Here, Frank lists a rogue’s gallery of offenders…
In recent years an extraordinary thing has happened in the spiritual world.
The previously meticulously hidden and disguised shadow side of a huge swathe,if not the majority of the leaders of modern 20th and 21st century spiritual leaders has been brought into the open. These leaders have been shown, on a massive scale, to have not been the people they presented themselves as to the world and their followers.
Here`s a quick snapshot, in no particular order, off the top of my head. I will give a few details, not exhaustive. The de rigeur controlling/manipulative behaviour/grandiosity and claims of celibacy and/or ‘beyond-it-all-ness’ as a given in 99% of cases:
The Maharishi, of the Beatles fame: Secretly shagging loads of disciples.
Yogi Bhajan, originator of Kundalini Yoga: Violent abuse, rape, beatings.
Guru Maharaji, of the Premies: Boozer, doper, random shagger of disciples.
The Tibetan Buddhists:
Trungpa wasn`t just an alky he was a massive cocaine user, shagging, beating his disciples endlessly.
Crazy wisdom at its craziest. His son, the Sakyong, likewise, drinking and shagging.
Ozel, Trungpa’s successor, infected a dozen diciples with AIDS because “the dharma was protecting him”.
Sogyal Rinpoche, author of one of the best-selling spiritual books, ‘Tibetan Book of Living and Dying’: Years of violence to men and women, sexual abuse.
Satchidananda, the guy who appeared at Woodstock recently: Revealed as an abuser.
Muktananda: Sexual abuse, violence.
Da Free John: Sexual abuse, violence.
The Hare Krishna org: 100s of child abuse convictions. Beatings abuse, even murder. Probably the tip of the iceberg.
Sai Baba: A kind of Indian Jimmy Savile.
Modern Yoga teachers by the busload, and in India it is easier to list the famous ones who haven`t been accused of something horrendous.
Sangharakshita Dennis Linwood, founder of the Western Buddhist order, was a sexual predator on his male disciples for decades.
Joshu Roshi, Leonard Cohen`s guru: Sex abuser, who it turns out had previous even before he left Japan to hit California.
Going back to the beginning…
`Bishop` Leadbeater, the guy who `found` Krishnamurti as a small boy on a beach in Tamil Nadu and `groomed` K for the world saviour/teacher thing was a convicted pedophile banded from several countries.
Krishnamurti himself pretended to be celibate and lied about his long-time sexual relations with his secretary`s wife, although comparatively, that all sounds quite tame and cosy.
Of course, our man, Osho, although not an explicit claimer of celibacy, now also flooded with stories that cast him in a less than favourable light, to put it mildly.
And the people that sannyasins patronised post-Osho:
Andrew Cohen, overthrown by his own disciples for abusive behaviour.
John de Ruiter, awaiting trial on numerous sexual abuse charges.
Amma runs a gangster org, many claim.
Sadhguru`s wife`s death is a creep yaffair at best.
Did I mention Brian and the Clones?
Etc. etc. etc…
I don`t have exhaustive knowledge of the whole sordid world.
It`s quite a rogue`s gallery of people who have all unfailingly claimed to be important, positive forces for humanity, if not God him/herself.
And think also: In order to keep these stories from the public, many, many enablers and helpers who knew what was going on were needed for the cover-ups which were hugely successful for decades. And consider the effort and number of man-hours necessary for such ongoing cover-ups, absolutely massive and very tense.
It begs questions. Here are some:
Is abuse inherent in the absurdly unbalanced power structure/relations involved?
Is it just a case of `bad apples`? The numbers would tend to show against that.
How to tell the difference between a lying, manipulative, violent sexual abuser and an enlightened person? Is there a difference?
Do all the revelations necessarily cancel out the good/interesting/educational elements of these stories?
Are we all just brainy monkeys who have just thought up more and more subtle ways, like religion/spirituality, to get more bananas and more submissive monkeys to mount and knock about?
Am I too judgmental and should I just relax into the advaitic vision that it is all just one part of God getting blasted, raping, beating, abusing and kicking the crap out of another part of God as a kind of big BDSM leela?
It is already there – if not here:
Mainpage:
https://culteducation.com/culteducation.html
Daily Cult News – Headlines:
http://cultnews.net/
The forum:
http://forum.culteducation.com/
Guys, Gurls, Mixed and Orgs in Alphabetical order:
https://culteducation.com/group.html
Frank’s list is quite similar to the people on my list;
Leadbeater I saw in the utube yesterday.
Some things are interesting.
Some things are entertaining.
Some things are shocking.
Some things knock your socks off.
That’s (very necessary) differentiation.
My personal approach still is ‘Take the best. And forget the rest.’
Know thyself. Know for yourself. Know your-not-self.
Steve Martin explains the ‘scientific process’ in simple words and in a live demonstration here:
https://youtu.be/ZyHipL45pwM?t=223
Smart. Clever. Lovely guy. IMPV.
The Leadbeater/Krishnamurti/Theosophy story is absolutely key in the history of the emergence of the western guru.
Krishnamurti is the first truly western guru, as opposed to contemporary imports such as Vivekananda. He is largely created by westerners for westerners. Or maybe you could say, by modern people for a global market, for the whole of humanity.
The point I want to make re abuse stories is that Annie Besant, the leader of the Theosophical Society who oversaw the whole `Krishnamurti as world teacher/Matreiya` project, knew about Leadbeater`s rampant pedophilia from very early on and continuously protected and covered for him, even when other TS members complained and when he was in trouble with the authorities, and even took Leadbeater`s side legally against the father of Krishnamurti and his brother Nitya who was understandably furious.
That a highly respected spiritual figure who espoused the pursuit of the highest aspirations and ideals for humanity should behave in this way can seem fairly incomprehensible unless certain things are considered.
When the aim of a spiritual group is so high: creating a new world teacher, saving the planet, ushering in the new man, there inevitably come points where the reality of the people involved conflicts with the sky high ideals espoused. That`s when the cover-ups start.
From the first guru to the most recent, this pattern has been persistent.
This pattern of course pre-exists in mainstream religion, but I am assuming here that readers will be taking that as a given.
Looking at the lives of the theosophists, you get a sense of a group of somewhat outsiders, even though at this stage, almost exclusively from the higher echelons of society, all seeking relief from the grindingly materialistic and tick-tock society that they were born into. Anyone pulled into the alternative spiritual or even just freaky sphere that Osho`s neo-sannyas grew out of can relate to this, I`m sure.
To maintain this new and exciting world, choices have to be made. One of them, for many who are close to the epicentres of these cults, movements, scenes, call them what you will, that has great consequences for the others involved is:
“I have seen some very creepy, twisted, dodgy shit going down. Do I spill the beans or keep schtum, hope it will blow over and then my/our collective dream of transcendence, enlightenment, salvation etc. etc. can go on?”
Maybe largely because of the net, a lot of people involved have made and continue to make clear decisions about that question. They speak out.
And people who hear these previously marginalised perspectives will make of it what they will, taking the opportunity yp explore and experience their basic humanity, intelligence and sensitivity as they do.
Good post, Frank.
Cheers!
Very true, It was a blessing to not be anywhere near the corridors of power in Sannyas. The cognitive dissonance must have been off the scale.
The internet has been instrumental in fast-tracking people’s awakening out of dystopian gurudom.
Though not everyone has the same sense of integrity or moral compass, or may have been so traumatised and gaslit by their upbringing, that their bullshit detector is out of whack.
Hard to believe, but some people just don’t care however much dirt is dug up.
The sense of belonging, either to a group, or some internalised fantasy in their heads, trumps everything else.
I’ve also noted along the way, many jumping from the frying pan into the fire.
I remember meeting this young teenage sannyasin girl at a mind/body show, a long time ago, who was fronting a stall for the Hare Krishnas.
Taken aback, I asked her why she had left Sannyas and become a Hare Krishna devotee, and she mentioned all the unwanted sexual attention she was getting.
Others have joined the Sogyal Rinpoche club, moved to Canada to be with John de Ruiter, or Mooji, or Byron Katie, or Andrew Cohen, Sadhguru, Amma etc.
On listening to what people do, not what they say.
One of Krishnamurti’s famous quotes was, “I don’t mind what happens.”
He hid his affair, always dressed very dapper, and had one of the wildest double combovers.
3 days before his death he was sad and reportedly said, “I have wasted my life.”
A small point perhaps but as to his combover, a visitor wrote:
“I once sat very close to Krishnamurti for several hours and suddenly recalled him in vivid detail. A friend had invited me to hear him speak. And very witty he was too, the old thinker, sitting there all in white, under a tree, Buddha-like, small and very graceful, in front of a rapt audience. It was one of those bright blue, flawless California afternoons. We were somewhere in the hills of Ojai, in a shady grove of some kind, olives I think. I found out later that it was here that he died, not in India at all.
Krishnamurti was already very old and frail but still very handsome. He was also very charming and made us all laugh a lot during his sweetly ironic meanderings. But as I watched the old boy, mesmerized as we all were, his words started to become less and less arresting to me as I became increasingly agitated over a question that I was practically bursting to ask him:
“You know, I’m with you on the elusiveness of truth and on humanity’s inescapable dishonesty, but…why the comb-over?”
Well, to be fair, it wasn’t a blatant comb-over. But maybe that’s what got me so worked up about the damned thing, the subtlety of it, its very deniability. See, it could not actually be accused of being a deception because it was such a confection, a white, silken meringue, a hair-like aura, a Hokusai wave about to crash onto a balding headland. It was a veritable flying buttress of creative combing. Gaudi might have had something like it lying around in a notebook.
So, it could be presented, strictly speaking – legally, as it were – as an actual hairstyle, not a comb-over at all, per se, qua comb-over. All fine and good. But this was Krishnamurti. Know what I mean? A life lived in a kind of amused pity at human self-delusion doesn’t really accommodate the old comb-over, does it?
Oh, we all know why he went to such an effort, of course, and vanity is not such a bad thing in my book, not at all. It’s always best to look one’s best. A certain amount of vanity is pretty much unavoidable, unless you’re genuinely into bald heads. A bit of vanity in the pursuit of sex, for instance, is pretty much essential, if you want to get any. There’s good cholesterol and there’s bad cholesterol.
But this was Krishnamurti. I mean, come on. How can one believe in his message, if one can’t – whole-heartedly – believe in his fucking hair?”
We are very visual as a species. Though some might be loathe to admit it, appearance is important.
Easy (and pointless) for dominic to judge others by their orthography or their hair, a very self-referential method, no matter how much he alludes or winks in search of support for his lucubrations.
it’s as if someone concluded that dominic is a necrophiliac because he collects ashes of sannyasins or that he is driven by resentment towards a community that celebrates because it is as tall as my dick.
@MOD
Did you change my comment here?
My will was to mean:
“…driven by resentment towards a community that celebrates, because HE is as tall as my dick.”
MOD:
Please provide the date and time of the post, Veet.
On the topic ‘The End of Sannyasnews’ I forgot, in addition to the various reasons already mentioned, the communication asymmetry, between those who are part of the Sangha and declare it and those who judge and insult this choice as a stupid conformist need to belong, without declaring if there is a better alternative community of which they are part today.
From this part of communication (Sangha) my assessment is that the people who come here to treat us like idiots if they had found a more satisfying form of social aggregation would have shared it, because it makes no sense to push me to cut the connection with my community, where I have celebrated existence for 30 years, for a non-existent social reality, and then if they were not just desperate lonely dogs but there really was a community of theirs and they do not feel like sharing it I would not be interested in joining a club of unloving bullies.
If they then continue to insist, for years, to sow doubts, suspicions, gossip, malicious or sarcastic allusions in the forum, it seems very likely to me that they are boasting, and I do not forgive them for this hypocrisy and cowardice.
If they judge my and others’ choice to share the vision of the Master of Masters because I would have drawn illusory benefits from it, it would be clarifying if they spoke of their alternative path towards a non-illusory benefit in spiritual growth.
I do not know why a person who I sense with a big heart like Parmartha never thought of resolving the basic communicative asymmetry that has generated useless dialectical conflicts, often not very funny (I do not like using the club), it would have been enough to make it a rule for those who participate in the Forum to declare from which perspective position they relate to the Sangha and why.
No one that I remember, who had the intellectual honesty to describe the reasons for his exit from the Sangha or the reason for never joining, a sharing that would help to understand who instead exposes himself with his face in sharing ideas and experiences to be regularly insulted without understanding from which direction these attacks come.
Maybe if he didn’t do it it’s because he found it funny, or of a professional or intellectual interest, observing conflicting social dynamics within a context of spiritual research.
Or maybe a power trip, enjoying the control of the situation that he got from knowing in person those who on this side I can only intuit/hypothesize to be haters/envious.
Did you hear, Satyadeva? If you as a moderator don’t take the club when someone judges you, as reluctant to leave the Sangha, cocksucker or idiot, it’s possible that you are intellectually too honest or in an identity crisis.
I`m surprised there isn`t a site, like Sarlo`s Guru Ratings, assessing gurus by their hairstyles.
After all, hairstyles have traditionally been very important in the spiritual world:
Completely shaven for humility and renunciation. A tonsure so the soul can escape through the crown chakra. Abundant hair and beard, each strand an antenna picking up spiritual vibrations. Dreads, an expression of let-go and naturalness. A top knot so that the spirits can lift you up into heaven etc. etc.
Krishnamurti was clearly imparting (pun intended) a very important teaching with his double combover. Indeed the combover is clearly a perfect living expression of the essence of non-duality: that seeming opposites and polarities, by careful soul-coiffing, ultimately appear as one.
Yes, it’s quite unbeweaveable, that during the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, the Age of Aquarius, Aquarius! Aquarius!, there’s no ratings hairitage for guru hairstyles, even if it would only appeal to a lunatic fringe.
In general, I can see all the gurus have a broad message of ’Be Hair Now’, which is pretty cut & dry, without being too layered.
Anyone who’s studied occult science, knows that baldness correlates to enlightenment and letting the sunshine in, as the energy rises up through the crown chakra, thinning out the coiffure along the way, drawn by the moon and mirroring its shiny dome.
As well as Krishnamurti’s combover being a finger pointing to the moon, and knowing his talks were quite serious, he deliberately combed his locks in such an extreme way, to amuse his audience.
Osho, on the other hand, had to employ a hat trick to conserve some of the energy flying out, and channel it to his mediums and followers.
It also meant Sheela could plant bugs in his hats.
In contrast, Sai Baba wore a very large, dark headdress, where he kept all his ‘miracles’, ’nuff said.
Double combover or lunatic fringe?
Sounds like a choiceless choice.
Thank you, Frank, for clarifying the feeling that sparked your article, that is, preserving the physical and psychological integrity of those who rely on the wrong teachers. Maybe if you made another effort to tell us who the right teachers are, if you have known any or believed you had, the picture around your point of view would be clearer.
It would also be interesting to understand whether the recent ‘gossip’ told in ‘Children of the Cult’+ is or is not the basis of your argumentative choice to speak within the Osho sangha of Leadbetter’s boys, implicitly recognizing the documentary’s thesis that the sex that supposedly happened 40 years ago in the Oregon desert, between people over 18 and under 18, was blessed or encouraged by the teacher of the RR.
It would be enough for me to know if these recent news of crimes not yet recognized as such by the American authorities have changed your point of view about Osho (I don’t know anything about you on this, if you met him, if you loved him…) and pushed you to come back to write here.
Personally, if all this media hype about intimate and delicate stories heard many times in therapy groups (facts that sometimes ended being discussed behind closed doors in courts, preserving the privacy of the victims) could culminate, as a collateral effect, with the reopening of the cold case ‘Operation Socrates’, it would not be bad at all, shedding light on the judicial treatment reserved for Osho, the abuses he received and the actions contrary to international law carried out by the US government in order to persecute a small, gentle Indian, a giant of humanity in freeing hearts and minds. “Freedom from what? In the first place. freedom from social and ultimately. ruling-class” (Sam: ‘Life of Osho’).
One last thing:
The reticent – but this time willing – Frank does not write about the possible validity of teaching by teachers who do not meet our ethical and moral standards.
The usual frank who tries to justify his cynicism, without giving a sign of a life lived authentically, structured ontologically.
A collage of criminal facts distributed over a century-long time span that have in common the theme of human neurosis in matters of sexual drives.
If he had intellectual honesty he could have concluded that perhaps the tantric path proposed among others by Osho, that is, transforming rather than repressing or indulging is the most viable one, to the extent of containing the drives, including the perhaps scandalous one for these politically correct times, of women attracted to the alpha male, where domination is part of the erotic game… if you have not had experience in the matter just look at the success of ’50 Shades of Grey’, especially among the women I know.
The interesting theme, problematized by Freud with “The family/community is either incestuous or neurotic”, has been trivialized as usual by Frank to bend it to the purpose of the author’s existential limits, placed as a premise of this comment of mine.
Overlooking the cosmogonic interpretation tending towards Gnosticism (those who are convinced they know), the poor guy concludes the article with the apotheosis that derives from his pessimistic vision of human beings, pretending to wonder if we are just a curious case of phylogenetic monkeys that try to clumsily contrast their nature, deriding the supposed possibility that a human being can access a change of existential state.
I don’t know about you but to me this seems like a provocation to those who walk a path with humility and honesty, with the same his (frank) difficulties and doubts, but with some confirmation about the difference between a life based on trust experienced in love relationships and a life based on the bitterness of betrayals and abandonments experienced.
Yes, it could be envy.
With Love.
Brilliant post, Frank, and well researched!
No doubt our resident stalker will read his homo-erotic fantasies into that.
It’s the tip of a very large black iceberg, and zooming out from just Osho gives an aerial view and perspective on its systemic nature.
There are probably millions of gurus/teachers in Asia and thousands in the West hanging out their enlightenment shingles and carrots for donkeys.
Hard to say what percentage are rotten apples, but the majority of the ones that are well known in the sannyas bubble are/were quite flawed.
Carrots? Apples? I need my lunch.
The false paradigms of what enlightenment is and the hierarchical power structure keeps it all going. Shall we throw in a bit of ’toxic masculinity’ to bring it up-to-date?
Thanks to the internet our eyes have been opened, Hallelujah!
In saying Hallelujah I invoke God, and if he’s behind it all, that sick mofo, rolling on the floor laughing at the car crash entertainment, needs locking up.
His usual defence that it’s for our awakening seems like more gaslighting tosh, he certainly has a God complex.
In any case, an elite team of assassins to sneak into heaven and take him out would be a justifiable homicide, no sane person could disagree with that.
Although the ending might have a twist, and we find that it’s really the slippery, red, horny one or Batman’s Joker sitting on the throne.
A song about it, Godwhacker…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1pmEy6oNvc
MOD:
“mofo”, Dominic? What is that, please (‘mother f…..r’, perhaps? Sorry, I’ve had a very sheltered life).
DOMINIC:
Correct, Mod!
They probably don’t teach you that at the Trappist hermitage.
Fututor matrum if you would prefer Latin.
Madarchod for our Hindi readers.
‘Mofo’ just sounds more genial and family friendly: “what a funny mofo!”
I am really still amazed by the passivity of the majority of participants in this forum, in relation to more or less ambiguous entities that write here. Take the last post of the “bitter orphan” who has been writing on the forum for years only to insult and ridicule a feeling of gratitude for the things that have happened in the last 50 years in the sangha.
I am not surprised at all that the forum is dying out due to lack of oxygen/love while many sannyasins have decided to stop contributing with their testimonies/fuel, tired of countering the attempts of a couple of haters, perhaps even envious people (with some cheerleaders in tow), to vomit on the spark/Osho that mysteriously continues to set hearts alight around the world for a passionate and rebellious life.
The presence of haters cannot be justified with the excuse that Osho preached playfulness. Osho was in favour of many other things, it remains to be understood in function of which underlying feeling all those things are put in relation.
Personally, I relate them to a teaching that can lead to a state of deep, non-judgmental quiet that flows into joy, overflowing outward in the form of compassion.
This could be the feeling that this forum could convey to those who, around the world, read what we write, perhaps in these times of epochal geopolitical tensions it would not be so trivial to do.
Instead, the survivor among the friends of the forum founders, in his role as moderator, continues to encourage and welcome the people described above.
Haters/envious people who have aged badly, have returned here like flies to exhibit their cynicism about the “latest scandal” (45 years old) documented by the “me too” girls, after a prolonged period of absence from SN and despite the announcements of making it a definitive choice, and after 15 years of constant presence in the forum.
Facing such arrogance and contempt, even this umpteenth ridiculous attempt to show their emancipation from the Master’s vision but without ever providing proof of a better and valid alternative, they will always have on my part the usual firm response of someone who has lost patience (it means that I am not a reactive person, coming from a long phase of patience, Roberto Lucchetta docet), a cold, calm, kind and I repeat, firm response, a club against their dentures.
It is only fair to mention the masters whose lives were perfect and without the blemish of scandal.
First and perhaps foremost, Mister Natural, who coined timeless phrases like “Just passing through.” And “The whole universe is completely insane.”
Then we have the incomparable Aleister Crowley, who left us with such sayings as “Ordinary morality is for ordinary people.” And “A single ego is an absurdly narrow vantage point to view the world.”
Next, we have the enigmatic Charles Manson who said, “You know, a long time ago being crazy meant something. Nowadays everybody’s crazy.” And “I punched my mother out once.”
Of course, what list of unique masters would be complete without a man who Osho claimed was a genius, Adolf Hitler. Like Osho, Adolf liked to give a discourse full of rousing quotes, such as, “Anyone who sees and paints a sky green and fields blue ought to be sterilized.” And “I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator.” And lest we forget, “If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.”
Joseph Goebbels was one of Hitler’s closest disciples and he will be remembered for such inspirational quotes as “If you tell a lie long enough it will become the truth.” And, displaying his powers as a clairvoyant, “If we have power, we’ll never give it up again unless we are carried out of our offices as corpses.”
Joseph Stalin was an inspirational figure for many. Some of his most famous quotes are unforgettable: “Death is the solution to all problems. No man, no problem.” And “Gratitude is an illness suffered by dogs.”
Even though Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj was a married man, yet took pleasure with the local hookers in Mumbai, surely we must find it within ourselves to forgive the master for his minor transgressions because he delivered pearls of wisdom like “Once you realize that the road is the goal and that you are always on the road, not to reach a goal, but to enjoy its beauty and its wisdom, life ceases to be a task and becomes natural and simple, in itself an ecstasy.” And “Nothing ever goes wrong.” And last but not least, “What is religion? A cloud in the sky. I live in the sky, not in the clouds, which are so many words held together. Remove the verbiage and what remains? Truth remains.”
Socrates was another of Osho’s favourites. It’s hardly surprising considering what the man said 2,400 years ago: “The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.” And “The secret of happiness, you see, is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less.” And “Intelligent individuals learn from everything and everyone; average people, from their experiences. The stupid already have all the answers.”
And finally, we come to Timothy Leary, who said, “The universe is an intelligence test.” And “Think for yourself and question authority.” Good advice indeed!
Of course, the list goes on, but by now you will have got the picture, titled ‘Seriousness is a Disease of the Soul’. I opened with Mister Natural and I will let the great master have the final word: “Quest into the unknown.”
Under neutral conditions, no one, not even a professional comedian, can entertain like a clown 24 hours a day, unless he is ill, perhaps with facial paralysis.
“The false paradigms of what enlightenment is and the hierarchical power structure keeps it all going”. A cheerleader.
If there is a controversial topic, beyond the ontological question (the meaning of what exists and why; thr nature of reality and the thought that thinks it) it is precisely enlightenment, but here it seems that someone has a precise idea on the subject…but as usual, the constructive part of the speech is missing, so the listener can’t put into perspective what is judged false and understand why.
In addition to the experts in biological electricity, I see excited people wandering around with torches in their hands who talk about sects and cults.
“In common usage today the concept of the sect as the product of a religious schism prevails”; ‘Cult’ meaning ‘care’. “In general, the manifestation of the feeling with which man, recognizing the excellence of another being, honours it”. (Treccani).
Christianity is a sect of Judaism, which then has generated further schisms, some examples of Christian sects: Catholicism, Orthodox Church, Protestantism, Anglicanism, Coptic Orthodox Church, Eastern Churches, Restorationism, Adventism.
Some of the Jewish sects disappeared after it was discovered that they followed a false messiah, some examples of Jewish sects: Samaritans, Karaites, Sabbatians (followers of the messiah who then converted to Islam), Frankists (by Frank, the apostate who became a Christian), Haredi/Haredi, Ashkenazim/Hasidism, Mitnageddimists, Dunmeh, Chabad-Lubavitch, Haskalah (Reform Judaism), Masoretic Judaism, Reconstructionist Judaism, Humanist Secular Judaism.
Islam has three main currents with relative (perhaps twenty) sectarian derivations: Sunni Islam, Shiite Islam, Kharijitism, Sufism.
Yet to cult specialists the world of monotheistic religions does not seem to exist as a cult or sect, does anyone know why?
Perhaps because we have become boiled frogs and are no longer able to jump out of the pot to question authority, starting from how they deceive us with words?
Frank asks:
“How to tell the difference between a lying, manipulative, violent sexual abuser and an enlightened person? Is there a difference?”
There is no difference.
First the master attracts you with sweet things, then he rejects you with ugly things.
Simply because being with the guru is not the end.
The guru still belongs to the outside world.
And the outside world cannot make you happy, it is a world of change.
It is also not a matter of finding the Mr. Right in the guru scene, even humble guys like E.T. can be hidden abusers.
So what remains? Be happy with yourself.
I’m impressed, Satchit, you wrote more than three lines.
Did you read that on a hallmark card?
You’ve changed your tone a bit, are you joining the anti-cult cult team? We have a special Black Friday membership deal on.
Or are you saying it’s another device, and not just a vice, from the Maaaster? Still a bit preachy, parroty and smugface, but hey…baby steps.
What’s the scoop on ET, is he flaggelating his partner with his dry wit?
If you want to join (God forbid), the programme runs on tough love and hard data, not useless what ifs.
Dom, you are still the class clown.
Good that you enchant us the last days of SN with your jokes.
Jesus would have been happy if there would have been a clown like you the last days with him.
Yahoo!
Thanks. Satch (clown to clown).
Yeh, good times with Jezza and the bros, although he always insisted we call him ‘The Son Of Man’ (prima donna that he was) or we’d never get into the kingdom of heaven.
I remember the last days hanging with him, singing his favourite songs to pass the time, ‘Bright Side of Life’*, of course.
The last one, ‘If You’re Happy And Tou Know It Clap Your Hands’, really cracked him up, before we gave each other that goodbye look and “See you in the next life.”.
*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJUhlRoBL8M
“The stupid already have all the answers.” (Socrates_
Socrates was Plato’s Leadbeater.
I wonder if the narrative of cancel culture will flush Greek culture down the toilet by virtue of the customs in vogue in those centuries?
@MOD
Are you sure that I did put the question mark at the end, it sounds wrong.
I wonder if the narrative of cancel culture will flush Greek culture down the toilet by virtue of the customs in vogue in those centuries.
MOD:
At the end of what?
So, with a positive mindset and going forward, what have we learned from all this perfect imperfection, this mofo douchebaggery, this mindful mindlessness and mindless mindfulness?
What epitaphs to be written in blood from the shitstorm (with your-hair-on-fire) called Life, on the SN tombstone? Pearls of wisdom to be passed on to the next generation of suckers.
Ok, here goes…
Here lies Ye Olde Abyss called Sannyas News, abandon all hope who enter here!
A repository of real fake news, where you got kissed with sweet lies then slapped in the face with a wet fish called truth.
The biggest scam is that it went on for so long and that all its founders got killed off!
(Hmmm… just saying, draw your own conclusions).
Dear Brethren and Sistren, we are gathered here to:
- Practise Safe Sects
- Practise smart internet searches
- Take the best, screw the rest
- Try not to be a dick (if you need examples there’s plenty here)
- Be a motherfucking badass light unto yourself
- Chill, homie, let that shit goooooooo
- Walk your talk, talk your walk and walk your dog
- All teachers and teachings are subject to change and software updates that include new features, bug fixes, performance improvements and security patches.
- Stop fucking swearing, for your motherfucking mother’s sake!
Om Shantih and kiss my ass….
Can anyone tell me what is wrong with leaving the religion we were co-opted into at birth, to begin a journey of existential and spiritual research, at the cost of being viewed with suspicion by our community of origin and sometimes with the risk of being killed? (Even today apostasy in certain places is severely punished, even to death).
Does anyone really realize the danger that the movement inaugurated by Buddha, called the caste-breaker in his time, represents for the authorities/institutions?
I do not exclude that some fetishist who grew up with evening prayers in front of a young man with long, wavy hair may have returned to the fold, convinced that a teacher of truth cannot fart or have imperfections, according to his homoerotic investment.
The situation of the population born in the enclosures today is approximately this:
https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religioni_maggiori#/media/File:Major_religions_2005_pie.png ;
It explains the balance of power between the different religious communities, on different levels, in particular the financial one, also in the mission to counter the centrifugal force of not too boiled frogs, and in making scorched earth all around the enclosure.
Osho, seen coldly: a Placebo for souls or a true rebel?
For a few days I have been thinking about the possibility of ideally including in my community (Neo-Sannyas) also the people with whom I have often crossed swords in this forum.
After all, the normality of duels is to end with a hug or a coup de grace.
Instead here the situation of more or less underground psychological warfare (it is not a real declaration of war, motivated and noble by extreme ratio) stagnates in a now tired script of small verbal reprisals and teasing, I believe unsatisfactory for both factions.
Factions, precisely, of which whole?
The whole to be defined, if it exists, imv consists in the participation in this forum of people with the mission of decoding/deconstructing the mystery of an existence, that of Osho, which for better or for worse must have impacted the lives of all participants.
From here it follows:
Is it possible that there is a community where the founder is strongly divisive?
Is it possible that the essence of a community of spiritual researchers is precisely the divisiveness of the founder, being an opportunity to express passion for the truth?
But if philosophical truth is no longer exciting, for those who have drunk for too many years the wine of paradox distilled by Osho, what possibility is there for this strange community to share in real life the same passion for existential truth, as a possible basis to stay together?
Judging from the friendships that I sense continue to connect in real life belonging to different factions, one should conclude that on the existential level the truth that emanates from the model of humanity experienced by Osho is as inconsequential as a Placebo?
Or perhaps what remains that’s truly essential of that human story, which continues to excite and question us even today, is a model of true rebellion with respect to all the easy or complex holds of reality for which the mind is always greedy?
MOD:
“aggregation” (3rd last paragraph) – Veet, do you mean ‘coming together’?
Just a couple of thoughts and further reflections (in response to Veet F’s post, 3.19pm today):
First, and most significant, Osho himself predicted schisms among his people when he would no longer be here, as there were too many different types of people at varying stages of evolution, with differing needs, creating conflicting priorities, attitudes, concepts (eg of ‘enlightenment’ and indeed, of Osho himself, which you allude to in your post), not to mention radical differences between various nationalities, most obviously between east and west. etc. etc., all a recipe for inevitable conflict.
Much of this of course has long been demonstrated here at SN, in arguments and even enmities. For instance, you call people “haters”, “offensive”, but appear to forget or excuse your own online behaviour, the threats of violence, the aggressive profanities, the general attitude of superiority, which I see as the inevitable flaw of the self-styled – yet still spiritually unconscious – ‘revolutionary’ in believing that he knows exactly how others and the world ‘should’ be, thereby providing himself with a licence to condemn those who don’t necessarily agree with him because, crucially, they don’t perceive he has any more valid ‘qualifications’ than them: ie it boils down to ‘my thing’, what suits me where I’m at against yours.
“Who do you think you are?” is indeed an apt question to put to such a person with pretensions to know what’s best for all, particularly when he ‘shoots himself in the foot’, as you invariably do, by the way he communicates rather than what he presents. I mean, claiming ‘love’ while expressing violence is common to all unconscious abusers. And as the saying goes, “It ain’t what you say, it’s the way you say it!”
Having said all that, I appreciate your much more conciliatory tone here, you’re clearly sincere in your wish for better relations in the sannyas-and-friends world, starting here at SN, although I suspect you’re trying to ‘push the river’ too far.
I just wonder whether this new tone is likely to hold up under further fire. Because you’re a volatile Italian, trained to emote more authentically by the Humaniversity, but seemingly looking to create peace outside rather than first finding deeper realms within.
And really, that’s the task, isn’t it? Without going deeper, we’re likely to upset ourselves and others, making problems worse, not better. That’s true for me, anyway, but there again we’re probably very different types, for instance, Osho’s first and still relevant advice to me was: “Be wholehearted in meditation.”
Veet brings up several salient points that I will now address.
Veet constantly refers to ‘The Sangha’. I know what he means and |I can relate to it because there once was a strong sense of sannyasin community and I was a part of it. I daresay elements of that community remain in place today in small pockets around the globe, although a weak shadow of what it formerly was. Within a twenty-kilometres radius of where I live, there are about 200 people who could be described as sannyasins or ex-sannyasins. I know many of them. Some of them still use their sannyasin names, others do not. It makes no difference to me. A few of them organize workshops and groups internationally and make a good living from these lucrative endeavours. Others assist in groups like The Path of Love.
If I meet any of those people we rarely speak about Osho. Although a little more recently, because of the revelations delivered by the likes of Erin Robbins and Deeksha, which Veet puts down to malicious gossip. I see it as first-hand accounts from people who were in a position to report on Osho’s private life, away from his public persona, which is all the vast majority of sannyasins knew of him.
Veet repeatedly refers to Osho as ‘the master of masters’, an accolade that is no longer appropriate for a man who succumbed to drug addiction, philandering and misusing the trust placed in him by female disciples, requesting them to perform sleazy sex acts for him with no reciprocal pleasure. Of course, they could have said ‘No’ but they did not for whatever reasons, such was the extent of Osho’s power to manipulate those more naive than himself.
Osho also had a fascination for expensive baubles and luxury playthings etc. A far cry from Socrates’s “The secret of happiness, you see, is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less.” Meanwhile, Osho delivered discourses extolling conduct that was quite the opposite of what was happening in his personal life behind closed doors.
Nobody needs to try and destroy Osho’s reputation. He did an excellent job of that himself. “So what I would like is to forget me completely, and forgive me too, because it will be difficult to forget me. That’s why I am asking you to forgive me for giving you the trouble.
Veet poses the question of why it is that commentators on SN do not declare a better alternative community of which they are part today. Perhaps for most, there is no need for an alternative community, better or otherwise, maybe people are just content with their lives as they are. Of course, one could become a fan of AC/DC or Manchester United, join the Hari Krishnas, or shave your scalp and become a skinhead. We are, all of us, part of the human race, from a cosmological perspective microscopic cells forming a thin biological membrane on the face of the third stone from the sun. Why we were created and if there is a conscious creator is up for debate, even though human and natural creativity abounds. For most, that is enough, content to appreciate our lives in a backwater of the universe.
Veet states that he would not be interested in joining a club of unloving bullies, yet he more than anyone else who has written on SN comes across as an unloving bully, describing other commentators as “Cocksuckers” etc, while claiming to have been celebrating existence for 30 years, although imagining himself to be involved in “more or less underground psychological warfare”. He goes on to say, “It would have been enough to make it a rule for those who participate in the Forum to declare from which perspective position they relate to the Sangha and why.” Okay. Whatever Sangha Veet thinks he belongs to I do not want to have anything to do with it. Why? Because it does not seem to be doing him any good whatsoever. His comments are full of bigotry, aggression and bile.
It is a sign of the times that a zealot like Veet should attach himself to the Sannyas movement, a movement that at its inception was based on love, harmony through meditation and openness, not ‘my way or no way at all’. Whatever one thinks of Osho today, there is no denying that the man had the power to transform lives positively with the energy he once emanated, a force Veet is not at all familiar with because he never actually experienced Osho up close and personal. Instead, he lives in a delusional fantasy, projecting his anger and bitterness onto others, a real no-no when the sannyasin community was still very much alive. Those were the days, my friend….
I don’t want to sound arrogant, but Lokesh isn’t saying anything new compared to what he’s been saying for 15 years: Those were the days, my friend, then Osho became addicted to the dentist’s anaesthetic gas and behaved accordingly, no mercy for drug addicts!
Not bad for a flower child.
The only new thing is that now he supposes to take up the smoking gun, provided by the “me too” girls, to feel entitled to assume paternalistic tones towards those who according to him pick the flowers of evil sown by Osho.
So with the impatience of the bigot he rushes into the forum, which he had promised to abandon forever, to anticipate sentences that no human court has ever produced yet.
The sense of gratitude should not be his strong point.
I will skip over the description of my character, abstracted from the dynamics that have taken place over the years on SN, I have already written about this privately to SD: the club pays!
It pays, against those who pollute the wells of debate among sincere and kind researchers, not only with their intellectual posture of “those who understood who Osho was” but also by resorting to little tricks such as modifying the comments of the “village idiots” to make them appear more idiotic: the club pays!!!
Maybe he is right or maybe not, but he is so predictable in his self-referentiality that who cares? it’s his problem.
MOD:
“the club pays!” Please explain this rather odd expression, Veet.
The Latin motto “crime does not pay” combined with the motto “if you want peace prepare for war”, I summarize it with “war/violence/crime pays”, the club is a neutral instrument, it depends on who uses it and against whom, it brings me luck, so using the club is profitable, it pays.
Have you read the orphan’s latest sneer? I think he’s calling me stupid, presumptuous, unqualified, a bit like you do.
What do you intend to do, do you censor him after thinking all night, like you did when he called you a cocksucker, or does my club take care of it?
I’ll give you an alternative, you could make public whether the person writing behind Frank’s profile is a former sannyasin or not, and say what bad experience he must have had to be so cold and unloving.
“like you did when he called you a cocksucker” – Who are you referring to? I’ve no idea what you’re on about here.
@SD 29 November, 2024 at 1:18 am
The frank joke you told me you deleted a few days ago…I don’t remember the joke exactly, but the gist was that sannyasins are cocksuckers, devout believers in the enlightenment of a sexual predator.
Veet, you’re believing what it suits you to believe. Although the general tone wasn’t complimentary to sannyasins, it didn’t refer to them as a collective being “cocksuckers”, nor did it suggest that they are “devout believers in the enlightenment of a sexual predator.” It was deleted as I felt it was crudely disrespectful to Osho, inappropriate for this forum.
Yes, that sounds like Frank’s stance on sannyas and Osho.
Veet, you wrote:
“I don’t want to sound arrogant, but Lokesh isn’t saying anything new compared to what he’s been saying for 15 years: Those were the days, my friend, then Osho became addicted to the dentist’s anaesthetic gas and behaved accordingly, no mercy for drug addicts!”
So with the impatience of the bigot he rushes into the forum, which he had promised to abandon forever, to anticipate sentences that no human court has ever produced yet.“
Well said, Veet.
The problem is his complete loss of trust in Osho, which is the same type as Deeksha, Frank, and Nityaprem.
“Trust is possible only if first you trust in yourself. The most fundamental thing has to happen within you first. If you trust in yourself you can trust in me, you can trust in people, you can trust in existence. But if you don’t trust in yourself then no other trust is ever possible.
But the basic trust is completely destroyed. And then all other trusts are phoney, are bound to be phoney. Then all other trusts are just plastic flowers. You don’t have real roots for real flowers to grow.
The society does it deliberately, on purpose, because a man who trusts in himself is dangerous for the society — a society that depends on slavery, a society that has invested too much in slavery.
And this society depends on belief. Its whole structure is that of autohypnosis. Its whole structure is based in creating robots and machines, not men. It needs dependent people — so much so that they are constantly in need of being tyrannized, so much so that they are searching and seeking their own tyrants, their own Adolf Hitlers, their own Mussolinis, their own Josef Stalins and Mao Zedongs. This earth, this beautiful earth, we have turned into a great prison. A few power-lusty people have reduced the whole of humanity into a mob. Man is allowed to exist only if he compromises with all kinds of nonsense.
Once you start feeling this tremendous respect and love and trust of the whole in you, you will start growing roots into your being. You will trust yourself. And only then can you trust me.
Only then can you trust your friends, your children, your husband, your wife. Only then can you trust the trees and the animals and the stars and the moon. Then one simply lives as trust. It is no more a question of trusting this or that; one simply trusts. And to trust is simply to be religious.
That’s what sannyas is all about. Sannyas is going to undo all that the society has done. It is not just accidental that priests are against me, politicians are against me, parents are against me, the whole establishment is against me; it is not accidental. I can understand the absolutely clear logic of it. I am trying to undo what they have done.
I am sabotaging the whole pattern of this slave society. My effort is to create rebels, and the beginning of the rebel is to trust in oneself. If I can help you to trust in yourself, I have helped you. Nothing else is needed, everything else follows of its own accord.“
Osho ‘The Book of Wisdom’
Yes, Osho quotes solve everything.
But Osho has been misunderstood by cocksuckers, ex-sannyasins and metoo cheerleaders.
What he really said was:
“Sack my cook and hold my calls.”
With cocksucking clearly on your mind a lot, it is clearly something you desire.
For me, not so.
Shanti, have you watched ‘Everyone Else Burns’? It`s a sit-com on IPlayer about a family of Jehovah`s Witnesses trying to keep their trip together in the modern world.
I think you would like it.
Gee whizz…the bonding between Shanti and brother Veet is strengthening. Unity in the face of adversity, no less.
What Lokesh fails to understand is the methodological phenomenology of the ontological status of a boiling frog in a cocksuckers` sangha that questions the orthography in the false paradigm of the narrative of intellectual dishonesty, with envious boiled frogs and unvaccinated spiritual stalkers with rabies who have swallowed a glossary of philosophical jargon professing love with threats of violence in a sangha that is being cancelled by vaccinated members of ‘Operation Socrates’ and big pharma who destroy the existential truth of ontological cock-sucking by metoo girls and cheerleaders with half-boiled frogs and a small man with a beard who deconstructs the basis of an aggregation of contextualised homoerotic apostates through the philosophical truth of underground warfare in an inconsequential paradox.
Love.
His blessings…
Hilarious, a V (for vendetta) with Tourettes, gibberish generator.
The resemblance is spooky, but your words make more sense.
Satyadeva, I repeat that I am the most calm person here, apart from Nityaprem of course, I have so much patience that when I lose it I get really pissed off to get it back.
You can’t pretend to know me from what I write in response to people who write insults and come to disturb the Sangha forum.
Try to relate my cathartic moments to the attack that preceded them, just bring me one case in which this same pattern was not repeated and I am ready to publicly apologize.
I am well aware that I have no qualifications (what do you expect from a truck driver/lifeguard/ex-military/etc.?), but sometimes I have on my side a well-defined feeling that drives me, then words are just the epiphenomenon, unlike those you seem to admire (judging by the space you give to their posts on the front page), those who seem to depend on their written words in which they love to mirror themselves.
I wasn’t referring to academic, professional or technical qualifications, Veet. I meant your unfitness to make authoritative pronouncements on psycho-spiritual issues.
@MOD
to group (together), to regroup, to *put together, to gather, to make a group…
(MOD: What is this relevant to, Veet?)
About my email, no problem, I can do it (MOD: This refers to my request that Veet publishes an email he sent to me recently) but first you remove the obstacle that creates the communication asymmetry that allows some to insult anonymously. I’m not just talking about the biographical data but above all the intellectual one.
For me, those who are not sannyasins and want to write in a forum where on the home page it says “welcome all sannyasins” (and for this reason I imagine it can appear to many as a place of sharing, as it is commonly understood in the world of Osho, where sannyasins from all over the world can exchange points of view, information, feelings, reflections on their lives and on Life), they should at least introduce themselves with respect to the type of relationship they have, have had or would like to have with Osho, instead of participating with a sneer of arrogance, having fun disturbing every attempt to build a constructive discussion inspired by the vision of Osho and other spiritual Masters. What matters is the content.
“For me, those who are not sannyasins and want to write in a forum where on the home page it says “welcome all sannyasins” (and for this reason I imagine it can appear to many as a place of sharing, as it is commonly understood in the world of Osho, where sannyasins from all over the world can exchange points of view, information, feelings, reflections on their lives and on Life), they should at least introduce themselves with respect to the type of relationship they have, have had or would like to have with Osho, instead of participating with a sneer of arrogance, having fun disturbing every attempt to build a constructive discussion inspired by the vision of Osho and other spiritual Masters. What matters is the content.“
Agreed, Veet. The site has not been really “welcome to all sannyasins” for several years now and that’s why the noticeboard, events are down etc.
The disillusioned, those who felt they have been taken for a ride, cheated or exploited, or moved ‘beyond sannyas’, or prefer old style traditional Indian advaita gurus with delusion of superiority to those who still trust Osho, who are still involved in the ‘sangha’, various sannyasin communities, have been clinging to the site. Although in the “sannyas world” there are actually multiple sanghas, multiple communes, communities, some of of which have grown up around the enlightened sannyasins spread around the globe. They are generally however, not made to feel welcome in this site by the ex-sannyasins and anti-cultists.
“Once you fall in love with a Master, remain. I am not saying that even when you are disillusioned remain with him. When you are disillusioned, he is no more your Master. Then there is no point in remaining with him. Then seek another.”
Osho: ‘The Art of Dying’ Ch. 4, Q3
You are right, Shanti, those of us who are attacked by cynical cocksuckers in a cocksuckers` sangha populated with boiled frogs, but who are still inspired by compassion, quiet, playfulness, tolerance, non-judgment, intelligence, meditativeness, unbounded good humour, sweetness of spirit and a deep level of self-appraisal that “welcomes all cocksuckers”, have to use violence and a sneer of arrogance in order to awaken metoo cocksuckers who are devoid of any passion like a small, unvaccinated peaceful man with a beard with asymmetrical ontology getting his cock sucked by metoo cheerleaders.
Love.
Yes, bravo, Shanti for telling it like it is. A true beacon of light in the shadow-filled corridors of SN. That you agree with Veet is surely a sign that you are true brothers in the Sangha. Bravely going forth amongst the infidels to bring Osho’s vision to the world. You are a true warrior of the wasteland. His blessings….
Fact is, it is subjektive to call this meeting Sangha or not.
It is my freedom.
It is also my freedom to call myself sannyasin or not. I even can call me this week sannyasin, next week not.
It is all my freedom.
“Be a joke to yourself” (Osho).
Of course, Satchit, it is subjective to define oneself as a sannyasin or not, less subjective is the definition of a Sangha.
Words and concepts have their objectivity to the extent that they are functional to communication, the less ambiguous or ambivalent the meaning of words the easier communication is.
Language is a convention, you are free to choose a language that only you speak but it would not have many applications unless you want to teach it to someone who wants to learn it.
Satyadeva reproaches me for a lack of sense of humour, which is probably true, it is difficult to translate it with the algorithms of Google Translate artificial intelligence, the Italian sense of humour into English and vice versa, considering, above all, that making people laugh seems to be one of the most difficult arts.
Yes, Veet, but Osho recommended being “a joke unto oneself” – I wonder whether you’ve ever tried that particular ‘meditation’, somehow I doubt you have.
Veet, a Sangha is a gathering of disciples of a master.
I doubt that everybody would call himself a disciple of Osho here.
@swamishanti says:
29 November, 2024 at 10:14 am
Hi Shanti, have you noticed how our heroes are not very bright in supporting something constructive?
What a struggle and embarrassment for them to find something existential in their lives that is worth living and perhaps sharing?
Destroying is easy.
PS:
I suspect that frank is Satyadeva’s alter ego, his secret soul that does not come out of the mouth.
I don’t think Frank is SD’s alter-ego because SD lives in London, whereas I believe Frank is somewhere in the South-West area.
Better hire a detective to sort this out, you two. Don’t forget that Frank says he’s been travelling the world for a year or two, and that SD spends a lot of time in France. Mmmm, you might just be on to something….
@MOD
Yes, it sounds italian.