Over two weeks ago SN was landed with a bill for £84.05, larger than expected as the new web host owners charged £29.99 for something called SSL which had previously been free. Clive explains, “As I understand it certifies that the site is what it appears to be… it’s not a dummy set-up for scams.”
Anyway, as usual the bill has been paid by Clive (without whom SN would have folded long ago) and it’s now up to us to repay him.
Please contact Clive directly at: edit@sannyasnews.org and he’ll provide details of where to send donations.
Thanks for your support,
SD
Appeal for funds, yes, let’s hope it goes well…
This I came across this morning:
“There are people who want everything clean, clear-cut, logical, so that their mind can figure out what it is. This is an illogical place, irrational, absurd. You come with your certain ideas and when those ideas are not fulfilled, you feel baffled, you feel angry, offended. This whole place is being created in such a way that it offends many people, because that is my way to screen these people out. Somebody comes in the gate and, seeing a marble gate, he escapes. So good, so kind of him! Because he had come to see an Indian kind of ashram, not a marble gate, his ideas are shattered. He wanted to see people living in poverty, in a kind of spiritual dirtiness. He wanted to see people almost starved, fasting. The marble gate is put there to put these people off. I don’t want them inside.”
(Osho, quoted by Veena in ‘A Seam for the Master’)
I think the 93 Rolls Royces were the ultimate form of this device. But in a way, many of the sannyasins who came to stay at the Ranch were not rich…it was one of the contradictions of that place, Osho with the trappings of conspicuous wealth and the ordinary sannyasins who were often living out of a suitcase. But nobody minded, that was the thing.
In the old annals of SN there is some mention of Anand Subhuti and his book ‘My Dance with a Madman’. I thought what a great title! It resonates with the Osho quote above, “this is an illogical place, irrational, absurd.” If you listen to the old stories of Osho sending people to farms and villages in India you get a real idea of the absurdities that some people were put through.
It seemed to me that that was why Osho started lecturing so much on Zen in his final days, because Zen also has that irrational edge. I mean, hitting people with sticks to increase their awareness. He never went that far himself, although worship on the Ranch was also a way to make people push themselves.