I was reflecting on the deaths of Paul Lowe and Andrew Cohen, both teachers I met in the mid-1980s.
Their journeys were not superficially alike, but there were similarities.
Both set up communes of one sort or another, encouraging their students to live together and to work on their spiritual “stuff”. And both had a fall from grace, where their personalities were questioned and even attacked by their students. Andrew’s fall from grace was far greater. He lost his home and followers very much en masse, whilst Paul never truly faced the allegations that he was a sexual predator, but he never had the following that Andrew enjoyed. How disappointed he was by his failure to be recognised as a world teacher at all, I don’t know. I lost touch a long time ago.
Both teachers gained sycophantic followers, who even today cherish the teaching they afforded them and are full of thanks. It seems a feature of students of enlightenment that they raise their teachers to the status of almost demigod-like nature. I recognise my own deep gratitude to Osho and Barry Long whom I learned so much from, but I’ve also had the innate intelligence to critique their teaching. To make my own way rather than to stick with teachings that are now in some cases 40-50 years old.
With Andrew and Paul, I sense that they never moved on. They also didn’t live in the normal outside world, having to face the issues that we all have had, with worries about money, work, relationships etc. Like Da Free John and others, Andrew and Paul lived secluded lives, in Hawaii and elsewhere, where the ugly world was left behind, and their needs were largely taken care of. Money was never an issue, so they had no real need to reflect on financial and worldly concerns. Is it any wonder then that their lives and teachings have a quality of an intellectual abstraction? The same issue affected the East in many ways, in Tibet in particular, where monasteries became centres of debate but were surrounded by peasants whose lives were often poor and harsh.
In the recent obituaries of Paul and Andrew, I also noticed how profoundly lost many of their students appear to me. In Paul’s case in particular, many commentators observe the events of the 1980s with Paul as the pinnacle of their own lives. They reflect on the wonderful memories, with little or no mention of their own personal development since the 1980s. How have they integrated the teaching of Paul or Andrew into their daily life? I was especially struck by how many use words like “transition”, “ascension” and, of course, “passing” when talking of death. Death is taboo. After 40 years the word death is forbidden. Can you believe it?
Christopher Titmus, the Totnes guru of old, gives his critique of Andrew in a recent obituary, claiming how Andrew wasn’t such a bad fellow, made a few mistakes but was well grounded in the enlightenment business. No one has the guts to say Andrew was haunted, fragile and lost in theory, a sad figure who will be forgotten in a few years. Paul Lowe too is largely unknown outside his old sannyas circle and stopped formally teaching some years ago. His teaching could be summarised in a few words: love more, forgive more, and stay still. Nothing new there then. It may have been useful in the 1980s but surely we should have moved on?
What is yet to be discovered in any real, new way is how the notion of enlightenment, the teaching of it by easterners and the new western teachings, is very much removed from our daily experience. Barry Long, alone, seems to have recognised this, and made a lot of effort to integrate his understanding. All the while the non- duality brigade, who have gone from strength to strength, parrot the same old chestnuts: “Love, awareness, enlightenment, non-duality, oneness, God, the bliss of samadhi” – it’s the same tale time and again, but who’s actually making any progress?
Even Andrew in one of his very last videos, almost shrugging his shoulders, said, ”enlightenment’s a tricky business, isn’t it?” It was a simple confession that in 40 years he was as lost as ever!
The business of enlightenment has become a cancer of sorts. A cancer with no cure.
“A cancer with no cure.”
Sounds very negative and smells of ‘holier than thou’.
Something positive about enlightenment, Simon?
Thank you for your thoughts, Simon. It’s a fair reflection on the lives of these ‘lesser lights’, Paul Lowe following on from Osho and Andrew Cohen from Poonjaji. Neither of them were great figures in their own right. Also neither had an unblemished reputation.
The idea of progress on the path to enlightenment is tricky. There obviously is something to be learned, I recall a Zen story about hearing a mountain stream in which a young student receives instruction from a master. But can you learn it in words, or in thoughts? Can you make gradual progress towards a goal? These things seem to be attempts by the mind to break down something into steps which maybe doesn’t lend itself to that. Maybe there is no such thing as enlightenment, and instead we should just Be.
To not be the doer, that is something I have been trying. To just look, or listen, and not to do. The Tao Te Ching says, the man of knowledge gains something new every day, while the Man of Tao lets something go.
I wonder if investigating Simon’s deep gratitude for Osho and Barry does not imply investigating the nature of those who are the object of such gratitude.
If there are good intentions in disciples who seek or believe they have found Masters, there probably also exist Masters with good intentions who feel/believe they have been found by disciples who want to receive something from them.
That this relationship also includes a material level so that the exchange can happen is not enough to define the context of spiritual research as a carcinogenic business.
Among the many social activities, the one that involves a man who speaks and many others who listen, does not seem to me to be among the most dangerous, when one is free to leave to listen to someone else or go to the stadium to fight with the fans of the other team.
There are certainly wise things to do today, instead of wasting time talking about enlightenment, we could go to Israel to fight the religious fundamentalism of those subhuman Palestinians or to the Ukrainian front to counter the hegemonic aims of the Russians before they land in Dover or cross the Portuguese border.
For me, enlightened people like Ursula von der Leyen, who protects us from diseases and Bolshevik cut-throats, are the real heroes against the cancer that threatens our freedom: the patriarchy of Putin.
What is a truly good thing to do in today’s world is an interesting discussion. I would say that bringing peace has more to it than going to fight the Russians. Once the Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh organised a retreat for Palestinians and Israelis, it took some days for the groups to mix but in the end there was a connection made.
I keep my ambitions somewhat smaller, these days I care for my mother, who is not well. And I spend time talking to my father. Generally I only read the news once a day and I watch very little tv, world affairs do not interest me so much.
Nityaprem wrote:
“I only read the news once a day and I watch very little tv, world affairs do not interest me so much.”
So better spend the day in bed?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rmAi9XmlIo
Yes indeed, Anna, and I tend to think the problem with the Russians is they’re always in far too much of a hurry.
“Unblemished reputation”?
This you can only have if you follow the rules of the society.
If you follow your own energy, the reputation will never be
unblemished. Even Jesus walked with Maria Magdalena,
a prostitute.
Certainly there is no enlightenment, only a joke to oneself.
Nityaprem wrote:
“I recall a Zen story about hearing a mountain stream in which a young student receives instruction from a master.”
You were remembering Siddharta by H.Hesse? Or Hesse remembered the same Zen-story…
Siddhartha: “A very beautiful river, I love it more than anything. Often I have listened to it, often I have looked into its eyes, and always I have learned from it. Much can be learned from a river.”
Whether the business of enlightenment has become a cancer is hard to say just from these examples. Even from a poor teacher much can be learned, and any time in a commune away from the mechanisms of society about money, houses, etc. can be a blessing.
I’m reminded of a lecture by Terence McKenna, who in his twenties travelled in India and said afterwards that the sadhus there were just pot-heads with a line of patter, mostly concerned with how many chillums they could smoke that day before falling asleep again. He compared them to the shamans of the Amazon, who were much more integrated with their society, performing services like healing, predicting the weather and finding lost objects with the help of psychedelics, but when asked how they did what they did would just say “we don’t know, it is the mystery.”
In a way, most of the non-duality teachers also have become proficient in a line of patter, which deflects criticism and allows them to throw questions back on the questioner. It is not much of an advancement in the spiritual arena, it seems very mind-driven. I’ve read a lot of non-duality books, and while most of them have a few good lines, on the whole I haven’t been impressed.
But it is as it is when you get into Buddhism — in the beginning it doesn’t much matter which school you choose, you gradually become more discerning and make wiser choices as you go along. The most important thing is not to become stuck, stay with a school or teacher only as long as you can feel it is beneficial to you, taking you high…
Hi friends,
Youtube brought this one up for me today:
Obituary *PAUL LOWE* R.I.P. 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6y3W8zIl4A
His legacy is carried on by the ‘Friends of Paul Lowe’.
Suspect AI generated.
Possible.
Very slick and shiny. Isn’t it?
And the voice sounding constantly the same.
Ah well….
Video has been set to ‘private’…
Such an important message of love and inner work and adulation. Set to ‘private’.
Ah well. My sarcasm.
I came across this beautiful short documentary (37 mins.) about the life story of a native woman from Peru who had a rough childhood, left to travel the world, lived in New York but found she got depressed, was given Ayahuasca by a friend and received powerful visions to return to the jungle and become a curandera. I very much enjoyed the story, great cinematography and an engaging sound track!
https://youtu.be/bY8rZ-BG5D8
MOD:
What’s a “curandera”, NP?
A curandera is a female plant healer in the Amazonian traditions, akin to a shaman in those tribes. They have a deep knowledge of the plants through dietas, a process of dieting on one species of plant to get in touch with its spirits for purposes of healing or learning things.
They typically work with Ayahuasca and give Ayahuasca ceremonies to people who come to them. A curandera will also use tobacco and blowing the smoke, sing songs of power called icaros, etc.
Hi NP,
Thanks for posting the link. Looks like a good video that I might watch fully at some point.
If interested in such things, I recommend reading ‘Seeding Consciousness’. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Seeding-Consciousness-Ancestral-Psychedelic-Initiation/dp/1591435331?ref_=ast_author_dp#customerReviews
I read the book and there is no doubt about the author’s credentials. A true psychonaut for sure. She has done it all and then some. I was particularly interested in her ibogaine initiation in Gabon. Takes ibogaine and is told by a master to look in a dusty mirror. An old lady appears and tells her her true name, something which is needed for deeper enquiry while under the influence. Maybe Osho was on to something.
Unfortunately, that is where I began to be let down by the book. Just when you think you are about to have something new revealed to you, the author tells you that she is forbidden to speak about it. Then come the visualisation exercises, something which I am not at all interested in.
I recently revisited a book about DNA and psychedelics, positing the question: how did ancient people learn about DNA, the double helix etc? The answer seems to be by using psychedelics. It is remarkable that there are perhaps 60,000 species of plants in the Amazon Basin, yet the locals learned how to take two specific plants, blend them and concoct a mind-blowing brew. How did that happen? The plants spoke to them.
I am not a tree hugger, but I have heard trees singing to me, telling me they were aware of me and wanted water because the ground was too dry. I have a friend who once showed me a special little machine that you connect to plants and hear their unique audio signature. The plants change their tune when you draw closer to them etc.
Plants are amazing but animals even more so. I recently spent time with a very big dog on a nature reserve. He was a great companion who made me realise how much I miss having animals around, now that I have adapted to an urban lifestyle. This brings to mind something I read in a Nisargadatta Maharaj book. “Embrace whatever life brings to you and be kind to animals. This will bring you to the true self.” Sounds like good advice to me.
Thanks, Lokesh, I had a good look at the book and its reviews.
I do have an interest in this area, I’ve listened to a lot of Terence McKenna on YouTube and that does give you an education. Every once in a while I return to it.
The themes of nature and man’s connection to it I find amazing, although I know I have lived my life often isolated from it.
And it’s International Mother Earth Day, too.
Beloved Lokesh, are you grateful to Osho for helping you get out of your acid circle of friends, and not fall prey to easy Mayan prophecies by Terence McKenna?
Anna, I am grateful to Osho for many reasons. I am still friends with most of my fellow psychonauts from the tripping days. Life is not so psychedelic as it once was, but every once in a while I still enjoy to blow the cobwebs out of my mind with certain sacred herbal remedies. I might add that I haven’t smoked marijuana in years. No longer something I enjoy. I like psychedelic. I don’t like stoned. I am dopey enough already.
As for Terence McKenna, I have always appreciated his writing, although I am not very interested in prophecies. Living today is enough to be going on with. I trust this has satisfied your curiosity in this regard.
“This brings to mind something I read in a Nisargadatta Maharaj book: “Embrace whatever life brings to you and be kind to animals. This will bring you to the true self.” ”
Yes, that helps, because a dog has no ego.
Beloved Nityaprem, are you angry with Osho for not being able to experiment with drugs in his communes, like all normal young people do in the normal world?
No, not at all, dear Anna, I never went looking for them either, while I was in the commune or afterwards. I was just never interested when I was young.
Even now, my interest is in healing and spiritual matters, not in amusement or bliss.
I remember Gabor Mate’s story, of how he took a group of doctors and medical people to an ayahuasca centrein Ecuador, and was taken apart by the shamans from the group he was leading, because of his exceptionally heavy energy, and how after two weeks of sessions his mind produced a vision of a blue sky and the Hungarian word for ‘happy’.
I think in a way if you’re a little older and you have some idea of where your problems lie, and then you decide to spend 5000 dollars on a ten-day ayahuasca retreat in the jungle, you’re doing a good thing.
Not only will the plant medicine open your mind to magic and the spirits, but you are transferring wealth to the people of the Amazon. The care and after-care of these places will be a balm to your spirit.
While watching this video I got a strong sense of the waters, the steam and the icaros, the songs of power. It is a much more natural way of living that the jungle people have.
Travelling to the Amazon Basin to participate in ayahuasca ceremonies is the current rite of passage for the adventurous of spirit. In many ways, it bears similarities to the hippie trail of the Sixties and Seventies. Amongst those similarities are the many pitfalls that exist along the way, fake curanderos, bad ayahuasca brews, psychological breakdowns, and ill health. I have visited tropical rainforests and have to say they can be quite uninviting. Fine for the locals but challenging for blow-ins.
Pharmaceutical companies have been ripping off indigenous Amazonians for decades. Countless medicines are produced from plant compounds originally created in the jungle. The indigenous inhabitants of the rainforest are slowly waking up to this and a general awareness that it is unwise to give too much away for free. The rainforest dwellers want access to the modern world’s technological innovations and they need money for that. Many remote tribes have little understanding of how money actually works, but they are willing to learn. Good luck to them.
If you want to experience powerful plant medicine’s effects, there are plenty of experienced people providing that service in Europe. Here in Ibiza, many ceremonies occur throughout the year, although I don’t attend any of them. The funny thing is I’ve watched people I know take ayahuasca perhaps hundreds of times, yet they remain pretty much the same person they have always been, for better or worse.
The biggie these days is Bufo, crystals taken from a psychoactive toad that could have been employed by Precolumbian peoples of the New World. I have several friends who have done it and by all accounts, the effects can be life-changing. Last year, I was offered a session by a seasoned facilitator, but declined the offer due to health concerns. The facilitator has conducted over 2,000 sessions and at 1,000 euros a session, they make a good living. The facilitator informed me that 50% of applicants were turned down after a preliminary questions and answers session. Definitely not something for the faint-hearted.
Ultimately, everyday life is the path. A good psychedelic can reveal much to the user, but it is of little use if you do not integrate what you have seen and perhaps learned into daily living.
Yes, I have heard about Bufo. I remember Terence McKenna saying about DMT, a chemically related substance, that the biggest danger was “dying from astonishment.”
In terms of things that will really change your mind and your life, I think love has to be up there.
I think this current trend towards natural plant medicine is very good, because it means you come in touch with curandero’s and shamans who (hopefully) have a real background.
I come across videos like this one:
https://youtu.be/LSj_82KdvaA
Which is from an American YouTube influencer, which just shows how common it has become to fly into Peru for a Wachuma or Ayahuasca retreat.
But if you say, “I see people who have taken Ayahuasca a hundred times and they are still the same”, then I think there is something wrong with the after-care.
It seems to me that Ayahuasca perhaps should be taken in combination with psychotherapy, to motivate people to make real changes in their minds and their lives. You’d hope that a powerful medicine like Ayahuasca can make lasting changes.
But I think it is also about how you set your intention, how you approach the medicine? There is something disrespectful about going back to the spirit world a hundred times, as if the first time you didn’t get what you were looking for. Perhaps you didn’t understand what you were shown, and needed more time to reflect.
“Drank ayahuasca once, I thought I understood everything. Ten times and I recognized there are things I don’t understand. Hundred times and I realized most things I don’t understand. Thousand times and I accepted I don’t know anything.”
— A. del Rio
MOD:
Apologies to all for the inconvenience, but due to long-distance travel today no further posts will be put up until around 9pm tonight.
I thank Nityaprem and Lokesh for their answers, even if there are some points that are not clear to me, regarding a certain indulgence in the matter of drugs.
I had the idea that finally the scandals revealed by a couple of documentaries and books would have erased the intellectual work of the most popular and read contemporary spiritual leader, instead, even among the former disciples, eyewitnesses of the terrible facts revealed, gratitude towards him persists, and no anger after discovering that in his private life the master used drugs and sedative and hypnotic drugs.
But discovering that a master who speaks of enlightenment is actually a drug addict and a nocturnal rapist does not confirm the thesis of Simond’s article, in fact the cancer of humanity is not the business of enlightenment but drugs, which allow each person to live in the confines of their own individual world, the exact opposite of true religion, which tends to identify a shared reality where men can experience communion, which is one of the forms of enlightenment, finding ourselves by losing ourselves through other human beings, not necessarily a guru.
The fashion of using South American hallucinogens, today as in the 70s, is not very different in intentions from the fashion of going to India and dressing in orange, the side-effects change, you can forget about a horny guru, but not about brain damage.
Anna writes. “You can forget about a horny guru, but not about brain damage.”
That is presenting a limited perspective. Surely it is often the case, say with dementia, one of many forms of brain damage, that an individual can become forgetful in the extreme…even to the point of forgetting their name.
Well, one difference is the ceremonial approach to a lot of these tribal substances. They are taken in small groups, so there is very much a human connection element, with a shaman as guide.
The thing about brain damage is, it’s never been proven. LSD is very potent even in small amounts, but it’s lethal dose is so high it’s hard to calculate. These substances are non-addictive and are much less harmful for the body than say alcohol.
The whole idea of drugs as harmful compounds is a product of society’s wish to dominate and create productive cogs for the capitalist machine. Take caffeine, it’s a fairly potent stimulant, most of the western world is addicted yet it’s not banned. Why? Because it focusses you and makes you productive. Then look at Cannabis, it’s fairly harmless yet in America in some places still even a small amount can get you sent to jail.
I’ll quote McKenna: if freedom and liberty do not include the freedom to experiment with your own mind, then the Declaration of Independence is not worth the hemp paper it is written on.
I think I’ve watched this docu about five times now, it’s just so relaxing and mentally cleansing, such a pure energy. Wonderful!
I watched it about half an hour before bed last night, quite enjoyed it although at times I noticed arising in me a slightly sceptical, even somewhat condescending attitude towards the process and “the naive, inexperienced young woman with big plans for herself” – the grumpy old man who thinks he knows it all and resents young people enjoying and exploring was alive and well at those points.
But strangely enough, in the later stages of the night, I found myself in a dream where I was with a few people who were taking some psychoactive substance, as I was, and I found it highly effective, gradually feeling enhanced pleasure, joy, sensual delight, and realising this at a conscious level even while dreaming, half-awake, half-asleep.
After getting up, this sort of feeling remained with me for quite a while, as if I’d been granted at least a taste of the ayahuasca experience portrayed in the documentary, with ‘the grumpy old man’ nowhere to be seen.
More of the same, please, Life!
It is interesting, I have been experimenting with a technique of Eckhart Tolle, which is supposed to bring you to Being and a sense of presence. It is about feeling awareness inside your body. It has led to some really odd energy-like sensations in and around my body.
Maybe I don’t need psychedelics at all!
ET learned this from Barry Long. I was there when he came to a BL meeting in ’85 or ’86, years before he became, arguably, BL’s ‘successor’.
As I’ve said before at SN, at that meeting he declared to BL that he wanted to be a spirtual teacher. No one could have foreseen then that he would go on to eventually become such a major figure – except, I suspect, BL who gave him an encouraging response.
“Maybe I don’t need psychedelics at all!”
No, you don’t need them.
Already Osho said it is a shortcut.
Breathing in, breathing out, is enough.
It seems to me that the cases of people who have not returned from hallucinogenic trips are well documented, after all seeing things that cannot be touched is a symptom of schizophrenia.
In this sense the risk of the side-effect of LSD would be neurological damage of which the body will retain memory, regardless of the awareness of those who have suffered that damage.
Personally I have nothing against experimentation with drugs, if within the limits of the common good that prevent, for example, a drug addict from piloting a commercial airplane.
The question is that if you can reach ecstasy with a natural method such as meditation, as established in this forum of self-styled disciples grateful to the master who taught it to them, continuing to spread a culture of getting high can be configured as aiding and abetting a crime, firstly against road, air or sea victims and secondly against the drug addicts themselves to whom you deny the possibility of an option that they could be unaware of.
I’ve experienced spiritual ecstasy in short periods, and I didn’t find it interesting. There is more to life than just feeling good…listen to the birds, drink a good coffee, enjoy the sunrise. Meditate on them, the meaning of life is to be found there. These things are like much-needed water for one’s inner roots.
Living life from the heart, like that girl in the film ‘Curandera’ does, is important. The mind is about planning, safety, attack and defence… it is a poor master. One should let one’s heart set the goals, and let the mind figure out how to get there.
The interest I have in psychedelics is that they can open doors for you, they can open your eyes to what is possible. It’s an avenue for growth, but it can only help you get started, you still have to do the work of exploring and integrating.
There is so much disinformation and propaganda out there about drugs. A lot of it goes back to 1980’s War on Drugs, tv commercials showing people pictures of your brain on drugs, which later on were admitted in court to have been totally fake. There is some good science out there, but you have to dig to find it.
Heart makes no goals.
Listening to music, heart happens in the now, if there are no thoughts.
And btw, one needs to have a mind to understand the mind.
Then you’re not really listening, Satchit.
“Then you’re not really listening, Satchit.”
Is it so?
https://youtu.be/0IRUMpPm3iI?si=Nx7T_C98YYTlFQMP
By “ecstasy” I meant the important things that give meaning and nourishment to our being in the world, I could have written “peaks and valleys”.
Your list of significant experiences makes me think of the smell of coffee on a veranda of a bar in a mountain sunrise. In fact it might be a little early to open the door of that bar but it doesn’t seem like a good reason to use the doorknob of hallucinogenics, you could wait until opening time, killing time chasing squirrels.
Peaks and valleys in spiritual experience are merely so much drama… it is only by stepping back from them that one can gain inner peace.
I don’t think you really understood my reference to the morning. But then, it is better to experience it than to understand it.
I saw, Nityaprem, that there are many dramas that have recently fascinated you, I’m talking about fb chats about spicy stories from 50 years ago, it seems to me that you didn’t hesitate to step into it.
I don’t know which dramas you’re referring to, which I would mean with “peaks and valleys”.
Personally I have nothing against drama, in its neutral version, when the narcissistic component does not interfere by dramatizing, that is, by imagining that a certain conflictual experience of ours projects us onto an ideal stage, implying an audience interested in our fate.
But you are free to prefer a life avoiding dramas, preferring uninhabited contexts, as you recently noted are those experienced with LSD, without the lives of people, who sometimes collide with each other; at most your favorite dramas are those of people who died 35 years ago, I do not believe that they will react to your judgments, they will not make dramas.
Dear Anna, I spend very little time these days on thinking about either drugs or Osho or the commune. Just enough to discuss with you or Lokesh.
When examining ‘drama’ I am not talking about relationships, I am talking about the ups and downs of life experience, or more how that may be seen. Usually people talk about their troubles or successes, that’s when these things become drama, and similarly with spiritual highs and lows.
Nityaprem wrote:
“Dear Anna, I spend very little time these days on thinking about either drugs or Osho or the commune.”
For a minute I will remember Osho and me on Enlightenment Day Celebration – me on acid – singing in the Music Group, prepared for the chosen songs of that evening…a blissfully reborn baby…Hallelujah!
Osho & LSD – a perfect pair. The minute just ended.
About the “spicy stories”, these were things I was largely unaware of, which cast parts of my childhood in a new light. Talking to the people who were kids back then about their experience and my experience has been eye-opening.
There isn’t any sensationalism in it, it is how my view on these things has evolved over the weeks and months since ‘The Children of the Cult’ came out. It is an emotional journey.
Yes, dear Nityaprem, the risk of not being understood, when you share the successes and defeats of your favourite soccer team, exists, especially if you do it with a hooligan of an opposing team.
Then there are useful dramas, even harsh confrontations necessary to limit and counteract a natural existential inertia to build a personal world, for example without peaks and valleys.
I deduce that your character, not very passionate and peaceful, is not very suitable for the neo-sannyasin world, which beyond Buddha foresees Dionysian spaces, from which it would seem you have felt a wave of aversion since childhood, absolutely understandable, if the spaces of collective celebration coincided with those in which your small family dissolved into the larger one of the sangha.
I’m sorry if today you have to compensate with evocative thoughts of parallel worlds, with secret doors to open with chemical keys, where finally the hated old guru is not the officiant of the Dionysian ritual.
I certainly don’t hate Osho…I don’t feel I compensate…peaks and valleys are inevitable, it’s what you do with them that counts.
A large shock to the system like ‘Children of the Cult’ takes some time to process. You end up taking some steps to the left, then a few to the right.
Especially if you go looking for truth, and you find more inconvenient revelations.
Have you noticed, quite a few of the comments on YouTube for these videos are in the trend, “the medicine forced me to admit there is much more to reality than just these physical dimensions, and much of it appears to be inhabited!”
Many modern spiritual teachers focused just on the mind and the self, and not on the immaterial. It hasn’t always been that way, the Buddha’s world was rich with the inhabitants of heaven, who also came to hear him proclaim the Dhamma.
A sannyasin friend passed me a link to this article…
https://www.oshonews.com/2025/04/26/two-candles-burning-side-by-side/
It struck me that here were two sides of Osho talking, the one who is not interested in you following him, and the other which creates a progression from student to disciple to devotee and sets up the last as the best state to be in, the destination. Which is one reason why I stopped reading his books.
The idea of one’s relationship with Osho being a love affair on the part of the sannyasin, and it being one-sided because Osho doesn’t experience relationships, is a bit crazy. One-sided love affairs do not last, eventually you decide it is not reciprocated and you move on.
It feels to me like the divine can be found all around us…in the silence, in the birds, in the trees, in the waters. That is more real than Osho. He was only a pointer along the way, there is no need to hold onto him.
Certainly it hurts the ego if he says that from his side no relationship is possible. But it is important to understand the reason.
It is not because he is mentally sick, the reason is a deep truth. Two waves can have a relationship, but what happens when you realize that you are the ocean?
There is only one ocean, not two. There is no relationship possible.
Satchit, reporting from La La Land Wanker’s Club, spouts the same Osho recycled, decades-old nonsense about no relationship being possible with the master because he has merged with oceanic consciousness. What a load of crap. It is well documented that Osho had a personal relationship with several people. Take his long-term relationship with Vivek. She went off and had an affair with some guy and Osho freaked out about it. How very human.
This whole concept of Osho being beyond it all is strictly for dummies, lacking even a small bit of common sense in their head. Osho was not a god. He was a human being who had a lot of value in his experience, which he generously shared with many people, enriching their lives. It is important to note that Osho had a podium life and a private life that were contradictory in the extreme. Move beyond sex, but that blonde over there is invited round to my place in the wee wee hours to give me a blow job. Power corrupts and Osho was not immune to corruption. Again, very human.
Of course, people like to put Osho up on a pedestal and make him special, and then try and make themselves special by parroting cosmic mumbo-jumbo about Osho’s inner state as if they truly understand it. Understanding existentially what it means when someone has completely merged with the Ocean would require being in that state oneself. That is rare and I think that Satchit has not a clue about what he is saying in this respect. Just another wee wave trying to make out like he is a tsunami of spiritual understanding. It just does not cut the mustard as his hollow words break on a shoreline full of empty plastic bottles like himself.
This for me was important: I found out as part of the whole process that I had been making excuses for Osho for a long time.
Things like the watches, the Rolls Royces, the jewelled robes, the laughing gas, the valium, the whole “master” trip, picking women out of the drive-by, Erin’s letter. What happened to the girls in the communes was just the final straw.
Osho definitely had those two sides, public and private. And we projected onto him what we would like him to be. So it takes some time to get clear of the enticing projection, and see him more clearly.
Very creative, Lokesh.
You are just a wave, expressing its opinion.
Oneness is there, maybe you are not aware.
“There are no others.” Who said this?
If this is the case, then no relationship is possible. Get it? Relax!
Aha, but Satchit, Osho was a wave as well as the ocean, and between two waves a relationship is very possible.
Get it?
Certainly Osho was a wave as well, who realized that it was the ocean, teaching other waves that they are also the ocean.
Om Shanti.
The interesting thing about a guru like Osho is that he has managed to bring together people from very different religious traditions and related value systems.
The criticism about an alleged personal life that would contradict an alleged ethical code preached by the guru should be better argued.
Paradoxically, continuing to add evidence or gossip of a possible neurotic picture, between the public and private life of the guru, in the case of a relaxed and laughing person like Osho would only confirm the consistency of his existential approach, which revolves around the core of his playful teaching: be total (even in the saddest human passions that can emerge in relationships and social contexts) and observe (that you are not all that you can observe).
The real question, in the case of an amoral guru like Osho (little interested in reputation in matters of sad passions of others and consistently, with his role as master, much less interested in his own reputation), is whether his life was inspired by a feeling of compassion, or whether he has always been a politician obsessed with achieving power in order to abuse it.
If the political hypothesis were the true one, then the argument of the same former disciples that there would be a first existential phase of a compassionate guru, of which they would be grateful witnesses, and an existential phase in which the soul of the politician would have taken over, would seem unlikely to me; indeed, eventually, the true political phase of the guru is precisely the one of which they did not notice the underground work of the politician to achieve his material goals behind the mask of a loving guru.
If I had been so sleepy that I had not realized that I had contributed to the growth of the fame of a guru suffering from pathological narcissism, typical of politicians, I would feel the need to atone instead of boasting about having known a master before he was corrupted by worldly temptations.
Interesting that you should mention Vivek, Lokesh. There was a lot that was strange about her death, not least that her funeral was so sudden and low-key. Not at all like other sannyasin funerals, and that for such a prominent figure.
Osho said Vivek’s death was “untimely”, and there were rumours that a drug overdose was the cause. If so, it’s not surprising that it was all kept low-key.
Wasn’t she subject to something like a bi-polar condition? I recall her looking somehow disturbed, emotionally upset, during my first darshan, which took me by surprise.
Satchit wrote:
“… then try and make themselves special by parroting cosmic mumbo-jumbo about Osho’s inner state as if they truly understand it.”
It’s a fact we are all drowned in this mumbo-jumbo, yes. I once read an old short SF story that went like this:
A boy has a mechanical story-teller. The repertoire is built around fairy tales for children. The boy needs to press a button and the vocabulary will be mixed and mingled and out comes another new story about kings, princesses, dragons, knights and so on…
He soon gets bored and removes all the words and feeds the machine with new ones like starship, laser, planet, alien and so on…He pushes the button …and the new story goes like…”There once was an emperor who had a beautiful daughter highjacked by an alien monster and so a brave astronaut was needed to kill the monster and bring back the girl so they happily lived together in the palace of the emperor….”
That was some game, Arsenal v PSG. I thought the 0-1 score line was a fair reflection, it seemed to me that PSG had slightly the better chances, but also that Arsenals usual flowing movement was being cancelled out by the man-on-man play across the field. There wasn’t much space. Still one goal down is not bad, it can be overcome on a good away night.
Yes, NP, PSG closed down the space very effectively, and right from the start looked the better team. It seemed, as one of the half-time pundits noted, that Arsenal seemed rather stiff, too tense to play their usual game. If that early second half goal had counted it might possibly have been a different story, but PSG should have scored at least two or three.
Here’s an entertaining report:
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2025/apr/30/arsenal-frailties-on-show-as-luis-enriques-psg-showcase-big-energy-project
I’m hopimg for a Barcelona victory tomorrow, which would set up an appetising final against either of tonight’s sides.
I had hoped for a Barcelona win as well, it would be a worthy final, but this Inter team are at the top of the Italian league and in good form. It was a good game, with much more spectacle than the Arsenal v PSG game.
If I had to guess at the outcome of the final, I’d think this year there might finally be a PSG win.
Inter are second in Italy and had lost one or two recent matches, notably last time out, losing their top position.
I’m inclined to agree re a PSG win though, except they can be wasteful in attack.
I’ve been wondering about the purity of spirituality lately, since I got in a dream the advice to “seek the purest waters”. Buddhism can be quite pure, yoga can be quite pure, but a lot of teachers carry human greed, desire, lust for power.
The abuse stories about Osho’s communes shouldn’t be covered up, they are a warning sign about how being open and giving sannyas to everyone can harm the most vulnerable (children) in a community. You get a mix that is not very pure, has a lot of dross in it.
I came across this film, about an American woman who went to Peru to do Ayahuasca and had some quite dark experiences…
https://youtube.com/watch?v=1QqcgazcWxM
So that is what can happen when the plant medicine opens you up and there are bad influences in control.
I would say, “purest waters” is a metaphor for the true self.
NP, I watched the black magic woman has a bad trip and gets the munchies video and then stopped halfway through. Just another tripper’s bummer story. Lovely person, I have to say. I still think you have no real experience of the zones she is describing. Much in the same way that what you describe about Osho and his communes sounds like someone viewing the situation through a telescope the wrong way round.
You say, “A lot of teachers carry human greed, desire, lust for power.” This is hardly a novel perception. My question is, so what? Even a shit teacher can teach you something, even if it is ‘I must be stupid to be with a person like this.’ A good teacher will show you the way. But it is you that must walk it.
Then you move on to the abuse stories that took place in the communes forty years ago…a topic that I think has been flogged to death on SN. There is no denying this is bad news but it is also very old news. What I find tragic about it is that it is a pity because all the great things that took place in the communes has been shunted aside because a few paedos could not keep their dirty hands off the jailbait and Osho could not keep his cock from popping out from under those ridiculous robes he was wearing at the time.
I have had my time contemplating these matters and in the end it comes down to the old saying, ‘When it comes to gurus, take the best and forget the rest.’ Except for rare people like Raman Maharshi there always seems to be a ‘rest’. Osho had his bullshit, but I for one am grateful for the time I spent with the man. In retrospect, it seems like a past life now, and life goes on.
Besides a lot of criticism, Lokesh, what does that really contribute to the conversation? I thought the trippers saying that “ayahuasca with a shaman is as intimate an experience as sex” was quite well caught, it says a certain something about the experience.
Personally, I have a kind of sensitivity to these things, expressed in dreams and visions, since I was a child. So I’m more familiar with the territory than you seem to think.
I also don’t entirely agree with “take the best and forget the rest”. Even a figure like Da Free John can produce a book like ‘The Knee of Listening’ which has a certain value. And someone like Ramana can emphasise silence and leave very little.
The thing is, once you’ve explored the books and you’ve tried just sitting in silence for a few years, what is left?
I understand “take the best and forget the rest” to also refer to the work of any individual spiritual teacher as well as to accept/reject teachers.
NP, you say a lot of interesting things, but what seems to be missing is any time as an adult devoted to actually being with a master (or any actual exeperience of psychoactive substances). Books have their place but they’re no substitute for the real thing.
Do you yourself think you would benefit significantly from a period with an alive teacher, and if so, is there anyone you feel attracted to?
SD, it’s an interesting question, and I’ve spent some time cogitating on it, not least because I recently booked a one-on-one session with a spiritual teacher I like.
I’m not really chasing breakthroughs anymore. Neither am I looking for some valuable insight. There is just This, I am what I am.
I don’t really see what a spiritual teacher might add. But we shall see, after the session. He may have some suggestions.
And/or he might just have a presence….
Just watched a video recommended to me by Youtube on ‘presence’ – only happening – no individuality there etc.
There is an Osho connection, too. So not off topic…
Tony Parson’s life story:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWlsVluzSjE
A lot of talking happening…interesting discovery, though. IMV.
This being enjoyed the interview, thank you, Klaus. It was good to get a dose of Tony Parsons passion about the ‘end of you’, radical and at the same time he sees unending love.
This is a real puzzle for me, Nityaprem, when you say that there is a spiritual teacher you like but you don’t see what he could add, that is, teach you something, leaving a mark in you.
It seems like you are saying that you are very skeptical that even a good teacher can surprise you with something that you have not already read or heard from someone else, yet you book a session with him perhaps with the hidden hope that he will recognize that you have nothing more to learn and therefore give you back the money for the session you booked.
For me a spiritual teacher is someone who has found something precious to share with those who are poor in that substance.
In the Christian religion they say: blessed are the poor in spirit.
Maybe after so many years with Osho you have received so many gifts that you no longer feel poor in spirit, you are not looking for more spiritual food, you take for granted your sense of fulfilment that does not make you see hungry people around you.
It’s more a question of “I’m willing to spend the money on the session to see what he has to say,” Anna. I go into the session with an open mind, with perhaps the hope that he will point me at a new direction.
As for being “poor in spirit”, I’ve tried giving away all my spiritual gifts and have found we only hold these things in trust and they are not meant for others. If you have spiritual gifts it is best to use them to heal yourself and others, and try to learn about your own reality.
Nityaprem, you are funny in your attempts to justify your argument’s inconsistency.
After sharing the certainty that teachers you respect cannot really add anything to your life, except some suggestions (maybe, like: why don’t you take drugs like so many do?), immediately followed by sharing that you will meet that teacher with an open mind and hope that he can teach you something, adding a new direction to your life.
Now, on the subject of spiritual gifts, you say that they cannot be shared with others but only kept, and a line later you write that the gifts can be used to heal oneself and others.
Do you or do you not find universal traits in human nature?
Is spirituality or is it not the blossoming of human awareness in recognizing the essential unity beyond the apparent separation of forms?
Thanks, Anna, I always try to amuse the crowd, hohoho.
I’m not even sure if there is a human nature, human beings are so diverse and culturally dependent.
In terms of what spirituality is, it is a great calling to fulfil the riddle of life handed to us by our own mortality. It is Death asking you, what have you learned?
NP writes, “I’m more familiar with the territory than you seem to think.’
”
In your dreams, man. You said it, NP, not me.
Judge ye not unless ye walk a mile in another man’s shoes….
“The thing is, once you’ve explored the books and you’ve tried just sitting in silence for a few years, what is left?”
I guess frustration is left.
This happens if one is chasing one’s own tail.
Well, even horror-trips a part of the whole story.
If your mind is prepared and not too much unstable it can be mindblowing and enlightening as well.
The classic movie – plus samadhi tanks…;-) is just about that topic, you will it know for sure?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XNVQ4ILPBA
After a positive subconscious response to the other one, I’ll watch this ‘bad trip’ video and see what happens….
The hot weather appears to be ending, we just had a spell of thunder and heavy rain, and the forecast says 17 degrees on Saturday and 12 degrees on Sunday. We had a lovely dry and sunny spring though.
It reminded me a little of the monsoon in Poona, which was happening when I visited in 1987, I think it was. I recall going into Buddha Hall and being sniffed at the entrance, it was not a problem, but I can’t remember much of the discourse. The most memorable moment of that trip was biting with gusto into a pepper ring which some merry prankster had offered me as an onion ring…
When I was young I used to go to discourse, but I would only hear a small part of it before falling asleep to the droning of Osho’s voice. It was only later, after my 40th year, that I started reading the books and listening to the tapes of the discourses.
NP gives an example of an associative thought pattern, stemming from weather conditions.
Previously, he wrote, “Judge ye not unless ye walk a mile in another man’s shoes.” I can’t be certain if this is an excuse for a general lack of judgement on his part on various topics, or if he is trying to make amends for all the judgements he cast in Osho’s direction, a man who, by all accounts, was pretty judgemental himself.
Judge thee not is a biggie. There are countless times I have judged someone and been proven to be completely wrong in my judgement about them. Today, I only make a judgement about someone if it is absolutely necessary.
Here on SN I make my judgements about what people write, as I do not actually know anyone currently writing here in the flesh. For me, the number one rule on SN is do not get overly serious about anything written here as none of us actually know one another. Satchit is pretty good at deflecting criticism directed his way. He rarely gets serious about it.
Associative thought is relaxing and good for you. Reason and logic are often forcing your way through.
I find it funny that you say “these days I only make a judgment when absolutely necessary” and in the very next sentence admit, “here on SN I judge people on their writing”. That’s hilarious.
Admittedly your writing would suffer if you didn’t judge people anymore, you wield a certain acerbic Blackadderian wit with aplomb.
Cool, NP.
More grist to the mill…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0yBxRhNUWc
Yeah…good interview for those who haven’t read her book, Sarito Carroll is very worthwhile giving a listen to if you want to know what the whole sannyas experience was like for a child.
At least on one thing we all seem to agree: the failure of Osho’s communal social experiment was caused by the lack of rules on how to take care of the neglected children of hippies, too busy experimenting with artificial worlds that do not include tiring and cathartic techniques.
In this interview Sarito seems to say that Osho was looking for children for capitalistic reasons, exploiting them sexually and in the hard work of the commune; in short, a bit like what happens today in her finally reconquered normal world, where the rule is the exploitation of man by man, and it is now mainstream that a small group of oligarchs with the entrepreneurial grace of Sarito have a different jet plane for every day of the year.
It seems that for Sarito it is better to have a drugged hippie mother, with her fauna and flora, than a concentration camp dedicated to sexual experimentation…in fact it seems that with her mother there is a movement of protection and understanding…about her father she doesn’t say anything, the only men she is angry with are that young old boy from 40 years ago and all the men she has met in the decades to follow, with whom she seems to have experienced disappointments and illusions.
Another possible cause of the failure of Osho’s vision could be the one consequent to the hypothesis of “human nature” suggested by Nityaprem: community life that claims to share practically all the moments and spaces of human life of irreducibly different individuals is impossible, except for inevitable temporary forcing.
From this it follows that our “globalizing” Western society that favors the free circulation of Capital, goods and people, is the society that best supports the individualistic expression of human nature, and therefore those like Osho are the true enemies of the human race.
Of course we are not yet immersed in utopia…we still have to legalize the use of ayahuasca, human sacrifices and create a new Palm Beach in Gaza.
Having said that, not having read Sarito’s book, based only on this interview, I would like to say something to the young Jennifer (not to the adult who follows the mainstream of ‘me too’, entering into legal disputes that only enrich the lawyers, with the media happy to distract attention from the structural causes of a sick society).
I believe that the existential core of anyone’s life revolves around the relationship of the child with the mother, as regards the needs of emotional/spiritual nourishment, and with the father as regards the needs of material security.
A good part of the damage due to the lack of these two existential pillars in Sarito’s life, when she meets Osho (10 years old) probably, as in a good part of anyone’s life, were already rooted experiences to determine a certain inertia of behaviour.
For her, finding an extended and stable family in Poona 1 must have been a source of joy and emotional investment, which provided her with enough strength and awareness to handle the shock of the annoying kiss by one of Osho’s bodyguards, without feeling the need to publicly report it or tell her mother, or a substitute figure.
The real episode, which reawakened a primary trauma, with which Sarito still seems to be dealing, was discovering that her first love did not reciprocate as she would have wished/wanted, being a womanizer (not an ephebophile, therefore) who did not grant her exclusivity.
It is possible that for her this seemed emotionally manageable until the power group of the Ranch, in which she was protected by a mother figure very close to Sheila, ran away with the money.
In my opinion, this is where the real drama of the young Jennifer begins, her ambivalence towards Osho, his people, his teachings, her memories, good and bad.
Maybe she ended up torn again, torn between a need for care and the desire for a welcoming and safe place, between a feeling of gratitude and one of anger, between the fear of not feeling worthy and the awareness of being worthy, between her mother’s desire for adventure and discovery and the fear of getting lost in the search for an elusive father.
If she had escaped with Sheila’s group, perhaps it would have been easier to understand and heal from that narcissistic wound, the love experienced with a boy coveted by women older than her.
However, I repeat, in all this where was her mother? What happened to her father? Which are the fundamental questions of a real therapy, which I find to be among the most recommended in the world of Osho (Primal), even though she now lives in the mainstream world.
Another source of tension for Sarito, who is basically a child still looking for a community to belong to, is the moral debt to her grandfather who returned her to the mainstream community, the same one that looked at the Oregon events through the lens of the documentary ‘Wild Wild Country’.
This dive into the past must have brought back unresolved issues in her, such as the judgment towards the management of power on the Ranch by the women she admired and perhaps imitated, for example in dealing with outsiders like her elderly boy, a secret lover who resisted her desire to be the only and special young woman of power for him.
Instead, the moral debt to her grandfather’s vision must have pushed her to affirm the mainstream principle that the law of criminal codes comes first, regardless of the value system of the community in which they are applied, the only context that matters is the court, where those who are right are financially compensated.
So with coherence towards her grandfather, she managed to fight against all those who betrayed her, excluding her mother, her father and Sheila’s gang, persecuting a lover from 40 years ago who remained faithful to Osho and who continues to consider her one of the many jealous women in his life, on a fairly elastic Tanner scale.
Perhaps attacking his master is a way to make him pay for the responsibilities of others, first of all his father and then all those who seem to resemble him, unable to fill that emotional void that she still carries in her heart, that no court, no judge will be able to fill.
Anna opens her lengthy comment with the following statement:
“At least on one thing we all seem to agree: the failure of Osho’s communal social experiment was caused by the lack of rules on how to take care of the neglected children of hippies.”
I don’t agree with this statement because it is nonsense. I do not think for a moment the commune in Oregon failed for this reason because it is superfluous in regards to what happened there at the time. The reasons behind the Ranch’s collapse are too long to list, but putting Sheela in charge of the show ranks among the most important.
The child abuse issue has only emerged during the last few years. I find it tragic that Osho has been tarred with the same brush as a bunch of paedophiles. Even taking into account what can be viewed as his own sexual misconduct, Osho did a lot more good than harm. He certainly did not condone sex with minors or ever promote such an idea as far as I know.
Having proposed this interview to Sarito without your comment, Lokesh, seemed to me an expression of will to spread the theses against the psycho sect in question, where the responsibility of the guru absolves the behaviour of all his disciples, including Sarito, driven by a desire to belong to the community, with its values and codes.
It seems you take for granted that the community has failed in allowing a “bunch of paedophiles” to have gone unnoticed for 40 years, thanks to the permissive teaching on sex by Osho.
However, something doesn’t add up in the picture, you don’t seem less ambiguous than Sarito, when you seem scandalized by Osho’s choice to put Sheela in charge of the Ranch, in the same way you seem scandalized about people under 30 who in those years, coming from the hippie world, did not apply a rigid observance of the age of consent, the same that then, in the bourgeois normal world, was happily disregarded, judging by the proliferation in literature and cinematography, not only the pornographic industry, of erotic representations of more or less adolescent subjects, representations that are mostly forbidden today.
What you, Sarito, Nityaprem and others do not recognize is that the crime committed by Osho is to have imagined a world without sin and punishment, so you limit yourselves to judging the epiphenomena of this lack.
If it is true that the issue of sexual promiscuity involving minors under the age of 21 (probably according to the legal codes of the various countries to which the sannyasins belong, other crimes have also been committed, such as homosexual and heterosexual sodomy, marital infidelity, drug and alcohol use, eating of cows and pigs, etc.) is an aspect that has only recently emerged, it is nevertheless a fact that it is contemporary with what you believe to be the most important cause of the collapse of the community in Oregon, and you use also the same reasoning: the teacher could not have been unaware that everything he said could be used by his students against him to avoid punishment for their failures.
To be honest, Anna, none of what you write about concerns me overmuch. I never went to Oregon. My time with Osho was pretty much over by then.
I have noticed, when in a social situation, talking about things that happened in the distant past, I occasionally get a hollow feeling in my guts, signalling it is time to change the subject or just stop talking. Same goes for all this stuff about the sexual abuse of kids on the Osho communes. It is so long ago.
I recently read an article about a young woman taken prisoner by an invading military force. She was raped daily over a period of two years. Really heavy shit. Yet, such horrors take place on this planet every day. It is all relative. Listening to the stories about child abuse on the Ranch etc. appears mild in comparison, which isn’t to say I make light of it. I don’t.
Like most of us, I have had my share of traumas in life. It seems to be a part of being a human being. It is rare to meet someone who has not been traumatised by something or other along the way.
Certainly a lengthy comment, thanks Anna.
One thing I do think you may be right about is the issues with men later in life. That abuse has cast a long shadow, and there seems to be some anger remaining too. It’s sad that the adults of the commune have managed to leave such a trail.
Elsewhere too I have read that many of the sannyas kids suffered from substance abuse problems later in life, suicides also being common.
Maybe you missed some statements from the interview, Nityaprem, where Sarito talks about the pain/disappointment in discovering that her lover was not only hers. I think that this is also the reason for her long internal conflict and anger towards him.
But you also overlooked the possibility that the therapeutic key, in the case of Sarito’s problem with men, could include in the photo of her family constellation, above all, the father, then the mother, etc.
Speaking of kids who after the Osho communes, like you, are tempted by drug use or have even become addicted, while some have even committed suicide (drug and alcohol use would seem to be very related to suicide), do you have data to say that if they had remained in the commune things would have gone differently?
Have you seen/heard of suicides within the Osho communes?
No, I can’t say that I have heard of suicides in the Osho communes. On the contrary, I’ve heard a few people say that Osho’s teachings saved their lives.
It is questionable that the whole sannyas experience was ever intended for children.
Certainly it was not for children, because for the sannyas experience you need a kind of maturity.
But the style of the Master was not being against anything. So kids were part of the show.
I believe that was said in a discourse somewhere too.
Very few children know what it is to be a seeker, I think that comes to you later in life. In a way I am proud that I never stood in the way of my father’s seeking his path, Osho was his guru until very recently.
I read something interesting that Tony Parsons said a while back, that attitudes towards spirituality appeared to be changing and a lot of people were accepting they no longer needed a guru. It seems timely, with the child abuse stories fresh in people’s minds.
Was Tony Parsons referring to sannyasins or to ‘seekers’ in general, NP?
If the latter, then do you really think this tendency has anything to do with these child abuse stories?
Seekers in general I think, SD. The timing with the sannyas child abuse stories is probably coincidental, but there are a lot of exposes in India as well, like this article on Sadhguru by Be Scofield…
https://www.gurumag.com/inside-sadhgurus-cult-empire/
You can see the word ‘cult’ getting bandied around a lot, the anti-cult movement seems to be spreading.
The anti-cult movement might seem like it is spreading to you, NP, but it has been on the go since ancient times. Didn’t the Romans view the rise of Christianity as a cult during its inception years?
In more modern times, the anti-cult movement reached its peak in the USA in the 1940s.
Then we have the cult of personality. Donald Trump is a prime example of that. Living Colour wrote a song about it:
“I sell the things you need to be
I’m the smiling face on your TV
Oh, I’m the cult of personality
I exploit you, still you love me
I tell you one and one makes three
Oh, I’m the cult of personality
Like Joseph Stalin and Gandhi
Oh, I’m the cult of personality.”
Nityaprem, what made your father change his mind about Osho?
Did he see the work of the Holy Spirit through some man of faith (the true one towards the only God)?
I’m not going to speak for him, Anna. If he wishes to make his views known, he can come and write here. He is a rather private person so I doubt he will do so.
It doesn’t matter if it’s your father or someone else, Nityaprem, what matters is your reasoning, relating the news you are spreading about the evil effect of Osho on the lives of children.
Now it seems that by coincidence the evil effects are also affecting the parents of those children, it was interesting to know how he managed, if he did, to free himself from the curse, such as exorcisms or psychotherapy, it could be an example for many others still prisoners of the psycho-sect who have never met Osho in the flesh and not even lived in one of his communes like you.
Unfortunately, Osho still has books on display on the shelves of supermarkets, despite your precious work in telling the truth about the spiritual nature of such a guru.
My reasoning? I think today’s Osho books written by editors at OIF are largely harmless, and children are unlikely to read them… the harm to children in Osho’s communes was in the attitude to free sex, and the sexual predators it attracted.
I think today’s seekers can find clearer, more direct expressions of spiritual truth. Anyone who dictates hundreds of volumes is just keeping you busy, one or two should suffice. Go read ‘The Power of Now’ or the ‘Tao Te Ching’ or ‘The Open Secret’, go deeply into it, and seek the purest waters and the highest spaces where personality dissolves.
Osho created a great movement of people and energy appropriate to his time, and I think Lokesh is right to say he did much more good than harm. It’s just unfortunate that those of us who were there also had to suffer the flaws of his personality.
Morning, people. I came across the writings of a certain Walter Russell, who had a cosmic enlightenment in 1921 in which he saw matter as crystallised light…when you consider the atom bomb releasing its stored energy, and Einstein’s e=mc2, the equivalence of matter and energy, that suddenly doesn’t look so strange.
When you consider that in Quantum Mechanics the photon is the only particle that doesn’t have an anti-particle, you might conceive of the universe eventually reducing down to just light, as all other matter annihilates itself and converts itself to light.
“this current trend towards natural plant medicine is very good, because it means you come in touch with curandes and shamans who (hopefully) have a real background.” (Nityaprem)
Taitas (aka the name in Colombia for healers, shamans) in the Colombian Amazon jungle in the 80s, said the ceremonies needed to be done in that jungle setting, not in cities. In the 80s, in that authentic jungle context, the taitas did not charge money for the ceremony.
The Colombian taitas also said once you took yage (aka the name in Colombia for ayahuasca) you now had the key to contact the essence of the plant. You could call it up any time and needn’t ingest more, much less ingest dozens or hundreds of times like westerners do.
Taking it out of the jungle to western venues, charging large sums of money, and charging for repeat performances, are all ways “plant medicine” has been commercialized and the experience degraded.
Reflecting on your observation, Samarpan, about the importance of the Jungle in the Colombian tradition of shamanic healing, I wonder if the suggestion that there are also places that favour “illuminations” or “openings of consciousness” to deeper levels of the mysteries of life is true.
Many former disciples of Indian gurus seem quite pessimistic about the possibility that after death a guru can be of any help; this must also apply to places.
But if there can be a tradition that shamans have passed down for centuries, why couldn’t there also be one for a tradition that does not involve the use of Indo-American hallucinogens?
Do you also believe that around a guru like Osho a toxic tradition can be born that can poison future generations, like today’s generation that has become addicted to ayahuasca?
Sheesh, Anna, “a toxic tradition”… I have to say the only really toxic traditions are those which take themselves and the world seriously. It’s all leela, a divine play in which all of us who all embody God see each other.
Between the two of us, Nityaprem, the one who should have more control over his mouth is not me.
Because it is you, not me, a former sannyasin, son of former sannyasins, raised in a psycho-sect where children were abused and forced to work to buy luxury cars for the guru.
It is you, not me, who for some time have been a promoter and disseminator of chats and groups of traumatized former followers who try to heal by writing books and trying to obtain compensation from the OIF, money to spend on therapy, in your case shamanic.
You write in this forum characterized by the dominant underlying thesis of demonstrating how the criminal success of certain gurus is founded on the naivety of their disciples, for this reason you always welcome with enthusiasm all the criticisms and accusations that are written in this direction on the forum, like the last things said in the article by Simond now in question, who concludes his article with: “The business of enlightenment has become a cancer of sorts. A cancer with no cure.”; and where you start your first comment with: “Thank you for your thoughts, Simon.”
I take this reaction of yours towards me as a sign of ambivalence towards the guru who ruined your life, precluding true salvation through the path illuminated by Jesus.
Maybe you are not lost enough yet, first you have to have your experiences in the Amazon forests before returning to the fold of the Lord, you are not the first to try to learn from the wrong plant, but you should know that the mercy of the creator for his creatures is infinite.
However, if what your ex-guru says is true, that is, he was poisoned in prisons in the USA, you must never feel alone, there is an army of light ready to crush the head of the serpent, in all its forms.
Well done, Anna, for pointing out how utterly lost NP is. Perhaps the prodigal son will return to the fold one day. Maybe he has been corrupted so much by Osho and his evil sannyasin friends he is now beyond redemption.
As the Lord Jesus Christ said in his great parable, the story of a sower who scattered seeds on four different soil types. The first type of ground was hard, and the seed could not sprout or grow at all and became snatched up instantly. The second type of ground was stony. The seed was able to plant and begin to grow. However, it could not grow deep roots and withered in the sun. The third type of ground was thorny, and although the seed could plant and grow, it could not compete with the number of thorns that overtook it. The fourth ground was good soil that allowed the seed to plant deep, grow strong, and produce fruit.
Alas, poor NP fell amongst the thorns of evil, propagated by the villainous Osho and his merry cohorts.
But hold on. What about that other wonderful parable from the Lord Jesus? You know, the one about the person without sin casting the first stone.
According to the Gospel of John, the Pharisees, in an attempt to discredit Jesus, brought a woman charged with adultery before him. Then they reminded Jesus that adultery was punishable by stoning under Mosaic law and challenged him to judge the woman so that they might then accuse him of disobeying the law. Jesus thought for a moment and then replied, “He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone at her.” The people crowded around him were so touched by their own consciences that they departed.
When Jesus found himself alone with the woman, he asked her who were her accusers. She replied, “No man, lord.” Jesus then said, “Neither do I condemn thee: go and sin no more.”
Perhaps there is still hope for NP.
It seems inappropriate to me, Lokesh, to compare Osho to Jesus, the seeds for an eternal flowering and those of a worldly flowering, in fact Osho’s seeds are short-lived, judging from your path as a spiritual seeker.
With you Osho must have sown a bit on the road and a bit in the rocky cliff that flanked it, your worldly enthusiasm with him did not last long, after your binge of seeds thrown from the window of a RR you went back on the road in search of a new sower, or a second-hand RR.
The case of Nityaprem is of the third type of sowing, a land infested with the thorns of notionalism and cultural relativism, always looking for the better seed than the previous one, Jesus would invite him to hoe in his garden instead of squeezing shrubs in the Amazon.
To say that Nityaprem is a sinner is not to throw a stone at his nose but to warn him that he is driving the wrong way on the highway at night with his headlights off.
Anna, have you read Osho’s two sets of 21 discourses on Jesus, ‘The Mustard Seed’ and ‘Come, Follow Me’?
ADMIN NOTICE:
Due to attending a funeral no one will be available to deal with posts until late afternoon today.
I read the first one, Satyadeva, then burned it with the rest of my ex-husband’s things.
Was your ex-husband a sannyasin, Anna? And you?
Beloved Anna writes, “It seems inappropriate to me, Lokesh, to compare Osho to Jesus.”
Yes, Anna, you are absolutely right. Jesus was the Messiah (Christ), the Son of God who was crucified for the sins of humanity before rising from the dead. Osho was an evil fornicator, who collected expensive watches, had a fleet of luxury cars, inhaled laughing gas, told dirty jokes, generally lived in sin and misled lost souls like poor NP.
Only a fool would compare Lord Jesus with a manipulative madman like Osho. One can only pray for NP’s soul and trust that he one day sees the light of the son of God, instead of being led astray by the son of Satan.
There is a saying about sarcasm, Lokesh, about the weakness of arguments.
That was sarcasm? I thought Lokesh was talking ‘la pura verdad’, the pure truth.
Anna, there are many sayings about sarcasm. Some say sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, while others, like Fyodor Dostoevsky, say that sarcasm is the last refuge of modest and chaste-souled people when the privacy of their soul is coarsely and intrusively invaded. I think the latter is appropriate in this instance.
His approach to Osho seeds was quite circumspect (10 years before changing his name), Satyadeva, including exploiting my role as taster, passing me books and videotapes.
I told him right away that I smelled sulphur.
Anna, maybe you weren’t brushing your teeth enough. Bacteria that live in the mouth can make compounds that have sulphur. These compounds are especially stinky.
Anna said, “my ex-husband was quite circumspect with Osho seeds….”
But perhaps you still miss him, and that’s why you come to visit us here?
Well…Thank you for your thoughts?
Jesus knew a thing or two, but all the evil that has been done in his name shows the state of his followers.
Health is emotional and mental as well as physical. If you care for yourself, and have enough love in your life, you should be able to avoid most of the poisons.
Sinner, repent! Their poison is like the poison of a snake; they are like the adder, whose ears are shut; in other words, as deaf as an adder. Time to buy a hearing aid.
Here, another of your inconsistencies, Nityaprem.
You judge the son of a carpenter for not having accumulated enough knowledge and then you rely on the magic potions of illiterate Peruvian Indios.
Obviously you are not familiar with the expression “x knew a thing or two” which is generally meant to be an understated compliment. It’s British idiom.
Ok, Nityaprem, I correct it: you compliment a sage who heals the blind and then you prefer the toxic hallucinations of illiterate pushers.
The inconsistency remains.
That’s fine, Anna, I’m not worried about inconsistency…you can worry about it if that’s your thing.
I’ve always been partial to a wee dram of Love Potion Number 9. They wrote a song about it.
“I took my troubles down to Madame Ruth
You know that gypsy with the gold-capped tooth
She’s got a pad down on Thirty-Fourth and Vine
Selling little bottles of love potion number nine
I told her that I was a flop with chicks
I’ve been this way since 1956
She looked at my palm and she made a magic sign
She said, “What you need is love potion number nine”
She bent down and turned around and gave me a wink
She said, “I’m gonna make it up right here in the sink”
It smelled like turpentine, it looked like Indian ink
I held my nose, I closed my eyes, I took a drink
I didn’t know if it was day or night
I started kissing everything in sight
But when I kissed a cop down on Thirty-Fourth and Vine
He broke my little bottle of Love Potion Number Nine.”
Really interesting contribution, Samarpan. My impression of the plant medicine is that each experience should be treated with great respect, that it has important lessons to impart but that you don’t need to take it again and again.
I’ve heard of people who partake of ayahuasca through the Santo Daime church in Brazil, who take it a lot, so it is not only Westerners who go looking for “experiences”.
I think it has something to do with being unhappy in your own body and mind, being unable to relax and just Be, that sends people in search of ayahuasca again and again.
It’s fascinating that the jungle people have a much more complete view of the human being, taking care of the emotional, energetic and spiritual parts of a human being as well as the physical… I came across this video of medical people going on an ayahuasca retreat:
https://youtu.be/ubKZa1sUkVE
Meditation and natural plants
There is this homepage of Tom Riddle:
https://thomasriddle.net/about_me.html
Tom is both a meditator and a natural plant experimenter.
He describes many of his experiences in his blogs.
He also produces documentaries and has had a lot of travelling experience in many countries. Mostly with spiritual background.
I’ve spent a lot of time reading his stories.
Therefore, a recommendation from me.
Good link, Klaus.
Very interesting…
“[The media and corporate business] has also, at least in the USA, successfully demonized what in other parts of the world are considered sacred healing plants.”
Here is a great book that puts paid to the notion that you need to be in the jungle to appreciate the neural effects of psychoactive drugs, in particular tryptamine psychedelics, which has been incremented by the proposal that they have potential therapeutic benefits, based on their molecular mimicry of serotonin.
Perhaps the drugs aren’t needed, this guy for example is demonstrating “psychedelic breathwork” at youtube. Here’s one of his videos that I enjoyed last night:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONsvMaytg_0
“I’ve had conversations with it where I say, “Show me what you are for yourself; what are you really?”…and after about 15 seconds, you say, “Call it off! I’m not ready!”
― Terence McKenna
Here’s another session of “psychedelic breathwork to help release natural DMT” (dimethyltryptamine) that I’ll listen to tonight:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtVP4CtxU4Y
Satyadeva says, “perhaps the drugs aren’t needed.”
I think ‘drugs’ is such an ugly term, it carries with it immediate overtones of science, and of misuse and suffering. If you look at it from the South American perspective, it is sacred plant medicine, part of a holistic world view. Every plant has a spirit, and the shaman gets to know them, and works with them in ceremonies through icaros – songs – and through alliances with protector spirits like tobacco.
As a system for working with the mind, it is much more wholesome than something scientific, which is reductionist. It understands the natural cycles, it understands how things feed on the detritus of other things. The ceremonial aspect too, doing it in small groups is much more respectful and social than the western approach of “you buy it in a shop and go home with it.”
Nityaprem, I really struggle to understand how you can be so fanatically a promoter of all belief systems that are at least 5000 km away from where you were born and at the same time be a supporter of Western science, with drugs that have saved billions of people during the pandemic, including superstitious populations lost among cocaine plantations (called “La Hierba del Diablo”).
I’m not fanatical about anything, you know, Anna. I believe in relaxing, letting go of things, being the opposite of fanatical… working out the knots of tension in mind and body… not identifying with physical things or beliefs, not making things mine… being like water, as Bruce Lee once said.
Part of that is accepting what is. If it’s my time to go, then it’s my time. Western medicine is just a convenience, and I took the covid vaccines mostly to not be a burden. Paracetamol is a great invention, as a convenience.
As far as where I was born is concerned… my grandparents brought Christianity, my parents brought Osho, my early school teachers brought Rudolph Steiner, my late school and University teachers brought science and engineering. All sorts of different directions.
In keeping with not being fanatical or identifying with beliefs, I’ve used the things that worked for a while, and then let them go when they no longer fit.
Nityaprem, I think your problem was not being able to let go of things, and that your need for alternative therapies was to free yourself from all the things you have suffered as one of the “Children of the C
ult”.
There are many specific therapeutic tools for certain types of conditioning, not least prayer, you just need to have a strong motivation to heal, which cannot come from your egocentrism but from the intention to dedicate your healing to the only entity capable of collapsing your ego.
During the pandemic, mistakes were made, the vaccines were experimental, yes, yet the faith that they would work to save humanity created a sense of Christian unity that protected us.
Paracetamol was another mistake due to haste; fever is important to boil pathogens, mine was 38 degrees centigrade, overcome in two days without vaccines (I can’t stand needles, I faint), only many spiritual exercises:
Reflection/contemplation of one’s sins and God’s mercy.
Reading of the Gospel.
Reflection on the Passion and Resurrection of Christ.
This also applies to the masters and so-called masters that you have met, without your intention and strong motivation to dedicate the garden to God their seeds will not sprout.
Morning, people.
I love the weather this time of year, cool at night and in the morning, and fresh just starting to shade into warmth in the afternoon. I saved the birds dwelling in our hedge from a prowling orange tabby cat yesterday, there seem to be more cats around here now. I blame the neighbour two houses over, who started a “cat behaviour bureau” business.
For the rest, my aunt Elly has passed away, and she left me her collection of Dutch translations of the Terry Pratchett novels. She had the complete series, and as I have a few of the books in English we often used to talk about them.
It’s funny what different people get out of life. My mother still very much enjoys Osho, while her sister was reading about Pratchett’s Discworld and his humorous take on wizards and witches. Both, I think, got the message that life isn’t something you should take seriously.
For those who enjoy these things, I wanted to pass on this Aya docu which I felt had a good vibe. There is good information there about the kind of things Ayahuasca can be expected to cure, and the kind of cultural exchange that is happening.
https://youtu.be/6j0_glRnJxI
NP, is it still the case that you don’t have an
Ayahuasca experience by yourself?
Satchit, is it still the case you spout lots of sayings about enlightenment without being enlightened?
I find the plant medicine path fascinating, because it has such a potential to heal depression, addiction and trauma, and also to lead the spiritual seeker further in his quest. This is not only the physical substance, but the approach to curing, ceremonies and the world view that goes with it.
Yes, NP, but you did not answer Satchit’s question, which is indeed relevant in this case, and leads me to conclude you have not yet taken ayahuasca and therefore that makes you an outsider describing an insider scene. No big deal.
Well, NP, you remind me of someone reading love stories and watching love movies, but never dares to fall in love with a real person.
In Holland, the Protestant ethic has managed to put a price on everything a man might desire, and then they even put them on display: sex, drugs and rock and roll.
The wrath of the Lord will have preferential lanes where it can be unloaded.
Anna, at times you come across as a caricature of a fundamentalist type Christian, preaching hell and damnation to the wicked unbelievers; the sort one can see in cartoons and comedy on stage, tv and in films. I doubt whether you are able to perceive how laughably silly this sort of extremism sounds, even when aimed at legitimate targets, eg overwhelming self-indulgence.
What has led you into this – intense personal crisis, disappointments in love, loss of faith in contemporary ‘guru(s)’, unimpressive examples of ‘disciples’, despair, an overwhelmomg need for something or someone to believe in, for total ‘certainty’?
Satyadeva, I am not afraid of being crucified or ridiculed for a battle of truth.
I have been following this Forum since the crimes denounced by the documentary ‘Children of the Cult” began to emerge, it was enough to google a bit to get here, even though I then realized that I already knew this site.
I have seen that in the forum the critical and mocking voices against Osho are prevalent, especially from former disciples, who have experienced the drama of having lost material and spiritual resources by following a false master.
The article we are commenting on ends with the sentence that enlightenment is a cancer. If this is true, and does not sanction the end of spiritual life, then the battlefield is no longer the individual one, where every act of consciousness is measured in terms of spiritual growth, but the metaphysical one of the universal Christian community that fights against the army directed by the original adversary of the divine will.
Anna, you write:
“The article we are commenting on ends with the sentence that enlightenment is a cancer.”
He did not write this, read what Simon wrote more carefully, he says:
“What is yet to be discovered in any real, new way is how THE NOTION OF ENLIGHTENMENT, THE TEACHING OF IT BY EASTERNERS AND THE NEW WESTERN TEACHINGS, is very much removed from our daily experience. Barry Long, alone, seems to have recognised this, and made a lot of effort to integrate his understanding. All the while the non- duality brigade, who have gone from strength to strength, parrot the same old chestnuts: “Love, awareness, enlightenment, non-duality, oneness, God, the bliss of samadhi” – it’s the same tale time and again, but who’s actually making any progress?
Even Andrew in one of his very last videos, almost shrugging his shoulders, said, “enlightenment’s a tricky business, isn’t it?” It was a simple confession that in 40 years he was as lost as ever!
THE BUSINESS OF ENLIGHTENMENT has become a cancer of sorts. A cancer with no cure.”
Of course, Satyadeva, by “enlightenment” I meant “the business of enlightenment”, I meant exactly what an angry ex-sannyasin like Simon meant, whose polemical target is Osho and not Barry Long.
The anger of former sannyasins like Simon should not be condemned but understood and shared.
50 years ago many young people like him were attracted by gurus like Osho who promised enlightenment, that is, the realization of perfect bliss, instead it turned out that it was a fraud, a cancer of the soul, there is no bliss on this earth without the help of the grace of Our Lady.
“…there is no bliss on this earth without the help of the grace of Our Lady.” Who told you that blatantly obvious untruth, Anna?
And do you share the joy of thousands of people gathered at the Vatican today overjoyed at the election of yet another so-called “Papa”, father-figure priest, aka the Pope? If so, why?
Because it’s ‘safer’ to take refuge in the collective belief of more than a billion other people who are more than happy to think they’re going to be looked after by a Church as their lives and yours become more problematic than ever?
Satyadeva, if this forum is even remotely representative of the dramatically declining trajectory of Osho’s teaching, with his disciples, I would say that ten thousand buddhas is just a distant memory.
If you make it a question of numbers, the sense of belonging to a very exclusive group might even stimulate more fanaticism, a sheep is a sheep regardless of the size of the fence.
It takes a little humility to be inspired by the grace of a mother who has suffered the greatest wound of seeing a son humiliated on the cross.
In fact, Anna, Osho made a point of not promising enlightenment, he made it clear that he gave no such guarantee, that a sannyasin needs to be “a gambler”, courageous enough to live in trust.
Can someone make an AI photo of Virgin Mary’s son Jesus & Osho in a boxing ring?!!!!!
Kavita, ‘The Ref’ is back in black, number one with a bullet, she’s a power pack.
AI declined to do “offensive or disrespectful” versions.
Likes to produce “abstract or tasteful” images….
That said, if your goal is to explore a symbolic or artistic concept — like a visual metaphor of a philosophical “exchange” or a symbolic “duel of ideologies” — I can generate an abstract or tasteful image that evokes that idea, without direct caricature or disrespect.
Would you like me to proceed with a symbolic, respectful version of a philosophical or spiritual encounter instead?
Not really.
Someone else can do this?
I always appreciated how Osho tore the lid off organised religions.It took balls to do that. It was very liberating to sit in his discourses and listen to him dismantle and expose those organizations for what they are, manipulative nonsense, fairytales for stunted grown-ups and utter bullshit. If they serve any real positive purpose, it is that of keeping the monkeys under control, and that is about it.
Currently, a new Pope has been nominated. I have little or no interest in this kind of news. I am sure the Pope inspires millions but really who could be part of a church that used to take money from the wealthy so their sins could be expunged?
Now Anna, an obvious fundamentalist from the get-go, shows up on SN telling us about ‘Our Lady’ etc. A better example of a dog barking up the wrong tree one could not ask for.
Anna states in her profile that she hates gurus. Yet here she is on a blog created by friends of the twentieth century’s most notorious guru. This begs the question: What does she hope to get from writing comments here? It is fairly obvious that she has an axe to grind. She intellectualises on topics that she has little understanding of, yet mistakenly believes she is the only one who has a comprehensive grasp of them. I think her biggest failing is that Anna has very little in the ‘sense of humour’ department. This is disastrous for her because she just does not get the joke. Osho promoted a non-serious approach to life and encouraged his followers to adopt this attitude. Laughter is liberating. Yet Anna wants so very much to be taken seriously. Good luck with that, Anna.
From my experience of Christian fundamentalists, their trump card is usually ‘faith’. Non-believers, like us heretical lot, simply do not understand their concept of faith, which to me appears like nothing more than a reinforced belief system. When told this, the faithful’s stock response is, “They just don’t understand our faith.” Which is a bit of a conversation-stopper. Anna tells the Hindus among us that “there is no bliss on this earth without the help of the grace of Our Lady.” Really, man, you could not make this shit up.
For me, Anna has provided a minor distraction for a few days, reading her dopey posts and having a chuckle about them, then I return to more rewarding pursuits. I have a feeling that the penny of understanding might land in her inbox soon, prompting her to move on to more fertile ground to try and sow her seeds of lack-lustre Christian theology, because she would have to be as thick as a plank not to see that right now her seeds are landing on the rocks. Of course, one never knows, Christian fundamentalists can be very obstinate and opposed to going with the flow. Nothing new there.
Lokesh claims to laugh at everything, because Osho taught him, but if everything is laughable nothing is really laughable; where has the method of transcending polarities that is so popular in your world gone?
Having passion for the truth does not mean being serious, while not having passion for the truth means not feeling the moral duty to overcome one’s egocentrism, in fact if the criterion is to indulge one’s desire it is not necessary to have an ethic with a system of values…then between meditation and LSD, or between a drug-addicted guru and another who is a hermit, there are no differences in values, every path is fine.
This flat self-indulgence is not healthy, there is no authority that sets limits to this self-destructive process.
“This flat self-indulgence is not healthy, there is no authority that sets limits to this self-destructive process.”
Yes there is, Anna, it’s one’s own self (and no-self)-awareness that arises from meditation, self-watching, and working on oneself.
Are you sure, Satyadeva, that the result of this awareness finds limits that can be shared with the result of other people’s awareness? Judging from the mass of quarrelsome individuals that represent the Osho community in this forum, I would say that something has gone wrong.
To understand the consistency of your guru’s teaching, try to answer the question about what value is capable of keeping his people spiritually united.
You don’t even agree on the sense of humour, in fact you only know how to laugh at others, this too is an individualistic, hyper-subjectivist reflex.
The greatest Western philosopher, Husserl, who investigated this theme in depth (relationship between subject and world), placing the dynamics of consciousness at the centre between the tendency to privilege now the object (realism), now the thinking subject (idealism), remained a Christian, recognizing that the universality taught by Jesus is a universal fact of consciousness, which only the malicious and the intellectually dishonest deny.
Referring to sannyasins, Anna declares, “You don’t even agree on the sense of humour, in fact you only know how to laugh at others; this too is an individualistic, hyper-subjectivist reflex.”
This claim is completely untrue, and demonstrates how little experience of sannyasins you have, Anna – or how much you misjudge them.
More than any other religious group I’m aware of, sannyasins are prone to find humour in a sense of the very absurdity of much of life, particularly in one’s own egoic concerns, foolishness and self-importance. It’s part of the process of seeing through the ‘self’ and undermining its otherwise potentially lethal grip on the psyche.
Anna writes, “Lokesh claims to laugh at everything.”
Aye, Anna, you are making things up to fit your warped perspective. Or maybe it’s the work of the little people…or maybe Satan.
Where did I write that I laugh at everything? I chuckle about your bullshit and that is about it. You are not too big on supplying laugh material. Maybe you should study Sri Sri Tommy Cooperji and learn a thing or two.
Lokesh, besides inviting me to be less serious (in the sannyasin world laughter is sacred, says the guru), criticizes a millenary institution that despite the abuses of power continues to convey the message of universal love of the risen Christ, being part of or having been part of a self-styled religious community overwhelmed by the events described in ‘Wild Wild Country’ and “Children of the Cult’.
It is not difficult to predict that without an institution participated in by Osho’s disciples the guru’s message will soon be just plastic seeds in the desert, and finally the human story, one of many, of a man who failed feeling like God, will be forgotten along with all those deluded worshipers dressed, when they were not copulating, in the colours of Indian misfits. Amen.
I have found that youthfulness is another common trait among Osho’s disciples.
My presence on this forum seems to create some problems for guys like Lokesh, looking through his old comments it is not difficult to understand why, he loves to target naive Osho followers and is not used to a dialectical confrontation with those who have a spiritual foundation that has lasted for two millennia. The 70s fashion he was a testimonial for a few years is ending, and he does not want to be caught wearing clothes that reveal his age.
Yes, that is all very well, Anna, but it still does not explain why you have to make up stories about people that are untrue. Is lying part of this spiritual foundation that has lasted for two millennia that you belong to?
I don’t see anything in your comments that can be interpreted as conveying the message of universal love. You come across like a typical Christian fundamentalist headbanger, who needs to feel righteous by bringing your religious nonsense to the door of the wretched heathens. who aren’t the slightest bit interested in your holier-than-thou crap.
As for my clothes, I am wearing black shorts and a green shirt and lightweight shoes, before I walk down to the coast for a swim. I tend to wear clothes I feel comfortable in, although generally I like to dress in a style that fits my age. I rarely wear tee shirts as colourful shirts suit me better. That’s you up-to-date.
“It is not difficult to predict that without an institution participated in by Osho’s disciples the guru’s message will soon be just plastic seeds in the desert, and finally the human story, one of many, of a man who failed feeling like God, will be forgotten….”
Anna, you don’t understand how these things work because no one’s told you. Barry Long, another 20th century master, explained that when the truth of love and life is thoroughly communicated in words and through a master’s very presence (in Osho’s case to hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions of sannyasins and fellow-travellers), it enters the collective human psyche and will continue to influence humanity in the same way as any idea whose time has come. This is how inner evolution of our species functions and in this way it’s unstoppable, no matter how much ultra-conservatives like you might rail against it all.
So essentially, Osho’s worldly reputation doesn’t really matter that much, if at all, because if what he communicated is a sort of blueprint for the coming stages of human evolution, it’s going to happen. So, unfortunately you’re actually wasting your time and energy on negativity, you’d be better off focusing on what’s truly spiritually important to you and see where it leads. Although I strongly suspect that attacking another religious movement helps you to generate more righteous faith in the one you’re affilated with i.e. it’s just another trick of the mind to convince yourself you’re on “the only true Path”, commonly employed by Christians.
After all, it must be rather hard work in this ultra-scientific day and age to maintain an unswerving belief that Jesus was the sole person in history to have actually died and “risen again” a couple of days later.
In fact, there have been a number of instances reported of people having been pronounced dead who later ‘came alive’, who hadn’t been dead at all – and Osho revealed that Jesus himself underwent an intense psycho-spiritual preparation before he started public preaching at the age of 30 (see ‘The Mustard Seed’), even suggesting he learned certain esoteric practices that ‘came in handy’ (lol) during and after the unspeakable ordeal of crucifixion. Take away the ‘special’ aspect of the so-called ‘resurrection from the dead’ and where are the credentials for him being “the Son of God” (in the terms propagated by the priests and accepted without question by Christians)?
P.S:
Apparently, some (notably Osho) say, with a certain amount of evidence, that following his ‘resurrection’ Jesus travelled to the East and became a well-known spiritual authority in India.
Further to my point that Osho’s public reputation is not that important (my post of 2.19pm today, 3rd paragraph), my sense is that at a certain point he realised that he had achieved a sufficiently profound effect on the human psyche, beyond the point of no return (as it were), and then made sure that he wasn’t to be remembered as another guru to be worshipped as ‘perfect’, as another ‘god-like’ figure all too ready to be turned into another projection of people’s wish to believe in an all-protecting father-figure, a sort of ‘saviour’ (as happened, of course, with Jesus). Because it was (is) time for humanity to grow up, to take further steps to ‘becoming truly itself’, for the next stages of inner (r)evolution.
So Osho began to deliberately destroy vestiges of personal ‘respectabilty’, determined that he wouldn’t be turned into yet another symbol of deadening religious convention. In choosing to do this he was simply trusting Life to take its course, in whatever ways were appropriate and natural in the coming times, certain that his ways and perspectives would be adopted as essential for the growth of a future new humanity.
Thinking aloud now…
Paradoxically therefore, what might look like sheer selfish indulgence masked an underlying selfless motivation, an overriding concern for the eventual maturity and flowering of humanity. Which, by the way, doesn’t necessarily imply that he was flawless and didn’t sexually exploit some women, and that the organisation he created wasn’t also flawed, leading to the mistreatment of young people. Holding both these truths about the man can be challenging, partly or mainly because we’ve been conditioned by religion to believe in a perfection that’s impossible to attain, particularly, I suspect, in these times that are often termed “the end of Time” (ie that time’s nearly up for humanity as it is and has been for so long).
“Further to my point that Osho’s public reputation is not that important (my post of 2.19pm today, 3rd paragraph), my sense is that at a certain point he realised that he had achieved a sufficiently profound effect on the human psyche, beyond the point of no return (as it were), and then made sure that he wasn’t to be remembered as another guru to be worshipped as ‘perfect’, as another ‘god-like’ figure all too ready to be turned into another projection of people’s wish to believe in an all-protecting father-figure, a sort of ‘saviour’ (as happened, of course, with Jesus)”
Interesting thought, SD.
Yes, he destroyed his reputation with the RRs, by choosing Sheela, by becoming a drug addict.
Pune 1 was the attraction part.
With the Ranch started the destruction part.
Both were part of the creative process.
But Jesus was also a great teacher, teaching us that we are not the body.
That our body will die, but our soul will survive.
Yes, Satchit, or maybe Osho was so human he simply became bored with the circus he’d created.
There are countless ways to analyse the Osho story. Perhaps it would be wisest to just enjoy the crazy story without thinking too much about it.
Satyadeva says that Osho was motivated by altruism, both to evolve humanity and to prevent humanity from expressing gratitude, since this would have made them devotees ready to create a new religion in his name.
In this regard, Osho would have wanted to hide or disguise his work, the tools of such evolution, drawing public attention to aspects of his private life that would have discouraged any edifying intent, even from the most zealous disciples.
It does not take a great philosopher to notice the fundamental contradiction of such an explanation.
If the seeds sown by Osho had been of some help to humanity, his disciples would have the opportunity to continue his work, sharing his altruistic spirit, taking care of those seeds to continue sowing them, a way to express gratitude to the man who helped them in their spiritual growth.
Evidently there is nothing to be grateful for to Osho, that’s why nobody feels the need to share his work, many of the sheep have already returned to the fold, the most superb ones remain outside, lost in the brambles of the Amazon jungle, a question of time.
Anna hasn’t a clue in regards writing about Osho. Yeah, Osho might have talked about humanity as a whole, but his focus was on the development of individuals.
Taking humanity as a whole, one could easily conclude that humanity has not evolved at all during the last couple of thousand years. People no longer mass murder one another with swords and spears but rather with automatic weapons, bombs and missiles. The violent nature of man remains unchanged. Wars begin with ideas, usually stupid ideas no more evolved than a dog pissing against a lampost to mark out its territory or idiotic shit based on organised religion. My God is the true God etc.
“Onward, Christian soldiers,
marching as to war,
With the cross of Jesus
going on before!”
What a load of bollocks.
Anna asserts, “Evidently there is nothing to be grateful for to Osho, that’s why nobody feels the need to share his work…”
A prime instance of misplaced confidence on her part, as she clearly has done little or no research on the matter, or is simply wilfully blind to the initiatives around the world, notably in America, India (at the Pune ashram and elsewhere). Nepal, the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, France, Australia and elsewhere, with plenty going on, both on and offline. Not forgetting the vast numbers of of books and videos that have been sold and remain available in shops and online.
But even if there were very little or nothing, and if the Sannyas movement itself no longer existed, his work has been done, it’s entered the human psyche and if it’s real and true to Life, it will have played a significant part in benefiting the present and future evolution of humanity (a point I made im an earlier post, yesterday, where I referred to Barry Long’s explanation of how these things work).
BL clearly knows infinitely more about this process than Anna, although staring her in the face is another example of the same sort of situation, the growth of significance of Jesus, essentially based upon the principle and practice of divine love, which was certainly an idea whose time had come, but which took quite a while to come to fruition – by which time it had already been corrupted and manipulated by mediocre priests and opportunist governments.
There is something that doesn’t add up, Satyadeva, too much distance between what you write in your comment about how widespread and ramified the world of Osho is today and the things I read in this forum in recent months.
It seemed to me that the scandals that emerged had finally torn off the gentle mask of the guru, to reveal that of a malignant narcissist, with related crises of conscience of disciples that made the most sensitive ones choose to return to their baptismal names, and with the less naive ex-disciples gloating with satisfaction that they had understood the nature of Osho before the others.
For a few days I have been arguing with you, Nityaprem and Lokesh who say things that in my eyes make you appear as individuals who do not seem to have shared values or vision of life, apart from not having faith in God and in the universal message of Jesus.
If it is true that the structured realities you mentioned exist, communities in the four corners of the world, then it means that this forum of asocial individuals who despise each other is not very representative of Osho’s world.
It doesn’t even make much sense to me to discuss universal values with those who do not see how individualism is proof of the absence of spirituality.
If your guru preached the technological and sterile hermitism of the perfect modern consumer then there is no need to worry, the contexts you mentioned are only wellness centers to polish the spiritual ego, it is certain that your guru will be forgotten, and it is not a question of millennia.
Anna admits, “There is something that doesn’t add up.”
Yes, I agree.
Anna appears on SN and proclaims that she hates gurus. And then writes about “The universal message of Jesus”, which runs along the lines of the universal teaching of ego-transcending love of the Spiritual and Transcendental Divine, to be practised directly as well as in self-transcending love and tolerance of all living beings. Where does hating gurus fit into that?
If one takes the life of Jesus as described in the New Testament as being God’s honest truth, Jesus ticks all the boxes in the ‘What Constitutes A Guru’ questionnaire. For example, Jesus held satsangs, preached about love and performed miracles as a sideline. Those are the sort of things gurus do. His disciples referred to him as “Master”. Today, disciples often refer to their guru as “Master”. So to all intents and purposes, Jesus was a guru, a spiritual teacher. The kind of person Anna hates.
Anna concludes, “It is certain that your guru will be forgotten.” She delivers this statement in a negative context, not understanding that Osho himself wished to be forgotten, captured in the following Osho quote, “I would simply like to be forgiven and forgotten. There is no need to remember me. The need is to remember yourself!”
And therein lies the crux of the matter. Osho saw the damage Christianity had done down through the ages. People remembered Christ and caused countless wars and crusades in his name. Why? Because they forgot about their self.
Anna is a prime example of this type of forgetfulness. She sets out to do good, by sharing the Lord’s message of universal love with the wretched infidels, and pretty soon she ends up hating people and involved in a war of words. Some things never change.
As Osho so rightly declared, “Christianity has nothing to do with Christ. In fact, Christianity is anti-Christ — just as Buddhism is anti-Buddha and Jainism anti-Mahavir. Christ has something in him which cannot be organized: the very nature of it is rebellion and a rebellion cannot be organized. The moment you organize it, you kill it.”
I am not too keen on quoting Osho, but there are times when there is no one else who says it better than him.
Anna, most sannyasins together do share a certain mindset, an openness, a love for which it is an effort to be critical. It is an attitude which can be recognised even in people who have never met or heard of Osho.
Quite so, NP.
There is a certain understanding that exists between many sannyasins. It is difficult to put one’s finger on it, but, if asked, I would say that it has to do with awareness.
Osho was big on witnessing and many sannyasins took it a step further by becoming familiar with the nature of witnessing consciousness, wherein one can come to the realization that the world is your own projection, and thus one can be free of it.
I wrote in my profile that “I hate gurus” because I was asked by default to fill in a blank that identifies me. I don’t need to read what you wrote in your profile, Lokesh, to understand from which space you write:I would say contempt.
That sentence represents me as an outsider in this forum, I could have written less synthetically “I am not a friend of those who sexually take advantage of the naivety of disciples and those who buy luxury cars by exploiting child labour.”
In reality I do not even hate the fallen angel, the brightest one, but I fear him and fight him, I am not required to love those who despise my love, it would not be wise.
The community that Lokesh, by virtue of his individualism, views with annoyance, contrasting with his vision of fanatic individualism, is precisely the best way to not forget ourselves, the best version of ourselves, in love with the creator and his creatures.
It is through others that we can realize that we are moving away from ourselves.
It is not me who has a problem with the adjective ‘universal’ or with the noun ‘humanity’.
MOD:
Anna, I’ve changed “lives” with “views” (4th paragraph) – is that ok?
Nityaprem, you are saying that there is good and bad in every social context, then we need to understand what the community’s being together is based on, according to which perspective we can/must overcome the internal polarities of consciousness and those of human relationships, where each represents a polarity for the other.
Your former exploiter did not say this, at least not unambiguously, judging from the type of community atmosphere that is breathed here. It seems to me that you declare yourselves open and loving towards others but you are no longer together, as in the past, because you seek enlightenment, which today has become a business, a cancer.
Anna, Osho predicted that after he’d gone sannyasins would not be a homogenous group, as he’d attracted so many differing types of people, at different stages of development. That doesn’t indicate failure, it demonstrates his extraordinarily wide appeal, that his people can find something to help them wherever they are in the psycho-spiritual spectrum.
However, one quality all sannyasins and fellow-travellers share is gratitude for what they’ve received, many (including myself) will even say their lives have been saved by their experience in Osho’s movement.
Face it, you have an investment in emphasising the relatively few negatives, while choosing to ignore 2000 years of Christian lies, hypocrisy, cruelty, prejudice and ‘this is the only way’ bullshit. As Osho said in ‘The Mustard Seed’, Christ was the real deal, Christianity is a lie.
A few more points (taken from a google search):
Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, also known as Osho, criticized Christianity, viewing it as a religion that stifles individual expression and promotes a path of suffering rather than joy and enlightenment. He contrasted it with Zen Buddhism, which he saw as a path to self-discovery and a means of overcoming suffering through direct experience.
Here’s a more detailed look at his views:
Contrasting Christianity and Zen:
Rajneesh often compared Christianity to Zen Buddhism, highlighting the differences between their approaches to spiritual development. He viewed Christianity as a religion based on dogma and authority, while Zen emphasized personal experience and intuition.
Critique of Christian Concepts:
He criticized concepts like the Christian God, seeing it as a source of guilt and fear rather than a source of joy and liberation. He also questioned the Christian concept of salvation, arguing that it was a way of escaping responsibility for one’s own life.
Emphasis on Joy and Freedom:
Rajneesh’s teachings, in contrast to Christianity, emphasized the importance of living in the present moment, embracing joy, and discovering one’s own inner potential. He believed that true spirituality was not about denying oneself pleasure but about learning to live fully and authentically.
Zen as an Antidote:
He presented Zen as a philosophy and practice that offered a path to enlightenment and a means of overcoming the suffering associated with traditional religions like Christianity, viewing it as “the antidote to all poisons”.
More on Osho and Christianity.
It’s worth remembering that Osho wasn’t against Jesus, he was against what has been made of Jesus by Christianity, as the following illustrates:
Osho spoke about Jesus in a way that emphasized inner experience and personal transformation, rather than religious dogma. He believed that Jesus’ teachings were about attaining Christ-consciousness, a state of enlightened awareness, not merely following religious rituals. Osho’s perspective often challenged traditional interpretations of Jesus, suggesting that true understanding required a deep, personal connection with one’s own inner reality.
Here are some examples of Osho’s perspectives on Jesus:
Focus on inner experience:
Osho emphasized that Jesus could only be known through the attainment of Christ-consciousness, an inner state of enlightenment. He believed that true understanding of Jesus required a personal journey of self-discovery and transformation, not simply studying religious texts or following established doctrines.
Challenging religious dogma:
Osho questioned the value of religious institutions and their interpretations of Jesus’ teachings. He suggested that people often held onto outdated beliefs and rituals, hindering their ability to truly connect with Jesus’ message.
Emphasis on love and compassion:
Osho highlighted Jesus’ teachings on love, forgiveness, and compassion as central to his message. He believed that these teachings were about cultivating inner qualities that could lead to greater peace and understanding in the world.
Jesus as a catalyst for change:
Osho saw Jesus as a figure who challenged the status quo and sparked a revolution in consciousness. He suggested that Jesus’ teachings could help people break free from old patterns of behaviour and embrace a more authentic way of living.
Jesus’ message of liberation:
Osho emphasized that Jesus’ message was about liberation, both individually and collectively. He believed that through understanding Jesus’ teachings, people could find freedom from the constraints of their own limiting beliefs and the oppressive structures of society.
“Jesus was crucified, that’s okay, but through Jesus’ crucifixion Jesus was liberated, not you. The whole thing seems to be a trick….”
https://x.com/OSHO/status/1669687288484229120#:
“You cannot understand Jesus through a priest….”
“Through me there is a possibility to know Jesus. If you are courageous enough, you can know Jesus for the first time. Because you can know Jesus only through a man who has attained to Christ-consciousness. A Krishna can be known only through a man who has attained to Krishna-consciousness.”
“Lokesh…criticizes a millenary institution that despite the abuses of power continues to convey the message of universal love of the risen Christ, being part of or having been part of a self-styled religious community overwhelmed by the events described in ‘Wild Wild Country’ and ‘Children of the Cult’.”
I wonder how long Christianity would have lasted if it had been subject to similar exposure and treatment by the sort of all-powerful, ubiquitous media that exists in our times. It’s had countless abuses, wars and blood on its hands for millennia. Besides which, its official proponents in the various Churches are usually unimpressive, mediocre types, despite and partly because of the ludicrous clothes they wear, as we saw in the scene of the new Pope walking through a Vatican chapel filled by priests (cardinals?) wearing robes and long pointed hats as if they were attempting to outdo the Klu Klux Clan!
Its time was up long ago, but it’s astonishing how intellectual types like you, Anna, and the philosopher you cite as “the greatest” (a matter of opinion, of course but declared as if it were an unarguable truth) refuse to see that the truths which it supposedly is meant to embody are not served by its antiquated ways, its structure, ceremonies and many of its dictates (eg insisting on the concept of ‘sin’, laying a massive guilt-trip on its adherents) failing to communicate the essence of what Jesus was actually about.
A significant aspect of Osho’s teaching was to get away from the old, hidebound, stifling ways of outdated tradition, helping the segment of humanity that it’s meant for (as one teacher or teaching can’t apply to every type of person) to be liberated from all that dust of 2,000 years and make a new start, refreshing the mind, body and spirit, and serving the evolution of our species.
Similarly, contemporary figures like Eckhart Tolle and Braco embody simple divinity, grace, intelligence, love, in refreshing contrast to a Christianity that’s pervaded by the dusty smell of old, decaying incense and the limitations of its attachments to exploitative worldly authorities.
Institutions are run by men, fallible, able to correct mistakes, the same men who made mistakes or others, in other eras, and yet, Satyadeva, a guide is needed, that is, a head, who tells when it is time to pray and work to the spiritual body, which are the people who have chosen to take on their shoulders the shared pain of injustice, the cross.
Ask yourself why the cross that for 2000 years has inspired the hearts of billions of people is that of a righteous person and not of a thief, or a scoundrel like a guru.
Not even in this small community of followers, ex-followers and victims of the cult of Osho are there two people willing to “defend/support” the guru for the same reason.
Seen from the outside, you seem like a Babel of hallucinated people who cannot find a common story of what you have experienced with the guru, preferring to pursue new and exciting experiences, whether chemical or psychological.
This is why your criticism of a tradition “pervaded by the dusty smell of old” is laughable, according to your parameters it would itself be a 2000 year old criticism, if it is true, as Lokesh says, “those times are gone”, and he was saying it even before Osho died.
But then, in spiritual matters, what is fresh and what is mouldy?
I agree with Lokesh that in 2000 years no one will talk about Osho, but are you sure that in 6000 years no one will still be talking about Jesus?
Christianity is only at dawn, there are still many things to do, many bad weeds to eradicate.
Again, Anna twists my words to suit her purposes. I did not say, ‘[“That in 2000 years no one will talk about Osho.”
I said, “What do you imagine will be said about Osho in 2000 years, if there is anyone left around to say it?” Which is a different thing entirely.
This need to distort other commenters’ words suggests an underlying need for back-up.
It is quite obvious that Anna knows very little about Osho. Hence her weird ideas about him. I really couldn’t care less.
Lokesh says that I twist his words to my liking, because I tried to answer his rhetorical question about what they will say about Osho in 2000 years. I replied that they will not say anything, because no one will remember him, following his premises, of someone who seems to pose as the only one who understood what the truth was about Osho’s teaching/sharing and about his will of what to do with his intellectual legacy, the collection of his discourses.
Yet he himself gave the reasons for interpreting his rhetorical question in my way, saying that “reports about who and what he (Osho) actually was are as myriad as the people he met”, although Lokesh “don’t give a fuck” about what other disciples say about Osho, he knows that “what he (Osho) left behind as a whole was such a mashup nobody can decipher it.”
Lokesh also says that “Sannyas and Osho created one of the greatest social/spiritual experiments of the last hundred years” and “It was great to be a part of it” but after Osho died that experience will remain only in those like him who understood it.
Now there is one hypothesis left:
If Lokesh did not mean that in 2000 years no one will remember “one of the greatest social/spiritual experiments of the last hundred years” then he meant that in 2000 years there will be someone who will want to distort that experience (who will do this? A new religion or the enemies of the new religion?), only because there will no longer be him or those who think like him to defend the truth about the nature of that unrepeatable social experiment, that is, a very unscientific experiment….
Satyadeva, what are negative aspects for you could be positive for me, and vice versa.
The difference is that I am not indifferent to your salvation, the core of my religion (which resists), despite the list of brutalities that you use as an alibi for your disengagement.
Osho is intellectually very fascinating and seductive, even when he speaks well about Jesus, these qualities are especially appreciable after he has spoken badly of the same man.
Rajneesh’s Bible is one of those blasphemous books, where Osho indulges the hatred of Christians who feel betrayed by the clergy, making fun of the anointed by the Lord.
“The difference is that I am not indifferent to your salvation…”
Ah yes, the compulsive Christian attempt to convince yourself of your deeply felt compassion for the wretched unbelievers. What I say to this, Anna, is that I don’t appreciate and neither do I need any such condescending, self-serving nonsense from you or anyone else who deludes him/herself that they have the ‘keys to the kingdom’. I’d rather remain in a state of relatively ignorant unconsciousness than submit to your version of the same state.
Has Christianity eroded your intelligence by suggesting it’s worthwhile to waste your time and energy in order to ‘save’ the likes of me and others here? If you were intelligent or had any common sense you’d realise that you’re wasting your time.
“Rajneesh’s Bible is one of those blasphemous books, where Osho indulges the hatred of Christians who feel betrayed by the clergy, making fun of the anointed by the Lord.”
Oh dear, cliche after predictable cliche. As for “anointed by the Lord”, what on earth is that supposed to mean, that Christian ministers are spiritually ‘special’? One only has to look at most of them to see how mediocre they are, like their “flock” of sheep.
The fact that you and your friends here, Satyadeva, are compulsively absorbed in the realization of your human potential, using chemistry and mocking models of spirituality based on a devotional feeling, does not mean that you are not wasting more time than I who am absorbed in announcing, to those who have ears, the advent of the Kingdom of Heaven, the key to which is your birthright, together with the will to want to use it.
I do not believe that the anointing of the Lord is an initiatory rite comparable to the one that made you special when you received an Indian name.
I do not believe that I would have intervened in this forum if you had not spoken about the criminal events in Oregon, leaving room for ferocious criticism of Osho’s teaching.
I thought that a repentance was underway and that choices like Nityaprem’s should be encouraged to share the horror of having grown up in a psycho-sect, it doesn’t seem to me to be an intention that doesn’t deserve the cost of time to write some comments that can help many others who read to free themselves from the Indian spell.
After all, if you host articles and comments from people who consider themselves happily released from the influence of the guru, perhaps it means that the time is ripe for the spiritual nature of the source that has held many lives subjugated to finally emerge.
Don’t waste time replying, I’ll save mine reading you.
Ok, Anna, that’s more than enough from you. We won’t waste each other’s time any further. You’re not welcome here any longer, although at least we’ve had an insight into a certain type of Christian mentality, which may or, I suspect, may well not be at all a surprise to SN readers.
Seconded.
Amen.
Thank you!
Pope Leo XIV laments people valuing “technology, money and success” over Christianity in first mass as pontiff. So says the head of a religious organisation with assets of around $15,000,000,000. I hope he is saying his Hail Marys.
Him
As an avid reader and researcher of comparative religion on the in’ernet I came across the attached (pic 1) painting – ;The Ladder of Divine Ascent’ – made by John Climacus/ ohn of the Ladder in the 6/7th century AD:
https://www.wikiwand.com/en/articles/John_Climacus
Beautifully detailed, a powerful metaphor. IMPV.
But then again, it is only a section/clipping/opening glimpse of a 360° perspective. Isn’t it?
I asked ChatGPT to make a kaleidoscope (pic 2) of the paths/religions/practices leading to the ‘higher’ spheres.
Looks a bit primitive with the symbols, imo, though.
As the inner steps/stages/forms of consciousness might be (very) similar – or take parallel courses – that seems ok.
What is one’s perception? What does one see?
Not a question of belief. Direct experience, rather.
Found this rather interesting (AI) vid describing an interview with Albert Einstein in 1954 – about ‘pure perception/consciousness/God/afterlife:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn0mhRZ-dk8
Izitso?
(pic 2)
“What is one’s perception? What does one see?
Not a question of belief. Direct experience, rather.”
Klaus distinguishes faith from experience, privileging the latter.
One should ask whether the criterion of his choice was chosen by him or was pre-existent in his consciousness, and whether this pre-existence could imply a pre-existing entity.
Anna, posits the question “What is one’s perception?”
In this case my perception is that she is throwing up a holy smokescreen to hide the fact she wrote something that was a fabrication that fitted the way she wants to ‘see’ someone, in this case me.
Anna,
I wrote ‘belief’ – not ‘faith’.
Belief
Practice and commitment
Experience
Faith
More practice and more single-minded commitment
More Experience/s
…
Just as in the painting of John of the Ladder.
IMPV, if someone had such experience and climbed the ladder – a few steps only or even one single step – such a person would emanate kindness. At the very least.
Where is the love?
That is what indicates to others a predominant state of mind.
“manipulative nonsense, fairy tales for immature adults and absolute nonsense.”
Lokesh makes accusations against the Christian religion that are the same that he has made on other occasions against his own religion/spiritual movement founded by Osho so we should be on the same side, at least in this forum. If he then had the courage to say the things he says here in a Christian context I don’t think there would be problems, in our church there are no castes, in fact the last of the earth are welcome.
I don’t understand why my comments on an article that ends with “the business of enlightenment is a cancer”, posted in a forum founded by friends of a self-styled enlightened guru, bother him.
Do I have to become a sannyasin first to talk about the damage of Osho’s world?
Simon himself no longer uses the name given to him by Osho, does this also have a meaning?
As an outsider I don’t see many people here who have any reason or passion to deny the aspects that are coming to light about the evil nature of the Osho cult.
The simple fact of the matter is, Anna, I have an aversion towards stupidity. Osho welcomed everyone, including stupid people. Stupid people are everywhere. It does not matter to me if they are Christians, Buddhists or even sannyasins, it is their stupidity that I will hit on. Why? because stupid people cause so much damage in the world. A plague upon their ignorance.
If you have been harmed more by the stupid than the intelligent, Lokesh, perhaps it means that you are not as smart as you think.
Another explanation is that you misjudge people, using a value system tainted by your egocentrism, where it is more important to defend your point of view than to discover what is before and after your gaze.
I don’t agree that the “Osho cult” had an “evil nature”. It was ultimately very human, good and bad both, but for most adult sannyasins it was a very positive influence. The emphasis was on joy, creativity and celebration, and most people who came there were just barely leaving society’s stuck-up ways behind.
If you ask the average 70-year-old sannyasin about Osho, they’ll probably say they were grateful to him. These people were in their thirties during the Rajneeshpuram period, and they had a great time.
Personally, my childhood as a sannyas kid was a great adventure. I did and saw a lot more of the world than most kids of my age, and even though it was somewhat tainted by what happened to the teenage girls, I can’t say I suffered more than the average kid.
But Osho was more my father’s master than mine. I only started a spiritual search when I was in my forties, and although I started with Osho, I quickly moved on to Buddhism and eventually other teachers.
I think Osho was a teacher of his time, of the continuation of the counter-culture, the seventies and eighties. He left a significant mark, but others have continued where he left off.
SD delivers his take on what Osho was all about in an effort to help educate Anna. It will have been a wasted effort, because Christian fundamentalists tend to stick to their guns and don’t allow their rigid minds to be swayed by the likes of SD.
During the time of Christ, there were a couple of dozen chroniclers in the region, reporting on what was going on. Not one of them reported on anything about Jesus. This is a bit strange because if a carpenter downed his tools and started walking on water, changing water to wine and returning eyesight to the blind, one would imagine that at least one of the chroniclers would have reported on it, seeing as how such events would have constituted headline news. My point is, nobody really knows if what is reported in The Bible’s New Testament is a true rendition of events, or if it is an amalgam of esoteric stories that has been passed down and changed through the ages.
Osho died quite recently, historically speaking. Yet, today, reports about who and what he actually was are as myriad as the people he met. I agree with some of what SD says, and disagree with some of what he says, although, I might add, that I don’t give a fuck about any of it. Now then, what do you imagine will be said about Osho in 2000 years, if there is anyone left around to say it? It won’t be the truth.
Osho understood how time distorts what happened long ago, and therefore I don’t think he gave a damn about anything vaguely resembling a legacy, because what he left behind as a whole was such a mashup nobody can decipher it.
Osho was at heart a man who saw the damage done down through the ages by organised religion. I doubt he would have wanted to contribute to that. He might have played at it a bit because he was a playful person, but Osho seriously wanting to create an organised religion…forget it!
Sannyas and Osho created one of the greatest social/spiritual experiments of the last hundred years. Osho was an experimenter and, due to the nature of experimentation, he had his successes and failures. It was great to be a part of it when it was alive but now those times are gone. What is left is what experience one gained in order to be what one is today. Here and now.
I thought SD’s take was a significant contribution. It might be true that the craziness was all on purpose, and Osho felt that after changing the world, he now had to destroy his own reputation.
Well put, imo.
Applause to you for having the energy and the brains to put this together.
I was feeling not just a wee bit weary to collect these highlights.
I would not be surprised if you told me Donald Trump was a very intelligent man, Anna. To be honest, I’m not certain what my point of view is; it’s changing all the time, so I do not really experience the need to defend it. I like to remain flexible, or fluid.
Begohorra and bejabbers, it looks like the little people have carried poor Anna off to Weirdyland, a place where evil gurus exploit child labour (that’s a new one) and she fears mysterious entities she describes as fallen angels (haven’t run into any of those lately). Is Anna suffering from acute schizophrenia? It’s a strong possibility.
Well, Anna, I thank you for the mild diversion you have created for me over the past few days. It has been warped fun. Now all roads say adios. You will not receive any more comments from me in response to the rubbish you write on SN. I wish you well and trust the treatment you are receiving from the dedicated doctors and nurses in your locked ward will one day bring you back from your current psychotic episode. Get well soon.
Lokesh, you should be more open-minded.
Anna is a lover of Jesus. What’s wrong?
Now the new Pope even can sing.
Take a look at what Osho has to say about Jesus, Satchit, specifically about Christianity. My last two posts might be a useful starting point.
SD, I know what Osho has said.
He also said: “My words are a finger pointing to the moon, don’t bite into my finger!”
I suggest that when Osho talks about Jesus there’s little or no room for ambiguity, to me he means what he says pretty well 100%.
Whatever, SD, it was an interesting ego battle.
Christian ego against sannyasin ego. Who has the truth?
Both cannot be right.
“Who is not for me is against me” (Luke 11:23).
The exchange with Anna was mildly interesting, albeit predictable.
As for it being an ‘ego’ battle, I hardly view it like that. In general, when sannyassins talk about ego, it sounds like a throwback to a different era. Yes, the ego is a fact of life but the word ‘ego’ is a word I rarely use. The paradigm in psycho-speak has expanded from the confines of it all being an ego trip. Humans are complex beings and ego is just a part of the story. Going by current research, DNA has a lot to do with the kind of person we are.
For me ego is identification with something you are not.
Being a sannyasin belongs to the world of change, like being a father. There have been times in my past when I was no father.
So being a sannyasin is not my essence.
It can come and go and easily be dropped.
Wow, Satchit, you’re definitely on form this morning! How do you it – you know, come up with such relevant ideas? Amazing.
I guess it’s still the full moon, bro.
Yes, Satchit really does come up with remarkable insights. It’s hard to top statements like “Ego is identification with something you are not.”
How does he do it? My guess is that he has DNA from an alien race far superior to mere hums.
Inspired by the fool moon perhaps?
Perhaps better described as both a Christian’s version of Jesus against Osho’s, and a Christian’s version of Osho and the Sannyas movement against that of sannyasins’.
I think we know where all the ego lies in the former, and where the actual informed experience is in the latter.
An entertaining, hard-fought match, at times threatening to degenerate into a free-for-all, the referee’s hand constantly about to issue yellow or even red cards, which, perhaps inevitably, ended with the Christian walking off claiming unfair treatment and demanding the three points. The crowd booed her mercilessly and SN, all Christian denominations and FIFA have banned her from all future tournaments.
News came through last night of the SN players’ wild celebrations as they congratulated each other with pure sannyasin abandon. Frenzied chants of “Hoo are ya?” reverberated through the night as they ecstatically attempted to dance their way to God, and there are unconfirmed rumours that one or two might have even realised who they are. Great stuff from the lads in rainbow colours!
Well put, SD. Elicited a smile.
Haha!
Written in the flow!
I like it, too.
I could be rooting for JFC*, if every now and then they are playing an interesting match.
With inspiration. And some more fireworks with regard to balltreating skills. Errm.
*Jerusalem Football Club.
I think what Osho pointed out should be obvious to any right-thinking person.
The situation Jesus and his disciples were in was vastly different from what the Church has become. The whole idea of “put away your nets, I will make you fishers of men, come follow me” is not a dogmatic stance taught from the pulpit, it lives and breathes.
Modern Christianity teaches its priests through years in seminary school learning theology. The people who come out of that process bear a heavy mark.
Satchit, even taking into account your cliche-ridden track record, this is a poor response.
Lokesh, you are serious as usual.
If somebody wants to love Jesus, who am I to prevent it?
Which begs the question, who do they (or you) think they are loving? We have the privilege of experiencing Osho, some of us face-to-face, whereas anyone born less than at least 1900 years ago won’t have had or have a clue who Jesus actually was – or even whether he actually existed at all and was and is only a mythical figure.
Osho started teaching followers around 1970 in Mumbai after travelling India as a public speaker from 1966:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajneesh
So, until his death in 1990 he had only 20 years!
Whereas crossianity has been around now for 2000 years: the production of holy ones is scant – Hildegard of Bingen, Franz of Assisi, Thomas of Aquin, Nikolaus von der Flüe (Suisse!), Meister Eckart…plus a few more I do not know about.
Hindu masters, Muslim awwliyas clearly outnumber them.
But then again, quality is not (only) in numbers. Innit.
Some modern proselytizers can’t even depict their position/stance/perception in a detailed painting made by a saintly Christian in the 6/7th century AD.
However, they can quote without end from the Bible.
That is the state most of the not-so-educated followers of Islam currently are in, too. IMPObservation.
Truly, a lot of potential left for further development. Or ‘steps on the ladder’ to climb. In any creed’s practice.
“Dream up, dream up
Let me fill your cup
With the promise of a man” …
https://genius.com/Neil-young-harvest-lyrics
Boff.
Meh.
An important upside of travelling with Osho/Bhagwan on the spiritual path(s) I must add:
In his teachings therapies are included! Which is the 2nd wing of practice:
Therapy (humanistic psychology) is vastly important imv, as it requires us to see our deep programmings by family, society, teachers, religion and else.
Most religious fundamentalists are in dire need of therapy: they are acting out all their subconscious trips and traumas on OTHERs.
See: Televangelists of the US, paedophiles and sexual predators (priests, fathers, leaders of the churches and mosques and monasteries, therapy centres, businesses etc.) worldwide, as well as other so-called ‘leaders’.
Cheers!
Amen.
I find it interesting to think about the role of the body in our spiritual journey. There are widely differing opinions about this, but I think it is the centre of my presence here on Earth, and as such should be treated with care and respect.
There may come a point when you leave the body behind, and the statement “you are not the body” becomes true, but I think until that happens the body is your temple, and one should be grateful to it, no matter its aches, pains and failings.
I’ll drink to that – 12 pints of Guinness, please, barman!
I’m sure you’re right, NP, reverence for the body is standard sannyas practice as well as common sense, with so much emphasis on active meditation, dance, bio-energetic practices, bodywork, etc.
And Guinness needs to be poured very slowly, 12 pints would take a while!
NP delivers the shocking breaking news that…”There may come a point when you leave the body behind.” Crikey!
And more…”And the statement “you are not the body” becomes true.”
This is surely speculation. It might be the case that your body is dying from cancer and you feel strongly how much ‘you are’ the body. The temple could turn into a prison. This brings in the question of who exactly one thinks or believes one is or what one is to the extent that you can leave a body behind as if it were a discarded heap of rags..
From what I can gauge, yes, there is something that does not die, but I am not at all sure if it is ‘me’ that is immortal. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that this entity that goes by the name ‘Lokesh’ is just a passing cloud destined to disappear and be dispersed by the winds of change. When the body dies, it would appear that most of what constitutes you also dies. After all, you can’t remember being born. You were told you were born. ‘You’ started to appear around age two and then the ‘I’ develops and wants to live forever, hardly likely as the ‘I’ was produced as a result of a body being born.
Maybe we are entirely a by-product of our bodies. Or perhaps it is a question of identification. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Everyday life is the path.
What’s with the words “Never born, never died”?
If this is the truth for Osho, then it is the truth for everybody. Just a question of recognition.
I agree, for this entity called ‘Lokesh’ it will be difficult to accept immortality. Because a big ego has to die.
” “Never born, never died”?
If this is the truth for Osho, then it is the truth for everybody.”
Yeah, dream on. The ones who can honestly say “Never born, never died” are few and far between.
All egos have to die. The smug ones might have a bit of a struggle but in the end, it will all work out fine.
It’s interesting how pervasive politics has become in the US. I was reading a discussion between Buddhist friends, one American and one New Zealander, and it made me aware of how certain topics were getting hijacked by political actors in the United States.
Take the discussion around neurodivergence for instance. Many people on the US Left encourage openness around this, and many people on the US Right advocate a rugged, self-sufficiency stance around it, a more closed approach. So the discussion around neurodivergence becomes politically charged.
Similarly the discussion around ‘wokeness’. Originally the word ‘woke’ came from the Black community, and was meant to signify someone spiritually aware and sensitive. But the US Right cottoned on to this and started using it as a pejorative for all things sensitive, typifying the left as ‘snowflakes’. Again the word became politically charged and the discussion polarised.
As far as I’m concerned this polarisation is very unhealthy. Politics in general I think is a divisive and unhealthy subject, and should only be discussed when necessary.
What’s ‘neurodivergence’, NP (never heard of it before)?
Neurodivergence is about people who have atypical brains. So people with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, but also milder conditions like ADHD or autism, or even something like not having an inner dialogue (which is the case with me).
No inner dialogue?
Sounds very enlightened.
NP is correct when he writes that there are people who do not bear host to inner dialogue. He goes on to claim that he is one of those people, which, considering his many posts that describe what he is thinking, comes across as completely contradictory.
Mind has gotten a bad rap in certain spiritual circles. The mind is composed of thoughts, so it is remarkable that thinking is seen as bad. Especially as anyone reading this needs a mind to understand what is being communicated, and they will use their mind to create a written response. Now, NP comes along claiming he has no inner dialogue running through his head. Could it be the case that he declares this because it is seen as being cool to people who think ‘no-mind’ is where it is at?
Are you sure you experience no inner dialogue, NP? What was happening, for instance, when you were constantly reconsidering and revising your view on Osho, in the light of the revelations of sexual abuse of girls and Osho’s secret liaisons with adult women?
Was that a one-off period, before and after which you experienced no mental conflict or internal commentary at any time?
Exactly, SD, it’s blatantly obvious that NP is not void of inner dialogue, based on what he has written in his past posts on SN. No doubt NP is now busy with his appointment with the otolaryngologist to see if there is a treatment for hot ear syndrome.
Haha, you guys are funny.
Stuff just comes out of my mind. Thinking happens, but there is no voice. Even when I choose to talk on a subject, I arrange my mind just so and say to it “talk” and then words come out.
I do sometimes revise, but I usually do it externally. When I look at what I’ve written and I am not happy with it, I’ll make an adjustment to how I see things and then “talk” again.
That’s just normal, NP, nothing special.
If you say so
On the subject of being special. I recently talked to a therapist, who over the years had met several sannyasins who had been kids, growing up in the Osho communes. A number of them believed they were special because they had been subjected to Osho’s vibes when they were young and impressionable. I’m not saying that this is the case with NP, because I don’t know him so well. Eventually, one has to grow up and understand that either everybody is special, or nobody is special.
I sometimes observe the few homeless people I come across where I live….a bit of a rarity in Ibiza. I believe if you examined in depth the story of their life you could write an interesting book about each and every one of them. We are all unique.
I’ve noticed this before, that if you make this claim some people do not believe you. Which is fine – I don’t care.
The fact remains, my mind is almost always silent, there is no voice except when ‘I’ speak, and there is no dialogue.
I wanted to talk a little about dying. Say you had had a stroke and were lying in hospital, and you were reasonably lucid but seriously impaired in bodily function, where would you draw the line in terms of what care you would accept? Morphine? Intubation (where they place a tube in your mouth and throat to your lungs and hook you up to a breathing machine)? An artificial coma for a number of days?
The whole discussion around conscious dying and palliative care (where they try to make you as comfortable as possible) is rather unclear, and complicated when there are still prospects you have in perhaps staying alive.
The idea to die consciously can easily be an ego-trip in the spiritual scene.
NP writes, “The fact remains, my mind is almost always silent, there is no voice except when ‘I’ speak, and there is no dialogue.”
It would seem that he is missing the point entirely. His claim that he does not host inner dialogue is spurious. I come to this conclusion because many times in previous threads he has stated quite clearly that he thinks about things, which requires an inner dialogue. There are people who do not have to listen to inner dialogue, but NP is not one of them. For example, he wrote, “I was thinking this morning, perhaps the discourses that Osho gave came from a different place.” And, “I have been thinking today on what it means to be sane.” Etc. How could he possibly write such verbal statements without first having verbal thoughts along those lines? Next, he’ll be telling us he is channelling.
What is curious about NP’s contradictory claim is why he would make a point of trying to convince people that “The fact remains, my mind is almost always silent, there is no voice except when ‘I’ speak, and there is no dialogue.” My guess is that this is due to reading the likes of Tolle etc., whereby being in a state where there is no inner dialogue taking place within one’s mind is viewed as being a desirable state to attain.
NP is not a particularly adventurous man. He expresses interest in ayahuasca, but never dares to take the brew. He prefers to watch Youtube videos on the subject and somehow imagines he knows about ayahuasca, when in fact he knows very little about ayahuasca, because it is something you have to take to enter into the realm of true understanding. Existential. Now he claims he has no inner dialogue going on in his mind, while making it quite obvious that this is, in fact, untrue.
‘Delusional’ comes from a Latin word meaning ‘deceiving’. So delusional thinking is kind of like deceiving yourself by believing outrageous things. Next patient please, nurse.
What’s the problem, Lokesh?
If NP acts from inner silence, then he is blessed.
If not, he can only cheat himself.
There’s a moose in the hoose.
I’m considering a holiday sometime in the future. I could go to Egypt, and do a 12-day tour including the Pyramids of Giza, the museum of antiquities in Cairo, a Nile cruise of several days, a visit to the Temple at Karnak and the city of Luxor, and maybe a side trip to the Valley of the Kings. Or I could go to Peru and do a two week Ayahuasca retreat in the jungle with authentic shamans.
Which would you do?
I’ve never visited Egypt, but have often thought about it. You do not need to travel to Peru to participate in a ayahuasca retreat with authentic shamans. You can do that in Europe. I have a good friend whom I would describe as a shaman. He is pretty authentic to say the least He initiated me into a shamanic dimension that is truly remarkable.
Returning to Egypt. I used a cruise down or up the Nile in a novel I wrote, Jake Knox. Here is an excerpt:
“Our cruise ship was moored beside a dozen similar boats. The wharf at Karnak was busy. The temples were enormous, which was just as well because thousands of tourists were thronging the biggest open-air museum in the world. An avenue of sphinxes, granite pharaohs and their wives, chimeric Egyptian gods, hundreds of towering sandstone pillars linked together by giant blocks of stone, obelisks, a ten thousand square metre square, they were all imposing, if only by their size. By midday, I’d had enough, and I left Radha to wander the hodgepodge of ancient buildings with a small group of passengers from our boat. Like the gods who were once worshipped there, the place was dead.”
Since dearly departed Anna’s exit, things have gone very quiet here on SN. Do we really need Christian fundamentalists to get things going on this site? Hail Mary!
Certainly the ego needs food to fight.
At least you should say that I am wrong and you are right!
Haha.
Sad times. My father passed away a few days ago, after two weeks in hospital following a stroke. The nurse who was caring for him just stepped out of the room for a few minutes, and when he returned my father had gone. Fly high, beloved.
Since there are no more ‘Voyages’ reports on OshoNews, I’ll post this here in case people are interested…
Dear friends, my father Deva Subuddho has left this Earth after two weeks in hospital following a stroke. The medical team at his hospital had just moved him from Intensive Care back to Neurology, and in the afternoon of the following day, when the brother caring for him had just stepped out of the room for a moment, he passed away. Fly high, beloved.
Those who remember him recall him as an energetic man who loved walking in the dunes near his home, who enjoyed a beer in the evening, and who gave freely of his time and energy. He knew how to enjoy life. Many friends who knew him felt their lives were made richer for having known him.
We spent time together in Poona 1, at the Ranch and during holidays also in Poona 2, and he was doing the active meditations up until about six months before his death. The Mandala was a particular favourite, and he would often do a little Wim Hof breathing beforehand, as a boost to its potential.
My father had been a mathematician, a software engineer, and a teacher. He was married three times, and had one child, a son. He travelled widely, but India, Nepal and the Himalayas held a special place in his heart, and for many years he had Tibetan prayer flags hanging in his apartment.
His interests ranged widely. He studied Reiki briefly, watched videos about Edgar Cayce, read Graham Hancock. He was into Krishnamurti and Gurdjieff as well as Osho, although lately his faith in Osho had taken a knock from watching ‘Children of the Cult’. He sympathised greatly with all the people who were kids on the Ranch and in other communes.
Subuddho was a good father. He took excellent care, but it was only later in life that we really connected as equals, over baseball, wines, hiking and many other things. We joked, teased each other with small failings, and got interested in each other’s passions. We are celebrating his passing with a small group of friends on Tuesday 27th, in case you want to take a moment to remember him.
Sounds like a life well lived, to me.
Well written by you, NP.
Condolences none the less.
I hope you have a peaceful time and sharing.
Yes, just to clarify, the ‘Voyages’ articles on OshoNews are no more because the editor responsible for that section has retired.
Sorry for your loss, NP. I am sure your father was a good man.
Making a celebration of death was one of Osho’s good ideas. However, it might not be easy to adopt when losing a loved one.
I’ve watched videos of Indian sannyasins ‘celebrating’ someone’s departure from the earthly plane in Poona. It looks kind of half-hearted at best.
I see the sense of making a celebration out of death because it is inevitable it will happen to all of us. I like the idea of resting in peace. It is my custom to repeat ‘Aum Mani Padme Hum’ silently whenever I think of a dear departed friend. I love the Bardo Thodol and have been returning to it since my late teens. When asked about it, Osho said the Bardo Thodol is Tibet’s most significant contribution to the world.
Absolutely it was a good idea, and in true sannyas style we will make a celebration of it. It is a moment of change, for the one who passed on but also for the people he leaves behind, and especially his children.
My dad was quite into ‘The Tibetan Book of the Dead; for a while, although he didn’t talk about it much. He used it to guide my stepmother when she passed away in 2006, she was also a sannyasin.
I hope it has helped him on his journey.
Thanks for the personal updates, NP, and for keeping it real.
Yes, in case you have been wondering why I have been less active the last couple of weeks, I have been travelling back and forth to the hospital and to my dad’s apartment. It’s been a busy time.
For those of you who can read Dutch, or wish to auto-translate the page, my speech from the cremation and a few photos of my father are online at the Vrienden Van Osho website now:
https://vrienden-van-osho.nl/thema/afscheid/
The ceremony was beautiful, intimate with about 12 people in total, two speakers, and a very sensitively handled open coffin in the side room so that people could still make contact with my father’s stillness and energy.
MOD:
Guide to auto-translate methods
To automatically translate Dutch to English, you can use Google Translate or a browser extension like Google Translate or the Google Translate Chrome extension. These tools can translate websites, text, or even documents. You can also use online translators like DeepL Translate or QuillBot.
Here’s a more detailed breakdown:
1. Using Google Translate:
Go to translate.google.com.
Select Dutch as the source language and English as the target language.
Type or paste your Dutch text into the left box.
The English translation will appear in the right box.
2. Using Google Translate in Chrome:
Install the Google Translate Chrome extension.
Open a Dutch website or select text you want to translate.
The extension can automatically detect the language and offer a translation.
You can configure the extension to automatically translate pages or offer translations when text is highlighted.
3. Using Other Online Translators:
Visit a translator like DeepL Translate or QuillBot.
Paste or type your Dutch text into the designated area.
The translation will appear immediately.
4. Using Mobile Apps:
There are many translation apps available on Android and iOS, such as the Dutch-English Translator app or the Google Translate app.
These apps allow you to translate text, speech, or even take photos of text and translate it.
Translate pages and change Chrome languages – Google Help
On your computer, open Chrome. At the top right, select More Settings. On the left, select Languages. Under ‘Google Translate’, ne…
Google Help
Translate from Dutch to English with DeepL
DeepL Translate Dutch to English.
DeepL Translate
Translate Dutch to English – QuillBot AI
QuillBot’s Dutch to English Translator is simple to use. Just type or paste your text into the box on the left and click the “Tran…
Morning, dear people. I didn’t have a very good night, I was gripped in the evening on going to sleep with a great sense of urgency. On waking up again around midnight it seemed to me that there was no rhyme or reason for it, I couldn’t discover a message in it.
And I wanted to talk a little about open coffins vs. closed coffins at cremation ceremonies. There is a bit of a taboo around dead bodies, which I feel is totally unwarranted. I think that only with an open coffin can you truly say goodbye to someone. You can still connect with the energy of the body, with its silence.
At my father’s cremation ceremony it was much appreciated by the sannyasins who were present especially.
It depends, sometimes a closed coffin is better.
Not every face looks peaceful after death.
Maybe it’s better to keep the person in good memory.
I thought I might say a few words about what a South African friend told me about the beliefs there. The tribespeople there say that the death of a parent changes the whole way you relate to your ancestors in the spiritual world. It changes your standing in the spirit family.
I found this interesting and thought it rang true, that once your father and mother pass on, a little of their love for you also passes on and your relationship to the spirit world changes. I’ve been looking more into beliefs about the invisible world, I think in a way it is unjustified how science has shifted the focus from the invisible to the material. Fascinating stuff our belief in the invisible.
The other thing is, I was listening to a Joe Rogan podcast with a journalist and author called Michael Pollan, who wrote a book called ‘How to Change Your Mind’ about the medical and spiritual uses of psychedelics. This was the podcast:
https://youtu.be/8S0cEV70NK0
In it there is a short but very interesting discussion on the War on Drugs. Did you know this was started by Nixon in the sixties as a political initiative to get the police to apprehend and incarcerate hippies and black people? A Nixon administration staff member basically said this, that their goal was to disrupt the communities forming under these banners.
You have to wonder what the world would have looked like if the flower power and civil rights movements had continued from where they were in the 1960s. Probably not with a prison population of 1.9 million people in the US, most of whom were convicted on drugs charges.
I well recall travelling through the States and Canada in the summer of ’68 and finding drugs everywhere, I didn’t have to look, they came to me, as it were. Acid, mescaline, pot etc. pervaded the youth culture, and I enjoyed them in good company all over the continent, California, Chicago, New York.
I was already into TM and noticed that it took a day or two, or more, to recover enough from a drugs session for the twice-a-day mantra meditation to resume its beneficial effects.
I’m surprised to read that most US prisoners had been convicted on drugs charges. Here’s a relevant article (2021):
https://www.vera.org/news/fifty-years-ago-today-president-nixon-declared-the-war-on-drugs
A good article, SD. The whole targeting of communities of colour through drug enforcement is very dodgy, and the US has imposed this regime on the rest of the world through international treaties as well. Pretty despicable.
The US has the largest prison population in the world, and it’s all about hatred by the common people. Donald Trump got elected because he’s a figurehead for people who hate liberals. It’s crazy.
Pollan also tells this story of how during the Vietnam war a lot of US soldiers were continually on heroin, he mentions a figure of 20%. But by the time they went home to the States, this ceased to be a problem and very few of them stayed addicted.
This serves to illustrate that addiction rates have a lot to do with the psycho-social circumstances of an individual. What makes you feel that need and craving in one situation is not necessarily going to be there in another situation.
Similarly there is very interesting research on addiction in rats. They put a rat with a button to get water with cocaine in it, the rat will push that button until it is dead. If on the other hand you replace the ingredient in the water with LSD, the rat will push the button once and not go near it again.
All of which goes to show psychedelics are not really recreational drugs. They are a more serious, intentional device for clearing out the mind…
NP draws the following daft conclusion:
“All of which goes to show psychedelics are not really recreational drugs.”
Really? Maybe you need to watch ‘Woodstock’ the movie. Half a million people on acid for recreational purposes, relating to or denoting activity done for enjoyment when one is not working. NP does not seem to understand that there is a huge gap between reading about such things and actually doing them…even for recreational purposes.
Back in the sixties era, it was quite normal to trip on LSD on the weekend and go for a walk in nature. It often was not a ‘serious’ endeavour because you usually ended up laughing about absolutely nothing…and then laughed some more, because it felt so good.
“We are stardust
Billion year old carbon
We are golden
Caught in the devil’s bargain
And we’ve got to get ourselves
Back to the garden.”
Yup! Still rings true. And remember, Carlos Santana was in the midst of a mind-blowing acid trip when he performed his blistering set at Woodstock.
It’s not just my opinion — you can take it up with Michael Pollan if you want to have an argument about it.
But I do think most people who seek these things out do so because they have a serious intention. Be it to cure depression or learn something about their deeper selves, these days people don’t often do psychedelics just for kicks.
NP comes away with another totally misinformed statement: “These days people don’t often do psychedelics just for kicks.”
Really, man, are you living in a cave in Siberia? Or perhaps in an igloo somewhere cold and remote?
Michael Pollan? He is just one of many authors cashing in on the current psychedelic renaissance, and good luck to him, because, unlike you, he actually takes psychedelics and is speaking therefore from experience.
Millions of people do psychedelics for fun every day. You think all those kids in Amsterdam swallowing magic mushrooms by the handful are psychology students, studying for a Phd and doing serious research into the effects of psilocybin on the cerebral cortex? What about the millions of clubbers who visit Ibiza every summer? You think a gin and tonic will keep them up all night on the dance floor? It does not. What keeps them buzzing is a variety of drugs, cocaine, methamphetamine, ketamine, MDMA, 2CB, LSD, shrooms, super weed, hash, you name it, they are taking it. Yeah, I know those are not all psychedelics, but the tourists have to take what they can get from the local dealers. It’s a capitalist world and competition on the streets is stiff.
Do you believe nobody is tripping when they go to The Sphere in Las Vegas, along with 15,000 other people, many of them ageing dead-heads, to see what’s left of the Grateful Dead perform?
Personally, I am not at all interested in all that, but I do notice what is going on around me.
By the sounds of it, NP, you need to take your blindfold off and get out a bit more before senility sets in good and proper.
And a good morning to you too, Lokesh…
I’m just presenting the view from all the people who make it down to Peru or Costa Rica, and that’s quite a lot of people…
It’s a drop in the ocean compared to the rest of the world. Both Peru and Costa Rica are not quite so hospitable right now. The land of pura vida is no longer quite so pure, due to the influx of narco trafficantes.
I enjoyed Costa Rica when I visited many years ago, although possessing drugs for immediate personal use has been decriminalised, the drug laws remain strict. Which is fine by me because I don’t do drugs.
This has just arrived in my inbox, from a site run by Tami Simon, who regularly hosts talks by Eckhart Tolle. I’m surprised as she’s always seemed pretty ‘straight’ to me (takes one to know one!), but hey, it’s June 1st, it’s that time of year…
And the speaker is none other than the son of the “Turn on, Tune in, Drop Out” ‘Acid Guru’ himself, Timothy Leary…
“Psychedelics in the 21st Century and How to Use Them
with Zach Leary
“It’s my belief that the experience while on psychedelics is not the work in and of itself. It’s the fertilization stage that creates the embryo for the real work that comes after.”
— Zach Leary
He’s the son of Timothy Leary and one of today’s leading voices in the psychedelic renaissance of the 21st century. But Zach Leary’s journey hardly unfolded in the way you might expect. In this deeply informative and myth-busting podcast, Tami Simon speaks with Zach about his new book with Sounds True, ‘Your Extraordinary Mind’. With a “friend to friend” approach to discussing the amazing potential for the safe use of psychedelics, Tami and Zach converse about:
Carrying forward the legacy of the front-runners of psychedelic exploration
Acknowledging the mistakes of the past and bringing legitimacy to the use of psychedelics
A review of the major compounds and their sources, such as MDMA, psilocybin mushrooms, ayahuasca, LSD, and ketamine.
Psychedelics as humanity’s evolutionary partner.”
https://content.blubrry.com/sounds_true/c/PD07628W_IATE_Leary_Ad-a1203-v1.mp3
‘Sounds True’ sounds interesting. Thanks for the link. Will listen to it later.
I’ve come across ‘Sounds True’ and Tami Simon before, it’s an interesting site though I’m not a great fan of her style of interviewing.
I think the fact that young people especially like to go exploring and see the outer reaches of their minds is something of all ages, the idea of psychedelics as mankind’s evolutionary partner has a lot of merit to it.
It seems to me it is a great pity that all of the old growth organic forests are being cut down, and replaced with monoculture planted forests which are exploited for their fast-growing wood.
All mankind’s natural environments are disappearing…
Zach Leary is kind of an icon in that community by virtue of his family name. But I think that Michael Pollan with his book, ‘How to Change Your Mind: The New Science of Psychedelics’, has done more to publicise the psychedelic renaissance. It’s a good book, I am re reading it now.
It’s funny but European cultures in prehistory seem to have been split into pro-mushroom (Rus, Slav) and anti-mushroom (Anglo-Saxon, Scandinavian). It’s interesting that although 23 species of primate eat mushrooms, within humans there was this cultural split.
Anyway, lots of interesting stuff in Pollan’s book.
I mentioned the ‘renaissance of psychedelics’ to a friend who certainly had his share as a young man, right from his teens, and he said that it’s all very well but a major obstacle is getting hold of unadulterated substances, especially, of course, as they’re illegal everywhere. He said there’s no way of knowing whether what you’re getting is pure, the real deal, or not, which makes it all too risky. Not that such considerations bothered him 50 or more years ago but they certainly would now.
As for me, I’d be open to experiencing one or two in Zach Leary’s list of five, but not if there was any doubt as to the quality of the supply. So for many this area will probably remain theoretical, something to think about and imagine, believe in or reject, feeding off others’ accounts, rather than existential, based on personal experience. Yet another case of ‘living in the head’, ending up as intellectually ‘enlightened’ but existentially ignorant.
I guess that’s where trusted personal contacts become an imperative. But if one knows nobody ‘in the field’, what to do?
SD asks,”If one knows nobody ‘in the field’, what to do?”
It all depends on where one lives. I have a friend in mainland Europe who orders psychedelics online from uptheamazon.com. They arrive by post and everything is of the best quality.
Here on Ibiza, a lot of drug-taking takes place, which is hardly breaking news. Unfortunately, coke is what most nightlife people are after. If one is a resident, you probably know someone who is dealing, but it is quite hush-hush and works through the jungle telegraph. You can easily locate good-quality psychedelics. There is an active community of psilocybin growers and everyone and their dog cultivates a bit of weed, you smell it everywhere.
It no longer agrees with me, so I never smoke it…or drink alcohol, the most bourgeois of drugs. Sobriety is the greatest intoxicant for some. You can also book private sessions for almost anything. A guided Bufo trip can cost up to 1,000 euros…strictly for those who want to have a wee tete-a-tete with God. I talked to one Bufo facilitator who told me that they turn 50% of applicants down.
A few days back, UNVRS opened in Ibiza. It is the world’s biggest nightclub with a capacity of 10,000. A journalist friend went to the opening party. Queuing up to get in, they had to run the gauntlet of sniffer dogs. The bow-wows sniffed out a few clubbers, who were then denied admission. Leaving in the wee, wee hours, everyone was subjected to a sobriety test. If they were deemed unfit to drive, they were directed to the taxi rank. It is a good policy because late-night car crashes are common on party island. Three days ago some nut job driving a Ferrari hit a taxi and nosedived into a field in the middle of the night. The brand new sports car was a write-off and four people were seriously injured. I am in bed most nights round about after midnight…it’s safer.
To be honest, I’m in favour of these new retreat centres…places in Mexico now do Ibogaine retreats, places in Portugal do psilocybin retreats.
It’s a little more expensive, but you go on holiday, clear out your mind, have professional guidance and so on. No hassles about quality, just let them take care of it.
If I were to do it, that would be my way.
So what sort of prices are charged, NP?
For a one night stay and a ceremony, I saw a price of about 500 euros. Or you could do a 7 day stay for 995 euros. It is pricier than just picking up the substance somewhere, but you pay for the guidance and aftercare.
Thanks, NP.
Plus of course the travel, etc. costs. Presumably, food and accommodation are included? So to make it worthwhile it’s probably a case of finding at least 1200 euros, around £1000.
Yes, that seems about right. I was looking at this site…
https://retreat.guru/be/psilocybin-retreats/portugal
These things are legal in Portugal, and it’s still in Europe, so it seems a good option.
It’s very interesting, I was just rereading Michael Pollan’s book, and it seems the case of retreat centres and guides is an expression of a much earlier discussion in the culture.
Back in the 1950s when psilocybin and LSD were hailed as psychiatric wonder drugs, they thought of the paradigm of set and setting, that the experience of doing a psychedelic had much to do with the mindset of the patient and the physical setting in which he took it.
So in the 1950s when most sessions were given by physicians in controlled circumstances there was one kind of response, but when people like Timothy Leary started encouraging use of these substances just on-the-fly and in the wild by the youth there was a rise in youngsters showing up in hospitals with bad trips.
In a way, a retreat centre offers a more spiritual and ceremonial setting for a psychedelic experience, leading to a greater number of good trips. It is what Pollan calls a social container for the experience.
Of course an experienced and educated psychonaut has the ability to choose for himself the kind of set and setting for his trip. But for a first time user a retreat centre is very beneficial.
There certainly is a lot to do when you have a parent that has died, a few things happen automatically but a lot of stuff doesn’t.
It would seem that things are going downhill when prospective trippers have been conned into believing that one needs ‘aftercare’ after ingesting a solid dose of magic mushrooms. Aftercare is defined as care of a patient after a stay in hospital or of a person on release from prison.
Whatever happened to trust in oneself and the enlightening experience of being high on psilocybin without the need for aftercare? ‘Trust in existence.’ Remember that one.
Yes, psilocybin can deliver a powerful experience to the point of it being a life-changer, but part of the beauty of magic mushrooms is the magic they can provide in the sense that, with correct set and setting, the voyager will come out on the other side feeling just dandy.
A good example would be the last time I took mushrooms with a small group of friends about twenty years ago. We went to an isolated spot called ‘Moon Beach’ on Ibiza’s northern coastline. A friend had gifted me the mushrooms. They came from Mexico, were slightly mouldy-looking, and kind of emitted a signal that said, ‘Be prepared for the unexpected.’
Two hours into the trip, I was in a deeply altered state. There were a few puffy white clouds in the sky, and every time one drifted in front of the blazing sun, shadows appeared, and I believed something dreadful was about to happen. When the sun appeared again I felt jubilant.
It was time for a swim. I know that part of the coast well. Not quite realising what I was embarking on, I took the lead. Behind a small island, the water was approximately 30 metres deep and the sea swell more pronounced. Visibility was good, and the sub-aquatic vistas magnificent. One of the swimmers caught up with me and said, “Lokesh, can you hold my hand? I’m frightened.” I did as requested and guided her towards an underwater shelf, where you could gaze down into the apparently bottomless abyss. I was getting off on how this would appear to my friend and we stayed there for five minutes…or was it five long years?
We headed around the island, and I had to keep tugging her arm as her guidance system seemed to be pointing out towards the open sea. Twenty minutes later, our small group gathered in the shadow provided by an enormous boulder that looked like it had been sculpted by a Dali-esque titan. Everyone was ecstatic after our aquatic sojourn. I asked my hand-holding friend how it was for her. She replied, “I don’t know. I kept my eyes tightly shut from the moment you took my hand.” I laughed in disbelief.
We watched a brilliant sunset from an elevated point, and a marvellous day slowly drew to a close.
It was time to head for home. Everyone had a mind-blowing day, and nobody needed aftercare. Those Mexican mushrooms were powerful and I felt no need to repeat the experience. It was enough for today.
“enlightening experience”
Certainly it can change your perception.
Maybe someone who has a depression can see things differenly. But then it must be part of a therapeutic process.
Enlightening…give (someone) greater knowledge and understanding about a subject or situation.
Experience…an event or occurrence which leaves an impression on someone.
Hence an enlightening experience.
“Trumpets and violins, I can hear in the distance
I think they’re calling our names
Maybe now you can’t hear them, but you will
If you just take hold of my hand
Ah! But are you experienced?
Have you ever been experienced?”
(Jimi Hendrix)
Yeah. Drugs were good for an overnight stay. If they were more, you would still take them.
(From the Book of Wisdom)
That’s a fairly mild experience as these things are reckoned. A higher dose might have occasioned visions of meeting family and ancestors, while a dose of Bufo might have meant an experience of becoming one with a thermonuclear blast!!
Most aboveground researchers and also underground trip guides in the States these days seem to offer an integration session, with help interpreting your trip. This could be just the morning after or it could be an extra day. It sounds helpful.
NP writes, “That’s a fairly mild experience as these things are reckoned.”
Is that so? Which begs the question, what is NP’s reckoning based upon? I suspect second-hand information he has read. But I will let NP deliver an honest answer.
Basing it on the first-hand experiences in Michael Pollan’s book, where he describes his own first-ever acid trip (150 micrograms) among others.
Timothy Leary gave the following good advice: “Think for yourself and question authority.”
Second-hand stories, information, or opinions are those you learn about from other people rather than directly or from your own experience.
I’m just reading the neuroscience section in Michael Pollan’s book, and I’ve come across some really interesting comments. There was one quote: “the question was whether hippies gravitated towards LSD, or whether LSD made people into hippies. Certainly Richard Nixon thought the latter.” There were also some really interesting studies cited about how people on psychedelics tended to become more open, have changed attitudes towards nature and so on.
The whole question these paragraphs in the book were discussing was whether LSD had a political effect, in terms of the American two-party system. Certainly the personality traits the drugs bring to the fore are more liberal and green and ecological, and so would occasion a shift to the left among the younger generation.
This was another motivating factor of Nixon’s War on Drugs, which used liberal amounts of factually incorrect propaganda to instil an image of fear about drugs into popular culture. It’s a fascinating book which ranges widely into the science and spiritual experience of psychedelics.
NP writes, “There were also some really interesting studies cited about how people on psychedelics tended to become more open, have changed attitudes towards nature and so on.”
If this is news to NP, by the sounds of it, he has some serious catching up to do.
Recommended reading: https://www.amazon.com/Politics-Ecstasy-Leary-Timothy/dp/1579510310
Yeah…Pollan starts his chapter by saying, “Most of the people I interviewed for this section said, “It’s easy to blame Timothy Leary, but…” and then they go on to do just that.” I think Leary got too enthusiastic about his own subject matter, provoking the authorities into the War on Drugs, a heavy- handed instrument if ever there was one.
Bottom line with Tim Leary is that he was a fun-loving man who got mighty carried away with his enthusiasm for LSD. It can happen, and it happened to me also.
When I first met Bhagwan back in ’75, he asked me what I had been doing with my life. I told him I had been taking LSD every week for six years. He smiled and said, “Very good.” And then gave me a wee talk that changed the course of my life forever.
It seems to me that if Leary had succeeded in “turning on everyone in the world” it would be a much happier place now. Because that was the Republican politicians’ nightmare, that there was a drug that would turn a Republican into a Democrat.
Certainly I agree with Leary and McKenna that there should be a basic right to mind-altering substances for spiritual and medical reasons, and perhaps also just for recreation. However, doing that is not in the government’s best interest. It wasn’t just Nixon, Bill Clinton and Dubya also made significant contributions to the drug war.
And in a way I think the whole political right needs to do a few LSD trips.
The tribes in the Amazon who work with Ayahuasca and members of the Santo Daime church in Brazil take it regularly; in a way, what Leary was proposing was to create a culture of similar psychedelic usage in the West. In a way it is a charter of freedom from the dominator paradigm, the whole idea that there has to be a single orchestrating entity as has been popularised in politics and business for thousands of years now.
In Pollan’s book there is a whole section on the neuroscience of the brain while tripping on psychedelics, it seems that something called the ‘default mode network’ gets switched off. The DMN is kind of a coordinator which regulates which part of the brain gets priority. Fascinating stuff.
You could say that the DMN is the dominator paradigm made flesh, it is the beginning of a hierarchy in the brain.
Coincidentally enough, I met an old friend at a funeral yesterday. They ran Santa Daime ayahuasca gatherings for over twenty years at their home. At the peak of this development, about fifteen years ago, many participants held informal get-togethers where they sang Portuguese hymns with much enthusiasm. While drinking the sacred brew, they all dressed up in squeaky clean uniforms. It was very religious.
Right from the get-go I was not attracted to that scene. In essence, it was an amalgam of taking psychedelics with Christianity. It was very organised, with shamans visiting from Brazil etc. Many of the people involved were old acquaintances and friends. Over time, an us-and-them attitude began to develop.
Today, it has all faded a little, although drinking the brew has become more widespread and I daresay a bit more commercialised, although many of the people doing it are marvellous human beings.
Me? Although somewhat of a pagan at heart with tribal roots, I have no wish to belong to any tribe (been there, done that). I am all for the flight of the alone to the alone. As Mark Knopfler put it: “This is a private investigation, not a public inquiry.”
I don’t know about that, Lokesh, there is such a thing as too much alone. Having loved ones around you is a great blessing.
My dad and I were very close, we spoke every day, and I miss him a lot now that he isn’t there anymore. It’s hardly sunk in yet.
I have no-one to talk football to anymore…the five goals that PSG scored against Inter in the Champions League final…Lamine Yamal being compared to Pele…tickets for the World Club Championship going for a song because people aren’t interested….
Highly paid (a gross understatement) England players putting on a miserable performance to scrape through 1-0 against tiny, barely preofessional, 173 in the world rankings Andorra….
I find it very easy these days to be sick of so-called top football, the hype, the media’s obsession with it, the stupid fans, the whole exaggerated importance of it. And that’s coming from someone for whom football has been a major interest, playing and spectating, since 6 years old.
NP writes, “There is such a thing as too much alone.”
Maybe there is, but it is also a case of how one defines “alone”.
Thanks, SD. I didn’t think it was the best side England had put out, why not play three up front with say Grealish, Kane and Saka? A midfield five with Palmer and Kane up front seems unnecessarily conservative against Andorra.
Tuchel said he wasn’t satisfied with a 1-0 win against Andorra, and rightly so. It seems the old English disease of not finding the right midfield combination continues. Not finding a place for players like Declan Rice and playing old warhorses like Jordan Henderson is surely a mistake.
Hi guys,
The whole idea that taking psychedelics will automatically make you liberal or left-wing is hopelessly outdated.
A couple of high-profile examples: Peter Thiel, tech billionaire and MAGA funder ideologue has invested massively in it. Musk is a fan, btw.
Jordan Peterson, right-wing Youtube nutjob, advocates them.
And yes, Santo Daime are a clean-cut Christian org with allegedly the usual militaristic, authoritarian, hierarchical, homophobic views. Indeed there are many similar orgs of “psychedelic Christians” these days, it,s coming over the pond from the US and can be found in the UK now.
Here`s a maybe relevant article: https://www.psymposia.com/podcasts/46-part-one-right-wing-psychedelia/
I suspect in many cases, having your DMN knocked out of commission can trigger a desperation for some solid, hierarchical, reliable order in your life. It`s totally arguable in 2025 that tripping makes you more disposed to being right-wing!!
I guess it`s all environment-dependent like all drugs.
Here`s something I wrote on SN a while back:
“Drugs are a lot about intent.
Alcohol is much maligned in mind-expanding circles these days but back in the halcyon days of ancient Greek theatre, the audiences for the great Dionysian events and plays which led to the original “catharses” were lubricated with wine in a controlled way (not a piss-up) that was part of the ritual.
Consider, too, the San Francisco Renaissance of the 50s with the Beats etc. which was fuelled by amphetamines, exactly the same stuff that a decade earlier had fuelled the German invasion of France, the blitzkrieg and the bombing of Dresden and the D-Day landings.
The hashishin assassins of the 11th to 13th century used hashish as a facilitator to murder and assassination, whereas people of my generation tended to mostly laugh, listen to good music, have sex and get the munchies!
don`t forget that the Bezerkers back in the day were fearless warriors hacking their way through human flesh on the battlefield high on mushrooms.”
It was a nice dream while it lasted, NP, but watch out you don`t find yourself goose-stepping to Nirvana tripping balls and wearing a MAGA hat!
Although, if that`s what the universe needs for some reason unfathomable to me, stuck irrevocably in my DMT-starved DMN as I am, then so be it!
It`s an easy mistake to make…
Elon Musk too…
“The president called Musk, who reportedly took so much ketamine during the 2024 campaign that he could not pee right, “a big-time drug addict” in a phone call, a source told The Post. Trump reportedly made several phone calls to those in his inner circle as well as acquaintances about the split.
Musk’s drug habits on the campaign trail included ketamine, Ecstasy, and psychedelic mushrooms, The New York Times reported late last month. His drug usage, and the media discussion surrounding it, helped drive the break-up, White House officials told the Post.”
(Yahoo News)
Footage from a psychedelic therapy session where the subject predicts a new golden age…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddWNMSUbcGI
It’s a long and inglorious history that you describe, Frank, certainly drugs and indoctrination can be a dangerous mix because of the influence of set and setting. Perhaps there is such a thing as right-wing tripping as well.
For me, the whole reason behind tripping is to learn and to cure. Just getting high is not attractive to me, so things like cocaine and amphetamines hold no interest. Instead what fascinates me is the shamanic path and Ayahuasca, that the visions give you not what you want but what you need.
The way these jet-set types seem to be treating these substances, as a means to get high, strikes me as an addictive and self destructive mindset, a deep unhappiness, not a way towards health and curing oneself. If you take substances for this reason, ask yourself what hole in your life you are trying to fill.
They say in the modern science of addiction that addicts are lacking something important in their social surroundings. There were a series of experiments with rats, that if you put a rat in a plain cage with a button to push to get cocaine, he will push that button until dead. If you put a rat inside a “rat park”, an interesting environment where he has lots to play with and all his needs are met, he will avoid the cocaine button.
Of course human beings are more complex than rats, but it seems that we merely have more complex needs and that the general principle holds true. Often the answer is not to take a substance, but to change your life. And it surprises me how often you hear stories where Ayahuasca has helped people, broken addictions, shown people new paths and given them new meaning.
NP, you say: “They say in the modern science of addiction that addicts are lacking something important in their social surroundings.”
It`s a bit of a bland truism tho`, isn`t it?
Like: “all addiction is caused by trauma.”
It`s unfalsifiable but what does it really mean? Some hit the bottle, shoot up etc. with minimum trauma, some don`t after extremely devastating lives.
Also, that misses the other side that there is something NOT lacking in their social surroundings, which is a shit-load of easily-accessible addictive drugs!
However good psychedelics are for some people, one effect of promoting psychedelia as a cure-all will be more people taking more drugs, whatever they claim to be their reasons, therapeutic or recreational.
I would be willing to place a bet on that, but no bookies will risk giving worthwhile odds against!
I’m not promoting anything, except that people need to stop looking for happiness in the wrong places.
“It is only possible to look for happiness in the wrong places.
If you are in the right place, you will not be looking for it.”
(Swami Bhorat)
“Freedom is free from the need to be free
Free your mind, your ass will follow.”
(Funkadelic)
Or…
Frank, good to hear from you again and a great bit of writing. I used to be a deadhead, then joined the Salvation Army, and now I’m just sitting in the dock of the bay.
Cheers, Loco!
There`s some well crazy psychedelic stuff going down these days.
As a keen tripper of yesteryear, I find myself quite amazed at the doses, frequency and cocktails that some of the modern psychedelic types get into.
Everybody who is anybody has blown their ego and DMN to smithereens by the sound of it.
Here`s one that includes Ibiza, and I suspect may be a bit beyond budget for the average SN reader! Maybe you have come across these guys? (This isn`t the full story, you have to subscribe):
https://www.ecstaticintegration.org/p/dmt-on-mega-yachts-inside-the-psychedelic
Sounds like they just want to get high and stay that way… doing Bufo once a week seems like an excessive thing, when many people take six months to a year to integrate the experience. And mixing it with cocaine, of all things. That is not treating it with respect at all.
NP, agreed. He should have mixed in a bit of Ketamine and benzos as well, to take the edge off the come-down!
Good article, Frank. Yes, there is a lot of wild goings-on going on in Ibiza. Even in the mainstream media I read about things happening on the island that make me shake my head in amused surprise.
Last week, the world’s biggest hyper club (UNVRS) opened. I helped a journalist friend by editing an article submitted to the New York Times.
I hope it gets published because it is a fascinating read. Here is a quote:
‘[UNVRS] is a brand campaign in motion. Weeks before any official announcement, a supposed UFO sighting over the sea near Ibiza’s Es Vedrà — captured in a shaky, silhouetted video — went viral, racking up over 50 million views across platforms within hours. What few realized at the time was that it had been orchestrated by the [UNVRS] team, part of a layered marketing rollout designed to blend mystery, mythology, and modern spectacle. The reveal came in a second video weeks later: a high-gloss teaser featuring Will Smith unveiling the building together with Yann Pissenem in dramatic wide shots. “This is not a club,” Smith intoned. “This is another world.”
Mental!
I guess lots of people want adventure, excitement and wild experiences of otherness, that`s natural, and in a hyper-capitalist world where everything is monetised, these things become commodities.
Personally, I`ve always been more of a bargain basement, poundshop, pick-your-own kind of guy. I`m not sure how comfortable I would be propping up the Bardo at an all-inclusive Billionaire Bufo Benidorm away-break, or being pitched states of cosmic consciousness by high net-worth enterpreneur shamans in five-star parallel universes, VIP vortexes and gilded rabbit-holes whilst listening to God`s messengers expoundtheir divine vision for multi-millionaires whilst an army of servants re-stack their pipes.
You might be interested in this…
https://youtu.be/8g0n72Fiy4Q
Personally, I find the loud music and packed locations in clubs quite oppressive and don’t enjoy them. And 80 euros for a bucket of chicken wings??
The film ‘Curandera’ says that Ayahuasca was put on this Earth as a way for humans to practise dying. Certainly it is a way to open the visionary doors of the mind, which lead to spaces and to meanings that show the universe to be much more than we imagine.
In a way, I can see this to be true. When we die, we no longer have the anchor of a body and a brain, and these new and alternate dimensions may show up in various forms. Pollan writes that after trying psychedelics he found that in meditation he had access to some new mental states. Consciousness-expanding indeed.
I have found that my father’s death has also led to some new feelings and emotions…sombreness and grief have been visiting me a few times in the past week. And I’ve realised that it’s not impossible for me to end up in a similar situation, and I should make sure my wishes are known for these kind of end-of-life occasions.
NP, I think it`s normal, natural, healthy and human to feel difficult emotions whilst grieving.
Consciousness expansion as a metaphor-in-chief for solving everything probably needs a rethink.
Ideas of `growth` are very prevalent in the modern world with very deep assumptions that growth is always a must. The GNP shrank by 2% last year triggers shock horror and panic. My consciousness shrank by 2.4% last year and I`m slipping into recession and depression. Aargh! Better invest in psychedelics!
It`s good to fly high.
It`s also good to sink into the earth.
I love that about the old Chinese stuff I Ching and Taoism etc.
Earth and Sky. Dark and Light. There is nothing that is not the Tao etc.
Yes, life is frustrating.
Invest in the rainforest!
Accept your greed for sensation, or at least practise dying.
Be somebody else, be more exotic!
Stop boring yourself.
NP, the idea that Ayahuasca was put on this Earth as a way for humans to practise dying is not a novel one. Besides, who or what put ayahuasca on this earth as a way for humans to practise dying is a highly debatable topic.
If you wish to do some homework on the subject you could look into ‘The Psychedelic Experience’, created in the psychedelic movement’s early years by the prophetic shaman-professors Timothy Leary, Ralph Metzner, and Richard Alpert (Ram Dass), a foundational text that serves as a model and a guide for all subsequent mind-expanding inquiries. In this wholly unique book, the authors provide an interpretation of an ancient sacred manuscript, ‘The Tibetan Book of the Dead’, from a psychedelic perspective. ‘The Psychedelic Experience’ describes their discoveries in broadening spiritual consciousness through a combination of Tibetan meditation techniques and psychotropic substances.
As sacred as the text it reflects, ‘The Psychedelic Experience’ is a guidebook to the wilderness of mind and an indispensable resource from the founding fathers of psychedelia.
During the early seventies, I and a small group of psychonauts tripped on high doses of acid and used this manual to go further than anyone has been out of their mind enough to go before.
That’s the thing, NP, it is all very well reading books and videos about this topic, but if you do not actually do it you have very little idea about what you are talking about.
Hi you all,
I would like to add another list of books:
Stanislav Grof, who also experimented with LSD (and worked with Mr. Hofmann); he invented ‘Holotropic Breathwork’, i.e. inducing altered states of consciousness by intensive breathing, etc.
https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/16010.Stanislav_Grof
My favourite is:
‘Beyond the Brain: Birth, Death, and Transcendence in Psychotherapy’
It describes a certain set of events that seem to happen in these sessions: biographical & birth & oceanic in the womb & pre-birth transpersonal and transcendental.
Met him in person in various workshops; his wife Christina died a few years ago; he’s married now to a German wife.
Impressive work. IMO.
Go on. And Cheers to @Frank for speaking up.
Some information on his life (in German) here:
https://gedankenwelt.de/stanislav-grof-sein-leben-und-werk/
Thanks, Klaus, this I find interesting as I discovered breathwork online last year via Soma Breathwork and have made a point of daily practice since last July. It’s remarkably effective, re-energising, ideal at any age but amazing when you’re well into your 70s, so I recommend it.
Do Grof’s sessions involve periods of holding the breath? Presumably they do as that’s where the major benefits come from in the processes I’ve followed.
https://www.somabreath.com/?_atid=2c256At1fuvz0dZdy8YG00OK1ex34b
SD.
Interesting discoveries!
The HB Holotropic Breathwork sessions are set up like this:
Max. group size 20 persons
2 qualified/trained facilitators
First session – sharing, getting to know the participants – finding a partner – then some dancing/music…
1 person is the sitter: observing the ‘patient’ during his working session
The patient starts to breathe more intensively – some release/catharsis starts – movement etc. happening
The sitter observes neutrally, taking care no accidents happen.
No stopping or forcing of extra breathing.
Duration around 1.5-2 hrs.
Afterwards, sharing with the sitter and in the group.
Afternoon – change patient to sitter and v.v.
Evening – some dancing, sharing, going for walks as the workshops were mostly in quite beautiful nature surroundings: Swiss mountains, Germany.
For me, after the intensive breathing part things were happening fully on their own….
This was beginning of the 90s!
Loong time past.
Cheers.
There was music at the start of the breathing session: energetic, rhythmic, similar to ‘our’ Kundalini meditation music…
To get things going.
Ah, I see Grof’s methods are/were more directly related to biodynamic therapy and the experience and expression of hidden emotion than Soma’s. They’re separate processses, Grof’s also involving interpersonal connections, Soma’s based upon the individual’s energetic experience.
And Grof’s sessions are much longer than Soma’s. although one can do the Soma breathwork perfectly well alone at home.
One might perhaps say that Grof emphasises therapy, while Soma focuses directly on moving towards well-being and meditation.
But perhaps such distinctions are rather crude, Klaus?
Not crude, I think.
More than 30 years before I was more into therapy and catharsis.
Nowadays, I enjoy some quiet sitting on a bench watching the sky above and nature around.
So, your observation seems quite fitting.
Sitting quiet in nature is fine. But the question is:
Can you be silent in the marketplace?
Oh yes.
I spent like 50% of my time shopping and running errands…and running into people.
In that sense, I am a lucky person…Balance.
Shamaui – shatati
Shatati – shamaui.
Just today, this Sannyas exercise ran through my mind.
Actually, I can expand a little more an how I experience awareness currently.
As compared to like 10 years ago – when having to leave business with a silver parachute and suffering a second light stroke: at that time, I was indeed struggling with am adaptive disorder, a mild episode of depression – Anpassungsstörung – https://flexikon.doccheck.com/de/Anpassungsst%C3%B6rung
And I found it difficult to “get out of the mind”.
Nowadays, things have changed again:
most of the times I find it difficult to “not forget that the world is still there.”
Feels like a ‘mild psychedelic experience’. Without the chemicals.
Quite optimal state more of the people around here (busybodies in Germany) should enjoy.
As Neil Young is singing on ‘Harvest’:
“Cheer up, cheer up,
Let him fill your cup.
With the promise of the man….”
Klaus, yes. I think it comes down to that.
A psychedelic trip`s best function (if you could do it the disservice to call it such a prosaic name) or any effort at “consciousness expansion” can be to make one feel all is ok as it is on as deep a level as possible. The rest is moonshine.
The Neil Young cheer up thing reminds me of the Tibetan idea of `raising windhorse`which sounds well occult and spiritual, but actually is a cosmic way of saying: “Cheer up”!
Cheers!!
Lokesh mentioned:
“During the early seventies, I and a small group of psychonauts tripped on high doses of acid and used this manual to go further than anyone has been out of their mind enough to go before.”
So what success did you find there?
Or was it all a failure?
I doubt that LSD can help mankind.
It is a nice New Age dream, not more.
Have you any personal experience of lsd, Satchit?
Yes, SD, I had some experiences when my age was around 20.
And you, have you any personal experience?
At the same age as you did, Satchit, in America, when almost everyone I met under 30 seemed to be taking it, or some other psychotropic sunstance.
Talking of America…
Sorry, that’s an excuse for putting up this video from yesterday where Donald Trump’s brilliant niece Mary, a psychotherapist with much experience of her appaling uncle, analyses the current Trump-driven crisis in the States and advises the opposition not to give up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnCxR8woYbw
They are having some “near-life experiences” over there. By gosh.
During the past few days, I actually thought about where I got to with psychedelics. Associative thought brought me to a similar conclusion in relation to how I felt when I left Lucknow, after spending a couple of months with HWL Poonja. I felt clearly that there is no need to sweat the big stuff in life. I somehow saw that everything in life is exactly how it should be, no matter how difficult or insane it can be. Ultimately, everything will work out like it is supposed to, I daresay, for the good. There is nothing you can do about it, in the sense that the idea that we ‘do’ anything in life is one of life’s great illusions. Life happens.
Today I still…how should I put it?…open the door because I know that is what it is for. When the door opens, I am often struck by the fact that life is a miracle.
Anyone who thinks LSD is a ‘nice’ New Age dream and nothing more has never really experienced what that fascinating substance has to offer.
I am no longer interested in LSD to the extent that I would bother to take it, but I do hold it in the utmost respect. I find tryptamines more interesting. If you want to get down to the nuts and bolts of human existence, a tryptamine spanner is a very good tool to have under your belt.
The re-introduction of psychedelics in the coming years will lead to a new morality. We will see that the old morality was based on false claims about truth, reason and God, and false claims of power and authority. Once we see God and truth for ourselves in the psychedelically-induced mystical experience, we are free to choose our own morality, seeing that the creators of the old one were hoodwinking us. Psychedelics democratise God and thereby free up truth and morality.
“Furthermore, in the absence of moral authorities, we can gain something akin to the style of living of the Ancient Greeks that Nietzsche so admired. Instead of living by what we think we ought to do, or doing what some authority judges we should do, we can instead once again simply say, “I think this is good, so it is good” and “I think this is bad, so it is bad.” The result is not evil, chaos, or anarchy. We should transcend morality, not completely do away with it. We should still have laws and social norms. However, they should be pragmatic and aim at the aesthetic, instead of seen to be fundamentally true. This might help us get rid of silly laws and social norms—such as drug laws, for example.
Furthermore, most of the evil done in this world is done by those following orders, people who think they know truth, or by people who are trying to force their version of “the good” onto others. The result of a psychedelic post-moral world, I hope, will be one of kindness and increased well-being (as psychedelic studies are showing it could be). Nietzsche’s philosophy may help us get there — let us not allow it to be used to take us to those dark places it has historically; such a paradoxical vision mirroring that paradoxical feature of the mystical experience. With any luck, the coming psychedelic age will create a more peaceful, loving, more creative, affluent, happier world — one which really is…good.”
P.S:
I copy and pasted those two statements from a psychedelic website. I agree with them to a greater or lesser extent.
“…and the wor-er-er-erld will live as one….”
It`s a lovely dream.
But don`t forget the ancient Greeks` wealth was also largely based on slave labour and ultimately violence. These kind of ideas are also now attractive to libertarians, elitists and silicon valley tech bros like Musk, Thiel, Zukerberg, Bezos, who have vast power and money and see themselves exactly as the psychedelically liberated free men whilst the rest of the world shovel the shit.
Personally, taking acid did give me a sense of everyone being in the same human boat, albeit one floating through tangerine trees and marmalade skies with kaleidoscope eyes, and very nice it was too.
So let`s hope psychedelic drugs can save the world. Not holding my breath though!
Coincidentally, I’ve just come across this very interesting short extract from an Eckhart Tolle talk where he considers the effects of alcohol and, at 5 minutes in, what happens to an ‘awakened consciousness’ when taking lsd, citing the example of Ram Dass giving his guru several tabs of acid. Most entertaining and, er, ‘enlightening’.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3RI4c5lYnc
Of course, Ram Dass might have been conned by Neem Karoli Baba, who might have applied sleight of hand when supposedly swallowing the strong trips of acid. I really have no idea. I am certain that psychedelia was getting a bit warp factor nine back in those ridiculously trippy days and it came as a bit of a relief when a Hindu God Man came along and made light of dropping a mega dose of acid, implying that there was something else going on, something higher. I want to take you higher. Higher!
Maybe ET should have undone his top button, slipped off his cardigan, dropped some trips, puffed on a few spliffs, sunk a few cans of Special Brew and tried to get his hands on some hippy chicks instead of spending his younger days having his head stuck in dusty theology tomes in university libraries, an activity which was surely enough to make anyone depressed.
And he would have had some better stories to tell his $500 a throw audience than recycling the old Ramdas canard and issuing groundbreaking spiritual insights like “alcohol makes you unconscious”?
Btw, like the painting, Loke. And just got the Sly Stone ref. RIP.
Yeah, thanks, finished that painting a month ago. Sly Stone? From his splendiferous performance at Woodstock to being a junkie living in a caravan. His life was def a long, strange trip.
Didn`t know that. Another one bites the dust. I guess it shows that being a superstar doesn`t always trump being everyday people….
Psychedelic substances are subject to set and setting, and can be used to achieve a wide range of effects through that and the intention you carry in your mind. An experienced curandero can manipulate these things.
That means that in order to really make use of psychedelics there wil have to be some kind of social structure — psychedelic therapists, shamans, a psychedelic church…Don’t misunderstand me, I don’t mean to say there will be a priest to mediate the connection to some god, but rather that they will be able to guide the session somewhat, inject some element into the wider psychedelic experience.
It will take a hundred years for something like that to gain traction. I won’t see it in my lifetime. But the seeds are there today.
NP. I totally disagree. I don`t want to be rude, but frankly, you sound like you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.
As it happened, I took my first trip by myself.
There was no shaman, no therapist, no curandero, no church present to manipulate things or my mind.
I still thank my lucky stars for my good fortune.
You’re welcome to disagree, Frank. I really don’t care what ideas you carry in your head, and anyway the whole idea of psychedelics is to “shake the snow globe.”
The best avenue for psychedelics and related compounds like MDMA to become legal is through showing sound medical uses, and that means psychedelic therapists guiding the session. That’s where all the research is going at the moment.
Similarly, a lot of the spiritual journeying coming in from places like Peru is guided by curanderos singing icaros in ceremonies, not just some person randomly tripping on the beach.
If you ask me, these kind of guided experiences are both safer and ultimately more beneficial.
“Similarly, a lot of the spiritual journeying coming in from places like Peru is guided by curanderos singing icaros in ceremonies, not just some person randomly tripping on the beach.”
The setting creates the outcome:
In Peru rainforest figures will visit you on your trip, on the beach lovely ladies.
I know what I will choose.
Here’s another perspective on westerners taking ayahuasca in ‘the jungle’, from an indigenous Ecuadorean woman who points out that this is in fact eroding the traditional culture, undermining the integral unity of man and nature.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jun/17/ayahuasca-tourism-indigenous-peoples-environment-pyschedelics-biodiversity-ecuador
After reading that article, I cancelled my Amazon order for a jaguar tooth necklace.
Somehow reminds me a bit of Kathmandu in the good auld days, when it became a Mecca for dope-smoking hippies. Thousands of freaks stoned out of their heads wandering from hash shop to cannabis centre. Some locals made money from it and the majority scratched their heads in puzzlement. I daresay it introduced new perspectives into Nepalese society and did not do much harm.
The ayahuasca trail is definitely different on that level. The rainforest can be a pretty weird environment to wander about in as a foreigner, especially after a cup of special herbal tea. I prefer my local beach.
Well, the author of that article, Nina Gualinga, is half-Finnish and is studying at a Swedish university. Hardly the perfect source for a plea for indigenous purity.
Other native peoples view these things differently. The Shipibo in Peru are quite welcoming of those seeking healing, as long as the culture is respected.
The whole point Nina Gualina makes is that the culture is not respected by the ‘ayahuasca tourists’, who take the brew with no regard for or understanding of its cultutral context. Which of course is what the West has been doing for centuries to the lands it’s conquered and colonised, while getting extremely rich in the process.
In what ways do the western ayahuasceros (now that sounds glamorous, doesn’t it? Rather like ‘sannyasin’ used to and for some, probably still does) respect the Shipibo culture? I somehow find it hard to imagine many of them bothering with more than a skin-deep immersion in the local indigenous way of life. Or is it considered enough for ‘our lot’ to simply not spoil the places they visit, clear up their litter and generally not behave like a bunch of self-important, over-privileged, or breath-takingly naive, idealistic twats? (lol, I enjoyed writing that).
I wonder just how much help the retreat centres provide for the local population. They’re probably doing exceptionally well financially and therefore outstripping their poorer neighbours and fellow-jungle dwellers (if indeed they all actually live there). Once such people get a taste of wealth and all it can buy, the end of their adherence to their native culture is invariably not too far away. It’s part of ‘westernisation’, the obvious irony being that the cause (or in this case the potential cause) would be sharing their unique psycho-spiritual gifts from Nature with the rest of the world.
Barry Long often used to speak on ‘westernisation’ and regarded its overwhelming materialism as unstoppable: “The East has gone West, there’s now very little of it left, and soon it will all have pretty well disappeared.” Well, let’s see how the Ecuadorean and Peruvian rainforest dwellers get on with this extraordinary influx of spiritual tourists…
Another factor worth mentioning is that far from everyone gets a worthwhile ‘result’ from their expensive trip. Three friends of mine took the plant medicine (two in South America, one somewhere in Europe) and none of them were either transformed or had particularly beneficial experiences.
So what am I doing (basically – but not ideologically – teetotal for many years, getting my ‘highs’ and relative stability from brain entrainment meditation and exercise) thinking about one day having a similar ‘third world’ adventure? Probably a symptom born of longing to simply escape the mundane life before it finally locks me up, with at least the possibility of having a ‘transcendent experience’…and at last to be ‘forever free’ (some hope!) from all manner of hang-ups that so much therapy, meditation and being with spiritual teachers hasn’t managed to shift more than a little here and there. Let’s say I’m open to being surprised…and prepared to be disappointed….
NP writes, “If you ask me, these kind of guided experiences are both safer and ultimately more beneficial.”
NP, the fact is, nobody is asking you because you have no first-hand experience in these matters. Everything you write is based on other peple’s experiences. It is obvious that you do not know what you are talking about. Come back after you do some ayahuasca or drop some good acid. I can assure you, things would look very different to you were you to actually undergo a real psychedelic session.
I tend to agree, it’s rather like someone who’d never played football reading a coaching manual or the history of how the game has evolved and setting himself up as an expert on how it should be taught and played. Or someone who’s never played an instrument or been any good at painting (eg me) imagining that they’re qualified to pronounce on the best ways to develop ability in these areas.
You seem to have a clear head, a good heart and a great capacity for creative imagination, NP, but however well informed, intuitive and empathetic anyone might be, there’s really no substitute for personal experience. This is surely true in every area of life, eg parenting, intimate relationships, sex, or any field of expertise.
I’m not setting myself up as an expert on anything, I’m just passing on and discussing what I read in the book, which was a lot of interesting stuff on research, recent and historical.
And Frank, it sounds like you’re largely ignorant of the experiments done to investigate the workings of psychedelics. You should educate yourself a little more.
Take the Good Friday Experiment done in Harvard in the 1960s. They gave half of a group of post-graduates psilocybin and the other half a placebo, and put them in a church for a few hours. Many of those oN psilocybin reported intense religious experiences. Those on the placebo felt nothing.
Similarly, the use of psychedelics against smoking addiction primes the patient by giving them a number of sessions of smoking education on how unhealthy it is, how it doesn’t benefit you, the cost of it and so on, before a session with psychedelics.
The psychedelic experience is highly suggestible, and different suggestions produce different states of mind and outcomes.
NP I took quite a lot of psychedelics, LSD and Psylocybin mushrooms, picking them myself in the UK and India, Mescaline and later, also MDMA. This was between 1975 and the late 90s. You really think I never heard of the 1960s experiments at Harvard etc?
Mostly I was careful with set and setting, especially early on, although not always.
You are only dreaming about it all and are chiding me for my ignorance.
I hope you see the funny side.
You can learn a lot from a good book about the subject, including a lot of stuff you don’t learn from actually taking it.
Yes, people easily say, “Oh, this experience has changed my life.”
Nobody talks about those who had to go into a madhouse because of this stuff.
Satchit, you say, “Nobody talks about who goes into the madhouse because of this stuff.” In fact there are whole networks of people and online groups of people who are into psychedelics themselves (not to mention the standard media horror stories) keeping track and discussing the whole psychedelic revival with a more critical, sceptical take. It depends where you look.
Although to be fair, with it being flavour of the moment and with the potential for making money out of it gaining ground, there is a massive amount of gung-ho stuff about, for sure.
Streets of LA, two days ago….
NP writes, “Psychedelic substances are subject to set and setting, and can be used to achieve a wide range of effects through that and the intention you carry in your mind.”
Yes, intention can be an important factor. The funny thing is I’ve occasionally got my intention clear and then, when I broke on through to the other side, that intention, along with my ego and mind, went right out the windowless window. Upon arriving back in three-dimensional reality, I remembered I had set out with an intention and thought to myself, “What was that all about?”
NP, why do you not actually take the jump and try something that will give you a wee surprise? A surprise that shows you that you can’t work everything out with that mind of yours. A surprise that throws you into a state of being where all your accumulated knowledge and ideas are shown to be of little value. Dust and detritus gathered during the course of a human lifetime.
I’m one of those who is ‘medically not advised’ to indulge in psychedelic experiences.
“medically not advised”
Maybe you should have said this in the beginnong, then nobody would have tried to convince you to take these psychedelics.
I think they were actually trying to convince you, Satchit.
If I have understood you rightly, NP, you never did take psychedelics.
But you enjoy talking about them.
“Never make the negative the object of your study, because the negative is not there. You can go on and on and you will never arrive anywhere. Try to understand what light is, not darkness. Try to understand what life is, not death. Try to understand what love is, not hate.”
— Osho, The Book of Wisdom
I liked this, it’s a good pointer. When you study and understand negative things, you darken your memory and the lens through which you experience the world. One should study the positive things in life, like the art of loving, like the art of appreciating nature and beauty, the art of enjoying small things.
It’s interesting, lately I have been coming across more Osho-like pieces of reasoning in the media and on the web. Osho definitely seems to have made an impact on modern thinking, and I still think he did much more good than harm.
Well, there’s a massive move towards ‘enlightened wisdom’ that’s been gathering momentum for decades, despite the opposite sort of energy threatening the very existence of humanity having become ever more prevalent.
I totally agree, NP, that “Osho has done much more good than harm” and it even seems a bit of an understatement. I think Osho has played a highly significant role as one of the prime movers, and so have many others, at various levels of influence. I imagine the Akashic records are simply buzzing with all that renewed spiritual energy, that somehow eventually filters through to many circles where it might not necessartily have been expected to flourish.
For instance, this very recent news is a bit of a surprise, although sports have long incorporated cutting-edge psychological insights in order to improve individuals and teams, while for a fan of Bukayo Saka (who seems a delightful chap), Arsenal and Eckhart Tolle, rather heartwarming:
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2025/jun/09/bukayo-saka-self-doubt-return-more-balanced-football-and-life-england
Nice article, I wish Saka well next year at Arsenal. For me, the Champions League games between PSG and Liverpool, and also PSG and Arsenal, were the key matches of the year. Lots of people were very enthused about the Inter v Barcelona matches because they had many goals, but I think the PSG side of the draw had significantly stronger teams.
But agreed about the negative forces. I hear a lot of stuff about how things are going badly with China’s economy and people, how Britain is being affected by collapsing trade and the fallout from Brexit, how the cost of living everywhere is going up and up, how Trump seems to be preparing to bypass democracy by ordering the US National Guard around.
Re the crisis in America, here’s the admirable Mary Trump helping to prepare for Saturday’s nationwide demonstrations against her uncle’s increasingly fascistic regime. It’s all good sense, urging people not to get into violence, to only bring US flags, ie not to give Trump & co. a reason to attack and arrest and destroy more freedoms, and it strikes me that even if we think of ourselves as apolitical, focused on our spiritual inner work, etc. there are times when we just have to stand up against external tyranny, get on to the streets, speak out and not let the oppressors get away with it any longer.
She’s doing a great job here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKREQqu_j5A
Having said all that, it’s hard to envisage anything other than a protracted national crisis in the States, bordering on or actually becoming a civil war. With the usual obscenities: violence against protesters, people being injured and killed by the army and National Guard…not forgetting ongoing media manipulation, lie after lie, and looters and other criminals taking advantage of chaos in the streets…
Although I suspect/hope a tipping point has arrived and hopefully Trump will be shocked at how many Americans detest him and his policies, and sincerely wish him a most unhappy birthday celebration.
The left-behinds of the great society….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0JTNVkhyS8
Yes, it’s interesting how the deployment of troops in LA and New York is also in the heartland of his political enemies, where the people overwhelmingly vote Democrat. No coincidence, I think. It’s like Trump is testing the waters with a manufactured crisis, and is heading towards martial law.
The US is only barely a democracy, with its two party system. In fact I consider the Republican half of the country to be a little mad, the prevailing attitudes are so far removed from what continental Europeans would consider democratic.
To tie the last 2 comments together…https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlePLLlfH4Q
Osho also pronounced in the Ranch days that the USA govt. were “Christian fundamentalists.”
Those guys that I met on Greyhound buses and hitching across the States in the 80s who didn`t know where London was or if they spoke English there, or thought that Belgium sounded like “a helluva town” etc. seemed funny at the time but looking back I guess these are the kind of thickos that have facilitated this present situation.
Trump’s Path to Authoritarianism…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJKKVFpawFE
Satyadeva said, “Well, there’s a massive move towards ‘enlightened wisdom’ that’s been gathering momentum for decades.”
It seems to be attracting some people, if you look on YouTube among the bloggers you will find them, and if you look in any large bookshop you will find the books. But aside from Oprah, the mainstream media seems to be resistant to it.
The whole ‘internet bubble’ phenomenon seems to lead a lot of people to not select their information for enlightened wisdom. Instead they select politics, or national news, or at best, self-help.
If you really wanted to know, there are surveys like these, which says 22% of US citizens are spiritual but not religious.
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2023/12/07/spirituality-among-americans/
22% is quite a high portion, I’d say. I recall Maharishi used to say that if 1% of the population practised TH it would transform society (debatable, yes, but 22 times that number is another matter entirely. Although how many of the “spiritual” people are transforming and how many just like the label, the self-image?).
I don`t know about people becoming “spiritual” “transforming” the world. What does that even mean?
I know a guy who was a TM teacher for 35 years. Meditated keenly all that time. He’s now a keen supporter of Reform and Nigel Farage. In fact, my observation is people who have been affiliated to so-called spiritual groups are more likely/higher-than-average to fall into conspiracy-laden right-wing crap, up to and including thinking Trump is some kind of necessary crazy wisdom or saviour or whatever.
Why? Probably because, in the case of Maharishi, the guy was a Hindu-style fascist to start with, and that reflected in his org.
Plus, so-called spirituality is laden with conspiracy beliefs:
“The world is going to hell because the unconscious masses are not meditating and the chosen will save it.”
Same sort of Qanon drivel which is fuelling Trumpji.
Whether it’s Christian or Hindu doesn`t make much difference.
“I don`t know about people becoming “spiritual” “transforming” the world. What does that even mean?”
I think Maharishi was suggesting, or claiming, that TM makes people calmer, more peaceful, healthier, clearer-headed, and that if there were enough achieving this then these effects would tend to spread into their surroundings, having a beneficial effect upon others.
“…in the case of Maharishi, the guy was a Hindu-style fascist to start with….”
That I’ve never heard, Frank. Where’s the evidence, please?
Very quickly:
Try this from Global Good News, a Maharishi promotion site:
“Maharishi also alerted the press to watch for another sign of the rise of coherence in world consciousness: the demise of the democratic system of administration, particularly in India — the world’s largest democracy. “Damn democracy,” Maharishi said. “It is a waste of energy, a waste of time, and a waste of hope. It is the greatest crime against the life of a country because party politics divide brother against brother and undermine the integrity of the nation.”
Maharishi also condemned democracy for forcing a continual turnover in government: “It is just a matter of common sense. If you change your parents every four years, what will happen to the children? If you change the government every four years, what will happen to the whole population?”
Or, live on American TV, Larry King show: “I believe in God. And I believe in the custody of God vested in kings” and “I want to establish a government in every country…I say ‘damn the democracy’ because it’s not a stable government.”
This is the MAGA/Modi etc. playbook to a tee.
SD, you are complaining about Trump but supporting people like this and their ideas.
No, Frank, I wasn’t supporting this stuff at all, I’ve never heard that he promulgated such ideas. I was simply quoting Maharishi on the effects of TM.
Release me immediately, I’m innocent!
OK, but don`t forget to sign up….
Sign up? I’m running the thing!
I expect business is booming!
I don`t doubt that many forms of meditation, even if proposed by fascists, racists, sexists, homophobes, misogynists and sex-offenders can be experienced as having positive effects.
It`s very fascinating to follow the history of ideas around these practices and how so-called seekers are very often unaware of the fascistic, powertrippy and rapey leanings of gurus, yoga teachers etc. because they are taken in by what they take as “positive” or even world-redeeming ideas.
I may even have been there myself.
Meditation does make you more open to people, as a general rule. But not everyone chooses to live their meditation day-to-day.
In Gabor Maté’s book on the toxic culture there is a bit where he says in the introduction, “people are using drugs to help them cope with their living situation, from prescription sleeping aids to alcohol to fentanyl to heroin”. We are running brains evolved for situation 1.0 in world 5.0, and they are having trouble adjusting.
The result is an epidemic of mental ill health, maladjustment and unhappiness. Depression and anxiety are commonplace. And instead of tackling this at its root, today’s leaders are feeding the trend by encouraging xenophobia.
We lack wise leaders. The quality of wisdom seems to be much under-appreciated in elections, because it is hard to define.
NP copy and pastes the following quote.:“People are using drugs to help them cope with their living situation, from prescription sleeping aids to alcohol to fentanyl to heroin.”
Really, man, is that bit of tired news supposed to send a shockwave through SN?
Lokesh once again responds to the only piece of a post he can be critical about….
NP draws the following conclusion: “We lack wise leaders.”
Deep.
Yeah, it is. Back in the days of tribal villages, wisdom was a cherished characteristic that would get you on the council of elders. Nowadays who do we elect? A bunch of liars according to who tells the best story.
There`s a great satisfaction in bland truisms and the blatantly obvious though, isn`t there?
I guess it accounts for the appeal of football pundits and the like:
“At the end of the day, Brian, it`s all about scoring more goals than the opposition.”
“Well, yes. Gary, goals win games.”
“Aye, Brian, you`ve got to play to the whistle and get the ball in the back of the net.”
“You`re not wrong there, Brian”, etc. etc. etc….
If the words “we lack wise leaders” is such a truism, why don’t you see more about it in the media or the press? I’m more inclined to put it in the category of “so obviously true once you hear it that you don’t even wonder that you didn’t come up with it yourself.”
“Well, Brian, what the team is lacking is leaders.”
“That`s right, Gary, there is a distinct lack of leadership around the football club, and the world, actually.”
“Someone needs to step up, roll their sleeves up and take the planet by the scruff of the neck, Brian.”
“You`re not wrong, Gary. Where are all the no-nonsense leaders and characters in the game these days? Where are the Chopper Churchills and the Maggie “Psycho” Thatchers?”
“Makes you pine for the good old days when things were a bit more tribal and played by good, honest, primitive lads, not like your money and image-obsessed billionaires, narcissists and cheats of today.”
“Too right, Gary.”
“Hang on, Gary, there’s the Russian skipper, he’s not averse to ‘putin it about’, is he? Then there’s that Israeli manager geyser, Netanyahoo, he’s always jumping up and down yelling his head off like a bloody maniac for more than a bit of the old aggro…
After all, it’s all about possession, isn’t it, territorial advantage, total domination of all areas, both halves, midfield, both boxes, the wings, the hole, every single blade of grass on and off the pitch, home and away, surely?
But frankly, I reckon the American guy trumps the lot in the modern game, he even wants to go after a load of the home fans! Did you see his lot the other day? Gave ‘em a right kickin’. Great if you can get away with it, I reckon…Proves there’s still some good, honest primitive lads around, that’s for sure, eh?”
“Certainly does, it’s back to basics, Brian, you’ve got to boss not just the opposition but the dodgy fans as well – and not only in midfield, but all over the friggin’ pitch, taking them out before they get anywhere near your goal – and before trying the fancy stuff like talking with ‘em!”
“The game’s a war, Gary, it’s kill or be killed, it’s that important these days!”
Well, Brian, at the end of the day…
it gets dark.
A couple of weeks ago, I attended a small poker game held in the main expat pub in the area. Unfortunately, an ‘important’ football match was being shown on several large TVs. The place was packed with ardent fans. Goal! The cry would go up, the local fans jubilant.
Occasionally. I would look up from the card table and glance at a widescreen TV. What I saw was the same old boring shite that I have seen so many times before. A packed stadium, players cutting their victory moves, and replays of goals. It made me feel that I was living on a primitive planet, where the monkeys get off on the same old story repeatedly.
I’ve noticed SD and NP are football fans. I never read their football match-oriented comments.
In general, I am not a sports fan. Since ancient times, the masses have been kept entertained by ‘the games’. Some things never change.
But Lokesh, isn’t everything the “same old boring shite”? After all, “what has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.”
The mind is ever in pursuit of new truths to add to its store of knowledge, but after most of a human lifetime it begins to see that there is no point to it.
NP asks, “Isn’t everything the “same old boring shite”?”
I have to say no, it is not. There are days when I have to work at it, but boredom is something I rarely suffer from. Every morning we wake up and what we make of the rest of the day is up to us. Or is it?
Could it be the case that the illusion of Free Will is the belief that we can somehow choose a course of action contrary to what is causally determined to happen. In other words, the illusion is that we can choose or not choose what we choose.
In reality, everything that happens is exactly the way it is supposed to be according to causality and the laws that govern nature, and everything that happens has always existed and will always exist unchanged, for eternity.
Who knows? I enjoy painting.
I went through a phase where I thought football was boring, and many other things were boring too because they were “known”. Then I realised that that idea of things being known is the mind looking for shortcuts, it’s being efficient.
If you set the mind’s subroutines aside and focus just on experiencing, football becomes like ballet, the “beautiful game” or “o jogo bonito” as Pele called it…a fleeting expression of skill on the football field.
The beautiful game? That is a real instance of beauty being in the eye of the beholder.
There exists much evidence to support the claim that football is a form of ritualized warfare which evolved from ancient tribal disputes. The Tartan Army marches south.
But beauty is always in the eye of the beholder. Where else shall it be?
With your painting too, some may find it beautiful, some not.
I saw that WhatsApp is going to start displaying ads in its Updates tab. I think a lot of people will see that move, see that it is owned by Meta, and see the writing on the wall. Signal may be gaining a lot of new customers soon.
I’ve noticed that a lot of vibrant communities from like a decade ago are no longer flourishing. I think it is all down to people migrating to Facebook, which I don’t really understand because what is so great about Facebook? I don’t appreciate it tracking me, or spewing my interests all over the place…
My grandson told me that only old people still use Facebook. It is one of my go-to sites if I want to spend ten minutes reading and there are some interesting posts. For instance, I just read this on Facebook:
“They taught you the heart was just a glorified meat pump. That it squeezes and pushes blood like some crude mechanical device. A hydraulic engine made of flesh. That is what they want you to believe. Because if you buy into that primitive lie, you never ask deeper questions.
But it is false. It has always been false. And the real science proves it.
Dr Francisco Torrent-Guasp, a Spanish cardiac researcher, discovered what the textbooks refuse to acknowledge, that the heart is not a pump. He dissected thousands of hearts and found that the heart is a single continuous muscle band, folded into a spiral. He proved the heart works like a vortex generator, creating suction and torque, not pressure.
He called it the Helical Ventricular Myocardial Band and it changes everything.
The real movement of blood comes from pressure differentials, electromagnetic flow, and coherent resonance. The blood spirals naturally. It does not need to be forced through miles of arteries and capillaries. That idea is beyond stupid. The so-called pump is not strong enough to push thick fluid through 60,000 miles of tubing. That is basic physics. That lie was dead on arrival.
Here is the truth. Blood moves before the heart forms in the embryo. It flows via frequency, resonance, and electric charge. The body is a field, not a factory.
Your heart creates a toroidal electromagnetic field that radiates six metres from the body. This field syncs with the Earth, the Sun, and every living being around you. It is a resonator. A tuner. A conductor. It aligns the rhythm of your cells. It feels. It remembers. It emits. And it responds to emotion, thought, light, sound, and breath.
When you feel love, grief, fear, or peace, your heart transmits it. It is the central frequency modulator of your biology. Not a fucking pump.
And the institutions know this. The HeartMath Institute has measured these fields for decades. They know the heart has more neuronal cells than parts of the brain. They know it is a second brain. They know coherence in the heart transforms the entire nervous system.
So why are they still teaching children a 400-year-old guess from William Harvey that has never been updated?
Because if you knew the truth, you would never accept statins or beta blockers again. You would understand that trauma, emotion, and disconnection break the heart field, not cholesterol. You would stop obeying the medical cartel and start tuning your body like the intelligent frequency field it is.
They do not want coherent humans. They want disrupted, inflamed, fragmented people who rely on drugs to survive. That is the business model. And the fake heart pump lie is central to it.
Your heart is not a pressure valve. It is a vortex. A field tuner. A resonating gateway between physical and energetic worlds.
It is the instrument of your soul.
And it has been hijacked by science that refuses to evolve.”
(Jamie Freeman)
Ah, thanks, McLoke, for this quoted article.
Another impulse towards following the heart, vibration, energy field etc.
Not the tit-for-tat of the mind with its pros and cons and separatedness. Or stuckness. Even stuck in circles.
“Die Ränder des Universums” – “The Edges of the Universe”
https://www.zdf.de/play/dokus/das-universum-eine-reise-durch-raum-und-zeit-112/das-universum-eine-reise-durch-raum-und-zeit–der-rand-des–universums-100
Scientists found that these ‘edges’ are moving farther and farther ‘outside’.
They discovered a galaxy named ‘DNZ11′ which was created 13.4 billion light years ago – when everyting started.
When measuring its current distance, the instruments showed it is 32 billion light years away!
How is that possible?
The universe expands at increasing speed!
Science has not solved the question of the ‘dichotomy of mind and matter’. Still.
ChatGPT’s conclusion:
“The mind-body dichotomy remains a profound and unresolved issue in science and philosophy. While materialism offers explanations grounded in physical processes, it struggles to account for the subjective nature of consciousness. Dualist perspectives, though providing a framework for understanding the mind as distinct from the body, face challenges in explaining the interaction between the two. As research continues, interdisciplinary approaches combining neuroscience, philosophy, and quantum physics may offer new insights into this enduring question.” (mindicons.com)
The mind is puzzled. The heart is awed.
With Ramana M. it is all One.
Cheers!
And clearly it’s all also:
“Z.& B.”*
*Zorba & Buddha.
You guessed it. 4vsure.
Interesting article, Lokesh. A different way of looking at the heart, indeed.
What Satchit does not seem to behold is that his smug and trite comments act as conversation stoppers on SN. His state of complacency is so dense that it does not register in his dull mind that his comments often end the back-and-forth exchanges between other commentators.
There are a few reasons why this takes place. Predominantly for me it is a case that, when I bother to read Satchit’s daft comments, I think to myself, why bother writing here when numbskulls like Satchit keep showing up like a pesky fly, who believes his self-satisfied one-liners are somehow of interest to other readers, when in reality they are a cringe-inducing turn off?
You make me smile, Lokesh.
Your accusations are a bit repetitive, but ok.
Things are simple: you express yourself, I express myself.
Why should I be different to make you happy?
Did you not mention lately that everybody plays his role?
That was very wise, old fellow.
You play your role, I play my role.
Namaste!
Satchit writes, “Why should I be different to make you happy?”
My happiness has nothing whatsoever to do with you behaving differently. Perhaps it would be a good exercise for you to try writing something different that generates some interest from other commentators. Otherwise, you will just continue to write your uninspiring drivel as per usual.
Lokesh, I have no longing to become the chief inspiration on this small SN Island.
This is already your job.
“What is is, what is not, is not.”
(Unknown Guru)
I reckon SN thrives on people inspiring each other. Satchit. Lokesh is not wrong in suggesting that you try to do your bit. If you can’t come up with anything original, why don’t you send in Osho quotes? Whatever else you may say about the Old Boy, he was rarely boring.
Appreciated, NP.
NP, people are inspired by different things. For example,you by football, Lokesh not at all.
Same here, so there are no rules with inspiration. Lokesh is inspired by a small sentence of mine and explodes. This is how things go. I am also often bored by things you write. But do I complain? No.
I came to the result that inspiring myself is the best, no others are needed.
Om Shanti.
I don’t think you quite understand, Satchit. Lokesh thinks your replies are so ordinary, so trite, so self-satisfied that while he mostly looks away, he sometimes explodes.
And I have to agree with him, your “sentences” rarely add very much to the discussion. Why not contribute I Ching passages? Or fortune cookie quotes? I can’t imagine it being less sensible.
This is funny, NP.
I see that you have a special connection with Lokesh. You have become already a mind-reader who knows what he “thinks”.
Who are you to judge me? This is not Sannyas style.
Oh, I see, you have dropped it.
Hope this adds to the discussion!
Today I have been reading George Gurdjieff’s book ‘Meetings with Remarkable Men’. I know, late to the party, but I found it on my late stepfather’s bookshelf and thought I might try it. Good thing too, because the first fifty pages were excellent.
In the introduction I found an interesting statement, that literature forms the mind of the next generation, and that modern literature (post 1920) had lost its soul, that vast amounts of irrelevant junk were created. It gave ‘A Thousand and One Nights’ as a book which carried soul and truth in the form of fantastical stories.
From the vast amounts of books I have read in my life, I would have to agree, relatively few really made a difference. Most were a moment’s entertainment and nothing more. After a decade of not reading fiction, there is very little that comes to mind when I cast about for great stories.
So let’s remember ‘The Lord of the Rings’. ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’. ‘Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea’. ‘Dune’. These are undeniably great stories, but do they truly have soul? I think that arguably they do not, perhaps that quality should be sought more in Paulo Coelho’s ‘The Alchemist’, which has a more ephemeral quality.
I find it curious, what feels to me like entertainment and what is ‘soul food’. And I’m indebted to Gurdjieff for drawing attention to the distinction.
‘Meetings’ is one of my favourite books.
There are many great novels, old and new. I am an avid reader. If interested, I have plenty of suggestions.
I am interested in what novels you would consider “food for the soul’”Only the very greatest, like the top 5 books or so.
I used to read a book a day and did for decades, mostly in the science fiction and fantasy spheres, although I have a solid grounding in the classics. The thing I find nowadays is that those stories lacked a reason to cherish them and come back to them.
Perhaps ‘The Little Prince’. ‘Johnathan Livingston Seagull’. ‘Siddhartha’.
Perhaps ‘Eat Pray Love’. Or ‘Cloud Atlas’. Or ‘Spirited Away’.
It’s interesting how these books and movies are not always highly rated, but they carry life.
NP, you could begin with ‘The Magus’ by John Fowles. Decades ahead of its time on a psychological level.
‘Birdsong’ by Sebastian Faulks is an unsurpassable masterpiece of fiction writing. Epic story.
‘The Master And Margarita’: Mikhail Bulgakov. Brilliant fiction from one of Russia’s greatest novelists.
And last but not least, ‘Fatherland’ by Robert Harris, one of my favourite novelists. Read it for a third time last year. Great story.
That should keep you going.
Oh, I forgot, ‘Mind Bomb’ by Luke Mitchell, ha ha. One Amazon reviewer writes: “A friend had been banging on about this book to me for months. He eventually lent me his copy and I enjoyed it so much that I finally got around to ordering this edition and was surprised that there were no reviews. Then I found an earlier edition with a different cover and many reviews, half of which were ranked 5 stars with headlines like “Compelling reading”, “Wickedly funny” etc. It really deserves 5 stars, but I am certain that many readers would disagree because, in places, the subject matter is acerbic, extremely violent, druggy, way beyond left-field, and oozes dark humour that is as black as tar. Maybe it is a Scottish thing, because ‘Mind Bomb’ is a very Scottish story. Think Irvine Welsh’s earlier work with an added crazy wisdom perspective.
From the moment I started reading Mind Bomb, I was immediately drawn into the plot about a man who sits on a landmine. During the early stages of the story, I was surprised to find myself immersed in the escapades of a bunch of unruly kids on The Isle of Iona. Next part of the story takes place on the brutally violent streets of Glasgow. Then it’s on to the exploits of a gang of hilarious drug dealers, who make Cheech and Chong look pale in comparison. In the midst of all this there are profound soul-searching and philosophical discussions going on in Sri Lanka and Cambodia. It all comes together like a complex jigsaw puzzle, leaving you thinking, I better order the second book and, in my case, the third also.
The Tyro Series is a remarkable literary accomplishment. The author has created a vast landscape, peopled by diverse characters, ranging from drug addicts to Indian gurus. It is a multifaceted and fascinating mosaic with a sometimes hyperbolic, sometimes absurd sense of humour pulsing at its audacious heart. ‘Mind Bomb’ and the two sequels are contemporary fiction at its fun-loving and adventurous best.”
Hi NP,
Probably you know this already – here is the youtube video on the book of Gurdjieff:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYhv0O0gUTk
Quite something. Watched it several times; first time in 1982 at the Glastonbury Festival in one of the esoteric programmes.
I came across a wonderful short docu film about how the indigenous people of Amazonian Ecuador see the current commercialisation of ayahuasca, it’s worth watching:
https://youtu.be/8jG6B0o1QfQ
They hold that to take the medicine away from the jungle and the indigenous way of life is to weaken it, to make it more self-centred and egotistical. They don’t think the Western ayahuasqueros are able to connect to the jungle in the short time they are training there.
But they also have a wider perspective, about how Western companies come looking for what they can use: oil, rubber, medicinal plants. And then they try to extract these things. Extractivism, they call it, a style of living based on extraction. It’s many people working and getting paid a little to ultimately make a few people very rich.
That’s what the Guardian article I flagged up (yesterday, 1.03pm) was about, NP.
Yes, interesting. Thanks for pointing it out. The docu also has a somewhat different view from the article, in that it doesn’t argue against aya tourism, but instead talks about the difficulty of separating the medicine from the jungle, and the pressures the indigenous people face.
Some of these aya retreats seem to me a fair exchange. People come from all over the world and pay a few thousand dollars each for a two week stay, and it is up to the retreat centres how they spend that money to support the local populations.
In a way, it seems to me indigenous people should be making it clear that they have something to offer to the world. That they have a role in global society, based on the medicines and the traditions.
So, should you expect to be transformed by a plant medicine experience? SD, you said your friends were not, so obviously not everyone is. Lokesh also has said that he knows of people who have done psychedelics a hundred times and weren’t significantly changed by it.
Yet if you are depressed, it can offer a life-changing amount of relief. Or if you carry a heavy trauma, it can allow you to experience the equivalent of ten years of therapy in a single night. Or if you are addicted to smoking or alcohol, it gives you a 50-70% chance of being able to quit in just one session. It can be transformative for those kinds of people.
When people try and achieve a spiritual breakthrough, it can also be very successful. There was a study with psilocybin where the participants rated the experience consistently one of the top 5 most significant experiences in their lives, alongside the birth of their children for example.
But from the stories I’ve heard if you experience that high and you go chasing after re-experiencing it, that is often much less successful.
Spiritual experiences are still an experience. Transformation happens beyond experience.
His Holiness, Satchit, speaking from experience.
Yes, speaking from experience.
Where are your spiritual experiences?
In your memory.
What is now?
I think what Satchit is hinting at is the development of the mind through observation from ‘gross to subtle’:
From
Thinking
to
Feeling
to
Being
to
Not being.
Actually, this is an Osho quote. Haha – that is how I remember it…
Implying that psychedelic trips may contain (wild) pictures and (wild) stories and thoughts and feelings.
But not non-being.
Then again, these trips (as in Holotropic breathing sessions) can be transpersonal – beyond the biographical story – and transcendental also.
Before the experience of ‘pure being’ before fading away…into nirvana non-existence.
And then coming BACK again!
When starting meditation one certainly is sucked into thoughts, feelings, stories for hours.
At some point, the direction might change: being sucked into no-mind.
Back and forth, back and forth.
Hooooops.
Of these three, one had been significantly traumatised, the other two to lesser extents but were still somewhat dysfunctional, and one (who had a very large number of lsd trips as a teenager and young man) had an alcohol problem.
I don’t know from experience, but I do know from people who had addiction problems and were 100% free of their addiction after trying it, that ibogaine is top of the pops on that level. It is a psychoactive indole alkaloid derived from plants such as Tabernanthe iboga, characterized by hallucinogenic and oneirogenic effects. Traditionally used by Central African foragers, it has undergone controversial research for the treatment of substance use disorders.
Ibogaine exhibits complex pharmacology by interacting with multiple neurotransmitter systems, notably affecting opioid, serotonin, sigma and NMDA receptors, while its metabolite noribogaine primarily acts as a serotonin reuptake inhibitor and κ-opioid receptor agonist.
I met a man in Lucknow who had been an alcoholic for 25 years, and one ibogaine session wiped the slate clean. It is a very powerful substance and I have no inclination to try it. The Lucknow man told me that when he took ibogaine in Gabon he went into a death-like state for three days. When he returned to the human realm he was completely cured. Not only that, he was a very quiet and meditative human being to hang out with. I liked him.
NP, you have a lot of ideas about psychedelics that are not based that much in reality. For instance, you write, “If you are addicted to smoking or alcohol, it gives you a 50-70% chance of being able to quit in just one session.” That is a load of bollocks. Tim Leary was chain-smoking before he died…he had nothing to lose. I have a shaman friend who loves smoking roll-ups. I asked him about this when I first met him and he told me that tobacco takes the edge off visiting the strange dimensions he visits. And please don’t tell me some nonsense about it all having something to do with intention.
Psychedelics are not miracle drugs. They might show you something special but it is the user who has to integrate these psychedelic experiences into daily living…or else it was all for nothing, which might not be a bad thing.
Yes, I indeed know of people who have done psychedelics a hundred times and weren’t significantly changed by it. But that is only part of a very big picture. I also have friends whose lives took a dramatic change in a positive direction from just one powerful psychedelic experience. I also know people who took psychedelics, but decided the sunny side of the street was not their thing and later entered the shadowland of heroin addiction, only to die of an overdose. I also know people who use heroin but somehow manage to maintain a successful lifestyle, even to the point of playing tennis every day.
We are complex beings living in a complex world. As far as psychedelic drugs go, they are very difficult to pin down in so many words. Everyone is different. Everyone is unique. There are no fixed rules in these matters. It all depends….
Lokesh said, ” “If you are addicted to smoking or alcohol, it gives you a 50-70% chance of being able to quit in just one session.” That is a load of bollocks.”
The curing rate I gave is directly taken from several scientific studies, which all reported similar numbers. These studies used a ‘psychotherapy assisted psilocybin session’, where therapy is used to prepare for the session. It’s in the Michael Pollan book, ‘How to Change Your Mind’.
Not everyone who takes psilocybin (magic mushrooms) unassisted is going to see those numbers, it has to do with set and setting, and yes, intention.
If you are addicted to smoking or alcohol, it gives you a 50-70% chance of being able to quit in just one session.
NP, if you believe that nonsense, you will believe anything.
NP, if the doctor says you cannot take psychedelics because of some danger to your health, psychological or physiological you never clarified, why do you insist on returning to a subject you have no first-hand experience of? Quoting what ‘authorities’ say on the matter all comes down to which one you choose to believe.
It looks to me like it is a case of the forbidden fruit having the most allure for you. I much prefer when you talk from personal experience, not from what someone else has said, which comes across as inauthentic.
Came across this article in The Guardian today:
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/jun/21/alanis-morissette-interview-sex-addiction-midlife-liberation-and-the-predatory-90s
Californians (with money…) are quite far into the experimental phase. Compared to other parts of the world:
“Morissette believes medicine should embrace all the woo-woo, including psilocybin (the hallucinogenic compound found in some mushrooms) or MDMA treatments for PTSD. “I think it’s all fantastic. The future in medicine – pharma is not maybe going to be so happy hearing this – is prevention, heading things off at the pass; understanding things hormonally, emotionally, circumstantially, relationally to past traumas. So that includes microdosing, ketamine, or whatever you need to do. We’ve come a long way; people know how to do this now, so I’m excited.” ”
So, they are doing all kinds of therapy things as a mixture – family therapy, meditation, mushrooms, mdma, etc.
I am wondering, when the microdosing will make it into the current settings in therapy. On a more general level – in the industrialised countries.
@Lokesh
Pfff, inauthentic schmentic. If you read an interesting book with well-researched scientific facts in it, you should be able to discuss it like adults.
You want to bring your personal experience to the table, that’s fine, you discuss your experience. But you shouldn’t try to set yourself up as the only valid source of knowledge on a pet subject. That’s not cool, man.
@Klaus
Yes, the West Coast is quite permissive. In Oregon they already have State-supported psilocybin therapy clinics. They’re on the cutting edge.
But the US Federal Government institutions are much more conservative. There is an organisation called MAPS, which has been working for decades to get acknowledged that MDMA has proper medical uses in trauma treatment. They spent around 100 million USD on a Phase 3 trial to finally get this publicly acknowledged, and the FDA (food and drug administration) advisory committee turned it down on a series of minor technicalities.
If it had gone through, MDMA would have come off the list of scheduled substances.
SD writes, “Three friends of mine took the plant medicine (two in South America, one somewhere in Europe) and none of them were either transformed or had particularly beneficial experiences.”
Sounds like a throwback to the sixties…”I took acid and I didn’t feel a thing.”
The problem lies in not scoring the real deal…a case of stating the obvious.
I do not subscribe to the idea that you need to go to a South American rainforest to drink some foul-tasting brew in order to live the full experience. That is nonsense. Some of my most fantastic psychedelic trips took place on mountain tops in the Scottish Highlands. Believe me, those trips were utterly unsurpassable in terms of beauty and life-affirming experience. My legs are not what they once were and so those days are over.
I’ll be heading up there next month and I might well be tempted to….
I remember a trip with my dad to Scotland, we flew into Edinburgh and rented a car with which we made a journey across to Fort William, touching on various whiskey distilleries on the way. I bought a bottle of Dalwhinnie Distiller’s Edition for us to share, we had a wee dram every evening while we spent our days walking up and down the mountains. We walked the traditional path up Ben Nevis, visited the Isle of Skye, and had a look at the famous railway aquaduct where they filmed the Harry Potter scenes. It was a great holiday.
Yes, NP. sounds like a good trip. I love the west coast of Scotland. Next time, try and make it to the Outer Hebrides.
I have a strong bond with the Cairngorms.
Once had Energy Darshan with Teertha in P1. Later, back in Germany the high Lamas
of the Sannyas Org told us he was kind of an egomaniac traitor …In our OM Centre in Bremen I even had a one day group with him, shortly before his reputation was lowered in the above ways…Someone in that group there playfully and innocent challenged his ego I do remember.
Shangri-La?
Get to see this almost restored classic interesting movie: “Lost Horizon” It’s a must for disciples and friends…
https://alugha.com/videos/91e45630-6107-11ee-ab3a-d5ce292aca38?lang=eng&fbclid=IwY2xjawLB54RleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETFDWHNOMmd4NDc0bTcyc2VoAR4g3wsWXMt3DLc7bY4uwL6fOEI8OzgOBvCDEGOke4c3Q1KDTf_915R8c19qXA_aem_-GQqfo48zSmDKxSblQxfTg
Thanks, Veet Tom, for the link!
Read the book. Now watched the movie, too.
Loved it!
Just to drop this rare photo if you didn’t know it.
Recognize the TWO ???
Cool old foto of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and Osho! It must have been taken in the time when Osho would tour and do lectures, judging by the colour of his hair. He had not yet gone grey there…
Thanks, Veet Tom!
That’s surely an AI-created photo!
SD, Check the Akashik records:
https://sannyasnews.org/now/archives/5365
It was surely one of the earliest spiritual rap battles with two 20th century heavyweight megastars from the the same Eastside `hood, freestyling and going head to head on the same mic.
Maharishi:
Yo! You say there`s no method that anyone can do
But I just got one question: ”Who the fuck are you?”
I`m the Maharishi yogi everybody knows me
I`m bigger than Neem Karoli and all those smalltime yogis
I got loads of gora babes who just queue up to blow me
When it comes to fame, you`re so far below me.
Now, you tryin` to grab the mic and talking your baloney
But remember this, bro`, these goras here, they`re MY homies.
Bhagwan:
Yeah, sure I know ya
You the nigga whose homies chant “Coca Cola”
Your methods strictly for the retards to get mental Ebola.
Your methods are bullock cart to my top-of-the-range Roller
Your levitation shit is totally crass
Like you bouncing up and down and kicking your own ass
Wise up bro` and wise up fast
I`m gonna be the master of masters with my neo-sannyas.
Maharishi:
I got the Beatles, Donovan and the Beach Boys
All I hear from you is a load of chaishop noise
I got John, Paul, George and Ringo
You just got some hippies banging on a bongo
Sharpen up your rap, bro`, and try to learn the lingo
Knock up a couple of techniques, flog `em, then…Bingo!
You`re gonna outsell me? Lol. I don`t think so.
Bhagwan:
Ok so you hit the bigtime and you`ve been on TV
But wipe that phoney smile offa your face when you`re talking to me
I`m the consciousness expander
You just suffering from delusions of grandeur.
You can sell your mantras, but I`m gonna give them tantra
See, nothing`s gonna sell like “turn on, tune in and drop your pants”, yeah?
More on this alleged meeting of great no-minds…
https://o-meditation.com/osho/osho-meets-with-followers-of-maharishi-mahesh-yogi/#:~:text=In%201969%20followers%20of%20the,Osho%20to%20talk%20to%20them.
So, to get to the nub of this subtle philosophical/spiritual distinction being expounded by the two wise men:
For Maharishi, shagging his disciples and keeping it quiet was an achievement, whereas for Osho, shagging his disciples and keeping it quiet was a natural outcome of having no mind.
I was just reading a bit in Osho’s book ‘Beyond Enlightenment’ and there was this question by Maitri about how to search for truth and whether to apply effort.
Osho’s answer was, there are many who will listen to this, and for some who cannot make another decision, effort will be right. But in general… “A simple criterion should be remembered: whatever feels good for you — blissful, peaceful, spontaneous, happening on its own accord — that is your path.”
I thought this was a very beautiful passage, in that it makes clear that the areas where one works hard and grinds out a result, then you are moving in the wrong direction. It is very hard to create a thing of beauty when you are forcing yourself.
NP delivers the following Osho quote: “A simple criterion should be remembered: whatever feels good for you — blissful, peaceful, spontaneous, happening on its own accord — that is your path.”
This was, in essence, Osho’s great appeal. He basically told people to do what they wanted. Unfortunately, some people feel good doing weird shit that hurts other people. Today, plenty of evidence supports the idea that certain individuals doing whatever felt good to them in Osho’s communes did a lot of damage.
NP concludes, “It is very hard to create a thing of beauty when you are forcing yourself.” This statement subscribes to the ‘easy is right’ philosophy, wherein if something feels easy it is the right way to go, as opposed to something being difficult means it is the wrong way to go. As a rule of thumb, this is an absurd notion.
Creating some of mankind’s greatest works of art must have been extremely difficult, yet many artists persevered and created unsurpassable masterpieces. There are many examples. In this case, I choose Michelangelo’s ‘David.’ NP, do you imagine for a moment that it must have been easy to cut such a wonderful statue from a twenty-foot-high block of marble? Study the hand and give a response, of course, only if it happens of its own accord.
If somebody has the skills to do something, then it is easy. Michelangelo had the skills to create.
the David.
I disagree, Satchit, you seem to have an over-romanticised view on the matter, as some things are extremely difficult, arduous, eg as illustrated by a tv programme I watched yesterday, on creating roads through mountainous areas along the Austria/Germany border in the mid/late 19th century that included blowing up many sections of mountain sides from very close quarters, continually putting workers’ lives in danger.
Even the most gifted artists, writers, musiciams, actors, dancers, sports people have emphasised that not a lot is achieved without hard work, a greater or lesser degree of sacrifice, a willingness to keep going through difficult periods when inspiration or form deserts them.
It certainly isn’t always “easy” although it seems for some it can be. I recently heard Paul McCartney saying writing, recording and playing, however many hours and revisions it took, never really felt like “work” in the normally understood meaning of the word, for which he felt extremely grateful, blessed.
So we are saying that Osho’s words, however beautiful and appealing, do not constitute the whole truth? It wouldn’t be the first time, that is for sure.
Perhaps the guidance of ‘follow what makes you blissful’ is just to be applied to the spiritual search? It was interesting because in that question he was on one level answering the questioner, and on another level he was talking to all sannyasins. Which is devilishly tricky.
In the end it is all just fingers pointing to the Moon, and you have to see for yourself what you can take from a certain question and answer. If it brings even a little illumination that is a win.
“So we are saying that Osho’s words, however beautiful and appealing, do not constitute the whole truth? It wouldn’t be the first time, that is for sure.”
NP, that’s exactly so, as he contradicted himself so much. He was himself the message, as much or more than his words. And he often said one thing in a discourse and another in giving individual advice to people at close quarters in darshan.
An obvious example comes to mind from my own experience, when shortly after coming to Pune for the first time I took up Maharishi’s TM again, having finished with it (or rather it having finished with me) about 6 years before due to having become chronically depressed to an extent that nullified its effects. 15 months of regular dynamic meditation had obliterated that malaise well before coming to India but the new surroundings were a shock to the system and I felt I needed more inner support, as it were. I was wary of revealing this to ‘Bhagwan’ as I knew he’d heavily criticised TM, calling it akin to “sucking on a tit”, “a primary school method” and “transcendental sleep” amongst other derogatory remarks. But in an early darshan I did mention it and he said fine, no problem, or words to that effect. So without any inner conflict I carried on with the practice until after a week or two I dropped it, the need had just disappeared.
I recently came across a quote by Pele, which was “I was born to play football, just as Beethoven was born to write music and Michelangelo was born to paint.” If you have a great talent like Paul McCartney also did, perhaps you should just follow what comes naturally in order to discover it.
Osho was also a man of great talents, so it kind of stands to reason that he would make this observation. But maybe everyone has a great talent, and these just go undiscovered, while most people force themselves into contortions to do things they are not suited to.
Come off it, SD. It`s obviously just as easy to write a classic novel or legendary play as it is for Satchit to trot out some half-digested pseudo-zen fortune cookie cliches on SN.
And Michelangelo painting the Sistine Chapel is as easy as Satchit slumping in his heavily-stained sofa, switching on the telly, opening a beer and watching the football. Although to be fair, it can be quite difficult for him to remember to get up and go to the toilet before relieving himself.
Velly funny, Frankieboy!
Easy as shooting fish in a barrel, bro.
“Easy – like a sunday morning”
Commodores
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aCsZ3_db_Fk
This song…
I would say “easy” is not used as an opposite to arduous but as a hint to the nondual quality of easiness.
If you know what I mean, SD.
No, I don’t know what you mean, Satchit. Please clarify – if possible.
Ok, SD, maybe you know the feeling when you are in the flow, the feeling of easiness.
This feeling you can also have when you do difficult things like climbing up a mountain.
So easiness is not opposite to arduous. The sister of easiness is playfulness – the brother is non-seriousness
A really holy family!
I see…
Can you provide any examples from your own experience, recent ones, preferably?
What is not cool, NP, is you gathering other people’s knowledge and then making inaccurate assumptions based on that knowledge, not realizing that you may have been misled for one reason or another.
You seem to be attracted to authoritarian figures. Osho would be a good example. First, you think he is the real deal. Then, you become disillusioned. And then you slowly begin to warm to Osho again. This is all based on what people say to you, what you read, and what videos you watch. Had you simply sat down with Osho as an adult, it would have been easier to figure him out because your experience would have been direct, not second=hand.
The same applies to psychedelics. You cannot understand them going on what another person says.
I will just blow raspberries at the old blow-hard commenting on this forum, and state that it is you who do not understand psychedelics because your experience does not extend to its many modalities such as are being explored in universities for therapy.
NP, the voice of inexperience incarnate.
I think if old skool, freelance trippers know anything it is that even the best planned intention and the best set and setting might not go to plan. Some unexpected shit can always fly in and hit a fan or vortex that you didn`t even know was there.
I have had this discussion with psychedelic people and many agree that tripping is more akin to extreme sport like bungie jumping or freeclimbing. It`s buzzy but dangerous and some people will inevitably bang their heads and even do themselves in, however careful you are.
If you want to try to remove the dangers, probably better not to take anything at all, like you have decided to do, NP.
As for claims such as “if you are addicted to smoking or alcohol, it gives you a 50-70% chance of being able to quit in just one session” – Remember, for example, that Freud believed and touted that cocaine could be used to cure morphine addiction, and he wrote his first major scientific publication, ‘Über Coca’ (insane title!) about it. Morphine, amphetamines, barbituarates, SSRIs, you name it, have all been touted as miracle drugs in their time.
Hubris is a wonderful thing, especially when you’re high on your own supply, looking to get famous and stand to make a few quid!
Frank, good post. Associative thought being what it is, I found myself thinking about my favourite, unashamedly open, American housewife on acid. The video kinda captures the absurd aspects of a controlled LSD session. Follow the link down the rabbit hole…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Si-jQeWSDKc&t=33s
As I said, the addiction claim came from multiple scientific studies. It is not hokum, it is relatively well supported though it is still early days.
There has been a considerable amount of research on what you can achieve with psychedelics, if you want to know about it I suggest you read Michael Pollan’s book.
Michael Pollan`s writing is basically an infomercial for psychedelic therapy.
As far as his “science” goes, I would suggest you avail yourself of a decent-sized chunk of Himalayan rock salt to suck on whilst reading.
Happy summer solstice, people, the longest day of this year’s journey around the sun has come and gone. Our house is happy lying in the sunshine, we have the doors and windows open to catch the cool morning breeze, it’s already 24 degrees.
I remember when I was spending time at an anthroposophical community here in the Netherlands they would have a festival four times per year at the major points of the solar cycle. These would take place nearby in the dunes, by a small lagoon with a sandy beach. It was kinda fun.
I just thought I’d place this here, because it’s the clearest piece of forward-thinking reasoning I’ve yet seen on ‘the AI question’. It’s worth watching if you’re interested in what the future with general artificial intelligence will look like.
Most technologists are now saying that fully capable general AI is not decades but rather only 2 or 3 years away.
https://youtu.be/86k8N4YsA7c
Just because Zach is Tim Leary’s son obviously does not equate to him having something new or cutting-edge to say. He does not. Everything he says has been said before and been mashed up to present himself as someone who is a reluctant authority, which he isn’t. Whatever one thinks of Tim Leary one has to admit he was authentic. Zach isn’t.
“Psychedelics as humanity’s evolutionary partner.” Hardly a new concept. McKenna proposed that the evolution from Homo erectus to Homo sapiens and the cognitive enhancement associated with this change was the result of ingesting psilocybin mushrooms starting about 100,000 years ago.
Humanity evolves very slowly in fits and starts, sometimes taking one step forward and two steps back.
With individuals, it can be different and faster.
He is dead:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EXCIWlm1fs
I have skipped 280 responses now.
Just because he doesn’t have anything new to say that doesn’t mean that he hasn’t got a role to play. He said he sees himself as a kind of legacy holder, someone who points the way to work done on psychedelics in the 50s and 60s.
All sorts of people are dead — Teertha, Andrew Cohen, my dad, and yes, Timothy Leary….
NP, everyone has a role to play. Or as WS put it, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages.”
You say, Zach Leary is someone who points the way to work done on psychedelics in the 50s and 60s. That is kinda hyperbolic, seeing as how Zach was born in 1973 and therefore knew nothing on an existential level about the 50s and 60s. I’m sure he is a good guy, though.