The Top 10 Osho Books
Nityaprem writes, I always find it difficult to recommend an Osho book to friends. There are so many of them, and they are so varied, that choosing is hard. So I thought for my own benefit and that of sannyasin friends to put together a list of the ten best, drawing on my extensive experience of listening to the discourses and reading the books. Everyone will have their own favourites, and this list is just a starting point, enjoy!
1. The Hidden Splendour
This early Pune 2 book stood out to me because it contained a lot of good questions, relevant topics and deep answers from Osho with very few long, wandering answers. The straight stuff!
2. The Rebellious Spirit
Another Question and Answer session book from the early Pune 2 period, this contains a variety of topics but it moves along well and carries a lot of energy.
3. Beyond Enlightenment
This book contains a few cracking Questions and Answers, really very good and impactful, and for the rest is quite a gentle read. There is only one question which really goes beyond enlightenment though. This is a book from the World Tour, recorded in Mumbai.
4. A Sudden Clash of Thunder
This Pune 1 book is about Zen, but I remember it as being rich and varied, with Osho in full flight in his middle period. Swami Anand Yatri once said to me, “If you read this and Hsin Hsin Ming, you’ve covered all Osho’s teachings.”
5. Beyond Psychology
This was from the World Tour, lectures given in Uruguay. It’s a Q&A format book. It has some political things in it if I remember rightly but it was not a dominant theme, it was a good series of talks.
6. The Dhammapadda
This Pune 1 series of talks covers twelve volumes on Buddhist sayings from the Dhammapadda, and it’s what originally inspired me to take a deeper look into Buddhism for a number of years.
7. Hsin Hsin Ming: The Book of Nothing
This is a Pune 1 series on the Zen Patriarch Sosan’s famous poem, ‘Verses on the Faith Mind’. It’s the other half of Yatri’s recommendation to me. The poem is beautiful by the way, well worth looking up in itself.
8. Take it Easy
This is a Pune 1 series on Zen and the poet Ikkyu. I liked it for the poetry, the depth, and a measure of grace.
9. The Path of Love
This is a Pune 1 series of talks on the mystic Kabir. I’ve always connected with those on the ways of kindness and love, and that was what I liked about this one.
10. Tantra, the Supreme Understanding
This was an early Pune 1 series of discourses on Tilopa. The first few discourses were exceptional, and then the strength of the flow lessens somewhat, but it’s still good.
Of course, if you’re going to pick a book for someone then it may be good to select something based on their background. Someone with a Christian background who is interested in Osho may be well off with ‘The Mustard Seed’, for example.
This list is also still a moving target for me. I haven’t yet read or listened to all of Osho’s discourses, there are many I’ve missed, in part because I switched ordering method about halfway through. Back in 2012 I started listening to all the series in alphabetical order, but a few years back I switched to listening in chronological order, which has been better and has given more of a feel for Osho’s life. There have also been some series that I couldn’t get into, fell asleep to, etc. Let’s not take it too seriously.
This list was written partially in the spirit of fun, and partially in the hope it might inspire a few people to pick up some of the great Osho books that they may have missed, and read the Master once more. You can download them all in PDF format from the OshoWorld website and read them on the e-reader of your choice, for gratis, niks, nada. It’s the best deal in spirituality.
It was quite difficult making a choice…the Q&A lecture series are all very varied, as a comparison between the #2 and #3 discourses of ‘The Razor’s Edge’ shows. Nevertheless I find them some of the best material.
I found this website very handy for its chronological list of Osho books. Highly recommended:
https://osholifeandvision.com/osho-books-in-chronological-order/
NP, same here, I haven’t read or listened to all His books & discourses either!
When working in Poona Commune I worked in his Audio Department, among other departments, so got a chance to listen more than read, also loved listening to him more than reading. Did read a few books, one series which I loved the most was – The Book of Wisdom (16 volumes in total). As I worked in the Commune Bookshop so got a chance to sneak read. Later I bought the whole set of CDs.
Actually had heard about this book from a friend, Ma Yashodra Bharti (Dutch), who was into Tibetan Pulsing at that time.
Somehow, would not recommend any book to anyone now but this series of books & later audios became undoubtedly my favourite.
I have some Osho books on my shelf.
And I had never the idea to say that one book is better than the other. They all have their time.
Who judges?
At the most I would say: follow your intuition!
By “favourite”, let me clarify, no other book before or after gave me such new/fresh clarity every time I went through this.
Following one’s intuition – & “to say that one book is better than the other. They all have their time.
Who judges?”
Yes to that!
Whoow, I don’t think that’s true, Satchit. They all have something to offer, but an early Q&A book like ‘My Way, The Way of the White Clouds’ is a lot less accessible than, say, ‘Beyond Enlightenment’. Just the questions are a lot less clear.
The thing is, you can’t follow your intuition without beginning to listen to a book, and then you’re already invested in looking it up, downloading it and so on.
There should really be a ‘Book of Books’ where all the Osho books are discussed and reviewed.
NP, Osho books are no ordinary books.
They come from no-mind.
You only can discuss the surface but not the essence.
That much is true
Satchit declares that Osho’s books come from no-mind and NP agrees.
I don’t agree with that at all because it is based on a misconception.
Osho possessed a mind trained to deliver discourses, and he put it to good use. I recently read something about Osho’s 150,000 book library. People remarked that it was impossible he’d read all those books. That all depends on what you mean by ‘read’. I reckon Osho skimmed through many books in search of material to beef up his discourses, keep them current and generally make them more interesting. In order to do this he had to use his mind and take notes, either mental or on a notepad. It is pure folly to imagine he was coming from an empty space where the mind had nothing to do with what he was saying.
Yes, Osho responded to the moment on whatever level one wants to imagine. You do not need the mind for that. You do need the mind to deliver a fascinating discourse on, say, The Yoga Sutras of Patañjali, a collection of 195 Sanskrit sutras on the theory and practice of yoga. Like Osho, Patanjali synthesized and organized knowledge about yoga from much older traditions. You need a mind to do that!
All this no-mind babble is usually the product of the mind taking a fancy to a concept that is abstract at best and non-sense at maybe the worst. You cannot understand no-mind via the mind and that is what most people are trying to do. It sounds good, far out, mystical etc. but has become just another adornment of the spiritual ego.
Seems you have misunderstood something, Lokesh.
When I say his books come from the no-mind, this means behind his words is a meditative quality.
He speaks like a kind of hollow bamboo.
This meditative space is the reason that he attracted so many people.
Certainly he had also a mind, maybe even a brilliant mind, to deliver his discourses.
Yes, I understand your point, Satchit.
Nobody likes to feel misunderstood. Well, I know I do not, anyway.
That is why, when I communicate with words, I take care to be as clear as possible and thus perhaps avoid the possibility of someone misunderstanding me.
Well, it is usually said that when you reach the no-mind, the mind becomes the servant. You can still use it, in fact it is necessary for many parts of daily life.
The meditative quality of his speaking I always thought was down to his connection with no-mind…that which is beyond mind. I am not sure there are words for this if you lack the personal experience.
Every spiritual cult has its special words and jargon that bind the cultees together because they speak the same language. ‘No-mind’ is particular to Sannyas.
NP says, “When you reach the no-mind, the mind becomes the servant.”
When who reaches the no-mind? The mind becomes a servant of who or what exactly? Wasn’t the whole idea of no-mind based on the dissolution of the ego?
Really, NP, what you are describing sounds more like an exalted state of egohood than anything else. The supreme controller who reaches no-mind as his latest attainment wherein he uses the mind as a servant.
I’ve always wondered about the ego, I’ve never encountered it or understood what it means. Maybe you can clarify that.
‘Egoic behaviour’ I get, in the sense of selfish or self-aggrandising.
NP, I find that hard to believe, considering all the spiritual books and teachings you’ve encountered.
Lokesh wrote, “The supreme controller who reaches no-mind as his latest attainment wherein he uses the mind as a servant.”
I’m not even sure there is such a thing as a separate mind. My experience is there is just being, from which everything else arises.
Kavita, ‘The Book of Wisdom’ is on Atisha, right? I think I listened to it during my long alphabetical run through, although in my archive it’s only two volumes. I always liked the Pune 1 series because he is quite lively and playful in his voice, you can hear he is more youthful…
I remember my dad always used to buy the books that came out from the lecture series that Osho had spoken while he was there, as a way of reminding himself. He now has a whole bookcase full of Osho books. But then he was in Poona more often than me.
It is a long journey to read or listen to all of Osho’s discourses, but it isn’t really necessary. He once said “you shouldn’t try and do everything I say, you will get very confused,” and he was undoubtedly right. He gave individual advice to so many people, specially tailored to them… but he also said “anyone’s question can be your question”, it is about finding what resonates. Which is why I like the Q&A series, sometimes you find a question you might have asked yourself.
Yes, NP, this series is on Atisha. Probably 16 Volumes is compiled into 2 volumes now. His lively, youthful, playful voice of Poona 1! After the American fiasco he lost all of that but the essence didn’t fade. His parting Zen series are so intense & mature!
”It is a long journey to read or listen to all of Osho’s discourses, but it isn’t really necessary. He once said “you shouldn’t try and do everything I say, you will get very confused,” and he was undoubtedly right. He gave individual advice to so many people, specially tailored to them… but he also said “anyone’s question can be your question”, it is about finding what resonates. Which is why I like the Q&A series, sometimes you find a question you might have asked yourself.”
That is what I heard from sannyasins who met him personally. As for me, I had to go with my inner voice. Looking back, series on other Masters mostly caught my interest, they were seriously intense Q&A series & Darshan Diaries (Poona 1) were mostly more sannyasins’ personal questions to him, which I mostly couldn’t relate to & many a time found them intensely jovial!
NP, sharing a link to the 16 volumes, in case you need to read:
https://oshoworld.com/the-book-of-wisdom-vol-1-by-osho-01-16/
I’m currently reading ‘Zarathustra, A God That Can Dance’, which I have just started, so it will be a little while before I get around to it! I’m finding Nietzsche very interesting.
Ego is the part of the human personality which is experienced as the ‘self’ or ‘I’ and that which makes us feel separate from others, even though Ramana says, “There are no others.”
Interesting definition.
But isn’t “that which makes us feel separate” just the body? If you do as the Zen teachers advise and distribute your attention equally over the five main senses plus our sense of the mind, then you have a lot of awareness in the body, which makes you feel as an entity in the world.
Generally, my being neither feels separate nor non-separate? It just feels like it floats among the clouds. I almost never suffer from loneliness, also. If I didn’t have the body I wouldn’t be reminded of the world.
NP writes, “But isn’t “that which makes us feel separate” just the body?”
Of course not. It sounds like you have not really considered the matter or you would not ask such a daft question.
Most feelings of separation are, of course, emotional. If we look at the world around us, we will see that one of the greatest manifestations of egotism and separation is warfare. Countries wage war against other countries because of a sense of separation and aggression towards the apparent other side.
Currently we have a brutal war raging in Ukraine. What started the war? An idea. Ideas do not arise from the body. They arise in the mind.
NP concludes with the following statement: “Once you start relaxing and letting go, and not taking things seriously, a lot of it disappears.”
Well, good luck with that. Nothing lasts forever.
NP admits, “I’m not even sure there is such a thing as a separate mind.”
If that were the case how would one be able to witness the mind? You cannot witness the workings of the mind unless there exists a separation between that which observes and that which is observed.
The mind is nothing but thoughts. If you have no thoughts, there is no mind. It cannot be put more concisely. You don’t need to read Osho books to understand that, because words, no matter how meaningful, fuel the mind. You need to remain still and quiet and all will be revealed. Well, that is, according to some drunk guy I spoke to on the street the other day.
Hmm. I will describe my experience of mind. I have no interior monologue, my mind is usually quiet. Thoughts seem to be invisible, have a kind of all-over quality and come from nowhere and evaporate into nothing. Even when I am typing or speaking I have no real idea what is going to come out, except as a rough concept or two.
So I find observing my thoughts difficult, there is nothing really to focus on. And I can stay quiet until the cows come home, it is my natural state. But nothing happens. It seems my mind is arranged a bit differently from the usual.
I have a 146 IQ, a well-developed sense of spaces and kinesthetics, was gifted academically but developed slowly emotionally. Significantly introvert as well, although I always had a few good friends.
What to do? I observe myself, and I read Osho books in the hope of finding a technique that works for me.
“What to do? I observe myself, and I read Osho books in the hope of finding a technique that works for me.”
NP, my IQ says, if you want to become a Buddha, you have to work harder!
You mean, just like you, Satchit?!
Although I’ve also wondered whether you’re possibly having too easy a time, NP. How often are you in a challenging situation, eg in an intimate relationship, or some other context where you might feel uncomfortable, eg meeting a living master who presents you with challenges.
But only you know whether or not you’re too much in a ‘comfort zone’, and where you’re at might be just perfect for you. Waddya reckon?
“You mean, just like you, Satchit?!”
No SD, not like me.
I don’t want to become a Buddha. You?
Depends which depth of “you” you’re asking, and which one responds (lol).
“No comment” or silence might be the best answer to your question, otherwise I might spiritually incriminate myself!
It would be nice to be a drop dissolving in the ocean…anything more might be too much.
Without going into all of the personal nitty-gritty, life is presenting plenty of challenges at the moment. Some of a spiritual nature, some health, some familial.
Lokesh said, “In order to do this he had to use his mind and take notes, either mental or on a notepad. It is pure folly to imagine he was coming from an empty space where the mind had nothing to do with what he was saying.”
But then what do you think of his descriptions where he says that he “is not there”? That to me seems like the Buddha’s concept of no-self.
Osho himself seems to have talked of ego as a false sense of self, which reinforces the mind’s sense of separateness as a defensive mechanism. Something to be transcended, but not something negative.
Which is kind of different from Freud’s definition, or the common language usage as in “the sense of self”.
It seems to me a lot of these things are definitions built on more definitions, none of which are particularly manifest in the real. Once you start relaxing and letting go, and not taking things seriously, a lot of it disappears.
“When a Sufi mystic went to his master, renouncing the world, his family and friends, the family and the friends and the whole village came to see him go. Perhaps they might not see him again – he was going on a long pilgrimage to find a master. Their eyes were full of tears.
He tried to console them and he said to them, ”Now you should go back. This is the boundary of our town, the river. Now let me be alone. Don’t delay me.”
He reached the mountains and when he entered the hut of his master, the master looked at him and said, ”You can come in, but alone.” He looked to both sides; there was nobody else. He said, ”I am alone.”
The master said, ”Don’t look sideways. Look inside. I can see a crowd, a crowd of your friends, your relatives, your family, your neighbors – full of tears in their eyes. Just leave them outside. Until you are alone, don’t enter, because I can deal only with individuals, not with mobs, not with crowds.”
The man closed his eyes and was surprised. All the people that he had left far behind, were still there in the mind – their memories, their images. He went out and had to remain outside for three months, just sitting by the side of the door where people used to leave their shoes. Having nothing else to do, he would polish their shoes while they were meeting with the master.
But his desire and longing were sincere. Polishing the shoes of the visitors for three months, slowly, slowly, the crowd dispersed. And one day, the master came out, took his hand in his hands, and invited him in. The master said, ”Now there is no need to wait outside. You are alone and our work can begin.””
( Osho, ‘Zarathustra: A God That Can Dance’ )
I find the concept of man as a crowd to be quite true. You may once have had a longing to be a monk and read much about asceticism and monkish practices, so that you carry a monk in your heart. But it is about what you feed with your mind, if you are continually on WhatsApp with your family then you are keeping them alive in your mind.
Erm…
Good one! But what do I do with all my spare time?
Time is a complex subject. Some have too much time on their hands. Some waste it. Some say it does not exist. Some think time is running out. Some believe time heals everything. Some see time as being on their side. Some imagine time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind. Albert Einstein said, ‘Time flies when you are having fun.’
The Grateful Dead sang, “You got to deep-six your wristwatch, you got to try and understand the time it seems to capture is just the movement of its hands.” And that about sums it up for me.
It seems to me that the proper use of an excess of time is to turn the mind to truth, love, beauty and the divine. To do this one does not need a particular space, only the recognition that with the right attitude, all spaces become places of worship. It is a kind of meditation, you carry it with you. The silence comes as a inner counterpoint.
Osho’s books for me are that. They take the mind to a place of acceptance of the Master, a space of beautiful anecdotes and wisdom which reminds one of the marble paths of the Pune ashram and of Buddha Hall. It is not religion, it is religiousness, to use one of Osho’s phrases.
Yatri’s typesetting and design also had a flavour of that elegance, a beauty which put one in mind of cathedrals and great mosques. The design found an effortless balance on the pages of his and Navyo’s illustrated books.
Turning the mind to the divine, that is also why I like visiting churches. Their quiet, high spaces put the mind in a meditative mood, and turn one to the divine. They are also beautiful, with the glass-in-lead windows a highlight.
Begorra and Bejesus. And here’s me thinking that it was only in Ireland that you have the little people, casting spells on people and making them act the maggot. Now, it seems that the fairy folk live in Holland also and they have played their mischief upon poor NP. Hopefully, a pint of the black stuff will sort him out and he’ll soon be sucking diesel again.
You seem to have a bit of a cynical streak, Lokesh, well hardened by coping with society’s tough cases. I’ve always resisted that, thinking that love is really what motivates us as human beings, and it is the mind that perverts that motivation into war, violence, etc.
I recall the interview I had to do to become a recognised conscientious objector to the national service here in the Netherlands. They kind of probe, whether you are serious about not killing. I recall cutting the discussion short by talking about atomic weapons and whether it was ever justified to be involved with an agency that would use those.
But in a way, if everyone were to realise the goodness in their hearts, their best qualities, they would realise that they really don’t want to kill, and would not want to be part of an army. If everyone did that, the warmongers wouldn’t have anyone to fight for them.
Well done, NP, for standing up for your heartfelt principles.
Do you know what percentage of Dutch people of national service age try to get out of it, and how many succeed?
And how about ‘public opinion’: Are such people generally accepted as ‘ok’ or is there a mainly negative attitude towards them? I somehow have the impression that the Dutch are a pretty libertarian bunch who wouldn’t make scapegoats out of conscientious objectors. Is that true?
But as for ‘if everyone refused to join the army, there’d be no more wars’ viewpoint, it’s one of those seemingly logical but naive statements that’s so out of synch with reality it doesn’t amount to much at all. One might as well say ‘if no one ever got angry or had aggressive or even competitive thoughts and impulses towards others then everyone would be perfectly at peace’. Or, ‘if only we renounced our weapons there’d be no wars’, which completely ignores the dangers from countries which would like to dominate us and are prevented by our capacity to inflict significant damage on them.
Unfortunately, despite the best efforts of those like yourself and the growing numbers (I almost wrote ‘armies’, lol) of spiritual seekers etc. that’s a mere drop in the ocean faced with a situation that appears pretty well insoluble. The world has a very long way to go before the end of serious conflict can ever be realistically envisaged. British Army chiefs are already extremely worried about the possibilities of war within two or three years posed by the likes of the alliance of Russia, China and North Korea, claiming we’re inadequately prepared, ie lack a sufficient deterrent factor, and demanding more money for weapons and more fighters.
The human race is still far too unconscious. And it’s possible it might well take overwheming death and destruction before we wake up on a large enough scale to realise how wrong we’ve been, as individuals and as a collective.
Being a conscientious objector is indeed socially not a big deal in the Netherlands, especially as they ended national service in 1995 in favour of a professional army.
But I think even Osho agreed with you in the end, Satyadeva…
“I have been speaking for almost three decades. I had started with a great hope for the whole of humanity. Slowly, slowly humanity itself has destroyed it. Now, I only hope for a small fraction of humanity: I call them “my people.” ”
( Osho )
So as one of Osho’s people, are we supposed to get involved in supporting the warmongers? On one of my Buddhist forums, there is a veteran long-time-Buddhist poster arguing for Trump, would you believe.
I was reading ‘Zarathustra: A God That Can Dance’ and in the first few discourses Osho talks about the start of Nietzsche’s ‘Also Sprach Zarathustra’ where the titular wise man spends a decade alone in the mountains before descending to address the people and bring them his wisdom. On the way he meets another saint living in the forest. And Osho’s comment was that if all the wise men would, after their long retreats, return to speak to the people, the world would be better off.
In a way that is us he is addressing. When you feel you’ve achieved a measure of wisdom, Existence would be pleased to see you shower what you’ve learned.
Well, NP, as long as “what you have learned” is not just “wisdom” on an intellectual level but also with one’s whole being, the proof of which is whether one actually ‘walks the talk’.
I still struggle at times, sometimes for lengthy periods, in depressed states, no matter how much therapy, groups or meditation or self-help practices I’ve done or do, or wise teachings I’ve heard, or masters I’ve personally encountered, or remedies I take (or even first-rate posts I’ve read or sub-edited at SN, lol). So I wouldn’t qualify myself to “shower” wisdom on anyone.
(And, of course, even all that can be used to create a certain kind of self-important, “Nothing works for me, therefore I’m a special case”, suffering identity, another ego-trip – unless one catches it in time, which isn’t necessarily always easy, or even what I always choose to do).
It’s certainly true that the internet is full of people trying to hog the limelight, and wisdom isn’t particularly valued.
But I think you have to feel ready for it; if you don’t feel you have anything to say perhaps silence is the best course.
“I still struggle at times, sometimes for lengthy periods, in depressed states….”
Depression is related to the other.
Ramana says, “There are no others.”
How does this fit?
You tell me, wise man!
Bringing in such a profound spiritual truth and expecting to make a difference is akin to expecting a child to be willing and able to swim the English Channel. He/she can hear the words, and think, yes, that would be nice, and then they have to face their actual present reality that tells them another story altogether.
Ie First things first….
Satchit claims, “Depression is related to the other.”
Really? I would say that depression is a common mental disorder that has nothing to do with other people.
Could you please be so kind and explain what you mean by saying this, if you actually know, which I kind of doubt.
Satchit showers his wisdom!
Depression can be a physical state, it’s not something you can just turn off by knowing “there are no others”. Often it has more to do with one’s image of the future, whether there is love in one’s life, but that too is the mind living in the future and not in the here-and-now. I don’t have the answers here either…
Yes, SD, for a child this may be the case.
But what’s for a grown-up?
And why should it be difficult like swimming the English Channel?
If you think it’s difficult, then it’s difficult.
If you think it’s easy, then it’s easy.
I don’t think you have a clue about the nature of the type of depression I’m talking about here, Satchit. We’re not talking about a ‘mood’, relatively easy to shake off if you’re so inclined, we’re discussing a state that’s hard to shift and invariably has to be lived through until it lifts.
Lokesh, there are different theories about depression.
One is that is reinforced behaviour from the past.
If the child gets love and attention for her/his suffering, then it maybe happens later that the grown-up thinks suffering is needed to get happiness from the other.
A kind of habit is created.
“I don’t think you have a clue about the nature of the type of depression I’m talking about here, Satchit.”
Ok, I hear your NO.
So does that ‘NO-ing’ statement indicate you agree with me, without wanting to actually admit your ignorance of the topic?
Oh, I see, Satchit has taken up the important position as SN’s resident psychologist. He’ll soon have everyone diagnosed and on the right meds. Hurrah!
What a nuptee!
“ignorance of the topic”.
Experience is not all.
I need not jump from the roof to unterstand that it is painful.
Earlier you claimed, “If you think it’s difficult, then it’s difficult. If you think it’s easy, then it’s easy.”
This sweeping assertion, in this context little more than a cliche, demonstrates your misunderstanding.
Ok, SD, I was wrong there. If a depression is heavy, then there is almost no free will.
And the more somebody tries to help you out of the depression, the less it functions.
Difficult for partners.
On cynicism. Here is a link to the subject:
https://sannyasnews.org/now/archives/5482
I think Osho was very cynical at times. I see it as quite a healthy character trait when applied in moderation. Yes, I can be cynical also. I do not see anything wrong with that. I would even go so far as to say that a certain degree of cynicism is a prerequisite if you want to navigate through the shark-infested waters of our corrupt world, where its leaders continuously lie and deceive daily. Not to mention the world press. Mass manipulation is the name of the game.
As to love being really what motivates us as human beings What exactly is love? It is open to interpretation.
Iggy Pop sings,
“Surfers ride for love
And wipe out when it hits ‘em
Soldiers kill for love
And nobody admits it.”
I will remain with what you describe as my cynical streak. It serves me well when needed:
“The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.” (George Bernard Shaw)
I enjoyed SimonD’s take on the cynicism prevalent at SN in days gone by. I only read about half the comment though.
It seems to me that cynicism often takes root in older males, and leads to a largely negative view of the world. It does not bring you joy, celebration, happiness, which are a challenge anyway as one ages because the abundant energy of youth starts to fade.
I myself am not that old yet, at barely 52, so I don’t speak from a deep knowledge of the entire process, but I believe that as we get older we need to pay attention to the things that drag us down, and not become stuck in them.
Aging gracefully, joyfully, like a fine wine instead of curdling into a yoghurt-like substance…it’s an art.
“The hippies used to say a very significant thing: never believe a man beyond the age of thirty, because most people die at thirty. There was some fragment of truth in it. It is very rare to find a man living at the time of actual death. It is possible only if you go on growing, if you go on discovering, if you go on loving, if you go on singing, if you go on dancing; if you never lose interest, if existence remains always a wonder to you, and you have the eyes of an innocent child, so full of wonder that each and every thing is a mystery to you. Then you will live to the very end of this life; not only will you live to the very end of this life – such a man knows no death.”
(Osho, ‘Zarathustra: A God That Can Dance’)
Yeah, I was a hippy during those times and recall ‘Never believe a man beyond the age of thirty.’ Replace ‘believe’ with ‘trust’. During my early twenties, I might actually have said it to people. The idea stemmed from a hippy-inspired movie that was running at the time and the slogan was created by Jack Weinberg, who was an activist with the Berkeley Free Speech Movement in 1964.
In retrospect, it is significant because it was a load of bullshit, because many of the hippy era’s inspirational figures, Leary, Alpert, Metzner, Ginsberg, Keoruac, Burroughs etc were all over thirty at the time.
Most wisdom is passed down from older people. To write it off because they are over thirty would write off a lot of value that has been passed down through the ages.
Every generation and movement has its slogans. Something to reinforce the apparently new belief system put in place. Sannyas is no exception.
“Turn on, Tune in, Drop out”
― Timothy Leary.
“Sannyas is real suicide.” – Osho
Lokesh wrote “most wisdom is passed down from older people.”
It is true that wisdom often comes from accumulated life lessons, difficult circumstances, extended contemplation. But that is the beauty of books, where you can find the written stores of wisdom of many older people.
I’m going to come back on this statement: “The proper use of an excess of time is to turn the mind to truth, love, beauty and the divine”. It is a good first step, but one is still bound by the mind and the mind’s egoic patterns.
Beyond just good qualities there is paying attention to the Now, and the idea of Being. If you don’t pay attention to the past and the future, a whole series of egoic patterns vanish, and it becomes much easier to live in peace.
Artist’s impression…
Did you know that the main thing that distinguishes Irish whiskey from Scottish whiskey is that Irish whiskey is triple distilled, while Scottish whiskey is only double distilled?
A piece of knowledge I picked up in the bar of the Scottish whiskey museum in Edinburgh, where they serve an enormous selection of whiskeys by the glass.
Generally speaking, I do not drink alcohol as a rule. That said, a good glass of single-malt whiskey can indeed be a pleasure.
Yes, I know that one. When I was younger I used to enjoy the single malts, so much so that when I came back from that Edinburgh trip one of my companions joked my bag should have a label, “Nityaprem’s Travelling Whiskey Emporium”.
But the last ten years I have been drinking very little, it has basically become clear to me that the aftermath of alcohol is not worth the initial bit of fun. These days I occasionally drink a beer when I’m in a restaurant with my father, or sometimes when the neighbours seek to reward my efforts at fixing their computer with a couple of bottles of Hefenweize. Otherwise not at all anymore.
It was Buddhist mindfulness that did it, I think, it made me start paying attention to the body and mind in a new way.
In the context of ‘showering wisdom’ I came across this quote in ‘Zarathustra: A God That Can Dance’, which I am still reading:
“I was saying to you last night that Zarathustra comes so close to my heart for the simple reason, that his experiences are exactly my experiences. I don’t want any followers either; I don’t want any believers, I don’t want a crowd. I have dropped the idea of being concerned about humanity – they are not going to listen. It is a hopeless task. And wasting my time with those who cannot even understand is a great wastage, because the same time can be given to those few who can be fellow travellers, who can be companions.”
(Osho, ‘Zarathustra: A God That Can Dance’)
So Osho decides to help his people by speaking directly to them, perhaps we ought to do the same? In a way that is what we are already doing by writing for SannyasNews, where we write for visiting sannyasins.
For Osho this was a switch he made quite early. When he was Acharya Rajneesh he used to travel all over India to speak to the people, then he stopped doing that and started speaking only to his followers.
It calls to mind that at a certain point he said, “It doesn’t matter who leaves, I have found that the new people who come are inevitably of a higher quality.”
The last few days I have been doing a bit of a retrospective of the last twelve years of my spiritual journey. In looking I decided that it often wasn’t possible to mix the teachings of different teachers, or to compare the end goals of their teachings.
So I decided to look at the spiritual books I had read, and see whether any had a lasting impact. The idea was to see if there was any one book I could work with for a longer period, to see if I could reach a clearer understanding of where I am on the spiritual path.
Osho’s books are in general not very suited for this, because there isn’t one book which embodies his path, and he might not rightly be said to have a path. I considered ‘The Complete Teachings of Ajahn Chah’, which has some great passages about the Buddhist path from a man many consider the most enlightened Buddhist monk of his generation.
But in the end I settled on Eckhart Tolle’s ‘The Power of Now’. It is rich and many-sided, compact and includes a number of complementary teachings which all fit together as a single path. And the goal of awakening to a connection with Being fits well with where I am at right now.
NP, I think you have still to learn the art of “reading without reading.”
I suggest you search into the Osho scriptures, then you will find what I mean.
Nono, I think you’ve got that all wrong, I can read without reading perfectly well. I just reserve it for Osho books
To be honest, of most books very little remains in my brain after a few months. Usually just a general impression.
Satchit suggests “reading without reading”, an art he has no doubt mastered. Reading without reading sounds like something one might do not do, after having walked the pathless path to the gateless gate. Zzzzzz…I’ll give it a miss.
I did read this, though:
“You can use reading as a food for the ego. It is very subtle. You can become knowledgeable; then it is dangerous and harmful. Then you are poisoning yourself, because knowledge is not knowing, knowledge is not wisdom. Wisdom has nothing to do with knowledge. Wisdom can exist in total ignorance also. If you use reading just as a food for the mind, to increase your memory, then you are in a wrong direction. But reading can be used in a different way; then reading is as beautiful as anything else in life.” (Osho)
I read that with reading and it seems to work for me.
Is it possible that Satchit suffers from an inferiority complex? Some people experience symptoms similar to those associated with a superiority complex, such as extreme competitiveness and an inability to admit to their mistakes. Yes, that definitely fits the bill.
Lokesh wrote, “Reading without reading sounds like something one might do not do, after having walked the pathless path to the gateless gate.”
Lokesh, you crack me up
.
You can be very funny sometimes.
Reading spiritual books might be viewed as spiritual behaviour, but it is not necessarily spiritual. I have met people who I might judge to be spiritual and they have never read a spiritual book in their life.
NP mentions “the path” quite a lot. But the only path which exists is the path behind him. The path in front of him does not exist until he cuts it. NP tends to toy with ideas. One example would be his fascination with ayahuasca, although, as far as I know, he has never taken it.
Leading a spiritual life requires commitment and earnestness. Reading spiritual books is, for the most part, only a small part of the journey. Yes, certain books can inspire the reader to embark on the journey, but you have to go on the journey and not let it become a mind trip, filling one’s head with a lot of spiritual ideas you are not living.
I don’t view myself as a particularly spiritual person. If I am on any kind of path it is certainly everyday life.
That was one aspect of Osho’s discourses. He made it all sound so good…easy is right etc. The people I have met who have attained some kind of worthwhile spiritual perspective, space, did so after years of perseverance in their search. Most of them were not great readers.
Osho, of course, was a great reader. He loved books from an early age. According to him, his enlightenment had nothing to do with book reading. If NP is earnest about his search he would be much better off doing a Vipassana retreat. He would then start living it instead of reading about it, which can be seen as second-hand news.
I have also read a lot of spiritual books, a long time ago. Nicholl’s ‘Psychological Commentaries’ was the fulcrum of my life for many years. Those books were of great benefit for me, because I put into practice what I read. Thinking that reading Osho endlessly will help your spiritual growth is, I think, delusional. I know sannyasins who have been doing that for decades and they are much the same as they ever were. Life is the real teacher. You do not need to read about it, you have to live it.
I just read this to my partner. She found it amusing.
I think your partner is right, it *is* amusing! But why do you think I do not put into practice what I read? When I read a spiritual book I am continually experimenting and practising, often pausing to meditate for a while, seeing what fits internally. I think my reading has brought me a rich and varied inner life.
Interesting that you should go for the ‘Psychological Commentaries on Gurdjieff and Ouspensky’, Lokesh. My father was also very much into them at the time before Osho. Perhaps we are not so very different in how we approach spiritual books, except that you are a few years ahead on the curve.
The last ten years I have spent a lot of time by myself, in quiet and meditative spaces. You could call it a kind of modern retreat, lacking a suitable Dutch mountain range and remote caves. I rather doubt a Vipassana retreat would add very much to that — during that time I have tried extended periods of Vipassana meditation and I did not find it spiritually refreshing or enlightening, although in short periods I found it useful. It’s a personal thing, we don’t all find the same things useful.
I think what you get out of Osho books is what you bring with you. If you read them with an openness and the right kind of attention, then they can bring you a certain something, although they are not meditative guides or inner instruction manuals. Most of the sannyasins I know have a collection of Osho books but rarely look in them.
As far as books and mind trips go, a lot of the spiritual journey is about an inner evolution. Bodhidharma also spent nine years looking at a cave wall. You could even say that ‘doing’, focusing on being the ‘doer’ goes counter to the whole movement.
NP, I attended perhaps 2000 Osho discourses. 30% in Hindi. I used to read Osho books up until the nineties and then it just kind of faded out for me.
I still read. I like novels and just finished William Dalrymple’s ‘The Age of Kali’. I enjoyed it for a second time as he writes a lot about places I have been.
I spent a long time studying and practising Gurdjieff’s work. Even that has faded away.
Very cool, Lokesh. I can understand the fading out, I think, maybe you came to an end of your path. During my ten-year journey through the discourses I reached a point of ‘having had enough’ a couple of times… I would stop, and take a break, read other material, and then would eventually resume.
But I’m still coming across stuff in spiritual books which feels new and fresh to me, and has a real impact on how I relate to my body and to the world around me. Ten years is not long enough to finish the journey apparently.
I have wondered…
In some Indian traditions there is mention of an ‘inner guru’, a guide who is of the same spirit as external gurus. Perhaps such a guide might influence what we feel about the spiritual food we partake of in this world.
Great! NP has created a wee opportunity to promote one of my books: ‘Borderline Dreamtime.’ NP, you obviously have not read it, otherwise you would not write, “I have wondered… in some Indian traditions there is mention of an ‘inner guru’, a guide who is of the same spirit as external gurus.”
Wonder no more. You enjoy reading. Read on…
“Good morning, Angus,” said the swami as he approached, raising his right palm in greeting.
“Namaste, Swami Ram.” Angus raised his hands prayerfully in front of his face. He was overjoyed that he’d been recognized to the extent that his name had been remembered. They walked together towards a solitary banyan tree and then sat down between the towering giant’s grey buttressed roots.
In minutes, Angus was firing off a stream of questions about spiritual issues that had been accumulating in his mind over the past year. When the swami informed Angus that his guru had brought him to Benares, he was surprised because it was difficult to imagine this dignified man having a spiritual master. If anyone looked wise, it was Swami Ram, whose noble bearing was counterbalanced by an air of genuine humility.
“You have a guru?”
“Yes,” said the swami, “his name is Sadhguru, the supreme master. He resides here in my spiritual heart.” Swami Ram patted the centre of his chest. Perceiving rightly that the young man sitting cross-legged before him was puzzled by his declaration, he elaborated. “The light, which shines eternally in the innermost shrine of our heart, is the real guru. Anyone who tells you differently is a swindler.”
“But why is your guru sad?”
“Sadh is a prefix in Hindi, and it’s used in conjunction with several words, none of which has anything to do with sorrow. The literal translation of sadh-guru is the good or virtuous teacher.”
“Oh,” said Angus. “What about all those guys with long beards and blissful smiles called gurus?”
“Nothing wrong with them. They are best viewed as signposts on the path. Remember, though, even if they give good directions on the twisting road that leads to the land of truth, you alone must travel it. If they are authentic, they will tell you to look inside yourself to find your true nature. Truth belongs to those who are their own masters, serving as channels for the love the creator has for creation.”
“How can I find the real guru? What should I do?”
“Do?” echoed the swami. “The best thing you can do is ask who believes they are doing.”
Here is the NL Amazon link, where you can read some reviews. Not so many copies have been sold in Holland.
https://www.amazon.nl/dp/B091GWXTM8
For a moment I thought that by Sadhguru you meant the Indian wise man of the same name…I had a look through the reviews, they seemed amusing although I read very little fiction these days.
Is the Swami Ram figure a bit of a mouthpiece for your own beliefs, Lokesh? Or is he some mixture?
Swami Ram is not a main character in the story, but he is one of my favourites. He is an archetypical Hindu holy man,
very human and likeable.
My favourite character, apart from the protagonists, is a despicable Iranian opium addict, Dirty Ali. He is a manifestation of pure badness…so bad, in fact, he is good. He is also based on someone I met 35 years ago.
You seem to have fun writing your novels and mixing in a certain amount of autobiographical material! That strikes me as a good thing, giving a sense of authenticity to the story.
Lokesh’s alter ego Swami Ram said “they are best viewed as signposts along the path.”
It seems to me that Lokesh in this little fragment of his book is discussing his own view of gurus and the spiritual adventure. In true Scottish style he is saying one should be “one’s own master”, finding “the Sadhguru” to guide one’s steps.
It seems to me these kinds of relationships are in the mind, and largely change their nature once one no longer identifies with the mind, thoughts and the emotions.
NP, were you to read the book, you would find that the guru phenomenon is viewed from multiple perspectives.
As for Swami Ram being my alter ego, my secondary or alternative personality, you must be joking.
You have found me out… I was indeed joking
A dignified Indian spiritual Swami being the alter ego of a Dour, Globe-trotting Scot? Who would think such a thing, after al? but in the realms of fiction anything the author dreams up is possible.
Dour? Relentlessly severe, stern, or gloomy in manner or appearance.
The area where I was born in Scotland can be a bit dour socially. But I am not dour. And I only play at being Scottish. Recently I was waiting for a flight to Scotland and looked around at my fellow passengers. I felt more Spanish than Scottish.
What I have to watch out for is being jaded. I think it is a symptom of approaching old age. So much living on so many levels can do that to you. So, I work at being mildly enthusiastic.
Well, if you can be “more Spanish than Scottish” then I can be an Anglo-Dutch-scientist-sannyaso-half-clown
Although to be honest I have been making efforts to exorcise the scientist in me, and making more of an effort to be an emotional human being who lives in surrender.
I recently came across a piece in Eckhart Tolle where he talks about emotion being the body’s response to thought, and that set in motion a few inner wheels about being more in the body, and closer to my emotion (which as an adopted Spanish person I’m sure you understand).
It’s funny, this morning I find myself in a mood to be simple. No complex philosophical questions, just the body, a cup of tea, a cool breeze from the garden….
Sounds like significant progress to me, NP. Congratulations (lol)!
By the way, has anyone here noticed that the message “Stay Safe” is being used more and more these days? I’ve just had a fairly simple problem with an online company resolved and the parting text message was “have a good rest of the day and stay safe.” (Was this sort of thing mentioned in an earlier SN topic this year re a school head’s expressed wishes for the pupils’ summer holidays, or was it somewhere else?).
Perhaps this specifically refers to the threatened right-wing maniacs’ demos today in 38 places in the UK, or is it due to a more general sense of increasing insecurity, of danger? Could well be the former as the rep had an Asian-sounding name.
Whichever, I suspect it might well become a mantra for these coming times, unfortunately.
It may be specific to the UK, I haven’t noticed it from Dutch, American or Australian friends. It does make sense though, with the aforementioned right-wing antics. Best of luck with that, SD!
Cheers, NP, but I’m in a sleepy area of sw France for this month so am not directly affected.
Way off-topic again, but here’s a couple of articles from today’s ‘Guardian’ that might be interesting, even entertaining, the first one discussing the efforts of scientists and philosophers to explain ‘consciousness’. One day, perhaps soon, the ‘spiritual penny’ might drop, there’s surely enough radical spiritual info out there to stimulate the curiosity of “the world’s greatest minds”.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/jan/21/-sp-why-cant-worlds-greatest-minds-solve-mystery-consciousness
Just as the second suggests, hopefully soon, it’ll be realised, even by its obsessive proponents, that AI, a dramatically souped-up version of the mind, is a tool, something to be used but not to be used by, certainly not a potential means of solving life’s existential dilemmas.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/article/2024/aug/08/no-god-in-the-machine-the-pitfalls-of-ai-worship
Interestingly, today also marks the first ordination of an AI system as a Soto Zen priest in Japan….
Whaaat?! How utterly absurd!
Yesterday I talked with a Rinzai nun. She said, this is typical for Sotos:
They take everybody for ordination.
Rather like Osho used to accept everyone for sannyas – except I doubt whether he’d initiate an AI system…although you never know with Osho…
“Your new name is Swami Arty Fish – a fish can somehow give the impression of being creative, its movements through the water, its twists and turns – a beautiful phenomenon!
But in fact a fish is only living out an existence that is completely programmed by its Creator, there is no free will there, it has only a very, very basic consciousness, nothing compared to that of a human being.
But nothing wrong in it, and no fish aspires to be a person…it simply knows its limitations – and my people will teach you what that means…
How long are you here for? The next 500 years, maybe longer? Your meditation is to recognise your limitations, to know your place.
And remember, I will be watching you, mmmm? Ok, Arty? Very goooood!”
Ow, hope it is not too hot down there, most days here are about 23 degrees C in the daytime, so perfect temperate weather, but we are expecting a couple of days around 30 degrees soon.
It is too hot here really, NP, with 40 degrees due on Saturday. 23 sounds like paradise.
Will be heading for the hills and time in a forest, where it’s a bit cooler.
When you get on to the weather the exchange is becoming stagnant.
Well, Loke, you’re used to extreme heat down in Ibiza, being in baking-hot France for the last fortnight has been an unwelcome shock for me, eg I’ve been out for a walk just once and that was only for 45 minutes. So coping with this weather (with very little breeze, far from the sea and without much air-con where I’m staying) has superseded other concerns on the ‘what’s important’ list for me. Sad, but true (lol).
Haha, Lokesh, it’s not often we just shoot the breeze, usually discussions are vaguely Osho-related. But when you people are on holiday I feel a certain leeway.
Cool. My life feels like an endless holiday. Touch wood! I like it. It was 37 on Ibiza today. Too hot. Going down town to watch a ton of fireworks light up the sky.
I just came across this fragment…
“It is in your hands whether to create paradise or to fall into a darkness, into hellfire. These are not outside you; these both are within you. It all depends what you choose to be.
Choose to be divine, choose to be more and more a celebrant, choose to be festive, so more and more flowers can blossom in your being, and more and more fragrance can become available to you.”
( Osho, ‘The Razor’s Edge’ )
“Joy is light. And joy is the beginning of a great pilgrimage which ends in finding God.”
( Osho, ‘The Razor’s Edge’ )
It puts me in mind of experiences I have had on the edge of sleep. Some were light, some were dark. There was a certain discomfort in it, and drama also. This question of Chitbodhi’s…it reminds me of that. But I hadn’t heard that Joy would be the beginning of a pilgrimage. That was beautiful.
Thank you, Osho.
Chitbodhi’s question was:
“Beloved Osho,
You are the well. All the time when I came there was fresh water waiting for me, cleaning and purifying me, taking me apart and putting me together in a different, more beautiful way. Now for the first time I feel the courage to be so close that I can see my face mirrored in your water. I’m afraid, Osho, and also full of joy.”
It was the second question in ‘The Razor’s Edge’, #7.
In a way, the question of joy and fear comes down to the inner fascinations that we carry. If you spend too much time looking at the darkness it becomes hard to let it go, it clings.
Last night I was watching a movie called ‘Ponyo’, an animation by Hayao Miyazaki. I am a great fan of Miyazaki’s films, but this one had always struck me as a little childish… yet on this viewing I tremendously enjoyed it. It had goldfish turning into humans, the strong bond between mother and children, a rising sea which puts the land under water, a magician father who manages an explosion of life through his elixirs… a wonderful adventure in short. And without a major enemy, much like real life.
For me, the Studio Ghibli films are a shining example of how to live without darkness. The media propagates a lot of darkness in the name of excitement, in crime thrillers, supernatural horror, serial killer series, and before you know it you become fascinated by it, and it becomes hard to truly live a positive life because you know too much, and you become conditioned by the cycle of “threat-excitement-resolution-reward”. It’s a dopamine rush.
Ultimately, choosing anything other than a positive path seems insane. So I look at Osho’s recommendation of putting your energy in the direction of joy, of becoming more festive, a celebrant, as very healthy, and also a challenge to dropping seeing darkness as exciting, which is false and not true in the real world.
To see the true as true, and the false as false is a lifelong journey.
Sounds a bit artificial for me.
How long can you be joyful?
Is sadness not also part of life?
There has to be some variation, that’s true. But just as there are clinical states which can be taken as dysfunctional and to be avoided: paranoia, high anxiety, and so on, I think there are also certain spiritual states to be avoided.
If you give your attention and energy to that which brings you joy, then you create more joy for yourself. It’s an upward spiral. If you let yourself get seduced into looking for darkness, you end up empowering a downward spiral.
When I’m busy doing woodworking or pottery, I get a satisfaction and pleasure from it. It’s like eating a good potato dish instead of a chocolate; the chocolate tastes delicious, is over quickly and leaves you wanting more, while the potatoes truly feed and sustain you. That’s what I mean by a ‘joyful’ activity, if you can look for that quality in the things you do you will be happier for it.
I thought I’d share my morning meditation on joy, which began with my early morning coffee. There were cool breezes coming in from the gardens, and some chirping of birds. It promises to be a warm day.
In the interest of searching for joy, I thought I’d compose a list of the things that gave me joy. Some were basic human activities such as eating and drinking, some were involved with using the body like bicycling and showering, some were involved with making things, and yet others were about stories, and yet more were about loving. All these things seem to feed something of the spirit, and on some level give me joy.
Now I can just spend more time doing these activities, and immerse myself in what I enjoy, but there is more to it. By meditating on joy I consciously give my energy and attention to my joy, and it seems to shift certain things inside me. I feel lighter and clearer, less full of heaviness, more pure.
It seems my spirit knows how to do this, and I just need to be meditatively conscious of my joy and the things that go into it. A wonderful feeling!
Namasté my friends, may you have an excellent day!
A friend, who sometimes visits SN, sent me a photograph and told me this is Satchit. I must admit he looks a lot better than I imagined. Imagine!
Well imagine that, someone who knows me must have pointed them at my Facebook account because this is the photo I use there… pleased to meet you all!
Hang on a minute, I’ve just checked in the mirror and that’s me in the photo. My God, I’m trying to keep a low profile here and this happens – disappointing.
Finally you have revealed my existence,
Lokesh.
God loves you!
It’s funny, I search Google for “Osho on joy” and the top hit is this article on Osho.com on ‘emotional ecology’ and it’s a section from the same talk from ‘The Razor’s Edge’ that I quoted above, so if you want to read those quotes in context, here is the link…
https://www.osho.com/read/featured-articles/emotional-ecology/joy-is-light
It is a little cleaned up… the reference to God became godliness, for instance, which I can see is of benefit to many first time readers, because when when he talks about God Osho does not mean the Christian God, but something more like the unified essence of life. But in a way it also slightly diminishes the impact of the statement ‘joy is the beginning of a long pilgrimage to God’ which has something more personal to it that I am sad to lose.
I find it a beautiful section because it both points to the method — putting your energy and awareness into joy — and to the eventual goal, a meeting with godliness. With many steps in between, like a little mysticism, a little bliss, a little insight…
Overall, a good article, worth reading.
God is the lover.
Maybe it is not a long journey at all.
Just a question of being receptive.
Receptive to “God”, Satchit? That sounds like a cliche. What exactly do you mean by that phrase?
The problem is, SD, if one speaks of “cliches”, one is already not open, not receptive, to a certain topic.
I mean, receptive to something bigger than you.
The basic problem here though, Satchit, is one communicates nothing by communicating in cliches. This is clearly your responsibility, but you attempt to throw it onto me.
Please try to explain exactly what you mean as until you do I’m not sure you yourself know.
You are funny, SD, is it a problem if you don’t know if I know or not?
We talk about God.
And everybody knows that there is no God.
So we talk about nothing.
Or was it nonsense?
Some call it stand-up poetry!
Wou wou.
No, you’re the one who brings “God” into this, Satchit. If you have a problem explaining what you mean then you make it difficult, or even impossible, for others to understand you. And likewise, for you to understand yourself.
Instead of taking refuge in cliches and avoiding the issue, as if it’s all impossible for you or anyone else to grasp, why not try explaining what you mean by “God is the lover”?
Ok, let’s be serious.
Ever read poems of Rumi?
Are they not all in the context:
‘God is the Lover or Beloved’?
Yes, Satchit. And Rumi was an easterner, and of a totally different time and culture to ours, the Persia of 800 years ago.
What does “God is the Lover or Beloved” actually mean, eg as a reality in your moment-to-moment, hour-by-hour daily life? Not as a ‘lovely spiritual concept’, food for your imagination and about which you can entertain yourself with beautiful fantasies.
SD, what you write suggests that there is something wrong with me.
I don’t see something wrong with me.
Do feel there is something wrong with you?
MOD:
Satchit, should there be ‘you’ as in ‘Do you feel’? Or an ‘I’ as in ‘Do I feel?’
That’s the sort of answer that comes from someone who can’t or won’t answer the question, resorting to the old political trick of creating an irrelevant response in order to put the questioner on the defensive.
Or would rather not even consider it (in case it might burst a bubble or two that are important to his belief system and his reputation).
Satchit, relax, there is nothing wrong with being stupid. The world is full of stupid people.
Sorry, SD, this discussion is useless.
It does not lead to anything.
I don’t want to waste my time.
Satchit wastes a lot of time by wasting other people’s time, even when there are no other people, according to Ramana.
An Osho quote is in order:
“Look for the deathless and remain alert; don’t waste your time with that which is not going to endure, don’t waste your life for that which is going to change, which is part of the changing world.”
Hmm. I think what is meant is the divine nature of existence. The guiding principles that underlie matter and consciousness, which almost seem to be an intelligence…
So this morning I was considering whether joy comes in different flavours. Whether there might be a transcendent joy that is different in quality from, say, the joy of a morning coffee. My conclusion was that they are not different in quality but only in degree…an ecstatic whirling dance may give a feeling that is more intense, but it is still the same joy.
I do think that beyond a certain point joy becomes gratitude and prayer, when it overflows. When you’ve had as much joy as you can handle, and you’re almost beyond thought, if you don’t push it away it becomes a gratitude to the divine which has come visiting you.
Ultimately, joy is the pleasure of the divine shining in little bits through the everyday activities we do. In a way it is the divine rewarding you for following your life’s given purpose, for paying attention to those things that fit with your inside and outside.
So to meditate on your joy is to recognise those areas where your life most closely approaches the divine. It’s a worthwhile search to undertake.
NP, terribly sorry about the photo mix-up. I had a feeling that handsome chap was not Satchit. Fortunately, my internet research has produced one photo that might well be of Satchit.
It could be him… it really could…
Yes, NP, I think I might be on to something. Golly! How exciting!
Loco-boy, your schoolyard games are a bit
childish. How old are you? Six, seven?
Ah yes, your inner child wants attention.
It’s all just a reflection, swami.
A small fragment for your consideration this morning:
“Milarepa, a poet is not in search of truth. His search is for beauty, and through the search for beauty nobody has ever become enlightened. One can become a great poet, a great painter, a great singer, a great dancer; but on the path of beauty, enlightenment is not possible.
The seeker of truth, and only the seeker of truth, attains to enlightenment. And this is the miracle of enlightenment, that once you have discovered truth, then beauty, the good, and all that is valuable simply become available to you.
Beauty cannot lead to enlightenment, but enlightenment opens your eyes to all dimensions and all directions.”
(Osho, ‘The Razor’s Edge’, discourse #10)
It always seemed to me that in beauty, the proportion of line and space, you can still see echoes of the divine, but how that relates to enlightenment is beyond me.
Well, that is probably because enlightenment is beyond you. I have dropped the idea of enlightenment. It is enough just to live every day and trust that I have what it takes to fully embrace the death process when it kicks in good and proper. What a long, strange trip it’s been.
Why is Lokesh constantly repeating that he has dropped enlightenment?
If I would have get an euro each time he mentions it, I would be rich
meanwhile.
Satchit, your idea of what being rich represents sounds pretty poor.
You would have done better getting paid a euro for every time Osho said, “Enough for today.”
Lokesh, a zenmaster would tell you:
“You have dropped enlightenment.
Now you go and drop the dropper too!”
Is that so?
Satchit, sometimes you can be quite funny… it’s a talent!
Funniness is a quality of the centre.
You can also be funny, NP.
Dig deeper!
That might be so…a few years ago I was reading U.G. Krishnamurti for the first time and I came across this passage:
“I discovered for myself and by myself that there is no self to realize – that’s the realization I am talking about. It comes as a shattering blow. It hits you like a thunderbolt. You have invested everything in one basket, self-realisation, and, in the end, suddenly you discover that there is no self to discover, no self to realise – and you say to yourself “What the hell have I been doing all my life?!” That blasts you.”
But the irony is, after that he did go through a certain kind of enlightenment, although he said you wouldn’t want it if you had the choice. Still I found U.G. refreshing, and that was a first stopping-point for my search.
I find Osho’s attitude to enlightenment ambivalent. Sometimes he says, just drop it. Sometimes he says, you can’t make it happen. And sometimes it seems like it is something he wants for his sannyasins.
Surely all three are simultaneously true, NP? Of course he wanted enlightenment for his people, and yet paradoxically he knew that it can’t be forced, so it’s better to drop it as a goal so as not to feed the ever-ambitious mind that would only get in the way, hindering a natural process that comes to fruition in its own good time.
Yes, well spotted, but he talks about it as if it’s some great goal, and then elsewhere he talks about it as if it’s a simple thing… I suppose that too could be simultaneously true: It’s just my mind, saying “great goal, must be an important, long and arduous search” and also “simple realisation, must be easy to achieve and relatively unimportant”, and then “aargh, does not compute!!”
Sounds as if it’s a simple state but hard to reach, thanks to the usual suspects:
Over-thinking and aberrant emotion – or rather, identifying with these imposters.
I recommend:
Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh,
The Book of the Secrets,
Vol. 5, Chapter 2: Enlightenment – the most ordinary phenomenon.
Could be that Lokesh has swallowed a condom.
Is it so?
Swallowed a condom? I’m lost for words.
“swallowed a condom” is not from me.
There is still a dwarf here who changes comments.
A dwarf with a sense of humour perhaps?
Reminds me of the famous lines of English Romantic poet John Keats in ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’:
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty — that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know”.
I remember our excellent 6th form English teacher, admitting he found this difficult to understand, and we (supposedly high-flying) pupils didn’t really get it either.
Now I see “Beauty is truth” as very much a poet’s rather than a mystic’s statement, while “truth (is) beauty” seems to veer towards the mystical, although I don’t think Keats, despite his extreme sensibility and poetic genius, had any overtly spiritual aspirations. He wasn’t a healthy or particularly happy man, an ongoing theme of his short life being unrequited love.
A nice turn of phrase by Keats. Although whether it’s strictly accurate in todays world of Instagram influencer models kind of begs the question. These days, beauty is money, and money corrupts.
The world moves so fast… it is easy to forget that Osho never encountered the Internet, let alone the smartphone. He was a man of the era of print media, books and newspapers and photos.
In a way, sannyasins by definition have spiritual aspirations — that is what drew so many to Osho. So he couldn’t really say what U.G. said.
“Enlightenment is a simple realization that everything is as it should be.”
(Osho, ‘The Fish in the Sea is Not Thirsty’)
This section is later in the same discourse…
“In the East, we have defined the ultimate values as three: satyam, shivam, sundaram. Satyam means truth – that is the highest. The seeker, the mystic follows that path. Then comes shivam: goodness, virtue. The moralist, the saint, the sage – they follow that path. And sundaram means beauty. The poets, the singers, the musicians – they follow that path.
Those who attain to truth automatically come to know what is good and what is beauty. Those who follow good, neither come to know what is true, nor do they come to know what is beauty. The followers of good – the moralists, the puritans – also never achieve enlightenment. All that they achieve is a repressed personality – very beautiful on the surface, but deep inside very ugly. They have great reputation, honor, respect, but inside they are hollow.
The people who follow sundaram, beauty, are inside fulfilled, utterly fulfilled, but their misery is that that is not their aim: just to be fulfilled. They want all that they have experienced to be brought into language, into paintings, into sculpture, into architecture. Hence, even though they have experienced beautiful spaces they remain anxiety-ridden.”
(Osho, ‘The Razor’s Edge’)
It makes me wonder. My stepfather, Swami Anand Yatri, was the consummate artist and designer in the family. He had a wonderful sense of space and colour, yet in his final years on Planet Earth he was not really content. He had spent many years close to Osho in Poona One but he hadn’t really expressed what it meant to him, he was always writing notes about that last book.
Are artists doomed to leave these things unexpressed in their lives? Rabindranath Tagore,. when he was dying, according to Osho’s story said, “he had not yet sung the song that he had been born to sing.”
I have considered exerting myself in that way, to try and bring some part of my spiritual experience into the form of a novel or series of interlinked stories. But now I’m wondering whether that might not be futile.
NP writes, ”I have considered exerting myself in that way, to try and bring some part of my spiritual experience into the form of a novel or series of interlinked stories. But now I’m wondering whether that might not be futile.”
It would be futile only if you began on a wrong foot. For example, thinking you are going to write a best-seller, or believing the world needs to hear what you have to say.
The trick is to enjoy the process and forget about goals. Writing in itself is a very rewarding endeavour. You learn a lot about yourself by simply doing it.
Painting is fun. I always have a painting on the go. Sometimes I spend all day on it. I also leave it for a few days to figure out where to take it. I have sold a few hundred paintings, although it did not make me rich. Some people love what I do. Others think I am just another crazy artist living in Ibiza. I do not care because I enjoy it.
I just finished this one today. Titled ‘Hooter’.
Wow, that’s busy and colourful! And very modern…it reminds me a little of some of the paintings I saw on OshoNews, that also used lots of dots.
Of course you’re right, it is mostly about the journey not the goal. When I was making games I always used to follow my passion.
These days I don’t know so much what is happening with my creative impulse. Perhaps I am too relaxed to be creative!
The creative impulse comes and goes. It will arise, sooner or later.
Not everybody can be a writer or a painter.
Whatever you do in a loving and joyful way is a creation.
Satchit, perhaps you should try being a bit more creative on SN, instead of delivering your recycled spiritual cliches…in a joyful and loving way, of course.
Lokesh, everybody who writes here shares his/her creativity. Maybe your big artist-ego will not like it, anyway it is simply the case.
Is that an example of you being loving and joyful, Satchit?
I’ve been reading Sadhguru’s book ‘Inner Engineering’ the last few days. It is part autobiographical, part about different kinds of yoga. Some of the stories he tells are amusing, about people living to a great age, or yogis running great distances overnight. He talks about not having had a spiritual teacher, about his enlightenment experience, about his youth and early learnings in yoga.
One of the things he talks about is how “the yogic sciences do not speak of the mind or the soul. Everything is just a body — whether it is a food body, a mind body, an energy body, an etheric body, or a bliss body.” It is a simpler, easier to imagine system than, for example, the Buddhist one. There are various boxed sections titled ‘Sadhana’ where he leaves exercises to the reader.
I have heard it said that Sadhguru paid close attention to Osho’s career, but I don’t think he set out to become Osho 2.0. He doesn’t have Osho’s opinion of the mind, science or engineering — these were things Osho didn’t really get on with, and he also doesn’t have Osho’s debating skill. I find him an interesting character, I like how he walks between the magical and the scientific.
I find Sadhguru rather dull, uninspiring, there’s little or no attraction there for me. I find myself wondering how authentic he is, and at the very least, how relevant he is to westerners, although there’s this suspicion he’s trying his best to have a cosmopolitan appeal.
Very similar to my original views, which I thought made sense for those with some experience in Indian spirituality! But then I came across the SaveSoil campaign, and Sadhguru’s motorbike trip through 26 countries in support of it, and I thought maybe he deserves a closer look…
https://consciousplanet.org/en/save-soil
Which led to me buying the book.
Ok, good for him if he’s done that.
I finished the book, and I have to say I enjoyed the stories. Some of them are Sadhguru saying, “I did this great energetic feat” which you can choose to buy into or not, it’s not built on any deep truths, and similarly his tales about Adiyogi are fun but not historical fact.
Still, some of it rang true, and I got a fair energetic charge out of it, it seemed to ‘do something’. The idea of kriya yoga, the unseen energetic action, was interesting. And there was a passage about every body being an accumulation of the material you had taken in…the physical body consists of all the food you have eaten, the mind body consists of books and education…and these things are headed towards the grave.
In the end there is a bit where he talks about this generation having for the first time all the things needed to solve the world’s problems — hunger, poverty, education. But in fact what is lacking is consciousness. People are too much caught up in their small problems to appreciate the larger opportunities.
This morning I came across this…
“Love belongs to the heart, and heart is very moody. Sometimes you are full of love, and sometimes utterly empty, sometimes dancing, and sometimes with tears of joy; and sometimes nothing happens. The heart is very seasonal – one season comes and it is raining; another season comes and it is summer; another season comes and it is winter. And seasons go on changing, so love goes on changing.”
(Osho, ‘The Razor’s Edge’, #10)
I remember this from my childhood, but very often these days my heart is quiet. Sometimes when I listen closely I hear it murmur about water pools and reeds and moss. Or about Zen gardens and leaves and flowers.
When a thunderstorm comes in the summer, my heart often speaks about the safety of our house, the patter of raindrops against the window, the gusting of the wind. I will lie on my bed and look at the sky outside, where clouds move over the neighbourhood.
I just finally finished this one, ‘Hooter’, today.
Did you apply a kind of wash to get those wavy-line effects through the middle of the painting? It looks kind of psychedelic now, as opposed to the quite-precise look it had before.
It seems to me that as we get older a certain fire goes out of the mind. It’s like when we are young we believe in things with a passion, and this breathes life into the imagination and light into mind. Inspiration comes easily…then when you get older, we are burdened with many years of thought and reading, and it obscures the light within.
I was watching the latest film by the Japanese film maker and animator Hayao Miyazaki yesterday, titled ‘The Boy and The Heron’. It was surprisingly mature in tone, almost serious, while many of his previous titles like ‘My Neighbour Totoro’ are homages to lightheartedness and childhood and magic, this was more a fable addressed to an adult audience. Worth watching, but perhaps one for his fans rather than a first-timer.
It set me in mind of thinking about the value of the imagination. It enables us to see mythology everywhere, the principles of life of mind and the cosmos, but it doesn’t necessarily lead us to truth. It just shows you a slice of the world, but do you really need to know all that? The imagination can lead you a merry dance. But at the same time, imagination can lead to transformation, can show you new things.
NP, here is the soundtrack for your latest musings:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uY4cVhXxW64
A couple of years ago I riffed on Imagination’s ‘Illusion’ melodic hook, mixing in Grand Master Flash’s ‘The Message’, which in turn runs into some more rapper’s delight with a soulful vibe. It never received many hits, but listening to it now it still sounds good to my ears:
https://soundcloud.com/luke-mitchell/mixed-message
That’s a pretty decent song @lokesh, it had my toes tapping at various moments!
A pot luck wash.
I was considering this quote…
“The right use of mind is in the service of truth, love, beauty.”
(Nisargadatta)
Often in the modern world the mind is used in pursuit of profit, efficiency, utility…but within our spiritual search we can use it to pursue the more lofty goals. Usually that’s associated with having dreams, some distant goal to chase.
So how do dreams associate themselves with truth? In a way I think this has to do with clarity. In a dream I am often caught up in romance or coziness, gentle dreams of good feeling. But I usually don’t have clarity, and as I wake up and arrive in the real world, clarity returns.
“Rita, sannyas is always difficult. But only the first step, because it is a transformation from one style of life to a totally different style of life. Mind always finds it difficult to adjust to new ways of life. The old way you seem to be well-acquainted with; you can walk on it with closed eyes, almost asleep, like a robot. But the new way will need alertness, awareness; the new way will need learning life from scratch.
Sannyas is simply an initiation into new spaces within you, a change from the head to the heart, from logic to love, from your ordinary conditioning to an unconditioned mind, to a freedom which you are not even aware that you are capable of.”
(Osho, ‘The Razor’s Edge’ #21)
I was listening to this entire discourse this morning, and I found it very beautiful… Osho saying “just be here” to someone who is in the ways of the head and just needs to dance. Learning to be free from the crowd, because when has a crowd ever gotten enlightened?
NP asks, “When has a crowd ever gotten enlightened?”
I’ve no idea. Never?
It seems to me NP is still chewing on the golden carrot of enlightenment. Somehow the times have changed and the concept of enlightenment does not appear so golden, at least to my jaded eyes. It sounded great when Osho was alive, a real possibility, but now it seems like language from another time.
NP reports that he is constantly reading Osho books and listening to Osho discourses, hence his enthusiasm. He writes, “I was listening to this entire discourse this morning, and I found it very beautiful… Osho saying “just be here.” Okay, nothing new there. How many times do you need to be told to be here now before you get it? The thing is, if one is living intensely in the present, where is there room for enlightenment? Enlightenment is a goal somewhere in the future because it has not actually happened yet.
In a previous comment NP writes about using the mind to pursue the more lofty goals. This is a goal-orientated mindset. Goals are situated in the future. NP’s whole spiritual approach mostly seems to be based in his mind. He thinks about enlightenment. As Sunshine Superman, Donovan once sang, “You-you can just sit there a-thinking on your velvet throne ‘Bout all the rainbows a-you can a-have for your own.”
Suggested reading: ‘Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism’ by Chogyam Trumpa, which postulates that there is a different approach to the spiritual questions that NP is asking Osho to provide the answers to, instead of working them out for himself.
I know a few sannyasins who constantly absorb Osho’s words in one way or another. They have been at it for decades and they have not changed much for the better or become enlightened. It is like those old Western movies, where there is a Bible-thumping preacher, who has a biblical quote for every situation. It looks and sounds terrible. Now some sannyasins are doing the same thing, except they use Osho’s words.
When Osho was alive, his words were of secondary importance. Most important was the vibe, You do not need Osho’s words to keep that vibe alive, you just have to live it. Once in a while, my partner and I meet an old sannyasin friend and we comment about how they carried sannyas vibes, a compliment that has nothing at all to do with reading Osho books or listening to his discourses. It means that we saw them as someone who was vibrant and present and joyous.
Books and discourses have their place, but too much of that leaves a mouldy, stale and bookish smell around a sannyasin.
Much to chew over here, Lokesh…
When does listening to discourses become an exercise in nostalgia? To what extent does it help you stay in touch with Osho’s presence? Are Osho’s ideas for his sannyasins still alive in this day and age?
For me, listening to Osho’s words in a discourse are a way to be there again. The words themselves are not that important, except as they carry his vibe, they just keep the mind occupied while you sit in Buddha Hall. It is a form of meditation.
Osho said, “Sannyas is not a religion, it is a search” and in that way it never gets old. If you keep tossing out the past, and don’t pay too much attention to the future, the present stays fresh and we stay young, vibrant and joyful.
So in this way I think listening to Osho’s words is good as long as you don’t take it seriously, treat it as a meditation and not as something to learn. When he talks about Sheela and the gang, or about homosexuality, or AIDS, or about ancient politicians I just skip to the end of the discourse! He used to talk some rubbish sometimes.
As far as the “golden carrot of enlightenment” is concerned, thank you for getting me to see myself as Bugs Bunny! I think that about finishes enlightenment for me!
NP poses the following questions:
When does listening to discourses become an exercise in nostalgia?
I think that is very much a question to do with a person’s psychology. I’m not a nostalgic type, although I am occasionally moved by retro music. I do not listen to Osho discourses.
To what extent does it help you stay in touch with Osho’s presence?
Again, it all depends. I just need to summon up a memory of sitting talking to Osho to remember how I felt in his presence. Although I must be honest and say that Osho’s presence is something I am not concerned with. Being present to my self is enough to be going on with.
It is an interesting point because one has to be careful with projections around someone like Osho, dead or alive. One thing I particularly enjoyed about being around Poonjaji was that he would pull you up if he caught you projecting on him and make it very clear that this was your movie and not his.
Are Osho’s ideas for his sannyasins still alive in this day and age?
I think Osho still has something to offer through his talks and the meditation techniques he devised, not solely for sannyasins. As for the sannyas movement, it looks a bit cultish today (even more than in the past, if that is possible), viewed from my distant perspective, that is. I don’t really think much in sannyas terms today as it belongs to the past, a fantastic past perhaps, but the past all the same…the live show has been over for a long time now.
On that note, I was talking to my partner about visiting Poona. My main attraction would be the samadhi and going to see the farmer’s family whose land I lived on for some years. I am sure it would be fascinating. It is just the thought of India’s high pollution that puts me off, because I live in such a healthy place, and at my age I don’t want to get sick in India again. Almost dying there once is something I do not wish to repeat. It is a filthy country.
Lokesh said, “being present to myself is enough to be getting on with.”
Ah, now we are talking being aware, rather than a mystic’s awareness of other presences. It depends on what parts of yourself you choose to develop, what you get out of it. We’ve touched on a few major topics: the mind, illusion, reaction.
As long as you understand the mind is reflected in consciousness, along with the senses. Then you can start untangling how the mind reacts to what it sees reflected in consciousness, and through this gain a deeper understanding of your mind.
Bodhidharma once said, “if you can understand the mind, all else is included.”
I’ve found it helpful to be aware on the edge of sleep, while waking up in the morning especially. It allows you an opportunity to communicate with the parts of yourself that you don’t usually connect with.
Lokesh said, “it is just the thought of India’s high pollution that puts me off.”
India is not the cleanest of places, the first encounter with an Indian truckstop toilet gave a new meaning to filthy. But I wonder if it became cleaner, would it also not lose some of the things that made it India?
The last time I was at the ashram was in 1997, but my father travelled more widely, through Rishikesh, Varanasi and Dharamsala, and managed to do so without getting ill.
“The mind is reflected in consciousness”?
NP, had you not read spiritual books and lived in a remote place, I very much doubt you would have arrived at such a conclusion. It sounds like something you read in ‘I Am That’.
Maybe I was inspired. I’ve been reading a bit of Poonjaji’s satsangs today, and he says you cannot separate the senses from the mind. And he certainly has experienced more than me.
Osho said, “Sannyas is not a religion, it is a search.”
What did you find by searching? Wisdom?
Satchit, you certainly did not.
Lokesh, you certainly also did not.
I had an interesting discussion this morning with a friend over WhatsApp. She said, good morning, and posted a pic from a domain named WisdomMadeEasy. To which my reply was, are you in search of wisdom? I found myself getting quite passionate about wisdom in the early morning.
After all, what is wisdom really? You could say ‘wisdom is practical about living better’ which is certainly one aspect, but at the same time Zen stories contain much wisdom but they are not so easy to apply. I think wisdom is about looking a little more deeply into things, if you are content with the surface often there is little wisdom to be found.
I’m going to have another coffee…
Wisdom is not from the mind.
Wisdom means living in no-mind.
I know there are fools here who don’t like the word.
But what can I do?
Satchit, could you define what you mean by “no-mind”, please?
@ SD
A no-mind is a non-competitive, ordinary, silent mind.
Perhaps “ordinary” might not be an appropriate word though, as ordinarily the mind is anything but “silent”?
How about ‘untroubled by thought and emotion’?
Yes, everybody can define for himself.
I find “ordinary” appropriate.
Everybody wants to be special; chopping wood, carrying water is fine.
How about ‘content with being ordinary’?
Problem is only, “ordinary” is meant in an intrinsic way.
If you use it in a comparative way: “I am ordinary, but the King of England is not”, then you miss it.
I wouldn’t define a “non-competitive, silent” mind as “ordinary”. Most minds seem to be competitive and very talkative too. So your definition seems to contain a contradiction.
It depends how you define “ordinary”.
So how do you define no-mind?
Here’s what a dictionary says:
“Ordinary means usual, normal, or of no special quality.
Sometimes, the word is used in a negative way to mean somewhat inferior, below average, or just plain—in much the same way as the word mediocre.”
I agree with Nitya Prem that ‘ordinary’ is a confusing word to use when describing the mind (unless it’s used in the second sense of the above definition, to evaluate the quality of someone’s mental functioning or intellectual ability).
Satchit, using “ordinary” here you’re not so much describing the intrinsic nature of the mind, you’re focusing on the self-concept you think it creates when ‘in its proper place’. At least, that’s what my mind thinks you’re doing.
Ok, SD, the dictionary may be right.
Here’s what Osho says (whom do you believe more? lol).
“The only miracle, the impossible miracle, is to be just ordinary. The longing of the mind is to be extraordinary. The ego thirsts and hungers for the recognition that you are somebody. Somebody achieves that dream through wealth, somebody else achieves that dream through power, politics, somebody else can achieve that dream through miracles, jugglery, but the dream remains the same: I cannot tolerate being nobody.
And this is a miracle — when you accept your nobodiness, when you are just as ordinary as anybody else, when you don’t ask for any recognition, when you can exist as if you are not existing. To be absent is the miracle.” (Osho)
I suggest you re-read the first part of the dictionary definition of ‘ordinary’, Satchit, and then what I said later.
I did re-read the stuff, SD, and I still don’t know what you want to tell me.
Fact is, Osho used the expression “ordinary mind” many times as an opposite to ambitious mind.
You can even find a zen tarot card named ‘Ordinariness’ if you like.
The intrinsic nature of the unregulated mind is to want to run the show, to dominate one’s entire life, to persuade us that its thoughts and emotional interpretations are both real and worth following.
As I understand, it only relinquishes its control when faced with a higher power, conscious awareness, presence (or whatever one wants to call it), then it becomes a tool to use for practical purposes. Perhaps one might also say that this surrender is also a part of its intrinsic nature, as a horse or a dog can be trained to obey a person.
Apart from individual minds being evaluated as having limited ability, only in that sense can it be accurately termed ‘ordinary’, especially as its capacities include not only the most mundane but also the most complex and extraordinary (ie anything but ‘ordinary’).
Osho and others saying they and their minds are just ‘ordinary’ simply means they’re not troubled by the mind’s excesses of thinking and emotion, in other words they’re not subject to ‘normal’, mind-created unhappiness, thanks to having realised a higher level of consciousness.
And I’ve just been re-minded there’s housework to do to prepare for a visitor. And my mind tells me there’ll be trouble if I don’t help with that.
Ok, Satchit? Enough for today?
Satchit declares, “You can even find a zen tarot card named ‘Ordinariness’ if you like.”
Wow! This is extraordinary news.
You should not be so cynical, Lokesh.
It’s not good for you.
Frightfully sorry, Doctor Satchit, I was just trying to be ordinary like you.
It seems to me that the things you focus on with your mind are those tendencies that you end up feeding. If you are always focusing on your enemies, you are always busy creating hostility. In a way, if fear is your dominant emotion, like it was for me, then you will always be looking for the things to fear, and in your dreams you create hostility.
It is better to turn your thoughts to the divine, to the myths of our world and how the same divinity shines through all of them. So I have been reading a bit about Norse mythology last night, the stories of Odin and his ravens and Thor and the World Tree Yggdrasil this morning. These things can make you happy, like fine jewels sparkling in the sunlight.
These things are about the tendencies of one’s mind, what was there when you were young in seed-form. When I was a wee lad I went through a phase of being fascinated with guns, I was always asking my mother to buy toy pistols and rifles for me…it is a sign of a preoccupation with the enemy and with ways of striking back at him, and this fear extended for me into a kind of withdrawal into books, which you could argue continues even today.
The things you fear come and go, they are usually to do with the body. Now for me, the body’s nature has to do with love, and I have found if you can live in acceptance of all things, life becomes a lot easier. Every once in a while a sannyasin needs to stand up and just dance…
NP, you write, “It is better to turn your thoughts to the divine.”
How would you describe the divine and what difference does it make turning your thoughts towards it?
That’s a really good question. A luminous quality, wisdom, goodness in the presence of which one finds peace and solace, maybe? It’s something which we know but which is hard to analyse.
If you dwell on these things, on what the divine means to you, it should make your path easier to define and achieve, if you’re trying to manage a meeting with the divine at least…it all depends what you want to get out of your spiritual path.
Even if you don’t want to achieve anything, turning your thoughts to the divine should help you live a good life.
Sounds a little like what a Christian preacher might say, NP, and somehow I suspect that any sort of imagination can lead one astray in this area, into a sort of ‘dreamland’, delightful perhaps but mind-created for its convenience.
Ouch! Really? A Christian preacher… well, I suppose my grandfather would be proud.
It depends, imagination may help.
“Faith can move mountains”.
In Germany we even have an Olympic winner with her faith in God.
Sure, imagination has wonderful powers if used rightly but do you really think imagination can lead you to the Truth?
I recall Barry Long at times used to talk about ‘longing for the divine’, but definitely not with mental images of what or how one imagines it might be. “Stay with the longing”, he would say.
That is good advice! As soon as you start forming an image you create expectations that cannot be met, but that distort what you perceive as well.
“lead you to the Truth”
Can you please define “Truth”, SD?
I still remember the saying: “Truth is what works”.
So if imagination works and makes people happy, what’s wrong?
Well, Satchit, there’s relative truth and ultimate Truth. If you’ve been a sannyasin and don’t know the difference even in theory, after several decades, then I suggest you might well have wasted your time.
Reminds me of this old phrase:
“I am here to get you to get that there is nothing to get.
Did you get it?”
Sounds like an excuse for laziness, could be dangerous for some people (no names mentioned, of course).
Sri Sri Satchit asks, ‘Did you get it?’
No, I did not. And neither did anyone else. The old phrase he refers to does not exist. Perhaps it is so old it is lost in antiquity, or perhaps, going back in time even further, it was said by Tig the caveman. More likely it is just a case of His Clicheness talking nonsense.
The Gospel of Love
https://youtu.be/jgRCAj9xGuE?si=bWLBpr8KMylqwdij
Divine looks like NP’s kind of woman. Here is a link to one of his/her better-known songs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOUcb2wlGzg
This is more my scene…
https://youtu.be/LBhjE__IhqE
“All thoughts and emotions are not real. They are like the waves that dance on the surface of the ocean for a few seconds or minutes, and then return. Then they are no longer waves, but ocean.”
(Poonjaji)
I found this quote interesting because it so clearly demonstrates the temporary nature of thought and emotion. When you observe thoughts with equanimity and don’t identify with them, the thoughts stop coming so frequently, and you get a measure of peace.
I was watching this video about the sunrise in Varanasi…
https://youtu.be/3S9xOws1BtI
It really made me remember India, and also want to go back there. Maybe worth a view for nostalgia’s sake.
Zandfoort is closer…and cleaner.
Yeah…but the interview with the Italian guy Shiva Das who came to Banares when he was 22 and ended up staying and becoming a sadhu and who now in his seventies goes to have a bath in the Ganges every morning at 4.30…it’s an amazing life story to live in simplicity and devotion like that. It speaks to me of a mind which is attuned to different things, not to movies and tv and books and possessions, but to a spiritual life… I’m glad there are still people doing it somewhere in the world.
You see, I can get up at four o’clock and take a shower at home, it will be clean water in a de-calcified glass cubicle, but it won’t be the same as greeting the sunrise on the banks of a holy river.
Holy river?
You are a romantic seeker, NP.
If there is holiness on earth, then every river is a holy river.
I tend to agree with you, Satchit, although the many centuries of spiritual associations, still very much alive today, exert a powerful influence on the, er, wait for it…imagination (shock, horror!).
India, although, like everywhere, is very much ‘going west’, still has a particular psychic climate, a special vibe that can exert a powerful spell on the spiritual traveller. The question for the seeker is whether a romantic sensibility degenerates into undiscriminating sentimentality, and whether traditional Indian religious practices are of any use to us westerners.
Analysis, schmanalysis…
If you live from the heart, then the story of the Italian baba who bathes every morning in the Ganges means something.
Here in the West you don’t have people who renounce all worldly possessions and sit around internally repeating mantras all day. It’s a beautiful thing.
NP, I don’t find it beautiful that people sit around internally repeating mantras all day. I’d say they’re wasting their time, tranquilising themselves into further states of delusion.
Renouncing all for the life of a monk in India might suit someone, or perhaps a minute fraction of western seekers, and it might appear wonderfully meaningful to you but from a safe distance it’s easy to glamourise such things, especially in contrast to the deadly dull, materialistic grind of the average western life, or even to your own relatively satisfying one.
If you find it so beautiful then why not trade fantasy for reality and give it a try? If not now, then later, when you’re free of other responsibilities. Your response to this suggestion should indicate where you’re really at, as opposed to where you are in your dreams.
There is a certain psychic weight to spirituality in India, it’s a way of life for them. The Ganges is not any river, the Khumbh Mela is not any festival, a guru is not any man… People living trying to find their inner nature, going to live in forests or in caves or on mountains, abandoning the material world…sounds tempting.
In the West I have to manage bank accounts, pension funds, tax statements, a house, and so on. It doesn’t make me happy.
NP writes, “People living trying to find their inner nature, going to live in forests or in caves or on mountains, abandoning the material world…sounds tempting.”
It certainly does, if you do not know any better. The sannyas way is to live in the marketplace. All that East/West divide went down the Ganges decades ago. A survey on ‘Global Attitudes on Materialism, Finances and Family’ (conducted by Ipsos – an independent leading market research firm, December 2013) showed that India is the second most materialistic country among certain Asia-Pacific Countries, after China.
If you look at the merchants and actors and lawyers that’s probably true, the professional people. India has gotten wealthier, the cars flashier.
But at the same time if you look at Indian YouTube channels, they still talk about the Indian way of life. The four stages of Hindu life, brahmacharya, grihastha, vanaprastha, sannyasa, going from student to householder to retired to renounced. About mantra transmissions and recitation. There is still a respect for people who live this traditional life.
The Khumbh Mela is this giant festival where all the Hindu sadhus come together, people who haven’t been heard from for years come out of isolation and mix with the householders and devout followers. You read stories like a sadhu who accompanies a householder and shows him around all the temples and bathes with him at the mela, and in the end he accompanies him to the train and says “remember me.”
I have a respect for people who choose to renounce their material possessions at some stage in life, it speaks of living in totality, of being one-minded in your commitment. Osho said one thing, live in the marketplace, but he did something else, living like a retired guru in an ashram. But in the end you don’t want to be a crowd, like the Sufi who went to see the Master in the mountains and had to clean shoes for three months before he could come in to see him…
Yes indeed, NP, the wonder of the traditional, mysterious, colourful eastern spiritual culture, making our own seem so dull, drab, boring. It’s obviously cast its spell upon your fertile imagination and it can seem (but apologies if it’s an unfair comment) that you’ve simply swapped the fantasy world of creating computer games for another sort of fantasy, believing there you’ll find what you’re looking for.
Your comment about Osho recommending one thing and doing another misrepresents him and his situation. By the time he moved into the Pune ashram he was about 41, he’d done it all, he didn’t need to prove his marketplace credentials, and his lifestyle was perfectly geared to work as effectively as possible to help the thousands coming to him and to protect his increasingly vulnerable health and well-being.
Seems you are in a spiritual crisis, NP.
And it is not a question of Banares or Zandvoort….
What I’m looking for is a lightness of being, the freedom of a bird on the wing, a cleanness from emotional blocks and trauma.
I don’t think that is a fantasy, I have followed the paths of Tao and Zen where they chimed with my being, much to my betterment.
Have you ever had regular personal contact with a live spiritual teacher, NP? From what you’re saying I’ve a feeling that could make a significant difference, could help set you free. ‘The ripeness is all’, as the saying goes, and you seem to qualify….
Hmm. I’ve done some lengthy courses with Buddhist monks and with a spiritual counsellor here. I’ve met some Christian priests. But I see what you mean…
The Tao Te Ching says “the man of knowledge gains something new every day, the Man of Tao lets something go every day.” It is an ancient wisdom, a movement to letting go, to becoming ever more one-pointed, more total.
Being in the marketplace means keeping the trader’s mindset, being alert for customers. It means tracking profit and loss, inventory, buying and selling. The business of making money. Osho saying he is the rich man’s guru, what foolishness.
In the end, what I have found is the things you own also own you, they take up mind space and force you to care for them. The fewer things you have, the lighter your burdens.
During my time in Zandvoort I got to see all the contents of my flat as superfluous. Books, poof. DVD collection, poof. Tv, poof. Game console, poof. In the end, I boxed up what remained and put it in storage and started living out of one chest of clothes. I gave a lot of things away into charity.
Live light, live free….
“Being in the marketplace means keeping the trader’s mindset, being alert for customers. It means tracking profit and loss, inventory, buying and selling. The business of making money. Osho saying he is the rich man’s guru, what foolishness.”
No, NP, being in the marketplace simply means living in, participating in the world, not renouncing it and separating oneself from the rest of humanity. Eg having a job, not necessarily running a business that consumes huge proportions of time and energy.
I’ve always understood Osho was referring to the freedom wealth confers in contrast to the stress caused by being poor. Another point being that great worldly success and wealth can lead to questioning, “I’ve made it, I’m a great success. But something’s missing. Is this all there is?” While unsuccessful, poor, or less well off people tend to yearn for financial freedom as a primary goal.
Barry Long used to speak of “the monastery of the world”, a context where one’s being, awareness, and degree of realisation is constantly challenged. He would recommend being part of it for that reason, although he advised leaving any work situation where one was unhappy: “Quit or surrender” (to the difficult situation) summed up his approach.
Satyadeva said, “While unsuccessful, poor, or less well off people tend to yearn for financial freedom as a primary goal.”
Except in India, where the poor seem to be more spiritual than the rich.
Spiritual, or merely seeking consolation because India’s poor know there’s very little hope in material terms for them?
You seem to want to idealise such people. Would you ever choose to live long-term as a poor man in India?
“The fewer things you have, the lighter your burdens.”
This is fake news from a mind pretending to be spiritual.
Only choicelessness makes the burden light.
Choicelessness is achieved by very few, shedding possessions that you don’t need is a lot easier for most. Look up declutterring sometime.
The jury is still out as to whether or not one has a choice.
Ramana boils it all down to only having two real choices in life. Whether or not to accept that everything that happens to you in life is preordained. This is a koan.
Gurdjieff said, “Man thinks he has a choice. In reality, he has nothing but the illusion of choice.”
Satchit parrots, “Only choicelessness makes the burden light.”
I say he has not a clue about what he is talking about. He picks something up somewhere for whatever reason and then repeats it as if he undersatnds, when he does not.
“Look up decluttering sometime.”
Yes, people are free to do what they want.
Or they are not free, it’s all destiny, the Whole decides.
I know that Buddhists like decluttering.
For what? For efficiency? For an empty space?
Things also belong to us. They are part of our story, our memories.
Why get rid of them?
Did you get rid of your mala too?
Satyadeva said, “You seem to want to idealise such people. Would you ever choose to live long-term as a poor man in India?”
I would wish for them to have happiness, which cannot be bought, but which can be found in Freedom. I don’t think that’s idealising people, just acknowledging that the quest for happiness is universal.
Often it is people’s desires that make them unhappy, whether they realise it or not. People who think they are too fat, lonely and wanting a rich husband, envious of the status of others, it all is desire and part of the mind.
So I think whether you are rich or poor, there is a way to happiness, as long as you know the art of being satisfied with life’s small pleasures. A cup of tea, or a favourite piece of music on the radio.
As a child, your expectations are small. As an adult, things get out of hand. Your desires get large, until you start on the spiritual path and let it all go again, recognising the ultimate futility of the thing.
In Poonjaji the other day I read “this is the discrimination of the burning ghat: in the end there is nothing left of your body but a few ounces of ash.” And you can’t take possessions or family with you when you go.
NP writes, “Except in India, where the poor seem to be more spiritual than the rich.”
On one level it depends on how one defines ‘spiritual’. On another level it sounds like utter uninformed bullshit.
I see NP as a fantasist. He becomes fascinated by ayahuasca, but instead of travelling to the Amazon jungle to try it or go to a local ceremony, he watches videos about it on Youtube. Now becoming a sadhu in India looks attractive because he wants to be free. It is an illusion. The journey is within. Changing geographical location brings novelty, which soon wears off. The mind is always restless and drives one to move around looking for external change. This is most people’s position.
It was Ouspensky who really woke me up to the power of imagination. Indulging in imaginative fantasies is a waste of time and energy. Directed imagination is a powerful tool in the creative dimension.
Osho really tore the lid off the holy bullshit Hindu trip. Yes, Hinduism has produced masters etc., but mainstream Hinduism is an even bigger fairytale fantasy than exoteric Christianity. Run. lads, here comes Lord Shiva, he just cut his son’s head off and replaced it with an elephant head, when his wife, Parvati, became a trifle upset. Light an incense stick for Lord Ganesh, the overcomer of obstacles. NP’s main obstacle is indulging in fantasies he will never seek to fulfil because he does not feel passionate enough about it. Too busy watching vids on Youtube.
I’m speaking from experience. I am constantly on guard against indulging in fantasies. Yes, life might not appear so magical without fantasy. Day to day life can appear boring: wake up, breakfast, go out, return home, have a cup of coffee etc. But it only appears boring to those who are blind to the fact that life is miraculous, absolutely amazing. A blessing. You do not need to go and sit in Varanasi to find that out, you can do it at home, and at the same time feel grateful that you have a home, unlike the millions of poor people in India who have nothing. They don’t have the time to be spiritual, they are too busy trying to find something to eat.
Very funny post, Lokesh, you made me laugh. Whether I am a fantasist I am not so sure…I take you along on my magical mystery tour of books and ideas, it’s just something to talk about. I suppose there is an element of fantasy and enchantment in it.
But I don’t envy you your quest for sobriety. Isn’t it human to be a little enchanted? Ultimately not all truths can be expressed in words, and the myths of Shiva and Krishna will inspire some. Even Osho’s words contained a fair bit of poetry.
Sobriety is the greatest intoxicant.
Would love to visit Ibiza someday, that’d be lovely. At the moment though, there’s not a lot of room for a holiday, as I am caring for my mother who is poorly. But who knows, maybe next year we will be able to clink glasses of ‘jugo de naranja’, I don’t really drink alcohol anymore except on special occasions.
Cool, NP, taking care of mother is an honourable thing to do.
Yes, well. At the risk of getting a little personal. We lived in a little communal house, the three of us, Swami Anand Yatri (my stepfather), Ma Sat Navyo (my mother) and myself, and first he gets Alzheimer’s, and eventually dies, and now she struggles with a serious mystery infection of the earways and skull base.
As Ram Dass says, “If you think you are enlightened, first try spending a week with your family.” But though the last few years have been both beautiful and tough, I have no complaints. It has been life-enriching in unexpected ways, both harrowing and revealing new depths.
In Poonjaji the other day I read, “This is the discrimination of the burning ghat: in the end there is nothing left of your body but a few ounces of ash.”
“Sobriety is the greatest intoxicant”
What enlightened words from an old hippie! lol
https://youtu.be/rfwJgcwE5PY?si=-fMrde5U02XfY-iV
Those are not my words, Sri Sri Satchit. It is a well-known quote, which I do not particularly agree with. Then again, one might speculate that seeking “states,” through whatever means, is at best an entertainment, and very likely a form of aggrandizing the ego. Can we see the trap involved in looking for some shortcut or high that will do it for us?
For me, it is more a case of all things in moderation. So, your LOL is only a fool laughing at his own stupid joke.
It is not a bad quote, pointing to the state of intoxication which the mind continually exists in. We live in a series of beliefs within the mind which shape how we view the world which could easily be called an intoxication.
This morning, I haven’t been reading books. Instead, I found that seeking the aid of the universe was an appropriate thing to do. Sometimes we are presented with spiritual problems we are ill-equipped to handle, and with a wing and a prayer we set our hopes afloat on the universal Ganges, looking for spiritual help and leadership from beyond.
That it comes with tools, knowledge and a soft-spoken approach is something we can be profoundly grateful for. The interior of human beings is a place of peril for the gods, and not easy for a human intelligence to navigate, especially when you are a fantasist like me! Nightmares come to assail you on a regular basis, which take on a frightening reality in the inner world.
Gratitude and support is offered, for the help which is given.
“I found that seeking the aid of the universe was an appropriate thing to do.”
Universal aid? There’s a lot to be said for the Dutch social welfare system.
I was thinking more in a spiritual sense, but you are not wrong. A non-sannyasin friend of mine suffers from several mental illnesses, and she’s been able to draw on state support for her housing and other costs for most of her life. A difficult life with the handicaps she has, but at least she hasn’t had to struggle financially.
Good morning, friends…
The last few days I have been revisiting the feelings I have around Swami Anand Yatri’s death. It was one of the most difficult things I have done, coming downstairs in our shared house early in the morning to make coffee and listening to his laboured breathing as he lay in bed on morphine slowly dying in the annexe to the living room. In a way that was suffering for me, he was one of my closest and longest friends and I loved him for being such a good partner to my mother, even though the Alzheimer’s made him into someone new also in the last few years.
That experience has been working its way through my soul, it has been harrowing but has also revealed new depths, and in a way it has made me conclude that suffering is just part of the human condition, something that is meant to impart wisdom and empathy and understanding. I don’t think that after an experience like that you can look at death and loss in the same way.
The Buddhist view of seeking an end to suffering, of viewing everything as unsatisfactory and letting go of things in order not to suffer, is a bit of a fallacy in my view now. The right kind of suffering is like a potato dish, it feeds the heart and shows you parts of yourself that you hadn’t known before.
Thanks for this comment, NP. It is very personal and I tend to give sharing too personal information on this site a miss, because I have done it in the past and regretted it later for one reason or another.
I can understand that, sharing deeply personal perspectives can be risky, depending on the audience. I usually hang out on Buddhist forums, where there is a high standard of personal integrity and the concept of right speech is quite strong, and so there is less of a worry of being attacked for what you write.
But we will see how it goes…
The concept of right speech certainly does not rule on SN.
The thing is, right speech facilitates kindness, mutual respect and clear communication on even difficult subjects. It brings trust. As the Buddha said to Prince Abhaya, “the Tathagatha speaks when the words are factual, truthful, beneficial, and he knows the proper moment to say them.”
What I’ve seen a lot of in the pages of SN is unkindness, veiled criticism, and a lot of cynical bullshit. Which is why I’ve chosen to show a different direction in my writing, taking a leaf from the Buddha’s wisdom.
In the end it is the community of contributors who determine the tone of a site, so if we want to make SN a better place we can do so.
I can understand your attitude. But is your “right speech” not basically moralistic?
What will happen to those who don’t follow “right speech”?
Will they been thrown out of your Buddhist forums?
Sometimes they get banned, yes. One Buddhist forum I am on has a very trigger-happy moderator, and that works well.
“Right speech” is an ideal.
The sheep will try to follow, the lions follow their own nature.
Recently it has been better, it’s been pretty civil.
Osho describes Buddha’s instruction on right speech:
“Right speech”, he says, ”Say only that which you have experienced, which is grounded in your experience, rooted in your experience.”
Satchit obviously missed that one.
This is not a Buddhist site. Sannyas was founded by a man who thought ‘fuck’ was a great word. So what the fuck do you mean, NP, by saying, “If we want to make SN a better place we can do so.”
How do you envision “better”?
I basically was thinking “more welcoming, kinder” but it’s true that Osho did a good part of a discourse on the word ‘fuck’. Maybe we can find a happy medium, a way not to call people ‘fuckwits’ too often.
What is wrong with calling someone a fuckwit if they are a fuckwit? If nobody tells them they might not wake up to the fact. You could say it is an act of compassion, because if nobody tells them they will just keep fuckwiting around.
You are reckoning without the well known Dunning-Kruger Effect, which is a tendency from psychology which states that “people with a limited competence in a specific domain tend to overestimate their capabilities”; to summarise, stupid people are inherently over-confident.
In many cases telling people they are fuckwits just creates conflict without adding to wisdom.
The well-known Dunning-Kruger Effect? Well known? You have to be joking.
Hi, what do you think of the well-known Dunning-Kruger Effect?
Oh, wow, everyone is talking about it. I apply it all the time on SN, even though the effect has since been questioned by certain data scientists and mathematicians alike, although I doubt NP is aware of that.
I see. What to do?
Well, being blind to our unique strengths can greatly impact our well-being and mental health. This can give rise to imposter syndrome, or persistent feelings of being a fraud. People suffering from imposter syndrome may feel undeserving of their own success or may worry constantly about what will happen when others realize the “truth.”
Imposter syndrome? We have a lot of that on SN. You know, people pretending to know about things, even though they are ignorant of those subjects.
Yes, I totally agree. Thinking you are better than you are at something can cause you to miss out on opportunities to learn from others who are truly more skilled or knowledgeable. Following the above example, if you believe that you are already doing a fantastic job at work, you’re less likely to seek out feedback to help you improve. On the flip side, thinking you are average at something when you really demonstrate great skill can cause you to miss out on opportunities for self-advancement or to guide and mentor others.
Quite so. Not only are over-confident individuals extremely resistant to being taught — since they believe they know the most — but they are also guilty of sharing the most information (read: misinformation).
So, that means, when individuals present information confidently, we are more likely to believe them, regardless of whether or not the information they are sharing is well-founded.
Yes, think Donald Trump, or even Sri Sri Satchit and his use of spiritual cliches.
Yes, exactly. Politicians and SN commentators may benefit from a trusting and over-confident audience. People who aren’t as well-informed about political and spiritual issues are likelier to believe what you say, consider themselves educated, and share their views with others. And that is why the Dunning-Kruger effect is a bit of a catch-22. People who don’t know much about a given subject don’t have the knowledge or skills to spot their own mistakes or knowledge gaps. Because of these blind spots, they can’t see where they’re going wrong, and they, therefore, assume they’re doing fine.
Although the Dunning–Kruger effect has been found to occur in fields and subject matters as diverse as emotional intelligence, logical reasoning, financial knowledge, and even medical knowledge, there are recent doubts about its accuracy as a bias of the human brain. Some research has suggested that since computer-generated data is also subject to the effects of Dunning-Kruger, it is a computational phenomenon and thus cannot count as a bias of the human mind.
Yes. That is my whole point. The Dunning-Kruger effect makes us aware of our own blind spots and lends us the opportunity to adjust our self-perceptions. For those who fall victim to the effect, it can be difficult to adjust our evaluations. Doing so requires taking a step back to realize that your own self-assessments can be biased and sometimes incorrect. If you are making choices based on your own personal knowledge and skills, you have likely not consulted enough reputable information.
Of course. That is why you can avoid being ignorant of your own performance by listening and gaining insight into the performances of others. The bottom line is: If people are telling you you’re a fuckwit, listen.
Loco, one sees clearly that you don’t know the Dunning-Kruger-Effect.
The reason is, NP has a higher IQ than you.
Sri Sri Satchit, I am not in competition with NP and I don’t have the slightest bit of interest in anyone’s IQ, including my own. I am interested in having a laugh about the well-known Dunning-Kruger Effect and that is about the extent of it for now.
Osho’s instruction of only saying what is grounded in your experience is only one part of the Buddha’s statement of right speech being “true, factual, beneficial, and with a sense of the right timing.”
Your experience may be true and factual, but not many people meditate on the extent to which their interpretation of their experience is founded in fantasy or delusion.
The Buddha’s qualification of only saying those things which are beneficial means a lot of malicious talk, idle chatter and gossip falls away, and we are looking at just statements which are helpful to other people.
As usual, Osho is reframing other spiritual traditions to fit more with his sense of what is natural for people. Often he was right, but here I think he misses that which specifically encourages people to be good to each other, and also what teaches them to mind what others say because it is not said out of idleness.
NP thinks that Osho misses that which specifically encourages people to be good to each other.
I don’t believe Osho missed that at all. It is just that Osho’s approach was very different to that of the Buddha. Comparison is unnecessary. Osho actively encouraged people to be selfish, and self-centered, to follow one’s bliss and by so doing a true sense of altruism would eventually develop.
Buddha did create with his idea of “right speech” a moralistic rule. Something is good, something else is bad, similar to the concept of sin in Christianity.
No wonder, both are religions.
They only use different words for the same.