Ma Prem Dhoka, a researcher into ‘religious experience’, invites readers to share their experiences of the results of being around Osho.
Osho was known by his sannyasins to be surrounded by an extremely potent and influential energy field that could put people into temporary altered states of consciousness and even deep trances. But Osho is certainly not alone in this. My M.A. thesis in graduate school back in 1986 focused on the cross-cultural, widespread set of phenomena associated with figures from religious history East and West, ancient and contemporary, who are felt to be the source of this unusual energy that gets variously called Shaktipat by the Hindu Tantrikas (bestowal of the Divine Shakti energy), the Charismata Power of the Spirit by Christians (from Jesus and early followers to medieval monasteries to modern-era Pentecostal and Charismatic circles), the Baraka or Berekah blessing force around many Muslim Sufi and Jewish mystics, the Wang empowerments around certain Tibetan Buddhist lamas, the Ch’i or Ki energy around meditation masters and martial artists of China and Japan, the Mana energy around Polynesian shamans and called by various names around other shamans and shamanesses in indigenous tribes found worldwide.
What also became clear to me in my extensive research back then and over the years since then is that such potent, palpable energy or vital force can come through scoundrels as well as saints and sages. It’s for this reason, for example, that early and later Christian leaders ranging from St. Paul to St. John of the Cross were very, very cautious before labelling such energy a clear, pure manifestation of God. Jesus’s criterion, “By their fruits you shall know them”, became paramount, and in many cases Christian sages were carefully watching and feeling with their own charismatic power of “discerning spirits” to determine if the source of the dazzling energy in themselves or others was Divine or demonic or somewhere in between.
The same kind of careful spiritual discernment regarding unusual potent energies and miracles and other manifestations has occurred among the wisest spiritual leaders of our sacred traditions, from the ancient time of the Upanishad’s sages and the Buddha to the present time. It’s well known to the true sages that powerful but ultimately confused, constricted discarnate entities regarded as “demons” or “titans” (Skt.: asura, rakshasa, etc.) can create such electric energies through human beings as a way of then “feeding” on the aroused emotions and psychic states of the hordes of people who surround the human channel. That’s why many Zen masters often warned their students to simply regard all unusual states and energies as makyo, distracting “diabolical phenomena,” and instead wake up to the Open, Infinite Awareness, the formless “Big Self” or pristine “Buddha-Nature.”
In concluding this point:
Just because a charismatic figure is felt to be a powerhouse of energy creating altered states of consciousness in people does not mean the figure should be viewed as a perfected spiritual master or venerated as “Divine,” except in the larger spiritual view that all phenomena and beings and worlds are manifestations of the formless, infinite-eternal Divine. Not to be capable of wisely distinguishing “powers and principalities” is to be vulnerable to delusions and pitfalls.
In the case of Osho, therefore, we can surely affirm that he was somehow a source or a channel, especially from the mid-1960s until some time in the late 1970s (after which it’s hard to determine whether it was Rajneesh or the group-energy of thousands of people responsible) for a very powerful Shaktipat energy that created dramatic effects in numerous persons around him. But what was the long-term effect of all this energy? Yes, there was evidently and undeniably a lot of good! But there were also a lot of “not-so-good” consequences, dark and painful.
So, to reiterate Jesus’s statement: “By their fruits you shall know them.” Taking that statement into consideration, it would be interesting to hear what commentators on Sannyas News have to say about what fruits they have harvested in their life, due as a direct consequence of having contact with Osho.
The author of this article clearly has very little understanding of Osho and has gathered a very overly simplistic idea of Osho from collecting views of someone who is well out of his depth on the subject matter.
She may have read that Osho “was known by his sannyasins to be surrounded by an extremely potent and influential energy field that could put people into temporary altered states of consciousness and even deep trances.”
The reality of Osho is not so simple. Sannyasins were not only put into ‘temporary’ states of altered consciousness through being in Osho’s physical presence.
The reality of Osho is much deeper than that. Disciples who were/are really close to Osho, actually begin to merge with the BEING of Osho, the Consciousness of the Master.
His Consciousness, his Being is the same as the Universal consciousness, you can say it is the same as God, Source, etc. Only it is disguishable by a master’s individual recognisable fragrance and presence.
This has absolutely nothing to do with any temporary states or lifted consciousness.
Sannyasins who come really close to Osho begin to merge with his Presence, which begins to be experienced as an everyday phenomenon, and lifts up the consciousness of the disciple and is felt as a supportive, protective force, which supports the sannyasin anywhere, in any place, even if they are thousands of miles away from his physical presence, his body.
This is a permanent merger. Now we are talking about real mystical experience. There are many teachers alive who believe they are enlightened and give satsangs etc. They have some experience of non-duality, oneness, yet are not yet enlightened.
And many of them will have never been close an authentic Buddha, a Krishna, a Christ, or Osho. The author of this piece may believe in Christ, in Christianity, yet obviously has no experience of what we call ‘Christ consciousness’. That is where the devotee, the disciple of Christ merges with the Consciousness of Christ. Well, exactly the same phenomenon happens with any authentic enlightened Master, a Krishna, and Osho.
What the author is describing is absolutely nothing to do with ‘shaktipat’. Shaktipat transmission is a method whereby a guru intentionally channels energy into a disciple through a touch on the body, for example.
Osho would give shaktipat transmission by giving a touch on the third eye, a touch on the head, or putting his foot on a disciples chest, etc. You can read of these things in the accounts of his some of his sannyasins.
The way Osho works also goes much deeper. Yes, there was a very powerful presence and energy around Osho’s physical body which could easily lift one out of the mind. Yet there is much more, for those who come closer to his light.
His Presence can also be felt in the heart of the disciple. Not all, by any means, will have this experience, and it’s important to remember that this is not a required belief for sannyasins.
Yet it is a reality, just like the gap of consciousness between the thoughts.
Osho explains what ‘shaktipat’ is here, and also talks a little about how he was working on a deeper level with sannyasins after he went into the new phase of ‘silent heart to heart communion’ in 1981:
https://o-meditation.com/2011/12/30/what-is-shaktipat-osho/
The piece above is taken from a talk Osho gave in 1986. In 1981 Osho entered a new phase of ‘silent heart to heart communion’, and said that a certain number of disciples were ready to work with him in silence, and he would be focusing on working on just them.
When you have that inner connection with the Master, then you do not doubt your Master. Osho is not the only Master to work in this way. In India, it is understood that true Bhakti , disciplehood takes place in the heart of a disciple.
The writer of this article has no understanding of Osho and how he worked with people, and has also Christian dualistic ideas which have influenced the overly simplistic perception.
Enlightenment means moving beyond all dualities. When enlightenment really happens God is, and you are not. There is no opposite. There is no question of being a channel for anything else other than Existence, God. There is no duality. All contradictions, all of Existence is there. And that is how it’s very easy to tell that the author of the piece above is not yet enlightened.
When Osho was in the body, sannyasins were connected to his Presence and dissolved into no-mind with Him, dissolved into love with him. This also continues today.
This has also been my own personal experience. And I have also had experience with other enlightened masters and experienced their tranmission.
There are also enlightened Osho sannyasins alive around the earth today who are merged with the presence of Osho. Their energy is the same as Osho. Osho is also the same as the Whole.
There is much nonsense and speculation written about Osho around the internet, also by fools who believe they are teachers who have no idea what they are talking about.
Thank you for allowing me to share this.
It’s good to know what the views of other seekers are, thanks SS. But in the end the only way to know is to come into contact with enlightened teachers yourself, and see what their presence feels like.
I’ve also known sannyasins who were close to Osho in the 1970s and received a so-called ‘energy darshan’, and who said afterwards, well, nothing happened. It takes a certain level-headedness not to get carried away by the communal goings-on.
Then again, to publicly confess ‘nothing happened’ is to invite being labelled as non-sensitive, someone who is not in tune with the Master, with all the social consequences that entails. It’s a self-reinforcing mechanism.
NP put:
“But in the end the only way to know is to come into contact with enlightened teachers yourself, and see what their presence feels like. “
That’s right, and the presence of a truly enlightened one like Osho acts as a protective energy-field for a meditator – nothing harmful or ‘dark’ can come close. And that’s also one of the functions of a truly enlightened master, their help for the disciple.
That is how I also know that the Christian writer of the piece has no real idea of what they are talking about.
Yes, NP, it takes courage to say that “nothing happened”. But why should one have fear being labelled by others? It’s ego stuff.
“The author of this article clearly has very little understanding of Osho and has gathered a very overly simplistic idea of Osho from collecting views of someone who is well out of his depth on the subject matter.
She may have read that Osho “was known by his sannyasins to be surrounded by an extremely potent and influential energy field that could put people into temporary altered states of consciousness and even deep trances.”
The author, Ma Prem Dhoka, is apparently a sannyasin, Shanti.
Yet I believe she has just copied and pasted the simplistic crap above off some other fool, SD.
Why “apparently a sannyasin”, SD?
Because of using the name “Ma Prem Dhoka”?
Some more information?
MOD:
That’s the info we’ve received, Satchit.
Yes, maybe you could ask her where she is a researcher of “religious experience”?
At the university of Berkeley?
For Dhoka:
Would be also interesting what fruits you have harvested instead of playingthe researcher from a distance.
Logging-in is really not a problem.
And what will you do now with the spiritual material, write a book?
“Love.
I am one with all things -
in beauty,
in ugliness,
for whatsoever is – there I am.
Not only in virtue
but in sin too I am a partner,
and not only in heaven but hell too is mine.
Buddha, Jesus, Lao Tzu –
it is easy to be their heir,
but Genghis, Taimur and Hitler:
they are also within me!
No, not half – I am the whole of mankind.
Whatsoever is man’s is mine -
flowers and thorns,
darkness as well as light,
and if nectar is mine, whose is poison?
Nectar and poison – both are mine
Whoever experiences this
I call religious,
for only the anguish of such experience can
revolutionalise life on earth.“
Osho: ‘A Cup Of Tea’ :letter 54, 1969
SS concludes his short lecture with the following statement. “There is much nonsense and speculation written about Osho around the internet, also by fools who believe they are teachers who have no idea what they are talking about.”
Yes, I agree. Yet, I can’t help wondering if SS really knows what he is talking about.
His lecture contains a number of discrepancies. For example, he states, “The author of the piece above is not yet enlightened.” So what? Is this some form of new criterion, wherein one has to be enlightened to write an article for SN? Ma Dhoka does not give the slightest hint that she believes herself to be enlightened. But she does open the door for sannyasins to share the fruits of their experiences resulting from contact with Osho. Nothing wrong with that.
This blog requires new articles to keep it alive, whether or not they are written by enlightened authors is beside the point. What is important are fresh topics. This article sounds fairly fresh to me. Just look at the verbal outpouring it provoked in SS.
On the subject of being fresh: SS’s lecture sounds very stale to me. His obsession with enlightenment comes across as just that ─ obsessive. Much of what he writes is recycled spiritual-speak gleaned from books, mainly Osho books by the tone of it. We have all heard it before. It is all knowledge, and all knowledge is useless, no matter how thought out it is, unless it is integrated into the realm of experience.
SS is a prime victim of knowledge gathering. He hints that he is enlightened in many ways, yet it is perfectly clear to any reader with a bit of common sense that he is lost in the woods of his mind. This is a strong indication of what fruits he will be known by. Sadly a basket full of decomposing fruit that only an idiot would wish to swallow.
Lokesh is talking bullshit again.
“Much of what he writes is recycled spiritual-speak gleaned from books, mainly Osho books by the tone of it. We have all heard it before. It is all knowledge, and all knowledge is useless, no matter how thought out it is, unless it is integrated into the realm of experience.”
“SS is a prime victim of knowledge gathering. He hints that he is enlightened in many ways, yet it is perfectly clear to any reader with a bit of common sense that he is lost in the woods of his mind.“
Rubbish. I have never hinted that I am enlightened, and what I wrote is mostly actually from my own experience – not just with Osho’s presence but with other Masters – not gathered from any books. You are not the judge of who has had what spiritual experience.
Th problem is it’s all too easy to judge and project online without really knowing what’s going on with someone else.
“ Ma Dhoka does not give the slightest hint that she believes herself to be enlightened. But she does open the door for sannyasins to share the fruits of their experiences resulting from contact with Osho. Nothing wrong with that.”
‘Ma Dhoka’ doesn’t exist. The piece has been taken from a Catholic anti-cult propagandist who has no clue about Osho at all but spreads his shit around the internet in the hope of scaring people away from Osho- his fear is that Osho is growing too popular. This is very similar too, the fears of the spiritual authorities at the time of a Jewish mystic Isha ( before he was later known as ‘Jesus’, and institutionalised and turned into an organised religion by the Roman Catholic Church.) The writer is also intentionally misleading people who don’t know better.
You go on carrying on telling sannyasins when they come here that they are imagining their experiences, they are delusional. That they are gullible. Just see what kind of site we end up with. One like this – there’s rarely anyone that wants to participate in it, no sannyasins interested in it.
A poor response from SS, more like a knee-jerk reaction. He says, in reply to a direct and concise critique of something he wrote, “Lokesh is talking bullshit again.”
I think “bullshit” is more his department, taking into account the long-winded comment that kicked off this thread.
And herein lies something at the heart of why SN is not taking off more than it potentially could. This site provides a platform for commentators to bounce off each other on the level of feedback given. Instead, we have the likes of SS coming up with “Lokesh is talking bullshit again.” which is only a small step up from monkey-speak’s “me cleva munkey, you stoopid munkey!” Pretty banal, to say the least.
Once more, I am left with the feeling that I am wasting my time writing on SN. Therefore I have to say adios amigos for the time being, as my creative attentions are better employed with more satisfying pursuits. I will return perhaps in the not so distant future. Thanks, NP and Klaus, for a couple of sincere posts.
Thanks, Lokesh, for your output and input!
Always appreciated a clear stance from you.
And – as you already know – the wording of your writings.
Cheers! May you see more of the “hielands”.
I’m glad I got that first comment in then, as it’s obviously pushed your buttons.
I remember you didn’t like others talking about their experiences with Osho much either.
“Once more, I am left with the feeling that I am wasting my time writing on SN.”
Quite possibly, if it irritates you.
Cheers Lokesh. I appreciate your writing, hope you will be back, but can understand your position.
Yes, NP, you are here to criticise Osho. You don’t believe he was enlightened. What will you do without your Lokesh?
It seems you need someone to react against, SS, and it looks like we just found out what you are going to do without Lokesh — accuse wildly!
I don’t always criticise Osho, but I don’t follow blindly either.
Lokesh,
You are not wasting your time here. I greatly appreciate your contributions. Please come back as soon as you feel to.
Sugit,
it is nothing new, if his expectations are not fulfilled, then Lokesh goes and says he doesn’t want to waste his time.
Then he wastes his time somewhere else, it is his freedom.
We all waste our time here.
So for Prem Dhoka:
Fruits are, they waste their time!
As-is-practising…
We don’t while away the hours in our ivory towers.
“They while away the hours in
THEIR ivory towers.”
‘Games People Play’ – Inner Circle (ahahahahahaha)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TingYha7t7Y
When is time ever really wasted, though? You have to judge between good and bad uses in order to come to the conclusion that time is wasted or not. Time just is. And we do stuff.
I disagree, Satchit. I don’t believe a single moment is wasted. Oh sure, all unconscious activity is crap in one sense. But I’ve come to feel that everything matters. Every movement, every second. I don’t know if “It’s All Good” but it all makes a difference.
In regard to wasting time, I’m inclined to agree with Osho when he said, “Give life to things which are beautiful. Don’t give life to ugly things. You don’t have much time, much energy to waste. With such a small life, with such a small energy source, it is simply stupid to waste it in sadness, in anger, in hatred, in jealousy.
Use it in love, use it in some creative act, use it in friendship, use it in meditation; do something with it which takes you higher. And higher you go, more energy sources become available to you.
At the highest point of consciousness, you are almost a god.
It is in your hands. Do not waste even a moment.”
Quite so, yet conversely, it has to be said that it is not so much a question of wasting our time, but rather wasting ourselves, although if you enjoy wasting time it is not really wasted. The time is gone, the song is over, thought I’d something more to say.
Great t-shirt, that. I’d be tempted to buy one. Lyrics are from ‘Time’ by Pink Floyd, if I’m right.
Yes, Sugit, there is much beauty in life.
But there is also ugliness.
Right now I have a bad cold and I cannot see any godliness in this, maybe more the devil.
I hear you Satchit, and hope you feel better soon. I’m visiting my 90 year old mom in the hospital and besides some physical problems, she’s got some dementia. It is painful to see someone you love in confusion and fearful. I’m not able to celebrate her condition.
Still, there are tender moments of recognition and she can enjoy the music I play for her.
I had a similar experience with my father before he died 3 years ago, Sugit.
Screaming, “help, help!” in the middle of the night.
One can only respond to the moment, knowing “this too will pass”. Take care.
Going through it with a close family member at the moment. Life is not easy when you start losing all your memories.
I’m reminded of an anecdote from Barry Long about a man who was extremely distressed due to having lost his memory, depressed and barely able to function, but who would suddenly become animated with joy whenever his wife was near him,
his love for her surviving despite the deterioration and death of so many brain cells.
I have some pretty clear memories of Osho from the time I spent in the commune, his presence was something special. It was like looking at the full moon — clear and bright and compassionate and amazingly soft and pristine. It could lift you up into a space where you could leave any difficulties behind, and for me it was like love overflowing.
The other thing about Osho that was so impressive to me was his physical demeanour. His face doesn’t show the usual micro-expressions, the little quirks and quavers that a normal face does. It’s a remarkable purity of expression. Those two things combined made me think it was him, that he was an unusually evolved human being, who had made unusual breakthroughs.
So “by their fruits you shall know them” is an interesting saying and I agree with it. I know many lovely people who have come out of my time with the commune. I also know many nice people who are not sannyasins. The difference seems to be that the sannyasins seem to have laid down some existential burden, some worry which colours the lives of ordinary people. That is not to say that they are all loving and huggy and have no worries, but they seem more willing to celebrate life.
I don’t have much knowledge of the dark side of sannyas life, just what everyone else knows. In a way you will see the sceptical side represented more strongly here on sannyasnews than you are likely to experience in person, the fact that you are not going to get punched in the nose for your opinions seems to encourage people to more easily air negative views.
I think Osho is often not fully understood by Buddhists or some from traditions such as advaita Vedanta. Osho had a lot of support from Zen masters and Japanese Zen temple priests when he was in the US and even still today. When he was in prison Osho received a phone call of support from a Japanese Zen master. Osho later said that when the master was speaking he could hear the whole Zen line leading back to Bodhidharma echoing down the phone.
“There is another category which Zen is not aware of, because it was not needed. To be a disciple was enough… to meditate, to watch the master, and to create a connection of consciousnesses. It has worked well for Zen but I can see that something is missing, and that is the devotee. The third category of seekers did not happen in Zen.
The masters have reached to the highest peak, but the disciple cannot reach to the highest peak unless he becomes a devotee. And the difference is great. The disciple is satisfied if he is connected with the master — watches his movements, listens to his words, listens to his silences. Slowly slowly he starts growing an individuality of his own. He may jump from disciplehood into mastership. Zen knows disciples and masters. But a more ancient tradition in India, which has almost disappeared, makes it clear that unless a disciple first becomes a devotee there is no way of becoming a master which has almost disappeared, makes it clear that unless a disciple first becomes a devotee there is no way of becoming a master.
And what is the difference between the disciple and the devotee? The disciple seeks connection, the devotee seeks dissolvement; the disciple seeks individuality, the devotee seeks the ocean. Personality is borrowed, it has to be dropped; individuality is your own, but if you can manage to drop it also then the whole ocean is yours. Otherwise, a dewdrop is beautiful in the sunlight or in the moonlight, but the roaring reality of the ocean and the eternity of the ocean are missing. The dewdrop has no song to sing; the ocean has millions of songs to sing and millions remain unsung.
Although the dewdrop can reflect the moon as much as the ocean, the depth of the reflection cannot be more than the circular dimension of the dewdrop. In the ocean the same moon penetrates to the very depths, miles deep.
Because Zen tradition knows nothing about the devotee, there is something missing in it. It brings the individual to realize the truth, it brings the individual back home; but the separation of the individual from the master and the separation of the individual from existence still remain in a very subtle form. The disciple still is. He has not forgotten himself completely, he has not dropped even his being.
A devotee is a miracle. He simply disappears into the whole, leaving behind not even a trace.
The devotee simply disappears, only the master remains. The master himself becomes just a window for him to jump into the beyond. Because the devotee is not at all a part of the Zen tradition… and there are reasons why the word has not appeared. The reasons are that devotees — the very word `devotee’ has become contaminated with the idea of God, with worship. To devote yourself, to dedicate yourself, to surrender yourself… but all these words are not the essence of the word `devotee’. Because of these misconceptions about the devotee, Zen has not used the word at all — because there is no God to be devoted to and there is no worship to be done; you have to be just yourself. “
Osho: ‘The Miracle’
Where do you stand then, Shanti: desciple or devotee? Or perhaps neither?
Neither, really. Yet I have somehow unexpectedly been given some of the experience of a devotee/disciple. That has deepened my understanding of Osho.
Ahh, yes.
Not searching for a new identity…a new master…another method….
That’s appealing.
What I like about the research of Ma Prem Dhoka is that like in ‘comparative religious studies’ she discusses examples of the various traditions.
She concludes that “Not to be capable of wisely distinguishing ‘powers and principalities’ is to be vulnerable to delusions and pitfalls.”
Differentiating, discerning leads the disciple/person to be able to see for her/himself the energies and pictures appearing, staying, changing and disappearing.
She names various traditions and various well-known single individuals: Jesus, St. Paul to St. John, Christian prophets, Muslim Sufi, Jewish, Hindu, Tibetan, ZEN, shamans.
Different methods of practice (incl. Shaktipat) may have different effects on the practitioners.
Each teacher, IMV, has an individual ‘energy/energy field’ etc. It may have an individual effect on the practitioners.
All kinds of experiences can happen: mystical dictionaries and the mystics themselves describe them.
We can in hindsight talk about what happened to ourselves, try to describe it, analyse and categorize it, label it. Why doubt the recounts of a person?
What does doubt from others make the experiencer feel?
I feel very interested in the accounts of what people have gone through (normally, maybe not all the time…).
‘Individual’, ‘discerning’, ‘differentiating’ are the words that fascinate me most in her research.
Interesting topic. Are there more details?
It seems to me, once you experience it, if you are ready to experience it, you would fall in love with the man, give up researching and become a disciple.
Discernment into these areas is given to very few, and most of those are advanced practitioners themselves.
NP,
That is exactly how I got connected with Bhagwan at the time in 1982-3-4:
My first meditaton experience was at Tapoban RMC in Kathmandu. While trekking near Pokhara I read my first Osho book, ‘Hammer on the Rock’ and met a few sannyasins and other meditators.
However, I did not go to Poona but went to Myanmar for intensive meditation.
After returning to the West I felt “This man is so right in whatever he says” and I became a sannyasin.
As this is now almost 40 years and quite a few intense meetings with other teachers and methods later, “being a disciple of…” has somehow left me.
Yes, I know that feeling, when you’re listening to a discourse that it all makes sense and he is right.
For mes, Osho’s discourses on the Ranch were a formative childhood experience, such that I can hardly untangle what came from him and what came from the rest of my world. A few things that were important to me…
— accept and surrender to Existence
— beware the ego
— learn from the Buddha but don’t be a buddhist
What have your years with Osho brought you, Klaus?
With Osho I learned that ‘conditioning’ is coming in many shapes and sizes.
And that it is difficult and painful to let go.
The years with Osho I feel did not take away as much of the conditioning and/or ego as did (and does) the practice of sitting and walking meditation.
Possibly my engagement within the different environments was is ‘on different levels’. Or one might say ‘something is more appealing than other things.’
I am not much of a ‘group person’.
Sitting silently, doing nothing remains my favourite.
I totally agree, shikantaza, ‘just sitting’, is one of my favourites too.
When I came back to meditation and Buddhism and Osho after my long time in the wilderness of working life, I also found I had picked up certain conditionings. By looking within I found a few of them out.
It’s a funny thing though, looking within. I can only see a little way and then things become cloudy, I never did find the source.
It is not any research of any ‘Ma Prem Dhoka’, Klaus.
A sannyasin woman writing on article on SN and this kind of thing?
You’ve been conned. This is just a piece of writing from a delusional Christian who believes he knows about Osho, an American anti-cult writer.
It’s funny because the early Christians were also labelled a ‘cult’, and persecuted. There was tremendous fear amongst the spiritual authorities at the time and we know what happened to Jesus.
Later, a Roman Emperor, Constantinem converted to Christianity and began to structure an organised religion, altering parts of the Bible and combining elements of Mythras beliefs, ie the Virgin birth, as well as using Pagan festivals.
Well, you have your measures and I have mine.
I do not see that many negative things in what she wrote as you seem to be seeing.
Don’t you appreciate some of the European mystics? Eckart, Hildegard? Only Eastern ones are the real ones?
Conned or not conned.
Own experience is best.
Yes, I do appreciate some of the European mystics, from what I have heard at least. But I woudn’t trust the judgement of the writer of this piece (who is a man, with a very simple understanding by the way) who has based his ignorant ideas on Osho mainly just from reading Hugh Milne, the ‘guard who failed’. A propagandist who is writing against Osho , a lot of rubbish actually , and misleading innocent people who don’t know any better. The same one who censored the passage from the book on Maharaj. The same fear of Osho ,becoming popular, the same character from an uptight religious backround who was afraid of Jesus the rebel becoming popular. History repeats itself.
Of course it is always interesting to have something to chat about. Authorities are always afraid of rebels.
Time for some music…
“Do you know tell me what you really know
About that great man, Steve Biko
I know we don’t rise and fall
He stand tall and tear down Babylon wall
He fought for freedom for Mandela
And people cry, and people cry eh yeah
He was a defender for all African slave
They gon’ to jail and beat him and put him inna grave
They were so afraid of Steve Biko
He was so strong, he was too strong
He was a threat for Babylon
So I say eh eh
Do you know, brother tell me what you really know
About that great man from Soweto.”
Beenie Man: Steve Biko:
https://youtu.be/O3U3OAtCCts
Ooh, Steve Biko…I loved this edition of the Peter Gabriel song, by ‘Playing For Change’, a wonderful collection of musicians:
https://youtu.be/jWNEr4eHL18
‘Nutbush’ – Beth Hart and Joe Bonamassa
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6VEHUJwUho
On a little different sentiment and groove….
It seems to me pretty reasonable that a Ma Prem Dhoka might be interested in this. Why not?
I think what is more interesting about this question is what Osho’s presence might have done in the long term to people who were close to him for many years, like Laxmi, Vivek and Sheela. It doesn’t seem to have turned them into great meditators, at any rate.
It’s an interesting contrast with stories of the Buddha and the early Buddhist community.
NP chirps:
“I think what is more interesting about this question is what Osho’s presence might have done in the long term to people who were close to him for many years, like Laxmi, Vivek and Sheela. It doesn’t seem to have turned them into great meditators, at any rate.”
You are not familiar with Ma Yoga Laxmi’s story or experience with Osho, NP. She was certainly someone very close to Osho, not just in the physical sense.
Some sannyasins considered her enlightened before her death in 1995, she used to give shaktipat transmission in Bombay.
You can watch a short film about her life ‘Life is Just a Play’, which contains some interesting footage, produced by Oshoworld here:
http://video.oshoworld.com/index.php/2019/09/25/ma-laxmi/#fvp_1%2C47s
You can see her transformation which is also a testimony to Osho’s spiritual power.
As far as Vivek was concerned, I know several people have said she had also grown a lot in consciousness through her contact with Osho. Which is not at all surprising. One of those was her boyfriend, Osho’s bodyguard Devakant, who said he could feel Osho’s presence with her.
These women you mentioned are basically Bhakti types, they were not on the path of meditation.
From the stories I’ve heard from people who were there, Laxmi was for a long time the practical brains guiding the commune. Clever and devoted to Osho.
But then there were other practical types who minded the commune’s daily running, like Deeksha who managed the kitchens. She had a fierce reputation. How much she gained from Osho’s presence though…
The thing is, if you listen to stories of other teachers and their disciples, it was often the disciple who proved their spiritual mettle through some revelation or feat. With Osho, it wasn’t like everyone who he encountered developed some great wisdom or insight, and when he did declare some people enlightened on the Ranch it was quickly retracted.
The Buddha had a sense of when a disciple attained, he could see “the stainless dhamma eye arising” according to some sutras.
NP, I suspect the people of our times are carrying a considerably heavier psycho-spiritual burden that those of Buddha’s era. Hence the therapies, the various meditation methods Osho created, which weren’t necessary 2000 years ago in ancient India.
We’re less innocent, more damaged, more emotionally ‘corrupt’, less loving, more mentally confused, living more complicated, far less natural lives, so it’s no surprise if there are fewer 100% success stories around a contemporary master than there apparently were around Buddha, as it probably takes a lot more time for most people to ‘purify’ themselves before they ‘get it’.
NP wrote:
“With Osho, it wasn’t like everyone who he encountered developed some great wisdom or insight, and when he did declare some people enlightened on the Ranch it was quickly retracted. “
Well, Osho encountered thousands of people. Of course not all of them would develop from his presence. Really, he was most interested in those who were willing to risk everything and die for enlightenment.
When he declared 21 sannyasins enlightened at the Ranch, created the list, it was meant to be that they would be a committee that would oversee the fuctioning of the commune if something happened to him. There were lots of ‘developed’ sannyasins on the list, including Somendra (Michael Barnett) who already believed he was enlightened, although Osho later said that Indian Maitreya was the only really enlightened one listed and announcing his name was his game, as Maitreya had wanted to keep his enlightenment secret.
Actually, there were three groups, some of the titles given were groups of people whom he said would wake up either during his lifetime or by the end of their lifetime, or would be people who would continue his esoteric work after his life. Some of those disciples after enlightenment are using the titles as part of their sannyas names. So although he did dismiss the sansads as a joke, some sannyasins believe that there was meaning in the titles given.
There is one more enlightened – possibly through his work with Osho – guy named Swami Maitreya who died some time ago.
Read his account. Perfect.
There certainly is a huge list of people who grew and benefitted personally.
No doubt about it.
Are you talking about this guy, Osho sannyasin Maitreya Ishwara (who died in 2012, I think)?
Or this guy, Swami Anand Maitreya, old Indian sannyasin who left the body in 1987?
Osho declared him enlightened :
https://o-meditation.com/category/osho/osho-sannyasins/anand-maitreya/
Yesss!!
Boy, he had courage: was stuck in New Delhi meditating alone in a (lousy?) hotel. No money left. Would have gone to jail in no time. But help came (as always) in the last moment.
HeyHo! That is the way to do it. Hmm…or was.
The guy with the blue eyes at 5:13 pm, Swamishanti.
Sw. Maitreya Ishwara
https://maitreyaishwara.com/
Yes, that one.
I have some experience of him and he effortlessly gave me a satori. I noticed there is an error on his bio on the website though, it says his ‘wake up call began in 1991’. In fact, it was January 1990 – during the phase when Osho left his body and there was a very powerful energy in the ashram. Several sannyasins were said to have become enlightened during that time.
His book is excellent although he is clearly not right about everything or everyone he mentions in the book, according to my own experience and knowledge. Although some of my experience fits.
But he does suggest that is also the case in the book that no-one is given the precise details of everything.
Laxmi was particularly impressive, I thought, intense devotion and enormous energy, a special individual.
“I don’t see what reason Erin might have to lie about any part of her testimonial. She stands to lose a lot, and doesn’t have anything to gain. She might be mistaken about some things, that’s true, but I don ‘t think she would outright lie “. Nityaprem, the universal avatar.
NP, you came here as an innocent half-Buddhist sannyasin and you finally show your true nature (the quiet son, of the two, of frank?), perhaps a result of the cold post-modernist cynicism in which we are immersed: everyone is the same, everyone steals in the same way.
Do you really believe, no matter how big your ideal pantheon, that from heaven they would send an avatar to represent the god of small life without passions?
In that case you would be right, and in tune with the “best Gnostic sects”, the annihilation of all that exists on this earth, as an obstacle to the return to the full power of divinity, is the true goal of the spiritual life.
For me, Osho is the best human fruit of all attempts to emancipate from religious ontologies that descend from the same act of faith: there is a creator god who establishes human nature, who goes against that nature breaks the law, Amen.
The fruits of the world of Osho are the witnessing, freedom, love, trust, tolerance, playfulness…which has blown into our hearts, as part of the method of the spiritual path.
But for all lovers of fires and stonings there are always people like the one below to welcome you, you just have to repent of the drugs and the midnight blow jobs:
“I choose religion because I have seen the infinite misery of men, rapes, adulterers, robberies, pride, idolatry, foul language, all the violence of a society that has lost all capacity for good…For to be able to live free, I gave up having a woman and, in order to live in peace, I took refuge in this port of religion.” (Girolokesh Savonarola)
Well, at the moment I am reading Papaji, ‘The Truth Is’:
“Everything is your guru; the rocks teach you silence, the trees teach you compassion, the wind teaches you non-attachment.”
The play between men and women can be fun, but it’s not everything. The rocks, the trees and the wind deserve your attention too, and if you get too obsessed with your beloved you’ll fail to see what is right under your nose.
You caught me, NP, I want to see the same Truth under your nose, I’m running to buy the book of your beloved Papaji, from Lokesh farm.
VF,
Quote:
“The fruits of the world of Osho are the witnessing, freedom, love, trust, tolerance, playfulness…”
The fruits you are spreading here in this sense to me are quite overwhelming! You have lots of fruits! Hitting buttons is still a charming game.
Even though I have (too) much conditioning left I have mixed and am still mixing with lots of people. Even different kinds of people. By marriage, I have new relatives: and boy, I tell you they are dedicated to their spiritual pratices….
I take more time for things to settle; I have a small family now at the age of 62.
May I kindly ask you to leave some choice of “how much, when, who, and where” to my good and bad selves?
Striving in “the world of Osho” can be – and in some cases is – imv, striving after another ideal.
Why not take a break(s)? Let it settle?
Keep it cool.
Where in the exchanges here is compassion (karuna) – sympathetic joy (mudita) of enjoying the success of others? – equanimity (upekha) – which all come before nirvana?
Love is not always hot…
‘Hot Love’ – T Rex
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGx7nrjn0ic
And certainly many things are quite fucked up…
‘Roadhouse Blues’ – Doors
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgQg3J7xU1k
‘When the music’s over’…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbBNzw5YVjk
…we can always start new music!!!!
Ok, Klaus, you have my blessing to do what you want, you can also offer Bratwurst mit Sauerkraut to anyone who is striving to pollute or erase “the world of Osho”.
I like your ideal world of friends only, you would be a good soldier.
Haha, VF, thanks for the Love.
I appreciate it.
The idea of this ‘chain of associations’ came to me from the comments:
Blessing Bratwurst Sauerkraut pollute erase world Osho ideal friends soldier -
weapon defend Oregon Rajneeshpuram unpolluted Sannyas Elite unhappyending.
That’s my spin.
Everyone certainly has a different take, a different chain.
It seems like wishful thinking to associate
…metta – karuna – mudita – upekha – nirvana – tralalala…
Ah, the world of humans and their individual stances.
For sure, I have one more song:
‘Down the Road’ – Stan Rogers (died in airplane crash in 1983)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpis0Q3VBFg
plus a lovely picture (similar to what i dreamed after a strong event…).
Klaus, I cannot love your Friends just because I love you.
Veet Francesco,
That is fair enough…))
Veet Francesco,
Your inspiration is taking me on a commenting trip ::))
Check:
We most certainly cannot agree 100% on opinions, views, perceptions, life experiences, character, our varied conditionings etc.
Then, also we do not have to…we act and react in our own ways: true to ourselves (well, as much as possible, innit?).
Poetry:
Wherever We May Come From
(Peter Tosh)
Wherever we may stand
We can always meet halfway
And enjoy our uniquenesses
And share our diversenesses
(Klaus)
Out beyond ideas
of doing right or wrong
there is a field
I’ll meet you there
(Rumi)
I have always been intrigued by how the dynamics of our spiritual development are running…is therapy before meditation helping more…or the other way round? (Sh)It happens.
See attached drawing I made in April 2015 – when I was in rehab after a stroke and transitioning out of a (quite fabulous) job.
I interpret the drawing as ‘the reaction of my soul to the environments of my upbringing’. Traumatic. But not due to (real) abuse (haha, just the normal strictness at that time in Germoney).
Just before, from 2006 to 2013 I was in intense healing sessions with a Sufi master: many times flying high in the sky (similar to the meditation period in 1980-1981: noklausleft for some time then).
1982-2006 Sannyas, therapy (dozens of groups, hundreds of individual sessions), study (3 diplomas), work, money, house, divorce, chaos, no house.
So, it took all these ‘preparations’ from 1980-2014 to get to the picture of trauma drawn in 2015: my unconscious situation.
Then again, see the lovely Toskana picture with the winding path and its beauty and its stillness and harmony dreamt in June 2022.
The trauma picture is sometimes like floating in and around me more or less near and far away and more or less intensively felt…dynamics.
That is today! IMV, in (big) part due to the exchanges on SN over the years (!).
As Lokesh stated: “This site provides a platform for commentators to bounce off each other on the level of feedback given.”
Arpana stated something to this effect a few months ago.
And Satyadeva stated on expectations vs. disappointments of (not) being healed by “doing a group”.
No enmity. We can always split the difference, be accomodating, play to sth or s.o., even make advances. Or so.
Keep on keeping on. It is good integrative work, in the end.
End of inspiration. No song.
MOD:
What does “play to sth or s.o.” mean, please, Klaus?
Let loving everyone become a habit….
Veet Francesco,
I myself am struggling. With my friends also…
Not all of the time. But some of the time.
Since the rooster Erin (hen?) crowed, some here have discovered their true calling, the same as the renegade Peter: to the question, “Do you know that piece of shit on the cross who used to fuck Mary Magdalene after midnight?” they replied, “No, I was just passing through here, then I have the conditioning that does not like to mix with groups of people who work on conditioning”, or, “I think I met him many lives before but I was under lsd, I even thought I learned something from him, just coincidence, typical effect of trips.”
Lokesh brags when he alludes to the possibility of having access to fresh spiritual fruit; when prompted to declare what he was referring to, he pointed to a couple of dead and buried fruit vendors.
Bad situation for him, having experienced the emptiness that freed him from all those things that burdened his life and then decided to fill that emptiness with the thing he loved most, himself.
I hope that the time he spends here in the futile attempt to demolish the master of demolitions will be spent on something constructive, now that he is the only hooligan left here (he is the passionate, the other was the cold one) perhaps he begins to feel a bit of cognitive dissonance, even his favourite village idiot is no longer there, perhaps it is better to grow fruit, not spiritual, his department, the one that rots after a few days.
I checked the list of sannyas names, ‘dhoka’ is not there, perhaps because the Hindi meaning is ‘cheat’.
No sannyasin women would be interested in that kind of puerile take on Osho. That should be obvious.
If the author of the piece was really enlightened, they would not have the same fear of ‘rakshas’ or demonic spirits. Those type of lower vibrational energies cannot come close to the energy-field of a Buddha like Osho.
And that is one of the functions of a truly enlightened master, his presence protects meditators from those kind of energies.
One of Osho’s strengths of Osho’s teaching on meditation, in my opinion, was that he did not create unnecessary fears of such things. He taught trust, which is very important.
If the mind of a meditator aquires those kind of fears of such things, and it can easily happen, this can be very unhelpful and unhealthy.
And that is also one of the weaknesses of Christianity, that it has developed such fears of ‘evil’ influences, that has created so much unnecessary fear for centuries. That is what the writer of the piece is also doing.
It is easy to see how a Christian could misunderstand Osho, but any spiritual teacher intentionally creating fears in others is very stupid.
MOD:
Shanti, you say, “If the author of the piece was really enlightened, they would not have the same fear of ‘rakshas’ or demonic spirits.”
But the author makes no claim of enlightenment.
It came up on leo.dict.org
as synonym for
to be accomodating
to split the difference
to meet halfway
to concede
German: entgegenkommend
One thing to add to the “By their fruits ye shall know them” theme. One thing that I’ve heard a few times recently is that even from a bad teacher much can be learned. Say you have a scoundrel who talks in spiritual terms, he can give you a taste of many things before you go on to find a better master.
And examining teachers who have the real guru energy but who don’t teach in conventional terms, I think that’s more likely to be a limitation of the student, rather than that the teacher is false. I don’t think that guru energy can be falsified. As Papaji said, “If you have found a teacher who makes your mind feel at peace, then stay with him.”
One can think: what is the fruit of Sannyas?
Maybe it is still celebration.
Even celebrating the things that are not so nice.
Because also, if you don’t celebrate them, they remain not so nice.
Even celebrating the things that are not so nice.”
Is “celebrate” really the right word though, Satchit? Eg, “Your friend has died in a road accident/ been mudered / raped / attacked and mugged” (etc.) – “Oh, great, let’s have a party!”
It is the right word, SD.
But not from the standpoint of the “I”, the ego.
It is the right word for the ocean, but not for the wave. “My” friend is the language of the mind, not of the no-mind.
But is this your experience, Satchit, or just something you’ve collected or concocted?
And to “celebrate” such happenings that I mentioned can be viewed as a psychopathic symptom, akin, for example, to a Nazi thoroughly enjoying persecuting Jews in a concentration camp: “I celebrate the victory of ‘the master race!”
Accidents, disease, and other unavoidable events built into human life on earth are one thing, wilful human ignorance, stupidity and degradation, aka unconsciousness, is another, surely?
It is my knowing, SD.
And if you look a bit deeper, you find this knowing in you too.
There are many ego-games possible.
For the ocean one is not better than the other.
Sinner, saint and so on….
It depends from which perspective we look. “The ocean”, as you term it, is impersonal, ok, which suggests a neutrality over and above everything man undergoes on earth, with no judgment. But does this amount to “celebration”, in the usual sense of the word?
Do you accept that Osho was ‘one with LIfe’? Did he think or recommend that everything was worth ‘celebrating’? Did he not recommend rebellion against much that was once regarded as ‘normal’, our inheritance from the “rotten” past? Did he ‘celebrate’ corrupt, hypocritical “priests and politicians”? Moreover, did he not warn us, not so long before he passed on, that “the times that are coming will not be good” and that the only way was to go within?
And, perhasps more to the point, are you, Satchit, capable of ‘celebrating’ aspects of human existence that are universally regarded as negative, or even as ‘evil’?
Perhaps you could describe what you mean by ‘celebration’? What events in the Ukraine war or in famine-ravaged Africa have you recently ‘celebrated’, for instance? What? None? You’ve been too busy ‘celebrating’ Germany’s early exit from the World Cup?(lol).
I see it’s difficult to explain to you this deep wisdom, SD.
Understanding still has to grow inside you.
Life is celebrating life and death. What else?
Btw, Why should I celebrate Germany’s early exit? I am not a German.
But are you yourself one with this “deep wisdom”, Satchit? Or is it just something that you accept on an intellectual level?
As you live in Munich I’ve assumed you’re German, so what nationality are you?
I don’t know if I’m one with it.
I’m just playing.
I guess playing is very similar to celebrating.
Consciousness is playing being German.
It is a question of identification.
Playing mind games with spiritual concepts can be very seductive, we can fool ourselves into thinking we ‘know’ things, especially perhaps when there’s not much else going on in our life that’s particularly challenging (apart from ‘getting through the day’).
Re identification, I seem to recall you seemed rather upset when Bayern Munich lost a big match a year or two ago. But perhaps your profound enquiries have radically shifted your perspective on such relatively shallow affairs?
Always find a reason to laugh…
I went like “What!? Bloody hell to humanity!”
Talking of “we” does not function in my opinion, SD.
People are different.
I hope you go well through the day.
This answer from Eckhart Tolle to ‘Did God Create Evil?” perhaps helps to explain the perspective you suggest, Satchit?
What do you reckon?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcNITrKqiuM
As I understood it, Tolle says identifiction is evil.
I don’t know where I spoke of the evil.
Certainly I could also say, I am consciousness – means never born, never died, just playing a role on this planet.
Where is the problem?