What Is The Value Of Meditation? Are Its Effect And Reach Over-Hyped?

Here we have two perhaps quite commonly held contrary views. from two very different characters with very different backgrounds and preferences.. Shantam Prem, from an Indian Sikh heritage, with, I think it’s fair to say, a strong ‘Bhakti’ or devotional tendency, is sceptical about its value. He writes:

“Meditation is too much over-hyped. When things are too much over-hyped they become rubbish! How much over-hyped was Neo Sannyas when the founder created his start-up!

Without ethics and morality, meditation, prayers and other peripheral activities are mental and physical fitness techniques. They solidify the ego’s well-being.

Without ethics and morality, religion and spirituality are like washing powders to remove strains of guilt.

Remorse is the essential element of redemption. There is no other shortcut.

With these straight lines, I wish to start a new discussion: Is not meditation not too much over-hyped in its effect and reach?

But please note: This  is not a sermon but it is my firm belief, which I offer as a suggestion for discussion and comments.”

Arpana, however, an English artist, emphasises “The qualities enhanced and developed by meditation, starting with an understanding I came to about painting.” He explains:

I have often wondered what the benefits of meditation are, and generally speaking I have tended to take on trust that meditation is beneficial; although in my case, meditation, particularly Vipassana, dramatically enhanced my insight capabilities, or rather my insightful capabilities took off after a lengthy spell of twice-a-day Vipassana when I was back in the West after my first and lengthy stay at the ashram.

Such was certainly the case about my own life, which I’m increasingly trusting of,  and to an extent, about others and the world around me, although I’m much more circumspect in my trust about the latter.

This morning, while sitting on a bus, I was pondering a similar question about painting, over and above finding painting rewarding in itself, and developing painting skills; along with working at something that is meaningful and worthwhile to me – all true of meditating;. And a rush of insight came to me that painting,  in my case since 1985, had enhanced the following qualities, developed the following qualities:
Decisiveness and decision-making.
Imagination and making decisions based on how I felt.
Diligence.
Conscientiousness.
Purposefulness.
Tenacity.
Steadfastness.
Taking the rough with the smooth.
Going deeper into functioning without approval or avoidance of disapproval., the need for approval or disapproval. The development of the capacity to do something for myself by myself, without that need for approval or disapproval.
Further enhancement of deferment of gratification.
Insightfulness, and using insight and feeling judgment to make decisions about painting.
This all applies, I then realised, just after I got off the bus, to meditation in various forms: formal meditation, the wearing of the mala and red clothes and the using of Sannyas names.
So in fact the enhancement of those qualities of meditating preceded the making of art, which further enhanced those qualities, and I unconsciously used those qualities to practise TM for the year before I heard of Osho, and before that to practise yoga twice a day for a year, even though I didn’t realise yoga was meditation at the time, and which, in hindsight, impacted on me in ways I have come to associate with formal meditation.

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307 Responses to What Is The Value Of Meditation? Are Its Effect And Reach Over-Hyped?

  1. Prem says:

    “He (Shantam) writes:
    “Meditation is too much over-hyped. When things are too much over-hyped they become rubbish!” ”

    I think what he means is that when meditation goes mainstream we get a pseudo-pop version of meditation, which is rubbish.

    I don’t think he is saying meditation is overrated. He’s saying when something becomes mainstream it becomes perverted.

    I think you’re misrepresenting what he said. And the idea that because he is Indian he is in favour of bhakti and against meditation (considering meditation to be overrated) – this is just a cliche in your mind.

    Just to suggest that “meditation is over-rated” is stupid. But I think what he meant was when something goes mainstream it becomes perverted: “over-hyped” – in the sense that the hype takes over and meditation becomes a “Coca Cola” version of meditation.

    Shantam Prem, can you clarify what you mean?

    The phrase is taken out of context.
    But he seems to think that because you are Indian you must be in favour of bhakti and against meditation. LOL

    MOD:
    Prem, in case you don’t know, Shantam has added a few points to what was originally put up in the article last night.

    P.S:
    We tried to reach you via email today but it couldn’t be delivered.
    Also, please register at this site (see ‘Caravanserai’ page), as required for all contributors.

    • Shantam prem says:

      Sorry, Prem, I did not respond to your point because one man steals all the attention.

      Maybe next time, as the issue has been diluted.
      But thanks anyway, you have tried to understand my point.
      I know now with whom to discuss and who to avoid.
      No one has the obligation to greet everybody.

      With love,

      Shantam

  2. frank says:

    Meditation is no better than just sitting around doing nothing.

  3. Lokesh says:

    I had a career as an artist for twenty years. I was not particularly successful, but I did have two or three sell-out shows on the international circuit, where all of the paintings on show were sold on the opening day. I loved my painting years. Sitting all day in my studio, music playing, doing what I loved. Pure luxury. I do not believe it was a very meditative time in my life, more like self-indulgent.

    I still have quite a big stock of paintings and a few weeks back sold a couple and earned some much needed money. It’s all very well friends telling you how talented you are, but nothing quite beats being paid well for your creativity. I find that too much praise is heaped on being creative. I am very creative, but the truth is that I just tend to indulge myself in what I enjoy doing and, if I am lucky, sometimes something beautiful comes out of it.

    Over the years I came to know many artists and most of them were drinkers. Seems alcohol is the drug of choice for many artists. I know very few artists who are meditators, and if they are their art often has a centred mandala feel to it, although that is, of course, speaking in general. There will always be exceptions. Alex Grey, for example, who uses psychedelics as an aid to creativity.

    As for the great and famous artists, alcohol is also often the drug of choice. I had a friend, now dead, who was friends with Salvador Dali. In my opinion, Dali was a genius, but I do not believe for a moment that he was a meditator. A bit bonkers for sure. How about Vincent, hardly a meditative spirit, a deeply troubled soul yet he produced masterpieces by the dozen.

    Shantam believes meditation to be over-hyped. Personally, I disagree and science would not agree either. Meditation is very good for you. No doubt about it on many levels. And it can be a great aid in creativity. I always liked Meera’s painting and I have an Osho original above my telephone that I find to be really good. Osho was a good artist, considering he had no formal training; an overflowing of the meditative spirit, one might say.

    Shantam being of the Bhakti tendencies? Arpana has the same, if you ask me. I find that Bhakti yoga is the most suspect of all the yogas, because it leaves so much space for the imagination, it is easy to be delusional about the extent of one’s devotion. Kind of like getting in a rap with a Christian and they pull the “you don’t understand our faith” card.

    As I age I am no longer so impressed by such religious ideas. I think the West overestimates the value of Eastern religious concepts on a number of levels, which is not to say they lack value.

    Arpana lists a number of qualities that he sees as having developed due to practising meditation. I am sure that is true. I am also sure that millions of other people have developed those same qualities who have never bothered to learn about meditation.

    I suppose it is a matter of what floats your boat and gets you through the night. It is natural to want to bolster what you are doing in life by attributing benefits to it.

    We are all free to do whatever we wish in life, as long as we do not interfere in other people’s lives. We are very fortunate to have that freedom. Many do not.

    • anand yogi says:

      Perfectly correct, Shantambhai!

      Certainly, ethics, morality and Osho washing powder™ is necessary to remove stains of guilt from 500 year-old chuddies and launder soul after decades of remorseless let-go from lower chakras!

      Matter of the fact is meditation is only over-hyped by dishonest western baboons who have stolen wisdom of mighty East for unredeemed satisfaction and titillation of own vital organs!

      Nevertheless, meditation is miraculous silver bullet cure for all evils!
      And surely Swami Bhorat is the messiah that the world has been waiting for!

      Since I have been meditating under the guidance of Swami Bhorat I have experienced so many benefits in every field of endeavour!

      I have become a great artist, lover, genius, my emotions are completely under control, I am in harmony with the universe, I do not need any approval, I can boil an egg, wipe my own bottom, walk and chew gum at the same time, my ego has almost completely disappeared and I am totally out of my mind!

      In a remarkable development, I am much more loving, considerate and caring with the wife and have also learned how to sustain tantric valley orgasm with 2 Tamil actresses for up to 5 hours!

      I have also developed more compassion towards other family members, too! For example, take my mother-in-law… please!

      The depth of my meditations has made me extraordinarily empathetic and consider those less fortunate than myself with unconditional love and aroused in me a deep sense of philanthropy! Only yesterday, I donated nearly all of my old underwear and socks to Oxfam!

      My intelligence has increased as impressively as my own feeling of rightness and holiness. Now I know exactly what everybody else should and should not be doing and why!

      And through my heroically modest meditations and the divine grace of Swamiji, all my negative traits: mendacity, dishonesty, anger, addictive tendencies and lasciviousness, have become magically transformed into devices for the awakening of the egos of unconscious baboons!

      Yahoo!
      Hari Om!

      • shantam prem says:

        Yogi stole the show. He killed two birds with one stone.

        Zorba The Buddha has arrived by hook and crook.

        • madhu dagmar frantzen says:

          No, Shantam Prem,
          Yogi´is not into stealing: He´s just scrolling the texture appearing, his very way,he likes to appear on that virtual stage.
          He´s also not into ‘killing two birds with a stone’. That´s your mind fabrication and hopefully you never ever go into action with such stuff!

          And not to speak ´hook(y) and crook(y)’ about Zorba the Buddha, if you please.

          Madhu

          • shantam prem says:

            Madhu, at Least I speak about your master´s pet projects in a sarcastic way; his appointed priests and meditation parrots have erased those concepts.

            When was the last time someone has spoken about His People, New man, New Humanity? Feel like showing the finger to biggest Ponzi scheme of Jain Brothers and Associates!

            • shantam prem says:

              Yesterday, in the waiting room of a public office, I came across one university newspaper. Its main theme was more or less similar to this article: role of meditation and daily rituals for work/life balance. I could not resist to click the main page photo on my mobile.

              More or less everybody knows the role of Ibuprofen for body pain and paracetamol for fever etc. Meditation too has become like over-the-counter medicine, and it is rightly so.

              To think paracetamol can replace all other medicines; one must be as childish and uneducated as most of the people are who think their cult, their religion, their dead or alive master is the peak and last peak of evolution.

      • Lokesh says:

        “Walk and chew gum at the same time”?
        Hard to believe, but miracles do happen.

        • shantam prem says:

          Lokesh is being missed to shake the status quo of frozen meditative space..

          • satchit says:

            Shantam, you and Arpana have been mean to Lokesh. No wonder that he did withdraw.

            Btw, I am also Sagittarius.

            • Shantam prem says:

              By being mean to Lokesh in only one post, I realised again the forgotten wisdom, wise person as even enemy is better than childish friend.

              Therefore as repentance and reconciliation, I invited him.

              • Lokesh says:

                Shantam, selective amnesia is something we are all prone to.

                • shantam prem says:

                  When a common person goes into Amnesia, it is still harmless, but when a pilot or a captain or any cult founder gets in the grip of selective Amnesia…results are catastrophic.

                  Among all kinds of leaders, cult founders are the luckiest as their clan will never accept human infallibility in their Bhagwan!

                • Arpana says:

                  Stephen,
                  You are most certainly not infallible.

                • shantam prem says:

                  I am fallible in every aspect, the man I call master is also fallible. This does not make any of us less worthy then others.

                • Arpana says:

                  Stephen, that you would talk about yourself in comparison to Osho in this way doesn’t suprise me one bit, and I repeat, you are not infallible, on the contrary.

                  Whatever Osho has to offer the world, that is what you don’t have.

                  MOD:
                  To be fair, Arpana, Shantam made it clear he regards himself as “fallible in every aspect”. And I don’t see that he’s necessarily “comparing” himself to Osho here.

                • satyadeva says:

                  “Lokesh,
                  You have only proved what I knew to be true. Your experience of meditation, kundalini and dynamic in particular, is very limited.”

                  Strange, I have a different impression, Arps.

                • Arpana says:

                  Fine, but integrity is about acting on and living with the consequences of the decisions one makes, based on what we perceive.

                  Some people admire that fool who is squatting in number 10.

                • Arpana says:

                  Pretty much everything Lokesh posts here involves sneers, put-downs, denigration of most of that which Sannyas is about, while bigging up that he can breathe.

                  ‘Stephen’ recently accused, and not for the first time, the men whose life he is so envious of, who run the ashram, of gross sexual impropriety.

                • satyadeva says:

                  I find your assessment of Lokesh’s posts way off the mark, Arps, at times almost verging on the semi-hysterical, as if you feel deeply, personally threatened by him – or perhaps rather by what you think or imagine he represents?

                  Anyway, I’m wondering why you are so antagonistic towards him (or rather, as he appears here).

                • Arpana says:

                  SD.
                  Why do you feel the need to protect Lokesh?
                  What deep-rooted psychological problem is that about?

                • satyadeva says:

                  As I said, Arps, I think you’re often unreasonably harsh in your condemnation, as for me Lokesh writes much that’s interesting and contains a lot of sense, informed by personal experience.

                  I often find your outbursts against him, emotionally highly charged as they are, carry the unmistakable signs of key buttons of belief and values having been well and truly pushed, to the point that it seems you might well feel personally threatened, undermined in some way.

                  The main issue might be, for all I know, that you resent him being ‘free of Osho’ while you have taken Osho as a ‘father-figure’ and so take any criticism, expressed or implicit in Lokesh’s very stance, as personally ‘insulting’, perhaps rather like a child hearing his dear father being put down.

                  (And btw, that’s not to have a go at you for that relationship with Osho – if that’s the case – or with what Osho represents for you, as I’m sure it’s a powerful part of the process for you and for many. And I know your own process has been dramatically transforming, deserving much respect. But up to a point there might be a certain price for holding the master in this way, I suppose, including over-sensitivity to criticism?).

                  I’m also concerned (as was Parmartha) about “protecting” SN from degenerating (again) into a mutual mud-slinging contest, which always ends up in a psycho-spiritual dead-end street.

                • Arpana says:

                  SD,
                  “As I said, Arps, I think you’re often unreasonably harsh in your condemnation, as for me Lokesh writes much that’s interesting and contains a lot of sense, informed by personal experience.”

                  You’re afraid of him, because you know if you call him out, as he should be, as you call others out, he will shit all over you. You’ve trained him to believe you’re safe, as has Frank.

                  All the verbiage Lokesh spews up, and you never find anything about what he has to say questionable. Give me a fucking break!!!!!!

                  Try calling him out as you are me now, and I guarante my criticisms of him will diminish. I guarantee, because I won’t be doing it on my own.

                • satyadeva says:

                  Pure fantasy, Arps. As I said, we see this from very different perspectives, different lenses. For you, Lokesh seems to represent ‘the enemy’ (or one of them), while for me he’s an interesting contributor with much of value to offer. (And fyi, here and there we’ve occasionally deleted his posts – not often but it’s happened).

                • Arpana says:

                  I think you’re a good egg, SD.
                  Challenging me doesn’t change that.
                  Disagreeing with me doesn’t change that.

                  I still think you’ve got this wrong, but I appreciate enormously that you’ve worked so hard, along with Jitendra, to keep this going.
                  Thanks.

                • anand yogi says:

                  Perfectly correct, Arpana!

                  Certainly, the cowardly baboon Satya Deva cowers in fear at the prospect of being mounted by steamin` Scottish red-faced baboon!

                  And lily-livered poltroon feeble Frank trembles in terror at prospect of having third eye Glasgow-kissed by Swami Begbie and banana confiscated by big-headed egotistical alpha male egoist!

                  But gutsy, fearless, valiant alfalfa male and have-a-go hero Arpana stands up undaunted to violent ceaseless attack on Osho by big-headed omega male egoists who denigrate Osho`s vision withselfless heroism of member of public getting stuck in in terrorist attack!

                  Certainly, Osho`s vision is in safe hands!

                  Yahoo!
                  Hari Om!

                • Arpana says:

                  Thank you for this beautiful intervention, beloved Anal yogi.

                • Lokesh says:

                  Swami Begbie, that’s a good one.

                • madhu dagmar frantzen says:

                  Take care, Lokesh,

                  Could well be one of these boomerangs you see flying, taking its course via somewhere, someone. And as it is a virtual boomerang – on its way back, so to say – you could be hit as well…´cause as big as you appear on stage (shouting “Swami Beghie, that´s a good one!”),
                  as far as I experience Anand Yogi (AY), he likes to target many flying saucers with one (virtual) clap.

                  It´s such amazing stuff here (by coincidence). I’ve been up this afternoon to attend a meeting here in Munich: meditative ´being in the “Presence” it is called. We meet once a month, sometimes twice.

                  Mostly women.
                  Some have their roots in Papaji´s lineage (Isaac Shapiro) if one can say so, some come from some obscure ´Sufi´ channel, every now and then some are coming having had a short or longer visit to the Osho Sannyas realms.

                  Every now and then, some come up, as it has been happening here on SN/UK, introducing themselves: Oh, we just have heard of these fabulous meetings in “Presence” and give it a try.

                  Truth is that Parmartha was very right, when (rarely!) modestly stating that it might be very good to have cleared some of the main primal issues before going on an ´advaita stage´ (or similar).

                  By that he probably meant that IF that if such would be accomplished up to some extent, fighting intrigues would diminish, if not vanish…

                  When I came home (after having had some obnoxious encounters withe game-up-fuckation mongers in their twenties here – before and after the meeting – when I looked into the ongoing thread wave here.

                  Uuuuuh, what a coincidence in this Saturday’s happenings, I moaned…However, threads topic goes re the ´value´ of meditation, doesn´t it?
                  And the effects…
                  And so many marbles are in play by now. And boomerangs too…

                  May it all move in a way here in the virtual – btw, not so very much different to a meeting place (in the body) by now:
                  The virtual and the body-mind-souls (psyche) on many playing fields coming closer and closer together in these Zeitgeist-Times.

                  That´s more and more my experience meeting people. Not easy to take that!

                  Madhu

                • Lokesh says:

                  Hi Madhu, sounds like you’ve gone walkabout down by the billabong. Good gracious, there goes a kangaroo.
                  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_prtbj4MtDU

                • shantam prem says:

                  Sunday Questions:
                  Does one need a master for meditation?
                  Does one need to change name and attire and adore a person like Super Genius to do meditation?
                  Is Meditation a mental emotional fitness technique or a fuelless journey to Ultimate?

                • Klaus says:

                  Shantam,

                  Looking at your questions in the article from my personal experience/view.

                  1.
                  Does one need a master for meditation?

                  I went to India without any idea of meditation – religion – Bhagwan – whatever.
                  First, I travelled in a group of 5, then after 6 weeks alone. it became very clear how confused and inexperienced in life I was at the age of 20.

                  From Nepal, I booked a place on a 14 day meditation course in Bodhgaya, the teacher being a Buddhist monk from India.

                  Straight after I went on the next course in the Thai temple, the teacher being Christopher Titmuss from England.

                  When staying in Bodhgaya at the Burmese Vihar, I heard of the ‘Mahasi Meditation Centre’ in Rangoon/Burma; my need to learn more about meditation was such that I went there without diversion.

                  After some months of intensive sitting and walking meditation, daily reporting to and consulting with the teachers, all pain from my knees and my brain vanished: it felt like weeks passed ‘without any thoughts coming or going’, ‘no- body there’ – pure consciousness happening.

                  Clearly, I would not have managed to overcome the difficulties encountered without these teachers’ advice and/or without the external structure of support. No way.

                  P.S:
                  That does not mean that “the effects stayed with me” after leaving the meditation centre. I took Sannyas ‘as a next step’ after returning to the West.

                  2.
                  Does one need to change name and attire and adore a person like Super Genius to do meditation?

                  All of the above happened without a change of “name and attire”.
                  However, I did a lot of prostrating in front of various Buddha statues. That might have helped, too.

                  3.
                  Is Meditation a mental emotional fitness technique or a fuel-less journey to Ultimate?
                  It is (just) a fitness technique if it is not accompanied by the development of wisdom, maturity, clarity, depth or whatever we can call it.

                  Concentration and/or power gained through meditation may help in daily life. (It has always been clear to me that I will not engage in violence, military, cheating, lying, slander of libel and so forth).

                  A fuel-less journey?
                  It certainly takes a lot of energy, clear sense of direction and decisiveness.

                  This is a very personal view/journey: it might be different for other persons….

                • shantam prem says:

                  Thanks, Klaus, you have raised the bar of discussion.
                  Simply wow in its honesty and clarity.
                  I am happy it was me who raised those questions.
                  Questions and doubts are the must in the alchemy of truth, they burn the dust as well as beliefs.

                • madhu dagmar frantzen says:

                  Yes, Klaus, it takes a lot of energy to discover/develop some inner sense of direction and taking the risk to follow that: one step at a time.

                  Thank you very much for your contribution of your “very personal view”, as you say (and your open-mindedness – I presume – re other “personal views”).

                  One step at a time….

                  Madhu

                • shantam prem says:

                  As i see, Arpana is living in the sweet fantasy of what Sannyas was. He is not able to distinguish between past and present.

                  For example, he still uses the word ‘Ashram’ for that real estate in Pune; fact is, even to use ‘Ashram’ is taboo there. Those who survive there have to use ‘Resort’, again and again.
                  And about sexual impropriety by Osho´s lieutenants, i dare any of them to sit with me for lie detector test. I will pay for it.

                  Naturally, it hurts the sweet cultivated image – I know we humans have a psychological need to hold on to something.

                  I am not writing to convince Arpana; I have my eye witness account, how can I deny this? Is it bad to be a whistleblower in an emotionally charged atmosphere?

                  Spirituality is for truth or Islamic-style sentimentality. I know where things have gone wrong in our collective legacy, because I have spend years at head office of a new spirituality.

                  And about Arpana v. Lokesh, Satyadeva has rightly pointed out that Lokesh is free from Osho whereas for Arpana, late master is a father figure.

                • Arpana says:

                  As i see, Shantam is living in the sweet fantasy of what Sannyas was. He is not able to distinguish between past and present.

                  Naturally, it hurts the sweet cultivated image – I know we humans have a psychological need to hold on to something.

                  And about Arpana v. Lokesh, Arpana is free from Osho as father figure, aproaches him as a human being, whereas for Lokesh, late master is a father figure, but he is in denial and his sneering and negativity shows him to be more attached than anyone else, as is Shantam, to the past.

                • Levina says:

                  Arpana, as I see it, you’ve made a stand, trying to slay the imaginary dragon (Lokesh) in (trying) to insult, ridicule him, trying to cut off pieces that will grow back as fast as you cut them off. You are condemning your outer dragon, while pretending you don’t have one!

                  So out of curiosity, what are all these good qualities you apparently must have and the dragon obviously in your eyes hasn’t? And Lokesh (if he likes) could do the same.

                  Well, that’s my bit thrown in, it’s all so recognisable, but you two are stuck in accusing, and not taking responsibility for it; that’s how wars are started. And honestly I don’t know why I keep reading this crap, unless it’s a kind of addiction, or in this case trying to be in a helper’s role so I don’t have to feel powerless about it all.

                • Levina says:

                  OMG, Arpana, I read my post to you again and I had to laugh so much that I was crying, so I’m glad that the boomerang has come back to me, what a joke, and you probably haven’t even read it, ’cause SD is always late in placing my posts. (Indirect reminder, SD, nudge, nudge etc. etc.).

                  MOD:
                  Steady on, Levina, we’re chronically short of staff here, and spare time for SN can sometimes be hard to find.

                • Arpana says:

                  To which post are you referring here, Levina? ✌

                • Levina says:

                  You probably have found the post by now, Arpana. Concerning “being picked on” can be overtly done, or secretly, or it can be in our imagination.

                  If I believe in a solid me, it can be painful, but when it’s more impersonal it is a bit like: “Wow, I’ve been given so much attention, I must be important to that person, but why on earth does he/she wants to go through all that trouble?” Maybe it’s their way of saying “I love you”?

                • shantam prem says:

                  Now is the time Lokesh gives his statement after reading the charges by one party and wise cooling effect of our editor and in-house Shrink.

                • Arpana says:

                  Levina says: 2 December, 2019 at 7:43 am

                  I am not unmindful of this, Levina, but as yet I can’t get in touch with anything more than wanting to draw lines in the sand.

                  However, if what you are saying about my behaviour has validity, surely the constant sneering and jeering on the part of Lokesh about Sannyas, the resentment of being presented with Osho’s words, is the same.

                  Lokesh and Frank are as obsessed with Osho and Sannyas, and Sannyas News, the site with a picture of Osho on the mast head, as those of us who are into him, while managing to convince themselves they have outgrown it.

                  I have no interest in Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism or Sikhism. Would never cross my mind to expend as much energy as they do here, telling people at those websites that I am not interested in them.

                • Arpana says:

                  Fair play and justice and honour are part of this for me.

                • Bong says:

                  I simply don’t get my insights published by SD anymore. That’s unacceptable.

                  MOD:
                  You could start by actually registering as a contributor, Bong. We’ve mentioned this to yoiu before but you haven’t bothered.

                  Then you could try writing something intelligible and relevant to the current discussion.

                • Levina says:

                  Sorry, Satyadeva, I have sobered up, and I do understand that it’s busy for you managing this SN thing, although I haven’t got a clue about the technical ins and outs. But perhaps in this position as overvieuwer or mod you can have some more distance?

                  The mind has fantasies when it takes a while for a post to appear, such as: oh, now he’s going for a long walk, or whatever else it concocts. A while ago you asked for donations, and if I am honest I have reservations about giving, being ambiguous about it all, to use a posh word. But that’s another story.

                • Arpana says:

                  Levina,
                  Osho once said something along the lines of “take care of my reputation”. He said they cannot refute what he says, but they will do everything to destroy his reputation.

                • Levina says:

                  Did he say that, Arpana? I don’t know. Reputation sounds a bit like repetition, which he did a lot, saying the same thing in numerous ways: that the kingdom of heaven is in ourselves.

                  Do you have that too, Arpana, that at the right time a quote of Osho or anybody else comes to mind? I even have that with psalms that I unknowingly sang as a child, and now revealing their depth.

                • Arpana says:

                  @ Levina. 2 December, 2019 at 7:30 am

                  Yes. With songs, books (Osho’s and others’), graphic novels, tv, shows. Becoming aware of something that happened years ago, maybe because of something posted here, and juxtaposing that memory with another of the same time, making connections I never have before.

                • Arpana says:

                  Levina said. 1 December, 2019 at 6:38 am
                  ”that’s how wars are started”

                  That’s wrong, Levina.
                  Wars are started because people don’t deal with their stuff immediately.
                  They bottle it up, and pass it on to someone else.
                  People smile to the face of others and malign them behind their back.
                  That’s why wars start.
                  I never criticise anyone here behind their back.

                  I accept Sannyas News as it is. Warts and all. Light and dark.

                • sw. veet (francesco) says:

                  Arpana, in an attempt to contribute to peace among friends (renegades or not), I must say that I too love Lokesh, almost always after the third pint – mine.

                • sw. veet (francesco) says:

                  Satyadeva, thank you for the work you do here, for how you do it.

                  If our friends “freed from Osho” seem to chuckle less than in the past about those “not freed from Osho” the reason could be not only the Vietcong resistance that some of us oppose to their invasion of napalm, but also to the fact that you have a less unbalanced position in their favour.

                  It seems to me, however, that you are still closer to them than to the targets of their arrogance, provocations, insults, scams, cunning…

                  In fact, to define them “free of Osho” implies many things, above all, for example, that there cannot exist a genuine bond of love/gratitude for a human being that makes us free, even more free, if what you wrote is true: whoever broke that bond freed him-herself.

                  Now, you can be friends with the 2/3 bullies in question and have, privately, the evidence that without love for a Master and his community one lives better but, as far as I’m concerned, as long as you or they don’t show me the alternatives to this love affair, I will continue to argue not ceasing to ask the baboons: what binds you to a Chat like this?

                  You see well that History teaches, but even the Risiko* would be enough, that to defend oneself is less expensive than to attack. Think about it if sometimes you feel tired.

                  P.S:
                  I read some time ago, I don’t remember from which famous intellectual, that the value of words/language/story lies in their power to charge you energetically.

                  MOD:
                  *”the Risoko” – Veetr F, who or what is this, please?

                  VEET FRANCESCO:
                  Risiko is a board game, in Italy perhaps the most popular one after the Monopoly.
                  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RisiKo

                • satyadeva says:

                  Veet, if you think I’m doing this job without any gratitude for the influence of Osho and Sannyas in my life then you’re very much wide of the mark.

                  As for any implicit or explicit ‘bias’ you appear to detect in the approach here, SN was set up and has always existed to give a voice to all shades of experience and opinion in the Sannyas world (including yours, of course) and, while I may have occasional private email contact with one or two regular contributors, the fact is that this site has no ulterior psycho-spiritual agenda other than allowing sannyasins and friends of Osho to speak their (no)minds on all relevant issues that concern them and their community. As ‘caretaker’ of the site that’s what I’m aiming to continue.

                  Hope that helps, or have I misunderstood you?

                  P.S:
                  You’re welcome to provide an article whenever you wish, of course.

                • satyadeva says:

                  POLITE NOTICE TO EVERYONE RE RESPONSES TO POSTS: PLEASE PROVIDE THIS INFO

                  After a day or so following a new post (ie a ‘sub-topic’ in the responses to an article, we need to add, at the top of our posts, information re what post we are responding to, because for some reason posts are not necessarily appearing under the relevant section.

                  (Thanks to Arpana for letting us know and for this suggestion).

                • shantam prem says:

                  Satyadeva,
                  May I request you to add Pay Pal button at website for bloggers and readers to contribute a bit of financial assistance for smooth running of this valuable vehicle.

                  Job of the editor will remain, anyway, a thankless charitable volunteering.

                  If you do it now, I am curious how much fundraising will be done during this Christmas month. I will add with joy fifty euros.

                  MOD:
                  Thanks for your support, Shantam, much appreciated.

                  Details of where to contact for payment will be up in a separate article this coming week.

                • sw. veet (francesco) says:

                  Dear Satyadeva, I am happy that not only Arpana does not live a feeling of love and gratitude as a prison, I hope that by now you too will not have the attention of the bullies.
                  That said, don’t take the judgments that sometimes run from my keyboard too seriously.

                  Thanks for inviting me to write an article, you’re not the only one who tries to shake my laziness in writing, symmetrical to reading.

                  I willingly leave the space to the words of the Master, who, thanks to the accurate Arpana quotations, keeps the flame burning, around which we continue to gather here.

                  But if Shantam’s argument were true, about the people in charge in Pune who would be pissing on the real flame, then the things that happen here around the virtual flame would have a different meaning, even upside down:

                  Virtual bullies are the best allies of Shantam, those who wisely, while peeing on the virtual flame point out the real flame that deserves to be protected;
                  Arpana and myself the best allies of the bosses of the Resort, who pissing on the real flame point out us as the naive that make a gratuitous propaganda, with the dialectical weapons of mass distraction.

                • anand yogi says:

                  Perfectly correct, Francesco!

                  It is certainly utterly necessary that you are battling heroically, as you say, like Vietcong resistance in opposition to the invasion of napalm by the absurd baboons of SN!

                  With renegade sannyasin Colonel Satya Deva Kurtz deep in the jungle in control of his wicked fiefdom of SN, action must be taken to repel the arrogant, cunning, insulting British butlers who have the world`s finances in their evil grasp and are now introducing new scam of asking for money by Pay Pal!
                  We must use only language they understand: gorilla warfare!

                  We must exterminate the brutes! There has been some success – already the Scottish baboon`s head has been defoliated by agent Orange!

                  Certainly,the priority is to obey orders from the Nine Unknown Men of Mighty Bhorat and to terminate Kurtz, bring down his vile regime and instal a regime of true love headed up by wannabe ontological spiritual Casanovas, groovy popes and true believers!

                  We have many tools at our disposal!

                  Arpana has been tirelessly softening up the enemy by carpet bombing the baboons with Osho quotes for years!
                  His tactic of repeating back what they have just said to him is also a stroke of military genius – certainly, I doubt they will be able to stand that much longer!

                  Also, newly recruited Corporal Satchit of the Waffle SS (Satsang Shuffle) is ready and on hand to ruthlessly bore any stragglers to death with last century`s one-liners!

                  Onwards and upwards, my white rogue brothers!

                  Yahoo!
                  Hari Om!

                • sw. veet (francesco) says:

                  Anand Yogi, I am happy that my recent melodramatic lines have triggered such lyricism in you.

                • Arpana says:

                  Rescuing Stephen, SD. Wot!!!!????

                • satyadeva says:

                  I find this ongoing blanket condemnation of one or two others here tedious, Arps. Including using “Stephen” and “Scratchit”. You’ve made your point so isn’t enough enough for now?

            • Arpana says:

              Scratchit, I don’t care what star sign you are.

              I am Aquarius and Leo for my sannyas birthday.

            • Arpana says:

              Satchit,
              Lokesh and Frank are schoolboys projecting their hang-ups about religion and authority on to Osho and Sannyas.

              Lokesh is the class bully, and Frank is the class clown who sucks up to Lokesh to keep safe.

              • satchit says:

                I am too old for schoolyards, Arps.

                Anyway, interesting action going on. Maybe the comments run a new record. But it still feels like a storm in a glass of water.

                • Arpana says:

                  Satchit said, ”I am too old for schoolyards.”

                  And yet here you are, Satchit. ┐(‘~`;)┌

                  Two groups of people post here:
                  Those who embrace being in it and off it; and those who are in it and desperately cling to the idea they are in it and not off it.

                  Be a Frank. Not a Lokesh or a Shantam.

                  MOD:
                  No idea exactly what you mean by the second paragraph, Arpana.

                  But the nature of SN has always been to attract a most diverse cross-section of the Sannyas & co. community, and allow everyone a voice. In recent years limits re personal abuse have had to be set, but otherwise it’s a ‘free-for-all’ here, so it’s difficult to understand why you’re suddenly choosing to explode in rage about certain people’s contributions, or rather even the right of certain people to express anything here.

                  It seems to me that you’ve recently allowed your rage free rein, which, feeding on itself as is its wont, has (certainly yesterday) become out of control, seemingly losing a rational perspective on what originally bothered you.

                  That, of course, is the seed of extremism, religious and political, and once it reaches a tipping point, little or no good can emerge from it.

                  P.S:
                  Am waiting for your thoughts on my proposals (2.3oam today).

                • sw. veet (francesco) says:

                  Thanks Arpana, for the clarity of your words, understandable even to an illiterate Italian like me.

                  I appreciate the authenticity of your passion when you rebel against the cynical and cold anger of those who cowardly found refuge in their inability to love in nihilism.

                • Arpana says:

                  @sw. veet (francesco) 3 December, 2019 at 10:04 pm

                  ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ ✌

                  MOD:
                  Meaning, please, Arpana?

                • sw. veet (francesco) says:

                  You are welcome, Arpana.

                • shantam prem says:

                  Any reader can be 100% sure which of the bloggers need psychological help.
                  Why to be shy away from this?

                  Meditation does not replace psychological as well as pharmaceutical help. Osho was taking this help continuously, it is pity master had no confidant to pour his pain and frustrations out. That is the high price to play master´s role.

                  You have to be strong like steel, all the time, you have to be more than human to earn respect of little, little humans around.

                • shantam prem says:

                  The above post of mine (3 December, 2019 at 10:25 am) is a epilogue of my initial words at the beginning of this article.

                  As this article is coming to an end, I hope in the future articles comments are more for the contents.

                  Brain storming does not mean punching your opponents knock out.

          • Lokesh says:

            What is the value of meditation? That is a good question. “It depends”, is, in my opinion, a good answer.

            Back in the seventies I came across U.G.Krishnamurti’s books. He was a controversial figure and at the time and in retrospect I can see that much of what he said went over my head back then, although I somehow thought I understood him, which I did not.

            I was recently given one of his books and I found it to be fascinating, humorous and highly original. According to U.G. meditation can in fact be completely counterproductive in the sense that rather than going beyond the ego it reinforces it, makes it more confident etc. Yes, I can see how that might be true. Just reading some of the comments being posted in this thread there is evidence to support this idea.

            UG also states that nothing you can do will bring about the arrival of enlightenment, because enlightenment is a rare natural occurrence that happens to one in a billion people. Even when it does happen it might not be what it is hyped up to be. In U.G.´s case he saw it as a great calamity.

            I do not see many of Osho´s meditation techniques as meditation. Dynamic and Kundalini have more to do with catharsis than anything else, which is fine up to a point, the point when a meditative quality enters the acts of daily living, as in being present to what is in this moment. Sounds simple. but it is not because we are rarely present to the moment. I often go for days and then suddenly wake up to the fact that I have been dreaming.

            Gurdjieff spoke much about the fact that humanity is asleep and he was right, and you are kidding yourself if you think you are not. We live in a dream of our own creation and it is rare to wake up to the fact. Meditation, being present, is the key to waking up to that.

            I do not think meditation will make you a better person. I have met plenty of serious meditators and they are, on a psychological level, a very mixed bag, from beautiful people to self-absorbed, egocentric assholes. You do meditation for yourself and nobody else. It is the most selfish of human activities, which is why Osho condoned selfishness in a very positive way.

            Are meditation’s effects over-hyped? Yes and no. I would take that question on a personal level and examine the effects of meditation on my own life. In retrospect, I have to admit that I might not have been alive today were it not for Osho introducing me to the world of meditation. I like being alive and experiencing the human realm, which is relatively easy to say, due to the kind of life I live. So, on that level I can honestly say that meditation has been very good for me.

            How easy we forget how privileged we are, and if you are reading this you can count yourself in that bracket. I daresay that being born in some godforsaken part of this planet our lives would be hellish, no matter how much one meditated, if we were able to find the time away from trying to find something to eat and drink to enjoy the luxury of meditating. Count your blessings.

            • Arpana says:

              Standing locked in place after the half hour effort of Dynamic is a form of zazen.

              In Kundalini, lying down after the half hour of effort is the yoga death pose, which is meditation, a form of zazen.

              MOD:
              Now let’s get these very important details right, Arpana. Mustn’t mislead the meditation public, old chap. What would posterity think?!

              It’s 20 minutes of effort in Dynamic, isn’t it? Or has that changed?

              And in Kundalini, the lying down comes after 15 mins. of standing or sitting, following the half hour of effort (although, strictly speaking, that never seems like ‘effort’ to me, it just flows naturally, doesn’t it?). So, in your terms, Arpana, one might say that you get a ‘double dose’ of zazen, upright and prone.

              • Arpana says:

                SD,
                The second part is referring to Kundalini.

              • Lokesh says:

                Arpana declares, “Standing locked in place after the half hour effort of Dynamic, is a form of zazen.”

                I think that is stretching it beyond the credible and is an uninformed statement. Translated, ‘zazen’ means ‘just sitting’. It is the sitting part that is important, because just sitting requires no stress on the body, whereas standing locked in place requires effort, which is counter-productive to the whole idea of zazen.

                I have only once participated in a 5 day zazen retreat. What I found remarkable about the overall experience was how high you can get just sitting, facing a white wall. And I do mean high in the sense that my senses became more finely attuned etc. There was a 15 minute break every hour wherein I walked very slowly in a circle, mindful of each step. When the retreat was over the high stayed with me for weeks.

                In Poona One I was a complete dynamic and kundalini addict, to the point of not feeling right if I did not do them every day. “Souped up” is an expression Frank used to describe what it was all about. I felt super.

                By my third year in Poona I realised that all of my contemporaries had moved on from Osho’s meditation techniques to working in the ashram. I was pretty resistant about ‘worship’, as working manually in the ashram was dubbed. Eventually I capitulated and became a toilet cleaner. It was then that I knew enlightenment was close. The lotus grows out of the shit and so forth.

                Today, enlightenment is still close, but instead of cleaning toilets I maintain my land and burn brush in an effort to aid global warming. I am a Scot who can no longer stand the cold. Bonfires also smell better than Indian toilets.

                • Arpana says:

                  Lokesh,
                  You have only proved what I knew to be true. Your experience of meditation, kundalini and dynamic in particular, is very limited.

              • Arpana says:

                Beloved Mod,

                What a beautiful eye for detail you have.

                Has been many years since I was up to either, and even more since I did.

                Yes, you are quite right, although regarding Kundalini, I always experienced the sitting part as the come down from the activity, and then the ‘death’ pose blew me away.

                After a few months of Dynamic, that started to flow, believe it or not, but the active part of Kundalini never did.

                I was a bit of a bull at gate in those days, and I think Dynamic was so strenuous that tendency was restrained, but the effortful part of Kundalini wasn’t strenuous enough to slow me down.

            • Kavita says:

              “According to U.G. meditation can in fact be completely counter-productive in the sense that rather than going beyond the ego it reinforces it, makes it more confident etc.
              Yes, I can see how that might be true. Just reading some of the comments being posted in this thread there is evidence to support this idea.”

              And ending this with “how privileged we are, and if you are reading this you can count yourself in that bracket.”

              How wonderful is that, Lokie!

              • Arpana says:

                If you go into any form of meditation for long enough, Kavita, intensely enough, the egotism that accompanies the initial stage falls away.

                P.S:
                Nobody who posts here is egoless.

                • Arpana says:

                  P.P.S:
                  Seems to me ‘ego’ thrives in some ways on novelty, although I can see ‘ego’ also thrives in some ways on life-sucking habituation.

                • satchit says:

                  Talking about ‘egolessness’ is always funny, Arps.

                  Even your beloved Master said that he has a ‘total ego’.
                  Now, tell me what this means!

                • Arpana says:

                  I’m so flattered that you would be interested in my opinion, beloved Scratchit, bit overwhelmed in fact, so much so I’m unable to come up with a definitive answer to this beautiful question. ☯(-‿-)☯

                • satchit says:

                  Arpanski, I appreciate your fight against these baboons who are proud to tell us that we should go on and leave Osho behind. And who also want to tell us that there is no ashram.

                  How stupid can one be to believe these things?

                • Arpana says:

                  Yes, Satchit.
                  To agree with them we would have to be less intelligent than they are; and lower than rock bottom can’t happen.

                • satyadeva says:

                  Satchit, apart from Shantam (re the ashram, but not sure at all about ‘leaving Osho behind’), who exactly are you referring to here?

                • satchit says:

                  ‘leaving Osho behind’, moving on – Who is preaching this more or less constantly? Certainly, the one and only Mr.Lokesh! Ask him, I bet he will say Sannyas is old rubbish.

                • Shantam prem says:

                  I can imagine Satchit is sitting for brain-mapping.
                  Shrink asks, “I leave Jesus behind and then I leave Osho behind. Will the brain impressions be the same?”

                  I love to put those people down who behave too smart then their true self.

                  Those who talk about Ashram, when was the last time they entered such place?

                • satchit says:

                  You can imagine what you want, Shantam. You are simply a smart-arse!

                • Arpana says:

                  Have you ever been ganged up on, or egregiously picked on, SD?

                • satyadeva says:

                  Funnily enough, yes, I have, Arps, not so much in ‘real life’, but once or twice in so-called ‘therapy groups’, one instance being orchestrated (apparently with great enjoyment) by the late Michael Barnett, aka the “late sannyasin” Somendra. Completely pointless, misguided as it failed to achieve its aim (if there was one), and in fact quite damaging for some time, making me cynical about Sannyas and my place in it, as it were.

                  But now, are you telling me that you’re a sad victim of someone’s bullying here at SN?

                • Arpana says:

                  Lokesh being challenged is pressing your buttons for some reason, and when I say that I mean we all get our buttons pressed here. I’m not sugesting you and not me, but I am saying you as well.

                  I got picked on slightly in the first group I did, but not again. (Groups reminded me of my involvement with an amateur drama group in my twenties, which was brilliant, but I was confused as hell to be doing groups at the ashram, with sannyasins, near Osho, and it was like the amateur dram experience).

                • satyadeva says:

                  Arps, it’s ‘pressing my buttons’ because I find your responses disproportionate. But it doesn’t keep me awake at night, and at one level I couldn’t care less.

                  Although on the other hand I have no wish that Lokesh disappears from SN as I (as Parmartha did) think his contributions have been invaluable over the years.

                  And there’s no way I’ll agree to let SN degenerate into an ongoing sniping/slanging match; those days were declared over by SN’s late founder/editor, well before he left us all.

                • satchit says:

                  George Orwell: “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others!”

                • satyadeva says:

                  Quite so, Satchit.

                  As exemplified by the set-up in all Sannyas communes, not least the HQ in Poona.

                • frank says:

                  “All animals are equal but some more equal than others” is a an all-time classic one-liner, of course, but it can also bring to mind the story about the toothless, one-legged, one-armed dwarf, who attended a socialist meeting and delivered a passionate speech reminding his comrades that true socialism would have to include equal access for all men to beautiful women!

                • Kavita says:

                  I was just teasing Lokesh, in case you are referring to 30 November, 2019 at 11:15 am.

                  Of course, Arps, no doubt about that. I think not very long ago we had a discussion about ego and its inevitability; even now too it holds true.

      • Arpana says:

        Anal Yogi says

        ”Nevertheless, meditation is a miraculous silver bullet cure for all evils!”

        This is not true, Frank. Alongside heightened awareness, meditation makes life a lot more fucking difficult, but instead of being stuck sloshing around in a swamp, yah get movement; you get to move into ever-changing difficulties, attain new levels of never knowing what the fuck you’re doing, getting it together and moving into the next level of incompetence; or you get to be safe and unutterably fearful and bored.

  4. Kavita says:

    If I may say so, my first meditation was when I was around five or so and was taught by my paternal grandmother. Whenever I was naughty she would make me sit still with closed eyes below the altar, accompanying her.

    Then on my eighteenth bithday, a very dear uncle (family friend) sponsored a fully paid trip with Pia Silverman, his Canadian friend, to Ajanta Ellora. Pia was thirty-plus and was into meditation. After that, she had to go to Igatpuri/ten days Vipassana Meditation and I was curious to know what this was, so went along; I didn’t have a booking but was allowed to attend their 3 day programme. After attending this I thought to myself, this is the same rehab my gran made me do!

    Later, after about seven years, when I came to Poona, meditation was more of a fun activity!

    In 1999, I was anyway into Dynamic in Poona since a few months and was eager to go for SN Goenka’s Vipassana, having heard from many Osho Pundits that this was necessary before this kind of Vipassana. My main reason was that after the meditation in Buddha Hall, as soon as one came out the milieu of meditation would vanish after just seeing a familiar face. I had decided to go for Vipassana to an unknown place. This time was a conscious decision, so booked myself for their ten day Noble Silence Retreat at a place called Markal, very close to Poona.

    By December 2008 I was done with meditation as an activity.

    Meditation, to me, started as a kind of rehabilitation but ended with a realization that this is not an activity for me anymore!

    Meditation, to me, is like a pudding which probably can be tasted if one needs any proof of its utility/futility!

    • madhu dagmar frantzen says:

      I can relate to it, Kavita, when you say meditation dropped you as a kind of activity.

      “Like a pudding”, you say? Can´t second that one.

      Never before in this Chat, I became so aware of our different cultural upbringings.

      In wonder….

      Madhu

      • Kavita says:

        Madhu, for me it’s still a wonder that after I became an adult my introduction to meditation was by western women the first one was Pia and second was Michaela, a German sannyasin.

        It’s amazing, existentially we can relate on such a platform even though we have cultural differences!

        P.S:
        Madhu, “The proof of the pudding is in the eating” is an old English saying, in case you didn’t know. And what it means is that you have to try out food in order to know whether its real taste

        • madhu dagmar frantzen says:

          Ooh, thanks, Kavita, as you rightly assumed, I didn´t know about the pudding-idiom; that´s fabulous and will enrich by chance my stutterings (in English…).

          Madhu

      • frank says:

        Fact is, the meditative pudding eaters of Pune are a cultural phenomenon not much known in Germany. They are famous for enjoying a plate of Dead Man`s Arm or Dead Man`s Leg down by the ghats with some Aghori babas and a bit of tantric Roly-Poly or Spotted Dick for afters.

    • sw. veet (francesco) says:

      What Kavita says about “meditation” as “punishment” is very interesting to explore re the topic in question,
      because if everything is meditation then nothing is meditation, so the question of whether it is overrated or not would be undecidable.

      In my opinion, if there is one thing that takes away from a natural sense of integrity of a child is the sense of guilt, unlike cultivating in him, and with kindness, the sense of responsibility; the limits must be given but remembering all the times which superior good is protected, although a grandfather-mother is not always a master.

      If there are doubts about the utility/futility of a meditation practice, it is because it is abstracted from the context and intention of its creator, which, I would like to remember, for Osho was not punishment but celebration.

      • Kavita says:

        VF, first of all, as I understand, there is a difference between rehabilitation and punishment.

        About ”although a grandfather-mother is not always a master.” True objectively, but to me that too is so subjective.

        • sw. veet (francesco) says:

          Kavita, i was referring to these words of yours:

          “If I may say so, my first meditation was when I was around five or so and was taught by my paternal grandmother. Whenever I was naughty she would make me sit still with closed eyes below the altar, accompanying her”.

          But also to your tendency to act as a groupie of that old rock star:

          “Meditation is no better than just sitting around doing nothing” (frank) – “Yes, so true!” (Kavita).

          • Kavita says:

            VF, I was also referring to the same:
            “If I may say so, my first meditation was when I was around five or so and was taught by my paternal grandmother. Whenever I was naughty she would make me sit still with closed eyes below the altar, accompanying her.”

            I am sorry if you think/feel that way about “your tendency to act as a groupie of that old rock star:”

            But I am even more sorry that I don’t give anybody permission to tell me to suppress my expressions/tendency, as you call it.

  5. Arpana says:

    I have often told a Sufi story. A man renounces the world, his wife, his home. He is young and he is going in search of a master.

    Just outside his village under a tree, an old man is sitting. The sun is just setting, and darkness is descending. The young man asks the old man, ”You look as if you are a traveler; you certainly don’t belong to my village. I am a young man and I am in search of a master. You are old; perhaps you have come across a master in your journeys, and will be kind enough to help me with some directives, some guidelines — because I am feeling at a loss, where to go.”

    The old man said, ”I will give you exact details. The master looks like this” — and he described the face of the master, the eyes of the master, the nose of the master, the beard of the master, his robe. ”And he sits under a certain tree” — and he described the tree.

    And he said, ”You will find him; just remember these details. Whenever you find a man who fulfils these criteria, you have found your master.”

    Thirty years passed. The young man became old, tired. He never came across anybody fitting the description given by the old man. Finally he gave up the whole idea of finding a master: ”Perhaps there is no master anywhere.”

    He went back to his village. And as he was entering the village, under the same tree… It was sunrise, there was more light. The old man had become very old. The last time they had met he must have been sixty; now he was ninety. And because for thirty years the man had been looking for certain eyes, a certain nose, a certain beard, a certain robe, a certain tree….

    As he saw the tree and he saw the old man he said, ”My God, so you were describing yourself! Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you force me to travel unnecessarily around the world for thirty years searching for you, while you were sitting here?”

    The old man said, ”First throw out all your tantrums and your anger; then I will tell you the truth. Thirty years ago you were too young. The time was not right; it was sunset, darkness was descending. And you were in such a hurry to go in search, that if I had told you that I was the master you would have laughed and said, `This is strange that you are sitting just outside my village!’

    “And you cannot blame me because I explained every detail, but your eyes were looking far away. You were listening to me, but you were not looking to see that I was describing my eyes, my nose, my beard, my robe, that I was describing the tree under which I was sitting. You were not ripe.

    ”These thirty years have not gone to waste; they have matured you. Now you can recognize me. Just look; it is sunrise, the right time. And it is not the beginning of your journey, you had already given up. I am meeting you at the end of thirty years of long, arduous effort. That which you can get cheap you cannot recognize. You had to pay these thirty years and all the troubles that you went through just to be mature enough to recognize me.

    ”I could have told you on that day too — but it would have been pointless, and you would have missed me.
    ”And you think you have been in trouble for thirty years? Just think about me — for thirty years I have been sitting under the same tree, because I described this tree. I have not left it for a single day because I was aware that any moment you might come, and if you didn’t find me here I would have been proved to have spoken lies. I have been sitting here for thirty years continuously — day in, day out; summer, winter, rain, but I have been sitting here.

    “And you see I am old. I was worried that if I died before you came back, it would be a tragedy. So I have been trying to somehow cling to life — because as far as I am concerned there is nothing left; I have realized myself. Life has given everything that it can give. I have been sitting just for you.”

    OSHO

    Beyond Enlightenment
    Chapter 25
    Chapter title: You are what you are seeking

    • Arpana says:

      This story is about how we develop the capacity for recognition, along with becoming seasoned by rising to challenges, through extensive experience, which would include meditation; and I have only just recognised this.

  6. Arpana says:

    I have wondered if recognition, recognising, is “no-mind”.

    • Kavita says:

      Arps, to me, somehow no-mind is probably when there is ‘no recognition’.

      • Arpana says:

        Interesting point, Kavita. I shall cogitate, using the opposite of no-mind, on that. Although my point is that I associate ”mind” with words, and for me, recognition isn’t verbal, although once I start talking about that which I have recognised I go to ‘mind and words’.

        There’s a discussion. What do we mean by “mind”? Do we agree what mind is? Scientologists, for example, call mind what I refer to as imagination. ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

        • kavita says:

          Arps, to me, mind is actually recognising it’s in both cases ‘mind and words’ & imagination; very rarely or by chance we may be able to express the no-mind in/by words.

          Thanx for sharing the Scientological perspective.

          Hope AY could put some light on this serious, unmaterialistic matter!

          • Arpana says:

            Yes, Kavita. AY words would be step forward.

            Can we not use words to pont in the direction of no-mind?

            • sw. veet (francesco) says:

              For the ‘Little Masters Grow’ series I would like to join the hermeneutical effort of defining ‘mind & no-mind’.

              As always in ontological questions, when the description of something goes beyond the perception of the five senses we must deduce what it is by listing what it is not, using metaphors, argument by reductio ad absurdum…

              In my opinion, in Osho’s beautiful story extracted from ‘You are what you are seeking’ is well represented the distinction between the words dimension (the indications given by the Master to the seeker’s question) and the existential one (the 30 years long experiential process, consisting in the attempt to relate the internal reality, conceived and translated into language, with the external reality, sometimes very different from how we had imagined it).

              From that long trip the seeker come back with the right moral tension – not yet overwhelmed by frustration or collapsed in cosmic distrust – to the point of being still connected to that initial thirst of a long time before.

              The words of love of the Master fall into the void (no-mind) that that long journey had dug into the seeker, resonating tremendously.

              There is a (no) mind that resonates with reality and there is a mind that claims that reality resonates with its words.

              Arpana, did I shake your kundalini?

    • madhu dagmar frantzen says:

      You said, yesterday, Arpana: “I have wondered if recognition, recognizing, is “no-mind”.”

      That´s not my experience. However, the latter is an essentially important and not-to-leave-out step via PEACE.
      The Master you quoted again with that piece about “Beyond Enlightement” (1986? I presume in Nepal after His world tour) allowed us to use His words, more so the Silence where they came from.

      Misusing His words for some actual (personal) means though is not working, simply not working…kind of unwritten ´Law of Nature´…
      That´s my experience too.
      And don´t get me wrong here, Arpana; I´ve been pretty much always grateful when you dedicated a quote or two here in the Chat.

      You´re an Artist, you say. Pity that I´ve not been able so far to experience your paintings besides those few you added here as a contribution.
      And thank you for that.

      Going “Beyond” may be (is) always included?
      The inspiring content of this topic-thread just now?

      Madhu

      • Arpana says:

        I didn’t use the story to prove a point, Madhu; this story, which I am very familiar with, on re-reading, after posting in the caravanserai, said something to me I had not seen before, which is why I deleted the story from the caravanserai and posted it under my article.

        Osho stories work for me like a painting loaded with symbols, and I can go back to them again and again and find something new.

        • madhu dagmar frantzen says:

          YES, yes, Arpana (at 12:10 pm), same is it for me.

          However, I took it as a challenge given here at SN/UK, NOT to post a quote…or at least quite rarely. Looked into my Osho Joke book sometimes and this was pretty much it.

          Becoming aquainted with the bunch of contributors I often, quite often, went on research to older posts and topics etc.
          Came back just now from the city, where I visited the women´s shelter and brought some stuff as gifts, in gratitude that they gave me shelter some ten years ago at that place, before having a start here. Was a nice meeting with a few women there.

          My inner sky – still quite cloudy, coming ‘home’ here again.

          Life is a river
          Skies constant change
          Cloud watching….

          Played with the autumn leaves a bit…
          It’s warm (climate change fighters will say it’s too warm for the end of November).
          .

          What IS – IS….

          Madhu

    • Levina says:

      I resonate with that, Arpana, which is i.m.o the same as recognition, which is usually in a flash in contrast with understanding, that usually takes a long time to explain, analyse etc.

      • Arpana says:

        Thanks, Levina. You’ve augmented what I was trying to say.

        I distinctly recall the afternoon out on a walk along the canal one afternoon, when I recognised how recognising was becoming an ever bigger part of my life, even down to being able to tell what bus was coming, at that time, by the shade of red with which the bus was painted.

        • Levina says:

          Yes, that needs a very subtle recognition, Arpana. In my distant memory they all had the same colour red, but maybe my memory is playing tricks.

          • Arpana says:

            Levina,

            I regularly come across something Osho is saying, and there is a sense I already knew this, I recognise what he is saying, but he does the work, he speaks.

            In a sense, he makes himself an extension of us. He augments us, and as individuals.

            Re colour, I paint most days. Have done for years. Very attuned to colour gradients.

  7. satchit says:

    What is over-hyped is not “meditation”, it is something else.

    Meditation has no goal. You cannot ‘do’ meditation. It happens.

  8. Levina says:

    I am in the process of kicking off from meditation. What I mean is doing/not doing in order to be. Always have to be aware, it’s a doing, a kind of control and it’s a burden. At times it happens by itself, such a relief, but before long the mind claims ownership again. But it’s quite possible that this is all spiritual jargon believed, and I wish I was a child again and didn’t know anything about these things.

    I see that first it’s a let-go of childhood conditioning, and then spiritual conditioning, but they are intertwined, Santa Claus has become God, and childhood punishment becomes: I’ll never realise who I am, ’cause I’m too bad! What a joke really!

  9. swami anand anubodh says:

    • Arpana says:

      And of course, sneering at others is all part of the beauty of existence. ✌

      • Arpana says:

        And what a beautiful sneer this is, beloved Anubodh.✌

        • sw. veet (francesco) says:

          Yes, Arpana, and it also denotes a Catholic background, but not only the Church of Rome has invested in the misery and relative ignorance of the population.

          If there is one thing that makes Osho a danger to the Status Quo, it is precisely because he has lucidly related the individual aspects of existence with social ones (and vice versa), of how as far as possible cultivating the inner sense of excellence it helps make us better, to leave the world a little better than we inherited it.

  10. Arpana says:

    When I first began to wittingly explore meditation I was very identified with being left-wing, and I realise in hindsight that I associated meditation with prayer, with religion, and being left-wing, certainly in those days for me, was very much against against being into religion in any form, so I went through a lengthy period of cognitive dissonance over this, which I got through.

    Further to that, over the years, the sense of meditation being connected to religion has evaporated, the sense of meditation as being something sacred or religious has evaporated, and I see meditation as a tool, but then interestingly enough, as I have moved in this direction I have meditated less and less, and in fact the last time was about 8 years ago when I got back from being in the launderette and someone had vented all over me about what a crock of shit life was, and I was so frazzled when I returned I did 5 minutes gibberish.

    However, increasingly I find anything I get lost in, like painting and daily writing, affects me like meditating, enhances insight, which is very much a part of meditation for me, enhances my understanding about anything from the most mundane, which is to say the best way to steam cook green beans, mix a colour for a painting or see through some knob-head who needs to grow up.

  11. shantam prem says:

    The way members of almost eradicated Sannyas cult talk about meditation, as if it is world´s second biggest invention. First was anti-baby pill.

    There are many types of brainwashing.

    As I remember Osho´s vision, He was trying his level best to create synchronicity between love and meditation. Prior to that, meditation was the main activity of celibate monks and nuns of Hindu, Buddhist and Christian faiths.

    Because faculty was brutally misused by his brand of alpha males, to keep the market share intact, cult started focusing on Meditation. For these people, other than their guru´s techniques, everything else is not meditation.

    In Hindi we have a saying, after eating hundred mice, cat goes for Mecca pilgrimage.
    Is it a coincidence, closest lieutenants of Bhagwan to Osho have the similar energy to Messrs. Andrew, Epstein &a Bros?!

    • Arpana says:

      Stephen,
      Have you actually met the ”alpha males” who run the Ashram in Poona since you left?

      • shantam prem says:

        From 1987-2007 I have seen these people for a few months each year, almost on daily basis, I know the inside-out of their club. During last 13 years, I have not seen any of them but my friends and sources tell all the important gossip and news.

        Latest news is these alpha males in their December years are transmitting the lamp to the May ladies from China, Taivan, Korea and Vietnam…

        I am willing to offer free accommodation to any of the bloggers who want to go to Pune for first-hand experience.

        I am waiting someone proves me wrong….

        Stephen

        • Arpana says:

          Stephen,

          I am really pleased to know you are up to date on all the latest gossip.

        • satyadeva says:

          “Latest news is these alpha males in their December years are transmitting the lamp to the May ladies from China, Taivan, Korea and Vietnam…”

          Heavens above, I’m reeling! How truly, dreadfully shocking. Have you alerted the tabloids about this abomination yet, Shantam?

          Such people, of course, are ‘blissfully’ unaware of guilt and remorse, and therefore beyond redemption.

          Yes, as you’ve recently pointed out here, it’s about time all sannyasins started considering “ethics and morality”. As such a scandal clearly shows the utter impotence of meditation.

          • shantam prem says:

            Thing is, Satyadeva, these people think themselves as the custodians of meditation. When you multiply hours with years, these maroon and white-robed people have thousands of hours in their kitty, yet with low level of morality and ethics.

            Pimps at Soho are not worse.

            What I want to point out is meditation has gone into the hands of devils too; the bio-chemical effect is the same for everyone.

            Spirituality means not just meditation but many other things…Meditation is not more than dough in the cake.

            • satyadeva says:

              There wouldn’t possibly be, perhaps, amidst this cascade of righteous condemnation, a certain degree of envy, would there, Shantam? Not even just a tiny little smidgeon of ‘the green stuff’?

              Might be worth having a look – you know, a spot of, er, meditation, maybe?

              • shantam prem says:

                I am surely envious, not of the followers of ABC but the ABCs.
                Thanks, master, for giving this much self-esteem.

                Cosmos goes on producing path-breakers in various fields. I hope one among thousands in the field of my calling.

                Masters of meditation are human beings too. They carry their software and blueprint till the grave, like street-dwellers and monarchs.

          • madhu dagmar frantzen says:

            Wow, Satyadeva (at 2:02 pm )!
            You even come close to AY as he is called here; British convenient style though (good for my sensitive organism…).

            Had a good laugh.
            Thanks

            Madhu

        • Arpana says:

          Stephen,
          You haven’t actually had a conversation with the ”Alpha males” though, have you?

          • shantam prem says:

            Archie,
            I have enough conversations with the priests of your late Indian guru that Resort will be a fiasco, don´t go that far. They were adamant, Resort will be so successful they will have branches around the world.
            I left their resort.

            Stephen

            P.S:
            Come out from the denial at least once, that closest aides of your guru are the same people as, are not better than other people in authority or even the pimps at Soho.

            • Arpana says:

              Stephen,
              You are asking us to choose you over them.

              Stephen,
              You are not an impressive figure.

              • shantam prem says:

                Know Archie shows his real face.

                Goodbye, Archie, find others in the kindergarten to communicate with. I have said my thing.

                • Arpana says:

                  Stephen,
                  I am suprised, especially given your age, that you haven’t come to understand that nagging doesn’t work for big projects.

                  Maybe nagging a partner or the kids for months on end will make then briefly do what you want, but only briefly.

        • satchit says:

          Maybe you can explain, Shantam, what’s wrong in “transmitting the lamp to the May ladies from China, Taivan, Korea and Vietnam”?

          • Arpana says:

            Scratchit,

            Because the May ladies won’t have sex with Stephen, and Stephen believes if he can’t have sex with May ladies, the “Alpha males” at the ashram shouldn’t.

            Stephen, the reason the ”Alpha males” at the ashram can have their way with May ladies, and you can’t, is because they are Alpha males and you are a million miles from being an alpha male.

            • frank says:

              Realistically tho`, Shantam, long before you left in 2007, the Eesort was already a good place for aging greybeard (dunno about alpha, a lot of them more alfalfa) males and wannabe zen masters to wave their wadge around and get first refusal on oriental girls. It was pretty standard.

              Maybe the set-up`s a little like the ancient Greeks, who, like Socrates, found it normal for older guys to have a young boy in tow, both for sexual and teaching/pupil purposes, and this is the modern version?

              If that`s your scene, do some overtime, stash some cash and get over there.
              If not, belly-aching about people in a sex-cult having sex isn`t going to get you very far! Better stay single or get someone your own age who can keep you on the straight and narrow, knock a bit of sense into you with a rolling pin etc.

              Madhu, maybe?

            • satchit says:

              You are a bit mean to him, Arps!

              Have you ever had in your life a long-term relationship or are you more the lonely wolf type?

              • Arpana says:

                Scratchit,

                ”Stephen not an alpha male” doesn’t need you to protect him.

                He has a skill set, or so he says, that makes him so suited to running the ashram that when he takes over he will restore the place to how it was when he and Osho were there together.

              • Arpana says:

                I’ve had three partners for the last forty years, Scratchit, but they don’t know about each other; and we don’t live together, obviously, so to be honest with you I’m starting to find it all a bit exhausting. Never have a minute to myself. I spend most of my tine screwing, eating, sleeping, chores. Really is awful.

            • shantam prem says:

              Archie Arpana,
              Your posts show you being a “little man”, one of those who have sheltered criminals down the ages, because foot soldiers cannot be otherwise.

              I am more proud of those Christians who did not fall in the trap of some Indian shouting abuse on their culture; but go on reforming and covering the loopholes.

    • Levina says:

      When Osho mentioned meditation he probably meant the natural state. I always wondered why he clung to that word, ’cause at least for myself it implements a kind of doing. Although if I remember well, he also said meditation is a way of life, just letting things happen.

      I guess I just don’t like the word ‘meditation’ any longer; also it became a kind of concept to use when you want to put down somebody: “Oh, you are not very meditative.”

      It was always used in Sheela’s case; she didn’t meditate, and that explained the way she behaved. As if meditators were exempt or would never have behaved the way she did, or have a particular code of behaviour.

      But perhaps they meant if somebody is more silent and peaceful, then there is less chance that they project their insecurities on others? But that is no guarantee, I think.

      • frank says:

        Back to the subject…

        It seems to me the best link between formal meditations and being it in everyday life (doing to being), especially as I get older, is doing a variety of simple moves that are good for the health too.

        Lying down, the Alexander semi-supine is a good one. Simple standing basic Qi Gung, letting go first thing in the morning, last thing at night, walking, swimming and so on. It`s more like keeping the engine running smoothly instead of trying to soup it up which is what I did when I was younger.

        • satyadeva says:

          Makes sense to me too, Frank. My ‘staple diet’ of this sort of thing has spanned several decades, since, oddly enough, during the lying down phase of a kundalini at the old ‘Kalptaru’ centre in London, 1980, I followed an inner voice that quietly but firmly ‘told’ me to “learn psycho-calisthenics”, the ‘moving yoga’ exercise system taught in Oscar Ichazo’s Arica Training, which I’d first heard about 7 years previously.

          It’s been great, 23 exercises, each with deep breathing, the whole sequence taking between 20-30 minutes, depending on personal preference/current energy level (so you don’t have to be particularly fit or ‘athletic’ to learn it). Creates a basic sense of well-being and has helped carry me through tricky periods and enhanced the better ones. A friend says it’s worth 2 hours’ sleep! At our age all that’s priceless, I reckon.

          Only thing is, if I miss doing it I tend to eventually feel a bit uneasy, so I guess it qualifies as a ‘positive addiction’.

          • Arpana says:

            SD,
            I’ve often thought all I’ve done since this began is to drop the life-negating habits, enhanced life-affirming habits, and added on a few life-affirming habits, although life-affirming habits become something else if we no longer identify with said habits, and I am not sure if there is a word for that.

  12. frank says:

    Apparently, according to his one-time girlfriend, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was a secret shagmonster, too.(“Robes of silk, feet of clay”). He had a string of young ladies going on whilst claiming celibacy for decades.
    And all those Tibetans, Hari Krishnas etc. caught with their pants down, pretending to be holy…what a silly game!

    You`ve got to admit that the White Rogue Brotherhood guys in the Resort are at least one-up on that.

    Altho` if I was a perky 20 year-old Taiwanese, Korean or whatever, I`m sure I could find better things to do than shagging a wrinkly old grey bloke with iffy breath, a few teeth missing, bits of last-night`s dal on his beard, who is using me as a Viagra substitute.

    But hey, that`s just me and my judgments.

  13. Arpana says:

    Levina,

    Me taking the piss is much more overt, and generally very sarcastic, to faux naif*. Although I sometimes go for extremely blunt, faux naif obnoxious.

    Generally, I only take the piss out of Lokesh and Shantam. Scratchit occasionally, but never with any ill will.

    *faux naif – artificially or affectedly simple or naive.

  14. frank says:

    Loke,
    The thing about feeling “super” is of course that super means “above”.
    How long can we stay “above” before the “below” re-asserts itself?

    Looking back to the red days,pretty much everyone was high as a kite on endorphins from doing meditations,dancing,sex and all.
    Endorhins are endogenous(body produced), but its still possible to both overdo it and feel a severe sense of lack when the stimulus is absent.
    It`s possible to try to keep it going with more and more spiritual stuff or more chemical intervention,or a bit of both,but the lurking threat of cold turkey,or is it cold garuda is an occupational hazard.

  15. frank says:

    Satya Deva`s recurring nightmare.

    • satyadeva says:

      Who’s that – Arps after two 3 hour sessions of active meditation?

      • Arpana says:

        I did kundalini followed by dynamic one evening, and I was nearly immobile and almost equally unable to speak, for close to thirty six hours, near total tranquillity. Was close to challenging to go to the loo. Didn’t sleep either.

        • satyadeva says:

          Dynamic after kundalini? Mmm, most unusual…very odd…

          I do believe you’re one of those extremist meditators we’ve been alerted about, Mr Arpana. Would you step this way, please, there are questions that require answers….

          • Arpana says:

            It’s a technique.

            I had a career. I worked in top gear, plus overdrive, for seven years, and the only way to get out of that is to go into everything so intensely that let-go happens; refine the compulsion so it becomes a useful tool.

            Drugs were effortlessly gone by 1981, and booze, so I was never interested again by 1983. I’m not a teetotaller, I am just not drawn to drink or drugs at all. Fucked up my social life though.

  16. Lokesh says:

    “Man lies to himself a lot.”
    ― Gurdjieff

    • Arpana says:

      Perfectly correct, Lokesh; and that includes you.

      All you have in common with Gurdjieff is your bald head.

    • madhu dagmar frantzen says:

      Yes, Lokesh,

      Gurdijeff was ONE of His kind, you´re right; Armenian Russian Boldhead and a rascal too, as is well known by now.

      I´m reminded of a lecture where Osho/Bhagwan shared with all of us what Nirvano (aka Vivek) had said to Him privately: “You´re more cruel than Gurdijeff…” The audience was stunned, some of them (not many) laughing. Times ago.

      This is from the days before yesterday (in and of our Sangha); but what didn´t end, presumably, is some clone-copying of rascal methods dealing with friends of a human growth movement whatsoever by people, misusing power which they attain (or imagined to have attained) on their way, identifying* with a man of His calibre.

      When reading some of the obituary contributions re our late fellow-traveller Michael aka Somendra, I found that of a Bodhicitta, who pointed that out, one can say; and it’s worth reading and understanding, I´d suggest: you find it on Oshonews/ bituaries if you are interested to read it).

      Madhu

      P.S:
      You´re quite identified with that man Gurdijeff, aren´t you, Lokesh?
      However, you also – like the rest of us – are just one of YOUR ´kind, not more and not less either.

      • madhu dagmar frantzen says:

        P.P.S. for Lokesh:
        You know, I loved how French native Amyio, known by that, what she brought into the world, by adapting and transforming too the Gurdijeff Dances worked out in her school she founded.

        Such is in constant transformation, inviting people to explore, investigate and bringing onto stage, inviting onlookers to join and melt into deep meditation.

        In my own experience He, the founder of this wisdom) was/is alive, one can say, without even mentioning it. That´s beautiful and deep, the least to say!

      • frank says:

        Madhu, out of curiosity, I followed your tip and read Bodhicitta`s comment on Michael Barnett`s obit. It`s not very long, so I thought it might be worth reproducing it in full here:

        “In 2012 I heard Swami Yoga Chinmaya say to me, “Bodhicitta, you are past the point where you can no longer make the mistakes that Somendra and people like him have made. In the fourth body many psychic powers become available and they can enchant and divert you for lives.”

        I recall Osho saying Somendra was his Judas. If you review the 97 references to Somendra in the Osho library, a clear picture of the man, his desire for enlightenment, and his betrayal of the master will emerge.
        His obit should educate us disciples, not hypnotise us in the old mistakes of confusing an interesting energy experience with a true growth of awareness.

        Like the Lord High Executioner says in the Mikado:

        “My object all sublime, I will achieve in time,
        to make the punishment fit the crime, the punishment fit the crime.
        And make each penitent, unwittingly represent,
        A source of innocent merriment, of innocent merriment.”

        Better luck next time, Somendra.
        Anand Bodhicitta.”

        The punishment must fit the crime? The Lord High Executioner from Gilbert and Sullivan as back-up? Is this guy serious?
        Unfortunately, obviously, yes.

        I am not a supporter of Barnett in any shape or form, but the language of punishment and apostasy is weird. Sounds like a member of some Sannyas Taliban!

        Plus, parroting Osho`s hissy fitty “Judas” pronouncement?
        Really? Did Barnett ever conspire to kill anyone?

        Ironically, the messenger who delivered the news that Barnett was a “late” sannyasin (actual terminology used for those who dropped sannyas in those days) was Sheela, who was indeed a serial conspirator to murder.

        Not being able to digest this, by being too busy heroically battling the temptations to misuse the siddhis and psychic powers that have recently been waved in front of him by his “fourth body”, and trying hard not to end up like kaffar Michael Barnett for a few lives, Bodhicitta remains as righteously outraged as a Catholic priest with a prickly-pear-shaped crucifix stuck up his ass.

        Devoted disciples eh?
        Bloody `ell!

        • madhu dagmar frantzen says:

          Thanks for your review here; Frank.
          Understandable.

          Madhu

          • madhu dagmar frantzen says:

            P.S. to Frank:

            And yes, yes, yes, your take is understandable.

            Would like to add, though, some of the background why I posted that. In my background is stored some of that; I posted a long time ago, recommending something like a´book-clinic, one can say, providing us with other takes: like that of the late Amos Oz (Israeli) re “Judas”(2014) or his take on Fanaticism (2017/18). Had no resonance here so far.

            But for me – especially regarding experiencing Levina´s take re Arpana vs. Lokesh, for example – looking helplessly while reading, being hooked, so to say, wanting to contribute and yet having to face some impotence to do that etc.

            Sometimes a ´book-clinic’, reading other stories than just these ones, has been all my live means of support – either to retreat or to find another way of talking/taking an issue.

            Or last and not least, looking into a ´mirror´ not in a desperate way.
            (Once again recommnding too Amos Oz about fanaticism, as also from the ´book-clinic’ Ian McEwan with his latest, ‘Cockcroaches’. Just a few months ago his satirical parable was printed (UK and then here too) – and just very recently he was interviewed and public readings have been happening here. He´s a Londoner, like some of you are. Congratulations!).

            Best wishes to all,

            Madhu

        • swamishanti says:

          As I mentioned to SD the other day, I heard that sometime at the Ranch in 1982, Somendra went through a phase of believing he had become enlightened again. Osho asked Somedra to come and see him, but Somendra refused.

          After that refusal, Sheela took his mala away and he left the Ranch and started his Wild Goose thing. He seemed to still have full respect for Osho in later years, though.

        • sw. veet (francesco) says:

          “Devoted disciples eh?
          Bloody `ell!” (Frank)

          If you talk about a disciple but then you finish talking in the plural it’s called generalisation.

          Then, if you use an adjective that is also a noun alluding to its implicit negative qualities (while one can be devoted even to positive things, like intellectual honesty) the self-referentiality of your prejudice on the sannyasins category is perfect.

          Obviously, if I didn’t share everything you wrote before, the last two lines wouldn’t have caught my attention.

          • Levina says:

            Dear Swami Veet, I am always wondering when, if you would talk to a friend, you would do that in the same way as you write your posts?

            Most of the time I haven’t got a clue what you are trying to say, but maybe if I would sit with your writings for a day, I would get the gist, but I’m too lazy to do that. I’m sure it’s very meaningful, a bit like Beelzebub’s Tales, but maybe you could come down a bit more to my/our level so we can partake in your musings?

            • sw. veet (francesco) says:

              Dear Levina,
              I try to make a little drawing:
              Suppose you are a woman and a sannyasin who has just told me that she does not understand what I say, and I make this conclusion: Women sannyasins, eh?! Bloody hell!

              • Levina says:

                Dear Veet,
                I can well understand that you don’t want to bend backwards to please (sannyasin) women in order that they understand your intellectual ramblings: that would indeed be too painful a move, you could hurt your back, and the only word you perhaps could utter is: “Ouch!!”

                • sw. veet (francesco) says:

                  Dear Levina, I just gave an example.

                  Assuming you were a woman, my allusion through a generalization, in this case “woman who does not understand what I write,” made you respond, as I did in another case, to the prejudice contained in it.
                  What would have changed if instead of “woman sannyasin” I had used “devoted sannyasin”?

                  Btw, funny your allusion to the well-known British actor Ben Dover, one of the few that I understand without subtitles; in the future I will try to communicate with that basic English.

  17. Lokesh says:

    Sannyas is old rubbish.

  18. Lokesh says:

    Sieg heil, Yogi. I say, be a good egg and pass the soylent green. Love that taste of smokey bacon. Vegans beware! Push the buttons and exterminate them all!

    • madhu dagmar frantzen says:

      Hi Lokesh,

      Just asking: Are you refering here (at 9:04 pm) to that really, really dark science fiction movie of decades ago (made in UK if I rightly remember)?Wwatched it in the 80s..such a dark plot and yes, I´m sometimes remembering that too, in times where more and more people marching in the streets worldwide to claim theit Human Rights and we then see what happens…

      When yes, when you refer to that movie, we too might have had different view (understanding) of the same plot – as you seem to keep up to this very day the imagination that all evil comes from the Germans for all time and forever. You sometimes leave that impression in me – reading you.

      However – you married a German native woman. Good to know that.

      Madhu

      • Lokesh says:

        Hi Madhu,
        Yes, it began when Frank mentioned Colonel Kurtz from Apocalypse Now, whose conclusion in the film was to drop the bomb and kill them all. Soylent Green, starring Charlton Heston, takes its name from food distributed to the masses that was made from harvested human beings.

        You say, “You seem to keep up to this very day the imagination that all evil comes from the Germans for all time and forever.”
        I have no idea what you are referring to, which in your case is not uncommon for me. Therefore I request that you give two references to back up your allegations.

        As it is, I have a number of good German friends, always enjoy visiting Germany and know it as a fact that Germany is the most peace-loving and civilized country in Europe. Of course, there are strong factions of neo-Nazism in the former East Germany, but the rise of fascism is spreading in Europe. One only needs to look at the rise of Spain’s Voz party for evidence of that.

        Here is a link to a Rammstein video which I believe sums up how I view Germany. I think it is a must watch:
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMQkV5cTuoY&list=RDHMQkV5cTuoY&index=1

        • madhu dagmar frantzen says:

          Hi Lokesh,
          Still in bewilderment how ´Pandora´s Boxes’ are opening here, chat-wise, leaving out some ghosts lingering underneath some pretty much fixed performances before, and slowly, slowly walking the ´Acceptance Boulevard´ – and I´m not at all done yet. However, I feel to respond to your take yesterday at 8:36 am (adressing me).

          You know, quite often, I re-read your private email to me from February 14th, 2014, where you recommended to me to drop my writing here in the Chat, and also made clear your reasons to do that. And don´t get me wrong now; I´ve been taking your words in, although I decided otherwise and stayed, so to say.

          Our appreaciation of one another has been not mutual these years. But Frank´s recently posted Fritz Perls verse, to keep calm and get to one’s senses, has been part of my spiritual ´education´ even before Sannyas. And Sannyas and my inner connection with Osho deepened such, you bet!

          You have the request to give ‘references’, you say?

          Well – I´ve nothing to do with a ´Rachel´ (that Sister figure of that indeed good entertainment movie of times ago), and if we would meet, you would know it, I’m pretty much sure.

          Anyway, I don´t take the piss offered – at least not all of it. And when I´m ‘in/on the hook’, I take it in and sometimes, good insight comes out of it. Sometimes not, unfortuanately.

          Just now, it’s working to find a positive approach to watching the ongoing turmoil (inside-outside) which – as I feel it – belongs just to a ´cloud-watching´ necessarily to accept, just the way it is.

          “Is meditaion over-hyped?” the topic goes. Not at all, I´d say.

          Lokesh – I appreciated your takes here while it was happening in the Chat and I shared that. Relating is not so much ´your thing´, I felt, chat-wise. But won´t miss your input.

          I wrote this a little bit ´prematurely´ along today, but want to say this, before this topic could be closed and the new announced one about money affairs comes into its gears.

          Wishing you, myself and all here, who do NOT belong to a bot, a beautiful winter day.

          Crispy cold, and sunny here. Yesterday´s first snow vanished in the melting….

          Madhu

          • madhu dagmar frantzen says:

            P.S. (for Lokesh):
            Btw, Rammstein´is not my cup to tea, as Kavita likes to put it.

            However, in the area where I´m living now, I get a stalking performance here and there by fans of ´heavy metal´ and more (even sometimes in fluent English like the other day quite recently).

            Had some ´wiki´ research after your recommendation about the history channel of the group…and yes, they had their start of 1994 and wiki gives the whole of it, a long and thorough report. Interesting. Still I gonna protect my ears for the moment, so I won´t call up your add just now.

            Sometimes though, I love some of the rappers’ stances on stage, but rarely, I confess. Maybe too old (71 now)?

            You are in a way roughly informed about the neo-fascists here, or Mafia happenings – as we here are (in Germany) ´fette Beute´ (ask your wife, please, for the meaning).

            But you don´t live in that stuff on everyday terms, I´d say. Me, I do.

            And so – I also like to pass over to you:
            You seem to not know what ‘Stalking’ (and cyberstalking) mean regarding challenges to mental and psychological sanity. Me, I do.

            And that may be one of the reasons I´m not into Rammstein´s takes in a Youtube ad just now – or forever…

            However, was good to have a wiki research due to your recommendation, and thank you for that.

            Madhu

            • Lokesh says:

              Madhu, I did not ask you if you are a Rammstein fan, I would be surprised if you were. I linked the vid because I agree with the sentiments of the song which ties in with the following.

              You say, “You seem to keep up to this very day the imagination that all evil comes from the Germans for all time and forever.”
              I have no idea what you are referring to, which in your case is not uncommon for me. Therefore I request that you give two references to back up your allegations. You failed to do that, which does not surprise me.

              • madhu dagmar frantzen says:

                I didn´t fail to do that, Lokesh, but you preferred to over-read it, and this – like your take, “can´t ever figure out what you are talking about”, is quite common too (already familiar to me).

                You´re quite very skilled in terms of denial, Lokesh, and even much more skilled in holding nothing but YOUR line…and so be it.

                But don´t expect me to agree with such a dynamic.

                Trying my best to catch the drift in your manifold contributions (from the very beginning on).

                And again! “Relating seems not to be YOUR thing” if a voicing (wording) like mine, amongst others too, perhaps, is not congruent with the filter bubble you feel at home with.

                I can live with that, and I’ve inner-worked on it. Just by deciding to trust that you´ve passed through a lot of experiences in your lifetime so far and DO have some valuable things to share.

                Same – btw – have I too – as well.

                Madhu

                • Lokesh says:

                  Onve again, Madhu, I have not a clue what you are talking about.

                  Do you know there are more suns in the universe than there are grains of sands on all of this planet’s beaches?

                  Kind of puts things in perspective.

  19. satchit says:

    Maybe, SD.

    But if you ask me, you are not totally neutral.

    You have more fear of Lokesh leaving SN than of Arpana leaving SN. And this affects Arpana. (Something to understand the group dynamic).

    • satyadeva says:

      Satchit, my job is to try to ensure SN continues without the chronic repetition of habitual interpersonal abuse which, certainly in the context of online communication, only magnifies conflict and ill feeling, and rarely gets resolved. As has been well demonstrated in SN’s own history.

      It’s up to the contributors to appreciate this instead of acting as if they’re in some sort of interminable encounter group.

      Yes, at times there’s a fine line between honesty, humour and gratuitous insult, and I’m sure no one wants to see this site ‘over-sanitised’, but repeating the same old conflicts in the same old language serves no purpose, moves nothing on.

      Parmatha’s eventual policy (his SN ‘legacy’ if you like) was for people to discuss all types of issues openly, and with respect for the other, so this is what I’m asking for again.

      Btw, to speak of “fear” of Lokesh (or anyone) leaving SN is using the wrong word. I’d prefer him (and everyone else) to stay, but really, my personal preferences, if I have any, are neither here nor there, in terms of keeping the site going. You can accept this or not, but it happens to be true.

      • sw. veet (francesco) says:

        SD, with all the limitations of Veeresh’s vision, which guides the activities of the Humaniversity, my experience there was overall positive, even if sometimes at the expense of someone that I could not love as I wanted/could.

        The gift I received was to better integrate my angry side, feeling more at ease when something threatens my attitude as a peace-maker with which I sometimes identify myself.

        Dear SD, surely on a point Veeresh is right, sometimes to become friends with someone first you have to fight against him/her, then “vis pacem parabellum”.

        It seems to me that when the going gets tough you as a judge can be firm and direct. The only problem is when you are a part in the game, and much more since Big P left us. Being in a position of attack or defence (dialectic-rhetoric) and at the same time in that one of ‘super partes’ must not be easy, if not impossible.

        I propose that those of us available may sometimes moderate the discussion.
        Technically, the comments should be sent to the email address of the Mod in charge (or on caravanserai) which can be copied and pasted by adding only the nickname of the author on the comments panel.

        If there are things that cannot be shared or understood, the Mod in charge can communicate by writing it publicly on the site or privately by email.

        In this way you, and possibly other Mods already authorized by Big P, would maintain the role of supervisor, intervening in the extreme cases, such as when someone would shit out of the toilet (Anand Yogi excluded).

        • satyadeva says:

          Veet, therapy and a discussion site are totally different arenas. What is appropriate to and works in one doesn’t in the other, and vice versa (see my earlier post).

          As for sharing moderation in a team with others, I’m not inclined to agree, unless I know them personally and trust them to carry on as Parmartha and his co-founders of SN wished. The time and energy commitment is quite substantial, you’d probably be surprised how much work it takes. I doubt many (if anyone) here would be interested, eg in maintaining the standards of presentation SN requires, especially regarding language skills (most posts need ‘tidying up’, some to a substantial degree).

          (Btw, using the Caravanserai to copy posts is a non-starter as posts over a few lines there are truncated).

          • satyadeva says:

            Up late, refecting on this apparent impasse.

            This thread is nearing its imposed (by WordPress) end and the next one is to be about SN’s financial situation, as the site can not continue if that remains unresolved..

            I propose that in future, if SN carries on, which I trust it will, any fundamental objections to something that appears in an article or comment, ie something that is felt to be inappropriate for the site (rather than a simple matter of fact or opinion on an issue) be raised in a personal mail (PM) to me, located at the Caravanserai page. I’ll consider it and if necessary discuss it with ‘responsible people’ (trust me!) before deciding ‘yes’ or ‘no’, publishing the issue and decision in the Comments.

            If anyone has any further practical suggestions, fire away, please.

            Right…it’s been a long day…See you in the morning, some time….

            • Levina says:

              To Satyadeva’s post at 2.30 a.m.
              I find your attitude, Satya, in the circumstances quite lenient and patient, and the fact that you want to go on in your role as mod quite astonishing, and was also wondering about your motivation.

              As for myself, I have mixed feelings about SN. For one, this site has nothing to do with Osho (I think he would laugh reading all this, and call us back to our Essence) but more with a story from the past, when we were Osho sannyasins (including myself).

              So, in the name of the past which includes the founders, who are almost considered holy, we have this medium where we can spout our opinions and positions in various ways, which at least for me is a learning ground to see how the mind/emotions work, including my own, through all these mirrors. Always seeing: what does it do with me?

              So for me SN is therapeutic in a way in showing me the beliefs I hold on to. And imo certainly not a chat room in the name of Osho, a kind of holy cow.

              That being said, there is also a big part of me that regrets every time I post something in order for the mind to be seen and heard it keeps the karma wheel nicely going, not to speak of the addiction of continally checking posts.

              So I would prefer, Satya, if you would say: enough is enough, we stop the whole toko, then my dilemma would be solved, ha,ha. Or a softer approach could be that contributors who are not donating will not get posted; that would also make it easy for me.

              I’m only concerned about myself, which, considering reading all the last posts, everybody else is. So let’s not go into this spiel of: oh, we must save SN, whatever the cost, this holy site where we sincerely discuss all our sacred opnions, ’cause imo that’s bullshit.

              • satyadeva says:

                Levina, you ask me what’s my motivation here…

                SN has been operating online for a long time, around 14 or so years, as a ‘grass roots’ medium for sannyasins and fellow-travellers to share experience and views, away from any imperative to ‘toe the official line’, its founders feeling that there was a need for this means of expression, believing that many ‘ordinary’ sannyasins have worthwhile stories to tell, perspectives to share, and perhaps help to ask for and to offer, a need that wasn’t being met in the Sannyas world.

                Parmartha felt that, despite the difficulties inherent in bringing together different types of people, at different stages of growth and (one might perhaps say) consciousness, to engage with one another, which has always often caused friction, an extreme instance of which is now right in front of us, the quite frequent stimulating debates and occasional nuggets of wisdom, ‘pearls in the sand’, as it were, plus, of course, the humour, the jokes and the satire, ie FUN, made it all worthwhile, even something that might possibly be of value not only to us but also to ‘posterity’, as a historical record of how it was for us in these times.

                Before he died, he asked me to continue the site, hence my motivation to keep it alive, if possible.

                • Levina says:

                  Thanx for the response, Satya. I hope for you that keeping the promise is not becoming a dilemma.

                • satyadeva says:

                  It’s not a dilemma, Levina, I’m determined to keep SN going.

                  Although much will depend on the contributors – and their willingness to contribute cash as well as views.

                • Levina says:

                  Satya, you wrote: “as a historical record, how it was for us in these times.”

                  I see bits and pieces of that in people’s posts, but not much. Maybe it’s an idea to post anecdotes of our personal expierences of our sannyas life, whether they are traumatic, funny, or whatever, and instead of giving an opinion about it we could respond with another anecdote.

                  In that way the Chat is more personal, not so abstract and there is less chance of violating each other’s boundaries.

                • satyadeva says:

                  By “an historical record” I meant primarily in terms of people’s views, conflicts, beliefs, struggles, joys, suffering, etc., Levina, especially, of course, in terms of their experience in (and out of) Sannyas and vis-a-vis Osho. The ‘background’ details add a contemporary flavour of course, but they’re not ‘the main dish’.

              • madhu dagmar frantzen says:

                Thanks, Levina ( at 6:02 am) for posting this. Felt warm at heart reading it.

                Madhu

              • veet francesco says:

                Levina, I don’t know anything about your biography, things like age, country, wealth, caste, sex, zodiac sign, religion…then you talk about things that, together with me, you consider important, things like mirrors, sharing, therapy, mind observation/emotions…

                Yet you say “we were Osho sannyasins”.

                Ok, help me understand why you and I are here to communicate.
                Possible that in our respective communities closer to us there is not someone to talk about mirrors, sharing, therapy, observation of the mind/emotions…for reasons of belonging to categories such as age, country, wealth, caste, sex, zodiac sign, religion?

                • Levina says:

                  Veet, I gather there is no recognition, not from my side, and not from yours.

                • Levina says:

                  Veet, if I have offended you, I’m sorry. It’s just that the way you write has so many twists and turns, most of the time. I do somehow recognise the essence, and in a way find it quite ingenious, but mostly I haven’t got a clue what you are talking about.

                  And sure, you don’t have to change your style to please me, but that means I’ll just skip
                  your posts, and that is perhaps a pity.

            • frank says:

              BREAKING NEWS

              Reports are coming in of a terrorist attack at the Orange Sunshine Retirement Home for the Spiritually Challenged.
              It was stormed last night by a group of fanatics shouting “Osho Akbar!”, ”Baboons”, “Ontological solipsists!” and “Justice and fair play.”

              An eyewitness recounts:
              “It was like a war zone in there: one minute, people were just going about their normal everyday business, slagging off Osho, saying that Sannyas is old rubbish and taking the piss out of old retarded disciples, then all hell broke loose. The inmates fought back with anything that came to hand, mostly old therapy techniques from the 70s. One guy took an old zenstick off the wall and had a go with that. It was mayhem. One of the attackers seems like he had gone beserk, he was foaming at the mouth, lobbing Osho quotes willy-nilly into the crowd and shouting abuse. I`ve never seen anything like it.”

              A siege situation has developed with the terrorists making a series of demands, including that they be taken seriously.

              A spokesman for the retirement home said, ”I’m afraid that`s just not possible.”

              The situation worsens.

              • Lokesh says:

                Good post, Frank- “a series of demands including that they be taken seriously.” Yes, very ironic indeed. That’s life.

                • sw. veet (francesco) says:

                  I would like to express my sympathy for the two victims (maybe three, the director of the Medication Center during the attack was changing the diaper to one of the two and slipped on worthless matter).

                  The damage done to the structures is not structural but the authorities intervened have found previous hygienic conditions, to say the least, precarious, in one of the department: SPP (Serious Provocation Professionals, people who apply a form of iconoclasm that saves only the uncivilized rights of bullies and clowns).

                  It has also been discovered that other patients have been denouncing for a long time, and with a certain passion, the degradation that emanated from that asphyxiated room without windows or functioning toilets.

                  The two old men were subjected to the appropriate care, while with the foam at the mouth they uttered meaningless phrases about an “old guy” who would screw them when they were young.

              • Levina says:

                I was waiting for it, Frank, putting things into the tragic/comic perspective again!

              • satyadeva says:

                Thanks, Frank, there’s nothing like humour for putting fanaticism and the like in perspective.

                • frank says:

                  Ode To The Best Medicine

                  I take it in the morning, I take it in the night
                  I take it black as the gallows, l take it light and bright.
                  It gets me in the belly, it gets me in the face,
                  It gets me out of myself and back in the human race.

                  Give me your nonsense, your wordplay and your puns,
                  Well thought out or off-the-cuff, I`ll take them as they come.
                  Deadpan, dry, or epigrammatic,
                  There`s no time of day I don`t want to be at it.
                  Clownish, daft or plain idiotic,
                  It`s all way better than antibiotics.
                  Give me practical jokes, innuendo and folie de grandeur,
                  Rub me up the wrong way anytime you like with a bit of double-entendre.
                  Slap me on the arse with some commedia-del-arte,
                  Hit me in the brain with your witty repartee.
                  Off-colour, purple, blue or black,
                  Give it a shot, because I` m up for the crack.
                  Deadpan, dry or understated,
                  If it sets me off, I`ll advocate it.
                  Cringe, sardonic or even a bit moronic,
                  Sarcastic or bombastic – it’s all a welcome tonic
                  Juvenile, slapstick or totally hyperbolic
                  They`re all perfect ways to cure the melancholic.

                  Don`t be downcast, have a blast,
                  Keeping `em coming thick and fast
                  Being miserable?
                  I just can`t be arsed.
                  Because the honest truth is:
                  He who laughs, lasts.

              • sw. veet (francesco) says:

                Dear Levina,
                I see that you have no problem recognizing Frank’s syntax; maybe it depends on recognizing his point of view too.

                If we were friends or shared the same love for a Master and his community rather than being offended, I would be sorry if you did not recognize my point of view through which I express my essence…when there is that will (love) words arrive, you can even imagine, correct or bypass them.

                For me, recognizing each other implies honesty, first of all with my-yourself; when the words with which we represent ourselves move away or contradict the substance (essence) that leaks from them then we struggle in recognition.

                I am a disciple of Osho, existentially still on his boat.
                This, SN, is a virtual boat that one of the founders has dedicated to Osho, and, from the way he celebrated his own departure, I have no doubt about his sincere intention.

                Now, I don’t know much about you (maybe I should read your old comments more carefully) but based on your recent definition, ‘you were a sannyasin’, I could make assumptions:

                1) You jumped from the boat but you can’t swim, so you gasp and try to climb with your nails to get back on board.
                2) You jumped from the boat and you can swim, inviting me to do the same, we don’t need any boats;
                3) You found a new boat but you can’t talk about it because there are no spaces to share.
                4) You jumped existentially from Osho’s boat but you’re back on the virtual one to convince me to jump from the first one, so you gasp, without water.

                Many other possibilities…maybe if you tell me which words represent you at best I would have been shorter.

                • Levina says:

                  Reply to Veet 4 Dec. 2.29.

                  Veet, I recognise your liking to play with words to express the inexpressible, perhaps? Or maybe to make the mundane special?

                  As far as “the boat” concerns, for me it’s a symbol of holding on to some kind of security, a bit like trying to hold on in the vastness, imagining that you are in a boat.

                  I’m at a stage where I’m in the process of letting go of (“boats”) teachers, including Osho, and beginning to trust more and more my inner teacher/guide, which at times produces fear, fear of nothing to hold on t

            • sw. veet (francesco) says:

              SD, what do you think about Whatsapp, ie create a group SN there?

              It has no additional costs and puts you in immediate communication, that is, by interacting in the here and now without mediations, sannyasins from all corners of the world, committed to living their own everyday life, which today almost always means bringing your cellphone with you.

              The best of what happens on that group (Whatsapp) could be proposed to you for this Chat (SN). There would also be the possibility of listening to the voice by leaving a message or making a phone call, it could help develop friendship and intimacy.

              But I also think of something more ambitious: to create a virtual network of consciousness and sensitivity inspired by Osho, asking “how small is the world?” (six degrees of separation).

              Wondering which sannyasins we know in that country?
              The only requirement to join the Chat, beyond a recent photo, could be the sannyasin name.
              If a similar group already exists, please add my mobile number (I would send it to you via email).

              • satyadeva says:

                Well, for me this would have zero attraction, especially as I haven’t owned a cell-phone since I left mine on a train at an airport last Christmas and have managed ok all year. Besides, I find the time I spend each day at this laptop is more than enough exposure to the cyber-world.

                In fact, I feel freer without the temptation to be looking at the thing, which, seeing so many constantly gazing at their little gadgets while walking down the street and on public transport, seems to me to have become one of the defining means of ‘hypnosis’ of the age, a huge ‘distraction’ for millions of people to bury themselves in.

                But sure, if it ‘floats your boat’, why not take the initiative and create this network ?

                • sw. veet (francesco) says:

                  SD, done. I called it (provisionally) ’6 Chakras of Separation’.

                  Would you like, when you have time, to receive and send a few emails among SN’s friends to exchange mobile numbers?

                • satyadeva says:

                  Time is something I tend to be short of, Veet, so I can’t guarantee anything at present. Frankly, SN itself takes quite a lot of my time, and I have other commitments as well.

                  I think you’ll need to be more specific as to exactly what you require, including how much time it might take, before I can give you a realistic answer.

      • satchit says:

        SD, do you also think that Arpana’s contributions have been invaluable over the years?

        Certainly Lokesh’s contribution is invaluable:
        Nobody interfering when he says “Sannyas is old rubbish” on a sannyas forum.

        You know and I know that he gets special treatment here.

        • satyadeva says:

          Satchit, why do you think Arpana’s articles have been published in the last year? Think about it…

          I see nothing essentially ‘wrong’ in someone criticising Sannyas here, as long as they provide well-argued reasons for their viewpoint rather than continually trying to shove it down others’ throats (as it were).

        • Lokesh says:

          Satchit, it was you that predicted that I would say that “Sannyas is old rubbish”. Had you not written that I would have not thought to write such a thing. I wrote it for fun, to make you feel you were right. And now here you are making a serious issue out of it. That is kind of pathetic.

        • sw. veet (francesco) says:

          Dear Levina, I will try to add trivial things, in a non-special way, to those spoken by you.

          Given that for me “the boat” is the place connected with the experience of vastness, that is where to find confidence not only in the swimfins sold in the Sangha but also in my wings blown by the words of the Master. I think that here (SN), given the coexistence between us, not only between you and me, it would be possible if all those who claim to have jumped from the boat did not make fun of those who continue to keep the boat clean (Master reputation = hermeneutic/philological correctness).

          It may seem silly to you or a form of cowardice to express this sense of gratitude to be transmitted to posterity, with respect to your need to embrace the vastness, but my research, started with compassion, continues to find inspiration only thanks to the travelling companions I meet in everyday life, scared and lost like you.

    • Arpana says:

      You are misreading this somewhat, Satchit, but I agree there are double standards here.

      To be for Osho and interested in Osho is seen by SD and Lokesh and Frank as pathological, and so we have much less access to the site, to post, and we are much more rigorously policed than Lokesh and Frank.

      Calling Lokesh out is frowned upon, whereas his constant sneers, jeers, adolescent name-calling is allowed, along with his self agrandising negativity about Osho.

      • satyadeva says:

        “To be for Osho and interested in Osho is seen by SD and Lokesh and Frank as pathological, and so we have much less access to the site, to post, and we are much more rigorously policed than Lokesh and Frank.”

        Arpana, I suggest you calm down and keep to the facts. While it’s true that Lokesh’s and Frank’s posts are sent directly to the site, this was originally authorised by Parmartha due to their requiring little or no moderation, unlike the vast majority of others’ posts. However, they’re still reviewed, like all other posts.

        To say everyone else has “much less access to the site” and that you and everyone else is “much more rigorously policed” are simply ‘red herrings’ if you mean to imply they are totally free from moderation and can ‘get away with whatever they want’. You might not like what they say at times, or even often, but that’s not the same thing at all.

        As for your remark about me regarding being “for Osho and interested in Osho” as “pathological”, I’d like an apology, please, asap. Why do you imagine I’ve taken up this role, having helped Parmartha for years before? As I said, please calm down and reflect before coming out with such disrespectful crap.

        • Arpana says:

          You tell him, SD.
          Good to be on the receiving end of a bit of genuine, uncontrived, honest annoyance. Cheers, old bean.

          • Arpana says:

            And I do apologise; and you do police Lokesh less rigorously than the rest of us.

            • satyadeva says:

              You’ll have to provide examples, Arpana. Otherwise, there’s no substance to your claims.

              • Arpana says:

                You allowed him to call me his stalker, which made me laugh, and think him more of a tool than I already did.

                • satyadeva says:

                  Well, to me that seemed a reasonable term at the time, Arps. Although frankly, it all seems a bit petty now.

                • Arpana says:

                  Yeah. It is a bit petty. What’s all the fuss about then?
                  Lokesh: Thinkd he’s hard and then plays the victim.

                • satyadeva says:

                  The problem with this continual sniping resentment, Arps, is that it’s been going on, on and off, for years – with no signs of an end in sight (or, one might say, an ‘end insight’!).

                  Which is, I suggest, to a large degree caused by the limitations of this medium: no direct, face-to-face contact, not even the sound of voices, just words on a disembodied virtual space.

                  Frankly, we can huff and puff on here to the nth degree, year on year, and no one will change, no one will relent – Shantam being a good example – so one has to ask, eventually, surely: What’s the point of waging a war you can not win?

                  Why, I wonder, has Lokesh such an an apparent ‘hold’ over you? Causing such virulent reactions? Why can’t you just laugh it off? What in you is – seemingly – threatened?

                  Do you honestly believe Lokesh is threatening or even conspiring to undermine Osho’s work, helping to ‘corrupt’ it for posterity, or something like that? If so, then I think you’re seriously underestimating what Osho has put in place and where at least part of the human race is at, in evolutionary terms.

                • Arpana says:

                  Of course you thought it was reasonable. Lokesh said it. You would have deleted the word ‘stalker’ written by anyone else. Christ, even Frank, BFF, called him out.

                  You’re riding two horses at once. Fair play versus teacher and control of class, and always having the last word if nothing else works.

                • satyadeva says:

                  Untrue, Arps. You say what’s convenient for your hyped-up emotions, as we all tend to do when furious.

                  As for my role, I try to be fair, while calling it as I see it, but despite intentions it’s impossible to be all things to all people, to satisfy everyone at a place like this, as been proven for many years. That comes with the territory, I’m afraid.

                • satyadeva says:

                  You make too many such assumptions, Arps.

              • Arpana says:

                The point is that Lokesh and Shantam are never allowed to forget that I for one think them to be worthless.

                Should never compromise over justice and fair play.

                • frank says:

                  “The point is that Lokesh and Shantam are never allowed to forget that I for one think them to be worthless. ”

                  Arpana,
                  That`s a mistake.

                  People who feel they have worthy opponents feel worthy.

                  People who dehumanise their opponents dehumanise themselves.

                  Wise up.

                • Arpana says:

                  Frank,
                  I didn’t call them “worthless”. SD changed the word.

                  MOD:
                  True, Arpana – the word you used was “shits”, which I suggest amounts to pretty well the same thing, or very close.

                • Arpana says:

                  MOD/SD:
                  “True, Arpana – the word you used was “shits”, which I suggest amounts to pretty well the same thing, or very close.”

                  This is a slip of the tongue, MOD. You think Shantam and Lokesh are worthless. I don’t. I think they have a part to play here. Just not the part they delude themselves about.

                  MOD:
                  This is a post that’s just impossible to take seriously, Arpana. Your perceptions seem skewed by emotional overflow.

                • satyadeva says:

                  Doesn’t sound like “justice and fair play” to me, Arps. Just re-read what you wrote here.

            • satyadeva says:

              Which is your opinion, Arps, but not necessarily true. Again, you need to provide evidence.

              • Arpana says:

                Why do Frank and Lokesh feel so threatened by a few Osho quotes at a fucking site called Sannyas News, with a picture of Osho on the masthead?

                Why does Lokesh keep bitching and sneering at the foolishness of people over thirty years younger than he is now? Why does he feel threatened by that? He wasn’t even at the Ranch.

        • sw. veet (francesco) says:

          “As for your remark about me regarding being “for Osho and interested in Osho” as “pathological”, I’d like an apology, please, asap”.

          Well said, SD.
          Now I wait for an apology too, but from others.

  20. shantam prem says:

    Arpana is the co-author of this article.
    Curious to know, is there a single comment of his which shows a bit of meditative space, some wisdom arising from meditative space?

    Nothing wrong in it. It has become a typical sannyas character. Exceptions do exist, but where are they!

    Paper boats lying on the glass shelf look quite wonderful pieces of art.

    • Arpana says:

      Shantam is the co-author of this article.
      Curious to know, is there a single comment of his which shows a bit of meditative space, some wisdom arising from meditative space?

      Nothing wrong in it. It has become a typical sannyas character. Exceptions do exist, but where are they!

      Paper boats lying on the glass shelf look quite wonderful pieces of art.

  21. frank says:

    I think we should all say the Gestalt Prayer together first thing in the morning before writing:

    “I do my thing and you do your thing.
    I am not in this world to live up to your expectations,
    And you are not in this world to live up to mine.
    You are you, and I am I,
    and if by chance we find each other, it’s beautiful.
    If not, I`ll rip your bastard head off, you fucking baboon cunt asshole.
    Amen.”

    • Arpana says:

      That sums you up to a T, Lokesh. You’ve had a moment of self-awareness. Bloody hell.

    • Shantam prem says:

      Arpana plays victim card wonderfully. I am done with him. May I request you, Arpana, not to use my words nor create any communication with me.

      There is no obligation to greet or abuse everyone in the village.
      Live and let live.

      If Lokesh and SD stop writing here I will do the same.

  22. Lokesh says:

    STALKER…a person who harasses or persecutes someone with unwanted and obsessive attention.

    All things considered, that is, for me at least, a concise description of how I view Arpana. It would please me if he focused his attentions elsewhere. For instance, on what is being said on the threads instead of focusing on who he believes to be saying them.

    He is, quite obviously, obsessed with me. His lines could have been lifted from a sixties John Wayne film, ‘putting me in my place’, ‘calling me out’ etc. To be on the receiving end of his ceaseless attacks is, quite frankly, weird.

    At times Arpana’s comments about me could definitely be defined as pathological, which is very strange seeing as how he projects the image of being a meditator. What to say? Perhaps a psychiatrist might be able to help. I really do not know.

    • Arpana says:

      At times Lokesh’s comments could definitely be defined as pathological, which is very strange seeing as how he projects the image of being a meditator on a higher plane than everybody else. What to say? Perhaps a psychiatrist might be able to help.

    • Shantam prem says:

      Because of many vital elements lacking to make life a celebration, most of people who invested heavy on Osho and his vision have got tunnel vision to prove themselves their own worth.

      At least I am honest to accept this.

      Most of the comments or mutual discussion among the people who call themselves sannyasins reflects this broken heart/broken hopes syndrome.

  23. Arpana says:

    Levina.
    Bear in mind the Ranch didn’t crash and burn because people spoke up, because people spoke their truth, challenged the top dog.

    The Ranch crashed and burned because people didn’t have the courage of their convictions; because they were afraid of disapproval, of looking foolish, of being rejected.

    ”Trust in Allah, but don’t forget to tether your camel.”

  24. madhu dagmar frantzen says:

    @ Frank (at 4:21 pm)

    Did you (by chance) hear my applause (and scream of Joy) at my place here? (My neighbours next door may have heard it).

    If not, if you didn´t come to know it, I herewith share it (this poor way) in regards to your poetic elaboration(s)….

    Thanks,

    Madhu

    • satyadeva says:

      We heard you, Madhu, the flat was rocking for several minutes – I was about to call the Council to investigate when I read your post!

      Frank, I think you could easily pass this on (and make yourself a few quid) to some well-known comedian to use as a ‘statement of personal philosophy’, their very own ‘motif’ (if that’s the right term), or at least as his/her professional aim.

      Alternatively, it’s worthy of being spoken in a drama by an old-style ‘Clown’ or ‘Jester’, for similar reasons.

      Basically, not at all bad, son – you’ll make the first team if you carry on putting in cameo performances like that.

      • madhu dagmar frantzen says:

        Aaah, Satyadeva, you were about to call the Council? Hearing me?
        I almost knew that it was me in need to have a call to the Council – and even before reading Lokesh´s final statement (sure enough without reply button) to have the ´last shamanistic universal final word’, so to say.

        The Council I called – to help me through the night then – was a talk ( one of these on youtube I tend to use every now and then), a Swiss talk with Irvin Yalom, who is more than a good Therapist and Storyteller (‘And Nietsche´s Crying’ or ‘The Read Couch’ and many, many more).
        I know this doesn´t at all replace good human – inter-human – contact, real ones I mean, but it helps for the time being.

        As did Frank´s fabulous stance, almost a Dao-istic one, and very ceative, indeed.

        However – as my surrounding forces have been and are into torture-games – I need to take, whatever I´m able to take these days and years here in Munich. Exploring the Issue of Isolation also (systemically-enforced Isolation, and looking for ways to cope with it.

        The Mystic Rose Meditaion weeks I attended four times, I recall – one of the many gifts the Master left for us.

        To dive deep into the collective issues though, needs to be taken care of by oneself AND surely also in a human-to-human contact which is worth a trust (trustworthy).

        It’s amazing what inter-relating and what life itself is offering (getting ‘lost’ included, as Frank also gave some space to in his lyrics yesterday).

        New morning dawn here just now, sky in silver grey is not foggy and I’ve been watching a plane living its spur of condensation as a fine line which will vanish in a few minutes.

        It’s cold outside but the weather forcast promised a few delusionary warmer days ahead. Climate conference in Madrid is happening and you Londoners have the visit of the Nato Generals in Downing Street and some of the War Councils are happening at your place.

        My goodness…what Lokesh proclaims as a universal sight to big up some utter unimportance is truly not helpful to clear up some spiritual garbage right beneath our feet (not only mine, I´d say).

        Madhu

  25. Klaus says:

    After all of this I feel like indulging in the Rastafari Reggae of Peter Hubert MacinTosh:

    “Love, Wisdom and Overstanding – are the only – the only – solution. ring singisingsong.”

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSFQQMFRvfk
    Live at the Greek Theatre – August 23, 1983

    Enjoy.

  26. satchit says:

    It’s not a riddle at all, Arpana.
    I trust myself, I follow my energy.

    Osho just created a situation. It’s my choice what I do with this situation.

    Trusting Osho? Yesterday I was accidentally in a church because of a funeral. The priest spoke about trusting Jesus.

    Tell me, where is the difference?!

    • Arpana says:

      @ Satchit.
      I think you missed the sarcasm. You asked, “The priest spoke about trusting Jesus. Tell me, where is the difference?!”

      You’re kidding me, right?!!!

      • madhu dagmar frantzen says:

        What is it, Arpana, you´re longing for, want to happen, are up to?

        Can you share that, please?

        Madhu

        • Arpana says:

          I live in the moment, Madhu.

          • madhu dagmar frantzen says:

            Thank you for responding , Arpana ( at 7:07 am).
            Leaving out any of some possibly electronic bots which might be happening also in that quite secluded sannyas news/ caravanserai chat movements , everybody posting here is doing that: ´Living his/her moment´, isn´t it ?

            Otherwise we´re often – ´talking obstacles re ´living in the moment´ ( or even creating the latter ) aren´t we?
            There and then , ´meditation comes into play, that, what cannot – by its very Nature – be spoken. ( Or rated. )

            I ´ve heard ( been reminded ever and ever agin) and I ´d second that : ´everybody lives and loves at his / her level of conciousness.´

            Thanks for the topic, Arpana, Shantam and Satyadeva too.

            Madhu

            • Arpana says:

              Life is trial and error, Madhu, certainly for me.

              • satyadeva says:

                In Maths education, in order to encourage students and pupils, for quite a long time now this has been known as “trial and improvement”. Has a better feel to it, don’t you think?

                And I imagine the work of all masters is just that, ie always experimenting, then assessing how his/her methods are working on their people, sifting through set-ups, ways and means (and people, including getting rid of some) all in aid of bringing their truth to as many as poossible that can receive it, work with it and flourish.

                • Arpana says:

                  I balk at the word “improvement” for some reason, but I take your point. (Thinking out loud from now on, mulling).

                  I think possibly improvement implies an end, and everything is open-ended for me now…Process.

                  I paint through trial and error. I don’t start with an end in mind. The process is the point.

                  I think maybe becoming a better painter is a by-product of not being able to give up painting. And possibly I am constantly drawn to painting, in part, because my skils develop, enabling me to tackle more demanding work.

                • Levina says:

                  I would think, Satya, that the work of a real master is to let you see that no method works, otherwise we would be depending on a method to be in Truth, and Truth requires no method. This doesn’t mean that they don’t give methods, ’cause after all, that’s the way to find out!

  27. satchit says:

    @ Arps

    Sarcasm means: you are not whole.
    You said Osho is alive for you. For others Jesus is alive.

    I repeat: What’s the difference?!

  28. satchit says:

    @ Arps:
    For trial and error one needs a goal, is it not?
    If one road to the goal does not fit, then one takes another one.

    • Arpana says:

      @ Satchit:

      No, trial and error is an ongoing process of exploring, looking for the most efficacious way, effective way of doing something.

      Life is movement. There is only more or less movement.

      Making a painting by trial and error is always seeking that which works best. Although it’s possible to then say the goal is what is most effective, and/or efficacious: what works best. Hmm…Strokes chin…Ponders!!!!!!!!!!

      The opposite is life on a railway track. Safe, always knowing where you are going

  29. Kavita says:

    Shantam & Klaus,
    Thanks for contribution.

    Klaus, very interesting your journey is, please do share your journey with Osho/this website, as this would make this more clear for me and maybe other readers of this blog.

    • Klaus says:

      Hi Kavita

      Thanks for your interest.

      In my small town, Bhagwan was quite a hit around 1979-1985: out of my high school class 6 already quite close friends took Sannyas, on the (party) plane to Bombay half of the passengers were sannyasins. In Nepal I met a high school teacher of mine who had taken Sannyas: he inspired me to go for a meditation at the Kathmandu Sannyas centre and to book a group in Poona; when hiking around Annapurna I met a Sannyasin from Munich…

      But then I decided for the meditation course in Bodhgaya.

      After returning to Germany in 1982 for about 3 years everything was “Sannyas”: I lived in a mixed commune of sannyasins and non-sannyasins. I have been to the Centres in Schloss Wolfsbrunnen, Amsterdam, Medina and finally to Rajneeshpuram as a paying guest.

      However, I always felt a little bit like an outsider:
      So much hype. I am not a good sannyasin. After the silent meditation period.

      My Sannyas letter says:
      “A Sannyasin is committed to be a stranger,
      he is committed to be an outsider.
      He has chosen consciously:
      I am going to live in joy.
      And the only condition that is needed
      to fulfil it is silence.
      If you become a little more silent
      more and more joy will arise out of you.
      The moment you are totally silent
      an infinite explosion of joy happens.”

      That indeed fitted me well:
      Anand Prasanto meaning ‘Bliss in deep silence’.

      So after “the Ranch”, Bhagwan wasn’t the be-all and end-all of everything – I kept following my impulses doing a lot of meditation at home and in nature, some Tibetan meditation retreats, Mantra chanting, Sufi zikhr, Satsang with various persons. Finishing studies. Working.

      40 years down the road I feel trust in what is happening.
      My favourite is walking in nature: I carry nordic walking sticks to shift me around – otherwise I would just remain standing or sitting, looking at the sky and the colours.

      My plan is to have a second home somewhere in Asia, like Nepal, India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand or Malaysia – and then to “follow the better weather”….

  30. Lokesh says:

    Shantam gushes in response to Klaus’s comment, “Simply wow in its honesty and clarity.”
    “Simply wow”? Really? Although I appreciated Klaus’s comment and found it interesting I did not find that it deserved a “wow”.

    A more honest response to the question, ‘Does one need to change name and attire and adore a person like Super Genius to do meditation?’ would have been “What an utterly stupid question.”

    What does changing one’s name and clothes have to do with meditation? Absolutely nothing. The same goes for adoring someone because one imagines them to be a Super Genius.

    • Arpana says:

      Changing names and wearing a mala and red clothes has everything to do to do with meditation. Doing so heightened self-awareness, although not in all cases.

      • Lokesh says:

        Changing names and wearing orange and a mala were gimmicks Laxmi cooked up to spread the word and they worked. 50 years down the line and there are still some who believe those things bring heightened awareness. Try wearing an orange robe and a mala and take a walk down the local high street. It will bring a lot of self-consciousness – but self-awareness? Better achieved sitting quietly in nature somewhere.

        • Arpana says:

          Self-consciousness is the stage before self-awareness. Awareness of self-consciousness is hard work, and not running away from that is a stage on the road to self-awareness.

          Wearing a mala and red clothes is also destructive to the identity that the standard clothes people wore gave them; another part of the heightening of self-awareness process, the early part of which is self-consciousness. There is no self-awareness without going through self-consciousness.

          • Lokesh says:

            I tend to agree with UG in the sense that all these things we think we have to do in order to become a Buddha are in fact counter-productive. Even the term self-awareness is dubious and up for debate. Who or what is it that is aware etc?

            “There is no self” is the granddaddy of fake Buddhist quotes. It has survived so long because of its superficial resemblance to the teaching on anatta, or not-self, which was one of the Buddha’s tools for putting an end to clinging.

            Even though he neither affirmed nor denied the existence of a self, he did talk of the process by which the mind creates many senses of self — what he called “I-making” and “my-making” — as it pursues its desires.

            • Arpana says:

              We develop a story, which includes the idea of a self. The ”meditation journey‘’ is a process of examining the ”story” and realising that is all it is, and a self is part of the story; but at the same time, the ”story” is at worse a crutch, at best an anchor.

              Meditation, working on ourselves, self-reflection, being as honest with ourselves as we can, refines the story, integrates the stories, until eventually there is only one ”story”.

              The illusion of a story, a self, is a tool that has to be transcended.

  31. shantam prem says:

    SD,
    Maybe you can bring the comments in response to Klaus at the end of his post. They are hidden somewhere in the middle. Then it is easy to relate with the continuity.

    MOD:
    The comments are handled automatically by Word Press, Shantam.

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