The Psychology of a Wounded Sikh and Sannyasin

Shantam Iqbal Singh (aka Swami Shantam Prem), a prolific, long-time contributor to Sannyas News, reflects on his 32 years’ experience of Sannyas. (He chose the title of this article).

He writes:
Before I say long-term goodbye to Sannyas News, let me write one self- reflecting article. As it is said, there is no smoke without fire.
If western seekers don’t understand the undercurrents of the multi-facets of the Indian mind, they will not do justice to their own search on the path created by an Indian.

I love the story of a caged Elephant sheding tears of rage, waiting for death or freedom.
I also love the story of an Elephant who did not budge from his place when an inferno in the forest brought a fearful rabbit under his shadow..

As a social identity, my deepest reverence is for my Sikh heritage where masters and disciples sacrificed their life fighting against invaders who were hell-bent to destroy liberal ethos of India.
 
I recite every evening the Sikh prayer, where we wish peace, harmony and prosperity for everyone and remember the sacrifices of masters and fellow-disciples by saying, “Waheguru Waheguru Waheguru….”.

‘Waheguru’ means “O, glorious, mysterious, wonderful Lord, invisible yet visible in each and every atom..”

When this Sikh young man started wearing Orange with Mala of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, it was a shockwave in my community. I knew thousands of Sikhs as well as Hindus felt hurt..
 
I remember one young man telling me in December 1985 after the assassination of Indira Gandhi and the subsequent massacre of Sikhs, he felt even more hurt to see me in this Rajneeshi garb.
I assured him, “Look at my turban, when thousands of Sikhs have removed their turbans out of fear I wear an orange turban as defiance and will die with my Sikh identity. I will stay with my miniority community in good times and  bad times. I am more proud to be a Skh than anything else.”

He was convinced because he knew my activities; it was news in my town, that during ‘Operation Bluestar’ I started crying in the Gurudwara.

Sikhs don’t cry – I cried; this I have learned from my contemporary master: Men do cry, strong men also weep.

For the last 32 years I have maintained a balance between two polarities:.
It is the warrior Sikh in me who fights against the treachery and deceptions of His ‘Chosen Few’, they honey- trapped an innocent Indian mystic into their web of lies and psychopharma.

I am enraged to see the decline of a master from my land who had the capacity and vision to share the best of Indian warmth with cold-blooded, heady civilization holding the human heart to ransom.

I didn’t go to OR for Enlightenment. If there is some ultimate state of being I won’t take  it from anyone. First of all,  no one can give this and if someone can give it I will get it from my Sikh path.

When I hear an Indian saying, “Osho is everywhere”,  I say in me, “Wonderful. My Guru Nanak or Guru Gobind Singh must be also everywhere!”
 
I feel immense love for Christians and Muslims who have always maintained their prophet. has no past, is never born, never dies, only visited the planet to wash our sins with his blood and share the message of God; as if Neo-Sannyas managers stole their idea and gave a modern word formation one learns in the brand management industry.

Master has ripped off beliefs of others. In a just and fair way, I cannot be part of the Belief Circus of medieval times.

P.S: In a nutshell I can say honestly, I have not become a sannyasin because of personal Charisma of Osho Rajneesh, whether He was promoting himself as greatest soul walking on earth after Gautama Siddhartha or being promoted as “Never Born, Never Died” kind of healthy Covid, it was His vision for a better human society, “The New Man”, which took me over.  His commune was that lab, a modern day church and research facility.  Our job as disciples was to cover the loopholes.

 

 




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183 Responses to The Psychology of a Wounded Sikh and Sannyasin

  1. satchit says:

    Shantam, when I read this, then I have the impression you are a Sikh, not a sannyasin.

    Why not be honest and be finished with your fake Sannyas identity after 32 years and start wearing a turban again?

    • Satchit, the above article is an honest reflection about the background I came from into Neo Sannyas, that too during master´s lifetime and also when his flagship Rajneeshpuram was drowning like the ‘Titanic’.

      The first generation sannyasins have some kind of past, they are the products of various cultural influences and collective minds.

      Whatsoever may be the reason, we have taken a conscious decision to trust a new person.

      What astonishes me the most in Sannyas is that people simply don´t accept their collective conditioning. It is silly and arrogant both.

      No wonder, Neo-Sannyas Failed in the long run.
      There are many lessons to learn from the rise and fall of Orange Movement.

      • Klaus says:

        Neo-no-thing has never failed…

        “Shake away, shake away the old chains in my life
        Got a new, got a new love and open eyes
        Break away, break away the old ways and live high….”

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPNIDgjgTn8

        Dance this world away.

      • satchit says:

        “…we have taken a conscious decision to trust a new person.”

        Here we are different, Shantam.

        I never did trust Osho.
        I only did trust my own Energy.

        How can you trust a Nobody, an Emptiness, someone who says today this, tomorrow the opposite?

        Sannyas did not fail.

        There was already in Pune 1 the question:
        “Osho, what will happen when you are gone?
        Will your commune disappear like a balloon disappears into the sky?”

        Maybe you can find his answer –
        If it is not censored….

      • Klaus says:

        Shantam-ji,
        I am wondering how you came to feel or see your goodself in a position to re-cognize my “collective conditioning” and or my “acceptance or non-acceptance” of it whatsoever.

        Cheers.

        • Dear Klaus,
          Everyone has collective conditioning…it is so natural. To deny it is silly or narcissistic.
          Even those who present themselves as living in the beyond mind space have their collective mind.

          Why to deny simple simple facts of life?

          Why to insist Osho Rajneesh has not died but left the body?

          • Klaus says:

            I am not denying. Can’t you see?

          • satyadeva says:

            “Even those who present themselves as living in the beyond mind space have their collective mind.”

            Yes, but, if genuine, these people are not identified with this mind conditioning. Unlike, for example, you, Shantam, as you demonstrate so well in your current article, eagerly embracing your ‘Sikh-ness’ like a drowning man clinging to whatever he can find floating by.

            As for “Why to insist Osho Rajneesh has not died but left the body?”, again you want to identify consciousness, ie our deepest identity, with something else, in this case the body. (I’m so very glad I’m never guilty of such ignorance myself).

            So, to quote a message I received by post from Pune in the early years in response to an anguished letter I’d written to ‘Bhagwan’: “Get disidentified and just relax.”!

            • “Get disidentified and just relax.”!

              Satyadeva, create an article of gratitude on these lines. Create something instead of playing shrink on the basis of certain written sentences in an article.

              Be an honest, simple, transparent human being, which unfortunately 90% on this site are not.

              • satyadeva says:

                Shantam, may I remind you that we’re discussing your article. Dealing with others’ questions and challenges comes with the territory. If you don’t respond to a comment then one assumes you have no adequate answer.

                As for ‘gratitude’, your apparent reluctance to provide evidence of this would seem to indicate you have none to offer. Rather than take this at face value I suspect that you’ve decided, perhaps unconsciously, that looking at, thinking about and writing on the good stuff in your Sannyas life isn’t a viable option at present as it would undermine your litanies of suspicion, resentment, anger, hurt and grief that you nurture and protect with such loving care.

              • Klaus says:

                Dear Shantam,

                It seems that you will not sympathise with the progress others have made on their personal paths.
                Sympathetic joy (Mudita, buddhist term) would in my eyes be a clear sign of your advancement from whatever conditioning and personal wounds you are carrying.

                If somebody is doing fine in whichever sector of his self-studies – creativity, clarity, self-expression, life experience – I feel happy. Why envy or feeling low because somebody else is fine?

                So that shows quite clearly where someone is at.

                I cannot fake love when it is not there. That shows where I am at. Just by simple conclusion.

                No need to take this as a putdown. I can assure you that there are enough downs & challenges in my life.

                I wish you could enjoy times of no thoughts, no worries, too.

                Cheers.

      • swamishanti says:

        People have been writing about the phenomenon of people complaining about the past a lot on this thread.

        As a synchronicity, whilst this thread was going on, I happened to be appreciating the album ‘Oblivion ‘ from one of my favourite electro/ambient techno outfits Underworld, enjoying listening to a track: ‘Ring Road’. When I appreciate a music track, it is mainly the melody, vibe and drive and harmony of the song that gets me – not just the lyrical content.

        The lyrics do not apply to only Shantam Prem, but remind me also of English moaners.

        “People are squinting to block out the sun – complaining or soaking it up, praying for rain – the next minute – for a scorched earth – what’s it worth, ENOUGH IS NEVER ENOUGH, let’s have a little moan, put the world to rights, sit back, and watch it all slide by – it’s a view from a train, pay somebody else to drive, see the suits, I see the suits sunning themselves on the steps of the supermarket….”

        UNDERWORLD: ‘Ring Road’:
        https://youtu.be/ejNqhnL2WFA

  2. Lokesh says:

    Shantam’s article is as mixed-up as the 21st Century. I can only conclude that he is confused. Mid-life crisis? Identity crisis? From a distance, one can only speculate. It’s anyone’s guess what exactly his problem is. Yes, he definitely has a problem. About one of the only things that can be taken as assured after reading his short essay.

    Then we have the hyperbole, a good example of which would be the following:
    “When this Sikh young man started wearing Orange with Mala of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, it was a shockwave in my community. I knew thousands of Sikhs, as well as Hindus, felt hurt.”
    I sincerely doubt that Shantam carried the capacity to influence and impact thousands of Sikhs and Hindus on a negative emotional level, simply because he wore orange clothes and a mala. The question arises, who does he think he is? It would appear he does not know the answer to this himself. His identity seems to be based entirely on external reflections.

    Shantam claims, “For the last 32 years I have maintained a balance between two polarities.” Yet I do not detect anything remotely balanced about his psychological state. For a start, why get involved with a guru who was completely against organized religion, while maintaining a firm affiliation with an organized religion? It just does not make any sense. It sounds like nonsense. Osho encouraged his people to drop the past, yet Shantam clings to the past like a barnacle on the hull of a supertanker.

    Shantam the valiant Sikh warrior, fighting the malign forces of the invading foreigners. This harks back to ancient times when the Sikhs fought off Muslim invaders who desecrated their holy of holies, the Golden Temple in Armritsar, on countless occasions. Now, Shantam continues this fight by taking on the people who run the Resort in Poona. He sees himself as a regular one-man-army who will one day vanquish the evildoers who, according to Shantam, “honey-trapped an innocent Indian mystic into their web of lies and psychopharma.” I can think of a number of adjectives to describe Osho, but “innocent” is not one of them. There was little or nothing innocent about Osho and he never claimed that he was, except when the shit hit the fan in Oregon and the FBI arrested him.

    Shantam concludes by stating, “I cannot be part of the Belief Circus of medieval times.” Yet much of what he says is based on a belief system put into place by Guru Nanak over 500 years ago, on the cusp of the Middle Ages. Reciting Sikh prayers, an identification with being some kind of Sikh warrior, gaining enlightenment from following the Sikh path if deemed necessary.

    As Shantam says correctly, there is no smoke without fire. The smoke from his fire smells of damp wood, withered leaves and concepts that have passed their sell-by dates a very long time ago.

  3. frank says:

    confused
    /kənˈfjuːzd/
    adjective
    1 (of a person) unable to think clearly.
    2. lacking order and so difficult to understand.
    3. not in possession of all one’s mental faculties.

    Similar: muddled, addled, befuddled, disoriented
    (all) at sea, unbalanced, demented, unhinged, senile, vague, unclear, indistinct, imprecise,
    blurred, hazy, woolly, foggy, dim, sketchy, obscure.

    Opposite: lucid, precise.

  4. Klaus says:

    Shants,

    What is special about Bhagwan as a master?

    His lectures went roundabout to every – of the major ones – path and their offerings for the individual. He himself offered – mostly – non-traditional practices and de-conditioning therapies imo to the same end.

    Most of us have left some traditional religious path as it (possibly) wasn’t attractive in their form of practice, teaching/preaching/sermons and also the representatives. Maybe some of these just did not make sense to the freedom-loving and discerning person.

    I made a simplified drawing describing the above concept, see attached.

    We can choose what is appealing to us. So: no regrets whatsoever.

    We can also choose to study the various paths in the form of ‘comparative religion’: to this end, I recommend the books of Huston Smith who was also a practitioner of Yoga, LSD and else.

    One may also prefer practice to books.

    Me feels Guru Nanak is a wonderful person.

    I wish you well.

  5. frank says:

    Now that Wounded Sikh Syndrone, caused by the Terminally Obfuscating Sikh Syndrome Retrovirus(TOSSER), to give it its full medical appellation, has been established as a genuine and serious problem, I wonder, has anyone had this ailment?
    https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2022/jan/13/india-syndrome-lost-in-the-valley-of-death-harley-rustad

    • Lokesh says:

      Hi Frank,
      I read the article. Reminded me of the time I ran the sannyasin meditation centre in Chapora, Goa, back in the mid-seventies. People would bring flip-outs to the centre to see if they could be helped in some way.

      Many were acid casualties, but not all. One woman in particular had cut her breasts open with a tin can. She’d undergone a non-drug related nervous breakdown. Her parents had to fly in from Paris to collect her. I did what I could for the acid casualties, by supplying love, patience and kindness. Sometimes it helped. Sometimes not and the really crazy ones ended up in Panjim’s mental hospital, which I don’t imagine would have been much fun.

      • frank says:

        Loke, you reminded me, “India Syndrome” was already a recognised condition back in the day, under the diagnostic label: “Flip-out”.

        The `syndrome` must have had a pedigree going back at least to the colonial days with the old “Doolally Tap”. That entered the popular consciousness. When I was a kid, people still used to use the word “tapper” for crazy-guy. Although they reckon that ‘tap’ comes from an Urdu word for fever, I remember being told that the tap was the rubber-stamp they put on the unfortunate`s ID when they certified him insane.

        Reminds me of when I was still living at home as a teen, I had taken some acid trips and decided I had to go to India. My brother grassed to my mum and dad about the acid. They got freaked out and got me to go to see a psychiatrist.

        At the appointment, I chatted with the psychiatrist for a while and it turned out he had spent time in India himself. “India can be a lonely place,” he said, suddenly turning glum and reflective, “especially in the monsoon…the rain…the silence” and drifted off into some quite depressing-sounding reminiscence; he had obviously had a weird time there. Maybe he was stationed in Deolali, although I expect he wasn`t stupid and realised not much was going to happen, he just needed to fill the hour and get his payment.

        When I came out of his office, my dad, who had been waiting nervously outside, said, “Well?”
        I said: “I think he`s a bit mental.” My poor dad, bless his soul, went ballistic!

        • frank says:

          Whether it be on the freaky frontline of Goa`s beaches or the lot of immigrants or refugees of all stripes, I think it is quite widely understood that the disorientation of spending extended time/living in a foreign/alien culture can take its toll on the mental health for many.

          Maybe, Shantam, you are also largely suffering from some kind of homesickness/alienation?

          I think it`s a pity that you are so bogged down in a religious/cultic/sect-warfare mind-set, as I can imagine that living as an Indian in Germany must have been in some measure very interesting and thrown up more unusual and amusing stories than the somewhat tedious “Oshoites versus Sunniasins” and “Spirtual cowboys v. spiritual Indians” tropes that seems to have occupied you on SN?

          • Klaus says:

            Frank,

            I like your heartfelt and open-minded comment. To me, it shows empathy and feeling love.

            In Germany, as there is health insurance for everyone, there is a good chance for highly-qualified psychotherapy that suggests itself. Imo, that could be a great opportunity to work through unresolved emotional stuff with an uninvolved person. Without relying on ‘groups’. I did that, too.

            • frank says:

              Klaus, I don`t know about empathy, I was just trying to move it on a bit from the old religious bigotry broken record!

              I don`t think Shantam would be able to do any one-to-one psychotherapy at all. Having to make a sequence of statements that cohered and made sense would be too great an obstacle!

              • Klaus says:

                Yeah, I get it.
                Good move away from the “broken record”.

                Isn’t Sannyas also about sympathy with the plights we all have to go through?
                And being helpful by giving one or the other impulse?

                Ah.

                I feel like this kangaroo:

  6. satchit says:

    My feeling is that something doesn’t fit with the numbers in this story.

    He talks about “32 years’ experience of sannyas.”
    Now we have 2022. So he must have taken Sannyas around 1990.

    But then he talks about a “young man telling him in December 1985 after the assassination of Indira Gandhi…he felt more hurtto see him in the Rajneesh garb.”

    Sounds a bit strange.

    Btw, the assassination of Indira Gandhi by two Sikh bodyguards was in October 1984.

  7. Thanks, Faceless Frank, for the article link in the ‘Guardian’ about India Syndrome. It fits with you and all other foreigners who changed their names to Indian ones.

    May fairness of life give an Indian birth to all these homesick Swamis and Mas, who under the influence of an Indian wordsmith uprooted themselves and then came back to the same socially secured system created by their sleepy fellow-citizens.

    Article is so profound, I have donated two euros to support the ‘Guardian’. I will buy also the latest book published.

    About the reactions to my article, I will roast in the further posts.

    To be true, not a single comment is written with intelligence but pissed mind frozen. This article is therefore a right reminder to look inside; few addicted became peddlers and think this is their achievement!

    • Lokesh says:

      I can now add cynicism and arrogance to confused in my description of Shantam’s character.
      He says, “India Syndrome fits with you and all other foreigners who changed their names to Indian ones.”

      What a narrow-minded and cynical notion. I can say for certain that this idea does not fit with my ten-year-long India experience. Despite the fact that India is a filthy country in general, I loved India.

      Shantam concludes with the following:
      “To be true, not a single comment is written with intelligence but pissed mind frozen. This article is therefore a right reminder to look inside; few addicted became peddlers and think this is their achievement!”

      The article in question comes across as being written by someone who is completely stupid to the point of being proud of the fact. The article is indeed a reminder. It reminds me that Osho allowed fools to join the sannyasin ranks. Once more, Shantam’s racist tendencies spring to the fore. That is indeed an ugly aspect of his character.

      Shantam comes across as being proud to have been born in India. There is nothing to feel proud about in exhibiting pride. Meanwhile, having to emigrate to Germany to eke out a living from a predominantly caucuasian society, a white society.

      That is one of the things I loved about India. There was little or no racism directed towards me in an open way. One would think Shantam would have learned this openness to foreigners from his fellow countrymen instead of despising them.

      I sincerely doubt Guru Nanak would have encouraged his followers to adopt such a stance towards foreigners. So much for Shantam’s image of himself being a Sikh warrior, fighting the good fight. A more deluded picture of himself one could not imagine.

      As civil rights activist Angela Davis once said, “In a racist society, it is not enough to be non-racist. We must be anti-racist.”

      The fact that Shantam exhibits racist tendencies is something I find difficult to accept.

      • It seems my arrow went in the right direction.
        When intellect is not fully developed it plays the Race card.
        So good to see, when others are attacking whites for being racist, I am being accused by the woks!

        Racist tendencies are very natural, because all have their own strengths and weaknesses.
        It will be really great if some Afro-American creates Nivea with black cream. They cannot. Kanye West can surely finance black cream for white skin!

      • Klaus says:

        Thanks, Lokesh, for taking this resolute stance.

        I am really lacking words for what is going on.

        Wishing you all a nice day and weekend:))

        • frank says:

          “Racism is very natural” says Swami Shantam, wounded Sikh freedom fighter and deeply religious man.

          Here`s a different view:
          https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/10/new-evidence-that-racism-isnt-natural/263785/

          • Lokesh says:

            Quite so, Frank. What puzzles me is what prompts Shantam to make such an ass of himself? Is it a simple case of needing to draw attention to himself at any cost?

            I daresay no Sikh organization would welcome a racist fool like him into their ranks. It says much for SN that it is open enough to let Shantam post his stupid shite here.

            He says that it is time for him to say goodbye to SN. Going by his current output nobody will miss him because it is just too warped. Of course, Shantam is delusional enough to believe that he is a Sikh warrior, valiantly promoting the truth, or some such nonsense.

            • Klaus says:

              “…it says much for SN….”

              Correct. And according to my guts he has enjoyed enough of the goodwill granted.

              Time for him to cancel his Sannyas account here.

              • frank says:

                At discourse in Bungabungalore ashram this morning, Anand Yogi asked Swami Bhorat for his thoughts about the psychology of wounded Sikh Sannyasins.

                Swami Bhorat looked somewhat bored, then raising his right arm, he curled the fingers of his right hand into a loose fist and moved the hand back and forth for a few moments.

                Certainly, where words fail, a simple time-honoured mudra can tell whole truth!

                Yahoo!

            • satchit says:

              You have also your part in the game, Lokesh.

              You push his button – he pushes yours.

              Ego-Games.
              Where do you see racism?

              • Klaus says:

                Buttons pushed. Ego.

                Ok.

                Question is, are we going to remain at that?

                Where is letting go?
                Understanding?
                Intelligence?
                Clarity?

                Imo, Shantam has made a wise decision in wanting to leave this forum.

                We should help him with this.

                Out of clarity:
                Meditation is not his cup of tea.
                He is using the internet to control his negativity.
                His mind is continuously ‘out there’.

                He should do his out-of-the-box thing in the outside world.

                Cheers.

      • satchit says:

        I would not call Shantam a racist.
        Maybe he has nationalistic tendencies, this is something else.

        To be honest I never perceived BHAGWAN as an Indian, but certainly he is.

        • Lokesh says:

          If nationalists possess racist tendencies toward foreigners of colour, how much better do they feel toward their fellow countrymen who don’t happen to look like them? One can hear the dog whistle blow. Are even maintaining borders racist? And what’s with artificial boundary lines? One world government would fix that.

          Mother Nature created us to be drawn to our own kind. Birds of a feather flock together. But should we be content to follow our most base instincts? Let’s strive to reach a higher plane of moral existence whereby we value and are attracted to the Other — learn from them, be enriched by them.

          Except…no. Mother Nature isn’t a racist — just amoral. People are amoral in many respects; we are creatures of nature. But unlike the rest of the animal kingdom, we have the mental capacity to reason on a much higher intellectual level. We hunger and search for that which is greater than ourselves. For some, this greater power is a deity.

  8. If races are not a reality and have distinctive qualities, what is the need for Nicola Sturgeon to play referendum card? There are not even 6 million Scots, Pune as a city has double the population.

    During my pre-graduation years, while studying science subjects, one question was haunting my heart: “Is there any subject where Indians have some remarkable contribution in its development?”
    Physics, Chemistry, Maths and then Economics – every single theory, formula and principle is coming from the western brain.

    If I was racist at heart I would have ignored their contribution by playing defensive line that in the ancient times, my Indian ancestors have discovered zero that Ganesha´s elephant head was the first surgery performed by an Indian, that war technology was hyper-developed five thousand years ago, that Gautma Siddharth´s father was such a rich king there were automatic water fountains. And women around Young Siddhartha were wearing far finer designer clothes than princesses of England!

    My heart was calmed when I saw the photos of westerners around Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. If there were only Indians around the master, as it is now, I would not have gone at all to that Jaina preacher! For what?

    It is pity those who came to Him dig the grave of his vision.
    Have we ever heard, world goes to the West to learn religion and language of the heart?

    Master became victim of his misplaced trust on the false chips.

    • Klaus says:

      One can “learn religion and language of the heart”.

      But then at some point one has to let go of the neurosis, too.

      False chips? Names?

    • frank says:

      This is simply logorrhoea,

    • satchit says:

      This is your imagination, Shantam, that somebody “did dig the grave of his vision”.

      Btw, there is a Sikh Community close to Europa-Park. Have you been there?

    • satyadeva says:

      “My heart was calmed when I saw the photos of westerners around Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. If there were only Indians around the master, as it is now, I would not have gone at all to that Jaina preacher! For what?”

      Sounds, Shantam, as if you allowed yourself to be seduced by what you regarded as the ‘glamour’ of the West (perhaps particularly all those lovely, possibly potentially available young women?). While bathing in the reflected glory of a fellow-Indian which thereby conferred a certain imagined prestige, self-importance upon you as you eventually eagerly embraced life at the multi-national, ‘sexually-free’ ashram.

      What conventional education, degree or career could provide such benefits? You thought you had it made, that Osho and his people would be your home for ever, providing a nice, comfortable yet pleasantly stimulating life where ‘spiritual growth’ (or your concept of that) would somehow just follow, nothing for you to be too concerned about. As an Indian, your value, status and place were assured. Or so you thought…

      Have you ever considered such assumptions might have been misplaced? Given that you’ve become a toxic mixture of anger, grief and blame, the answer appears to be no.

      Nevertheless, I’ll ask you again:
      Is there anything in your experience of Sannyas for which you’re positively grateful?

  9. kavita says:

    “It reminds me that Osho allowed fools to join the sannyasin ranks.” 

    Yes, Lokie, perhaps that’s the only compassion a master can have, otherwise there is no need of any compassion!

  10. “Is there anything in your experience of Sannyas for which you’re positively grateful?”

    I think it is a good theme to start a new string on 19th January, ‘Grateful for Bhagwan’. You, SD, can be the initiator of this article, it is long overdue, you create an article instead of playing supporting role to make Lokesh shine as Hero.

    I have written “Grateful for Bhagwan” consciously as presumably all of the gentlemen here were in the class of Bhagwan, Osho is simply one heresay they have adopted and accepted as part of mob mind.

    In a way, Sheela is much more an aware and honest lady to address her one & only and the ex-guru as ‘Bhagwan’.

    There are numerous reasons for me to be thankful to Master and His vision of global community. I would like to explain that in the new article; as I suggested, written by you, SD. If you need some help in arranging sentences and paragraphs in a cohesive order, you can ask Lokesh or me.

    I will even ask him to give me his professional help in creating one compilation, ‘Notes of a Misfit Sannyasin’.

    • satyadeva says:

      Shantam, many years of persistent moaning and complaining, playing the ‘hard done by victim’ card over and over again has qualified you for a “long overdue” statement of gratitude in order to create, hopefully, a more balanced version of your Sannyas ‘career’.

      So this is your chance to set the record straight, primarily for your benefit, perhaps to see that you don’t always need to be consumed by negativity vis-a-vis over 32-plus years of your precious life. Take a break, for God’s sake, from poisoning yourself.

      Remind yourself of some good news, for once, please. (You might start, for instance, by acknowledging that you’re in pretty good health, that you have decent housing and have enough to eat. As well as having had plenty of experiences that relatively few Indians can hope for).

      But it’s up to you, not to me or anyone else to spoon-feed you ideas. A relevant article or statement needs to come wholly (holy?!) from you.

      • Very lame duck excuse, SD, from your side, as if writing an article on Gratitude is a punishment.

        Articles must not be lengthy pieces on a site where readers are invited to share their opinions and views. One can write an article just with few sentences. Let me give an example:

        When the death anniversary of Osho Rajneesh is approaching, I feel a sense of gratitude for giving me a new, meaningful name. When most of our western names are just sounds, to feel a divine messenger of truth has uplifted my spirit.

        It is more than 40 years now, still it feels as of today, when The Teacher explained me the meaning of my name, he was well aware it is not my mother language and I wouldn´t learn this foreign language also.

        He knew the future!

        • satyadeva says:

          What you don’t appear to realise yet, Shantam, is that your habitual, overwhelmingly negative mind-set on display here and elsewhere is itself a form of profound self-punishment, however much you like to pretend otherwise.

          You’re being offered an opportunity to publicly reflect upon whatever good you’ve experienced via Sannyas and you regard that as a “punishment”? Maybe you have wasted all those years after all….

        • Lokesh says:

          Shantam states, “Most of our western names are just sounds.”
          This is completely untrue. As an example I will supply the meanings of my given name.

          First name indicates the area in the north of Scotland where I was born.
          Second name has its roots in Gaius, an archaic Latin name and one of the earliest Roman praenomina. The only known original Roman etymology of Gaius is expressed as a gaudio parentum, meaning that the name Gaius stems from the Latin verb gaudere (“to rejoice”, “to be glad”).
          My third name is an English translation of an archangel’s name. Very holy!

          • And you have not written that name, what does it show?

          • frank says:

            Loke,
            Yeah, but facts don`t fit into bigotry.
            In this case, “western names are uncultured and meaningless, unlike highly spiritual Indian names”.

            It`s Swami Bhorat type stuff all the way.

            Amazing.

            • frank says:

              Shantam, haven`t you got any other hobbies apart from religious bigotry?
              Maybe it`s time to branch out?
              Take a tip from Sam and do something active and interesting.
              Have you tried juggling? Neuroscientists say that it is far better than meditation for positive development of the white and grey matter of the brain, plus it`s great fun.
              Why not give it a go?

              • I accept suggestions from the people with real face, not just names. I am very western in this sense, they don´t get initiated in the name of No Real Person in front.

                Anyway, writing an article requires more brain-juggling than typing a reaction. Why not you, Mr. Faceless Frank of British origin, write a comprehensive article about Gratitude? India, the land where you can live with UK`s job seeker’s allowance!

                • Klaus says:

                  For Satchit (re his 8.29 post today)…

                  1. Indian
                  2. Human
                  3. Sannyasin
                  4. Sikh

                  Or was it the other way round?

                  Indians got promoted, too, not to forget.

                • frank says:

                  Shantam, I am not on jobseeker’s allowance or any benefits at all. Whereas you have made it clear that at the same time that you spout your bigoted anti-western rubbish, you collect free money handouts from the German govt.

                  No wonder you feel so shit about your life, having to beg off people you look down on.

                  If Indian and Sikh cultures are so wonderfully spiritual then why not go back there?
                  You wouldn`t because you would do nothing but complain there, too!
                  And feel superior to those living there because you have lived in the West!

                  If you think that being a wank-fantasy keyboard Sikh warrior is some kind of compensation for the mess you find yourself in, then good luck to you. Your choice.

                • satchit says:

                  Sorry, Klaus, maybe you have misunderstood something.

                  Just a question:
                  When and where did you take Sannyas?

                  Did it happen because of a book or because of a sannyasin?

                • satyadeva says:

                  Here’s something for you to ponder upon, Shantam. I recommend 5 or 6 minutes beginning at 24 mins. especially from around 25 mins.40 secs.

                  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igpaMvjqgEo

                • Klaus says:

                  Satchit,

                  I took Sannyas after practising meditation in India and Myanmar.

                  Are you in the mood to answer my question?

                • satchit says:

                  Klaus,

                  What year?

                  Depends on the question.

                • Klaus says:

                  And it happened because of me, a few Sannyasins and Kathmandu RMC….

                • Klaus says:

                  @Satyadeva 17 Jan.

                  Watched the Eckhart video in parts now several times.
                  How fitting with my drawing of Jan. 18:
                  The identification with the ripple/box loosening more and more, the space between thoughts becomes more and more apparent. Discovering the universe – awe arising – awareness of the space arising. Wooah.

                  Love is clear and sympathetic plus funny speech! No wavering, no shaking, no coldness in expression.

                  So helpful when in one’s own discovery.

                  Thanks for the connection, SD.

            • Lokesh says:

              Yes, Frank. A few friends have been doing DNA testing to see what gene pools they are related to. One friend did it and found out she had been adopted. Last week she travelled to USA to meet her biological parents and hook up with brothers and sisters she never knew she had. Seems she had a blast.

          • Lokesh says:

            Shantam, “And you have not written that name, what does it show?”

            It illustrates that you are talking nonsense again. Many western names have ancient religious significance…you can ask John and Mary about it.

            • Loke, if you go beyond your limited perception, I am not making fun of western names, the culture and values. I love them, respect them.

              My punch is for all those who dropped their names to get new ones from an Indian mystic/master/teacher.

              This name-changing cult lost its mojo within one generation time; there is a natural curiosity and study to understand why.

              When an umbrella goes broken in a season, one asks what went wrong, when price too was very high and it was written: “Better than all others.”

              • Klaus says:

                Ah, Shantam-without-a-name- change,

                Can you describe the limits of your perception?

                No evidence needed.

              • satyadeva says:

                It’s perhaps not such a mystery, Shantam. These names (and the malas and orange) were part of Osho’s effort to cut through our conditioning, a way to help disassociate our minds from their old identities, to make a new start, evidence to ourselves, not just to others, that we were now committed to Osho’s spiritual way(s).

                Don’t forget, Osho was a trailblazer, and his people were stepping into the unknown in the 70s, even in the 80s too, the spiritual scene was new for a new, post-war generation, which needed all the help it could get. That much you surely already know.

                But all ‘devices’ have their time and place, and after many years some or many sannyasins (and I suspect it’s far fewer than you appear to assume) may have decided these particular ones were no longer necessary, whether or not they still regarded Osho as their inspiration/friend/guide/master.

                Times change, people (hopefully) evolve, and what was needed before is not necessarily a requirement now. Sannyas isn’t just another fixed structure, with all habits and rituals set in stone, much as certain minds might well prefer it to be otherwise (no names mentioned, of course, Shantam!).

        • Klaus says:

          You did not manage to leave out the negativity.
          Let alone the tendency to insult others.

          That is avoidance and copping out.

          That is lame. In my eyes.

  11. samarpan says:

    I just read a book which seems relevant.

    ‘BLISS OUT’ by Francesco Gatti
    https://book.blissout.co/get-it

    This year I am celebrating 40th neo-sannyas birthday. Perfectly happily!

    “It is your decision. Always remember, whatsoever happens here is your decision. If you are a sannyasin, it is your decision. If you drop sannyas, it is your decision. If you take it again, it is your decision. I leave everything to you.” (Osho) https://neosannyas.org

    • Klaus says:

      Congrats for your happy anniversary, Samarpan!

      Anything that makes meditation simple and easy is certainly welcome in this modern world. Positive thinking will help, too. I guess.

      • Klaus says:

        Sorry, Samarpan, maybe this was quite a bit ‘brushy’ from me…

        Jogging, running, walking, hiking, climbing in the nature and in fresh air, playing tennis or badminton, cycling, swimming and and and are refreshing and cool meditations.

        Cheers!

    • frank says:

      Sam, agreed.
      All these so-called spiritual types sitting on their asses professing to be “watching their mind” might as well be sitting there smelling their own farts for all the good it does them.

      And people like Shantam need to get their big, fat, entitled arses out there and do some exercise by the sound of it.

      Privileged wankers complaining about their lot?
      It`s difficult to top that in the utterly-boring stakes.

      Today is a good day.

  12. satchit says:

    As an Indian one can think, what my Indian brother has done, I can do too.

    Problem is: Not every Indian is a professor of philosophy who knows how to speak in front of an audience.

    Neo-Sannyas was a brilliant idea to dress hippies in uniform and send them back to the West for promotion.

    • Klaus says:

      Satchit,

      There was a misunderstanding.

      My question was what is your identification today?
      1. Human
      2. Sannyasin
      3. Indian
      4.
      5.

      If there are identifications at all. Maybe there are just roles one plays nowadays.

      • satchit says:

        Klaus. Identification?

        Depends on what I think of me.

        • Klaus says:

          Yes.
          And what do you first think you are as a person?

          I am not hankering to create boundaries.
          I am not hankering for fights.
          Intellectual or others.
          I am not hankering for division.
          I am not hankering to be a Sannyasin or whatever creed, shape or other name we give it.

          Samadhi. That is interesting. How to get there.
          Wisdom. Ah. Good. Understanding of something or someone. Insights. Out of biographical events.
          Even consciousness. If it so happens.

          If these are not the main topics here then what?
          Self-righteousness? Bossy leadership without meditation?

          Thank you very much.

          Sab kuch milega.

  13. kavita says:

    As an observer, most observations reveal a Nationalist mind needs a specific physical area with demarcated borders to be protected from real/unreal external forces & a Religious mind needs a body form/physical image & a specific ritual to carry on their daily needs; that is the root cause of all inevitable national/religious conflict.

    Probably, Osho’s religion turned out to be paradox of his real vision.

    Probably, Osho’s Zen story of “a hundred travelling & only one reaching” is based on human reality!

    • satyadeva says:

      “Probably, Osho’s religion turned out to be paradox of his real vision.”

      What exactly do you mean by this, Kavita?

    • Klaus says:

      Hi Kavita,

      Jack Kornfield of IMS In Barre, Massachussetts, puts the quote at ’1-3 out of 1000′ as to what I read in an interview of him some time ago.

      There’s a pdf somewhere…maybe I can find it for posting.

      • kavita says:

        Thanks, Klaus, for sharing about Jack Kornfield of IMS in Barre, Massachussetts, hadn’t heard of/ seen him, checked out a video of his on YT.

        Actually, “1-3 out of 1000″ shows the population has increased many folds! It was just the relativity probably they needed to share.

  14. kavita says:

    SD, Osho’s ‘religionless religion’ has attracted a lot of nationalistic & orthodox religious- minded people in the name of neo-Sannyas, probably more so due to the ongoing property case, with an emphasis only on external celebration, which is contrary to Osho’s Vision.

    I am sure those who don’t agree with me are entitled to have their opinion about version of Osho’s Vision.

    As Lokesh mentioned, perhaps there are many levels at which one needs a Master.

  15. Hopefully someone regular or other will write a piece to commemorate 19th January, the day of Master leaving the body in a meritoriously planned way or abruptly….

    • satyadeva says:

      Not if it’s just another rehash of pointless speculation, Shantam.

      • It is not speculation but inspiring provocation.

        Also a reminder, writing an article is not like commenting. Articles are mostly creative writing, comments are mostly spontaneous reactions…

        As I have read, those who write newspaper articles, even if they read some comments, rarely they respond.

        • satyadeva says:

          “Inspiring” for you, Shantam, to divert your attention from yourself and your situation, providing sources of blame for your own predicament, creating things to be angry about, to argue about, the convenience, even ‘comfort’ of having ‘enemies’ deemed responsible for ruining your dreams.

          Congratulations to your mind, it’s running a successful protection racket, doing a great job of creating an alternative world of thought, protecting you from painful personal realities. That you don’t see this, or deny it, shows what a hold it has over you.

        • Klaus says:

          Done.

          See below.

          Inspiration?

          Transpiration?

          No location?

          Commutation?

          Speculation!

          Dislocation.

    • satchit says:

      Here is a piece for Him.

      19th January

      The Master is gone,
      He had his fun.
      Memories come and go,
      He did enjoy the show.
      He left us alone,
      Nothing to moan.

  16. Klaus says:

    transnational personality quizz

    Hi, Y’all
    I have come up with another drawing for inspiration and quizzing…

    quizz: (responses totally voluntary…)
    Where do we find the witness in the drawing?
    Which visible element is always there?
    (Is the master hiding somewhere? nonsense question for fun)

    help:
    Lines are for graphical orientation support only.
    Words consist of lines, too.

    Inspirational song:

    Who am I? Who are you? Who are we?
    All human beings
    Who am I? Who are you? Who are we?
    What do you see?

    If you see my iD, iD, iD
    More than a passport, I’m unique
    See my iD, iD, iD, you can be you and I’ll be me
    Let me see your iD, iD, iD
    I see it in your fingerprint, you’re unique
    See your iD, iD, iD
    You can be you and I’ll be me

    by: Michael Patrick Kelly – ID”

    Have a very nice day. Find inspiration. Wherever you are. Cheers.

    smallprint extra:
    https://www.spiritualityhealth.com/articles/2015/07/19/how-can-people-be-deeply-spiritual-and-emotionally

  17. Klaus says:

    Ahhhhhhhhh – picture is here:

  18. Klaus says:

    “Shake Away, Shake Away
    the old chains in my life…”

    Michael Patrick Kelly – ‘Shake Away’ (Live)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPNIDgjgTn8

    Commemoration

    Dedication

    Translocation

  19. Shantam Prem,

    I wonder if you could clarify a small detail in your article that may need your attention.

    You begin by attempting to establish that you’re the boss by telling western seekers they need to understand the “multi-facets of the Indian mind”, although, it seems to me that if the line instead read: “multi-fractures of the Indian mind”, then the rest of your article would make much more sense.

    So can I ask if “facets” is an unnoticed typo?

  20. Lokesh says:

    Shantam writes, “Before I say long-term goodbye to Sannyas News….”

    Makes me think of Mr G and how one ‘I’ says something one day and the next day another ‘I’ says something quite the opposite. If asked about this erratic behaviour the multiple ‘I’ personality will say something along the lines of, “Oh, I changed my mind.” Or else fall back on the old sannyas programme…”Life is contradictory, so I am in tune with existence if I contradict myself.” And so it goes.

    That is the problem with speaking about future projections and using words like ‘never’, ‘forever’ and in the current instance, Shantam’s ‘saying a long goodbye.’

    And thus one limits oneself by relying on erratic psychology that cannot be depended upon because life is not running according to your plans…life does not make plans for the future…life simply happens.

    A few weeks down the line and a new, ‘fresh’ Shantam will reappear on SN, having become bored with his very limited Facebook platform, where very few take anything Shantam posts with much seriousness. Of course, it will feel uncomfortable to Shantam to go back on something he said publicly and it will rankle him somewhat remembering this has been pointed out to him. But just like The Terminator, he’ll be back.

    • frank says:

      Reminds me of a busker I used to know. He called himself Rainbow Dave although to the public he was known as Dickhead Dave. He was quite a large man and tubby, which I dare say was a result of the psyche-meds he was on, as he clearly had some quite severe mental problems.

      He would play 3 chords on his guitar badly, and over that he would launch a loud and continuous stream-of-consciousness word-salad at the unfortunate passers-by. In amongst the plain nonsense, his rap was peppered with racist, sexist and homophobic comments with the occasional quasi-philosophical musing thrown in. The public were quite tolerant, saw it as a care-in-the-community situation, felt sorry for him and even threw him a few coins.

      Unfortunately, Dave took this as a sign that he was a great musician, poet and performer. In his mind, he was headlining the main stage at Glastonbury festival every day. In fact, he was utterly convinced that he was playing an important role in people`s lives and that his performances were lifting up the general state of the passers-by to a higher level and bringingv much-needed light into the world. Without his input, he genuinely feared that the world might collapse and the future would become irretrievably bleak.

      Even when he got whacked on the head by irritated locals, which happened regularly, or the police were called, he took it as a sign of the importance of his mission. Why would they bother with him if he didn`t have something important to say? Obviously they couldn`t handle the truth. What they couldn`t get was that he was a brave warrior giving the finger to the corrupt system. The bruises on his head were proof of that. He felt sad that many didn`t understand the sacrifices he was making for the sake of his listeners.

      In the end, I heard, they had to put a banning order on him when he got his penis out and started waving it at a woman police constable.

      • Lokesh says:

        Good story, Frank. Reminds me of a guy we used to call the Silver Surfer in 1969. Stoned on acid we would hang out with him in London’s Holland Park. We were all new kids on the off-your-head block. Silver Surfer was in his fifties. He wore an expanding headband and an old pair of workman’s boots, sprayed with silver paint, hence his nickname. We kind of looked up to the guy…he was really free, as in sleeping in the bushes at night and wearing the same filthy clothes for weeks on end.

        At some point the acid haze I lived in wore off and I realized that the Silver Surfer was a dirty old tramp.

  21. I was thinking someone full of reverence for Name Change Guru will write some soothing piece of remembrance on his 32nd death anniversary.

    I see only some pissed off posts.

    Have a good time, gentlemen. God willing, we see us next year in 2023.

    Hopefully I can come over this habit of provoking village wise men who think they know everything better than others.

  22. Lokesh says:

    Mullah Shantam declares from the local mosque, “God willing, we see us next year in 2023.”

    Bets, anyone?

  23. Lokesh says:

    To be honest and fair to Shantam, I must say that I will miss his presence on SN. He provides a lot of fun by putting himself in the stocks and allowing us to throw rotten eggs at him although, as Arpana was once heard to say, he is a good egg, wearing a turban, of course.

    So, happy trails, see you in 2023, God willing.

  24. Klaus says:

    Hi,

    Interestingly, my mind is singing lovely songs to me this morning:

    Love love me do, you know I love you, I’ll always be true
    So plea-ea-ea-ease – Love me do.

    Om Gan Ganpathaye Namo Namaha
    Shri sidhivinayaka Namo Namaha…

    Do you belie-ieie-ve in life after loooove

    I am in need of some sweetness.
    These are my mind-body-dynamics.
    After this group of extensive de-enlightenment.

    • frank says:

      Klaus, sounds like the homeostasis of the bodymind/imagination/dreaming kicking in.

      If you get too happy then maybe ‘When the music`s over’, ‘The End’ or ‘Hurt’ might come on the brain radio?!

      That`s the old yin/yang for you.

      • Klaus says:

        True enough…”This is the end….” – The Doors

        For a few instants, I had the feeling that the forum would collaps after this intense era of being turfed in almost every thread and after almost every comment: contortions, distortions, omissions, additions, sidetracks, teasers to left of me and teasers to the right.

        But not from the centre. All my personal and conditioned impressions. There is no doubt about it.

        Last Monday night I had a dream in which a quite huge (2-3 m, high/long) animal composed of a hippopotamus, sea lion and kangaroo with a large mouth (the pelican can swallow a lot of fish in his) appeared. I crossed through an area flooded with water. This animal jumped in on the other side, came to me underwater, gobbled me up and let me out in some kind of industrial-sized elevator in which on three sides the (green) walls kept coming in.
        Somehow I came out and walked silently, reflectively on a sandy, winding road on a hill…

        The other outside elements were a mixture of my former living and working place in Germany with the flooding and the buildings in a truly Bangladeshi state….

        Judge.

  25. Lokesh says:

    Is this the end of the world?

    • Klaus says:

      Errrm. What does the pipeline of possible topics say?

      I feel inspired for two possible topics…but will take time.

      Now out for work….

      MOD:
      Very little in the pipeline, Klaus. Although Shantam has previously declared his intent to publish more, which is waiting here, but it seems he’s no longer interested.

  26. Hello Shantam,

    Can I try you with another question, as you have ignored my first one. Or, maybe you have not had the time to reply as you are a very busy man, especially with the sheer amount of dissatisfaction and discontent you have to pack into your day.

    Either way…

    You’re known to be a stickler for commemorative dates (Birth-dates, Death-dates, etc.). So my question is: On which date were you evicted (by westerners) from the cosy, privileged life you enjoyed living within the Poona ashram (which, after all, is the root cause of all your bitterness and resentment), so it can be added to the celebration calendar?

    • Klaus says:

      Anubodh,

      May I add to your comment:

      “…is the root cause of all….”

      that it could also be a re-appearance or re-enactment of the root cause of (all) the bitterness?

      Imo, this is a possibility as well as there also might be more than one root cause.

      • frank says:

        Cause(s) is definitely one way of looking at it.

        Alan Watts presented another:

        “You are this universe and you are creating it at every moment because, you see, it starts now. It didn’t begin in the past, there was no past. See, if the universe began in the past, when that happened it was now. Well, it’s still now and the universe is still beginning now and it’s trailing off like the wake of a ship from now. As the wake of the ship fades out so does the past. You can look back there to explain things but the explanation disappears. You’ll never find it there. Things are not explained by the past, they are explained by what happens now. That creates the past and it begins here.

        That’s the birth of responsibility because otherwise you can always look over your shoulder and say, “Well, I am the way I am because my mother dropped me and she dropped me because she was neurotic because her mother dropped her”, and away we go back to Adam and Eve or to a disappearing monkey or something and we never get at it. But in this way, you’re faced with it, you’re doing all of this.

        So, cheer up.
        You can’t blame anyone else for the kind of world you’re in.”

        • Klaus says:

          Thich Nath Hanh:
          “The wave doesn’t have to die to become water. It already is water.”

          Just read this in an obituary.

          No one to blame.

        • Arpana says:

          Everybody, we, as we age, develops a story about our lives, a story which, for example, casts us in the role of villain or victim or hero or martyr; and Shantam’s story is hero/martyr/rebel.

          Further to that, the bigger the gap between how someone actually functions and the story they have unconsciously developed, we have unconsciously developed, the more friction they have in their lives, although in Shantam’s case that reinforces the story he tells himself about himself.

          Seems to me, the whole point of meditating, working on oneself, is to change the story to a more realistic view; so that shitty incident you remember from your childhood, that tells you you’re are a victim, if reflected upon may not look as shitty as at the time, and also comes a point, speaking personally, when reflecting on anything that has stayed with me as part of my life story, eventually leads me to realise, wasn’t special. For example, that I won the long jump in my first year of grammar school, was not special, although it was to me.

          I recall an individual who made the occasional post at Sannyas News, revealing he saw his life as a sannyasin as exceptionally difficult, and more so than any other sannyasin, because of some crappy experience which happened to him as a child, and I recall saying to myself, “There’s nothing special about what happened to you, mate, which doesn’t mean what happened wasn’t really shitty, but not special, and as long as you cling to the idea that what happened was special, which is ego, you can’t move on.” It is the delusion that what happened to you was special in a way that sets you apart from all others that stops you from moving on.

          P.S:
          Had started to ponder, have insights, about me certainly, regarding stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, some of which we share with others, and I came across a book a few years ago called ‘The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human’ by Jonathan Gottschall.

          Which led me to ponder on this some more, so this post isn’t unconnected to that book, but I strongly recall on the motorway going down to Brighton, possibly 20 years ago, as a Boeing flew overhead, talking to my friends in the car about how we remember things that make us feel important in a good or bad way, that those tiny fragments sticking in our memory are always those that make us feel important in a positive and negative sense, and we forget the 99.999999% that doesn’t.

          • Arpana says:

            Everybody, we, as we age, develops a story about our lives, a story which, for example, casts us in the role of villain or victim or hero or martyr; and Shantam’s story is hero/martyr/rebel.

            Further to that, the bigger the gap between how someone actually functions and the story they have unconsciously developed, we have unconsciously developed, the more friction they have in their lives, although in Shantam’s case that reinforces the story he tells himself about himself.

            Seems to me, the whole point of meditating, working on oneself, is to change the story to a more realistic view. So that shitty incident you remember from your childhood, that tells you you’re a victim, if reflected upon may not look as shitty as at the time, and also there comes a point, speaking personally, when reflecting on anything that has stayed with me as part of my life story, that eventually leads me to realise, it wasn’t special. For example, that I won the long jump in my first year of grammar school, was not special, although it was to me.

            I recall an individual who made the occasional post at Sannyass News, revealing he saw his life as a sannyasin as exceptionally difficult, and more so than any other sannyasin, because of some crappy experience which happened to him as a child, and I recall saying to myself, “There’s nothing special about what happened to you, mate, which doesn’t mean what happened wasn’t really shitty, but not special, and as long as you cling to the idea that what happened was special, which is ego, you can’t move on.” It is the delusion that what happened to you was special in a way that sets you apart from all others that stops you from moving on.

            P.S:
            Had started to ponder, have insights, about me certainly, regarding stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, some of which we share with others, and I came across a book a few years ago called ‘The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human’ by Jonathan Gottschall.

            Which led me to ponder on this some more, so this post isn’t unconnected to that book, but I strongly recall on the motorway going down to Brighton, possibly 20 years ago, as a Boeing flew overhead, talking to my friends in the car about how we remember things that make us feel important in a good or bad way; those tiny fragments sticking in our memory are always those that make us feel important in a positive or negative sense, and we forget the 99.999999% that don’t.

          • Lokesh says:

            Interesting post from Arpana.

            Memories, especially emotional ones, are a pretty unreliable source of information.

            I lead a quiet life and so it is easy to study memory flashes. The other day I recalled a memory from early childhood that I had never remembered before. Everything is stored in the unconscious. Nothing is forgotten.

            One thing I have noticed is that I have memory loops. The same memory of events keeps popping up periodically, often quite mundane. I ask how come. Answer, I do not really know. Like thoughts, you do not have to think them. Just watch the passing show and at the moment the show is passing quickly. I look in the mirror after a close shave then, next thing I know, I have the makings of a beard. Here today, gone tomorrow.

      • Yes, Klaus, there may be other causes, I don’t know. But what I do know is that if I was wrong then Shantam would’ve replied with an ambiguous, disdainful metaphor – as is his wont.

        It’s understandable that he’s aggrieved that an experience and lifestyle – unavailable to other sannyasins – was cut short, anyone would, I would.

        But what ‘sane’ person would keep that bitterness alive for over 25 years?

        • Arpana says:

          @ swami anand anubodh. 22 January, 2022 at 11:59 am.

          That’s really big of you.
          Occurs to me he’s grieving. It’s about loss.

          I had an experience some years ago of becoming aware, when on the way to a bus stop, that I had been grieving, utterly unconsciously, over the loss of the life, for the loss of the life I was leading before Sannyas, before I knew about Osho. (Recall a friend saying he ached for art school years after it was over, because that was the first time in his life he really felt a sense of belonging, and no matter how sensible he tried to be he could not rationalise the ache away).

          • satyadeva says:

            Sure, Arps, Shantam has lost his home, both his country of birth and his adopted Sannyas ‘home’. Not to mention his German sannyasin wife, mother of his son, who left him after they exited from Pune many years ago. One might say he gambled on more than one major front and lost. And as time rolls on it might seem to him that he’s stuck with those outcomes ‘forever’.

            Although I’m sure he’s also benefited from his singular life experience but getting him to acknowledge the extent of that seems rather hopeless at present, as he appears to want to find others to blame for his plight.

        • Lokesh says:

          I think it is about time to stop figuring Shantam out. It is not exactly quantum physics. Pretty basic, if you ask me. And really, is Shantam so interesting that we need to keep on commenting on his mixed-up state? I do not think so.

          How about one of you writing a new article for a new thread? That would be a more constructive effort and might provoke a breath of fresh air.

          MOD:
          Two such articles have recently arrived at the office, one of which will be put up this weekend.

          • Arpana says:

            Lokesh,

            Didn’t you as a parent try to understand why your kids were being such brats?

            Shantam is triggering frustrated parents in us, giving us the opportunity to work through some parenting issues. (Not that serious, but a bit).

            • frank says:

              Hi Arpana,
              Welcome back, btw.

              Certainly, a bit of of proper parenting wouldn`t go amiss.

              I recommend a good thrashing, a cold shower every morning, reduced rations and a large flat glove locked onto his right hand.

            • satchit says:

              Yes, Arpana, there are other things triggered too.

              For example, the group left alone because not behaving well.
              In this picture, Shantam is the punisher. The group is the defiant child.

              So in general it is not about Shantam. It is about how an ego works in a group.

              • Lokesh says:

                Satchit, how exactly does an ego work in a group? Sounds like nut-nut.

                • satchit says:

                  Lokesh, you want to know how the ego works in a group.

                  First tell me how it feels if I don’t answer your question.

                • frank says:

                  Perfektly Correct, Herr Doktor,

                  I hear, Swami Bhorat is looking for a psychoanalyst to take up residence in Bungabungalore Ashram.

                • Lokesh says:

                  In answer to my question Satchit asks the question, “First tell me how it feels if I don’t answer your question.”

                  I don’t feel anything about you not answering my question. I think you are trying, unsuccessfully, to be smart. There, I have answered your question, and therefore fulfilled your condition for answering my question, “Satchit, how exactly does an ego work in a group?”

                • satchit says:

                  Your ego wants to be smarter than mine,
                  Lokesh.

                  This is how it works.

                • frank says:

                  Unlike the old-fashioned locker-room games where it`s a case of “mine`s bigger than yours”, the spiritual getting-rid-of-the-ego trip version is “mine is smaller than yours.”

                • Lokesh says:

                  Satchit is obviously an expert on the ways of the ego.

                  To be honest, I rarely think in terms of the ego anymore. It’s sooooo seventies.

                • satchit says:

                  You miss it, Frankie,
                  It’s not about comparing, it’s about understanding.

                • satchit says:

                  Lokesh, certainly you are so much up-to-date that ego is old-fashioned for you.

                  Just use ‘attachment’ instead of ‘ego’!

                • Klaus says:

                  25 January, 2022 at 8:18 pm

                  I agree with you that it is about understanding.

                  We can learn from each other’s understanding, stance, explanation, expression etc.

                  Then again, understanding can be challenged to see “whether it holds”…

                  Sometimes one feels a sting…that’s learning, too.

                  At least we can have a little sympathy for where we are at…in this hard life.

              • Arpana says:

                Satchit said,
                ”In this picture, Shantam is the punisher. The group is the defiant child.”

                Interesting notion. I see him as a cross between a nagging, resentful wife, and a nagging, resentful, ineffectual father.

              • satyadeva says:

                And/or, in your terms, Satchit, the other way round, Shantam as (in his own eyes) the ‘defiant rebel’ leaving the group that rejects his explanations (and therefore, him – for him anyway).

                • satchit says:

                  Yes, the ego is an expert in rejecting and/or being rejected.

                  So it depends what picture you choose:

                  Either Shantam rejects the group – or the group rejects Shantam.

                  Both exist.

          • Klaus says:

            Yes. As each person is different it would far more interesting to see the dynamics at work and the conditions conducive to the coming out of the predicaments.

            And see the composition of ‘personality’. As you did with the seeing of a memory appearing – staying for a while – in the space available – and disappearing again. No identifying with it, no suffering from it, no construction or extensive analysing of it.

            Impermanence. How beautiful…in my eyes.

            • Klaus says:

              We can check to see what is our current understanding or view of the processes occurring inside. And the outside events corresponding to these. Possibly. Clarity. Seeing.

            • frank says:

              We dream 2 hours a night.

              Even if you make an effort to remember dreams, you only recall a very small proportion of them.
              2 hours of some kind of surrealist theatre going on with no audience, no one to watch it. The dreamer, whom one might assume is the creator, has no memory of it.

              Then the dreamer awakes and to be fair, he manages to remember he`s the same guy that went to sleep in that bed the night before. But then, by the end of the day, his memories of what have happened during that day are probably about equivalent to a few polaroid snapshots compared to a Hollywood epic.

              In this way, I think even simple logic can bring us to the similar conclusions to the wiseguys who are of the opinion that the ego is overrated and only a small part of what`s going on.

        • Klaus says:

          Yes, get the idea…

          What do we need for healing?
          Conditions? Own initiative?
          Method? Timing? Support? Friends? Confrontation?
          Money? Teacher? Sunshine on a beach? Withdrawal and silence? Crazy parties with lights and noise?

          Ah, how can one know for oneself?
          Not complaining….

  27. satchit says:

    The root cause of his problem was that all the white Westerners did not surrender to his enlightened understanding.

    This was really a mission impossible for a Sikh warrior.

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