We’re inundaed with news, warnings and predictions about the threat from the Covid-19 pandemic, with as yet no definitive idea of how long it’ll last. There’s plenty of good advice circulating but what about a practical spiritual perspective? To get the ball rolling, here in Part One are a few words of wisdom from or about three spiritual teachers.
If anyone can find relevant words from Osho, please put them in the Comments , or provide a link.
Part Two will include some advice re remedies etc., plus Russell Brand on self-isolating, and will open a forum for readers to share how they’re coping with it all.
First, Guy Finley, an American spiritual teacher, based in Oregon, who warns against ” a spreading fear”:
“As the pandemic of this virus spreads, we can begin to see a spreading fear… and we can see, if we’re willing to, that this spreading fear does nothing to protect us from the suffering — but rather the fear spreads the suffering, which is all it can do. If we want to change the world…”
https://twitter.com/guy_finley/status/1239347430002491395?mc_cid=727b583063&mc_eid=c1ede7fb85
Next, on a similar theme, someone who recommends doing Byron Katie’s self-questioning ‘Work’:
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The Panic over COVID-19 Is an Epidemic TooOur panic over the coronavirus could end up causing as much, or more, damage as the virus itself. I call it a mental virus. We’ve got a real physical virus going around the world. And we have a mental virus too, that is even more contagious.For most of us, the mental virus has already reached us, and has infected our minds with all kinds of scary thoughts about the future, about our health, about our families, about our businesses, and our money.The result is stress on a global level; fear levels are high everywhere, and many reactions based on that fear: at least we can all laugh at the idea of hoarding toilet paper. But as “crazy” as it is, it’s a real panic that we’re witnessingHow Can You Immunize Your Thinking?Immunity from stressful thinking comes from not being so caught up in the thinking. This means taking things with a grain of salt. People who meditate often have this kind of clarity in the midst of chaos.
Another powerful way to immunize your thinking is to directly question the stressful thoughts themselves. For this, I have been using The Work of Byron Katie since 2007. I love how my stressful thinking falls away when I write it down and then question a thought thoroughly.
What I’m often left with after doing The Work is a natural state of clarity. Then, no matter how many times people try to scare me with the same thought I was believing, once I’ve seen through the story I can’t go back to it again.
And here’s Eckhart Tolle…https://youtu.be/wKpmXhGVMxI
Do we need “spiritual teachers” to tell us that the media spreads fear?
It`s pretty simple. Ration your media intake to what you can handle.
That was also true before the Coronavirus and will be true after it.
Today is a good day.
I was in a Holland and Barrett (a health food shop) a few days ago, buying some Tea-Tree oil. I had a chat with the woman behind the counter. She was saying something like “It`s a bit terrifying all this virus thing. I know that I shouldn`t be scared because that just makes your immune system weaker and then you`re more vulnerable.”
It struck me that the idea that she had picked up from health advisers that she shouldn`t be scared and anxious was making her feel even more scared and anxious about the fact that she was feeling scared and anxious!
Yeah, Frank, it is a strange one. The missus just went shopping in the village. We now spray all packaging with a bleach solution. 1000 people died in Spain yesterday and the health system is starting to collapse – 15% of those infected are health workers. Ibiza feels pretty safe but everyone is taking the situation seriously.
Yesterday afternoon was working by a small forest on my land…half the time sitting around just glorying in the nature. It feels surreal, everything in nature so perfect yet this big fear about catching the covid-19 hanging in the air…it all seems to be happening on another planet…until you go into the village which now resembles a ghost town. We reckon this is going to go on for months.
Surreal can be a bit of a cliché but in this case it’s about right.
In the UK it has been perfect spring weather for a while: sunny, blue skies, zen-like blossoms breaking out, flowers sticking their noses out to breathe the pollution-reduced air, while downtown and on the roads it`s like a post-apocalyptic movie, quiet, police patrolling, making sure people are following the rules. Definitely like an excerpt from some nutter`s dream diary!
A couple of days ago, someone was saying to me:
”I keep expecting to wake up and find out it was all a nightmare, but I don`t.”
Like you, I can`t see anything but the fall-out from this lasting a long time.
As far as the advice of spiritual teachers goes, I am following Swami Bhorat:
Keep Calm and Hari Om!
Farmer Loke says, “Ooh arrr, pass the peace pipe….”
Frank opines…
“It`s pretty simple. Ration your media intake to what you can handle….”
Good idea…but is THAT simple?
Just to read the posts here on SN (a media outlet, btw!) takes a substantial chunk of time. If Veet Francesco writes an extended piece, that impinges quickly on the allotted media rationing strategy of KISS (keep it simple, stupid). Particularly if you have to slog through the murky swamp of his many times quite unintelligible Italio-left wing, politically oriented diatribes. Even Madhu had to cry “Enough!”
Then there’s the links….YouTube worldview validation exercises for the most part, pop songs from the last 50 years…various photos, cartoons, etc. – some guy even posted a photo of Sigmund Freud sideways! Now the reader has to turn his head 90 degrees to look at the sucker…hey, at our age that can hurt! Not so simple, senor.
Then listen to some respected virologists give their take on the covid-19, usually in a foreign language too. Many times German – ouch!
Then watch the live stream of Trump and his team for an hour give their spiel…the US Vice-President talks too…he is the head of Coronavirus taskforce…and his byline is “I am a Christian, a conservative, and a Republican, in that order.” Separation of Church and State, anyone?
Of course you must read the full Wiki’s of Louis Pasteur, The Flexnor Report, and David Bowie to be up to snuff on who said what when, who sang what why…and filter through what are the lies, and what are the sources for the information or misinformation you are filling your poor, already overloaded head with. Not an easy task, mi amigo…
This all reminds me of one of my favourite dictums…
Life is simple, but living is very complex.
Yes, absolute rationing of any kind of media (including SN, of course) is next to impossible these days.
Handling media depends on one’s appetite for it; guess after experience some know from the look itself, some from the first bite and some after it is digested whether one can try again or not, but mostly human memory is weak!
When subtitles are available for foriegn language videos I come across, I watch using the mute mode and read!
Good point, Bob,
As you point out, it is amazing how many `units of information` we `consume` these days, even here on SN.
When it comes to watching the mind, there is certainly a lot more to watch than when Buddha came up with Vipassana!
Still, it is vitally important to choose the right outlets and correct media, especially when it comes to the matter of being scientifically well-informed.
For example, I find this very helpful indeed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34AjfLoMA3s
Frank, this video is blocked in the U.S., can’t view it.
It says for “copyright” reasons, by LDS, whatever that is – Latter Day Saints – Mormons?
Bob,
That`s a pity.
LDS?
Dunno,
The Lysergic Dyslexia Society,maybe?
Bob,
You reminded me:
On the way to a Ranch festival, I took the Greyhound bus from NY to Portland. Stopped off in Salt Lake City for a few hours, so we visited the LDS Temple. I remember the murals as you went up the stairs had pictures of scenes from the Bible with JC portrayed as a white, blond-haired, blue-eyed guy with a short back and sides.
What a laugh.
@Frank 29 March, 2020 at 3:01 pm
Blocked in Germany, too.
It could be “Little Dot Studio” also. However, it is the person who put up the video who has to dispute this:
https://support.google.com/youtube/forum/AAAAiuErobUGn697hvdIDY/?hl=en
Klaus and Bob,
Don`t worry, it wasn`t details of the newly discovered cure or anything! It`s a part of a UK comedy show from the 90s.
I guess they hold it off YouTube for copyright purposes. You get that with some recording artists, too.
As I have observed, many sannyasins are feeling high to see the world population in crisis. Many are quoting Osho´s old sayings of doomsday prophecies.
It is no wonder, Osho is one of those greats who left behind a legacy of emotionally glued crowd.
It is tragedy inself.
If it is in the hands of Indian sannyasins, they will even crucify Jaggi Vasudev or Mooji: “How dare you talk, is not Osho enough?”
It`s well documented that there are people who cheer up during a crisis.
Especially amongst the over-anxious and depressives. I guess their attitude suddenly become vindicated.
Topically, I was browsing ‘La Peste’ (‘The Plague’), the existential classic by Albert Camus, about a town ravaged by plague. One of the main characters is exactly like that. He is a long-term reclusive depressive, but when the plague hits, he seems to relish it and he suddenly perks up, gets out and about and goes social. When the plague finally comes under control, his mood slides, he loses it and goes bonkers.
I have zero interest in what so-called spiritual teachers have to say about `the meaning of the virus`. I have even had people quoting Russell Brand at me as if he was some kind of divine authority. I simply cannot take it seriously.
Thanks, Frank, for your round about ´corona-topic – contributions; especially your remarks ( at 1:29 pm).
Loved the vid-pieces…
I´m more in a state of not-knowing and insecurities these very days – and today, happening to be my (body-)birthday – felt really more strange than in other years. Felt more lost than anyway in other (=past) years – and that may be a good sign?
Sun showed up in the afternoon and the sky is very bright after having had a grey, rather dark and cold, misty morning.
How beautiful that is –
Madhu
Happy Birthday to You!
Charming birthday song from Cabo Verde:
Assol Garcia – “Beju Furtado”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l442cR0dgFY
Happy birthday, Madhu.
Thank you, Frank -
Madhu
I thought Madhu is Sagittarius..
Happy Geburtstag .
Just seen one photo of felicity* in Maroon.
It is so good and symbolically meaningful, I wish to share in a birthday celebration going on at sannyasnews.
*happiness, joy, rapture, bliss (not the woman’s name!).
Vandana Shiva, Shantam Prem, a well known Indian physicist, author and enviromental activist – a woman worth her salt – said about the happening ´corona crisis´:
“OUR CHALLENGE REALLY IS AGAINST STUPIDITY.”
And it’s worth listening to her take. And I did, to just revover from seeing your latest contribution re the topic – one which is not moderated like your meanwhile innumerable others for years and years and years to go.
Vandana definitely knows something about the Indian male sexists, racists´ mideas and actions, their digital perversions of distorted minds (in the Net – and without!).
Madhu
Madhu,
Is there a single person in your vicinity who is mentally and emotionally healthy, in your opinion? My impression is if you join any Ladies Knitting Group anywhere in the world, you will hate most of the ladies too as unsophisticated, non-meditative.
My impression is you are fascinated by great social reformers like late Mr. Jain or the lady mentioned.
My posts are as much moderated as anyone else’s, problem with people like you is you cannot bear the blunt words unless they are from successful lots.
Under the persona of good-sounding intentions, the way you treat men on this site is as if they are kids in your nursery. May I request you to join the club of women writers at Oshonews.
Can you write a single piece on your own, a simple article wortht to be published in Oshonews?
Shantam I. Singh,
It´s only Parmartha, it seems, who could tame a little bit your petty, revengeful, ongoing uproars of the mind.
And it´s only Kavita – knowing you from better times in India – who can soothe your pain a little bit which comes up in ever-enduring rage and its projections on humans (contributors here) like me, as read yesterday in another one of the meanwhile another-another ones..).
And it may be Lokesh, whom you visted in the flesh at his place and space on the Island, so to say – who may reach to your heart these days. Just because you had a meeting face-to-face.
You know what, Shantam, I watched late yesterday a news vid record of these thousands and thousands of the poorest in India, who tried to climb up a bus, a train, to flee the big cities where they had made a very small living/surviving by whatsoever.
Shutdown? In India? (Africa or elsewhere similar or in the numerous refugee camps caused by this obnoxious ongoing war) they all cannot afford or manage to protect themselves, no way.
Anybody here – and you too – is asked to put his or her stuff into proportion.
Or – at very least – have a deep look inside when pain & fear or frustration is covered up by rage.
Madhu
Shantam,
Is there a single person in your vicinity who is mentally and emotionally healthy, in your opinion?
My impression is if you join any group anywhere in the world, you will hate most of the participants as too unsophisticated, non-meditative.
My impression is you are fascinated by yourself, seeing yourself as a great social reformer, like late Mr. Jain.
Problem with people like you is you cannot bear the blunt words.
Under the persona of good-sounding intentions, the way you treat sannyasins is as if they are kids in your nursery.
Can you write a single piece on your own, a simple article worthy to be published in Oshonews?
I find this photo to be very symbolic.
Check out this vid…parody of SN?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQgRBnqpoQw
Yes indeed, the video was a great start to the online day, wonderful stuff, thanks!
That photo is interesting, worthy of a discussion in itself, the woman posing on Osho’s shoulders – like a child…albeit a very happy child…at least, temporarily…It’s immediately very striking, ‘uplifting’ even, innocent fun and funny, sexy…yet, on further reflection, expressing an immaturity, even perhaps a certain ‘vulgarity’…
Any other responses, anyone?
J.P. Sears is funny.
It`s hard to parody hardcore nuagers tho`, as they just really do talk like that!
Meditated on the pic and this is what came up from the collective unconscious:
Rollin’, rollin’, rollin’
Rollin’, rollin’, rollin’
Don’t try to understand ‘em
Just rope and throw and brand ‘em
Soon we’ll be living high and wide.
My heart’s calculatin’
My true love will be waitin’
Be waiting at the end of my ride.
Move ‘em on, head ‘em up
Head ‘em up, move ‘em on
Move ‘em on, head ‘em up
Ride `em in, Rawhide!
Yeeehaa!
Yahoo!
Yeah, Jake and Elmore with their sunglasses on in the Country & Western bar….
Yeah, SD, for me the photo is cringeworthy. Yes, it is a good sculpture. Skill and talent created that. I find the woman looks a bit daft.
Lokesh – this pic is for me a shift moving images (digital) designed compilation (one of the innumerable of these ´zeitgeist-times) and as I came to know the guy here who distributed it to all his facebook friends (with his by now well known agenda) the whole stuff is more than just odd…
Yes, there are many ways to go for a contemptuous approach re the female – and some are very CUNNING!
Our topic: “Ways through the Corona Crisis (Part One)”
Well, here we go…other Parts will follow…
Next steps are ahead and your contribution as well as Frank´s comments leave a lot to contemplate about and thank you both for that.
Madhu
We had some Internet-Social-Chat-Nets surveillance in the cultural news today with (published) examples dealing with all kinds of hate speeches going on massively and increasing during the corona crisis we are in.
I really loved the vid you shared – right to target some points; and I second Frank´s comment on it: ” It´s hard to parody hardcore nuagers tho`as they just really do talk like that!”
Yes, Lokesh,
The vid was/is hilarious and great fun!
Remarkable was that I could watch it inside the Chat, so to say, but when I wanted to watch it on a bigger screen (on youtube) it was ´banned´ (not avalaible). Only say that because when I wanted to listen to my favourite Berlin Virologist´s contributions from ‘Charlie’* – in the very last few days – impossible (and cracking the Apple notebook systems (at my place).
Miss his sober voice, because he is calm and cool and an expert who knows what he is talking about in terms of the medical matters but also when he is asked about social upheavals.
“Interesting Times”, Frank stated ironically this morning, telling us this 1st of April London Jaccuzzi story. So true…amazing and probably just the beginning of other madnesses getting into their gears…
Your ´vid´, Lokesh, brought a lot of fresh air and a laugh needed, thanks.
Madhu
* Charlie – The name Charite´belongs to a big clinic-complex situated in Berlin. also a medical scientific research foundation.
The photo I have shared on my facebook page with the following description:
One friend just shared this photo in Messenger.
My reaction: What a symbolic photo.
This describes everything in pictorial form that happens when a Charismatic master dies; priests create statues for them to sit and relax.
This photo is RELIGION And CULTS in the name of departed greats.
This photo is also A LESSON for present day gurus, be careful, this gonna happen with your legacy if you don´t leave behind clear will written without being under the influence of others.
Because most of the bloggers have no idea where this statue is, let me share some basic facts.
Around 1989-90, Osho Commune, as it was known, got the right to develop the barren land adjacent to the commune. This land was on the sides of severage (Nala), so initially it became famous as Nala Park.
Commune has spent good amount of money and international expertise to create a green field, a landmark in Pune where cemented jungle is dominating the landscape.
for certain hours the park is opened for public, maroon-robed people have extended hours. Many sannyasins living in the Koregaon Park Area visit this park regularly for their morning or evening walks as entry is free of cost.
The statue was installed years later on the left side of the Park at the entrance. Nala Park has another name, also Osho Teerth. Teerth means place of pilgrimage. People who have no affinity with the languages surely get the right to distort the meaning.
The Samadhi of Osho can be a Teerth, Buddha Hall, which is dismantled, where Osho delivered maximum talks, can be a Teerth, but a Park, that too made after his departure on a leased public property!
Many tourists and sannyasins used this statue regularly for photos, even before the selfie came.
Being one of the most vocal critics of Osho Vatican run by drunkards and serial adulterers, I get all kind of material in my mailbox and on average spend two hours in a day to discuss various sannyas-related issues with old and new sannyasins. I know many such people who play on both sides of the fences, they will not offend the regime but hate them from the core of their hearst.
Have not all of us seen those videos where people were beating broken statue of Saddam Hussein once the despot was pacified?
I wish not such end for anyone but quite sure, if the regime change takes place in Pune, Osho news will be full with such brave hearts who will spill the beans.
Once I got the photo of happy lady, I posted on the facebook. It was a good opportunity to poke fun and check public opinion.
In the next post I will tell the history of this statue and how it reached there, but for that I have to cross-check the facts.
Shantam says:
“I know many such people who play on both sides of the fences, they will not offend the regime but hate them from the core of their hearts.”
Religion, eh?
Bloody `ell!
Frank, do you think what I have written is a revelation?
Being a long-time participant and observer of games sannyasins play, it must be a common sense observation for you also.
The symbolism is only your interpretation, Swamiji.
In reality it is a girl sitting on a statue.
That’s true.
It is only an opinion.
Satchit, the Dunning-Kruger effect is a term that describes a psychological phenomenon in which stupid people do not know that they are in fact stupid.
Yes, Loco, some people make big fuss and overestimate themselves.
Lokesh and Satchit, are you free from this Dunning-Kruger effect?
When an Indian cult leader creates a city in his name in USA, it shows founder lady and the residents all got Dunning-Kruger* syndrome.
Life is such, even the smartest become childishly stupid and they don´t even get the courage to accept it.
*In the field of psychology, the Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which people assess their cognitive ability as greater than it is. It is related to the cognitive bias of illusory superiority and comes from the inability of people to recognize their lack of ability.
If we did the “Oregon experiment” one more time, would we be making the same mistakes?
Possibly not. More likely, we would be making different ones.
Shantam, you say:
`Being a long-time participant and observer of games sannyasins play, it must be a common sense observation for you also” (that people in your mailbox “hate the drunkards and serial adulterers with all their hearts”).
Thankfully, I do not actually personally know any people who profess to `hate` other sannyasins.
Of that, I am really glad.
If my spiritual life was based on hating people and associating with people who hated other people, I would take it as a message to start wondering what the fuck I was doing with my life.
How about you, Shantam? As ”one of the most vocal critics of Osho Vatican run by drunkards and serial adulterers”, do you hate the `drunkards and serial adulterers`?
I don´t hate them, Mr. Faceless. Point.
MOD:
“Point”, Shantam?
SHANTAM PREM:
As I have read in Indian press, the word ‘Point’ is used to stress it is complete statement, kind of making it bold.
Shantam,
That`s good news.
As you then presumably realise that not to hate is better than to hate, then maybe it would be a good idea to try to persuade the people in your mailbox of the pointlessness of `hating with all their hearts` rather than using their hate to further your agenda?
Just a suggestion.
Frank, for me it is enough to be a diagnostic, not to get sway away in cult mentality. I am not a leadership type nor can play blind follower.
I don´t see Osho as a Saviour or Messiah too, neither I want to use present tense for the past.
Still I believe His work as Osho Commune International was a masterpiece and can be revived. No one must destroy the creation of anyone. If other shareholders don´t think so, it’s not my business.
I have used the word “hate” in the previous post to underline the disgust; in spoken language, “hate” is used to express irritation.
If ” “hate” is used to express irritation” I wonder what word(s) Indians use to express hatred….
Perhaps they resort to sounds, eg snake-like hissing, animal-type grunts or demented yells? Kindly enlighten us how they cope with this lamentable degeneration of language, Shantam.
Satyadeva, if you could add few more sentences to explain the following sentences more precisely, I will take time to write my opinion sensibly.
“Perhaps they resort to sounds, eg snake-like hissing, animal-type grunts or demented yells? Kindly enlighten us how they cope with this lamentable degeneration of language, Shantam.”
Shantam, haven’t you noticed my earlier post on this very topic, at 12.21pm today? What you’ve quoted above follows on from that. Let me know if you require further illumination.
Which do you like best, Shantam?
Hate, hatred, hate-crime or just good old “hating from the core of the heart”?
Hate-crimes I hate from the core of the heart.
Hate-crime means destroying minorities in any social structure.
Hate I have felt very seldom, I cannot remember when it was the last time.
Hatred and rage is a common feeling in me to see injustice and corruption of power of any kind.
For the people I write all the time against, I don´t feel hatred for them also. They are the product of Shri Osho Himself.
As Master created His commune as microsom of the bigger world, the Resort people are the characters who got spoiled by the common vices: wealth, women, wine and wisdom.
SD, just checked Quora to find the thin difference between hate and hatred.
Hatred and hate can often be used interchangeably as nouns, they are synonyms. However, there are times some people might prefer one form over another, and there are fixed expressions which use one form in preference to another.
I’d say, use the noun hatred for the construction “hatred of something”, or “hatred for something”, and you can use the nouns “hate” and “hatred” interchangeably for almost everything else, except for fixed expressions such as “racial hatred” and “hate-crime”.
As I have understood, hatred is the right expression, where hate is used.
Thanks for being a fine teacher of your mother tongue.
Sorry that I have to switch in here watching a small cloud moving (a memorial one, I´d say).
Heard the Master say that it is not hate that is the opposite of love but the opposite of love is FEAR…
What you´d comment on ´that´?
To be honest – up to this very day I´m not done with fully understanding and so also I am often mixing these paradigm(s) – but I´m in awe when I remember this ´prescription´, like just now.
Inner-Work in progress….
Madhu
So true:
Still in the game of “us” and “them”, seeing and putting up ‘fences’, creating division….
In response to Shantam Prem’s post, April 1st, 9.01pm:
There are several large Buddha statues in Osho Teerth Park that were sculpted by Devakant in the ‘90s.
I would recommend his recent book, ‘In the Eye of the Hurricane – The Inside Story of a Disciple’s Journey’ – which is one of the best books I have read written by a sannyasin living close to Osho.
Wow, Klaus,
What a beautiful dance of Life in the vid, I mean – besides the beautiful song; reminded me fn Bob´s version: “Life is simple; but living is very complex.”
And reminded me (even more) of your beautiful take:
“Luckily, “meditation”, “devotion”, “consciousness”, cannot be trademarked, not even virtually.”
And thank you very much for THIS, as essentially – it is – Truth.
(Btw, if you´d scroll a little bit in SN/UK/ chronic in our seemingly everlasting circling contributions for a long time you could find many examples for the latter).
What a nice surprise-sing-a-song of Life contributed from your side, Klaus and thank you for this.
Madhu
P.S:
Sun goes down just now and sky shows up with some apricot colour; a festival of Light to end up this very day…we´re preparing for the Silence of the night – not knowing anything for sure – just living it all….
Many Happy Returns, Madhu!
Good to have had you here all these years.
Thanks, Satyadeva -
Madhu
So, sun in Aries then, M; ascendant?
The opposite sign (Asc): Libra, Swamishanti – the opposite….and that was/is something (for me), you bet!
Madhu
P.S:
Anyway – as I said already, astrology dropped me – not otherwise…
However, I experientially knew some depths about what Satyadeva was talking about here and there*…so – no way to make a fuss about these two points in a mandala…
*not only the bookish way….
Sometimes I feel very old…other times I´ve no age at all – the latter are as moments the best.
Living happens moment-to moment; that´s the way it is, I guess.
@Shantam 30 March, 2020 at 11:56 am
Personally, I would step away from generalisations.
Would you mind posting some links?
Certainly, there is a lot of ‘growing up’ and ‘growing wise’ to do. Possibly on a (very) large scale.
Here, some persons have discovered that “there is lots of meditation and devotion in Luang Prabang (Laos), two powerful elements…supportive for every spiritual seeker.”
Luckily “meditation”, “devotion”, “consciousness” cannot be trademarked; not even virtually.
https://loveosho.com/blog-1/visiting-laos
Bob, if life is simple but there is a perverse system that makes it complicated, how can we describe that subtle and complex network of domination?
Your invitation to simplicity sounds a lot like: Accept the simple version given by television and don’t break my balls, stupid!
Forgive me if I believe that at a certain age sannyasins that have not flourished as human beings (it is a very simple concept that you too can understand: the ability to love not bound / limited by narcissism), despite the wisdom made available by the many Masters and teachers attended in youth, it is because I believe that the ego in the long run makes idiots, useful to the status quo, this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A001OIft_RY
“…if life is simple but there is a perverse system that makes it complicated, how can we describe that subtle and complex network of domination?”
Veet, I suggest that, first and foremost, the “subtle and complex network of domination” upon which you place so much emphasis and that you so much enjoy focusing on is to be found within our individual psyches, rather than searched for outside in the world. For a start, who made this “complicated” world (this “perverse system”) anyway?
And as for “the ability to love not bound/limited by narcissism)”, would you like to inform us how far along towards this state you think you are, please? All very well running down others but better to first perceive where oneself is on the spectrum, as you’ll surely agree?
I see, Satyadeva, that you are very focused on putting a frame on what I write.
In fact, your comment on what I write is published simultaneously, although I have written mine long enough, enough for you to read mine and write yours.
Could you give others the chance to read what I write without your ‘authoritative’ subtitles, dropping the hope of influencing anyone about what I have to say?
Veet, I, apparently unlike you, don’t underestimate the intelligence of the other readers/contributors. And I write primarily to express my responses, not to influence others, who in any case are all more than capable of thinking and speaking for themselves.
Also, you appear to assume, quite wrongly, that I sit here all day, glued to the screen, thus imagining I must have read your post of 2.01pm long before it was published, deliberately waiting until I’d written a reply before simultaneously publishing both.
Sounds once again like a complaint from that familiar ‘hard done by’ victim part of you, always looking out for an affront, an injustice. I suggest that’s something you might benefit by observing as it arises, because it seems to condition how you view many things – and, as in this case, leading you to draw fakse conclusions.
Now, following this ‘red herring’, you might consider responding to my comments?
P.S:
SD, I got it!
You always repeat the same invitation to look inside myself, to my bias to see thin chains outside me.
By now the things between us are clear, each believes he has understood the other’s point of view. The differences in describing reality, both in the method and in the categories to be used, remain.
I would also be interested in other points of view, possibly without resorting to judgments or insults, also because I have been asked not to react, using nasty words, in addressing those people…it is not simple.
MOD:
Post edited.
SD, I promised that I won’t mention the place where you can put your red herring.
Now follow my lips:
I was talking to Bob, who had mentioned me, inviting me not to complicate things, calling me “stupid”. Is he one of the smart ones you were talking about before?
Should I demonstrate superiority and pretend nothing and insult you instead?
What if he is a masochist who loves my spit?
Can I end up with him and then move on to you and your peers?
Veet, this is very boring, even by your standards. If you have something to say relevant to the topics of the discussion, just say it, not this superfluous bullshine, please.
Veet as the the Black Knight!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmInkxbvlCs
Veet F., when you write:
“I was talking to Bob, who had mentioned me, inviting me not to complicate things, calling me “stupid”….”
You way misinterpreted me. I wasn’t calling you stupid at all. I was actually making a reference to Frank’s post, where he says:
“It`s pretty simple. Ration your media intake to what you can handle.”
Then I was trying to show that it’s not so “simple” to do that, in this “complex” world we all live in. The acronym KISS (keep it simple, stupid) is a common saying in the US – I was using it as something someone would say to this media rationing reference, then going on to show that it not so easy to do that. Not directed at you at all, just happened to be inserted in my paragraph regarding your lengthy posts.
I would say, actually, that you are not stupid at all…a more valid critique might be that you suffer from ‘over-intelligence’: too many pieces of information cobbled together to weaponize your preconceived world view
agenda.
Kind of the “Rage Against the Machine” mentality that reminds me of the ’60s SDS radical left-wing journalism I used to read in my young university days during the anti-Vietnam War protest era. There’s some truth in it, sure, but it gets to be overbearing after a while, and then a wee bit tedious. Know what I mean?
Satyadeva, from my point of view it is you who are avoiding the question I have been asking myself for a few weeks.
Soon I will ask the same question, reflecting again on the numbers of the dead and healed associated with covid-19.
So far, your escape from reality has been roughly: “The king is not naked because nobody could dare to steal his clothes.”
So you insist on asking who the thief is, very “curious” to know what evidence I have to nail the thief to his responsibilities…
Ok, we don’t understand each other, I do a political analysis where the responsibilities for the theft of democracy/freedom are of the political institutions that have delegated their responsibilities to a cabinet of technicians at the service of the WHO, that is the pharmaceutical industry.
Then, I also said that under the umbrella of the emergency there could be other Entities/organizations of a social or economic-financial type that adjust their interests.
Think about these Italian numbers with me:
Total deaths: 650,000 annually.
Deaths in the age group associated with covid-19 (50-89 y.o.): 405,000, about 33,000 per month.
Died in the same age group in about 2 months of “pandemic”… about 10,000…strangely concentrated in a few areas.
If you followed my advice about the red herring and considered that the parliaments of sovereign peoples are closed for colds, let’s talk about these mathematical facts on this Chat of free men (apart from some who are oppressed by the ego).
Veet, while I’m not denying that there’s a certain degree of collective over-reaction to covid-19, stirred, to a large extent, by the blanket media coverage (including here at SN, of course!) saturating the minds and emotions of those foolish enough to follow it all as if nothing else matters, and also that powerful financial interests, ‘Big Pharma’ & co., are no doubt hoping to make an ‘absolute killing’ (to use an unfortunate phrase) from the crisis, are you saying that you would prefer that everyone be allowed to carry on as usual, with no ‘official’ recommendations or restrictions in place, this allowing the free flow of infection to follow its natural course?
Try saying that to those seriously affected or to their friends and relatives, for instance to an old friend of mine from schooldays who has to remain alone indoors for the duration due to a tendency for being asthmatic, whose very life is at stake in these days.
Or, for example, to two friends of mine who’ve recently been hit by the thing, one of whom collapsed, as if she were dying, and after a week or so, has only just regained her appetite, her partner also heavily affected but who has, thankfully, recovered; and these two over-60s, well known in sannyas circles in London, had previously been very healthy for many years, the man never having had a day off work in decades.
Do you realise that front-line doctors are becoming very ill and even dying as a result of exposure to patients with the virus?
And that even Donald Trump has done a complete U-turn from his only very recent denial of the seriousness of the situation? And are you going to tell me that that has been part of his devilish scheme all along, or that he’s suddenly realised an opportunity to gain even more power/control by accepting (or pretending to accept) the gravity of the situation?
You appear to ignore a key difference between this and other causes of illness and untimely death, ie that covid-19, like AIDS, is communicated through human contact, and nobody is exempt, no matter how fit they might be. Comparisons between this and illness or disease contracted by other means,eg cancer, pulmonary disease, multiple sclerosis, are therefore hardly applicable, no matter what the figures might appear to indicate.
I suggest again that you yourself might be advised to take a look at your own preconceptions and prejudices, and from where they’ve arisen, in particular, perhaps, at that ‘hard done by’ victim identity that spends much of its time and energy looking for an oppressor ‘out there’, and which itself seems to stick to you like some kind of psychic, er..,’virus’.
But from the evidence up to now I can almost guarantee you won’t because what you’ve constructed from that is too dear to you, it’s become such a large part of your very self-identity, hasn’t it?
VF,
What do you get out of this?
Why do you post here?
Arpana,
What do you get out of this?
Why do you post here?
But above all, why did you come back?
Is there anything I wrote that touched you?
Shoot then.
I am very aware of you because of what I hear is happening in Italy, so I was pleased you had posted again today.
The UK hit over a thousand deaths and I was more saddened than I can say.
I come in out of feeling I am dreaming. I’m glad you’re all ok.
Now you answer my f…..G questions.
I’m sorry for your friends, Satyadeva, death happens, more and more as we get older, at least in Italy the statistics say this.
I don’t know the English statistics, I don’t know the type of communication that is used there in talking about coronavirus, if you can watch television dialogues where virologists express their points of view without risk of censorship; I don’t know if television confrontations between supporters of different views of well-being also happen; I don’t know if Parliament is closed and all decisions are made by a premier who occasionally appears to dictate the new curfew rules; I don’t even know if your tv is creating expectations for the arrival of a saviour, who will remedy the economic damage of the “pandemic”, maybe another man from Goldman Sachs (M. Draghi), as happened in 2011 (M. Monti ) when another financial crisis had to be remedied, there was no virus to hide it that time.
Finally, I don’t know how this anti-democratic, anxiety-provoking, unsocial climate could have influenced the health of your friends.
But I know, SD, that you yourself posted a video of a German virologist who invited an attitude opposite to what you continue to express with your mainstream apology.
Precisely, Veet: you just don’t know very much, do you? But, as we’ve seen previously, you certainly like to assume a lot, where it suits your overall agenda, without bothering to check facts.
For example, that because I post a video I therefore must agree with the sentiments expressed therein;
or the implicit suggestion that the couple I know might have become ill due to the prevailing “anxiety-provoking” climate (they weren’t particularly worried);
not to mention my self-isolating friend with an asthmatic tendency whom you casually appear to more or less ‘write off’ as a perhaps inevitable statistical casualty, in total ignorance of the fact that otherwise he’s an exceptionally healthy, extemely active man.
Similar applies to your second paragraph above, the list of suppositions (slyly posing as questions) amounting to little more than baseless innuendo.
We have a phrase here in the UK, ‘put up or shut up’. Meaning, amongst other things, if you can’t provide proper evidence, don’t bother ‘pointing the finger’. I suggest, Veet, that you follow such a policy – if your credibility means anything to you.
And while I’m here, how about answering the two points I put to you recently, in response to another of your posts?
The vast majority of the deaths are people 60+. Most have pre-existing health conditions.
However, in the UK there have been several younger deaths as well: last week a woman in her early twenties and just today, I have heard that in London two young teen boys, one just 13 and another, 19, have died; the families say that there were no other health conditions.
MOD, re “at the same time as your comment about my one?”
I don’t remember the question mark at the end of this sentence. Anyway, I meant to put a full stop. Thanks.
MOD:
But the whole sentence is a question, Veet.
Arpana, are you the same painter with Greek roots who wrote here?
And “Arpana” of the first comment that asks me why I write here and what I get in doing it is the same “Arpana” of the second comment, worried about me and my country?
Do you think my questions deserves an answer before I answer yours?
Veet, I’ve modified your earlier post, as requested, and also my earlier response.
SD, since you ask me questions that you never forget, as a good astrologer who talks about reputation, to predict my answer spoiled by some of my mental problems, it should not surprise you if sometimes I want to avoid exposing myself to your diagnoses and astral pictures that shake my ego a lot.
You are very funny, when you climb on the mirrors, possibly you are the one who claims to know the Italian political/social/cultural climate better than me, otherwise you would not be so persistent in contesting my analyses.
Have the courage to write a piece about how you are living, with / without your people, what is happening, it would be useful to read it again in a few years, if we will be there.
Veet, of course I’ve little or no idea about Italian conditions, my comments (re your second paragraph) were re what seemed to be your implying that similar circumstances applied to the UK. If no such implication was intended, fair enough.
More famous scientific last words from our intellectually honest researchers at Tin Foil Hat University, the people who brought you ‘The last words of Louis Pasteur’:
“The world was created at 9 o`clock Monday morning on the 1st of January, 4004 BC.”
Charles Darwin
“The Pope was definitely right, The world is flat.”
Galileo
“Always wear a tinfoil hat when drinking pasteurised milk.”
Marie Curie
“I was just a thick Zionist with a comedy moustache.”
Albert Einstein
“Two plus two equals five.”
Euclid
“All my disciples are egoistic idiots except the ones who wait till I`m dead to show upon the scene.”
Osho
I like it, Frank, when you steal the stage from Anal Yogy.
Or did you forget to use his nickname?
A good step forward, finally something good the coronavirus did, having the intellectual honesty to say what you think without using the cynical and irreverent mask of your funny alter ego.
You make me laugh in this version too, good boy!
If instead of contesting my analysis, SD, you had provided your point of view on how and who is managing the “pandemic” in your country, it would have been more productive to give us an idea on which frame to put on this story, or if possibly each country needs a different frame from the one I imagined in my (Disease/Fear-mongering).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OW7dASdQIgU
https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disease_mongering
That’s a great video, well chosen, Veet!
As for your request, I’m not going to go into this to feed your ideological obsessions, except to say that, from from what I’ve heard, it seems the government has been less than competent in its handling of the situation so far (no surprise there) ie stricter measures should have been applied a lot earlier as should preparations for mass testing.
And time will tell, presumably, whether its advisers, Imperial College, or the Oxford Uni researchers (who suggest that 50% of the population might have already been infected) are on the right lines.
Here’s an invitation I received today from an old friend, who used to work for BBC Education. Feel free to join me at this surely wonderful Celebration next year!
You and a partner are invited to attend The Covid Survivors Masked Ball and Dinner, 1 April, 2021.
Tickets may be purchased but only at the vendor’s risk. These can booked, immediately, but those interested may prefer to await the outcome of the current crisis. The organisers regret that it will not be possible to refund returns owing to the possiblilties of unanticipated demise.
Gentlemen are asked not to attend in tuxedos. Nor ladies in long gowns. All-in-one protective suits are recommended to recall the struggle and spirited atmosphere of the unprecedented events afflicting our gallant nation. Dancing will be to Edmundo Ross and his Malarial Orchestra but partners will be asked to waltz or foxtrot at a safe distance of not less than two metres. This applies especially to the Passo Doble.
Dining Menu
(Dinner to be drip-fed)
First Course
Soupe la Sars-CoV-2
Choice of mains
Chloroquinine a la Trump
OR
Wunan Duck a l’orange
OR
Sweet and Sour Porkhydroxychloroquinine with shavings of garlic
Dessert
Corona of Prince Charles with vaccinated, organic raspberry sauce (Duchy Estates)
Guests are requested to provide their own ventilators
PAYMENT: £1750.00 per head (50% surcharge for over-70s)
P.S:
Today my beloved younger sister told me that the negative covid-19 test will get her back to work on Friday, as a nurse in a private geriatric clinic. She was at home surrounded by the love of her daughters and husband for a couple of weeks, 3-4 days of early fever and cold, no medicines, lots of fruit and sun in the garden. With her a dozen more or less asymptomatic colleagues.
SD,
Good one!
Is it `bring a bottle`?
I was going to suggest bringing along a pack of Corona beers, but I saw that Frank already did that.
But “Corona of Prince Charles“ sounds Hannibal Lecterish.
Veet F.,
You got me wrong, bro’…
I’m not inviting anyone to live a life of simplicity, be a simpleton, or ignore the complex design systems of the modern human landscape. Not at all.
I basically stopped watching tv when I was about 14 years old…still watch it very rarely, just to see what it’s about – you know, part of my collective environment. Don’t advise it to anyone…every once in a while something decent is shown, but rarely. I think the internet’s much an improvement, and very complex too, btw!
I actually basically agree with a lot of what you write (for example, that the purported ‘lethalness’ of the ‘flu viruses don’t take into account the “final straw that broke the sick camel’s back” predisposition viewpoint. That there are huge, powerful forces extant that manipulate, confuse, dominate, and financially subjugate the people of the world). I don’t see any big problem into throwing the spotlight on it all, but as SD also rightly points out, those big, bad aggregate monsters are just made up of individual units – hey, maybe even you and me!
Your clip of Osho speaking on this is apropos…and, as far as I can remember from his words and actions, he supported almost unequivocally the individual solution, not the societal or political one. Individual therapy/growth/meditation, and not the revolutionary path.
Also, I am not a sannyasin, or ex-sannyasin. What made you think that?
And to wrap it up, I say, beware of people who use the “love” word to bolster their agenda, and denigrate others with the implication that they don’t have it. I would say this was probably the major psychological humiliation tactic used by one of the most perverted mass mind-control systems ever created – the Roman Catholic Church.
And we all know what Osho thought of that group.
@Bob
This is the answer to your previous comment (March 30, 2020 at 7:48 pm). I saw that you sent me another comment, for correctness I have not read it yet, I will reply to it eventually later.
Thanks, Bob, for confirming that I understand well who I’m dealing with.
I had already gotten an idea of it thanks to your bizarre ideas of a beneficial conspiracy, which probably, in the murky swamp of your already breathless head, you identify with the politically correct Clinton or Obama style which will come after Trump.
I won’t bore you or tire you wondering what you mean by left-wing diatribes oriented in times of unique pensée, also because using these categories as you did reveals a preconceived world view that thwarts the possibility of identifying an alternative scenario to what the mainstream narration has well stuck deep inside your most intelligent organ.
But let’s do some resilience, in this period that we can’t go outside to celebrate together at least we can go inside, but this you have to do it alone, I can’t come inside you, I have to be at least a metre away from all my fellow men on this planet, and I wouldn’t be able to bridge the gap even using all my best self-esteem; only you can have the opportunity to see the nastiness of complaining about me with others, for the incomprehensible, murky, boring things that you think you read in my words.
You could also see, if you don’t snore too early, how pathetic your judgments sweetened with fake compliments are, fake as the teeth of someone who was a young bourgeois in the 60s.
Sorry if I fatigued you with too much information, but I was asked to limit my expressive spontaneity, which would have found more direct ways to forward your paternalism to the sender.
Bob, I see you can’t communicate without getting on the pedestal.
You come here in a context of sannyasins, who have grown up on average thanks to the vision shared by a Master /Teacher/Friend, and you hasten to specify that you do not want to feed the misunderstanding that I believe you can be an Osho disciple.
Can you see the communication asymmetry?
“And we all know what Osho thought of that group.” (Bob)
“We”?! I don’t know anything about you, apart from what you could share talking about yourself and not about others, while it seems that you think you know something more about me, starting from my inability to have the same detachment you use in reading Osho.
Are you really so lonely and old?
What food can it give you to come here, how can you warm up at this campfire if you are convinced that it is the neon light of a McDonald’s?
There are no neon lights at any McDonald’s, Veet. I’ve been to hundreds here in the States (and China), and they all use fluorescent, incandescent, and LED on the inside and for exterior advertising. Their parking lots use High Intensity Discharge lamps – metal arc, sodium/mercury vapour, etc. like everyone else.
Neon lights are usually confined historically for night-time bars, motels, urban casinos, main street glitz, etc.
That too is rapidly getting to be very old school – much like vinyl LPs, patchouli oil and omniscient gurus, doctors, and soap-box orators.
Okay, Bob, anyway, they’re cold bulbs.
How are you living these days?
Are you practising forms of resilience or are you planning forms of civil disobedience?
Youtube is full with Corona talks from all kind of gurus and inspirational speakers.
They are waiting anxiously for scientists to find cure so that they can claim credit, “I told you so, vaccination will be found soon.”
I did not listen fully to a single one, but Eckhart Tolle’s.
And thoroughly enjoyed the moments when he exhaled: it felt like the universe was settling down.
In our village/small town there have up to now been two corona infections which I know of solely by reading the local news.
People are going for walks alone or with their family members. One can see quite a number of cyclists here as the terrain is even: easy cycling when there is no wind.
There is no police checking here; I have heard of police checking cars in between villages and asking the people for the purpose of their trip. I have also heard that the police can be quite stern if your statement is weak – and one might catch a reminder of even a fine.
The weather today is perfect spring: totally clear blue sky, blossoms, greenery sprouting. One could get easily blown away by this beauty!
I am personally not too anxious about the virus spreading to us; if I worry, I worry about my daugther, her growing up, my small family, my parents who are both more than 80 years old. We seem to be in a good place.
Keep it up.
Some spiritual advice (for the old-timers):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nR0lOtdvqyg
Uhhh, fabulous!
Deserves to introduce and end every News programme!
Cool summer breeze =, here in Poona it’s been drizzling on & off now since a heavy shower this afternoon.
Hardly any difference in my life activity, as such, as am more of a home bird anyway!
Most of the sannyasins who have lived their career years around Osho project of New Man anyway are living quarantine life for years once the firm went from public to private.
Can someone on this site tell whether they have earned their pension, worked regularly as ‘average Joes’ of the world?
Yep – me. Worked 30 years, started as a typist in Translation office, sales assistant in machine industry, then international banking; got sent home for early retirement. Have 1.5 years to go for full retirement… Nowadays teaching a few hours of English, French & Accounting to pay for the car….
Shantam, I shall know if I have earned my pension only after my application for unmarried & unemployed child (!) is granted by the Central Government, as both my parents were their employees and I am told by their colleagues I am eligible & patience is needed for any such processing.
When I was young, there were officers in nationalised banks but not investment bankers. I would have preferred to become one. Having no practical skill, it fits with my academic mind to work in an institution where others’ money is used to make one´s own wealth.
I have still a chance to become an Indian mini-guru. I have not learnt any other skills. Lols.
No chance, I guess, Shantam Prem, to become an Indian Native “mini guru”.
But what about becoming a well paid spy agent? Better paid for spying at least than you are now, I´d presume?
Btw, what is an “academic mind” in your understanding? (I don´t get it from your conzributions).
Madhu
Ms. Frantzen,
Have you ever laughed on yourself, made fun of your thoughts and self-projections?
As far as academic bent of mind is concerned, such people will surely do the research on what is the status of ‘Osho’ title in its homeland.
Value of Mercedes in Sudan is not the real value in its home country!
An investment banker I was not.
Was in the ‘payments processing business case and project initiation’ department. In a way, helping people to receive their due money on time. So to speak.
To come back to the topic:
Indeed, it is my ex-banking job which is now getting me – financially – through the corona: there is no obligation for me to go anywhere, so I can stay home mostly very quietly. Besides the AC/DC moments.
That is my concern for the millions of Indians who have absolutely no income or savings right now, who will be hit hard by the lockdown.
Indians, Bangladeshi, Africans – all the people let down by the stronger ones.
I am strongly for a UBI – Universal Basic Income. And the end of the interest squeeze.
Inspector Shantam interviews the suspects again!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjXh6TwOOm0
Yes, Frankie, you are right, inspectors in general don’t have to ‘inter’view themselves as they may have the liberty to think they are above any law!
I thought about the situation in India this morning. I have Orissan friends living in Puri and Konark whose lives were devastated by the Supercyclone back in 1999.
The cyclone was so powerful it was lifting people and their homes into the sky. I could see the fear in people’s eyes when they told me that they had lost relatives and that they could see people and cows spinning around high up in the sky, and people with their homes left intact had to hide inside for many days.
As well as the supercyclone, they had to deal with a huge tidal wave which took many lives and flooded the area.
Apparently, afterwards, some of the priests were telling the people that the cyclone had happened because the God was angry that people were not donating enough to the temple.
Swami Shanti,
I tell to my beloved people of white race all the time, drop from your shoulders white man’s burden.
Indians are like slumdog millionaires, Asians of all sorts know the art of surviving at any cost, even at the cost of others.
Swamishanti,
The Temple of the Wheel at Konarak and the Sri Jagannath Temple in Puri have been my places of initiation into Yoga and Mantra.
It is difficult to imagine the impact of the supercyclone, but easier to imagine the priests.
When on holiday in Phuket, Thailand in 2018, I met the son of one the head priests of Sri Jagannath: this guy was working in tourism and my wife could speak Bengali/Bangla with him – and he helped us around finding an apartment and the tastier restaurants. He returned home to get married during our stay.
Such lovely people. I feel for them.
Nice, that the Muslim family does not hinder a member becoming a Hindu sannyasin.
This does not seem to be an easy step.
My relatives in Bangladesh would be very upset if I liked to go to the Buddhist temple to meditate.
I also walked on those beaches and encountered fishermen, and sometimes giant sea turtles that had become washed up on the beach.
close to there is one of the only places in the world where those turtles come every year to lay their eggs.
They all turn up together and lay thousands of eggs on the beach, the baby turtles hatch and then have to make their way down the stretch of sand to the sea – however, out of thousands of little turtles, only a handful survive from the seagulls and birds who pick them up as they make their way into the sea.
I met a professor and his son in Bhubaneswar, who were travelling to those beaches to study the sea turtles. They told me that due to large ships fishing in the area and replacing the smaller boats, many giant turtles were being caught in the nets and the fishermen were just killing them and throwing them back into the sea, and that the species was in danger.
Another interesting area I have visited in Bhubhaneshwar is the Ratnagiri cave complex, which was the site of an ancient Buddhist commune that lived together and meditated in the caves. There is also a large Jaina Temple there.
Nice telling about not so nice happenings.
Didn’t know about Ratnagiri.
I feel quite some fascination with this part of the Indian subcontinent – and beyond: from Oriya via Kolkata, Darjeeling and Kalimpong, Sikkim. Nepal, Tibet, Bangladesh, Myanmar.
One of the reformers of Tibet, Atisha, was born in what is now Bangladesh, before he travelled to Tibet.
I also feel an affinity for the area, have travelled in Orissa, and West Bengal, Calcutta, Darjeeling, Sikkim , Nepalese Border and Nepal, but not Bangladesh.
I not sure whether the Muslim invaders who knocked down 70 out of 100 temples of Khajuraho, as well as the main temple building of Konark Surya Temple (leaving the chariot ) – I am not sure whether they were Sunni or Shia.
I don’t know enough about Islam to know for sure.
Most of the muslims I know are moderate muslims.
In Bangladesh, mostly Islam is practised on a moderate basis; most are Sunni muslims.
There are quite a lot of Sufis, too: one finds a lot of “mazaars”, tombs of deceased “Awliyyas” (holy ones) all over Bangladesh. And qawwali singing Bauls.
However, travelling is very difficult: firstly due to basic infrastructure, secondly due to poverty (abductions, extortion etc.), thirdly due to diseases and dirt.
Our forefathers for sure, I cannot imagine my generation who is now in late 50s, early 60s has seen such global crisis of life and death.
In a way, it is World War 3, human race on one side and an invisible virus on the other. I just hope there won´t be world war 4, man-made or nature-made for the future to see.
The spiritual message of the virus is ‘Memento mori’ – remember death! You are not safe. Anytime death can happen to you.
BREAKING NEWS – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXFBf5kRghY
Disclaimer:
Felt that no one knows what’s happening, not meant as a laugh. Sorry if anyone is offended by my post.
Kavita, I fopund it most amusing and sent it to several friends.
SD, just needed to clarify, I also shared with some friends and family, half of them didn’t seem amused.
God damn, the lyrics made me laugh, but the meaning behind them was sad…
https://youtu.be/93bsgdOLjak
Hi Arpana
good to see you back again !
Madhu
Thanks, Madhu.
ff ff ff ff stay fffff at home.
Selfish prick.
ff ff ffs stay tttt fff @ ‘ome.
The ferocious killer who makes the world tremble defeated by grandmother Italica (102 years old).
https://www.corriere.it/cronache/20_marzo_29/forza-nonna-lina-102-anni-guarisce-coronavirus-finisce-cnn-e75d8124-7185-11ea-b6ca-dd4d8a93db33.shtml?refresh_ce-cp
She has got the force with her! Congratulations! How wonderful.
Thanks, Swamishanti,
You did ask me about the ascendant, I delivered.
Bday over now.
It´s been special one this year, for whatsoever reasons, I don´t know.
If there are lots of Rams living in your fabulous area, that will do…
Grateful me – feel like an owl in the night tonight – sleep has to wait a little bit longer…
Madhu
P.S:
Loved to read your all memorial exchanges which were happening today.
So beautiful.
Anyone know the English version of this piece of film? In Italian the title is ‘Fear As An Instrument’ (of power).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRV7gSn-JXw
Seriously, Veet (and all SN readers and contributors), don’t you know there’s a war on?!
Listen, read and wake up!
https://christopher-gee.com/voice-overs-1
SD, I don’t use Fb or similar.
Neither do I, Veet.
Try the link again, scroll down a little, it should take you to a video and a link to an article, including the text of the video.
And for some ‘light relief’ we go to Ireland…
Ireland: Government advises practising safe sex and hygienic masturbation
By Rory Carroll
(N.B: Mr Carroll is the reporter, not the provider of ‘light relief’)
Ireland has issued guidelines on safe sex during the coronavirus pandemic, writes Rory Carroll in Dublin.
Only be sexually active with someone you live with and who does not have the virus or symptoms of the virus, and avoid kissing anyone outside your household or who has symptoms, say the Health Service Executive guidelines.
“Taking a break from physical and face-to-face interactions is worth considering, especially if you meet your sex partners online or make a living by having sex. Consider using video dates, sexting or chat rooms. Make sure to disinfect keyboards and touch screens that you share with others.”
Masturbation will not spread coronavirus, it adds. “Especially if you wash your hands (and any sex toys) with soap and water for at least 20 seconds before and after.”
(Published in today’s online ‘Guardian’)
SD, thanks for this vital information!
It’s a pleasure, Kavita (one of the few that’s left!).
Well, there’s virtual reality software where people can meet up online and have simulated sex, which could be useful in this situation, but there is a shortage of women to men ratio on SN.
SS, that is not just SN ratio, perhaps also a global ratio.
In this situation, probably it’s better we ‘handle’ our situation by ourselves!
Perfectly correct, SD and Kavita!
But may I remind you that, as has been made clear by Zorba the Buddha Modi, that not only were the ancient sages and rishis of ancient Bhorat conversant with mathematics, stem-cell genetics, space and air travel, plastic surgery, quantum mechanics and public toilets, but the art of the self-stimulation of the lower chakras was certainly highly developed in these parts since many yugas ago!
The plethora of expressions for this well-known yogic heavy-breathing technique, is testament to the intense search for the ultimate release, or moksha, that has taken place fervently and with great devotion in ashrams and caves, many with tell-tale erotic carvings, all over mighty Bhorat for many centuries!
Oiling the lingam, charming the cobra, raising the kundalini, playing Krishna`s flute, shaking the Shankaracharya (shanking), bashing the brinjal, tickling the trishul, rubbing the renunciate, cheating at brahmacharya, bopping the brahmin, plucking the veena, tossing the chapati and many others!
Yahoo!
Hari Om!
There are some kind of virtual reality enviroments people have been creating (with the use of VR headsets and particular types of hardware – not sure of the specifics) – but these are areas where people are meeting, chatting and sometimes having sex, or watching others having sex. Saw a documentary about it a couple of years ago. Perhaps sannyasnews in the future will have one.
Otherwise there is always phonesex…to get me through the emptiness (in my 501s).
“With a smell of sugar
And designer voodoo
And I got phone sex to see me through the emptiness in my 501s
Freeze-dried with the new religion….”
(Underworld: Dirty Epic)
https://youtu.be/phWYWpu5KUQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7lKRwsTCkQ
20th June 2016 Astrology lecture, by a British astrologer, so relevant today.
As she describes world will never be the same again.
Breaking news!
Russell Brand has just declared that he has become enlightened!
Extraordinarily, he claims this happened when Osho`s spirit entered into him while he was having a jacuzzi!
He has since announced “I am the messiah the UK has been waiting for.”
I will post the link as soon as I can.
We live in interesting times!
My take on the picture is that to me it symbolises the burden we have been on Osho.
Plus it seems to show a certain sense of entitlement: to just do whatever jumps into one’s mind and follow through with the impulse.
Oh dear.
Should have been below the Osho statue picture!
Klaus,
There are a lot of lectures where Osho – being asked in Q&As about the Issue of being ´burdened´ with His disciples – is talking about that, what you mentioned. We may need Arpana to get us some of His takes about it?
As far as I remember, He never complained about His Lovers as a burden but – when such came up – strenghened a U-turn i.e. where such questions come from the questioner´s side.
It´s only once He left the podium in the midst of His ´Mystic Rose´ lectures, when some crazy hysterical laughter wouldn´t stop in the audience, saying: “That´s off the joke!”*
Such happens (happened) – no doubt about it.
Madhu
*He said “Off the joke” and by that was not meant ´beyond a joke´ it was just a clear and terminal announcement of “SHUT UP!”
And even if we saw that vid only a few days later in our TAO centre, the whole stuff – the hysterical not ending laughter and then His voice when He left the Hall – was shocking to the bones.
P.S:
PS
Just now saw a report of what is happening in India just now, where the poorest of the poorest try amidst big, big crowds to leave the big cities and to get a place in a bus or train – heartbreaking scenes of the ´corona-tango´
Tell a porkie then quickly change the subject.
Text book politician.
I declare here on SN: I have never been nor desire to be a citizen of Shantam’s India!
Insha’Allah by Danusha Laméris (2014)
I don’t know when it slipped into my speech
that soft word meaning, “if God wills it.”
Insha’Allah I will see you next summer.
The baby will come in spring, insha’Allah.
Insha’Allah this year we will have enough rain.
So many plans I’ve laid have unravelled
easily as braids beneath my mother’s quick fingers.
Every language must have a word for this. A word
our grandmothers uttered under their breath
as they pinned the whites, soaked in lemon,
hung them to dry in the sun, or peeled potatoes,
dropping the discarded skins into a bowl.
Our sons will return next month, insha’Allah.
Insha’Allah this war will end, soon. Insha’Allah
the rice will be enough to last through winter.
How lightly we learn to hold hope,
as if it were an animal that could turn around
and bite your hand. And still we carry it
the way a mother would, carefully,
from one day to the next.
Nice one! Thanks.
Insha’Allah, I will write some more comments. Here or elsewhere.
Shantam, I wrote that to Satchit in relation to you.
Let me quote some wise words of a master, also an Osho sannyasin, as saying:
“At the physical level you are protected from any infection by your immunity; at the psychological level – by knowing yourselves. These two components are nowadays indicative of the way you live. You cannot change them promptly just because of urgent necessity.
Everyone will die someday. If the slightest chance of dying induces such a great fear, imagine what you are going to feel when you face your death close by and inescapable. Will you be able to accept it in peace and meditation?
Most people live as though they are immortal, and when reminded of the opposite, they get hysterical. They are killing themselves unconsciously on a daily basis by their suicidal way of living, with disregard for their bodies, whereas getting scared to the bone in any potential danger. The paradox of unconsciousness: to feel fear for one’s body, whilst continuously destroying it.
Conversely, a conscious man takes care of his body, yet remains unafraid, without panic in case of a threat to his physical survival.”
(Swami Dharma Sumiran)
Meditation helps remain peaceful. I wonder how I would have felt, had I not been meditating regularly for several years. I find myself quite calm, and feel nothing like awe, thanks to meditation, Osho and other great masters. Not sure if I would stay quiet in a sheer extreme situation. I’m just sure that both my immunity and self-awareness are growing as I keep practising.
I recall I have done a death meditation, sort of Bardo, a few months back. It must have made a strong impact on me as well. The point is not in dying peacefully, rather in living joyously.
Grow your immunity and self-awareness with The Mirror Meditation – highly recommended for the self-isolated…
https://youtu.be/VKTT-sy0aLg
Everyone will die someday!
This is shocking news. Are you certain this is 100% true? I suspect this might be face news created by Brigitte Bardo.
Perfectly correct, Jivan Alok!
Swami Dharma is certainly a great disciple of Swami Bhorat!
They were very close from childhood. They were known to friends in youth as Dhum and Dharma!
Certainly his wisdom shines forth like a golden stream flowing though spiritual darkness like effluence from Kingfisher Airways midnight flight from here to here after hostesses have been serving free beer in middle of diuretic outbreak!
We are all going to die!
Only one who has banged head on the marble very hard at feet of awakened one could make such a profound pronouncement!
Soon he will reach the level where he has satori and knows that everything happens in the end!
And realisation that there is one born every minute cannot be far off!
Your meditations are perfectly correct, Jivan Alok!
If you had not had the good fortune to come into contact with teachings and meditations of Swami Bhorat, you would certainly have had a panic attack and thrown yourself out of a 17-storey window by now!
Yahoo!
Keep calm and Hari Om!
To be fair tho`, fair play to the lad Dharma for a good point well made. I mean, we do all have to die some day. It`s a long walk off a short plank and when your goose is cooked, you reap what you sow and it’s only a matter of time `cos you never know what`s round the bend.
When you think about it in the cold light of day, life is like a box of chocolates and you can`t put the toothpaste back in the tube, so when it comes to the crunch you`ve got to take what`s coming to you because time waits for no man and you`ve got to pay the piper when the shit hits the fan.
So remember, you can`t take it with you so when push comes to shove, it`s a no-brainer, you`ll be pushing up the daisies `cos at the end of the day…
it gets dark.
No, not certain. If only we could remember our past lives. Once we have met and recognised each other in a future reincarnation, it would be an evidence for us that, at some level of being, something does not ever die. I admit this possibility. Do you, Lokesh?
Jivan,
Apparently, Socrates believed in reincarnation.
For him,the soul carries with it through its future incarnation the memories of its experiences and of all the knowledge acquired in previous lifetimes. Each time the soul is born into new body and forgets what it has known and is as ignorant as if it had never lived before.
The task, he said, was to remember the things one has known in previous lifetimes, specifically the underlying capacities of knowledge accumulated in the soul.
He wasn`t interested in identifying names and places and daily events of these lives.
He wanted to establish a connection with qualities gained. Human qualities and skills of any and every sort. This would establish a larger awareness for this person in the present life.
#To achieve this a special sensitivity was required.
A special type of remembering.
He saw his task as evoking that sensitivity in people he met.
Ohh, good one, Frank!
Tibetans say that “we all have been each other’s mother, father, brother, sister, wife, husband, aunty and uncle in the many lives we havehad”.
Pointing to a similar perception as what you stated about Socrates: No need to go into details and names and places.
Just the feel of it: phew.
Could be gratitude, respect, awe, surprise, humility etc. etc.
Although this idea is a very old one, arising when the religious rulers and scholars of the small population of Tibetans rarely, if ever, ventured beyond their homeland and so had little or no idea just how many people existed in the world.
So I’d be inclined to temper that sense of wonder with mathematics, Klaus!
Had a dream one night that Swami Deva B****t was my hangman.
Set in the Middle Ages, and actually had a noose round my neck, which was the day after he’d come into a room and seen me having a conversation with his then girlfriend, so probably more to do with him being a bit possessive than anything else.
I think that someone could sign up for Socrates’s idea without really believing in reincarnation at all, but just using it as a kind of accessing of a ‘collective unconscious’ type idea.
SD, the maths could add up, because the Tibs were including in their calculations all the previous incarnations as animals, too.
Swami Devakant (musician and sculptor, who also worked in Osho’s household, shared some details of his relationship with Osho’s caretaker Vivek, in his book, ‘In the Eye of the Hurricane’ – after Vivek died in 1989, during her relationship with Jayesh, Devakant was playing flute regularly in Osho’s Samadhi.
He noticed that when he was playing, a bird that seemed agitated kept tapping on the outside glass of the Samadhi with its beak.
Devakant thought that the bird resembled Vivek in some way. This bird kept appearing and tapping the window for several days whilst he was there, and then one day the bird stopped showing up.
Later, Devakant consulted a Tibetan monk who was famed for being able to tell accurately where a recently disembodied soul was, either in the Bardo realms, or in the next incarnation.
The Tibetan monk said that Vivek had been reincarnated either as a bird or a monkey.
Devakant had not shared the story of the bird with the guy.
Meanwhile, God Dieux and Maitreya Ishwara, who both spent years meditating with Samdarshi in the ‘90s, apparently both recognised one of Samdarshi’s daughters as the reincarnation of Vivek.
So perhaps she had a short life as a bird and then went on to become Samdarshi’s daughter.
Shanti, thanks for the story.
There are some points about it that interest me.
A couple of years ago, I had occasion to talk at length to a young woman whose best friend had recently committed suicide. She was describing to me how she was feeling and something she said was: “Another thing is that really odd, crazy little things have been happening.”
I said, “What? Birds?”
She said, “How do you know that? Yes, the same crow comes and sits on my window ledge every morning and everywhere I go, birds fly close to me.”
I didn`t know. Here`s the thing. I`ve heard so many people telling strange bird stories about the time around their nearest and dearest have died, including that it happened to me, that I just take it as a given that it happens to a decent percentage of the population. That`s why I said it.
The story you tell is another confirmation of this happening.
Something that I have come to realise is that these are the sort of things that psychics, soothsayers and, of course, wise old monks who know about the Bardo, say.
They know these things and use them to promote the idea that they have some kind of supernatural power. In fact, they are simply in possession of phenomenological information.
It is possible, of course, that they do have paranormal powers, yet my contention, for the most part, would be that what appears as magic to the punter is, to the magician, quite straightforward information. Practice and timing are everything.
Well yes, – …sigh… – Swamishanti,
Remembering that I ordered Devakant’s book as soon as it was available – same I´ve done with the book, “Long Reach of the Dharma” from Deva Abiyana, as I came to know a little bit – both of them.
Devakant more by attending his concerts in Munich, Abiyana while he had a love affair with Deva Prasthano, who had been a closer friend of mine, times ago.
I mention that because I could read Abiyana´s book in one stroke – I can say – and had quite my difficulties with Devakant´s stories.
Why I mention that now?
Maybe, when I read your posts about it and see what you´re making out of it.
All in all, it has been so amazing contrasting, diving deep into the big void of Devakant´s flute and then reading these stories. Much later.
Felt a nauseating read (if that is the right word – I don´t know, but it just came up).
Felt kind of intruding reading these reincarnation stories and reading of Tibetans who declare to know what is what and who is who, so to say, and ´where our lovers go when departing.
For me, such belongs (if ever) in a very intimate zone, it´s very, very intimate.
The time where many sannyasin have been bragging about ´their´past lives´ or the past lives of others – or telling reincarnation stories etc. are over, I feel, and belong to a phase long gone.
Fortunately, I´d say.
Yes, a very amazing and surprising book, Devakant´s book, which you got hooked into – but it may be interesting what that fascination has to do with your very life?
Madhu
Frank
(4 April, 2020 at 6:08 pm)
Hi, I was just watching a programme about King Solomon’s mines which was quite interesting. But here we go.
So, it could have been Vivek reincarnated who was pecking at the glass window of the Samadhi, perhaps she herself as that little bird from Lao-Tzu garden didn’t know why, she felt then a magnetic pull to get into the Samadhi, just as she didn’t really know why she had the impulse to get up and start chirping and singing every morning in her new life.
Perhaps she was attracted to the strong vibrations of the Samadhi and trying to tell Devakant, “let me in.”
And there are also other stories of other animals being overly attracted to Osho’s presence, without any real explanation.
Remember the story of the dog at Osho’s meditation camp at Matheran?
Ma Dharm Jyoti said that the dog used to come every day and sit attentively while Osho gave his talk. And then when Osho was leaving at the train station, that dog ran after the train as it pulled away, barking.
Osho was said to have commented, “He is an evolved soul.”
It’s true that the Tibetans believe that suicide can lead humans to take an animal birth again.
The thing is, it’s not just the Tibetans who talk about the bardo dimensions. Shamans have also been communicating with animal spirits in different dimensions, and even getting assistance from these animals. Tribal peoples live so close to nature, they hunt and eat the animals, they also use the skins and furs to make their clothes, homes and instruments.
Then, they also communicate with the spirit of that animal too and ask for advice and help from those spirits, and the shamans will often wear the skulls and the bones. It is a deep relationship.
This is just speculation though, Swamishanti, playing around with a fanciful, entertaining idea. Sure, natural creatures are inevitably attracted to enlightened beings, but to seriously suggest that a human being then becomes a bird, then another human being, seems bizarre.
I’ve heard of masters and teachers saying an animal might progress to the human level, but not vice versa. And if Tibetans have claimed otherwise then I suggest that might be to engender fear in their people of ‘lapsing’, of straying off the ‘true path’ (a tactic common to priests of all persuasions).
Madhu: 4 April, 2020 at 6:59 pm:
Yes, so I did mention Devakant’s book, as I have personally found it one of the most interesting books to come out of books about life around Osho. And I don’t read many books these days. When I bought it I was expecting a slim volume, but it was a thick, chunky book and I enjoyed reading his stories.
No, I see no problem with speculation on who has been reincarnated, and where.
As Vivek also is said to have already had a previous life as Osho’s teen girlfriend, if she now has a life as Samdarshi’s daughter, I think that is fortunate. And she will have grown up in beautiful locations,too, Manali, Rishikesh etc.
Ah, also, Madhu, I am a fan of Hariprasad Chaurasia, who Devakant studied with.
Perhaps you are familiar with his performances at Osho commune. ‘Possession’ was one recording of one of those concerts.
https://youtu.be/1p7pXaCoGOo
And some advice for lockdown :
https://www.thehindu.com/entertainment/music/ragas-as-stress-busters/article31236533.ece
It could then just as easily have been Vivek`s mum or her dad, reincarnated as a bird trying to find their daughter. And spinning a story that she has had a lovely rebirth in Manali and Rishikesh might be a way of numbing the inevitable pain of such a tragic, untimely throwing away of a life.
And the poor old pye dogs in India are so downtrodden that with a little tlc and a couple of stale chapatis and you`ve got a disciple for life who will never steal your tricks and then go and set himself up as a guru elsewhere!
Ah, also, Madhu, I have an appreciation of the chilled music that was being played in Buddha Hall in Poona Two, at one point when Osho started to get pain in his arms, when he had been dancing a lot to the music, so the musicians were asked to play a bit slower.
For me, it was interesting to hear the story from a musician’s point of view.
‘Garden of the Beloved’, ‘Chaung Tzu’s Dream’, etc. special recordings from Poona Two.
SD, 4 April, 2020 at 10:01 pm:
Indeed, it is speculation and I/we have no idea if humans move into animal forms, or if indeed we ever evolved from animal into human form.
Also, the Hari Krishnas (and they really do talk an awful lot of shit) also use the fear tactic and tell people that they can be reborn as an animal as a result of their karmas, I’ve seen the pictures in their books (ie, if you are too greedy you will get reborn as a pig).
Still, I found it amusing the possibility that Vivek was reincarnated for a while as a little chirpy bird, and her pecking on the glass window of the Samadhi, trying to get Devakant’s attention – well, he couldn’t just step outside and tell her, “Well, look, Nirvano, I know you really want to come in, but sorry, things have changed, you’re a bird now…I’ll try and talk to the management, but I don’t think they’ll understand….”
Reply to my comment at
4 April, 2020 at 10:28 pm:
Ah, so, Madhu, re Devakant’s book:
I am a fan of some of the music recorded in Poona Two, as well as the Indian Tanboura, and could also resonate with some of Devakant’s travel stories.
Like him, I also experienced the leeches whilst climbing one of the hills of Pokhara lake in Nepal.
When I noticed the that I had blood pouring down my leg and saw the leech, I remembered what one friend had told me who had encountered leeches in South Africa: you burn them off with a cigarette.
So I quickly pulled out my pack of small Indian cigarettes which I loved to smoke, lit one up, and then burned the little fucker.
The thing quickly recoiled in pain, and I was able to pull it off.
Then I noticed another one and gave it the hot cigarette treatment, but this one was more stubborn, I really had to pull it hard to get it off.
Still, it worked.
But then I noticed that all around me on the ground, little leeches were crawling towards me, in their strange sommersault way of moving using both of their ends, some were already attaching themselves on my shoes.
So I ran up the hill, into the bushes, and then down the other side again, towards the shore of the lake where the boats were.
There I noticed that I had lots of the leeches on my legs and feet again, but fortunately I met some local women, who carried a bag of salt with them, and they sprinkled the salt into my shoes.
This was how they protected themselves from the leeches, just by permanently carrying a big bag of salt around.
As I waited to climb into the boat back to the other shore, I noticed a tiny baby marijuana plant had sprouted on the shore and was growing just by the side of the water.
@satyadeva mathematics…
Well, it is very difficult to take it literally…
It is more like an impulse to look into the ‘transpersonal’ (that is a concept conceived by Stanislav Grof, Psych.) realm beyond the biographical etc.
Who could have been your ‘uncle’ anyway if you were – for example only – a light moss or a fern…? Small joke.
Dylan Moran: ‘We’re All Going To Die!’
https://youtu.be/fkbBBmmHN-w
Lana Del Rey, ‘Born to Die’:
https://youtu.be/QV-k4_DSWCc
C C R
‘Graveyard Train’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgLu2edkZGM
On a more mellow tune:
“Time Passages” – Al Stewart
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pm6TsYypBpY
Quote:
The years run too short and the days too fast
The things you lean on are the things that don’t last
Well, it’s just now and then my line gets cast into these
Time passages….
Calimera, Lecce: elderly man beaten by a general practitioner.
After cuts in public health spending, asking and not getting free diagnostic tests in Italy can create these conflicts.
The elderly man, accompanied to the hospital, preferred to go home after the necessary treatment.
I have no evidence to say that if the social climate continues to deteriorate we will need the army on the street and a banker as Prime Minister.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcF-2YdOE6M
P.S:
No media seem interested in the fate of this 87 year-old gentleman, although the video is viral on the web. Perhaps the mainstream is too concerned to tell us how important it is to protect the elderly from colds.
https://www.leccenews24.it/attualita/paziente-aggredito-calimera-medico-sospeso-dalla-asl.htm
P.P.S:
Meanwhile, in the province of Treviso, one of the red areas, where a curfew was applied before others, the number of deaths are in line with the data of the last 4 years.
Public health administrators begin to clear their conscience, perhaps even legal responsibility, by communicating mathematical facts. Even if the data of the dead without previous pathologies are not provided.
Period considered: from 1st January to 29th March.
- 995 people died in 2017
- 895 people died in 2018
- 908 people died in 2019
- 933 people died in 2020
https://disinformazione.it/2020/04/01/a-treviso-i-morti-in-ospedale-sono-perfettamente-in-linea-con-gli-anni-scorsi/
Here you go, Veet, you like this sort of thing, perhaps…
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/apr/04/uk-phone-masts-attacked-amid-5g-coronavirus-conspiracy-theory
Perhaps, SD, you are right, I am a conspiracy theorist, without critical ability, and with a propensity for intellectual dishonesty, not having access like you to the pristine source of the scientific truth of the horoscope.
Since in addition to the stars you believe only in organisations and institutions with high-sounding names, here is some information:
“The International Agency for Research on Cancer classifies radio frequency electromagnetic fields together with substances that could be carcinogenic to humans, such as lead, petrol and DDT. In short, the issue of electromagnetic waves should not be underestimated and if avoiding exposure is impossible, at least we can try to reduce it in our home. .
Sorry but the “electrosmog” does not deserve a page in English, use g.translate.
https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inquinamento_elettromagnetico
MOD:
Post edited.
“Perhaps, SD, you are right, I am a conspiracy theorist, without critical ability, and with a propensity for intellectual dishonesty…”
Well, whatever I may or may not think about you, Veet, you’ve certainly said nothing here that might dissuade me of the truth of such suppositions; rather the contrary, in fact.
Your second paragraph fairly overflows with far-fetched presumption masquerading as fact. Which too often tends to be par for the course for your outpourings, unfortunately.
Another instance being confusing two illnesses (your penultimate parag.): The (utterly foolish) protesters had apparently convinced themselves the masts were a cause of the coronavirus, not, as you imply, of cancer!
Why not take up a new hobby, eg playing chess? Hopefully, that might help take your mind off ‘things’ and eventually, to think straighter, with more rigorous self-examination.
I see you like to tire me, SD.
If I realize that you are having too much fun I will have to ignore your continuous attempts to lead me to one of the dead tracks of your common sense, of which you seem very proud.
The facts.
I write a comment with numbers that make official that in a red zone of the pandemic the overall mortality is not different from that of the last 4 years.
You comment with a link about the sabotage actions against the 5G structure in your country by people who are convinced of the relationship between frequencies and the immune system, assuming that I like this sort of thing (which ones?).
I answer you by reasoning absurdly (how could I do it differently with you?), taking your premises for good, and, identifying myself with a young English hooligan in the grip of the fumes of alcohol climbing a pole, I put out the topic of impact on the human health of electromagnetic pollution.
You complain that I went off topic, as if the immune system that defends us from cancer was not the same that defends us from infections.
Boring, even for your standards.
But you saved everything, in extremis, with your call for greater rigour of self-examination.
At the risk of boring you even more, Veet, I suggest you read and inwardly digest the following. Hopefully, you might realise that things you so much want to believe are not necessarily true. And then – perhaps – you might appreciate the unconscious irony of your last paragraph!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/52168096
Veet, it is an unfounded assumption that the anti-5G transmitter attack is simply the work of drunken hooligans. The kind of people who believe many of these things such as the virus is caused by 5G come from a variety of walks of life. Many, quite middle-class and even `educated`.
`These kind of things` also include:
“The virus is a cunning plan to grab more power and put dissenters into camps.”
People who post bogus quotes online, people who place bogus cures online such as “lemon and baking soda cures the virus – that`s why they don`t have it in Japan.`
The trails from airplanes are `chemtrails`, noxious chemicals put there by the govt. who want to make people ill.
(Have you noticed they never retract or admit their falsehoods?).
Trump is for the people and struggling against the `deep state`.
The virus itself is man-made.
You can protect from the virus by feeling Amma`s energy.
Prince Charles is a lizard who travels round to earth-energy points such as Stonehenge and others so as to deliberately mess up the vibes there – I kid you not.
I could go on. I actually know people who come out with this kind of stuff personally.
Yes, I think that the electro waves may well be harmful and it is true that mainstream scientists have weighed in, warning of the dangers – even in publications such as ‘Scientific American’ – so it should be taken more seriously than it is.
But throwing it in a ludicrous mix with all the other totally discredited stuff, continuing to spread untruth, to me, is the best way to have the legitimate concerns even more rejected by the mainstream.
As for your death toll figures, I really do hope that in the final analysis this is what happens, that looking back we will see that, thankfully, not so many, in the grand scheme of things, have died.
Nevertheless, I ask you this:
If it is just a normal year, as the figures suggest, then why are the hospitals overloaded, medical workers dying, ice rinks being used as morgues, and new hospitals having to be built? If everything was normal, why would that be necessary?
madhu dagmar frantzen says:
2 April, 2020 at 6:06 am
Response:
Madhu, tell one thing that Bhagwan Shree or His cult did for all these poor your heart is bleeding for.
Be honest.
Few days before I have requested specifically at my facebook page (I know, like many other faceless you too see my posts), Osho Foundation must offer buildings in empty compound for emergency medical services.
Love,
Shantam
Shantam,
I never look at your facebook page – neither yours nor that of others; reading your daily posts in the Caravanserai here is much more than enough, mostly too much in these present times.
That I am “faceless” for you belongs more to your character of your habitual postings here in SN than to reality.
Btw, that Facebook has the word “face” in it is an ultimate joke, I suggest, but only if I am in a good mood…!
Madhu
Madhu,
Please share your opinion about the relevant question in my previous post.
What Bhagwan Shree and His bands of people did for the poor of India, the very poor who are left hopeless in every calamity and you feel overly touched by their plight?
Let us start fund-raising event at sannyasnews. Everybody gives 5 euros or more to the charity of the choice.
5 euros I am saying for the reason, other than two, three super-wise Scottish or British, most of us are hand- to-mouth.
SP: “What Bhagwan Shree and His bands of people did for the poor of India, the very poor who are left hopeless in every calamity and you feel overly touched by their plight?“
What did Bhagwan and his Poona commune do for the poor of India?
The Rajneesh Ashram, with thousands of westerners visiting, boosted the Poona economy so much that the Mayor of Poona personally wrote to Osho in 1987, when Osho had returned to Poona from Bombay, giving him his full support and telling him that he was welcome to stay in the city ‘forever’ – this was when there was a lot of pressure from local conservative groups to demolish the ashram.
You can be sure that the hugely increased presence of Westerners in India, principally there to visit Osho, but also to be found in Goa and all over the country, massively boosted the incomes of many Indian beggars and everyone else in a very big way.
A lot of India’s economy is dependent on foreign tourism.
Interesting post, SS.
Capitalism when it’s working positively.
I am increasingly of the opinion that capitalism can’t be sorted, because one side says it’s an unalloyed evil and the other side says it’s an unalloyed good; and the truth is, like anything, it has good and negative aspects but is desperately in need of clear-cut boundaries regarding what is acceptable and what is not; boundaries which can’t be set because of the polarisation of those two viewpoints.
One of the good sides of capitalism could be that governments could collect enough taxes from a sustainable economy to create sustainable welfare for all its citizens on an equal basis while protecting Nature.
Now that would be prosperity…if followed through.
@ Klaus.
4 April, 2020 at 3:09 pm.
If only….
Excerpt from ‘To Bless the Space Between Us’ by John O’Donoghue (2008)
This is the time to be slow,
Lie low to the wall
Until the bitter weather passes.
Try, as best you can, not to let
The wire brush of doubt
Scrape from your heart
All sense of yourself
And your hesitant light.
If you remain generous,
Time will come good;
And you will find your feet
Again on fresh pastures of promise,
Where the air will be kind
And blushed with beginning.
Arpana, I prefer to live in a society based on mutual solidarity, but only with respect to essential needs.
The ideological paternalism typical of certain “social experiments”, in the name of solidarity, has created the same competition between men (belonging/homologation/identification, with respect to the ideal model) present in capitalism in economic matters.
It would seem, therefore, that the problem that binds the degeneration of any social structure is the craving for power, necessary to prevail in a competition, a mechanism that is neutralized only when a more vital lymph has been discovered at an existential level.
Thus, it would not be a moral choice between hatred and love (it is ok to hate if the situation creates this feeling) but the ability/luck to keep/have roots well rooted in the mystery.
“A human being is part of a whole called Universe. He experiences his thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest: a kind of optical illusion of consciousness. This illusion is a kind of prison. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by expanding our circle of knowledge and understanding, to include all living creatures and the entirety of nature in its beauty.”
(By Albert Einstein_
“The law of biology requires co-operation. The law of economics requires competition. So, a competitive society is inherently pathological. Competition is the exact opposite of resonance: how can I resonate with someone, if I have to compete with him, because either I win or he wins? As long as there is a regime based on competition between human beings, the problem of happiness can never be solved.”
(By Emilio Del Giudice – Physicist)
What the eyes of certain subjects…do not see…
“People have delegated their souls to priests, health to doctors, money to bankers and children to school, and so they have stopped controlling their lives.” (By Raymon Grace)
“The law of biology requires co-operation. The law of economics requires competition. So, a competitive society is inherently pathological. Competition is the exact opposite of resonance: how can I resonate with someone, if I have to compete with him, because either I win or he wins? As long as there is a regime based on competition between human beings, the problem of happiness can never be solved.
- By Emilio Del Giudice – Physicist
This is facile ballocks.
Road building involves money. People co-operate with others on which side of the road they drive on. Competition is always happening side by side, integrated with co-operation.
Capitalism doesn’t make people competitive. Competitive is part of human nature. Competitive is rooted in the survival instinct, as are co-operatives.
There has been no sign of civil breakdown during this present crisis, in the UK. Some people have behaved badly. 750,000 people signed up for a volunteer service to help hospitals, and ill and vulnerable people within 24 hours of the call going out. That’s co-operative.
I went to an anti-5G meeting last year when it was all happening.
I was interested as I think that it is likely that there are some ill effects from all the electrical stuff.
What tech has been invented that is absolutely safe for humans? The wheel, for example, was a great breakthrough. Not so good if you were run over by a chariot or drowned in a mill, tho`.
That said, the people at the meeting were depressingly flakey and took themselves so seriously.
The only good moment was in the Q and A with the speaker, when some guy in the audience stood up and said to him, completely deadpan: “My idea is that it must be possible to hack into the 5G and reprogramme it so as to send out love vibrations and positive energy all over the world.”
No one even laughed.
Arpana, yes, I see your nature, i’m very competitive too, when I play soccer. In a capitalistic society is not you who decides what matter is co-operation and what not, but the Market does.
@ VF.
Imo there are factors at work which we have no control over.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unintended_consequences
“it is an unfounded assumption that the anti-5G transmitter attack is simply the work of drunken hooligans”. (Frank)
If you have decided that the people who believe your list of bizarre and likely things are idiots, do you think to improve the image of your villagers by considering them sober?
Do you ask me these questions while you are sober?
In case you would like to apologize for the insult addressed to SP?
“Yes, I think that the electro waves may well be harmful and it is true that mainstream scientists have weighed in, warning of the dangers – even in publications such as ‘Scientific American’ – so it should be taken more seriously than it is” .
I don’t remember asking you this question, not knowing what training you have in order to answer it, if with a technical judgment or a simple opinion, similar to one of the many on “your list of idiots”.
It seems increasingly clear to me that the elephant you have in the corridor continues to gain weight because you continue to avoid the basic question: can neutral information exist for a neutral science if both their interests do not coincide with public well-being?
For example, in Italy, the jurisprudence that establishes the connection between tumors and electrosmog is growing, yet on television there are no anxious advertisements about cancer risk when they have to sell the latest smart phone.
Ah, you ask me with your accomplice SD “who are they”? Well, for the answer try to stare intently at the elephant.
How full a glass appears to be, VF, depends on who’s looking and from where they are looking.
Nobody is objective really; only some individuals are aware how difficult it is to be objective.
Exactly, Arpana, it’s called democratic method: a sovereign/representative of the people who does the interests of the community, objectively, compared to what is established by the Constitution.
A couple of simple examples for you:
Can one be objective if we are not financially independent of the results of our research/ analysis?
Can one be objective in judging between private scientific research that has enormous economic means to prove that the mobile phones, which they want to sell, are not harmful and no research because of any means that proves otherwise?
A true democracy is not compatible with the average condition of the current States, almost all without a Central Bank or at the mercy of the financial speculations of the Rating Agencies.
@VF:
The world as it is.
The world as you think it is.
The world as you think it should be.
“Leave the world a little better there as you found it..”
Arpana, do you remember who said this?
Where has your philological passion gone?
Veet,
I asked: If it is just a normal year, as the figures you post suggest, then why are the hospitals overloaded, medical workers dying, ice rinks being used as morgues, and new hospitals having to be built? If everything was normal, why would that be necessary?
You are not able to answer.
No surprise there.
Frank, how could I frustrate your predictions?
Did you apologize to SP?
I don’t think you will surprise me.
@ Lokesh,
Two posts one of yours, one of Frank – but essentially yours (both have been deleted hours later) inspired me today to go in research of the novel of 1959 (and then later the movie (1975) again: ‘One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s´s Nest’.
Finding out (every now and then ) that the data admin of this UK/SN Chat is quite flexible, so to say.
Everybody is here and there hooked to a story, mine is a METOO one with a long list…yours, Lokesh, must be one with an identification of this very fabulous narrative of American Psychiatry – which we all, who were in the students rebellion at these times, were pretty much inspired by in the seventies, being involved in some or other ‘Anti-Psychiatry’ movements. Long, long time ago and connected a little while with Basaglia in Italy and others like Laing and Cooper in UK.
You know nothing of my life´s realities, Lokesh. (And sometimes simply deleting will NOT do).
That you´ve chosen me (adressing me again and again) as “Sister Rachel” in some of your posts is totally off the wall and I´d like you to get that feedback, Lokesh. Now!
I won´t serve you as well as others here, not as a scapegoat – especially in times like this! (Corona and more…).
Madhu
Anyone for Global peace meditation tonight? http://www.globalpeacemeditation.com/
“We will be doing this meditation in the exact moment of Jupiter/Pluto conjunction on April 4th/5th which will be the first moment when a truly powerful energy of Age of Aquarius will hit the surface of the planet….”
Crazy idea, if we just compare the tiny Pluto and gigantic Jupiter…
Anyway, meditation is a good thing to do. Setting the alarm for 22:45 EDT.
The undertaking is meant “…as a tool to completely remove the coronavirus”, among other reasons.
Really? In what time-frame, I wonder…
Thing is, if/when the cv-19 threat is ‘defeated’, these ‘global meditators’ can claim to have played a significant part in the process, without anyone being able to prove otherwise. I suggest it’s all belief, fuelled by a particular brand of credulousness.
That reminds me of a group meditation/healing that I participated in in the Boozeria at Humaniversity Holland in the 80s.
It was designed by Veeresh to lower the spread of AIDS which was scarily spreading at the time.
Everyone, must have been 100 people or more, stood around and shouted really loud:
“Fuck off, AIDS” for a few minutes.
It worked for me as I never caught it!
SD,
Have you ever heard about the “Occult Battle of Britain”?
A bunch of wicca types got together somewhere near the south coast in 1940 and did rituals, danced all night, lit fires, chanted etc. etc. for days in order to repel the Nazis.
Extraordinarily, some of them died from their exertions.
When Goering and the Luftwaffe finally gave up, the wiccans and the whack`uns claimed their part in the Victory!
And there`s still some that believe it today.
You can`t disprove it either!
Hi Frank,
My question is: Does that help to be reminded of such stuff as the “Occult Battle of Britain”?
And don´t get me wrong, I´m sincerley interested if you (or SD, whom you adressed yesterday with it) get some inner improvements or triggering of some creative ideas for the better by that memory?
Same goes in a way to Veet Francesco, whom – by reading – I hear just screaming with pain (when I come to know, not only about the Italian hotspot of the crisis or other ones worldwide and one statistic in quota of sick and dead ones, pics and vids added to it is beating/surpassing the foregoing one.
Is there anything in your view that would help? As the fabuluous Monty Pythons won´t do, or would they – or such?
Just spoke with a friend here, who talked about the worldwide happening (night-)meditation they had been invited to on the Net.
Sleepless in Munich, trying to let some info through, what the current crisis is telling us all (worldwide) and how to cope with it individually.
No clue.
Madhu
Madhu, just the name “The Occult Battle of Britain” makes me chuckle as it seems so patently ridiculous.
I mentioned the story to illustrate the craziness of all these claims made by occultists and `insiders` of all sorts and their `magic` meds. and whatnot.
You are an old-school sannyasin so you will remember the Nasruddin story that is similar:
Nasruddin is throwing random bits and pieces of junk around the front door of his house.
A passer-by asks him what he is doing.
“I am keeping the tigers away,” replies Nasruddin.
“But there are no tigers around her,e” replies the bemused passer-by.
Nasruddin replies: “Exactly. It works!”
You ask, is there anything in your view that would help (with the virus situation)?
I`m flattered that you think I might be an authority on such matters but I`m in the same boat as everyone else.
But let`s see.
Don`t panic?
Consider how good it is to know that you are making an important contribution to society`s and humanity`s well-being and health just by sitting on your behind at home and doing next to nothing?
Watch comedy clips on YouTube?
Do the spring cleaning?
Keep calm and carry on?
Frank said on 5 April, 2020 at 3:35 pm
Excellent last parag., Mr Frank, innit!!
Unfortuantely, if we do as as you say, we will not be recognised for the contribution we are making.
Just sayin’.
Jafooley,
I don`t know.
Maybe in the years to come when people ask: “What did you do in the Coronavirus?” you can say, “Absolutely sweet FA. Just completely vegged out.” And people will look at you with awe and say in a hushed tone:
“Respect!”
Another take, Frank & other Friends – in another one of these night-shifts…
Being kind of digging and digging into what the Teaching might be of this tiny (greedy) particle (named corona) eating up human life-forms these days and how we face that…
Was reminded tonight of that beautiful, beautiful Australian woman (an elder Sannyasin) I became intimately friends with (January 1990) and who left the Ashram in Pune in deep distress and anguish and deadly fear.
We had been sharing some of our life-stories, coming from so different angles of the planet and from our journeys alone-together. We made friends, one can say…I felt honoured by this!
Her work athome base that time was to be in Australian Aborigine parts of land working with inhabitants and Indigenous Natives.
In my heart she´s been visting me tonight – by Grace, I´d say.
What I found tonight in the web was/is a tale from Rowan Walking Wolf (2009 published), titled:
‘The Secret of Dreaming’. Like to share here in SN/UK some from his foreward:
“Stories define the cultures, who give them life.
And if anything is to be learned about the people who created (who a r e these) stories, it is that they are human beings.
That is, they recognize that they are animals, that they are a niche to fill in the many ecosystems they inhabit, that they are brothers and sisters to all the plants and animals and inanimate things and that they are interconnected with all life.
That they are one with: they a r e the earth.
The civilized have lost (read: forcefully eradicated) most of the vital aspects of human existence.
We must recover them, then feel and nourish them, pass them on to whatever future generations are unfortunate enough to inhabit the now dying planet.
Life is dependent on our land bases on the planet to whom we belong and these worlds, these landbases are being slaughtered.
We must absolutely annihilate those forces which are actively killing the world, destroy and dimantle those parts of the Industry which is doing the same, reminding ourself to live and to be human.
And in doing so, we must tell old stories and invent new stories.
Otherwise we are nothing.”
In my understanding, we´ve got a lot of Teachings in this direction.
But the one we are worldwide and just now in – beyond any special religious or other frames – is really a very strong SHOT!
Neither further cynical defence strategies, ongoing indifference, nor further ignorance will do.
And could be that that the quarantine now, if it is long enough, bears the chance to get some of the lessons?
Madhu
Madhu, April 6, 5.02am:
“Being kind of digging and digging into what the Teaching might be of this tiny (greedy) particle (named corona) eating up human life-forms these days and how we face that…”
Madhu, on the basic level of cause-and-effect, this investigation by American Ezra Levant of ‘Rebel News’ (sent to SN by Swami Navojat of Essex, London, the UK & the Czech Republic) is well worth watching.
He provides plenty of evidence that indicates the cause was inadequate security precautions at a Chinese research centre in Wuhan, covered up by a Chinese government concerned about its credibility.
If this explanation is correct (and it does seem plausible) there’s no ‘direct’ “teaching” as such from the pandemic itself, but any lessons would arise from the responses to the conditions we face, from authorities and ourselves.
Conspiracy theorists will be disappointed that the evidence doesn’t appear to point towards a deliberate attempt to infect the country and/or the world. As will those who believe it’s all about Nature/the Earth or God deliberately teaching us a much needed lesson.
https://youtu.be/fUo1w5aSkro
You might enjoy this book, Madhu.
The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human.
Jonathan Gottschall (Author), Kris Koscheski
This is a link to Amazon Germany:
shorturl.at/bkBW6
Madhu
6 April, 2020 at 5:02am
“I have also been pondering the virus and what is the point of viruses.”
Well, the virus clearly has just as much right to exist and live here as we do, and God will not make any distinction in importance between the virus that is currently causing world chaos and ourselves.
Whether the virus provides food for other microbes somewhere in the food chain, or how it fits into nature’s balance I don’t know.
“Well, the virus clearly has just as much right to exist and live here as we do, and God will not make any distinction in importance between the virus that is currently causing world chaos and ourselves.”
SS, now I am wondering what did that God do to nonavian dinosaurs/other extincts? Are these new age viruses incarnations of those extincts?!
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-rebel/
Have you watched the programme, Frank? Unless he’s making up or falsifying the Chinese researchers’ report and the evidence of 59 people in and around Wuhan fish market it’s convincing.
However, if Levant & co. have ‘previous’ then ok, I guess it’s best to be more sceptical, although they’re not saying it was a devilish plot by the Chinese, just inefficiency – plus, of course, calling the Chinese government dictatorial liars (unlike the squeaky-clean Yanks!).
What a stinking cess-pit politics is! Basically, I hate it all.
P.S:
Navojat comments:
But those facts are checkable and I’ve seen mentions of this elsewhere….
Light relief at last…
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/06/self-isolate-mystery-dalek-orders-humans-in-the-age-of-coronavirus
In reply to Kavita at
6 April, 2020 at 4:37 pm:
I have heard that there are theories that dinosaurs may have been wiped out by viruses; other theories include changes in global climate and the earth being hit by a large meteor.
Whatever the case, there are still a few leftovers from the dinosaurs, crocodiles and alligators were living in that prehistoric era, also the Komodo dragon, large monitor lizards I think may also be relics from that age.
Also, modern birds are believed to have evolved out of flying dinosaurs, and sabretooth tigers, well, evolved into big cats without such big teeth.
And a little later, woolly mammoths lost their hair and evolved into elephants.
Just a short time ago as I was walking outside I came across part of the bony skeletal and smelly remains of something on my path, which I figured must have been dragged down out of the trees and onto the path by a dog.
I looked at it and decided it must be the remains of a young deer, as the teeth were that of a herbivore.
As there are no natural predators of deers anymore where I live (all the bears and wolves in the area were killed by men a couple of hundred years ago) and the deer population are culled annually in a controlled way, I guess that the young deer probably died from illness of some kind. The British Royal Family are the only people who I believe may be the only people allowed to still legally hunt in the forest (although they don’t do that anymore.
There are also some species of wild cats living in the forest, which have been captured on night camera, but they are rare).
For sure, the earth passes through many changes, and in thousands/millions of years, as our Sun grows bigger and hotter, the UK will finally have a lovely sub-tropical climate, there will be lots of palm trees and banana trees, giant insects and other creatures once again, and who knows, humans, if they still survive, may have evolved darker skin to cope with the strong sunshine.
There will also be large areas of desert and jungles, and the Sun will appear huge in the sky…until it becomes so big and hot and eventually devours this planet into itself.
Someone told me once that cockroaches will be the last creatures to be able to survive in the extreme heat of the final Earth years.
No, never heard of that! But I expect they enjoyed themselves, had some much-needed catharsis and created some body/mind well-being from their efforts.
@Mr. Frank Innit!!! 5 April. 2020 at 8:25 pm
Have you come across Jordon Peterson’s suggestion that if you want to change the world, start by tidying your room? Which is one of the reasons he’s called by the woke left an extreme right-winger.
Some years ago I moved into a flat and the kitchen looked out on a wide, quite open space, and the backyards of other people’s gardens, mostly well tended, with trees and shrubs; and the immediate area had a brick built area, designated to contain bins for the houses and flats nearby, which was filled to overflowing with fstinking rubbish in mostly damaged black bags that the binmen just refused to move. And I don’t know how long this had been building up, but it stank to high heaven, with rats moving in and out regularly, plus foxes were ofton breaking open the bags.
And so one warm afternoon I went out there and I cleaned it up, rebagged everything, and somebody actually came out and said to me I shouldn’t be doing that. It’s their job.
I’m only telling you the story because your remarks made me think about action and inaction as appropriate; action and inaction in balance, and I’ve often thought one of the great problems governments suffer from is that they have to appear to be doing something when what they really need to do pretty often: they need to just watch and wait.
Jafooley, you ask,
“Have you heard Jordon Peterson’s suggestion that if you want to change the world, start by tidying your room?”
No, I haven`t. But the thing is, my mum beat him to it by well over half a century!
Is it true though?
A lot of geniuses are messy buggers apparently.
And when you think about it, most people who have had the power to change the world have probably been able to afford a cleaner.
@Frank. 5 April, 2020 at 9:39 pm
Do you think VF has a tidy room?
Sounds utterly nonsensical, totally desperate, although I suppose the idea might have been to create a sort of collective ‘hyno-energetic’ protection for the participants against the disease. Laughably childish really.
At the time, Frank, did you think it was worthwhile?
SD,
I can`t remember whether it was just another rap to introduce another round of catharsis or whether Veeresh might have `believed in it’.
I expect that the rationale, such as it was, would have been more along Reichian lines of, if you get rid of repressed energy then you will get less illness, as in Reich`s `repressed sexuality leads to cancer` type of thing.
For myself, it did seem just like another round of catharsis in between the `I hate you` `Fuck you` and `I love you` and dancing and all the stuff that was going on.
Did it do me any good?
I kind of doubt it made much difference either way.
I did like the bit of the marathon I did with him where we all went down to the beach at dawn, stripped off, all held hands and ran together into the (brass monkeys) North Sea shouting `Yes!`
That was fun!
“I expect that the rationale, such as it was, would have been more along Reichian lines of, if you get rid of repressed energy then you will get less illness, as in Reich`s `repressed sexuality leads to cancer` type of thing.”
Ah yes, that seems about right somehow. Might even have been useful, an antidote, however temporary, to the fear that was around at that time. But something, a memory or attitude, or even a mantra, to take away as well, I suppose, for the same purpose, to help prevent psychosomatic maladies.
When I think about it, the value of that kind of stuff was really just if it was fun or not. The `therapeutic` aspect beyond that, I have quite a number of doubts about.
I just remembered the last page of ‘Meetings with Remarkable Men’ where Mr G says that if what he has done so far in his writings and work doesn`t work that he will burn them all and instead:
“I will begin a new life by using the capabilities I possess for the sole purpose of satisfying my personal egoism. A plan IS already forming itself in my madcap brain for my activities in such a life. I picture myself organizing a new ‘Institute’ with many branches, only this time not for the Harmonious Development of Man but for instruction in hitherto undiscovered means of self-satisfaction. And there is no doubt that a business like that would run as if on greased wheels.”
I think he was prophesying the Humaniversity there and maybe the whole of Sannyas!
On the principle of the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom, I can see it…
If…you manage to get through the potholes, the traffic cops, the blind corners, the crashes, burnt-out headlights, careless drivers, brake-failure, drunk drivers ignoring the signs and the rest….
Did You Know?
When wolves howl together, they harmonize rather than chorus on the same note in order to create the illusion that there are more wolves in the pack.
That´s a good one, Jafooley (at 10:33 pm) just before midnight.
Creative.
Deep.
And the quest (in it) if we can make it as humans as we lost so much of our instincts and gave it away to some articicial brand.
Madhu
P.S:
And was coutageously back to the topic too, Jafooley (at 10:33 pm) and what a surprise.
In 2002, the entire media were continuously saying that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction,
and that the US needs to invade Iraq, to keep us all safe.
15 years later it was revealed that Iraq actually had ZERO weapons of mass destruction.
It was a lie.
Nobody was held responsible.
I bet you anything, that 15 years from now we will discover that:
1. Co-virus is not as contagious as they say.
It spreads like a ‘flu. You need to talk to someone face-to-face for a considerable length of time to catch it, or someone has to sneeze on you, or you have to hug someone.
If you wear a mask when you talk to someone, or if you generally keep one metre distance from people on the street – you should be fine.
No need to disinfect your hands hundreds of times a day. You cannot catch it if someone touched an object: maybe if you lick that object.
German scientists discovered that a person who had coronavirus is NO LONGER contagious if his nasal fluids and his cough contain less than 100.000 (one hundred thousand) particles of the virus.
This is a person who was sick with the virus and they carry the virus in their body.
No longer contagious if they have less than 100 thousand particles of the virus.
This means if someone touches an object, and that object has less that one hundred thousand particles of the virus – you won’t catch it even if you lick that object.
2. 15 years from now we will also discover that is was not as deadly as the media portrayed it.
Of the ‘flu viruses, 5-7% are coronaviruses. These coronaviruses have existed in previous years, Covid-19 is just a new strain.
When they test someone for coronavirus, they don’t detect the virus. They detect the antibodies that the body produces to fight the virus, and this is how they know you had the virus.
Nowadays, if someone dies of old age, they might detect a coronavirus (5-7% of ‘flu viruses are coronaviruses) in his system, and conclude that he died because of Covid-19.
The number of the dead are overly inflated.
I won’t get into a lengthy debate about this, but I just wanted to point out that:
15 years from now we will find out that it was less deadly than the media said.
And just like the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
Nobody will be held responsible for this lie.
After 15 years, most people who orchestrated this scam will be out of public life, so the information will come out that covid 2019 was less contagious than the media said it was, and less deadly than the media said it was.
When people will ask: who is responsible for these lies?
The media will just shrug.
Let’s do a little maths to find out how contagious it is.
If one sick person spread it to two people in a day.
Only two people.
In 20 days, one million people would be infected (2 to the power of 20 is 1048576).
If one person spreads it to just one person in a day.
Every day, the number of infected would double.
—
Now if it is so easy to catch that it is enough to talk to someone for one minute and they have it.
Or maybe you go to the store and touch an object, and someone touches the same object and they get the virus.
Then you could say that one person could easily give it to 10 other people in one day.
Do you agree?
If it spreads by touching things, or by just spending one minute in the company of an infected person.
One person could spread it to hundreds of people in a day.
10 people is a very low estimate.
But let’s say one person spreads it to 10 people in a day.
This means that one spreads it to 10, the next day 10 spread it to 100, the next day 100 spread it to 1000.
Each day you add a zero.
This means that in 10 days, you have 10 zeroes, 10 billion people are infected, the entire population of Earth.
So if one person gives it to 10 people
In 10 days, the entire population of the globe are infected.
Obviously, this is not the case
Which means it is not so contagious.
It does not spread by touching things
No need to be paranoid and disinfect your hands a million times a day.
It spreads like the ‘flu: if you spend a considerable amount of time with an infected person (if you are part of the family or a work colleague) or if they sneeze on you…
This old man was on board the cruise ship – he had the coronavirus, his wife didn’t get it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLGX2L9JLa8
You mean to say the wife that spent 24 hours a day with this man, slept next to him, cooped up on a Cruise Ship — and she did not get the coronavirus from him
But we are supposed to be so paranoid that the coronavirus is spread by touching the same object?
Ganga,
I don`t have any doubt that the media is skewing reality. It always does.
It pays to find ways not to be infected with the fear that`s going around but there are still problems with what you say.
In the case of the WMD, there was a clear rationale. The Yanks wanted to get Saddam and the oil and they needed an excuse. No complications.A child could understand that.
However, to equate that situation with the spread of the virus, you would need to show in the same clear way in black and white detail, who would benefit from it and why?
Can you do that?
Ganga,
The SARS 2 coronavirus, Covid-19, is more deadly than the ‘flu.
That is because this is the first time this virus has entered the bodies of humans.
It is believed to have been passed from an animal into humans, the most likely source of the transmission being from horseshoe bats.
A coronavirus that is almost identical to the current strain that is spreading rapidly has been found to be existing in horseshoe bats in Southern China for thousands of years.
However, the bats have evolved over time to deal with the virus and it no longer makes them sick.
There are several types of coronaviruses that are spread around humans each year, several are known as ‘the common cold’. These viruses have had thousands of years to adapt to being in their hosts of human bodies and have mutated many times. Therefore they do not make people seriously ill.
Scientists generally believe that over time, as viruses evolve with their natural habitats, they tend to cause less severe disease.
Each time they leap into a new species they are able to hastily transform in order to survive in the new environment, with its new physiology and a new immune system to battle.
It is true that several strains of what is known as ‘the flu’ are also coronaviruses, and these are also common. Most people can handle the ‘flu but it does kill a percentage of elderly people each year.
But Covid-19 is more dangerous than the ‘flu.
In the UK, several young people under the age of thirty have already died from Covid-19, including a young girl of just 21 who had no pre-existing health conditions.
A kid just 5 years old died last week.
It is not just the people who die from contracting the virus that is the problem.
The health services are being put under too much strain which means that many people such as cancer patients are currently unable to get treatment because of the lack of facilities.
And many NHS workers are contracting and have died from the disease.
And all experts agree that this particulate virus is spreading in its new host very well indeed.
If you think it is not easily transmissible, think again.
Scientists recently estimated that undocumented cases of covid-19, or infected people with mild symptoms, are fifty-five per cent as contagious as severe cases. Another study found that in more severe cases (requiring hospitalization), patients shed the virus from their respiratory tracts for as long as thirty-seven days.
Outside a host, in parasitical purgatory, a virus is inert, not quite alive, but not dead, either. A hundred million coronavirus particles could fit on the head of a pin — typically, thousands or tens of thousands are necessary to infect an animal or a person — and they might remain viable for long stretches. Researchers at the Virus Ecology Unit of Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Montana, a facility connected to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, have found that the virus can linger on copper for four hours, on a piece of cardboard for twenty-four hours, and on plastic or stainless steel for as long as three days. They also found that the virus can survive, for three hours, floating through the air, transmitted by the tiny respiratory droplets an infected person exhales, sneezes, or coughs out.
Most virus particles, though, seem to lose their virulency fairly quickly. The infection window is highest in the first ten minutes.
But if you have been travelling on the tube or the bus, you would be unwise not to wash your hands afterwards as viruses always end up hanging around wherever people put their hands, waiting for the next potential host to pick them up.
Ganga,
From the outset Saddam Hussein refused to co-operate with the weapon inspectors, if he had allowed them free access they would’ve found nothing, and he possibly could still be alive and in power – today.
He underestimated the West, overrated himself, played a game of ‘chicken’, and lost.
You also say: “Let’s do a little maths…”, unfortunatley your maths is flawed.
You posit that if Co-virus is easy to catch then:
One spreads it to 10.
The next day 10 spread it to 100.
The next day 100 spread it to 1000.
And in 10 days, you have 10 billion people infected, the entire world population. You conclude: This is not the case – which means it is not so contagious.
No, Ganga, what this means is that you are naive. As the virus spreads it becomes more difficult to find uninfected people – which puts a natural break on any exponential growth.
I reckon the best way to handle the virus is – leave it to the experts – which is not you.
Actually, he did allow the weapons inspectors access before the U.S started their ‘shock and awe’ bombardment; how much he left them guessing about the WMD I don’t know, but publicly he was stating that he did not have that capability.
But Bush was already preparing for that war long before and had already sent warships into the area.
He was very keen to finish what his daddy had started and of course there were other political motivations.
But it is no secret that the US was selling Saddam Hussein chemical and biological weapons in the ‘80s and the CIA were fully aware that he was using them in the Iran/Iraq war. The CIA were also supporting and funding Osama Bin Laden and helping him build up his Muhajihideen whilst they were fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan.
And that has reminded me of this track by Neil Young:
https://youtu.be/RgnRBSaZ0XQ
SS,
I did not say he refused the inspectors access, I said he would not co-operate with them. Like answer questions.
Yes, he did state publicly he had no WMDs, and could have totally discredited the West by being more transparent, but instead of being vindicated as a man of honour in the eyes of the Arab world, he tried to be a man of strength – and failed miserably.
I remember a whole other story, Anubodh, I go by memory.
Saddam fought a war of about 10 years against Iran, using US-made weapons, with Saddam H. even being awarded honorary American citizenship (Detroit?).
After the war against Iran a commercial war began between the US and Iraq; perhaps the former has choked the latter full of debts due to the long war by boycotting the sale of oil.
Yeah, if I remember correctly, Israel also wanted to get rid of Saddam, he used to periodically fire Scud missiles into their territories.
@ Satyadeva and Swamishanti,
Both of you kind of interpreted/read out of my early morning story what you liked to interpre and read. No surprise though.
My essential concern with it was/is more close to the topic: How to walk through that which we name the corona crisis.
And I´m not indulging in any conspirational stuff, neither an esoteric one nor an otherwise one.
Listen pretty much daily to some scientific medical report from one of the virologists I already mentioned (the Berlin one from the Charite). And this is a Q&A about medical as also social and economic stuff – and for me, atrustworthy report – as well as pretty much down-to-earth.
That I was reminded so strongly of Rabiya (Rose) from Australia, whom I met in Pune (1990) is quite something else and belongs – one can say – to the Issue, how to ´Walkabout´ and get into rememberance ofwhat we might have lost – be it common sense, be it by some utter deterioration stuff happening in obscenely rich industrial societies (like ours) and long before such a topic like the corona crisis took place.
And such a ´Walkabout’-theme belongs to the topic given here, in my view..
And in a deeper and broader sense also belonged essentially to the fact that once upon a time an innumerable bunch of very beautiful people made their way to India (or to the East) from their homebases of all kind of geo nooks and corners, urged by a deep thirst to find (not only) words of wisdom. What else came or might be coming out of it as such is in constant change. These journeys were/are not in vain, I´d say.
To interpret where I´ve been coming from this morning it would be worthwhile to know a bit more about how Australian Aboriginees see ´Creation´ and being creative AND human.
It´s amazingly inspiring stuff and sometimes – in times of crises also helpful, just to let some of the world-wide Wisdom come in – a balance and find a balance in times of chaos and turmoil.
.
Looking with fresh eyes re all our western arrogance and this ´know-it-all´nscientific, aggressive kind of approaches.
And a Balance – as also Change – in terms of more Humaness in our global togetherness is utterly needed. NOW!
A need of re-discovering ethical standards we truly have lost.
I won´t follow Veet Francesco in his stance here but I can understand where he is coming from.
And I hope that the true-minded as also the fake-friendliness-minded good wishes for a well-being and sanity etc. might evolve to get REAL.
May you all be well. A prayer.
Here- as elsewhere -
Madhu
Madhu, I suggest you read my comments more closely as you seem to have wilfully misunderstood what I said, while assuming yourself to be – yet again – some sort of ‘victim’. If you still don’t get it, ask me.
Worn out, Japanese poet Matsuo Basho in 1693 wrote:
“If someone comes to see me, I have to waste my words in vain. If I leave my house to visit others, I waste their time in vain…Therefore, I have decided to live in complete isolation with a firmly closed door. My solitude shall be my company, and my poverty my wealth. Already a man of fifty, I should be able to maintain this self-imposed discipline.”
He added this verse:
“Only for morning glories
I open my door -
During the daytime I keep it
tightly barred.”