Sannyas News, at best, is a rich diversity of viewpoints. Pluralistic.

I was standing at the bottom of a hill waiting for a bus one early spring morning last year, during a downfall, but just spring rain really, when a woman started to complain about the weather to me. I have long come to terms with British weather, so I just don’t do that any more. And she really began to get off on her tirade, seemed consumed with resentment actually…

And then the sun came out, the rain eased, and as I looked up the hill I could see a canopy of trees, a tunnel of trees bursting with fresh leaves, which were glistening in the sunlight appearing from behind those dispersing grey clouds; the air was electric with that spring rain freshness, and also glistening as the light caught the rain, the moisture in the air, it was absolutely beautiful. And I just looked at the woman, and pointed upwards and she noticed what I had noticed.

A doctor friend of mine did VSO in Tanzania, and told me how people would walk for 6 weeks to see a doctor, and wait for a couple of weeks more when they arrived to see the doctor – and people complain about the NHS if they wait for 5 minutes.

Could you provide a few examples?

Btw, BL’s rough definition of ‘perfection’, applicable to one’s health and general situation was ’80% good, 20% not so good’ – which has always seemed a good, practical criterion to me.

I would say if we humans only let go of about 90% of our 1 billion each, quite reasonable expectations, the world would appear dramatically less awful, and then we might all individually and collectively be able to get a hook on what really needs sorting out.

So while the article’s premise might well be correct (and it took me several readings to fully grasp what it was saying), that’s not necessarily the case if awareness comes into the picture. As, of course, we’ve always found here at SN….

By ”Osho’s extended family” who exactly do you mean by this (in case it’s ok with you to share)?

Here’s a Wiki quote:

“Far from being restricted to a limited number of pathological cases, as American theoreticians suggest, the double bind — a contradictory double imperative, or rather a whole network of contradictory imperatives — is an extremely common phenomenon. In fact, it is so common that it might be said to form the basis of all human relationships.

Bateson is undoubtedly correct in believing that the effects of the double bind on the child are particularly devastating. All the grown-up voices around him, beginning with those of the father and mother (voices which, in our society at least, speak for the culture with the force of established authority) exclaim in a variety of accents, “Imitate us!” “Imitate me!” “I bear the secret of life, of true being!” The more attentive the child is to these seductive words, and the more earnestly he responds to the suggestions emanating from all sides, the more devastating will be the eventual conflicts.

The child possesses no perspective that will allow him to see things as they are. He has no basis for reasoned judgements, no means of foreseeing the metamorphosis of his model into a rival. This model’s opposition reverberates in his mind like a terrible condemnation; he can only regard it as an act of excommunication. The future orientation of his desires — that is, the choice of his future models — will be significantly affected by the dichotomies of his childhood. In fact, these models will determine the shape of his personality.

If desire is allowed its own bent, its mimetic nature will almost always lead it into a double bind. The unchanneled mimetic impulse hurls itself blindly against the obstacle of a conflicting desire. It invites its own rebuffs and these rebuffs will in turn strengthen the mimetic inclination.

We have, then, a self-perpetuating process, constantly increasing in simplicity and fervor. Whenever the disciple borrows from his model what he believes to be the “true” object, he tries to possess that truth by desiring precisely what this model desires. Whenever he sees himself closest to the supreme goal, he comes into violent conflict with a rival. By a mental shortcut that is both eminently logical and self-defeating, he convinces himself that the violence itself is the most distinctive attribute of this supreme goal! Ever afterward, violence will invariably awaken desire…”

(René Girard, ‘Violence and the Sacred: From Mimetic Desire to the Monstrous Double’, pp.156–157)

As I see it, we´re all touched by such an important issue (of double binding, more so if the communication is virtual and at the most, anonymous too).

So – what to do?
Or, what to let go of?
Or – how to transform ongoing sick and sickening (here: verbal) fights and transcend them re an exchange of Human Beings with some of what can be called ´respecting each other as oneself’?

We are here on this tiny little website SN/UK (btw, negligible regarding the whole of the huge amount of madness going on in the internet at large) and it would be so nice if we could manage to make a difference to the whole narcissistic cyber-warring that´s going on, unfortunately.

I´ve been able to be more acquainted with the late Parmartha whose stoic AND integral approaches here and there I really appreciated. I also appreciated to be able by his very comments to realise that when he mentioned the Sannyas Sangha in different historical phases he knew by his skull and bones what he was talking about.

So do I, Friends.

Friends of coming together, Friends of a meditative approach to Living.

Sunday lunch break time…
Sky in a silvery grey here in Munich, with a lot of Light behind the bars of the closed cloudy ´roof’ above.

Yours sincerely, as the British say -

Madhu