From the New York Times, we thought our SN bloggers might have something to say about this.
by David Gelles (March, 2016)
THE other morning, I woke up and brewed a cup of Mindful Lotus tea ($6 for 20 bags). On the subway, I loaded the Headspace app on my iPhone and followed a guided mindfulness exercise ($13 a month for premium content). Later in the day, I dropped by Mndfl, a meditation studio in Greenwich Village ($20 for a 45-minute class).
These days it seems as if everyone is peddling mindfulness, a popular form of meditation. The Golden State Warriors, the Seattle Seahawks and the Boston Red Sox are now practicing mindfulness in the locker room. After Google began teaching the practice to its employees, stuffy companies like McKinsey and BlackRock started doing the same.
Consumer offerings are prolific, too. There are more than two dozen mindfulness apps for smartphones, some offering $400 lifetime subscriptions. The Great Courses has two mindfulness packages, each with a couple of dozen DVDs for $250. For an enterprising contemplative, it’s never been easier to make a buck.
On the face of it, that should be good news all around. After all, where’s the harm in having folks slow down, get in touch with their feelings and be kind? As a sporadic meditator myself, I know firsthand that mindfulness can relieve stress, improve focus and promote well-being. And during this charged election season, couldn’t we all use a bit more peace, love and understanding?
But with so many cashing in on the meditation craze, it’s hard not to wonder whether something essential is being lost. If mindfulness can be bought as easily as a pair of Lululemon yoga pants, can it truly be a transformative practice that eases the troubled mind? It’s a question as slippery as a Zen koan.
There’s no doubt that as mindfulness has gone mainstream, plenty of people have used the technique to achieve peace of mind, greater self-awareness, perhaps even more compassion. Yet at the same time, a race to the bottom seems to be underway.
Never mind all the companies glomming on to the “mindful” moniker. (There are Mindful Meats, Mindful Mints and the Mindful Supply Company, which makes T-shirts. A friend recently painted her daughter’s bedroom “Mindful Gray.”) More troubling is the rush to make mindfulness something that fits neatly into lives lived at the speed of the web.
Increasingly, mindfulness is being packaged as a one-minute reprieve, an interlude between checking Instagram and starting the next episode of “House of Cards.” One company proclaims it has found the “minimum effective dose” of meditation that will change your life. On Amazon, you can pick up “One-Minute Mindfulness: 50 Simple Ways to Find Peace, Clarity, and New Possibilities in a Stressed-Out World.” Dubious courses promise to help people “master mindfulness” in a few weeks.
IBISWorld, a research company, estimates that meditation-related businesses in the United States last year generated $984 million in revenue. With so many mindful goods and services for sale, it can be easy to forget that mindfulness is a quality of being, not a piece of merchandise.
“It’s not enough to purchase the right product to be mindful,” said Dan Harris, an ABC news anchor who chronicled his grudging embrace of meditation in a book, “10 Percent Happier.” “Mindfulness is a practice, and it’s worth doing.”
That is, you can’t simply buy mindfulness. In its historical context, mindfulness is just one aspect of a lifelong journey to become more accepting, less judgmental and kinder to oneself and others. Even in its modern incarnation, mindfulness is best understood as a skill, one acquired through hours of sometimes uncomfortable contemplation.
Alas, that may be asking too much in an age of crash diets and instant abs.
When considering the fate of mindfulness in the American marketplace, it’s instructive to look at the evolution of yoga. Like mindfulness, yoga has its roots in the spiritual traditions of India, and was practiced for decades by enthusiasts before it went mainstream. But as yoga grew more popular, it mutated in strange ways. Today there is naked yoga, paddleboard yoga, and doga — that is, yoga done while holding your dog. Yoga also became a multibillion-dollar business, spawning apparel companies like Lululemon, a vast cottage industry of studios and teacher trainings, and a kaleidoscope of yogi bric-a-brac.
Kaitlin Quistgaard chronicled yoga’s often bizarre ascendance as the former editor of Yoga Journal. She said that while purists sometimes wrung their hands about its commercialization, their lamentations were in vain. Let loose in the American marketplace, yoga took on a life of its own. Now, she said, the same thing is happening with mindfulness.
“No one gets to decide who can sell mindfulness, or use mindfulness to sell a product,” said Ms. Quistgaard.
Though this may result in less signal and more noise, it doesn’t mean mindfulness can’t still be beneficial. Yoga may have changed over the years, but plenty of authentic teachers and ashrams can still be found. The same dynamic will most likely play out with mindfulness, too. Strange variations on mindfulness will proliferate, while pockets of traditional teachings endure.
Even seemingly superficial interventions can be useful, or at least benign. Joe Burton, chief executive of Whil, which offers a popular meditation app, is adamant that just because mindfulness is streaming online at ever-higher price points, that doesn’t make it ineffective or inauthentic. “No one can come do our training being a greedy, selfish jerk and expect to become a better greedy, selfish jerk,” he said.
He’s probably right. In recent years, I’ve interviewed hundreds of meditators, and many entrepreneurs behind Mindfulness Inc. To be sure, some seemed more interested in cruising the blossoming meditation social circuit than in actually doing the hard work of self-reflection.
More often than not, however, the people I know who take time to meditate — carefully observing thoughts, emotions and sensations — are sincere in their aspirations to become less stressed, more accepting and at least a little happier.
And still, temptations to indulge in spiritual materialism abound. On a recent trip to Whole Foods, near the kombucha, I came across a new product from the health food maker Earth Balance: a dairy-free mayonnaise substitute called Mindful Mayo ($4.50 a jar). Then, in line, I picked up a copy of Mindful magazine ($6).
I paid for both and headed for the exit. There’s nothing wrong with buying products labeled mindful. We live in a consumerist culture, and I’d rather spend my money on health food and self-help guides than junk food and gossip rags.
But when I got home, I resolved to do more than simply support mindfulness with my wallet. I found a quiet moment, put away my iPhone, and closed my eyes to meditate. It’s not enough to buy into mindfulness. You have to practice it, too.
David Gelles is a reporter for The New York Times and the author of “Mindful Work: How Meditation Is Changing Business from the Inside Out.”
A little, well maybe a lot of, ‘If everybody’s doing it (meditation) how can I feel special?’ at play here.
The remark recently questioning why Osho gave sannyas to anybody. Hard to believe we are special because we took sannyas when even someone like Shantam and his ilk are allowed into the club.
Sannyas is hardly an exclusive game.
Arpana basically wants to convey, “Why the fuck Osho gave sannyas to any Shantam, Satyadeva, Sheela?”
Masters commit mistakes too, my friend. They commit very big mistakes. Even so-called master of the masters is not infallible.
(MOD: POST EDITED)
Not Satyadeva or Sheela. Just you.
You need a living master, Arpana.
Someone so full with prejudiced shit one rarely comes across.
You are your own living master, Shantam. Who else is as full of shit and prejudice as you? You are perfect for you.
You need a living master, Shantam.
Someone so full with prejudiced shit one rarely comes across.
Minds with Osho software will say, “We don´t need to be mindful. It is childish. We must go beyond mind. For that we need to be aware. Awareness is the key.”
“Quotation One”
Osho
“Quotation Two”
Osho
“Third Quotation”
Osho
Meditation is a bit like swimming. It costs some money to learn it (even if the school has to pay). The only way round that is to learn direct from someone near and dear.
Every game and sport has been heavily commercialised of late. What to do? It`s a bit crap but it’s not the end of the world.
There are probably health, mental, performance and even spiritual benefits. But if you just love the feeling of weightlessness, the liquid sensation washing over your body and your breathing doing its thing as you glide through the water, you probably won`t give a toss about all that….
Good stuff, Frank. Excellent analogy.
“Mindfulness is a quality of being”. It is what we are all after: quality of being. Not long ago, it was disguised as “keeping fit”, plastic surgeries, etc…with the excuse of being confident and healthy. Very poor substitutes, really, for a quality of being.
With the failure of it all, the quality of being is now looked after in Mindfulness. I agree with the text, maybe it is a better thing to do. What I found is that Mindfulness, in some way, stops the development of the inner intelligence. I hope I am wrong. Any comment, anyone?
Tan, I think it`s possible that people who are trying too hard to be mindful can get spooked that they are about to do something unmindful because they are not being mindful enough, so they end up like they`re on walking on eggshells, dying for a piss and grimacing like they`ve got a prickly pear stuck up their ass.
Frank boy, a laughter after reading your comment is much better than any 3 minutes mindfulness meditation, at least a split second of no-mind is certain. XXX
I was talking to a Buddhist friend about mindfulness and she thought that without the Buddhist teachings about compassion and so on it was no good. She may have a point altho` I’m not really totally convinced.
Another way of looking at it which sannyasins might gravitate to is asking whether it`s presented as a ‘way of liberation’, which is to say: does it facilitate a movement towards a release of the individual from the forms of conditioning imposed upon him by social institutions and helps to distinguish between social fictions and natural patterns (‘going beyond the mind’).
Or whether it`s just a palliative for the confusions of life, a sort of meditative Prozac (“now with even less Buddhism per serving!”).
Or a way of soldiers wiping out a few more enemies more ‘meditatively’ and efficiently (remember it`s been done before with the Samurai appropriation of Zen).
Or an easy way to let traders mindfully make a more few mil bucks while getting one over on their rivals and putting a few million farmers on the breadline and still feeling relaxed etc. etc.
?
And…
Frank boy, that’s my point! It may work but it is so stupid! I can’t believe it! I have met people with 20 years in the Mindfulness and I feel them so unspiritual, if you get my point. All that compassion, happiness, etc…doesn’t appears real to me. Maybe I am mistaken. Cheers!
´Compassion´, Tan, became (or always was?) a very ideology-loaded word, and amongst those who use it very often, like Christians and western Buddhists too, lots are to be found who do not even look into your eyes, let alone look into a complex situation.
As someone here named it recently, they are fixed in a ´punishment´ and ´reward´ logos from where most of their actions come.
Eyes of compassion are very, very rare. But if you´re met by those eyes your whole bod-y(-ies) will know it instantely and open up in a state of Trust. In my view and experience, Osho had these eyes, and Ramana too.
Actions of compassion, hitting the target, are even more rare, as compassion does not always mean to be kind and nice and polite.
I loved the questions Frank put into the Void here re mindfulness, and they reminded me of one of the teachers I met, who recommended sincerely to investigate our numerous trances in which we more than less, he said, live our lives.
A virtual chat is quite a very difficult playing ground, isn ´t it?
With love,
Madhu
Thanks Madhu.
We, Osho lovers, after seeing his eyes, it is impossible to find the same beauty or compassion or whatever it is, anywhere else. XXX
I’ve used different techniques at different times, Tan. I move from technique to technique, because I found I got stale and felt stuck after a while (although sometimes it was worthwhile trying to work through that stuck place, and sometimes not). And I wonder if sticking to a technique past its sell-by date is the problem rather than the technique.
Try doing gibberish for 5 mins. before you start practising mindfulness or breath watching. Makes an amazing difference.
Thanks, Arps. Now, reading your last comment I am reminded of when I had babies, I would sleep with them. One by my side, another one on top of my chest. Believe me, they were unforgettable moments. The chap is right. Beats any well-being meditation! Thanks for the reminder! X
Tan.
Stuart writes regularly about his nipper, and the columns are a bit tongue-in-cheek, but he’s plainly besotted with the little ‘n; and with being a dad. (The articles are very warming). ✌
In mainstream German media, almost on weekly basis I read something or another about meditation, mindfulness and rapidly growing business opportunities in this service sector. Just the last week, there was a report about people enrolled in fitness studios have touched ten million mark. Almost all the fitness and wellness studios offer meditation, mostly by the practitioners of Kundalini Yoga.
In my heart, I feel contented to see this expansion. One more Indian business model has been taken over by the West, though in its half-cooked form.
Again, the alcoholic, white-skinned, red-bottomed western baboons display their astonishing spiritual ignorance for all to see with the shamelessness of Kim Kardashian on a photoshoot!
Mindfulness is simply the western mind full of mind which is nothing but mind! Here in mighty Bhorat we have sought successfully for millennia to become mindless, not mindful!
I have achieved this state, along with Shantam, Swami Bhorat and the chosen few! Like Shantambhai clearly explained recently: if a post by an ignorant baboon irritates him he just simply lets go into rage – no need to employ the mind at all!
Here in mighty Bhorat we practise Sahaj – spontaneity, as prescribed by the sages of old: we simply let go into whatever will be from all chakras simultaneously! It is for this reason that the Vedic scientists of mighty Bhorat designed holy underwear which has been tried and tested and passed down the generations for many yugas!
Yahoo!
Hari Om!
What surprises me about this article is that there is no mention of Osho’s cows.
Guess we are all more or less speechless, Lokesh, about a Scot´s Drum’s Lion´s Roar as a spokesman for the everyday working-class heroes and the Teachings about the rightly Father and Motherhood various issues.
And what a Transformation is this in the course of around some four decades!
Otherwise, we see living dogs practising acrobat stuff on skateboards, and who cares about poisonings (cows) – yesterday…the days before yesterday…today or tomorrow – in very dysfunctional families, which, up to now, one can say, can be compared to a US TV soap like ´Dallas`, with many serial follow-ups about a ´family´ in business?
Madhu
P.S:
Surprising that you are surprised. I am not.
With an increase in mindfulness, Adam Johnson could have saved himself from jail sentence. The aware mind would have taken the stand, “I am Atam; the eternal fire, I am no more Adam, the primitive one.”
There are many easy-to-follow awareness tricks one can learn from Sannyas way of life.
MOD: Atam OR Atman, SHANTAM?
(MOD: Adam Johnson is a well-known English sportsman who has today been jailed for 6 years for sexual activities with a 15 year-old girl fan).
I think in English Atman will be more fitting. I am not sure but feels like Atam is singular, Atman is plural.
In north India till 1950s many parents gave their sons the name Atam Parkash (Soul Light).
I was trying to make word-play by creating Atam out of Adam.
MOD: POST EDITED
Am I right, you that live in Spain, that the age of consent there is 14? If so, Adam Johnson would not be looking at a jail sentence.
He was a fool, especially given his position as an English international footballer, but the sentence of 6 years is much too long.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_Europe
In Spain it is 16!
In the world of Sannyas, I have no idea.
I am wondering if this Mr .David Gelles is trying to sell ‘Mindful Lotus Tea’!
Somewhere my impression is during next ten, twenty or forty years, some spiritual genius may get birth to create another fastest-growing global religion. Another, I am saying, because the first attempt by Osho has been landed due to technical defects.
Rest of the masters in the markets are not futuristic nor global in their approach. They are packers and movers of old in new bottles. My hope is new and modified version of O next.
It is also based on the historical observation, whenever society achieves some kind of new prosperity and stability, spiritual masters emerge according to that age and time. The inner work taking place in collective West is bound to create peak of the pyramid.
This is my inner longing for the collective humanity sans Muslims on this day of Good Friday.
“Somewhere my impression is during next ten, twenty or forty years, some spiritual genius may get birth to create another fastest-growing global religion. Another, I am saying, because the first attempt by Osho has been landed due to technical defects.”
The problem with this statement is that Osho never wanted to create a religion. Many times he spoke of authentic religion being something that happens around a living master and spoke against dead religions that are around after the master has gone.
Bear in mind that when Shantam says, “Osho’s religion has failed”, he means hot young white woman won’t have sex with him, so whatever point you think you’re making is not actually germane to his remarks.
Good point, Swamishanti. That appears to be something Shantam has completely misunderstood – and, from all the evidence so far, probably always will. A symptom of a certain deeply conditioned mind-set that’s no doubt further calcified by his personal circumstances, in ‘exile’, as it were, and, apart from the internet (a poor substitute for friendship and intimacy) very much alone and a long way from home (in all senses of the term).
Such conditions might well undermine anyone’s ability to see straight, let alone someone already culturally predisposed to getting the ‘wrong end of the stick’ where matters of ‘religion’ and ‘religiousness’ are concerned.
And now, Swamishanti, how long you are going to refer to that master who is not living anymore?
If dead master is still living, it means religion is formed.
I can drop each and every book of Osho. Can you dare to do?
MOD: POST EDITED
Shantam is saying he’s on a higher plane because he pays no attention to what Osho says, a higher plane than those who do. (Although self-evidently, Shantam has never paid any attention to what Osho has said).
So basically, people, if you want to rise to the heights Shantam has attained you will not bother with Osho any more, but you will become disciples of Shantam.
Arpana, whatsoever you write about me is filled with the filth of your prejudiced mind. A person who has been with Osho for so long judges another in such childish way is simply embarrassing.
I feel contented to penetrate your skin-deep religious attitude, underneath is simply a man who treats, like billions of others, their messiah or master as their personal doll.
Shantam, whatsoever you write about me is filled with the filth of your prejudiced mind. A person who has been with Osho for so long judges another in such childish way is simply embarrassing.
I feel contented to penetrate your skin-deep religious attitude, underneath is simply a man who treats, like billions of others, their messiah or master as their personal doll.
“And now, Swamishanti, how long you are going to refer to that master who is not living anymore?
If dead master is still living, it means religion is formed.
I can drop each and every book of Osho. Can you dare to do?”
Osho’s books are there for people to read, and some sannyasins will still feel Osho’s Presence.
No doubt there will be Osho ‘lineages’.
But I doubt that any of these things will happen because of what’s going on in Koregaon Park, Poona.
Organised religion tends to move away from the essence of the master’s teaching and more into sectarian belief systems, none of which Osho was ever about.
Again, spot on, SS.
MOD: POST EDITED
“If dead master is still living, it means religion is formed.”
Actually, Shantam, it doesn’t necessarily mean any such thing. It all depends on the context, on where individuals are at, on how they ‘frame’ the master and their fellow-travellers, how mature they are.
I suggest that your motives in wanting to be a key part in the creation of another religious institution run to suit your personal preferences and thus to be a sort of ‘comfort zone’ for you are essentially self-serving, ways to make yourself feel better about yourself and your unsatisfactory life, under the guise of a ‘warrior-like rebellion against intolerable oppression’ for the sake of imagined ‘service to the master and his people’.
Part of the joke inherent in this obsessive aspiration is that you see yourself as a great radical, a revolutionary even, whereas in fact you are at bottom deeply conservative, notwithstanding Sannyas or any unbridled sexual appetite!
I also suggest that at least part of the work of masters is to help their people see through such essentially self-ish dreams and delusions and wake up to reality, however harsh it might appear to be. But I’m not sure you’re capable of the self-honesty this requires, you too often appear too disturbed, agitated, upset, easily provoked, too reactive to see the truth.
Anyway, here’s something to, er, ‘meditate’ upon, based upon John Lennon’s famous line, substituting “Religion” for “God”:
“Religion is a concept by which we measure our pain”.
SS and SD, I have read each word of your thoughts. Sometimes it is no good to give counter-arguments but simply enjoy the good prose.
Perhaps that line should read:
“Religion is an institution by which we measure our pain”?
Or:
“Religion is a belief system, jazzed-up by rituals and priestly bollocks, by which we measure our pain”?
Mindfulness, as I see it, is totally up the wrong creek! Many people attracted to meditation, etc. are ‘in their heads’ most of the time anyway.
Osho’s contribution was enormous. He tried to take people out of their heads with the cathartic meditations, and rightly described vipassana as a bullock cart meditation.
Let’s hope there is a backlash and people start talking, and not before time, of ‘no-mind’.
Honest to God, P, what came over you?
Buddha’s way was VIPASSANA – vipassana means witnessing. And he found one of the greatest devices ever: the device of watching your breath, just watching your breath. Breathing is such a simple and natural phenomenon and it is there twenty-four hours a day. You need not make any effort. If you repeat a mantra then you will have to make an effort, you will have to force yourself. If you say, “Ram, Ram, Ram,” you will have to continuously strain yourself. And you are bound to forget many times. Moreover, the word ‘Ram’ is again something of the mind, and anything of the mind can never lead you beyond the mind.
Buddha discovered a totally different angle: just watch your breath – the breath coming in, the breath going out. There are four points to be watched. Sitting silently, just start seeing the breath, feeling the breath. The breath going in is the first point. Then for a moment when the breath is in it stops – a very small moment it is – for a split second it stops; that is the second point to watch. Then the breath turns and goes out; this is the third point to watch. Then again when the breath is completely out, for a split second it stops; that is the fourth point to watch. Then the breath starts coming in again…this is the circle of breath.
Osho, ‘The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha’, Vol. 5
Chapter #1
Chapter title: ‘The World is on Fire’
PM declares, “Osho…rightly described vipassana as a bullock cart meditation.”
How convenient for you, PM. It saves you enrolling in a ten day vipassana retreat and finding out if you have the stamina, that it is an excellent meditation technique. Using Osho quotes to justify your own limited take on things is a mug’s game. The reason being that Osho often contradicted himself, as is the case here.
Enter an Osho quote that will not help you pigeonhole what is one of the greatest meditation techniques handed down by wise men throughout the ages. Osho quite rightly says:
“Many of my sannyasins have practised vipassana. I have practised vipassana. It leads to the ultimate core of your being.”
Lokie,
I have done a ten day Vipassana retreat in Poona 1. Osho recommended it for me, but only after carthartic groups and meditations had been completed.
I am not sure that Vipassana being a bullock cart meditation is an exact Osho quote! I cerainly feel it is and own that view for myself.
I admit to getting fed up with the bullock cart mindfulness sell which is everywhere in London at the moment. Most of these young people need physical meditations before trying to just sit. Some get it through shamanic dance, etc. but many more could benefit from what we had on offer in the 70s.
P,
I did vipassana every day for a year, plus other long spells, and it was always such a grind. But to be honest, I have always found all forms of meditation a grind. And I have gone into dynamic at length. The same with kundalini, nataraj and gibberish, and guilt-tripped like crazy because I found this such a slog.
Recall Osho saying do these meditations playfully, and thinking at the time, “Well, if I could do them playfully I wouldn’t need to bother.”
Meditation has always been a nose-to-the-grindstone commitment for me; which has paid off, has been worth the effort, but still a grind.
FORBES QUOTE OF THE DAY
“When you’re surrounded by people who share a passionate commitment around a common purpose, anything is possible.”
Howard Schultz
I will google later to find out who is Mr. Schultz. One thing is clear, ‘Living Osho’ created a city and then a commune of people on the basis of the above principle.
It is a mind-fuck to think O wanted religion, or no religion, or religionless religion, or spirituality with God, or Zen without God; matter of the fact is, Osho is the founder of Osho Commune International. What can be the purpose is described very correctly by Howard Schultz.
Here’s how you operate, Shantam, time and again:
You’re in a corner, you can’t respond adequately, it’s all just too much for you to process or even grasp and you sense you’re on a loser if you try – so you slide away from the heat by claiming it’s all meaningless, ‘mind-fucking’ nonsense anyway!
Also typical is this:
“What can be the purpose is described very correctly by Howard Schultz.”
Really, Shantam? You mean the purpose of OCI is “a passionate commitment to a common purpose”? Er, sorry to be so awkward and all that – but you seem to have omitted the specific “common purpose” itself, old boy!
Sounds rather like another classic, meaningless “mind-fuck” to me, Swami-ji….
The Forbes quotation is all very well, Shantam.
But whilst much was achieved by our commune between 1975 and 85, it was at great cost of integrity. Basically, the many mistakes around ‘surrender’, and also Osho being disconnected from the commune after 1981, which must have been his choice.
It did end in what most would call tragic circumstances.
Many political movements share the Schultz definition, like Islamic State, Hitler’s Germany, etc., but fanaticism is not far from what Schultz calls passionate commitment….
To see the air crashes, does the industry stop the air travelling? ‘Innovation, Innovation, Innovation’ is a mantra in any effort bigger than one´s own tiny ego. It is a constant effort that air travel has become safer and safer every year.
To create a better society is a similar act and Osho is the one who initiated this process. To fix such man with other Indian or western Satsang gurus is simply mean, very mean, crude, ugly, pervert and far away from the truth.
I won´t mind to accept Osho´s vision for better humanity failed. If humanity is becoming better it is through American high-tech innovations and not because of Osho. But to wash out His efforts is unjustified.
Osho being disconnected after 1981 is your personal impression from Rajneeshpuram days. Reality is dead sick Osho gave His best to repaint His creation. In Pune 2, He took all the interests and had many secretaries to give counter-reports about the others. He was keeping check on everybody.
The only fatal mistake I think was the over-confidence that different animals will walk in the circle even when ring leader is dead (leaves the body). Months of Collective Gibberish did not work beyond the momentary soothing.
I think it is up to the disciples how they take the moving story. From my side, I find it a meaningful act to try my best to restore the Master´s creation and kick the Graffiti writers out from the work.
I think the below idiom is from your culture:
‘Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.’
“If humanity is becoming better it is through American high-tech innovations”.
“Humanity is becoming better”? Really, Shantam? Since when? In what ways, exactly?
And how are “American high-tech innovations” causing such all-round improvement, such significant evolution?
Sounds like unmitigated bullshine to me.
American drones took out ‘Jihadi John’.
Maybe that’s what Shantam means when he states “Humanity is becoming better.”
Undercurrent of ego below the superficial humility.
Humanity becomes evolved when they read my guru´s books. Spiritual Progress of the humanity depends upon their capability to see Avatara energy in an ordinary looking man/woman.
Answer the question, you devious little politician!
I bet he was watching the match and secretly cheering for the Anglo-Saxon baboons, too…
Then off down the dole-office to pickup a check from Mutti…
To be fair, Gary, you`ve got to have a sneaking admiration for the lad….
“It is a mind-fuck to think O wanted religion, or no religion, or religionless religion, or spirituality with God, or Zen without God.”
You claim these things are important when it suits you, Shantam, but just as righteously say they mean absolutely nothing, also when it suits you. Just like any common-or-garden, self-interested politician with an eye on what he thinks will benefit him.
Not really too impressive for someone who thinks himself qualified to pronounce on the present and future of any organisation, let alone that of a sizeable spiritual movement, is it?
What evidence is there that Osho wanted to create a new religion? None. However, there’s plenty of evidence that that’s what you think it’s all about.
And what do you think “religionless religion” might be?! You just made up the term, didn’t you?
As for “no religion”, well, as far as Osho was concerned they could all go to hell, so that one’s another no-brainer!
Which leaves “spirituality with God” and “Zen without God”…
Guess it depends what sort of ‘God’ you mean (if indeed you mean anything). As we’re reliably informed that the ‘God’ that we’ve been taught is purely a man-made concept, with no reality in it whatsoever, then the more authentic option would seem to be the ‘Zen’ one.
However, if by ‘God’ we understand ‘Life’, ie the ‘Life behind the Life’ (etc.) then such apparent conflicts dissolve.
So, first, no ‘religion’. Then, as I believe Osho used to say, the only ‘God’ is Life, ie the ‘Life behind It All’.
You might well agree, Shantam, and say that’s what you’ve been meaning all along. But that I would doubt, as you want to make a religion, complete with ceremonies, rituals and observances, plus ‘worship’ of the dead master – all ‘comfort zone’ stuff for you and similarly ‘stuck’ ultra-conservative (yet imagining they’re ‘radicals’ following the master’s master plan, and ‘revolutionaries’ plotting to overthrow ‘the regime’!) types.
Perfectly correct, Shantambhai!
You are feckless feck pacing streetless streets with mindless mind in brainless brain looking for religionless religion in jobless jobcentre!
Yahoo!
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/mar/26/a-nap-with-my-son-beats-transcendental-meditation
The important work of moving the world forward does not wait to be done by perfect men.
(George Eliot)
Some of the ´hidden ´price(s)´ of mindfulness; after looking into some google talks of David Gelles and similiar facilitators (inspired by ´wiki):
‘Bread and circuses’ (or bread and games; from Latin: panem et circenses) is metonymic for a superficial means of appeasement. In the case of politics, the phrase is used to describe the generation of public approval, not through exemplary or excellent public service or public policy, but through diversion; distraction; or the mere satisfaction of the immediate, shallow requirements of a populace, as an offered ‘palliative.’
Its originator, Juvenal, used the phrase to decry the selfishness of common people and their neglect of wider concerns. The phrase also implies the erosion or ignorance of civic duty amongst the concerns of the commoner.
Further information:
Grain supply to the city of Rome and Populares.
This phrase originates from Rome in Satire X of the Roman satirical poet Juvenal (circa A.D. 100). In context, the Latin panem et circenses (bread and circuses) identifies the only remaining cares of a Roman populace which no longer cares for its historical birthright of political involvement. Here Juvenal displays his contempt for the declining heroism of contemporary Romans.
Roman politicians passed laws in 140 B.C. to keep the votes of poorer citizens by introducing a grain dole: giving out cheap food and entertainment; ‘bread and circuses’ became the most effective way to rise to power.”
Happy Easter, everybody!
With XXX – and more…
Madhu
P.S:
UK football players had a fabulous operating fan group yesterday evening in the Berlin stadium and did win on merit.
The English with football and the Indians with meditation will always – win or lose, and however good Johnny Foreigner gets at playing it – have the consolation that “we invented it”!
Hari Om!
In-ger-land, oi oi oi!
I’d never heard of Rajneesh meditations when I got into yoga and then TM, before I took sannyas.
Presumably, some here will pillory me for being such an asshole as to have got into TM rather than Rajneesh meditations, despite that.
Give people, these people, a fucking break. Life is trial and error. They are exploring. Starting a long, arduous journey.
“The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step” (Lao Tzu)
Good one, Arps.
It feels nice to see Arpana writing his own life experience rather than reacting over others. Nobody is immature enough to degrade someone as asshole because of the search. Journey of thousand miles can start from TM before coming to DM (Dynamic Meditation) or post-Osho can be Meera or Mouji.
We are not living in the age where disciples have to be like Widows of Vrindaban, dedicated lifelong to a Krishna statue and no more chance for remarriage. Journey of thousand miles takes the seeker from one ashram to another.
Problem arises only when people quote the wrong price of the rice in a village they left decades ago.
Directly in connection with the spirit of this thread, I have an incident to share.
Other week a woman came across in my life. She mentioned about one spiritual app.I was not aware about. She looked with puzzled eyes, “How come you don´t know this app? Are you digital illiterate and cut off from the new developments in the spiritual field?”
She is doing night meditation with the headphone through the soothing voice of some American. She wanted that I should try and give my opinion.
I asked her about the name. It is Insight Timer.
Today, when I saw the website and downloaded the free app. I simply felt astonished. This website has more followers than the all the latest gurus combined together. Through this website people are logging more meditation minutes as any sect can boast about.
Question is: Is the virtual spirituality the future of Inner Journey. Surely one asks also, “When there is porn, what is the need of relationships?”
We are living in interesting times with fast moving pace!
MOD: FAO Shantam:
IN THE SPIRIT OF ALL THREADS HERE AT SANNYASNEWS, PLEASE DO NOT POST WHAT MIGHT BE TERMED CONTROVERSIAL STATEMENTS IF YOU CAN’T OR WON’T RESPOND TO PEOPLE’S REPLIES. THIS IS A DISCUSSION FORUM, NOT ONLY A PLATFORM FOR EXPRESSING SUCH VIEWS. (SEE YOUR POSTS OF 2 OR 3 DAYS AGO AND THE RESPONSES TO THEM). OTHERWISE YOU RISK SUCH POSTS REMAINING UNPUBLISHED.
Shantam,
As a young man wandering around in India before I ever met Osho, I hung out for a liitle while with a Baba who had just one disciple. Yet…even then, I recognised something genuinely otherworldly and mystical about them.
Even if mindfulness or any other digital meditation has a million followers it means nothing. It is the quality of the disciple that counts….
This so-called ‘meditation’ site (or app., if you insist) is full of the kind of stuff one can find in plenty of other places online, which promote and sell what are basically therapeutic tools for relaxation and self-healing – with a bit of self-insight thrown in, neatly packaged under a ‘spiritual’ umbrella. Nothing wrong with that at all, I’ve used a few such processes myself and found them quite beneficial.
But as one contemporary master used to say, “not all meditation is right meditation’ and the word has been greatly devalued by ‘New Agers’ and their business allies. Nothing new in that, of course, the same happened around TM way back in the 60s.
Similarly, not all teachers are masters and I’d bet a pound to a penny that the ones listed at this place are those that don’t ‘rock the boat’, that ‘let you down gently’ ie nothing too radical, nothing too potentially ‘upsetting’.
So no need to be ‘dazzled’, Shantam, by ‘digital digits’ (ie numbers), in fact such mass appeal is usually a sure sign it ain’t the ‘real deal’, whatever the buzz around and the benefits, at a certain level, of such a phenomenon. Rather like what passes for ‘mindfulness’…
Ultimately, just another ‘consolation trip’. Does that attract you, Shantam?
“Ultimately, just another ‘consolation trip’. Does that attract you, Shantam?”
If it has attracted me, I would not have insisted again and again for the revival of the Osho Commune.
When people don´t appreciate hospitals and therefore close them, GPs of all kinds will flourish in the neighbourhood.
Perfectly correct, Shantambhai!
You ask: “When there is porn, what is the need of relationships?”
Again, you show the degree of rigorous self-enquiry that Ramana Maharshi and all the sages of mighty Bharat would have been proud of!
And in this matter you are not just talking the talk but also walking the walk, flogging the log, beating the meat, jerking the gherkin and all while following the masters` guidelines for safe sex!
You have certainly been “logging more minutes” than any sect can boast about! Sitting at computer and thrashing off to Zen Porn sites which have more followers than the all the latest gurus combined together!
It is, as you have made clear, certainly heroic!
But also, it is tragic! Whilst gora baboons destroy our holy shrine you are powerless to stop them and all you can manage is to sit in chair and engage in hand-to-gland combat? It is certainly a tragedy that puts you right up there with Hamlet, Romeo and Cleopatra, to name but a few!
And you are right that religion is all about numbers! This is why you and I and all those whose mind has been swamped with the wisdom of mighty Bhorat plan to be dispatched from this world into next life wearing underwear of ancestors so as to at least have consolation of not being lonely in Nirvana!
Yahoo!
Hari Om!
If I say it is a cool piece, which made me laugh, few may think what kind of pervert I am to applaud my humiliation.
It happens when laughter and humour becomes part of institutional agenda, the natural sense of humour is put aside or looked as outcast.
MOD: PLEASE EXPLAIN THE LAST PARAGRAPH, SHANTAM.
The last sentence is a satire on the agenda of organisation around Osho vision.
Osho wanted to create a religious movement based on the happiness, joy, live, love, laughter kind of emotions rather than gloominess and melancholy.
But with the time, it seems we are back to square one. Live, love, laughter have become the commodities to be purchased behind the close doors of groups and seminars.
I feel it is my learning from Osho that I can laugh without any inhibition over the satire based on my words directed at me.
Individually, most of us have become broadminded because of Osho influence. The work is still under progress!
Perfectly correct, Shantambhai!
Do not be humiliated!
Your situation is a matter of great pride as Narendra Modi recently announced that along with stem-cell tech, plastic surgery, air travel, space-exploration, chapatis and sophisticated yogic bottom-wiping techniques, the sages of mighty Bhorat in their infinite wisdom also invented and gifted to the world comedy and humour, providing endless enlightentertainment on the transmigrational banana-skin-strewn road to Nirvana!
Serious scholarship has revealed that the Shiva lingam was the world`s first knob gag and it is now understood by serious historians of Bhorat (not women) that Tommy Cooper plagiarised the Upanishads for his catch-phrase!
Also, it has not been clearly understood in the West that the laws of Manu were the fore-runners of Bernard Manning`s whole act!
And of course, the Indian marriage system was devised by the ancient comedian-sages of Bhorat to maximise the possibilities for mother-in-law jokes!
Little-known also is that the divine urge of the people of Bhorat to build temples instead of public toilets springs from not only from a deep-set longing for the divine, but also from a reluctance to renounce the pleasure of watching one`s neighbour continuously putting his foot in it!
Shantambhai, you are a tragic hero, as you have made clear, but you are too modest! More exactly, you are a tragi-comic hero, endlessly renouncing the security offered by holy underwear and baring and offering up your well-used buttocks that have “logged many minutes” to be thrashed endlessly in a public arena for the purpose of karmic relief on the otherwise arduous journey from here to here!
This is a supreme act of self-sacrifice and will ultimately be rewarded by Brahma himself when you attain to the ultimate state of Mocksha!
Yahoo!
Hari Om!
Jus` like that!
Crazily hilarious:
“Little-known also is that the divine urge of the people of Bhorat to build temples instead of public toilets springs from not only from a deep-set longing for the divine, but also from a reluctance to renounce the pleasure of watching one`s neighbour continuously putting his foot in it!”
PS:
My impression is Frank is Anand Yogi. One must be a Britisher who knows India as back of his hand and has the education to transcribe dark British humour with spiritual touch.
During the peak years of Osho Commune, there were quite a few first-class stand-up comedians.
It seems with the revival, we will even see better ones.
Just imagine, Shantam Prem does a stand-up comedy on Osho and Sannyasins and He is also a chairman of Inner Circle (maximum duration 1-2 years).
Here we go…Shantam as Chairman of the Inner Circle – book your seats now for this continuous comedy act set to run and run, 24 hours a day, for at least 1-2 years! (Er, in his dreams…).
“No one can possibly take this man seriously – we just laughed and laughed!” (Sannyas News Readers Association)
“Side-splitting humour – and all totally unconscious!” (‘Mindfulness Monthly’)
“He’s ‘avin’ a larf – he’s a comedian all right, this one!” (‘The Sun’)
“He calls himself “He”- that’s a joke for a start!” (Mod, Sannyas News)
“He’d make one hell of a splash in the summer – he’d be thrown off the pier!” (‘Coming Attractions’, Brighton Tourist Office)
“With enemies like this, who needs friends?” (Swamis Amrito and Jayesh, Koregaon Park, Pune)
Basically, projecting myself as Chairman of Osho Foundation instead of working hard to become enlightened and create Shantam Foundation I am playing a joke on the smug spiritual mentality, which treats itself better and superior without showing any obvious sign of merit.
“Hilarious!” (‘The Christian Monitor’)
“This guy should be on my team, I really, really like him!” (Donald Trump)
“Our lads could do with some guaranteed comic relief after last night’s defeat (especially with me in charge) – sign him up!” (Roy Hodgson, England football manager)
“A true humanitarian – modest too!” (‘Humanist Quarterly’)
“Shantam is an example to all seekers and strivers after success: he never fails to snatch failure from the jaws of defeat!” (‘Yes, You Can’ monthly newsletter)
“We always follow Shantam Prem wherever and whenever he is online. Without his cutting-edge wisdom we are forever lost.” (Ali-Le-Twatt, ‘Twats’ Monthly’)
“A veritable Giant among Baboons” (Brian Rajneesh)
“He offered to show me around the estate – but he only wanted one thing! Uggghhh!” (‘Behind The Façade’ – Real-Life Responses to ‘I Am The Date – A Guide to the Pune Ashram For Nice Young White-Skin Ladies Aged Under 40 Years’, by Swami Shantam Prem)
“This thoroughly mediocre Sikh has an almost unique facility for seeing things exactly as they are not. Honestly, I just give up!” (Osho, from ‘My Osho and Me’, chapter 482: ‘The Osho Sessions’, channelled by Swami Samarpan)
Basically, Shantam, projecting himself as Chairman of Osho Foundation is his smug spiritual mentality, which treats itself better and superior without showing any any sign of merit at all, ever.
Mindfulness seems a little like many alternative ‘cures’ in medicine, and many ‘cures’ in straight medicine also. Very expensive, and very suspect!
A fool and his money are soon parted is all I can say!
“The man of spontaneity does not react, he responds. What is the difference? He just allows the situation to function over him, and he allows the response to come out, whatsoever it is.
The man who lives out of the past is predictable, and the man who lives moment to moment is unpredictable. And to be predictable is to be a thing. To be unpredictable is to be freedom — that is the dignity of man. The day you are unpredictable…nobody knows, not even you; remember, not even you…If you already know what you will do, then it is no longer
response. You are already ready, it is rehearsed.”
https://justpaste.it/Oshospontaneity