I have often wondered, what was in the meaning of the names that Osho gave his sannyasins? Were they pointers as to the spiritual direction that you should follow, or were they a comment on what you were deep inside, or perhaps they were just a joke? I recall one discourse question where Swami Krishna Christ asked whether Osho had given him the name as a bit of fun… Osho’s long roundabout answer admitted that with a name like that there was a certain humour, but also a pointing to the meaning of it, it was a name with a high potential.
So to try and find out a little more I’ve gathered a few notes on people in my immediate surroundings and how they relate to their sannyas name, with their permission of course…
My own name, Swami Nityaprem, means ‘eternal love’. The all-in-one-word spelling contributes a certain uniqueness (there is also a Prem Nitya), and to me it has a special significance because in a way it is what I am. Deep inside I feel a certain bonhomie towards the world, a certain gemütlichkeit, a kindness and laughter to just spread across the world. I’ve never taken it to mean a pointer towards practice, because bookish approaches come more naturally to me than finding, say, a Sufi Master or a Bhakti Saint who might have more to do with love. That said, I do feel a certain kinship with people like Ram Dass and his guru Neem Karoli Baba, who are connected to the Bhakti path.
My father’s name, Swami Deva Subuddho, means ‘divine awareness’. When Osho gave it to him he said, “The bliss that you seek you already have, you just need to become aware of it, and my meditations will help with this.” My father has always been a strong meditator, he is now 76 and still does the Mandala regularly, he has always used Osho’s words to him as a pointer to practice, rather than his name. We also found an element of humour in my fathers name, because he is not always equally aware.
My mother’s name is very interesting, she is Ma Sat Navyo, which means ‘new being’. It suits her well because she is very unique, she chose not to follow the path her family intended for her, but she still connects with the simple food of her upbringing and the harbour fishing town where she spent her childhood. She went to art school instead. The girl with the sea in her eyes, her beloved Yatri once called her, and she loves the sea and swimming in it. She is not so fond of meditating, but has a lot of wisdom.
My stepfather Swami Anand Yatri’s name meant ‘blissful traveller’, and Osho once said to him, “Yatri, never be a householder.” So it was kind of ironic that on his eventual return to England he was often involved in rebuilding the houses that he lived in, and he rarely went on holiday but was quite a homey person. When he travelled he did so fearlessly and with gusto. He did his fair share earlier in his life, and in his later years my mother looked after the financial side of his life for him while he made beautiful illustrations. Yatri passed away in February, and his ashes were just a few days ago strewn by aeroplane over the North Sea, a homage to the times when he was an RAF pilot.
So from these few examples can we conclude it has something to do with what you are? I think the relationship with the name that Osho gives you has more than one side, if it has something to do with your being then it also has something to do with which path will be easiest for you. It seems to me that working with the name that Osho gives you is something that happens over time, it is a slow deepening of understanding and different facets that come to the fore.
The idea of getting a new name, a mala and red robes by itself means a big change in who you see yourself as being, it marks the beginning of a new life as a sannyasin. I recall visiting the ashram in 1997 and going dressed in the robe through the main gate, it was a kind of sannyasin homecoming after all those years, especially as my father was with me at the time. It was a particularly fine holiday, although red robes in a holiday resort is less of a change than red clothes all the time, as it was in the old days.
For me, the name ‘eternal love’ has been a pointing to how I deal with relationships, how I deal with family and parents, but also to faithfulness and steadiness and where these go to excess, that sometimes I’m too faithful, not being in tune with myself through being so much in tune with others. It has had many sides, and it has taken time over the years to feel what it means to me.
Today I was fortunate enough to come across Emile Coue, a French pharmacist who developed a hypnotic autosuggestion technique called the Coue Method back in 1910… a fascinating episode in medical and self-help history, and there is some evidence that it actually works.
Anyway, have a read of this and see what you think. After all, Osho was said to be a great hypnotist!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89mile_Cou%C3%A9
And then we can talk a bit about sannyas names.
Is it not today that you can choose alone what sannyas name you want for yourself?
The story you make around your name depends on your mind. Some say, a name is a name is a name.
There is a nice joke re why he always found new names.
I guess it was simply the first thing that came to his mind, nothing special.
I don’t think the names Osho gave “are simply the first thing that came to his mind”, for those of us who met Osho and had a darshan with him there was definitely a meaning to the names.
It pointed you in a certain direction, it was a hint for your life, something to pay special attention to. Certainly the sannyasins I know well would agree with that.
The only meaning I see is:
Don’t take names so seriously, don’t take sannyas so seriously!
If you want to take it as a hint for your life, why not, it’s your freedom.
So when Osho gave people their new names in darshans and carefully explained their meanings, as often recorded in the ‘Darshan Diaries’, do you think he was simply saying whatever came into his head at the time, with no significance whatsoever for the person in front of him?
When I say that he was simply saying what came into his head at that time, it means he acted out of spontaneity and intuition.
Who says there is no significance in this?
Well, Satchit, this remark doesn’t gel with your previous statement, where you downplay the significance of the new name.
Why does it not gel?
Because the affair is multidimensional.
I think taking a new name is among the most significant spiritual things you can do…think of Siddhartha Gautama becoming the Buddha, the Awakened One, or Acharya Rajneesh becoming Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, or Venkataraman becoming Ramana Maharshi. All names with meaning and significance.
It says something about you, the name that you go by. Of course it also says a lot about how you see yourself, and what you dare to call yourself.
“Of course it also says a lot about how you see yourself, and what you dare to call yourself.”
What is there to dare today? Maybe there was something to dare 45 years back, walking in orange and with mala in the
streets. But now?
Btwm Acharya means teacher. With Bhagwan he started the Guru play.
This morning I was talking to some of my Buddhist friends, and I expressed the view that after quite a few years of exploring Buddhist thought I had concluded that the things that I couldn’t experience or discover for myself had little relevance to me.
Among the things I talked about in this category were such Buddhist mainstays as karma, rebirth, past lives, and so even the search for freedom from rebirth and Nirvana. The main use of Buddhist teachings in my eyes now is about gentleness, kindness, mindfulness and letting go — these things lead to more happiness.
Of course, this new direction of “what I can experience or discover for myself” also has relevance to Osho’s teaching. There were times when he was highly esoteric and non-discoverable, and so we as listeners would end up going into the realms of blind belief.
It’s funny, I read elsewhere on these pages that changing his name and going from Acharya Rajneesh to Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh cost Osho millions of followers within India. He used to be fantastically popular, but when he declared his enlightenment it all stopped? Because swamis and holy men are held to be somewhat disreputable by the intelligentsia.
I know Bhagwan means ‘the blessed one’ and is usually taken to be another name for God, but what exactly does Shree mean within the name? I always thought it was ‘respected sir’ or thereabouts.
Good morning all,
Recently I have been talking to a group of people who all consider themselves enlightened. They used to reside on a self-inquiry forum on the internet which has recently been taken off the air, and have a variety of backgrounds. The one thing they have in common is that they are all hard-headed in the belief in their enlightenment, and they think the others in the group are not very enlightened because they don’t agree on things.
There is a lot of arguing in this group, and very little enlightened essence being passed, it’s somewhat hilarious. They don’t seem to be interested in teaching people or in being seekers, they just argue about who has the most ego, and about which modern teachers are actually enlightened…
It’s amazing how the spiritual ego can trick people into thinking they’ve made it. It makes me think of that episode on the Ranch when Osho declared a bunch of people “enlightened”.
This morning I came across a wise person saying, “I used to always say that there was love and there was fear. But just recently I have come to acknowledge that there is pain, as well.”
I think it is true that through pain we learn a great deal about ourselves, we learn to look at what is important and what is not, what can be let go of. It is likewise with grief, that at a certain point our loss is no longer important, and we find what comes to the surface is joy and love and laughter.
Watch the video if you like…
https://youtu.be/JgKo4p5IV-k
IF IT RAINS, LET IT RAIN…
If there is pain, let it be so.
IF IT RAINS NOT, LET IT RAIN NOT…
If there is no pain, let it be so. If there is pleasure, let it be so. But you don’t get identified with anything.
BUT EVEN SHOULD IT NOT RAIN,
YOU MUST TRAVEL
WITH WET SLEEVES.
But remember one thing: even if your life has been of convenience, comfort, pleasure, and there have not been great pains, great miseries, then too YOU MUST TRAVEL WITH WET SLEEVES.
Why? Because still you will become old, still you will have to die one day. So one can live a very pleasant life, but old age is coming, and death is coming. Death cannot be avoided; there is no way to escape from it; it is inevitable. So whether you lived a painful life or you lived a pleasant life will not make much difference when death comes. And death is coming.
Death has come the day you were born. In the very idea of birth, death has entered in you.
Osho, Take It Easy, Vol.1, Chapter 7 The Whiskers of the Pebble
Tja, accepting the pain when it comes, like the rain… you can do little else (except reach for the paracetamol).
If you put too much stress on the mind and the body, they will start to complain and manifest mysterious illnesses. Then often comes a whole legion of modern medications to patch you up and keep things functioning.
I have been reading Osho’s book, ‘Zarathustra, A God That Can Dance’, about Nietzsche, and I have got
to the part about the three metamorphoses of the spirit. It’s a fascinating read because it captures well a certain aspect of the spiritual journey to do with reverence and independence.
Osho’s explanation of the reverential attitude – which is the first Metamorphosis into the Camel, the weight-bearing spirit – is spot on; this is the initial step onto the spiritual path, where you look to a revered teacher to guide you. The second, the independent attitude – which corresponds to the second Metamorphosis into the Lion, which says ‘I will’ and fights the dragon ‘thou shalt’ – represents an examining and intelligent mind. Of this second type there are many fewer than the first.
Among sannyasins this is true as well, there were many, I think, who felt the call to come visit Osho, but who viewed him more as the revered teacher than as a friend guiding you along the path.
Anyway, great set of lectures, deep insight, recommended.
NP, youre around the same age as the people participating in Sunday nights ITV film which told harrowing stories of sexual abuse perpetrated on young people in various Sannyas communes. Were you aware of this stuff going on and if so how did you feel about it.
Hi SD,
No, I wasn’t aware of any of it. I was in just two communes, the Stad Rajneesh in the Netherlands where I was one of the oldest kids aged 11, and the Ranch a couple of years later aged 13.
In the Stad Rajneesh kids and their parents slept in close proximity to each other, and there were a lot of younger kids, and I’d be very surprised if there was any abuse because there were no sexually mature teens.
At the Ranch I slept in a kids trailer where we slept 4-5 to a room on foam mattresses on the floor, boys and girls were kept separate and there was basically no opportunity for the boys to interact socially with the girls.
The school on the Ranch was really set up for younger kids and the teachers had their hands full. As a smart teenager they basically turned me loose on a bookcase, saying they had nothing left to teach me. But there also there were no girls of my age, which I found really sad.
So I got assigned worship in the afternoons, I tried my hand at a few different things, but I was always the only kid in a group of adults.
I only found out much later what some of the girls were involved in.
I did hear about a friend of my father whose sons were abused, and it reminded me of certain older sannyasins on the Ranch who I felt were a bit too “friendly”, but that was always a warning sign for me and I steered clear of them.
The stories of the girls breaks my heart, things could have been so different if the Mas in charge had taken a more active role in looking after the kids, like organising social events and teaching the young girls to look out for themselves and others more.
But in hindsight I think Osho by saying “the whole commune are to look after you” opened the doors for those with predatory intent. Of course they would look after you, to protect their interests. You could definitely say Osho was rather naive there about the spectrum of people on the Ranch.
NP, were the boys abused by women or by men.
It seems that Osho was also similarly rather naively idealistic in advocating total freedom for the children, but no doubt he overestimated the quality of care they received from some people. Im sure he would have been shocked to know what was going on and the dreadful effects it had on many peoples lives.
The refusal by several former protagonists to speak about abuse issues spoke volumes, as did the predictable denials from the likes of Sheela and Osho International, but what else to expect with not only reputations, including Osho’s, at stake, but potential legal action a possibility.
What was missing from the programme were any interviews with the parents of the abused although perhaps most are now dead or unwilling to be publically involved in such controversy.
An obvious lesson from all this is that total freedom is an impossible ideal without a corresponding degree of responsibility.
MOD
Apologies for inadequte punctuation in recent posts which is due to keyboard malfunction. To be restored soon.
I don’t know whether the boys were abused by women or men, I heard about it in passing some time ago and didn’t choose to inquire into what might be a painful subject.
In a case like this it might be difficult to pin the exact responsibility, it’s not unexpected that those in charge just choose to deny everything. But it’s a good thing that they interviewed some of the abusers.
Basically, what those men (and possibly women) did was illegal. The age of consent in Oregon was, I believe, 18, and many of those girls were minors. It did a lot of damage to them, and indirectly also to the development of all the boys who were denied a more normal mixed growing-up.
I hope this docu gets a wider showing, and people get to see it alongside the likes of Wild, Wild Country.
I was lucky in that I had a good contact with both my parents (although they were separated by this time) and they looked out for me. A lot of the parents chose to believe Osho when he said the kids should be raised by the whole commune, all the adults should look after them. At least I always knew I was loved.
I recall even some kids were sent from the Ranch to Medina and Ko Hsuan in England with their parents’ consent, who chose to stay behind on the Ranch. To not even have your parents on the same continent strikes me as particularly isolating.
This then led to later accusations of neglect and emotional abuse. I believe Lily Dunn’s book is a case in point, though I haven’t read it.
NP, you seem to be very naive in thinking that Osho is naive about human nature.
Only a prejudiced person would interpret “to care” as “to molest”.
This docu, ‘Children of the Cult’ is not yet released in the USA, but there seems to be a good bit of interest in it, some of my Buddhist friends have been bringing it up as well. It’s a part of the history of the Ranch which is not well known to the general public perhaps, but it deserves its day in the sun.
Not just part of the history of the Ranch, its claimed such abuse happened at many other communes, notably Medina in England.
I haven’t yet seen the docu so don’t know all the details. But yes, I’m hearing stuff from my father, that he knew of some fifteen-year-old girl, the daughter of the sister of a friend of his, with a forty-year-old boyfriend in the relatively small commune we were in in the Netherlands when I was 11 or so. I think that is abuse also. The age of consent exists for a reason.
I did say, “I wasn’t aware of any of it.”
Some digging through my notoriously slow memory later, and some things have been surfacing. I did once ask why the girls weren’t interested in being around the boys, and I remember being told that it was because “they had much older boyfriends”… it wasn’t talked about as being abusive or illegal, but people did know this was going on, these young girls having relationships with older men. It was pretty common knowledge, people gossiped about who was with who.
What wasn’t talked about was the extent to which some of these girls slept around. There was the thing about role models, that Osho had said that you were supposed to be with who you loved and that once the love was gone, it was fine to break up and move on. It led to a lot of people having many partners, although not my parents. They were always looking for a deeper connection in love.
For me, as a teen just getting interested in sex, I found the absence of the girls very disappointing. It basically caused me to shelve the “getting a sex life” project until I was older, because adult sannyasin women were too intimidating and out of reach, and my peers were not available. This was some of the emotionally most confusing and disappointing stuff about my stay at the Ranch, and also in America more generally.
A few articles in The Guardian related to the docu…
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/oct/02/children-of-the-cult-review-osho-commune-bhagwan-shree-rajneesh-wild-wild-country
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/oct/12/abuse-rajneesh-cult-children-communes
SD, did the docu talk at all about the boys? I understand that the film makers wanted to focus on the abuse angle, which would centre more on the girls, but from what I hear a lot of the boys also had a difficult time.
You’d expect that with a title like ‘Children of the Cult’ they would at least try to be inclusive and interview a few male children as well.
There wasnt much about the boys, NP, apart from one man who accompanied an investigation, a former commune child whod clearly been traumatised by his childhood experience, where hed been neglected, feeling uncared for. I think there was also sexual abuse involved but I cant be sure.
Yes, I remember reading ‘My Life in Orange’ by the late Tim Guest, where he told about similar feelings of neglect. I thought it was a well-written book.
I think in a way I was already well-prepared for a life away from my mother by the divorce she and my father had gone through and the years that followed. It wasn’t such a shock for me to be without her.
Some of the stories I’m hearing now, after the release of ‘Children of the Cult’, are that there definitely were a few less-than-impeccable characters walking around in the communes who were attracted by the “free sex” label.
It also put me in mind of some of the things that were in ‘The Life of Osho’ by Sam. The smuggling, forged passports, connections with the underworld types, that kind of thing. Although of course he was talking of an earlier time period, more the seventies.
Maybe they were there for what Osho had to give, and maybe not. It is very possible that there were people who were there for their own reasons.
Osho had also the teaching of transcending morality.
Maybe some did interpret it in their own way.
You mean transcending morality by not giving a damn about exploiting children to satisfy ones lust? And imagining how well that fits with Oshos teachings?
Pure, un adult erated selfishness, pretty well the quintessence of irresponsibility. The childish mentality of its all ok just because I want it.
But that mentality permeated sannyas communities in those days, not least in the extreme therapy groups, which is the only factor that can to a degree modify total condemnation of this behaviour.
Exactly this I mean.
Not everybody was there for meditation and enlightenment.
Some had other interests and still thinking following Osho’s teaching by following their energy. Or even thinking, one is a lion, because one acts beyond the rules of society.
These kind of things happen in a cult.
Satchit, you say, Or even thinking, one is a lion, because one acts beyond the rules of society. These kind of things happen in a cult.
Yes, and theyre also commonly part of the mentality of criminals.
Certainly, they are.
And now you can ask:
Things were known at that time.
Why was there no punishment at that time?
Or even rules that these kind of relationships are not allowed?
Who was responsible for this?
Osho?
According to the docu, the leadership at the Ranch once made a list of over 100 men and women who were having sex with minors, called them to a meeting and told them to “be discreet.” Shocking stuff.
Does one know from whom the instruction comes to “be discreet”?
One can believe, but one does not know.
It may come from the leadership or from Osho himself.
I think you’re right, SD, certainly there was a lot of sexuality at the time, because Osho had given permission for that. People were following their instincts, it was the whole “free love” ethos, and then to expect the men wouldn’t chase the young girls when they were ‘available’…
But I think a lot of the young girls were pressured into sex way too early. There should have been more protection for them from adult attention.
Some of the men who were sannyas kids at that time have gone into teaching tantra these days, after dealing with their own baggage from the communes trying to help other people deal with the guilt, fear and shame that’s still around sexuality for the current generation.
Another story I heard was that a teenage girl after having sex with one man went on to have sex with a friend of a friend, who was a perfectly normal, respected commune member. So it seems the idea that it was just some subset of predatory sannyasins is incorrect, it was more widespread.
Transcending morality, Satchit?
It depends on what you mean by “transcending” and “morality.”
If morality is that which is decided by a god who requires those who are part of the cult to sacrifice or mutilate children, stone women with a fucking mood or impale homosexuals, then I think like Osho that going beyond such moral dis-order seems to me the least that can be done.
If transcending morality means being convinced that philosophically overcoming the principles of good and evil insulates us from the internal and external effects of our actions, then I think this gives rise to rude awakenings or describes a psychopathological path.
Since there is no god, there can be no divine law that is not the one implicit in existence and that it is the responsibility of each person to discover under penalty of living an inauthentic life, very little philosophically Osho proposes an original and very powerful practical path, there are no heavens or hells waiting for you to judge your actions and feelings, realize your holiness/integrity and everything that follows will have a certain grace.
Arriving in the presence of Osho with a well-structured morality, such as Hindu, Christian, “Buddhist”, etc., for each of us must have required some time to reverse the existential approach, shifting the ethical emphasis from doing to being, from doing the right thing to being oneself.
Yes, being oneself.
About this Osho must have dropped some clues along his short earthly journey, but this forum is not the right place to talk on certain things, love/compassion does not exist when it is time of war, truth is an easy target.
@MOD errata corrige, 20 October, 2024 at 3:47 pm
3th paragraph: “…and external effects of our actions, then I think this RESERVES” and not “preserves”…i mean like in “what reserves the future?” i don’t know if in english it makes sense
MOD
Weve changed both preserves into first, insulates and second, gives rise to.
Sunday evening charges apply. Double for customers outside the UK. The bill is in the post, ok?
@MOD, thanks.
You know I would have no problem contributing to the maintenance of the site as in the past, if ironic/satirical content were not added to my texts (but it is fine to correct the spelling or improve the form) and if there was not the ideological editorial choice to leave Zorba outside the door, off topic, using the criteria of woke or cancel culture.
You will recognize that it is not possible, even the old sannyasins seem like atomized robots, while they should be the wisest and most sensitive.
It seems that many of them have learned nothing from the narratives of the institutions that have followed one another over the decades to support policies that are only apparently in favour of the people, but in reality used as cover for their criminal business: wars, health emergencies, drug and human trafficking, commercial exploitation of territories and people, sold to the market and its rules…
To balance all these lies, and keep public opinion “calm”, avoiding the increasingly strong feeling of many of being fooled by the truly happy few, they must “grant” some gratification to the need for a better world that comes from below, while leaving the power structures between the people and the elite unchanged.
This is what the ideological propaganda that permeates the media and their television or web products is for, distracting the people from their condition of servants.
The revenge of the servants is in turning one’s gaze to the traces of injustices from many years ago, almost always prurient stories, no camera shoved in the face, for example, of the politicians of the Iraqi genocide, for them no request for accountability, only glory, respectability, red carpets, shades of blood.
VEET FRANCESCO
You know I would have no problem contributing to the maintenance of the site as in the past, if ironic/satirical content were not added to my texts (but it is fine to correct the spelling or improve the form)…
MOD
To react in such a humourless fashion speaks volumes, Veet F. To put it simply, you seem unable to take a joke. Lighten up, man, youre far too serious about yourself.
VEET FRANCEsCO
…and if there was not the ideological editorial choice to leave Zorba outside the door, off topic, using the criteria of woke or cancel culture.
You will recognize that it is not possible, even the old sannyasins seem like atomized robots, while they should be the wisest and most sensitive.
MOD
What on earth are you on about, Veet F? I suggest you provide specific examples.
SD, I’m glad you didn’t understand that I got your joke and that my argument about the reason for my not contributing financially to the maintenance of the Forum was an assist for you to say and do the right thing, I saved 50 euros…now I don’t want you to become too serious, like a Scotsman or a Dutchman when you stare at his wallet.
If you need examples, it means that you too have chosen to take refuge in the comfort zone of your Buddhahood, and now that the world is showing off the Buddha’s dirty underwear (I have to give you some news, even a Buddha eats things that come from the world, like any Zorba), among the ex-sannyasins who throw stones at the Mansur of the moment it seems that you are deciding on the colour of the roses that best blend in with the stones.
The examples are endless of how mystics are at the center of strong feelings of love and hate, of well-placed trust and a sense of defeat and unfulfilled expectations.
The reason for this phenomenon, imv, is in the implicit anthropological conditioning in cultures like ours to cover/deny/repress/sublimate the instances of the body to favor/encourage/idealize/exalt the higher instances of consciousness, of being without a body.
If the Mansur of the moment is caught with pussy hair on his mouth or with a sex toy in his ass then something in him must be wrong.
Osho cannot be compared to any mystic of the past for the coherence of his campaign against this Manichean approach, having welcomed into his garden anyone who honestly wanted to search for the authentic meaning of their existence.
No spiritual path is free of risks, falls, mistakes, losses, misunderstandings, abandonments, pains, betrayals…but if all this is the price to avoid a heterodirected life (by God, a philosopher, a saint) it seems fair to me.
Today, in our society of standardized and globalized needs, there does not seem to be much space for an approach like Osho’s, his multidimensional perspective is not functional to the market, as in general any critical thought that has an ontological foundation in a vision of the human being who eats, loves, works, fucks and celebrates without giving up the spiritual dimension that allows him freedom from food, sex, money and power.
Only too typical of a certain type of ideologue who imagines theyre qualified to change the world, the very way you express your choice to focus on and broadcast the never ending ills and multiple inhumanities of the world, droning on in such a chronically heavy manner, indicates this is a recipe for polluting yourself and others with negativity, and remaining unhappy. No wonder you cant take a joke.
Yours, SD, is the all too typical cynicism of those who feel socially safe from the difficulties that some Zorbas encounter in the world outside the monastery.
The proof of this is due to your feeling qualified to interpret the world but leaving everything as it is because you don’t give a shit about other people’s Karma, also because you seem focused on the most gratifying spiritual questions, at least until a Netflix series reminds you too about which authority that territory belongs to, which no sect or cult can erode.
Good, stigmatize my ideology and pretend not to see the one that makes your reactions on political issues so stereotyped and predictable.
Veet, you declare,
..you seem focused on the most gratifying spiritual questions, at least until a Netflix series reminds you too about which authority that territory belongs to, which no sect or cult can erode.
SD
I dont understand your point, Veet F. Which authority, what territory?
VEET F
…the difficulties that some Zorbas encounter in the world outside the monastery.
SD
So what exactly are these difficulties you complain about?
Do you have no place to live? No work, no money? No qualifications to improve your financial situation? No prospects, its too late? No social status to make you feel important to others, valuable? Are you in poor health? No significant love relationship? No friends? Surrounded by enemies? Persecuted by the police? Misunderstood by everyone? Worst of all, perhaps, no luck on the national lottery? Or even worse, your football team keeps losing?
Whats your problem? Or, if there are multiple problems, which is the main one? Nail it down to specifics, please, no general complaints or theories about or imagined solutions for the rotten state of the world. We all know about that stuff, were not totally naive.
Documentary is below. Anyone in the UK can see it; not sure if you can from abroad.
https://www.itv.com/watch/children-of-the-cult/10a5261a0001B
From the Netherlands this results in an ‘error 01-01’ and a message that “Sorry, the content isn’t available right now.”
You could probably access it using a VPN such as Surfshark, but I don’t subscribe to such a service.
SD, stay locked in your monastery, your country is out of control, more than mine, UK and France are on the brink of civil war, cultural and ethnic differences prevail over the alleged homologation and harmonization that should have brought the widespread and redundant availability of products to consume.
For example, you would have the analytical possibility of interpreting the events of Southport with the tools provided by the vision of the human being provided by Osho and instead…you drink all the idolology of the apparent cause provided by the TV: groups of racists financed by Putin.
It would be like imagining that the First World War is Gavrilo Princip’s fault.
When you look for a culprit by overlooking the context and historical dynamics you are under the fallacious influence of an ideology, this should concern you, not me.
You ask me if there is an authority behind this ideology?
Marxianly, power belongs to those who have the means to exercise it, ideology serves to make the will of such power in action but hiding its real face behind priests and politicians who are interchangeable and expendable.
This is why there are periodic attempts to destroy Osho’s work, his new man is an irreducible enemy for the status quo, on three fronts: political, psychoanalytic and religious.
A way of being in the world that is difficult to manipulate by priests and politicians, people capable of claiming one’s share of the cake, material and spiritual, for oneself and for one’s community, without shame and guilt, proceeding with the responsibility and accuracy of a unique and unrepeatable life, the only ethic that with such premises allow individuals to grow by learning from one’s own and others’ mistakes.
It’s a shame that you have two slices of Parma ham in front of your eyes…do you have any sponsors?
This is no answer to my questions its just another political rant, another smokescreen to hide behind, Veet F, so Im not in the least interested in it.
Ill try again, probably foolishly, but as youre here…
What exactly is your problem, or rather problems, the difficulties which you declare, and I quote, some Zorbas encounter?
I answered you, SD, don’t worry about other people’s mote, take care of the beam behind which you hide.
I have expressed my point of view on the scandal in question enough, you instead follow the herd as usual, I have given my interpretation of your conformism, do what you want with it.
On my side there are 40 years of philological reasons to say that the thesis of the documentary in question is a great mystification, Osho is not responsible for how you use your genitals or your asshole.
If there have been cases of abuse or negligence towards children over time, the first morally responsible are the parents who did not notice it and/or did not intervene to protect them.
According to the law in force in my country, any criminal liability must be ascertained with a fair trial, within a period of time from the events that allows the person who committed the crime to be connected with the possibility of reparation/rehabilitation of the punishment, the treatment reserved for those who are exposed as monsters for facts that are 45 years old, before a trial and a conviction is shameful, and I’m not saying this because I love Milarepa’s music, it would apply to anyone.
Imagining that in some corner of the world, where a community organized around a meditation room (by Osho) lives, what is a statistically more significant phenomenon in a family context cannot happen is another forcing of which the authors of the documentary are responsible, the family does not protect more than a community for the simple fact that there are fewer eyes.
If the class action against the cult of Osho is successful, that is, if the thesis of the apology of crime implicit in his teaching is proven, after the Resort of Pune and all the other meditation centers scattered around the world they will also want to close this Forum, so you, SD, will be able to go back to being an altar boy, ending up where you started.
One last thing, I am the one wasting time with you, amen.
What makes you think I blame Osho for the abuse of children in his communes?
Youre too fond of the products of your imagination, too inclined to want to dismiss this abuse case as unimportant.
In fact youre the sort of fanatic whom I instinctivelty profoundly mistrust, the sort of guy who tells you hes answered your questions when he clearly hasnt, no different from any old politician we so often see on tv, whos there purely and simply to broadcast his version of the truth and uninterested in anything or anyone else.
Someone who divides the world into heroes ie himself and those who hold the same attitudes and beliefs, and villains, those who dont. Someone who doesnt care to consider whether he himself might share similar characteristics to those he readily condemns in his self created enemies, particularly the incipient or overt violence thats there, perfectly visible to anyone with an ounce of insight.
P.S.
For your information, Veet F, barring last minute interventions by God or even by donors, SN is already on course to fold in just a few weeks, one welcome effect of which will be never having to be exposed to any more of your self important, incredibly tedious rants. No doubt you feel the same so at least in this matter we understand each other perfectly, lol.
“In fact you’re the sort of fanatic whom I instinctively profoundly mistrust, the sort of guy who tells you he answered your questions when he clearly hasn’t, no different from any old politician we so often see on TV, who’s there purely and simply to broadcast his version of the truth and uninterested in anything or anyone else”. Satyadeva
SD, you asked me if I had a list of problems produced by the receptacle of astrological beliefs that is your head, I replied that perhaps some of the problems listed concern you more than me, and it is certainly clear that even if I had a problem you do not seem to me to be the person available or able to solve it.
SD
THE POINT IS THAT YOU MENTIONED SOME ZORBAS, CLEARLY INFERRING YOURSELF AS ONE, FIND IT DIFFICULT TO LIVE IN THE WORLD. IM SIMPLY ASKING WHY. SO WHY KEEP IT ALL A MYSTERY? ARE YOU AFRAID OF APPEARING UNHEROIC OR SOMETHING, LOL? IM NOT ABOUT TO PROVIDE YOU WITH SOLUTIONS, YOU WOULDNT LISTEN ANYWAY.
“You’re too fond of the products of your imagination, too inclined to want to dismiss this abuse case as unimportant”. Satyadeva
How do you deduce that I am not sorry for the anguish and traumas those girls may have experienced in those years, at the dawn of that attempt at community life of thousands of spiritual seekers, some of them with children in tow?
SIMPLY BECAUSE YOU HAVENT EXPRESSED ANYTHING LIKE SORROW OR COMPASSION FOR THEM, YOUVE FOCUSED ON HOW TOO MUCH IS BEING MADE OF THE SCANDAL.
“What makes you think I blame Osho for the abuse of children in his communes?” Satyadeva
The fact that you have nothing to object to the documentary’s thesis, that Osho was the leader of a “destructive cult” (the same series, with the same title, “Children of the cult”, had told the erotic exploits of David Berg), to stick to the most used definition of the term, a total control of followers through manipulation and deception.
WELL, NOW YOU KNOW BETTER, DONT YOU?
“The refusal by several former protagonists to speak about abuse issues spoke volumes, as did the predictable denials from the likes of Sheela and Osho International, but what else to expect with not only reputations, including Osho’s, at stake, but potential legal action a possibility”. Satyadeva
If you think about it a bit, you can’t put Sheela and Osho International Foundation on the same stage as defendants for the facts in question at Muddy Ranch, just because you bought the theory that Osho was the leader of a sect of brain-damaged people who were simply following orders, do you realize the cultural barbarism that you are helping to fuel?
How can you allude to the fact that Sheela and the OIF’s refusal to speak on the matter could have the same motivations?
JUST REREAD WHAT I WROTE…
…but what else to expect with not only reputations, including Osho’s, at stake, but potential legal action a possibility.
Maybe because you think that the management of Osho’s legacy has not changed after Sheela, with the same dystopian structure remaining in place?
NO, ITS SIMPLER THAN THAT, REREAD THE ABOVE QUOTE.
Or maybe because logic prevents it, given that Sheela ran away after Osho criticized her management, demonstrating that there cannot be a leader of a destructive cult if even those closest to him have the autonomy not only to distance themselves from the Master’s vision but even create one in antithesis.
SORRY, ITS TOO LATE FOR ME TO GET MY HEAD AROUND THIS, AND I DONT THINK ABOUT SUCH MATTERS VERY MUCH ANYWAY.
GOOD NIGHT.
The root of many misunderstandings in this forum lies in some people’s belief that there can be a spiritual life that excludes politics, as if the value system depends on keeping one’s eyes closed or open.
It is no wonder that such people easily fall prey to reassuring world narratives that just require trust in authority, continuing to stay at home, with their eyes closed.
Thats only your perspective as youre utterly obsessed with politics, Veet F. For me and others whove come here, now and in the past, and, I strongly suspect, almost everyone Ive ever come across in Sannyas, its an area that mostly holds little intrinsic interest and, except occasionally, zero passion. So it would be a total waste of time and energy for such as us to be similarly so mentally involved.
Now, does that indicate were misguided, on a wrong path, or could it be that you might be wasting your time and energy and that youre still unqualified to attempt to fashion the rest of the world as you believe it should be? Because you yourself arent what you should or could be yet. For instance, youre too easily disturbed, too angry, too readily verbally abusive. Too much the therapy graduate, too little meditation, meditative being?
I wonder what Osho or indeed any other contemporary master would have said to you about this obsession of yours…I suggest they might well say or have said that you need to choose between spiritual growth and politics. That youre not yet capable of mixing the two effectively, you just think you are.
And if you insisted on giving primary importance to your political concerns then I reckon Osho for one would have told you to leave his commune, do what you want to do and see what happens. No doubt with an open invitation to return whenever youre finally fed up with it all.
Just my speculation of course….
SD, in your replies to my last two comments (22 October 2024 at 2:44 am, and at 3:15 am) you ask again who I am referring to with “Zorba’s problems”, if I am only talking about myself.
WRONG, VEET F, I WAS AND STILL AM PRIMARILY ASKING ABOUT YOU.
It is clear to me that in this case I am referring to today’s world, its ideology and the people represented according to that ideology in the documentary.
It represents an example of summary justice that should horrify you if you had not become accustomed to it, a justice without appeals that channels general contempt on a guilty one, exposing him to the risk of becoming a physical target to be eliminated after having isolated him from every possible community, leaving him almost no acceptable way out. This would already seem too much to me but it is not all.
The real target of this editorial operation is the vision of Osho, who according to the thesis of the documentary would be the main moral responsible for having prepared the ideological structure of power that encouraged or did not counteract the abuse of power, even towards minors.
In your perhaps too British humour for me, regarding the definition of “destructive cult”, you gloss with “WELL, NOW YOU KNOW BETTER, DONT YOU?!”, not exactly a distancing from the desire to make Osho coincide with David Berg… but in this case I would not understand why you deny that you are blaming Osho as morally responsible for the abuse of minors and for what reasons you would not blame him.
DESPITE YOUR DETERMINATION TO MAKE ME CONFESS RESPONSIBILITY FOR CONDEMNING OSHO FOR THE ABUSE OF MINORS IN HIS COMMUNES, I ONCE AGAIN ASSURE YOU THAT IS NOT THE CASE. ALTHOUGH ARGUABLY HE APPOINTED THE WRONG PEOPLE TO RUN THE RANCH, WHO MADE MANY MISTAKES, INCLUDING NEGLECT OF THE KIDS.
About Sheela I remind you that it was Osho who reported her crimes to the FBI, eventually if her other responsibilities came out OIF would be the injured party, therefore on the same side as the former girls who accuse sexual abuse.
OF COURSE, BUT IF ABUSE ALSO OCCURRED IN PUNE THEN ITS INEVITABLE THAT OIFS REPUTATION WOULD BE SEVERELY COMPROMISED.
You are the one who should reread what you write.
Do you think that Barry Long’s well-known fame as a playboy could justify another gripping documentary in the “destructive cults” series?
Would you feel compassion for your master or for his sexual victims, enrolled in the “me too” club?
WELL, YOU SEEM TO HAVE BEEN READING TOO MUCH TABLOID RUBBISH IF YOU TAKE ALL THAT ON BOARD. THATS ANOTHER LOAD OF BOLLOCKS, YOU KNOW NOTHING ABOUT BL IN YOUR PERSONAL EXPERIENCE.
AND BY THE WAY, YOUR SENSATIONALIST MINI ANALYSIS OF BRITISH SOCIETY, CLAIMING ITS ON THE VERGE OF CIVIL WAR, IS ANOTHER LOAD OF LAUGHABLE IGNORANCE, NO DOUBT WISH FULFILMENT, AS IF COPIED FROM A TRASHY PSEUDO POLITICAL TRACT PEDDLED BY SOME HALF BAKED MORON WHOS HAD RATHER TOO MUCH TO DRINK.
BOTH INSTANCES SERVE TO DEMONSTRATE HOW DELUDED A PERSON CAN BECOME BY THINKING HE ACTUALLY KNOWS SOMETHING OF WHICH HE HAS NO PERSONAL EXPERIENCE SIMPLY BY READING THE NEWSPAPERS OR WATCHING THE NEWS. AS IVE SAID, BEWARE OF YOUR OVER ACTIVE IMAGINATION, ITLL LEAD YOU ASTRAY, MAKING YOU LOOK A FOOL TO PEOPLE WHO ACTUALLY KNOW WHAT YOU DONT.
SD, despite your determination to support the thesis of the “destructive cult” of Osho, which would justify the means used in the documentary to fight it, you at the same time claim to also firmly support the antithesis, the one where around Osho was not a destructive cult going on, not even for the children of sannyasins.
NONSENSE, IVE NEVER DESCRIBED SANNYAS AS A DESTRUCTIVE CULT, ALTHOUGH CERTAIN ASPECTS COULD DESERVE THAT DESCRIPTION. PARTICULARLY THOSE REVEALED IN THE DOCUMENTARY. HAVENT YOU HEARD THE VICTIMS COMPLAIN ABOUT HOW THEIR LIVES HAVE BEEN SEVERELY AFFECTED, EVEN IN SOME CASES RUINED?
Well, I expect that one day, instead of wasting time with me, you will be able to write in clear letters that the end of the documentary is wrong, which among other things it is clearly prefigured by the means used in the scenes.
PLEASE EXPLAIN WHAT YOU MEAN.
I do not know Barry Long except from the tabloids and from what I have read and seen here, the question remains, what prevents you from imagining that one of his former followers could write a book or make a film about his orgasms?
THATS VERY SIMPLE, CONSULT YOUR COMMON SENSE, VEET. BARRY LONG WAS NEVER A HOUSEHOLD NAME AND NEVER WANTED TO BE SO THERED BE NO SENSATIONALIST MILEAGE (OR MONEY} TO BE GAINED FROM ANY SUCH ENTERPRISE. AS A FORMER NEWSPAPER EDITOR AND TOP RANKING PR MAN HE WAS FAR TOO WORLDLY WISE TO IMAGINE ANY GOOD COULD COME FROM MEDIA PUBLICITY, KNOWING FULL WELL THE DUPLICITOUS NATURE OF HIS FORMER PROFESSION. IN CONTRAST, OSHO WASNT AS STREETWISE AND THE MEDIA PLAYED ITS PART IN VIRTUALLY ASSASSINATING HIM, AIDED OF COURSE BY THE STUPIDITY OF THE RULING CABAL WHOM HE UNFORTUNATELY APPOINTED AS HIS REPRESENTATIVES IN THE US.
Perhaps it concerns a problem of “reputation” that recurs in your arguments?
Are you so passionate about how people appear or represent themselves?
IF YOU DONT KNOW SOMEONE OR HAVE NO INSIDER KNOWLEGE OR EXPERIENCE OF AN ORGANISATION OR MOVEMENT, WHAT ELSE DO YOU HAVE TO GO ON EXCEPT HOW PEOPLE APPEAR OR REPRESENT THEMSELVES? DONT TELL ME YOU DONT UNDERSTAND THIS OBVIOUS POINT AS YOU DO THIS ALL THE TIME, HERE FOR INSTANCE.
On youtube now,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYI8sS_ZR7Y
I watched it during the night, before it’s taken down. It was hard to watch, I had to pause a couple of times, to just absorb what was being said.
I thought it was a very honest film, not afraid of confrontation. It deserves to be viewed alongside ‘Wild, Wild Country’ as part of the legacy of the sannyasin movement. I think Osho’s books and discourses do a good job talking about the best of sannyas, let these docus show the other side.
Sheela’s reply was shocking. As soon as she found out what the questions were really going to be about, she got out of there. Not an ounce of taking responsibility.
And Osho also doesn’t get away unscathed. The whole combination of free love, separating children from parents, it speaks of a stunning disregard for children growing up.
Hi Nityaprem,
There is a blog in Italian with testimonies of kids and teenagers who grew up in Osho communes who are quite proud of the experience, in particular a screenwriter who considers that experience formative for the work he loves to do today.
https://storielibere.fm/soli/ (Ep. 03 | Medina: the children’s commune)
https://storielibere.fm/soli-osho-children/
I’m still coming to terms with all the things that were talked about. It brought up a lot of memories, of things that were actually not ok. Some things that I personally experienced, some things that I heard about. I remember crying myself to sleep a few times in the kids trailer in Magdalena.
You could say that Osho built his commune on free love, and that the children paid the price. It was a continuation of the hippy movement, and pitched to attract them. I was lucky in some ways but didn’t escape the fallout altogether of living that time on the Ranch.
The whole breaking down of the family unit that happened in Osho’s communes… it boggles the mind that people thought it was ok in the long term?
Good, NP, I don’t want to castrate the “me too” emotions that are surfacing, when you have the space, time and the desire to do so, try to find the transcription of those testimonies, maybe then you can give back a testimony that is a little more balanced for those who are looking for a more nourishing existential meaning than the politically correct TV or web series.
“The whole breaking down of the family unit that happened in Osho’s communes… it boggles the mind that people thought it was ok in the long term?” NP
Sheela is not wrong, at least this time, when she says that she has never heard Osho say anything that encouraged the behaviour described in the documentary, in fact, what I heard him say was that not only was child care a responsibility of the whole Commune but also that parents and children were free to meet whenever they wanted.
I believe that the difference between an experience like yours compared to the sharings in the documentary, is due to the quality of loving parents like yours, that no amount of care by many sannyasins could have completely replaced, but if this is the explanation I fear that even a life outside an Osho commune, with parents busy bringing home the bread and the money to pay the bills, would not guarantee that those parents would have a different quality and sensitivity towards their children.
For me, the key thing was that all of a sudden the girls were missing from my life. It was like all of the potential sexual partners in my life had suddenly rejected me, and were no longer interested in socialising. For me that was a tremendously painful slow-motion realisation at such a deep level that I was not really conscious of it. Just watching this docu has brought it to the surface.
I’m beginning to realise that although I was not abused, the abuse going on around me did affect me profoundly, the whole situation was painful on a subtle level. You pick these things up when you’re in a spiritual environment, or perhaps I am just sensitive.
“I’m beginning to realise that although I was not abused, the abuse going on around me did affect me profoundly, the whole situation was painful on a subtle level. You pick these things up when you’re in a spiritual environment, or perhaps I am just sensitive.”
As a result of the situation, you did not learn to interact with girls, or even find girls? You must know for yourself.
Of course I learned to interact with girls, just not on the Ranch. Sometimes you ask some very silly questions, Satchit.
This is a good message, NP,
I was already thinking maybe you are gay.
Nothing wrong with it.
@ satyadeva says:
22 October, 2024 at 3:45 am: “…”.
SD, I think I am the nicest person in this Forum, maybe on par with Paritosh, I regret not having been able to interact with him.
I also had some disagreements with Parmartha, sometimes he seemed to subscribe to the barracks atmosphere that was created here.
Politics for me is a form of compassion, a look of the heart on the world, when we are full of love for our people and yet we feel and know that someone is not part of my community, for objective reasons or because they do not feel worthy.
For me, politics should first of all study the relationship between the objective/material reasons and the moral/spiritual reasons of human unhappiness, proposing a solution to overcome such objective/material reasons, imagining a possible correlation between slavery, in all its forms, and the feeling of not being worthy of love of those in chains.
I am not a career politician, and I do not think I am qualified enough for such a profession, which is why I fight passionately to be governed by politicians who are sometimes less prepared than me, chosen and placed in that position to defend the affairs of the few at the expense of the many.
I can tell you, Veet, that Parmartha was definitely no fan of yours, his attitude was similar to mine. As for Paritosh, Im not at all sure youd get along well on a personal level but maybe youd share certain attitudes, beliefs, I dont know.
Anyway, thanks for explaining your standpoint on politics. Sounds good, even impressive, but there again, so do nearly all such statements of personal purpose re the socio political collective.
However, if youre so nice, how come you come across as the exact opposite, one of the nastiest, most abusive, most self righteous. disrespectful people whos ever contributed to this forum?
Is that what you understand as being authentic, being oneself? Perhaps something you might have picked up from your years of Humaniversity etc, therapy endeavours? If so, youve quite a way to go before you actually live up to this currently illusory self image. But there again, I suppose you might simply be having a laugh….
SD, it is an open question whether how we appear depends on how we represent ourselves or whether it depends on those with whom we relate through such representation, or, and to what extent, on a mix between our being and our appearing, I believe that only the dialectical process helps to bring out better defined figures.
YOU OVER COMPLICATE THE ISSUE. THE FACT IS YOU HAVE BEEN OUTSTANDINGLY RUDE AND ARROGANTLY DISRESPECTFUL TOWARDS PEOPLE HERE FOR A LONG TIME. THATS WHY YOU RECEIVE NO POSITIVE FEEDBACK AND WHY NO ONE WANTS TO ENGAGE WITH YOU {EXCEPT A FOOL LIKE ME}.
Of course, the question, following the teaching of the Master of Masters, who was not one of the many tabloid playboys, is a matter of good humour, not to be taken too seriously, as you sometimes seem to do, imagining for example that positions expressed in a politically correct form cannot affirm and support violent and manipulative systems of power.
I know, sometimes I am not very kind to you but that is precisely the moment that I am taking most seriously the possibility that you may be awakened from the sleep of the banality of evil.
YOU CONDESCENDING CREEP.
Perhaps I have already honoured you with such attention and I repeat myself but in Naples they have an expression that well expresses the attitude to do something without restraint, in your case professing conformism, it is said to do things “with an open ass”. Well, it seems to me that your political conscience sleeps with an open ass.
THE SORT OF {CR}ASS REMARK ONE MIGHT WELL EXPECT FROM YOUR OWN HIND QUARTERS THAT ARE, WELL, JUST FULL OF IT, AS WE SAY OVER HERE {LOL}.
“YOU OVER COMPLICATE THE ISSUE. THE FACT IS YOU HAVE BEEN OUTSTANDINGLY RUDE AND ARROGANTLY DISRESPECTFUL TOWARDS PEOPLE HERE FOR A LONG TIME. THATS WHY YOU RECEIVE NO POSITIVE FEEDBACK AND WHY NO ONE WANTS TO ENGAGE WITH YOU {EXCEPT A FOOL LIKE ME}”. Satyadeva, yelling like a madman.
If you have not forgotten to capitalize, then by netiquette you are yelling, a symptom of arrogance and disrespect towards the interlocutor, which is why you may receive pitying comments from a mystic like me.
But why would one seek positive feedback by sharing what he thinks and feels?
VEET, IM USING CAPITALS TO SAVE TIME AND ENERGY AS IVE PLENTY MORE ON MY PLATE TODAY, BESIDES WHICH, AS IVE ALREADY STATED HERE SOME DAYS AGO, IM USING A FAULTY KEYBOARD UNTIL A NEW ONE ARRIVES {WHICH, BY THE WAY, IS WHY THE COMMENTS HAVE BEEN INADEQUATELY SUB EDITED THIS LAST WEEK OR MORE}.
SO NO MORE OF YOUR SILLY SELF INDULGENT COMMENTS, PLEASE.
I HAVE TO GO TO THE GYM, SD, REMEMBER ME I OWE YOU A COUPLE OF ANSWERS, I KNOW YOU WON’T SLEEP WITHOUT THEM, THE ONE ABOUT YOUR POLITICAL SENSE ON RACIAL AND CULTURAL INTEGRATION IN YOUR COUNTRY, AND ANOTHER ONE ABOUT SPIDER-IN-THE-DARK-ATTIC STRATEGY BY YOUR REPUTATION MASTER. BTW, INSTEAD ANSWER ME TO ONE QUESTION OF MINE YOU ASK ME ABOUT THE RELATONSHIP BETWEEN MEANS AND ENDS USED IN THE DOC…A LITTLE FANTASY, PLEASE…ARE YOU FOR DEATH PENALTY? PHISICALLY AND SPIRITUALLY?
MOD
Yes, SD definitely recommends capital punishment, which is highly appropriate in this case.
Capitalised words should only be used in RESPONDING to aspects of a post under special circumstancesm eg lack of time and or computer issues that prevent the writer from writing freely.
So please rewrite this post, Veet Francesco.
Yes, it is powerful and shocking, isn’t it? I watched it twice. I thought it was very professional and well made. Re Osho’s responsibility, I always thought he gave the adults what they wanted.
Yes, shocking. Also what one of the girls said about what happened to her friends after the Ranch collapsed = “hostessing, stripping, sex work, because sex was all they knew”. The Ranch didn’t do a good job of preparing you for the outside world, that is for sure.
Maybe you are correct in saying that Osho gave the adults what they wanted, sex free from the responsibility for children.
“”The family is either incestuous or neurotic!
The I is not master in his own house!
In sexual matters we should be tolerant!” S. Freud
John, today no longer Alok, I see that from your past experience at the feet of Osho you do not even save the critical sense and responsibility that should emerge when all belief systems are destroyed.
It seems to me that this documentary follows the same rhetorical pattern seen in the media so many times: there is a victim, with her sense of shame for the trauma experienced, often a woman or an ex child, there is the suspense of seeing the face of the person who did all that harm, hoping that it is monstrous enough, to finally be able to crush him/her, exhibiting it in front of the camera, regardless of what happened decades after the facts.
I believe that there is a difference between institutions that encourage and favour violent social relationships and individual paths disconnected from them, for me the facts told cannot be put in a cause-effect relationship with Osho’s point of view on sexual repression and patriarchal family.
If we really wanted to find environmental and cultural causes of the abuses described, I would broaden our gaze to what social customs were in the West or in India 40 years ago, still remembering how even today child genital mutilations, ritual or not, on average painfully shocking, still happen.
The frame of the documentary, if not already clear enough, can be obtained from how the sandwich at the end of the documentary is sealed, where a woman (Erin) talks about her individual and sexual sessions with Osho, although she was not a minor like all the other women interviewed, creating the misunderstanding that Osho also had sexual interest in minors… yes, of what age?
The age of consent is not the same around the world, it has tended to increase compared to the years in question, the same crime then could be prosecuted by private complaint and not by the office, by the authority, sometimes a crime against morality rather than one against the person, what was not a crime in Oregon 40 years could be in some other corner of the world, and vice versa.
In the Osho communes people from many cultures converged, very different from each other, with the relative laws on this matter, all publicly repressive, in words, but all more or less indulgent in the internal practice of institutions, family, religious communities, restricted communities.
Perhaps only the tantric tradition proposes a different path between repression and indulgence, which, reformed, was the experiment of Osho with his people, which still continues, with a certain success, even though one can sometimes make mistakes, hurt and be hurt
The following is the full comment that, in part, I had left under a video of an English writer, Lily Dunn, interviewed by what seems to me to be a Christian hunting for cults and sects that must not become mainstream for reasons of competition:
“Dear Lily, thank you for sharing, my heart goes out to little Lily with her abandonment wound… but also to your father, with his story framed by you, as is very popular today, as a narcissist.
I am an unrepentant friend/lover of Osho (1931-1990), I was in Pune for the first time in 91/92, I took sannyas in 95, I owe a lot to Osho and his community.
I can’t say whether thanks to or despite Osho, I met people in that world who helped me to know myself better, freeing me from the conditioning that had limited me as an Italian, Catholic, a student in a school run by nuns, the son of a traditional patriarchal family. My father was no different from yours in terms of attraction to women, to neglect the time and care of his 4 children.
A hard worker, he never failed to provide material support to his family, but what gratified him most socially was the free time he spent with his friends in alcoholic dinners after hard days of work (contractor/bricklayer of a small construction company), perhaps this trend/stress killed him at 51.
Having lived my childhood in the Roman countryside of the 60s, the pedagogical sensitivity of my fat prurient neighbor, mother of my playmates, who made me read erotic comics on her knees, is just a snapshot of how much sexual repression had accumulated in those years.
I don’t know if your father would have lived 10 years longer than mine if he had tried to remain faithful to the oath he made before the priest and God, but I don’t think that the traditional family is a sufficient reason to ignore the higher instances of conscience, so it’s unfair to dismiss it, as some of my hard-core Marxist friends would do, as narcissistic superstructural junk, it’s possible that your pain as a child was not in vain.
Prince Gautama, on the brink of madness, anguished by a life devoid of nourishment and spiritual meaning, left his pregnant wife (in addition to the kingdom) for an ascetic life, perhaps like your father at that stage of life he felt he had nothing truly important to offer you, your brother and your mother, if he hadn’t first found the source that would have healed the existential wound of lack of meaning, quenched that thirst.
Perhaps, if he had been forced to stay at home, he would have tried to quench his thirst with alcohol and would have become bitter, even towards his beloved family of which, deep down, he did not feel worthy, like all children who have passed through the hands of Christian priests and nuns.
I do not agree that the responsibilities of 2000 years of rhetoric of good principles, and related double standards, sedimented in our Christian consciences, should be unloaded on Osho, who testified and indicated the possibility of a radically different path, being in the world without belonging to it.
I know of Osho’s disciples who then lost themselves in the world, even committed suicide, risks that perhaps are not run in a hermitage, where one pursues a supposed spirituality lived sheltered from all temptations, human all too human.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4KH46PgBrc
A piece by Punya on OshoNews about the recent docu…
https://www.oshonews.com/2024/10/15/children-of-the-cult/
If you read it carefully, you’ll see a number of places where the article tries to lessen the impact of the docu — by spoiling the content so you don’t feel you have to watch it, by calling some of the women matrons sitting on their pink sofa’, by reverencing anti-Osho old men in the same piece, by calling Maroesja Perizonius (the director) an ‘aspiring film maker’, by saying how small the group of children in the communes was (twice), the list goes on…
There is a definite resistance in the old guard of anything that sniffs of them taking responsibility. It was visible in the film and it is more visible here.
Yes, there is protection in the article.
But the fact is: I only can be responsible for myself.
The docu goes in the direction that there should be some collective responsibility.
This is not possible.
For example, me, I was never in Oregon at all.
If you want to make somebody responsible, then take Osho, because he created a space without sexual rules.
But it was Osho himself who recommended collective responsibility for the children.
And do you seriously imagine that such responsibility would include people outside the communes?
Whatever Osho recommended, I am still alone responsible for what I do or don’t do.
Ok Satchit, but the Ranch was run by a team of people Osho trusted who did nothing to ensure the collective responsibility that he recommended. They simply didnt give a damn.
SD, Sheela and company were free, as you are, to betray the trust that was given to you by Osho since you decided to be reborn in his garden.
It still doesn’t come naturally to me to take a shit in the beloved’s garden and wipe my ass with the petals of those flowers, unlike many friends who in this forum for years have shown the way on how to free oneself from a cult.
Very true, SD. They simply gave all the adults what they wanted, and didn’t give a damn about collective responsibility. Which is why it now looks like there might be a class-action lawsuit against OIF.
https://www.leighday.co.uk/news/news/2024-news/osho-sexual-abuse-allegations-leigh-day-investigates-potential-for-legal-claim/
SD, Osho often defined “responsible” as being capable of responding.
So seems this was the response of the team of the people who did run the Ranch to the situation.
Doing nothing!
And what would be the alternative choice?
Creating an OFSA (Office for Sexual Activities) where some secret agents could sniff out if things were okay or not?
Thats not the only alternative, Satchit, your attitude is far too passive, defeatist. The English expression, where theres a will theres a way, and its opposite, where theres no will theres no way, would seem to apply here.
Its surely a matter of the regime lacking the will to protect the kids, of not regarding them as important enough to make the effort to make it crystal clear that there must be boundaries in interactions between adults and children, according to the laws of the the land where they were living.
Satchit, I agree with you, it seems to me that if Osho’s teaching was limited to creating the right environment for the satisfaction of sexual urges, it would not have attracted more people than a tourist/sexual destination or a red light district, especially for a question of prices/costs.
Yes, I read Punya’s article carefully and I agree. A particularly egregious illustration is the way Punya writes about Rosalind, one of the survivors.
A man pursued Rosalind for sex although Rosalind repeatedly told him she was not interested. Rosalind describes how one evening she found him in her bed waiting for her. She felt she had no choice but to get into the bed and submit to him. Legally this was rape.
Yet this is what Punya writes:
Then we have: …Rosalind, who came to Medina in 1981 with her parents, aged 15. She had problems with a man, and although “everybody knew it, not one person said anything supportive to me, including my parents.”
It is a nasty piece of work, that article… I hope ITV does a deal with Netflix for streaming rights of the docu, to give it some really wide international distribution.
The OshoNews article seems to have been removed from the site.
MOD
Youre referring to Osho News as well as to here, NP?
Thats the first Ive heard of this, we werent told about it at all, although I did notice SN was impossible to get into for a short time earlier on this afternoon.
Interesting strategy in this power game:
They removed the article on OshoNews because the vid is no more available on YouTube.
Why wake up sleeping dogs?
If you click on the link above, it takes you to a different article on OshoNews. Funny thing, that.
You know, I’m hearing that there is some resistance and denial around the response of older sannyasins (both male and female) to the ‘Children of the Cult’ documentary. It seems quite a few of them don’t want to know about it? I’ve passed the link to a few people, who passed it to a few other people, and there seem to be some very lukewarm responses.
I can kind of understand this, because the girls on the Ranch were acting according to the role models that the community created. If sleeping around was harmful for them, why would it be ok for adult women? Perhaps the whole ‘free love’ ethos needed to be looked at again.
It puts me in mind of a phrase from the docu, from one of the women, about “the relentless pressure from the men to have sex.” I’ve watched the docu twice now, and I’m finding it has changed my viewpoint on a few things to do with Osho and the communes.
The docu is also not totally fair, NP.
The Erin story has really nothing to do with child abuse.
Things have different dimensions, it’s not all a one-way street.
No, that’s true, but it’s part of setting the scene against which the rest of the story plays out. I think it’s fair to mention it, I don’t think it gets excessive airtime.
NP, what is your ethos in sexual matters?
I imagine that like me you do not come from an incestuous family and have had to deal with a bit of Oedipal neurosis, at least until you tried to apply the tantric approach, I mean not only on the intellectual level, in which you often seem to indulge.
Sex is fine, but it should be about something more than just attraction. A deeper connection is what is wanted.
“Sex is fine, but it should be about something more than just attraction. A deeper connection is what is wanted”. NP
After experiencing Osho Tantra, right after the Primal group, I thought I would never share intimacy with a woman in the old way again…
Then I discovered that I would only meet such partners in Osho communities while I also like the Zorba dimension (wasn’t it clear?) so sex has returned to being a way to socialize, the first step, it’s not certain that others will come but I don’t complain if it doesn’t happen, unless I fall in love and she doesn’t and so I start stalking the virgin Mary.
MOD
No one at SN Admin interfered with this post yesterday, Veet Francesco.
Some posts about the docu got deleted in some of the FB groups about Osho… I think it is really outrageous that some of the people in charge of these groups thought that was an appropriate response.
“I’m finding it has changed my viewpoint on a few things to do with Osho and the communes.”
NP, this page Is the right place to come back to your christian name.
I’m going to let it settle for a while before I do anything like that.
NP, not too long, though…it’s possible that a next series on Netflix will be commissioned by the Osho Resort in Pune and you’ll miss the chance for another change of existential direction.
“This war is a war on children. It is a war on their childhood and their future,” said UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini, 14 March 2024.
https://turkiye.un.org/en/263401-gaza-number-children-killed-higher-four-years-world-conflict
MOD
Why have you posted this, Veet F? Plus the photo of Jewish children, that has been deleted. This isnt a forum for purely political discussion.
SD, if there is anyone here who has a different agenda than Parmartha and Sam, it is not me, but I could lend you a mirror.
I posted a photo of the genocide taking place in Gaza with the caption “Children of the Jewish cult”, but it would be more correct to call it “zionist cult”, because NP is considering changing his name, in fact the initial topic of the forum was precisely to ask ourself if in sannyas names Osho wanted to indicate a direction or one of the infinite shades of the heart.
Then a postman arrived with a raised arm and a mocking smile, waving letters sent today to addresses of 40 years ago, the usual web or TV series that seems to nail the Master of Masters to the guilt of having created a cult with the ritual sacrifice of children to indulge his malignant narcissism.
To put things in perspective I reflected on the contribution that criminals like Osho can make in conflicts between humble and simple men, only such contempt for the human race can justify a genocide like that of Gaza.
Veet, your post is drenched in false assumptions, not least your claim of sharing the same agenda as the two founders of SN, both of whom I knew, especially Parmartha, who was a friend for 43 years and who Im certain would regard such statements as thoroughly inappropriate.
Ill leave the rest until another time, rather than wasting more energy when I should be in bed.
SD, in your politically correct mind what do you think Sam or Big P. would say about the recent attacks on their “evil narcissist and rapist” Guru?
Big P lived in Medina, could he also be chased with a camera to make him kneel and repent before the world for not protecting the kids who lived there enough, himself a victim of a cult that encouraged violent social relationships?
The Dilemma of Children in a Commune
Posted on 28 September, 2017 by Parmartha
Currently the management of the ashram/Resort impose quite strict rule about children, (I am told.) . Children below 12 can only enter at lunch times for an hour. This doesn’t seem to me to be altogether a bad thing!
It has set me thinking about my own experience as a teacher in Medina in the eighties, and someone who some children found a way to in Pune one.
Many today, for example Arun, in his latest book, basically condemn this rule, but I think he is not thinking deeply enough.
The children in Pune one, and who were in the communes like Medina were not universally happy, though he and others claim this. They were not happy because many of them needed some boundaries, but were not given them. They were not universally loved, and some treated poorly by their parents.
A recent German movie called Summer in Orange, partly tells the story of one particular sannyasin daughter who definitely does not get an easy ride in a sannyas commune at the time, circa, 1980, and frankly it has the ring of truth. It is worth a watch.
On the Ranch for example children were often completely ignored, and spent their waking hours just walking around, some of them quite lonely. (though not all).
Hence I would say this is a more complicated sort of discussion than people like Arun might entertain.
The sons and daughters of early sannyasins do not universally praise the treatment they received. Many blame their parents for not being clearer, in the intense struggle many experienced between trying to show care for their children, and putting their care for their own growth ahead of that.
I am told by Sufi friends that often the rule within Sufi communities of old was no children, as it was felt this defocused those who wanted to go beyond the smaller self.
Any which way I wanted to discuss this, as it seems to me that sometimes the children of early sannyains had a rough time, and not some idealised account, such as the Aruns of this world, now propagate.
Parmartha
https://sannyasnews.org/now/archives/7157
I’ve been spending some time on Facebook, and while it’s good to make a connection with some of the sannyas kids, some of the stories shared on there are pretty challenging to the average sannyas mindset. The truth will come out, eventually.
I said on there that what Osho’s book ‘The Mustard Seed’ was for my parents generation, who were brought up in Christian families, that is the ‘Children of the Cult’ documentary for me, brought up in the Osho communes. It is an opportunity to re-evaluate the memories of childhood, and the people as well.
Every sannyasin should watch it.
Hi Nityaprem, I watched the documentary and read the book, decades ago now, and I don’t understand what analogy you’re referring to.
I also don’t understand what you mean by “the truth will come out, eventually”, perhaps that your parents raised you in a “destructive cult”?
Well, I don’t know if I’d call sannyas a ‘destructive cult’ exactly. Certainly I think the idea of relying on everyone in the commune to bring up the kids was a horrible one.
Certainly I am beginning to think that the word ‘cult’ is not misplaced when referring to Osho’s movement. For a long time I resisted it, thinking that people were always free to leave, there wasn’t really any coercion, it was all happy-and-jolly… and as long as you are on the periphery and have your own money, you are in control and can sip the nectar.
When you get closer in though, the picture changes. On the Ranch you weren’t in control of where you slept or worked or whether you’d be ejected to go to another commune, there was definitely coercion. It was all fed by Osho’s appearance as enlightened, as knowing how to become a Buddha. People wanted to stay close to him, and the whole commune was built on that appeal. That is why people were willing to work 12-hr. days, do what the Mas told them, and so on.
It all points to things being a lot more cult-like than I thought. As long as you had money you were free and in control, but the commune was also after your money. A lot of people gave everything they had to the commune.
NP, one can think in all kind of directions. Was it not also coercion that you became a sannyasin?
Were you not too young to make such a decision?
In a way I was, yes. I was thinking of being with my mother and father, and wanting to do as they did. A perfectly normal and natural response for a 6 year old boy…
“A perfectly normal and natural response for a 6 year-old boy…”
Yes, maybe what your parents did was not normal and natural.
Being on the spiritual trip and not always being available for the child.
Did you complain sometimes to them or have you been a good boy?
One thing I’m still finding difficult after watching ‘Children of the Cult’ is getting a clear view on who Osho really was. Talking to other people and getting a sense of their stories is proving to be useful, especially people who were actually there.
The books that Osho dictated under nitrous oxide are interesting, and so are some of the interviews he gave to the press on the Ranch. He was pretty candid about not being celibate, for example, and having many women. Which begs the question, who were these women?
One other thing Osho said was that all the discourses about Buddhism, Sufism, Zen, Tao, all that was to lure people into his circle, it was a “hook”. I found that surprising and shocking. These are the world’s great wisdom traditions, and he admits to using them as a tool.
A lot of that material that Osho gave out was collected in this article, ‘The Narcissistic Guru’. I found it interesting, when you take all his comments together like this it does form a not-very-flattering picture. I remember coming across some of these things in discourses, and letting them just pass as an ‘oddity’. But here they are all together. Worth reading.
https://cdn.centerforinquiry.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/26/1988/04/22160943/p33.pdf
Ive no problem at all with Osho using the great wisdom traditions as “hooks”, NP, he wasnt here specifically as a lecturer on religion he was a master whose purpose was to awaken people with his extraordinary enlightened energy, the lengthy discourses primarily being a means to occupy the minds of listeners so they could become open to receiving the profound, loving silence of his being, according to their capacity.
Yes, the ‘Buddhafield’… I have heard that after he said it was ok for people to stop wearing orange there was a discourse where he said people had been too quick and joyful to let go of the orange, that it proved they were all hypocrites and he was ‘withdrawing the Buddhafield’!
He came back the next day and said it had been a joke.
Maybe it was just about the energy exchange. But it always seemed to me as if Osho was attempting some grand synthesis of all these spiritual traditions, as if there was some underlying meaning to why he was talking about all these traditions.
I find it sad and disappointing to find out it was all about manipulation, in the interest of sucking people in and giving their minds something to chew over in discourses.
I find “manipulation” a glaringly inappropriate term to apply to Osho’s discourses. The whole point of being with him was to absorb his fine energy, the purity, the selfless love, and to allow that to do its transformational work.
Which doesn’t imply that the content of his talks on the various masters of what eventually became different traditions was therefore necessarily flawed or incomplete, simply that the content was subservient to the energetic transmission. That was his supreme gift and it was priceless.
I suggest that he had little interest in becoming yet another revered historical religious figure, his radical message reduced to yet another set of moral and behavioural principles, he relied upon reaching and hugely influencing enough people while he was alive in order that the essence of what he was about would penetrate not just them but through them the collective psyche as a resource available to all future generations.
By the way, that’s not an idea emanating from Osho himself, it’s what I’ve learned from Barry Long’s description of how this process works.
Hmm, yes. There seem to be as many views as there are sannyasins about what Osho was, or was trying to accomplish. For some people it is about a kind of grand vision, and for others it was one or two key experiences they had with him, and yet others choose to see him through the eyes of society. He remains a bit of a mystery.
I think that for a lot of common people, the ‘Children of the Cult’ documentary will end up being a kind of turning point in how they see the movement and Osho. How can you call yourself an Enlightened being and not know what is happening right under your nose? How can you allow something in your communes that will ultimately turn out to be so damaging to so many kids?
People I know who used to be Osho fans in the Buddhist community are now saying to me, “I want nothing further to do with the man or his teachings, and I’ve put his books out with the trash.” Just to give an impression of the depth of feeling the documentary has stirred.
“People I know who used to be Osho fans in the Buddhist community are now saying to me, “I want nothing further to do with the man or his teachings, and I’ve put his books out with the trash.” Just to give an impression of the depth of feeling the documentary has stirred.”
Wow! This is really impressive.
Do you know what Osho would say?
“I am not interested in lukewarm followers, let them go, I am only interested in real disciples.”
For me, Osho will always remain part of my childhood. I can’t ignore the things I have learned about him recently, from the documentary and from Erin Robbins’ letter and from the Facebook group, and that has changed the way I perceive him. He has shrunk a bit in stature, from the mystical guru-figure to a more human being caught up in materialistic likes and dislikes and lusts.
And if I look clearly, there are some aspects to him that I would not now tolerate in a person in authority, like the leader of a spiritual movement. It has to do with his lack of emotional life. He said on a number of occasions that he does not participate in relationships, that any relationship people think they have with him is only on their side.
If you consider what that means:
It means he is incapable of heartfulness, of a big-hearted hug or full acceptance of an emotional life or real empathy. That is not a normal, heart-centred human being.
I think this is a misconception, NP, that you’re mistaking the cool of enlightenment for a fault, a deficiency of emotion. You forget that he showered empathy and compassion on people in the intimacy of darshans, albeit with the underlying coolness of non-attachment, which was his blessed state of being, free from the ups and downs of the ‘normal’ human condition.
Problem is, we have preconceptions about what ultimate freedom, perfect love should look like, while having little or no first-hand experience of what it actually is, having to manage as best we can with our own limitations.
As for your buddhist friends, perhaps they don’t realise that he was in seclusion at the Ranch for much of the time and couldn’t possibly be aware of all that was going on everywhere, particuarly as Sheela and co wouldn’t have bothered to inform him as they seem to have not regarded the sex abuse issues as abuse.
To which they might respond, how can he be enlightened if he misjudged Sheela’s capacities for the role he assigned her? To which I would say that enlightenment doesn’t necessarily prevent mistakes, particularly in areas where the person concerned has no previous experience.
It’s easy, so tempting to put the great masters of long ago, eg the Buddha, Jesus, on an idealistic, unrealistic pedestal so that they become mythical figures of total perfection. Which arises from people’s insecurity, a craving for certainty, for someone and something to trust 100%, for a total and utter perfection that’s impossible to achieve.
Try putting that to the buddhists and see how they respond. I’d be willing to bet that they’d come out with even more condemnation of Osho, never of course having actually experienced him for themselves. I’m with Satchit on this, I reckon Osho wouldn’t have given a damn about their judgments, he’d have been pleased they weren’t involved with his movement, while wishing them well.
It’s possible, it is hard to say anything for sure about someone else’s internal world. The best you can do is examine their actions as well as their words.
Sure, but you can also sense their state of being, if you meet them – if you’re internally clear enough – and in the case of spiritual teachers, to an extent even from watching videos.
Yes, but what you see is open to interpretation. It is not always easy to discern the truth….
Yes, in the end one has to trust one’s judgment, one’s gut feeling if you like.
For me, while I trust my own responses to Osho, they were also confirmed by Barry Long who said he knew Osho “knew the Truth”, was “a great Master” who did wonderful work opening people up, although he also said the sannyasins and ex-sannyasins who came to see him (BL) were generally “saturated with emotion”, which needed to be ‘siphoned off’ (my term), as it were, before deeper progress could be made.
“One thing I’m still finding difficult after watching ‘Children of the Cult’ is getting a clear view on who Osho really was.”
From the viewpoint of a child he maybe looked like a daddy. But he certainly was not nice. (“I am not nice,
I am not your uncle”).
Perhaps he was a kind of meeting of the opposites.
In my opinion it is also not so important who he was.
Regarding the diagnosis of narcissism made by the shrink Ronald O. Clarke, I would like to make a couple of observations about the method used, thanking Nityaprem for the prompt generosity with which he shared it on this forum, officially becoming the male spokesperson of the mee too movement, of Christian origin and Scottish liturgy.
Psychiatry frames the illness or mental disorder as a problem of the individual to adapt to the rules of social life and to the conditions of his environment in general, such difficulties would cause him further suffering in perceiving himself and being perceived as different.
At this point the diagnosis, in the case of Osho, would already be over, indeed it would never have begun, because even a medical discipline like psychiatry, which tends to be deterministic due to its foundations in genetics and physiology, requires a minimum of clinical observation with a minimum of care in the setting where it must occur, even when the maladjusted were lobotomized, the testimony of friends and acquaintances was not enough to establish the diagnosis and cure of the case.
Mr. Ronald the shrink, summarizes the life of a man, whom he has never met in a professional session, using excerpts from his speeches or second and third hand news related to this ideal patient, to make a coherent collage of events that coincide with the description that in psychiatry is given to the narcissistic disorder.
For example, to describe alleged interpersonal problems he mentions the death of his grandfather, deducing that from that trauma Osho would have assumed an unaffectionate attitude, omitting an autobiographical fact that a few years later would contradict this hypothesis, I refer to Osho’s pain for the death of his girlfriend.
But I would not even ignore what is said of his deeply saddened look for the death of his partner, Nirvano.
I could go on but I don’t want to expose myself to the criticism of the fine literary critic SD, who would find me boring and driven by some secret agenda, but just one last thing should be mentioned to contradict the diagnosis of narcissism drawn up by Dr. Clarke about his unknown patient, that is, Osho was not an anxious type, on the contrary he transmitted peace, harmony, joy, relaxation, playfulness…
A narcissist is a performer, he depends on his performance, this identification with the result of his action/ideation is necessary in order to create the vicious circle that constitutes the psychic nucleus of the narcissist.
Questioning the performance of the narcissist is a cause for anxiety, it would mean undermining the foundations of his identity.
The other side of this coin (anxiety) is depression, the breaking point for the performative intensity, it seems to me that not even this aspect falls within the common perception of those who love Osho.
That’s better, Veet Francesco, only one piece of gratuitous nonsense this time, so well done. We all know you really can’t help yourself coming out with such crap so in future it will be deleted, ok?
“…only one piece of gratuitous nonsense this time, so well done”. (Satyadeva)
Your answer seems a bit snobbish, SD.
A psychiatric diagnosis about Osho is posted, described as a spoiled and lying child and for this reason as an adult he will be affected by narcissism, on a forum dedicated to him and his people and you feel the need to attack me who criticizes such a diagnosis.
I specifically contested the lack of an accurate clinical setting, necessary for any diagnosis, otherwise too many relevant events could be added or omitted, polluting the field of analysis.
The most important event that is omitted from the picture, a consequence of the very assumption of the psychiatric model, is that every man wants to integrate/adapt to his society, that his happiness depends on this, as if the existential perspective of a Buddha were implicitly sick, founded on four noble pieces of bullshit.
Before reading the things SD writes and allows other ex-sannyasins to write in this forum, I believed that the lowest common denominator of sannyas (or any other spiritual path that does not include a god who indicates an earthly life of redemption in function of the paradise created for the virtuous) was the painful discovery of how fragile human nature is, exposed to all forms of loss of loved things.
Damn, knowing this beforehand, with all the chemistry, legal and illegal, available today, why follow in the footsteps of those retarded people who in the 70s went up the Silk Road to go and take acid in Afghanistan, Nepal or Goa?
Why suffer if a beloved grandfather or our first teenage love dies?
Isn’t it more fun to race to compete and have increasingly sophisticated and exclusive objects?
What better than processing a mourning by buying the latest Ferrari model, accessorized with a blonde or brunette top model? N.B: I didn’t write Rolls Royces.
https://cdn.centerforinquiry.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/26/1988/04/22160943/p33.pdf
It’s noteworthy, Veet F, how often you accuse others of disrespect, seemingly oblivious of your own major tendency to be rude, arrogant. Very often here you adopt a confrontational approach, as if other contributors are fools, of lesser intrinsic worth than yourself and In so doing you yourself invite similar antagonism, ridicule. Which I suggest amounts to a simple demonstration of ‘instant karma’.
Don’t complain, SD, if you have arguments, reply, if you don’t then remove the insults on Lokesh’s last post and then we’ll reset your karma.
MOD:
There was nothing that qualified as “insults” in Lokesh’s last post, Veet F. End of discussion, we’re moving on.
“There was nothing that qualified as “insults” in Lokesh’s last post, Veet F. End of discussion, we’re moving on.”
“One only needs to read some of the warped comments posted by retards like Veet Francesco to see that.”
MOD:
Post edited (insults deleted).
Ok, point taken.
And please bear in mind how consistently insulting you’ve been during your time here, Veet F. Which helps to explain how little response to your contributions you ever get; basically, no one wants to interact with you.
Perhaps you should consider this before you write anything and check any impulse to make snide, abusive remarks, however potentially gratifying the prospect might feel. It’s only non-essential egoic nonsense after all…
So now we move on, enough of this point-scoring.
SD, are you saying that you agree with Doctor Clarke’s diagnosis of Osho’s narcissism?
Would it be interesting if you tried to explain why?
MOD:
Offensive language removed from this post.
Veet Francesco, I’m not interested in replying to your posts until you clean up your act here.
MOD:
To which VF has sent this threat:
“non mi provocare, guido il camion regolarmente su UK”. Which means “Don’t provoke me, I drive my truck regularly in the UK.”
Veet Francesco, unless you withdraw this threat you’ll be banned from SN.
SD, if it is possible in this forum to alter other people’s comments, describing one of the writers as a drug dealer in gay bars, without you raising an eyebrow, then perhaps a stimulus to reconnect you with the non-virtual ground of responsibility is desirable.
Have you taken away the editorial privilege of altering other people’s comments from ex-sannyasins who treat you like an old slipper?
P.S:
You asked where you spoke in favour of the death penalty:
“BTW, INSTEAD, ANSWER ME TO ONE QUESTION OF MINE: YOU ASK ME ABOUT THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MEANS AND ENDS USED IN THE DOC…A LITTLE FANTASY, PLEASE…ARE YOU FOR DEATH PENALTY? PHYSICALLY AND SPIRITUALLY?” (Veet f. 22 October, 2024 at 3:59 pm)
“MOD:
Yes, SD definitely recommends capital punishment, which is highly appropriate in this case.”
Oh dear, Veet F, you’re far too serious (a serious crime, of course, in Sannyas circles, as you may or may not know!). I suggest you look at my comment again. Make it a meditation!
I understood your ironic intent, SD, but I didn’t want you to bask too much in feeling like you were on the side of the virtuous who accuse 45 years later someone you perhaps have always envied for their success with groupies.
I repeat, I’m sorry for what happened to them decades ago, but I still don’t feel compassion for alleged victims who today publicly expose their wounds together with those who caused them, seeking revenge, morally/physically destroying someone who may have nothing to do with the one they accuse of having molested them as teenagers.
You do well to remember that the age of consent that matters is the one where the events took place, the country in question is famous for its respect for human rights, especially children’s, except when the USA exports democracy to Germany, Japan, Vietnam, Indonesia, Chile, Italy, Iraq, Syria, Palestine….
And yet with your sense of justice, fanatical in applying the law always and everywhere, you then asked me what the Osho video had to do with the events narrated in the documentary, what his compassion for the Palestinians and Israelis forced by a cruel political game to feed the war industry has to do with it, I posted it after you asked me what the article I posted about the children of Gaza, under the bombs today, had to do with it.
Probably, if the commune had been built in another country, technically there would not have been a crime. I hope this does not cause you cognitive dissonance, the world will speak less and less English, a karma that is not so instantaneous.
The problem is that the people you enjoy displaying as monsters on screens today are probably just a tool for an agenda that aims to destroy the work done by Osho, with his golden keys to manage internal and external (political) conflicts.
“The problem is that the people you enjoy displaying as monsters on screens today are probably just a tool for an agenda that aims to destroy the work done by Osho, with his golden keys to manage internal and external (political) conflicts.”
I “enjoy displaying as monsters” those people, do I, Veet F? What makes you so sure of this?
You cite “an agenda that aims to destroy the work done by Osho, with his golden keys to manage internal and external (political) conflicts.” Unfortunately, anyone with such an agenda has been given plenty of information, ammunition even, with which to carry it out and even succeed. Including Osho’s own errors, notably his inability, through appointing the wrong people to run the Ranch, to effectively “manage internal and external (political) conflicts.” That you can not see this speaks volumes about how blind you are, more evidence of the sometimes fine line between devotional committment – unseasoned by good judgment based on common sense – and politico-religious fanaticism, often based on insecurity, an overwhelming need for ‘certainty’.
However, it seems there’s no need for anyone to despair, to imagine that Osho’s huge efforts to wake us (the human race, via ‘his’ segment of the world’s population) might or will fail (or have failed) merely because of such public scandals and flaws. As I’ve said before, the truth apparently is that his influence on the people who’ve truly imbibed his teachings and his rare energy will not be lost, it already is and will be further well established in the collective psyche as a resource from which future generations will be able to draw, helping to transform humanity.
He in effect stated this when he declared that despite opposition, his way would become more and more significant in the future of spirituality, it was unstoppable because it was the truth, whose time had come, emphasising the joy of Life, the life of joy, the joy of living.
Barry Long said likewise about how great Truth, once expressed enough, accepted and lived by enough people, can not fail, however bleak world circumstances might become. And as, I think, Werner Erhard said, “There is nothing as powerful as an idea whose time has come.”
(29 October, 2024 at 1:30 pm)
why do you continue to write at the bottom of my recent comments “Offensive language removed from this post” even when I have not written anything about it?
MOD:
Because you wrote some gratuitously offensive language, which isn’t going to be tolerated here.
“I “enjoy displaying as monsters” those people, do I, Veet F? What makes you so sure of this?”
You are the one who broke the news of the screening of the documentary in theatres on the forum, you did it in a neutral way even though it is blatantly dramatising information material for scandal purposes.
You also changed the title of the topic of the page, referring to an article by Nityaprem who nobly seemed to want to deconstruct the sannyasin namr with the sincere intent of rediscovering the meaning of his name, before returning to his Christian baptismal name.
Lokesh who returns only to insult retarded people like you who try with little conviction to explain that what you are part of is not a cult.
The renegade Nityaprem (a friend on Facebook of the nostalgic renegade, a devotee of the Grateful Dead and chemical shortcuts) disseminates links in the forum, articles and initiatives announcing the deposition of the corpse of the malignant narcissist in the toilet of history.
But all this seems to put you in a good mood, a sudden optimism towards the disciples of Osho, except people blinded by fanaticism like me, about the outcome of this story, dictated by a revolutionary determinism that would make an orthodox Marxist proletarian of the 20s envious.
MOD:
Post edited.
Thank you for putting out your rubbish. Perhaps someone will collect it in the morning, although it’s hardly worth recycling.
The documentary ‘Children of the Cult’ was for me an important turning point, these were the events of my childhood they are talking about, and some of the people I have known. But what really made the difference was going onto Facebook and reading some of the accounts people who were present at the time gave.
Theirs are not my stories to tell, but they made me conclude I can no longer trust Osho as a source of spiritual teachings. It’s been nothing short of an inner earthquake for me, Osho to me was the first guru I knew, the guru of my childhood, and also an ever-present teacher since I seriously started seeking spiritually twelve years ago.
To realise now that he kept inconvenient behaviour secret from us, that he colluded in creating a damaging scene of sexual abuse in his communes, and that he may well have been a narcissist or a sociopath (or both) was shocking to me. It is making me re-evaluate a whole series of things I had taken on trust previously.
I was just reminded by someone on FB of this quote:
“For one human to seek enlightenment from another human is like one grain of sand on the beach seeking enlightenment from another grain of sand.”
(Terence McKenna)
It is sometimes useful to be reminded that in the great scheme of things we humans are also only small, not so significant in the eyes of the cosmos. Not taking things too seriously today.
MOD:
Apologies for being slow to put up these last few posts, my computer has had a breakdown that was only fixed this evening.
NP, I disagree with “we humans are also only small, not so significant in the eyes of the cosmos.” I think you’re devaluing what one might term ‘the human experiment’. After all, we are not only the only intelligent life forms of superior intelligence that we know, despite scientists telling us there are bound to be vast numbers of beings of similar or greater (or lower, I suppose) intelligence on huge numbers of other planets (accoding to a tv programme I watched recently)…(deep breath and see * below)…the masters say that behind our forms we are also in essence the very stuff of Life, of Creation, of the Source, the Nothing behind Everything.
*(While explaining the ‘flying saucers’ phenomenon, BL said other such life forms certainly exist, many light years away – but the truth is that the beings inside the saucers are “us in another time”, able to travel faster than the speed of light. Any minds reeling from such a breathtaking concept please feel free to lie down and see if you’re still able to locate anything that resembles a breath…If so, the suggestion is to watch it…).
The things that still resonate with me are mostly the postcard sayings, like Follow your bliss, Celebrate life, Trust in existence. I’m not even sure if they came from Osho, but I first came across them in the sannyas community.
I’m also finding it a big job to re-evaluate the impact Osho has had on my life. I’ve listened to a lot of his lectures, and have to say most of them put me to sleep more than waking me up. He once said meditation was similar to being in a hypnotic trance, and that doesn’t strike me as being close to the kind of Awakening that the Zen masters describe.
It’s a thing, to take someone who has given as much life advice as Osho, and to see whether he followed his own advice. If you read Erin Robbins’s website and letter, and you see where Osho stood on love and sex publicly, the contrast is jarring. I’m left concluding that Osho didn’t love the women he had sex with. That is a big deal in my eyes, it is a kind of lying to us, saying one thing and doing another. Shocking.
There is a kind of “veil of forgiveness”, of not judging, which I used to drape over these things, saying, ah it’s Osho, he says a lot of outrageous things. But in reality, why should I cut him so much slack?
You seem to be in a spiritual crisis, NP.
Something: Is Osho worth being called your Master or not?
Or is it time to kill the Buddha on the road?
My favourite postcard saying is:
Follow your energy!
Osho has been dead for nearly 35 years, surely there is no need to kill him again?
But you are right, spiritual crisis is here. It will take time to come to terms with what Osho and growing up in his cult has meant to me.
I was talking to Lokesh on Facebook, and he said something quite wise, that it is all a learning curve. Cheers, Lokesh. A bit of perspective from someone who was in the same position many years ago.
Some recognition is enough.
First the mind creates a problem (being in a cult), then it tries to solve it.
https://www.oshotimes.com/insights/society/politics/who-is-responsible-for-sexual-abuse-of-children/
This was published in 2016, have a read of what Osho’s reply was.
Somebody on Facebook compared Osho’s discourses to a great actor reading Shakespeare. Osho spent many discourses talking about spiritual classics like the Dhammapada and the Tao Te Ching, and of course these things attracted people.
But why was it necessary to have so many followers? Many gurus are content with just a handful of disciples, or said, “you can learn all I have to teach in two weeks, and then you leave”, like Poonjaji. Why make the driven, concerted effort to reach so many, draw them in and keep them? Well, a narcissist’s key characteristic is that he needs to be adored, preferably by as many people as possible…
It certainly sets one to thinking about who Osho really was. Actions speak louder than words, and if you critically examine his actions, quite a different and not such an enlightened picture emerges.
Nityaprem, you do a good work to open the eyes of the people why Osho was a cheat.
Maybe you should make a list?
Too many followers! Too many Rolls Royce!
Why was it necessary to have so many followers? Because the climate of the times, where young people were at and the state of the world demanded it: Large numbers of the post-war generation were hungry for change, for experiment, for inner adventure, we were ripe for the new. And many of us, having been damaged to a greater or lesser degree by our flawed upbringing, as well as, in more than a few cases, revelations experienced through psychedelics, knew that we desperately needed to find something in ourselves, something deeply nourishing, fundamentally different to what we’d experienced so far.
In other words, much work had to be done, we were raw, on ‘a path less travelled’ and needed much guidance. Osho saw that spiritual awakening on a large scale was an absolute priority for humanity so he cast his net far and wide, wanting to attract as many of ‘the right people’ as possible.
He also knew that the fundamental changes that needed to happen in his people needed a collective environment that could support and encourage the nurturing of a new way of being. That had nothing to do with narcissism, it was doing what he perceived to be necessary. And that he was able to carry out this work and positively influence many thousands of people’s lives is a mark of his genius.
As I mentioned the other day, BL said that as well as the actual words and presence of Masters themselves, the greater the number of people who are significantly benefited by spiritual practices and teachings the greater the effects upon the collective psyche, so that they become a resource from which future generations can draw. Surely that’s also what Osho was up to and was why he said his teachings would inevitably become a major influence on humanity, even if he himself were not remembered.
(I’ll add some thoughts about his clandestine sex life later on today or tomorrow).
What puzzles me about this view is why no children? Why the free sex but no pregnant women? Even sterilisation? It seems to me that if the New Man was to be born from the commune then it makes sense that it would be from the next generation…
In Osho’s commune energy levels were high but attachment to anything other than Osho was discouraged.
Creating more children wasn’t encouraged because Osho declared that would distract people from the inner work that was necessary for optimum spiritual growth. I don’t think you quite realise the state that generation was in, NP. Almost everyone had a lot and many had enormous work to put in even at very basic levels to undo the damage that had been done, which Osho perceived very clearly and for which purpose his cathartic meditations and therapy facilities were created.
Agreed, Satyadeva. The 1970s in my recollection was a very strange and unpleasant time; the optimism of the 1960s suddently crashed. Nityaprem is too young to appreciate how unpleasant the atmosphere was. Growing up under the threat of nuclear annihilation was no joke. And the traumas of the second world war were passed down to the post-war generation. The Orange people carried the craziness of three world wars, the third one being the Cold War.
That is true, my perspective of the Seventies and early Eighties is that of a child, not even a teenager, as I was on the Ranch in 1985.
“Somebody on Facebook compared Osho’s discourses to a great actor reading Shakespeare.”
This remark captures something of Osho’s presence and his performer’s capacity to hold an audience’s attention through his oratory and charisma, but to the extent that it suggests that’s all he was doing it’s only a partial description, failing to provide the whole picture, leaving out the crucial ingredient, the transmission of spiritual energy to his audience, in a way similar to but in its essence different from that delivered through an actor or a hypnotist (which some have likened him to, not without some justification).
UPDATE ON FUNDS TO PRESERVE SN FOR ANOTHER YEAR
Some positive news about this received this weekend, another pledge has come in, meaning that we’re now theoretically £50-plus short of the target with 10 days left before payment deadline day.
Poonjaji did not ask all people, who came to him to leave. John David (sannyas name Premananda) for example, stayed with him for five years and has interviewed many spiritual teachers including sannyasins, ex-sannyasins and others and created some interesting videos and books: https://johndavidsatsang.international/interviews-with-indian-european-masters/
Mooji stayed for years. And a sannyasin married one of Poonja’s daughters and they produced some kids together. Isn’t it.
Here are the rest of the posts that were wrongly originally sent to the ’11 Days Left’ topic. Please note that they are in reverse time order, so the top one is the latest, the bottom one the earliest. Apologies if it’s confusing but it’s the best I could do in the time available.
Freak:
An example of a geopolitical agenda that provokes contempt in Satyadeva:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnOvQWYPXv8
Satyadeva:
Submitted on 2024/10/29 at 12:33 pm | In reply to Freak.
Veet Francesco, you appear to have forgotten that as the mod it’s my job to read, sub-edit and, if necessary, delete your comments. I’m also free to expel you from the site if you continue to be objectionable.
Freak:
Submitted on 2024/10/29 at 12:21 pm | In reply to Satyadeva.
Cliveda, first of all no one forces you to read or reply to my comments, secondly leave others free to decide to get bored reading and replying to yours.
I know that when someone doesn’t reply to your questions you are quite annoyed, now that I have replied to you about the “agenda” stop continuing to use it against me, it’s annoying.
Satyadeva:
Submitted on 2024/10/29 at 11:53 am | In reply to Freak.
Veet Francesco, reading this post is like treading in treacle, tedious, boring and ultimately a pointless waste of time. The game’s over, I’ve far better things to do than bothering to respond beyond these few words so I suggest you do likewise.
Freak:
Submitted on 2024/10/29 at 6:00 am | In reply to Freak.
Well, Freak Cliveda, I too must congratulate you, for your free defence of your literary hero, then if you have time send me the list of his last ten best-sellers, copy and paste genre, books that only bloody fools like you could buy.
You continue to insist with what you seem to allude to be an accusation, addressed over the years to different sannyasins, that is “possessing an agenda”, which is a bit reminiscent of the Orvellian language of unhooking the meaning from the signifier of words.
Does anyone criticize OIF of Pune? then he has an agenda… but if anyone else defends OIF of Pune from such criticisms he does not have an agenda.
Does anyone accuse Osho of being a malignant narcissist and molester? he certainly does not have an agenda… but if anyone else rejects such accusations it is surely because he follows the agenda of a destructive cult.
Does anyone talk about love being absorbed sitting at the feet of the Buddha? it’s clear that he doesn’t have an agenda… but if someone talks about politics and war preventing Zorba from physically reaching the Buddha’s feet then there must be a blatant agenda at work.
The examples could continue.
My opinion, Cliveda, is that after the zodiac signs you are very influenced by hierarchy, in the sense that you are sensitive to power relations, you pragmatically try to adapt to them, you never question the legitimacy, or otherwise, of authority, investigating the vision and its ontological and value foundation on which authority depends.
Nothing serious, I’m not saying that you have the reflexes of a sheep, in this case the hierarchy, from your point of view, would only be functional to the longevity and participation in SN, a forum that you have inherited and that with daily commitment you have been taking care of for perhaps too many years now.
Your thesis is that it is positive for SN to respect the literary hierarchy, giving space to those who write better in your mother tongue, letting this also determine the editorial line, I wouldn’t be as sure of this as you.
I point out that after the mass vaccination many of the old participants of this forum have disappeared, but I am sure that you will never go so far as to hypothesize that they were the victims of someone else’s agenda.
Freak:
Submitted on 2024/10/28 at 10:06 pm | In reply to Freak.
I don’t know how you can call a malignant narcissist a “fellow-traveller”.
Someone who has been coming here for 15 years to say that he has gone beyond sannyas and the Master/Disciple relationship.
Perhaps it is no coincidence that the Master of Masters, since he began to flaunt all that luxury, the spiritually retarded disciples, traumatized by violent fathers and drug use, then distanced themselves from him, the passion for big cars kills.
And yet, such an existential bluff, an egocentric opportunist always looking for an audience, seems to have editing prerogatives in this forum, used to pollute the debate or direct it towards the dead-end of dialectical brawls, without any purpose, just to fight his war against the man who for a certain period managed to compress his ego.
Do you want to bet that when this latest hysterical battle against the sex guru is over, Lokesh will come back here to explain to us, again, what an exhilarating life he manages to live without Osho?
I don’t know how you can shamelessly censor swamishanti’s comment, who has always demonstrated correctness in dialectical exchanges and intellectual honesty, just because he reminded you of episodes that happened around SN and of which many are now aware, which is why they then leave the forum.
MOD:
Well, Freak Francesco, you’ve just shamelessly excelled yourself in making mountains out of tiny molehills, perpetrating even more blatant misunderstanding by mistaking rational admin decisions for ‘anti-Osho’ abuse, and in so doing you’ve managed yet again to succeed in appearing not only as a boorish fanatic but also as a bloody fool. Congratulations!
Lokesh just happens (or happened, as he might not return here) to be not only one of the most interesting, stimulating contributors to SN, but his comments and articles have also required very little sub-editing, which is why he was given direct access to post them, without prior moderation.
And in case you don’t know, Swamishanti has also enjoyed similar direct access due to having made impassioned appeals for this privilege, citing general busy-ness. What you shamelessly term censorshp of his comment on the same page as someone else’s the other day was simply reminding him that he’d put it at the wrong place, that’s all, and unless you’ve conveniently lost your memory you ‘ll now recall that I offered to provide a copy of his brief deleted paragraph if he needed help in remembering what was in it.
Whether SS has actually “always demonstrated correctness in dialectical exchanges and intellectual honesty” is a matter of opinion, and mine, as usual, happens to differ from yours as well as from his.
By the way, SN won’t be publishing any similar claptrap from you, we’re not in the business of letting people with a purely destructive agenda run amok.
Freak, aka Veet Francesco, claims:
An example of a geopolitical agenda that provokes contempt in Satyadeva:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnOvQWYPXv8
Your claim is totally spurious, VF, wholly of your imagination. But why be so impressed by Osho’s comments? They’re not exactly original.
Thanks, Swamishanti, nice website.
P.S:
You mean “Isn’t it?” and in case what you mean?
MOD:
Please clarify what the second question above means.
SHANTI:
It is Indian English. “innit”, isnt it.
Something spiritually healthier to share… a wonderful video about dyslexia, drawing art, and walking among the Faroe Islands…
https://youtu.be/kK18ez9Sapc
I am, more or less, taking a permanent break from SN, but I could not resist responding to SD’s absurd comment, which opens with the following statement: “Creating more children wasn’t encouraged because that would distract people from the inner work that was necessary for optimum spiritual growth.”
What a crock of shit! Some of the most enlightened people I know are parents. Historically, well-respected spiritual teachers have also been parents, Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism, fathered two children who he lived and worked with. The Beedie Wallah had children.
SD’s mindset is a leftover from Sannyas programming, wherein having children was viewed by Osho, not a parent himself, as being a hindrance to spiritual development. This lies in direct contradiction to the idea of surrender, because, if nothing else, bringing up kids will teach an aware parent about the true nature of surrendering to existence.
Optimum spiritual growth? Well, on that level being a sannyasin without children obviously did not work for many, because many sannyasins are spiritually stuck and not developing at all. One only needs to read some of the warped comments posted by retards like Veet Francesco to see that. That said, there are also many wonderful people in the Sannyas world, but I do not believe that has anything much to do with whether or not they brought up children.
SD’s statement begs one to ask, what exactly does he envision spiritual growth to represent? Going by his conclusion, “I don’t think you quite realise the state that generation was in”, one senses a lack of reflection on the nature of projection, because it sounds to me like he is projecting his own state onto an entire generation, many of whom, including myself, would disagree with him. Alokjohn follows suit and declares, “Growing up under the threat of nuclear annihilation was no joke.” He obviously lacks a sense of humour. Because I for one did not take any of that shit seriously because if you drop 1,000 mics. of LSD you won’t notice any difference if you are caught in a nuclear blast because you are already molecularized. Timothy Leary was also a parent, as was his pal Richard Alpert, Baba Ram Das, who authored the seminal classic ‘Be Here Now’. Besides, the threat of nuclear war has never been greater than it is now, our politically unstable times make the Cuban misssile crisis look pale in comparison.
Alokjohn concludes with the following hyperbolic statement: “The Orange people carried the craziness of three world wars, the third one being the Cold War.” Really, guys, it is time to sit down and think about what you are saying, because it looks to me like you are both talking bullshit. For me, growing up in the sixties and seventies was a wonderful experience. A blast! We had the best of everything, from music to travel. We could visit places like Afghanistan without difficulty, and we did, while today young people have their noses glued to mobile phones and are so fixated that they rarely go anywhere that requires a wee bit of risk-taking that might cause them to miss something on social media. What a fucking bore. Does that look like evolution to you?
If you guys are a product of optimum spiritual growth (whatever the fuck that means to you) I am giving it a miss, because it does not appear to have done the pair of you much good. Adios.
A goodly blast from Lokesh! Well done that man, maybe you’ll shake them up a bit.
On the subject of optimum spiritual growth, I don’t know if there is such a thing. Eventually we start dropping our crutches and walking on our own, if we are lucky.
Lokesh, when I wrote the comment you so vehemently object to I was simply stating Osho’s recommendation, not necessarily my own view, but ok, I should have made that clearer, which I have now done by adding a couple of words: “Osho declared that…” You acknowledge his insistence about this ( in your 2nd parag.) but appear to be so fixated on having a go at me that it doesn’t occur to you that I was reporting on Osho rather than expressing my own view.
However, many sannyasins and ex-sannyasins I’ve come across and personally know, including me, are childless, not because of Osho’s ‘orders’ or due to living up to a concept of some sort of ‘enlightened selfishness’ but because they knew they couldn’t handle having a child, or because they haven’t had a long-term relationship suitable for bringing up offspring, or even because they just could not afford it. That doesn’t imply we don’t recognise the huge value of the challenge of the responsibility implicit in good parenting, the service, sacrifice and the joy. It simply didn’t happen because it wasn’t meant to be, inner and outer circumstances weren’t right. To put it bluntly, we had too much else on our plates. Your judgments in this area are unwelcome and misplaced, tending to reek of an intolerant, self-satisfied superiority.
You ask, “what exactly” do I “envision spiritual growth to represent?” As you know very well yourself, it’s, at least theoretically, very simple:
An increasing depth of awareness creating evolving capacities to choose not to surrender to potential causes of unhappiness, for living in the present, for accepting what is, for growing in love, for enjoying life.
You say, “Optimum spiritual growth? Well, on that level being a sannyasin without children obviously did not work for many, because many sannyasins are spiritually stuck and not developing at all.”
And sannyasins with children in Osho communes, notably the major ones in Pune and Oregon? Are you unaware of or would rather ignore the scandal of the abuse of children and teenagers at Osho communes back in the day? Where parents were so involved in their own processes, sorting out their own internal issues, leaving their kids to be supposedly looked after by ‘the commune’. Ok, you’re not an apologist for ‘the regime’, but this serves to demonstrate the point that parenting and spiritual growth do not necessarily fit well together in certain circumstances, certainly not anyway in the crazy hothouses where Osho resided.
Quoting spiritual teachers who are themselves parents proves nothing much except that they were ready, and I should damn well expect them to be, if they’re evolved enough to play the role of widely respected spiritual authorities.
As for “I for one did not take any of that shit seriously because if you drop 1,000 mics. of LSD you won’t notice any difference if you are caught in a nuclear blast because you are already molecularized”, presumably that’s meant to be humorous, because if it isn’t then it’s pretty bloody stupid, the sort of sensationalist acid-head attempt at spouting would-be wisdom that’s actually garbage. To use a hackneyed phrase, you’re better than that, surely?!
Morning, dear friends!
I have regained a bit of equilibrium after the past week. I’ve decided not to write about my relationship to Osho for a bit, after several abortive attempts to put into words how I feel. I did become clear on how most of the things I have achieved in my life have been in spite of Osho, not because of him, but that’s only a small part of the puzzle.
I have been enjoying a bit of bicycling, the autumn leaves on the paths, the quiet outside, a mid-morning coffee, the World Series baseball between the Yankees and the Dodgers in the middle of the night, and various other small things. It is often in the small things that we find an everyday joy.
My mother said to me yesterday, we took you to the commune because we thought it was the best possible place for all of us. Bless, it was a worthy thought, and look at all the adventures that came out of it…
Morning, young and defenceless Nityaprem, if you could choose where you would have liked to spend your childhood/adolescence?
Would it be a religious or atheist context?
If it were religious, would it be a small context or within a large and ancient tradition?
If you were wise, assuming you were a father, like your favourite writer (with the words of others), what religious and sexual education would you give your children?
Would it tend to be repressive or indulgent?
At what age would you intervene with ritual circumcisions, infibulations, psychological and pharmaceutical treatment for sex change, compulsory vaccinations, and other violations of the children’s bodies?
I think all of adult life is a freeing oneself of the conditionings of childhood. Perhaps it doesn’t matter so much where you grow up, except that you acquire somewhere the habit to look critically at your strong beliefs.
I would give my children love and a steady home, with festive celebrations for the holidays. A warm place to come back to, after having gone out to explore the world.
Nityaprem, you have recently linked many things that talk about sexual ethics, by Osho himself and by people who judge Osho as an ignoramus on this subject, I asked you how you would educate your children and it seems you have removed the aspect that seems to be very dear to you and your friends, but I am sure that emotional sentimental education is also important, a field in which you seem to excel.
So, just to come back to ‘Children of the Cult’ and the various articles covering it — it’s coming from a very mainstream perspective. Sannyas is a cult, Osho is deceptive and manipulative, for a thirty-year-old man to have sex with a fourteen-year-old girl is rape and child sexual abuse.
The thing is, when you start looking at the sources that are critical of Osho and the sannyasin movement, there is a lot of truth in them. For example, Jane Stork’s memoir ‘Breaking the Spell’ details a time when Osho was denied an expensive diamond-studded watch because the commune couldn’t afford it, and he became ferociously angry about it. Is that the behaviour of an enlightened man?
The documentary opens the door and details a number of sannyasins who slept with teenage girls, who are now figureheads of the movement, group leaders, in positions of authority. It raises serious questions about the boundary of Osho’s teachings and the law in places around the world.
Investigating that further leads you to examine Osho, his enlightenment, his mental make-up, his goals. For someone who has spent many years as a sannyasin, that is a very deep rabbit-hole…It’s worth doing the work, for only in doing that can you become truly independent.
No one laughed in Osho’s face when he insisted on buying a Rolex?
If this story were true:
No one laughed in Osho’s face when he insisted on buying a Rolex?
Maybe it was the way to understand if he was kidding or not.
But my opinion is tainted by the fact that I have never worn watches, I do not know how to appreciate their beauty, perhaps because for me the utility of the object comes first, which I have never felt the need for, like for cars.
If Osho was surrounded by Westerners who grew up in a consumerist culture, in many cases guaranteed by centuries of colonial exploitation, I like to think what pleasure the old guy might have had in redeeming centuries of misery.
“It’s worth doing the work, for only in doing that can you become truly independent.”
Why all this work? Just doubt his enlightenment and immediately you are independent.
Klaus, a former regular contributor to SN, recently sent us two items:
A video: ‘Oregon seeing Red’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgfESoXlG7w
“Which coincidentally is reflected in this text at Oshonews:”
https://www.oshonews.com/2024/10/22/osho-on-sexuality/
N.B: (C) Copyright Osho International Foundation
“It was the easiest “cult” to walk away from!
If you did something you regret now you were a different person when you didn’t regret it…perhaps a more adventurous person primed by different things or possibly a less adventurous person.
He wasn’t doing anything different to what the great English poets, artists etc. did or tried to do when it came to sexual exploits. You can use the emotive language of “abuse” and “cult” and a million morons will hit up on it and not question their very own traditional behaviour control cult and culture.
It was an anti-cult cult and probably got cultish in that…but a little nuance please!!
You get told to go to the guru with no undies on – a guru who’s been surrounded by Hindu or Jain or Muslim sexual repression his whole youth and saw its horrors…a guru seeing how gorgeous western women can present themselves and wants to enjoy that…asks to enjoy it…You know all this and you go to him still??
You didn’t want to get thrown out of the cult??
You didn’t want to say no and walk away from the cult?
To my knowledge it was the easiest cult to stop going to. Maybe a little difficult in certain terms but nothing compared to others.
If you didn’t go, another young girl would have. They do for rock stars etc…He didn’t preach a spirituality of sexual discipline…I just don’t get it??
Hyperbolically speaking: If he was gay and wanted a head job I would have given him one and I’m not even gay. He was just that rollicking!!
I think you went because of his shakti!! And not any other influence?! And now you’re older you’re embarrassed about that youthful selfit’s not like it was a stupid self! You can’t sell that self-narration of now to me!!”
(Robert Adeha Brasher, Facebook, Erin Robbins page)
@MOD
I mistakenly sent you a draft translation, with parts of exotic language, please ignore it and delete it.
I was talking to an old childhood friend from the Ranch this morning, and it seems he left sannyas behind a long time ago and committed his mala to the ocean. I didn’t know, we haven’t spoken about these things for a long time. But I admire him for continuing his life in a spiritual direction, he eventually became a Tantra teacher.
There is just so much that is not ok with what Osho hid and that you can find out if you do a little digging. It’s not just ‘Children of the Cult’, there’s a lot more stuff out there, on Facebook, in published books, on the web. People are making an honest effort to tell their stories. And some sannyasins recognise that and benefit from it. Feel free to accept this or not.
My own mala is sitting in a cupboard in a box together with some old D&D figurines. I haven’t worn it for many years. I’m not sure yet what I will do with it, but I don’t think I can accept Osho as a guru or a spiritual teacher anymore.
No need to accept him.
Life goes on.
Times of change.
Nityaprem, had you already decided to change your name before joining this chat?
Be careful, the host here doesn’t like those with hidden agendas.
What does your new name mean?
Yes, Nityaprem/Optimus Priemus, no need to accept him if you have been put off by one documentary or anything else you have read. If you can’t trust anymore, why hang around? Sannyas is always free to drop and there is no hell for those who decide to leave. It was never like the cult of Christianity anti-cult groups with their heavens and hells.
Your doubts won’t affect anyone’s else’s trust.
Perhaps you could try Buddhism, plenty of rules and regulations and even heavens and hells. But Buddhism comes from an old Indian/Nepali master who was 2,500 years old.
Yours sincerely,
Megatron
Dearest SD,
I loved this. Thank you for taking the time to share it with us.
MOD:
I think you mean Frank, don’t you, Teema?
In case you’ve missed this, Veet Francesco, I put up this post at 1.44pm today:
Veet Francesco, I’m not interested in replying to your posts until you clean up your act here.
MOD:
To which VF has sent this threat:
“non mi provocare, guido il camion regolarmente su UK”. Which means “Don’t provoke me, I drive my truck regularly in the UK.”
Veet Francesco, unless you withdraw this threat you’ll be banned from SN.
To make it clear, no further posts of yours will be published until you withdraw the threat.
What’s wrong with encountering?
Sometimes you get carried away by the frenzy of wanting to prevail dialectically over someone who irritates you because he questions your existential (astrological) foundations, for example someone feels compassion for a person put in the pillory while you invoke the death penalty for him.
I’m sure that if you had the “guilty” one in front of you you would be less cynical and vindictive.
I’ve honestly no idea what you’re referring to, VF.
You make far too much of my interest in astrology, which isn’t exactly the all-consuming passion for me that you appear to imagine.
And what’s this about me supporting the death penalty? I’ve no idea what you’re referring to, it sounds as if you’re mistaking me for someone else or just making it up. Show the evidence, if you have any.
MOD:
Veet Francesco (currently aka Freak), as you can see, you haven’t after all been banned from this place as, taking into account your denial of responsibility for a threatening post two days ago we’ve been unable to establish beyond reasonable doubt exactly who wrote it, enquiries being met with total silence.