The disciples on whom Osho’s early work, which laid the basis of all his work, including that which still goes on were small in number. Even at its height the Pune One ashram had a maximum of 500 full time workers and certainly not all of them were on food passes or given accommodation by the ashram. This is often forgotten, as at the same time the Pune Press office put out possibly exaggerrated figures for the number of people who had taken sannyas world wide, which stretched into hundreds of thousands. Life for the 500 was not all peace and love. The closer one got to the Master the tougher it arguable became.
To illustrate this I remember, Laxmi, Osho’s then organiser, calling a midday meeting in Buddha Hall solely for the full time workers, which in itself was very unusual, named by later chroniclers “the Meeta Darshan meeting”.
At midday we gathered to hear what Osho had said to Meeta the evening before at Darshan. She was one of us, had worked in the ashram for 18 months.
Meeta had asked Osho the evening before: “I have been typing for 18 months (as my commune work) and my heart isn’t in it. And it never was. And I’ve been doing it because it needs to be done. I just feel I’d rather be doing some sort of work I’d enjoy more”.
Osho’s reply was actually pretty tough. He said” If everybody is going to enjoy, then who is going to do the work? Only I? It is perfectly good – enjoy – but then you dont share any work with me. Everybody wants to just go into the garden; nobody wants to work anywhere. Then why should I? I can also just go into the garden!. This idea arises because the commitment, the involvement is not there. You are working just for your own sake, not for my sake, otherwise there wouold be no trouble and no problem. Once that starts happening to you, then you are working for me, THEN IT IS NOT WORK – this is your way to help with my work; this is your love towards me. Then there is no problem.
Otherwise do you think that Laxmi would like to be in the office? Everybody will be in the garden except me!….
Just change your attitude and see. For 2 months just work for me – forget yourself. If that doesn’t work then I will change you from (the typing pool). Then you can do whatsoever you feel like doing, hmmmm?”
I remember the atmosphere after that meeting. Certainly not celebratory…. Pretty thoughtful. May be scores of us were being spoken to not just Meeta. I remember thinking that she had been brave to even put the question. It’s surprising how many forgot, even those of us working physically close to him, that Osho himself was working incredibly hard each day, just to get the good news out – that he was alive, and in an enlightened state, and available to the whole world.
For me this darshan illustrates the central paradox of being closely around any Master, and at the same time is back of many of the misunderstandings which arose and arise that span the relationship between a Master and his close disciples. Any comments?
Parmatha
Didn’t realise only about five hundred of us were working in Poona 1. Mind you that’s a lot in such a limited space.
in what way was bhagwan working incredibly hard?
he usually described himself a lazy person (only a lazy perosn can be enlightened etc)
also you said a short while back that there was a lot of speculation at the time amongst everyone about what he was doing all day.some were saying he did so little that his wristwatch stopped!
so,again.
how was it that he was working incredibly hard?
If we chose to defer to him in morbid acquiescence when the guy was as capable of organising a collectively responsible interactive community of self regulating experimenters as I am of transforming your breathing rates into universal joy..Then be not surprised. There is a price for everything.
What Osho did was to front load everything with ‘this is for your growth’, and ‘you will feel better for it,’ trust me. Well of course he dressed like Peter cushing in the Mighty Ming outfits and was utterly incapable of spawning anything less than the twilight zone mood music when discussing ‘The Commune and his WORK.’ To which if it involved feeling like shit I can now give the unqualified and resounding piece of advice …thank f**K the old sententious git is dead and he can no longer put goons in charge of making your life a misery.
The Guy put complete nutters in charge of heavy duty everything…The kitchens , the therapy groups , your sex life, the obligational meditations…..
If you want to pass your meditational exams you are welcome to it.. just make sure you have public health warnings before you sign up…which of course they still won’t state …
A key phrase of more use would have been ‘Back off sunshine ,its my life..and I’m not building your commune with these klutzes in charge, thanks Adolf’…
He was brought down by his own as much as any American arrogance…two equal yet opposing forces….and both hung by their own petards…well we await the fate of America still.. but no way would I want an OSho third reich.ever ever. Even if it guaranteed you enlightenment with nut sauce. What it taught me that the world is my playpen and has no responsibility to the image of the Mighty Ming unless I agree. In open dialogue not conferred veneration or ideology…or worse someone to advise me on how to get happy and clear if I just keep obeying.
As in the rest of life one gets bad bosses and good ones. Cant really say my experience of sannyas communes was any different. Maybe Martyn, with all due respect you have as far as I know not done much ordinary marketplace work, and this may result in a lop sided opinion. I have met a number of outright bullies in the latter due to my role as a shop steward in workplaces, in which as a result of a life of 66 years has been quite full. They were indeed somewhat mad, those people exist everywhere.
I never saw anyone “denied the gate” in any Osho place I gave my energy. And some guys did make it to the nearest train or road and hitch out of there. So you didn’t have to stay in the places you mention if they did not agree with you. Whether in Osho communes or anywhere else we all have a self duty to get out of situations that are not for us.
Many lives have been effected by Osho without those people even going to an Osho commune, that “trip” was for certain ones, and it offered a sort of crucible, but clearly it was a very small minority of those who call(ed) themselves sannyasins, and always was.
Whilst some of your verbal abuse of the old man seems to have got through the SN censor on this occasion I dont like it. What’s the point of it? It doesn’t advance your argument.
Finally and I say this to try and help, your posts are often very difficult to understand, maybe you run them past someone else before posting?
Frnak,
Okay can you produce a two hour lecture a day and give darshan of an hour and a half continually day in and day out? His “sadhana” was reading all those books so he could reach us every day. In addition giving direction to Laxmi for example on all the many things she brought to him at the time I am discussing. As I have said elsewhere the story about him sitting in his room doing nothing all day is a myth and part of the imaginative gossip vine in Pune one.
Once again Martyn cant always get your drift. If you look at my original post I am trying to make a point about many “Masters” not just Osho, who have considered themselves enlightened and used a variety of ways to bring surrender.
As for myself my life before I met someone like Osho was very unsurrendered – and it did not work. So an experiment in surrender felt okay.
My impression is that you were indeed overexposed to the group world, and as I remember the Veeresh Humaniversity. Only that can explain your single mindedness in believing that somehow the groups were so big in Osho’s work, in fact what was really big was the commune invitation – however it was perceived.
did he read all those books or did he sit silently in his room waiting for his watch to stop.?
i guess we`ll never know.
still,whatever it was he did or didnt do,i`m glad he did it or didnt do it..
the world would have been a duller place,for sure….
happy new year,everyone….
He read all those books, or speed read them between 1971 and 1981. After 1982 those in the know say he stopped reading almost everything.
And Happy New Year to one and all of the sannyasnews fraternity!
is that when his watch stopped?
P.You may use the word surrender and I haven’t got a clue what you ,mean…(I have never used it in anything other than playing cowboys and indians..) I know perfectly well what being penetrated by Osho subtle heart piercings felt like…but i wouldnt go round suggesting the commune interpersonal and systematic hierarchies reflected one’s mini ecstasies when going doolally over Osho…the two are poles apart..As was the borrowed aspirational language of spirituality..all learnt from the inductions at group level as baptisms into Oshodom…of course you could learn that language very well without grouping and it had just about as much effect..to get others to consider you as credible, even pontifical. I survived this far because somehow and I don’t know how …I managed to keep shooting from the hip and sniffed out my loyalties very quickly and had no interest at all in stopping the shit hitting the fan ..especially when I got into Ko Hsuan….If it was to be a fight then a fight it was to be be to the bitter end and may the best form of osho surrendered living truth with knobs on , win. What I alarm people about is the pontifical aspect of deranged in-decent manipulations…learnt in the dysfunctional family of sannyas and traceable and proveable to this day.Call that any name you like and if you find people who haven’t paid the ferry man for their insights then their version of oshoness is shall we say just a little effete….I have no fear of going up the khyber pass , as I know what I went through to get here. And here though lost as always is at least my here without bells or whistles on loan from a huge identity of being in a loving supportive community.You remember those ?Have a fantastic you-filled New Year.Martyn
P.I have plenty of examples post humaniversity london…up to 2007 when I called quits on ever bothering to engage the sannyas scene again..from Vancouver to Greece …I’m just not the kind of guy who can’t call spade a spade… and cause waves….ask J my friend from KH…I mean even my big mouth here on SN gets edited ..cos I can rapid fire with fun.Its just what I do..its my sannyas..and I don’t see it around very much which is sad not to have more spirits to really play with.
I agree Martyn the word surrender is too simplistic, and covers a simplistic notion.
Life situations are always a lot more complex. I myself needed loosening up a bit when I got to Osho in 1975, it felt right when he talked of not pushing the river and just allowing oneself to float on the river. And at the time it was a bit of a new concept to me, all that Taoist stuff I had not met before, so it appeared to beckon a fairly revolutionary change of how to be in the world.
Now I figure there is a time to surrender, and a time not to. The art of life is recognising when each one is appropriate.
When i look back now on the times working in Poona 1,as a cleaner and in the kitchen with proper Sagar i see i did.nt understand “surrender”. Yes surrender to Osho was easy,be in his presence,feeling stillness,extasy, i.o.w
beautiful spiritual expierences. The expierences while working in the kitchen did’nt feel so beautiful, there was definately a very strong NO ,to surrendering to the ones who where “in charge” Still it was to be expected, i identified totally with ; “my will be done,and not thyne”, even if “thyne”was supposed to be Osho. But at that time i felt angry and quilty about it! As i understand now,it is the surrendering of the one who i think,or feel i am. Nothing wrong with it,but only waves in the Ocean. Osho was the finger pointing to the moon,he played his part as “The Master”,which was necessary for us at the time. With what happened on the ranch he gave us in my opinion a foretaste of what is happening now,in the world at large. The lesson to find out for ourselves what is True,and what is not true. I see that i mis-interpreted surrender, i thought it had something to do with obeying ,which is exactly what keeps me in the dream: obeying or defending my own rules and thoughts about live, or obeying and opposing somebody elses rules and thoughts about live.
Forget not Karima that those we thought we should surrender to, and who thought we should surrender too them, were no more or less surrendered than we were.
Recall a fierce face of with someone bawling at me to surrender, and bawling back. ‘You surrender to me. Were all equal here.’
I see those times as when I began to learn to be assertive, rather than swing between aggression and doubt filled submission, as I see now, I had up until then.
(n_n)
Yes Arpana. (Parmartha speaking)
It’s certainly worth remembering that those who seemed to revel in the power of having control over other commune members work lives, often folded completely when “moved” into jobs that did not suit their egos.
I can think of Laxmi herself, who “left” the organisation as soon as it became clear she was no longer Secretary, but expected to do more lowly work. In fact it was rumoured at the time that Osho told her it was best if she left!
Punam the Medina leader “left” the commune very soon after as she was expected to do physical work on the Ranch.
The whole High Milne story was really about him no longer having a privileged position as Guards Captain, and being able to please himself in Pune one – when he got to the Ranch he was expected to drive tractors – he soon left and wrote that traitor’s book.
I think it was common wisdom at the time that “working” in the commune was actually NOT about contributing ostensibly to Osho’s own work, as commonly understood, but about the Master finding a way to stop people being somebodies, and become nobodies!
All my life, wherever I went I became a somebody in one way or other, then took sannyas. Didn’t become a somebody at the ashram, and when I returned to the UK was not a somebody in the lake I had swum in. Have never been a somebody since, although I have come to value my privacy, anonymity.
Have watched this happening to me, and at times my pride has been so dented, have felt so damned lonely on occasions, have wondered what has enabled me keep going, keep meditating, stay with it; and no question the answer is Osho. Realized as I write this, don’t want to let him down, didn’t want to let him down although rationally I cant, and then I never came across anyone, including closest friends, who said so much that struck such chords, so consistently. Not so much an act of will as would take an act of will to not.
BELOVED OSHO,
WHY AM I NOT IN THE FRONT ROW?
Anand Anado, before I answer your question, there is another question also which will make your question complete.
Question 3
BELOVED OSHO,
WHY AM I IN THE FRONT ROW?
Mukesh Bharti…
A Lufthansa airliner had to make an emergency landing at sea. The captain assured the passengers that they would be picked up shortly and that the plane would remain afloat for at least thirty minutes. After twenty minutes had passed no rescue boats had arrived, and the captain announced, “Everybody who can swim, get on the left wing. And everybody who can’t swim get on the right wing. Now for the people on the left wing — when the water gets to your knees, start swimming. And for the people on the right wing — thank you for flying Lufthansa.”
Anado and Mukesh Bharti, those who are in the front row are the people who cannot swim, and those who are not in the front row are the people who can swim. Okay?
Satyam Shivam Sundram
Chapter #20
Chapter title: The radiation of enlightenment
16 November 1987 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium
Thanks Arpana – and remember, you are not alone…the inn operates 24/7 and the light is always burning
I do not think Osho’s response was in any way tough. Work is work. You ask anyone outside of any commune whether they like their job and would rather do something else? Of course they would, but it is often has nothing to do with the type of job. In fact, I think we are all quite lazy creatures. Employers have a hard task to employ someone who would even do even the minimum well. I see it on daily basis. All employers would answer the same as Osho or worse-you do not like it, get out then. Simple!
So to expect some sort of special treatment is a bit immature when you dedicate your life to the Master’s work or take a job elsewhere. They pay-you dance!
I think most of the people do their jobs half heartedly, hence we have doctors ruining people’s health forever, politicians destroying the planet even further etc etc just because they can’t be bothered to do their job properly.
At the same time I realise what sannyasins have done over the years is incredible. So much of hard work! Many old sannyasins remember it as joy though and it is beautiful to see.
If you think about what Osho and His people have done in 20 yrs is unbelievable. Respect!
Parmartha speaking:
Chetna, we were NOT employees! The closest one could say to the workplace you seem to inhabit is we were “Voluntary workers”.
Even in a present day UK charity or similar volunteers are treated quite well, and often given a choice of work, etc to sustain their interest and involvement. I say this as someone partly responsible for volunteers in a UK charity.
In Medina (English commune 1982/5) the commune leadership did sometimes respond to requests for changes in jobs, etc, and we were moved around quite a lot. I can remember cleaning, teaching, driving, house parenting, bar manager, kitchen hand, all in the course of my Medina “career”!
On one occasion the Press office requested I be moved there and this was agreed, only for my then Coordinator in the Kid’s House to say she could not do without me – a request acceded to. I never therefore worked in the press dept whilst in a commune situation, though I was suited to it and would have “enjoyed” it. The leadership of Medina do not seem to have had quite the same guidelines as in Pune one.
My only other comment was that in Pune one and in Medina it seemed to be quite common NOT to use workers (worshippers we were sometimes called) in those areas of life where they had experience. There did seem to be some inclination, whether a directive from Osho or not, to give intellectuals things like cleaning/driving/ etc. And vice versa. Many of the Coordinators of departments had limited work experience and had previously just been housewives! So the argument that Osho seems to be adducing here does not really seem to fit with what happened in practice in the communes. I definitely had the feeling that “work” in the communes was just not about “his ” work but about us being given situations to trim or destroy our egos – perhaps also his work – but not the most efficient way of getting the word out to the whole world about him.
Karima, if i understand you semantically here then you are referring to the space old er age confers on the actions you now take and the experience of equanimity in just recognizing yourself through that experiencing.it really has no end or beginning and only requires your acknowledgement.
If that type of immersion into knowing while distancing from the investment occurs then it might be that really full-fills.
That’s the wisdom of excessive folly which BLake the metaphysician reminds us awaits our actions.
hoi Martyn,i wish you’d express yourself in plain Ienkliesh, if that’s possible,
most of the time i have,nt got a clue what you mean!
you can blame dharmen and parmartha for that.. when i write reams of creative pisstaking its very understandable ..but they usually wont print that..about three a week….so they get pacified by my gibberish because no-one can understand it…
I have a degree in tortology
(self tort of course)
sufis whirl to go backwards like screwing themselves into the energy that sees…
its a metaphor that can be used in a million ways
.knowing that you know…
thats where it begins and ends…
or maybe stick my words into google translate or
http://www.wordle.net/
D and P force me to surrender regularly…though other times they themselves surrender to me… what a rapturous mystery life here on SN is….
happy new years to all
Hoi Martyn,yeahh,if it’s all a dream, we might ass well splatt ourselves to the full, take it to the limit one more time,hopefully the dream explodes,or rather the one who believed the dream was true!
A lady approaches her priest and says, “Father, I have a problem. I have two female talking parrots, but they only know how to say one thing.” “What do they say?” the priest inquires. “They only know how to say, “Hi, we’re prostitutes. Want to have some fun?” ” “That’s terrible,” the priest exclaims, “but I have a solution to your problem. Bring your two female parrots over to my house, and I will put them with my two male talking parrots that I taught to pray and read the bible. My parrots will teach your parrots to stop saying that terrible phrase, and your female parrots will learn to praise and worship.” “Thank you!” the woman responds. The next day, the woman brings her female parrots to the priest’s house. His two male parrots are holding rosary beads and praying in their cage. The lady puts her two female parrots in with the male parrots, and the female parrots say, “Hi, we’re prostitutes, want to have some fun?” One male parrot looks at the other male parrot and exclaims, “Put the beads away. Our prayers have been answered!” – brought to you by “Funniest Adult Jokes” available at Android Market!
Who’s a sannyasin? Can one have a connection without taking formal sannyas?
Coleman Barks is responsible for brilliant versions of Rumi’s poetry. He and John Mayne have collaborated on translating many of Rumi’s works. Barks has also translated other Sufi mystics and writes his own poetry. No doubt some of you have heard his brilliant recordings accompanied by music.
Barks visited Pune in October of 1988 but did not take sannyas. This is one of his accounts from a book titled Scrapwood Man: “I did not take sannyas with Osho. When I visited the commune in Pune in October of 1988, I already had a deep connection with a teacher, Bawa Muhaiyaddeen. I have told the story in other places ( see p.140 of Rumi: The Book of Love). One moment, though, that I have not included yet in any account – I just recently remembered it – is this: Bawa said to me that sometimes one has a mirror to see the front and a mirror behind to see the back. Two reflections are needed to see both sides, implying that I would have two teachers. Bawa told me to do the Rumi work in 1978 ( It must be done.) Osho said in 1988, ‘This is beautiful poetry. It has to be because it is coming from Rumi’s love, but you must watch out for it, Professor Coleman. For you it can become ecstatic self-hypnosis’. He nailed me with that hit, and I am grateful for the guidance of both masters. I am still trying to assimilate the wisdom. I may be the only person to have both Bawa Muhaiyadden and Osho as teachers. They are so different. But in one matter they are similiar. Neither wanted followers. That is not what I was or am. I just need, and accept, all the help I can get”.
In Scrapwood Man, Barks points out that he wrote an introduction for Osho’s book on Hakin Sanai’s Hadiqa (2nd edition 2003) titled ‘Stern Mystics and Secret Govermental Murder, An Introduction to Rajneesh’s Sanai’s book, Unio Mystica 1′. The introduction asserts that ‘Osho Rajneesh was assassinated for his world view.’ I won’t bore you with more from the text.
It seems that some can complain about Osho for years and remain stuck. Others are not card carrying sannyasins but can have their lives transformed in a two hour discourse. I have come across other creative souls who never took official sannyas but have a strong connection to Osho. Has anyone other examples of this?
Coleman Barks’ books are readily available online. He’s worth a read. He also has his own website.
you are right roman.
the smart person learns something wherever he is..
didnt gurdjieff say “whatever happens,we always make a profit..”?
even cesspits of unconscious negativity and anti-oshoness like sannyasnews can be enlightening if you know your arse from your elbow!!
something about all these guys getting big hits from masters etc.
frankly,i could have told barks the same thing,that tripping on poetry all the time can put you in a hypnotic trance and fantasy world,(its not rocket science),but would he listen to a smalltime nobody like me?
maybe an important guy like him has to hear it from a “master of masters”?
My impression is, certainly true of me at one time, of an association for most people of spirituality, meditation with ‘Nice. Not nasty’; and we learn just as much from ‘nasty’, although to much nasty induces shut down, which is counter-productive.
Find involvement here incredibly rewarding, but suggest a difference exists between despite and because of.
Isnt small time nobody tautological by the way?
Or gilding the lily even
Frank, I appreciate your response about an aware person learning something wherever they are. My partner spoke to a homeless person they other day and he was incredibly aware – much more so than those in powerful positions.
It sounds like you also write some poetry?. I was excited when Barks went to Poona because I’d read his stuff and I knew a brilliant sannyasin poet from Slovenia who put me onto him. Swami Satish was the most unpretentious man you could meet. He took sannyas in Poona 1 and worked as a psychiatric nurse. He lived on very little; cigarettes, wine and cheese. Osho and poetry were his life. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and died in Poona in 1992. Barks was sincere when he said that what Osho gave him that night would have taken 35 years to achieve on his own. The proof is that he has written forwards to Osho’s works and does not shy away from saying what happened to Osho. Barks is a close friend of Robert Bly’s and other important American writers, particular Sufi poets. It is good that he is making his contribution when it comes to supprting what Osho represents. I actually think Barks would respect what you’ve said but who else could have pinned Barks down like Osho did that night.
Roman- i notice that there are lots of “brilliant” people in your realm – poets, writers, sannyasins. what constitutes “brilliant” for you? wouldn’t the writers of National Lampoon be brilliant with their comical expressions of the world? just wondering.
J.C
I guess I suffer from a poverty of language and my words can’t match up with the world. I’ll try not to use ‘brilliant’ again. Jesus Christ, it won’t be easy!
I was seduced by Osho because of his sense of humour. I do like Swiftian humour, or Alice in Wonderland type stuff. Duchamp’s great and perhaps the rolls royces were dada? National Lampoon is brilliant, shit I’ve failed again.
J.C. I’ll always fail with language.
‘No matter, Try again. Fail again. Fail better’
Samuel Beckett
roman,
by coincidence,i was having a clearout of some old books a few days ago and i tried to get rid of my copy of “the essential rumi”,but my partner wouldnt have it and ended up reading me “whoever brought me here will have to take me home”
so i still have it.
i do write the odd poem.
here`s one that i`ve put up here before.
he completely outstripped mahavira
stood patanjali on his head
turned more of a profit than mohamed
nailed crackpot jesus` comeback plans.
his women made krishnas gopis look like a rugby team
threw the complaining buddha out of his jacuzzi
talked the hind legs off zarathustra
told hotei a few he hadnt heard
turned the zen bull up to eleven
gave rama some flying lessons,too.
managed to provoke god
and just about everyone else…
quite somebody
for a nobody
this fellow
osho
talking poetry.
wasnt the only non-mystical poet that osho quoted
roger mcgough?
he read out the whole of his “at lunchtime”in one discourse-
the one about the passengers on a town bus who all made love to each other because they thought the world was going to end at lunchtime.
great stuff.
and an incitement for a sexcult if ever there was one!!
Frank, I’d keep writing poetry. Words fail me! Around Osho one fell into the unfathonable abyss of silence. You’ve expressed it.
How so ever we say, sannyas is an individual journey, yet it has it own collective mind. For example, no other group will ask such silly questions, ” Is Dalai Lama Enlightened? How come Anna Hazare gets so much adoration, Is he enlightened? Obama, Sarakozy, Markel and similars cannot solve the complex problems facing our world because none of them is enlightend.
and when anybody says, “yes, i am enlightened. ten others will say, how come?..You have not even tasted the Satori yet…”
Shantam, apparently enlightment is when the world is not a problem to be solved!
Chetna, may be for many enlighteneds, involvement in the muddy world is not a need any more. In mythology they live in the forest in small huts and chop their daily woods, fetch their water and live in harmony with all around surroundings.
Those who are little enterprising, gather few disciples around them, who do all the dirty work in return of darshan and a pep talk. Surely, it is a mutually benefited relation. Just remembered the Neo Jesus in Siberia!
But as i know, Osho was offering a different set of spiritual game. Around one third of His talks are about the World, its problems and His radical solutions, and surely for these things, Osho went into the soup many times, in His home country as well as liberal west.
Being the eye witness and participant In His circus, i feel an inner obligation to protest when i see, Osho is being projected as some zen Master or some Advaita master.Seems like disicples have learnt not to burn the fingers after seeing the end result of their master. Luke warm spirituality with some dance, some music hurts no one´s comfort zone.
And i wonder quite often, if these Zen masters were so great, where they have disappeared in our time.When one reads about Japan, it is all about Tayota, Sony and Cousins!
Who knows children of these Zen masters went to America to do MBA!
shantam- you use the strangest comparisons i’ve ever come across.
almost like a mini Tourette’s Syndrome, New Age style.