘coming to myself’.
Osho in reality now to me means finding a loving way of living and living one’s life as much as possible according to one’s own awareness.
*Cult – Urban Dictionary meaning:
Any flood of religious cuckbois who believe in a God, idol, guardian, deity or of the like. They are often ambitious/extremist zealots and can be of any culture, belief or religion, be it Christianity,Jewish, Muslim, Atheist, etc. They will often argue or fight solely for their preferred religion and deny all others just to protect theirs. They often refuse to listen to others not of their own and will fuck you over provided you oppose them or refuse to join.
P.S:
Pause & watch at 14.40, don’t blink!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oBcI2HKCzc .
Thanks for sharing, Kavita.
P.S. for Kavita:
Your special recommendation of the vid in youtube with the guy talking – I couldn´t understand so far why you posted that.
Madhu, in Pakistan there is a beautiful restaurant called ‘Osho…(something)’. Is it not incredible in that country?
Not so much if the proprietor(s) have a Japanese or Indian connection, Veet.
I mean in a ‘so muslim’ a country, SD.
Yes, understood. But how many in Pakistan know who Osho was? And where was the restaurant? If in a less populated area then calling the place by that name might not have been such a risk. Perhaps a different matter though in a big city?
SD, are you underestimating Osho or the Pakistanis?
I don’t know, Veet, I’ll let you have ‘fun’ with that one.
Osho does not only live in a Pakistani restaurant, but also in a South African coal mine.
http://www.oshoventures.com/
Interesting that they have OSHO and his signature on their website.
Seems OIF does not make copyright claim – maybe they are even the owner.
SD, there are quite a few Osho sannyasins now, they operate quite openly now. There are a few intelligent Pakistanis who read Osho. If one checks the ‘Who’s Online’ on SN, you will see Pakistan.
I think that is quite an evolution, coming from an Islamic country.
Even a few of their Urdu television serials seem to be influenced by Osho. My mother loved to watch Pakistani serials until about 3 years back, then ofcourse she lost interest in any serials, she enjoyed only Hindi music sung by children!
I thought I anwsered both of Shantam’s queries in my first post!
Interesting, Kavita.
You say, “Even a few of their Urdu television serials seem to be influenced by Osho”. Could you say in what specific ways?
I remember a scene where the actor was mentioning, “meditation is a cure for mental upheaval.” Also, they had many buddha photos hung in their homes/sets.
https://www.quora.com/Are-there-any-disciples-of-OSHO-in-Pakistan
Some potentially interesting topics listed at the right of the link page as well. Thanks, Kavita.
http://sannyasnews.org/now/archives/3222
SD, Quora is a great website for most queries. Better to use one’s time on such websites than websites like FB!
SD, I tried to find the owner on ‘trip advisor’ after I watched the video, but was not successful.
Madhu, I think VF already answered your question.
Thanks, VF, seems you watched the whole video!
You’re welcome, Kavita.
I take this opportunity to ask you:
If you were not lazy and had a lot of money, where do you think you would spend it more efficiently, in a meditation centre in Pune or Pakistan?
Subtitle: Is the ‘Indian bureaucracy’ or the ‘Pakistani theocracy’ more expensive for you?
None of the choices you gave me, VF!
If I feel like, maybe I donate anonymously to some unknown Indian institution.
Swamiji, with confidence, “God is dead.”
But swamiji, what about your guru who died?
“Hehehe. He is everywhere!”
This is one common mind-set among the orphaned followers of one late Mr. Jain who implanted himself as master in the mind and heart of some people who got attracted towards him through his books. Nothing wrong in it. It is all legitimate in a psycho-religious spiritual world.
What I find unjustified behaviour is the condemnation of others who have created religion out of it and these clever goats do the same but still want to have high moral ground. This clever, shrewd behaviour is not innocence, the childlike innocence very much talked about.
What I find unjustified behaviour is the condemnation of others by Shantam, the clever goat who wants to have high moral ground. This clever, shrewd behaviour is not innocence, the childlike innocence very much talked about.
This clarification, thanks to Satyadeva, gives me the opportunity to focus on a question for Shantam Prem:
I would like to ask SP if he shares the usefulness of the distinction made by me, if his criticism is directed more towards the Resort in its efficiency or effectiveness.
If he is more worried about money being stolen or that Osho’s message gets corrupted, for example with a job of re-editing (imperceptible twists).
“Osho went on improving his Vision about His place. He left His body after completing His Work. But the bloody chief disciples and masses of believers: they talk about their “Science” but they are very terrible in scientific thinking.”
Seems you are discontent, Shantam.
Do you really believe if Sannyas would function according to your ideas, this would make you happy?
For those of you, silent onlookers (and very, very few visible contributors (left) on this SN-caravanserai website) participating the one or the other way in the ‘star-wars’ re so-alled spiritual commune-i-cation topics here:
There might be a way out of some of the addiction issues. Invitations to come out of fixed patterns and rules (which mostly end up in hostility, the one or the other kind) leading rather to a depressed approach to a living sharing and evolutionary play.
Late yesterday night I viewed andlistened to Judy Cohen (California) at Buddha At the Gas Pump.com, published quite recently, a few days ago.
A Heart-Refreshing contribution, so I´d like to recommend it here for viewing and Listening. Her work, if one can name it ´work´, can be found at ´irreverentmind.com´ in the web and in the long interview, she was open to share with Rick Archer, the founder of batgap.com.
A contribution to the evolution issue encapsulated in the topic of the thread re the ´questions´ Shantam Prem was putting here.
We´re all dissolving in permanence – any, any living moment, and the Mystic, The Master, we´re ´loving ´ and did ´love´ at the level of our consciousness, did know that, you bet!
And the way He shared that knowing made Him so irresistible, didn´t it?
Not that easy to balance some peak of some moments (one wants to hold on from the past) in the rivering of Life we´re simply into.
If we´re acknowledging that. Or not.
With Love,
Madhu
MOD:
Madhu, what do you mean by “We´re all dissolving in permanence” (3rd last parag.), please?
Very good question, MODs:
As far as I´m able to respond, it points at our ´nothingness´ (quite an insult to my/our all egoic striving to appear as a separate (and important…) entity, claiming the latter as if our very life in the body would be dependent on such performance and recognition by others.
It does not depend on such, as we all – some more, some less – would agree, I guess (on an intellectual level).
However, the Master did encourage us for expression, didn´t He? But as far as I understood or understand it, to get – at one moment or another – so much exhausted about our inevitable failures on this kind of level
that – not unlike participating in some famous ´STOP` exercises a ´Gurdjieff´ (prolonged) – we drop our ongoing striving.
Point is, that the deep relaxation (and peace) we´re all longing for cannot be accomplished by a mere intellectual understanding. And so – failure upon failure is plastering our ways and happening as long as it´s happening.
However, it´s all dissolving anyway; moment to moment. Our failures as our so-called success. That´s good ´news´.
But to really feel that such is ´good news´ (while embodied) takes its own time. As well as not to be ´insulted´ by such ‘good news’ takes (for sure) its own time too (maybe lifetimes upon lifetimes…).
Sorry, MODs, this is a long response…but I really loved your question!
And thank you for that.
Madhu
Madhu, I like your new voice, or my new ear listening to you.
Does it depend on the less bitter cappuccino?
Thanks also for the links to the Buddha Gas Pump.
The New Man:
Non-repressive and non-judgmental attitude, without necessarily becoming cynical or apathetic; on the contrary, remaining passionate, and in wonder, like children.
@ Lokesh,
Provocation as a means for inter-human relating is a quite different pair of (verbal) shoes to wear, even though, quite often, it is not that easy to differentiate (discover).
As far as I experience – you, Lokesh, are much and mostly into provocation.
But provocation just for provocation’s sake distorts the possibility of relating, and relating in theses cases falls apart, distorted.
And this way, when spilling such seeds and beans, you – as well as others – contribute to some of the hostility happening on this website corner; in a more hidden way though, and often camouflaged by your Scottish humour, you might say..(?).
Madhu, do you use me to talk to Lokesh?
After all, he uses me only because sometimes he is anguished by death.
No, Veet, you got that wrong; I´ve been sharing my own experience here in the course of quite some time since I´m writing here; no use from my side to hide behind anybody else re that experience.
So – probably better you also would keep to your ´interior´ (experience) re that issue of your question.
And thank you for this.
Madhu
@ Lokesh, who said on the 31 January, 2019 at 12:23am:
“If you tick the boxes on what represents a religious cult, sect, the Sannyas movement ticks most of the boxes.”
Have just started on ‘The Guru Papers’, and another thought that comes, which seems to me to mitigate against Sannyas as cult, more particularly during the Oregon time, is that we engaged with the world.
We went to discos in our malas and red clothes. Formed relationships with people who were nothing to do with Sannyas or meditation, in our malas and red clothes. Continued to interact with our birth families, in our malas and red clothes. Went to supermarkets, alone, in malas and red clothes. Some of us, in our malas and red clothes, even told power-tripping pricks, in their malas and red clothes, to fuck off.
That is definitely not cultish. People in cults don’t have that freedom.
I think you will not have a reply, Arpana. For him to unveil his inconsistency and intellectual dishonesty means to expose the two main ingredients of his stylistic code.
The problem, Veet, with such a self-defensive response to good, ie genuinely funny satire is that it reinforces the point the writer is making, much of which is concerned with ridiculing self-importance, puncturing all kinds of pretentious twaddle, bringing us back down to earth.
Of course, one might not think it’s any good if one happens to be one of its targets, but to me it hits the spot, cheers me up as I laugh out loud. Good therapy, I find!
SD,
Have you posted this against the wrong post?
Did you mean to place it after Anand Yogi’s latest offering?
Don’t think so, Arps, no. Seems a rather strange question to me!
“It seems that the description coincides with the perfect sannyasin, one of those who have the responsibility and the pleasure of sharing the love and the vision of the New Man.”
In your opinion, Arpana, for the universal parameters of self-irony codified by the old spinster, should I specify that the above quote was not dictated by my superiority complex?
No.
Thanks, Arpana, then you probably regretted having collected the judgment by SD about your alleged seriousness.
I will continue to trust my heart and do not give a shit about the rest.
VF, when did SD comment about my seriousness?
SD, if you are happy then why should I become submissive?
No reason at all, of course, Veet.
But clearly, your ‘buttons’ have been well and truly pressed by that stuff. As a result you’re coming across as rather too serious about yourself, I’m afraid (an extremely serious offence in sannyas circles, of course). Which, as I said, compounds the success of the satirical exercise.
Dear Satyadeva, you get the point, self-irony is an ingredient to be preserved in a ‘sannyas circle’, along with many others which must find the right harmony.
If laughter becomes the totem that must distract attention from the spiritual desert around, then, paradoxically, the scenario becomes serious or aggressive, judging, as if it were a taboo, the one who does not laugh, possibly in an English way.
I do not know you but I would bet a Capricciosa that you can not simulate for a quarter of an hour the passion of the most apathetic person in a pizzeria in Naples, and for me you are ok as you are, but if you want to make me laugh…try it.
As I said, the satire has clearly succeeded, ie I’ve enjoyed it, had a good laugh, and you, apparently one of its targets, resorting to finding refuge in fantasies of an imagined ‘enemy’, have been ‘hit’.
Touche, mon vieux (as the French say).
But you know, Satyadeva, now that you make me think about it, you’re right.
Goodnight, it’s late for you.
Spoken like a “new man”, old boy!
G’night!
@ SD:
To what does this comment about uncles pertain, old bean?
To Satchit’s post of today, 11.15am, young lentil.
Who’s a witty fellow then?! ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ
MOD:
Please translate the symbols, Arpana!
@ Mod:
Means you made me laugh.
Hail Bhorat!
Arpana symbolises all those bigot minds giving grass roots support to religions.
It is such a tedious job to reform religions for the reason, followers never, ever believe their priests are humans just like everybody, therefore prone to wrong decisions.
It is also ok.
No university has ever approved the theory, ‘Change of names advertently changes the minds.’
Shantam symbolises all those bigot minds giving grass roots support to religions. Just a self-righteous, old- fashioned, sex-obsessed, religious conservative.
Arpana, thank God that I have to run towards my (?) Sweet Oksana (pilates) and I have no time to correct, lovingly, that rigidity of your index finger.
@ Satchit 12.07 today:
Satchit, OIF (via OIF Switzerland in Zürich) via a Swiss doc-filmer are busy suing NETFLIX (WWC) (little bit late, isn´t it?) for using a substantial amount of footage about the Ranch time and more without consent.
Meanwhile, a Bollywood actress is in training to perform as ´Sheela´ whose life-script is about to happen as a movie in one of these serial kinds of shit on screens, happening every day and everywhere (also in Pakistan, I guess..).
No-news on Sannyas-News….
When cult members become mentally sick, they project themselves as warrior victims living in the sick society.
One such lady who writes on this site, has written few days ago about being stalked by Shantam in Munich. I think those who can imagine people behind the words can guess who is suffering from some kind of psychological paranoia and phobias.
To be wounded, to be sad, to be in anguish is very human and the expression of those feelings also creates good and reliable prose.
As far as Shantam in Munich, it was more than 20 years ago.
Shantam the religious bigot, who is mentally sick, is projecting himself as a warrior victim, living in a sick society.
Arpana, I would never want you as a mediator in a fight.
And he was called…oxidizing.
MOD:
What does the second line mean, please, Veet F?
VEET F:
It’s a reminiscence by a truck driver, when I was carrying dangerous goods. Maybe I should write ‘comburent’ in place of “oxidizing”:
“A fire needs to have three fundamental elements:
The fuel.
The heat: the presence of an adequate temperature is necessary for the trigger to take place.
The comburent: role usually played by oxygen” (Arpana blowing on fire).
Shantam Prem, Madhu’s public denunciation is also displeasing to me.
I have not expressed my solidarity with you because I believe that the use of the word “stalker” in this context is somewhat inflated.
When a founder of an enterprise is alive, it is bound to be autocracy during his lifetime. As long as Osho was alive, all others were part of the Orchestra, master was conducting the show. He could have chosen the successor, there was enough time to think over all the visible possibilities. That successor would have become the new master.
In this way, most of the ashram enterprises work. Most of the time one child of the guru occupies the autocratic seat, sometimes it is one close disciple. Osho has broken this tradition, if a master choses 20 people out of 5000, is it not an example of democratic meritocracy?
Here lies the honeytrap. All these 20 people were sitting in a semi-circle as various animals sit before a circus ringleader. Once ringleader collapsed, animals came back to their natural state. Those who were controlling the finance occupied the centre stage. Circus collapsed, its good will got tattered.
Since sannyasnews is back, I have lost interest in Caravanserai, the uncensored chatbox for the boys. While checking my email, I came across an automatic mail response where my name was mentioned. Some guy, one can guess who that idiot can be, has written a comment about me:
“When Shantam throws the words like this around, it means he is as always avoiding facing the truth about himself. He is a rotten priest; with a very deep conditioning from his Sikh tribal times.”
It seems this swami thinks himself as the illegitimate or legitimate son of some mystic recently died, therefore, no trace of any tribal trace on his mind.
This person shows his ugly streak so often by repeating the words of anyone who shakes his fanatical beliefs.
@Shantam, Sikh priest:
“When Shantam throws the words like this around, it means he is as always avoiding facing the truth about himself. He is a rotten priest; with a very deep conditioning from his Sikh tribal times.”
If it turns out that the Resort is not to blame, there`s always…
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-47154287
Logical thing would be for the guy to kill himself, and probably his parents as well.
Sounds as if it’s time to inform him that we, apparently, choose our parents, time of birth, etc., for karmic purposes. Mind you, who exactly this pre-conception “we” is is not necessarily straightforward to define…or to experience….
Reflecting on this strange story, I reckon this chap could well be the ‘New Messiah’ we’ve all (or some of us anyway) have been waiting for (or expecting)…
You know, a Messiah – an Avatar even – for the world-weary, cynical, post-modern, too-clever-by-half, chronically disconted, unhappy twenty-first century. Far more appropriate to begin at ‘Life is shit, it’s all their fault’ (albeit from a comfortable middle-class family home) than any ‘God is Love’ nonsense.
After all, with a start like that the only way is, er, ‘within’, isn’t it? What a brilliant cosmic teaching, as a disillusioned, dying world follows his story and eventual ‘awakening’….
Shantam Prem,
On 6 February @9:40 am, you posted:
“Shantam won´t forget his spiritual master has left a body of 20 people chosen from just 5000 available disciples to take care of the day-to-day management of His new creation created from scratch after the destruction of ill-conceived project in USA.
With His whole wisdom, an autocrat master left behind a democratic body. This is in accord with Nature.”
You describe Rajneeshpuram as being “ill-conceived” even though the conception came from Osho (Himself), yet in the 2nd paragraph you bestow upon him the virtue of “wisdom”, presumably because the ‘Pune 21′ was something you approved of.
History seems to show that your original judgment of Osho was correct, as his notion of 21 sannyasins being stable was also ill-conceived.
Btw, have you ever contacted any of the 21 and invited them to join your crusade to re-establish themselves?