In the dusty streets of Nathdwara where Jai Shri Krishna chants can be overheard with astonishing regularity, there stands a small house tucked away in a corner just round the main temple complex.

Here lived, not too far back in time, a sadhvi who though illiterate was considered a polar star of the Vedantic philosophy. Her name was Bhuri Bai.

Born into a carpenter family in the late 19th century, she was wedded tenderly at 13 to a rich painter aged 43! While the match seems startling today, it was not so utterly peculiar a few decades back.

As fate might have it, she was widowed within 12 years of marriage and later ill treated by her in-laws. On the intervention of the royal family of Sheorati, Mewar, she was offered separate residence of her own – the one where she lived all her life, flowered into a saint and died, leaving behind a huge vacuum for her ardent disciples. The place, now a residence cum ashram, is the one I visited recently, almost by accident.

Left all alone so young, Bhuri Bai turned to God. While no one knows how she acquired so much mystical knowledge, there are several theories including that she was initiated into Yoga by a wandering female Muslim sage. Whatever may have been the reason for her elevation, the fact is that Bhuri Bai climbed the spiritual ladder to rarest of heights and there are tales galore of her extraordinary feats.

Once a wondering mendicant came to sexually exploit this young woman whom he learnt lived alone. But on gaining one vision of hers, he is believed to have fallen prostrate at her feet, seeking her forgiveness and mercy. He later stayed with her for the rest of his life as one of her best disciples.

Another time when a cow died soon after giving birth, Bhuri Bai begged God to find a way to save the life of the new born. Miraculously, Bhuri Bai had a metaphysical experience and she started lactating and herself fed the calf till it grew up healthy.

As an animal lover, there are countless episodes of her gentleness with dogs, squirrels, birds, cows and even donkeys.

Bhuri Bai was a great believer in the power of silence. The wall on the entrance of her house bears the word “Chup” (silence). When asked once about the technique to obtain the state of dhyan (deep concentration), she is believed to have retorted “Yahan bey-dhyan kaun hai?” (who is not already immersed in the meditative state) – condensing in one sentence the entire Vedanta.

Known for several such smart repartees, she was as self-respecting as articulate. When the King of Mewar asked her if she needed any aid for her sustenance, Bhuri Bai gave an answer that was not just full of self esteem, it also carefully guarded the honour of the royalty. She said, “How can I be in want when I have sons such as you!”

Her colourful paintings of Lord Ram along with Laxman and Shabri and another one of Kak Bhusundi relating the Ramayana still adorn the walls of one of her rooms with great vividness and speak of special talent.

Though mostly self taught and self realized, Bhuri Bai attributed her spiritual ripening to Bavji Chatur Singhji who is known to be the Valmiki of Mewari literature.

Sitting on the floor in front of her idol in her meditation room was one of most unique experiences of my life. The cool room filled me with calm and quietude, even if it lasted just that day. It was a rare condition and one worth aspiring for.

Probably this lady sage has already told us how to obtain the blissful state. On persistent requests about penning her wisdom, she had once spilled ink on a book and smeared it all over. At the end, she wrote just one precious word: ‘Ram’ on the cover page.

Her message was simple: “All else is darkness except the Name of God.”

Article by Akrita Reyar, published in zeenews.com, India, on March 12, 2013
(The views expressed by the author are personal)

Credit to Naina, Osho World

Related article Osho Speaks on Bhuribai 

Published on 15.4.2013, Frank Thadeusz of Der Spiegel writes about Kevin Dutton’s latest book, The Wisdom of Psychopaths: What Saints, Spies, and Serial Killers Can Teach Us About Success (original English title).

Psychology: Could one also make a career instead of becoming a serial perpetrator? Soul watchers discover the type of professionally successful psychopaths. A British scholar even believes that everybody can learn from those who are perturbed.

The book is about research into the lives of psychopaths and their cunning behaviour patterns. The author set out on a vast inquiry – including the latest advances in brain scanning and neuroscience – to find out not only what makes a psychopath but also which jobs are particularly attractive for this type of human. He found that leading are corporate chiefs and lawyers, followed by surgeons in the fourth position; priests are found in the eighth position.

He describes the difference between a psychopath and a normal corporate leader: “A normal person having just lost a billion by messing up would lock himself into the toilet and throw up. The psychopath goes home undeterred and doesn’t even think about it.” By this he means financial jugglers such as Bernard Madoff and Richard Fuld of the Lehman Brothers; also included in his research are Kennedy, Nixon, Clinton, and Steve Jobs.

Dutton’s theory is that we all possess psychopathic tendencies, that society as a whole is more psychopathic than ever. He argues that there are indeed “functional psychopaths” among us — different from their murderous counterparts — who use their detached, unflinching, and charismatic personalities to succeed in mainstream society, and that shockingly, in some fields, the more “psychopathic” people are, the more likely they are to succeed.

The book appears provocative and reveals a lot of food for thought about the so-called dark side in many humans.

The article by Der Spiegel concludes:

“How to exploit one’s followers bluntly and in an exceedingly comfortable manner, was virtuously demonstrated by another sect leader in the seventies. The Indian Chandra Mohan Jain, also known as Bhagwan, preached humility to his disciples but for himself he aspired to own a Rolls Royce for every day of the year.

That his followers accepted this contradiction uncomplainingly, was commented by Bhagwan in probably the only possible way: ‘Five percent of the people are intelligent, the remaining 95 percent are our followers.’”

Now the reader may wonder why Osho is mentioned in this context at all. I asked myself the same question and in lieu of having the actual book at hand, went online and checked Dutton’s book at Amazon. There is a clever little search button for the contents in the book and interestingly none of the names for Osho, or Poona, or even India came up. Assuming that Amazon’s search engine works, this is puzzling; one must assume Dutton didn’t mention Osho at all.

The writer of the review – in the typical shabby and whacky manner of Der Spiegel – may have simply thought he would attract more readers if he would include Osho’s photo, two lame paragraphs about Osho and an entirely false quote attributed to Osho. Der Spiegel’s archives have also not been updated in a long time – Mr. Tadeusz, the names you used for Osho haven’t been used since the late eighties and as for the quote, you might be well advised to do your research.

Bhagawati for Osho News

Thanks to Sankalpa and Bodhena for getting the article to us.

www.speakingtree.in

Credit to Santosh

Pratiksha’s latest exhibition in Chandigarh has received wide attention and much praise. More than thirty articles have been written since about her superb and inspirational paintings. The writers always mention that Pratiksha is Osho’s niece and publish her quotes about him and meditation. As a random example, Amarjot Kaur of The Tribune writes,

She paints wisdom that is drenched in meditation and it radiates a vision that runs in equal proportion to the intensity of her thoughts. It’s the rarity of her creative expression that delves deep into spirituality to define her existence and she just basks in the sheer joy that she derives from painting while meditating.”

Slideshow of her artwork: Pratiksha: Expressing the Inexpressible

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www.pratikshaart.com

There is an intricate relationship between an act and the end result. We always want to have a perfect result for whatever we do, without losing ourselves in the act. Is such an act possible? To understand the fine difference, it is important to examine ‘perfection’ and ‘totality’. Although for many people, perfection is the ultimate goal, it is nothing less than illusion or myth; something which is nonexistent. We are attracted by the very idea of perfection, not realising that it is like a disease which is dangerous and destructive. If not for our obsession with perfection, our action could open the door to a beautiful spiritual journey.

Whatever you do, just pour your heart in it, do it with totality. The Bhagawad Gita says that karma is enjoyable if the heart is involved in it. Then there is no karma and kerta; both melt and become one. That is totality. Perfection is myth, while totality is reality.

Perfection is a goal somewhere in the future while totality is an experience this very moment, in which your act is transformed into meditation and a beautiful prayer descends in your heart. In fact, there is not future reference or goal for totality; only a routine life style albeit soaked in spiritual fragrance.

If you do any work or any act with your whole heart, then you are total, then you are walking on the same path which Kabir and Ravidas chose.

The whole idea is to ‘be total’ in everything that you are doing. It doesn’t matter what you do, whether you are making clothes like Kabir or shoes like Ravidas, or cooking food or working on a new design for most advanced spacecraft, or cleaning the floor. The job is immaterial. The focus is that doing is with totality, which is the only way to transform the act into meditation and to transform the doing into a beautiful prayer.

The founder of Tantra vision, Saraha, born two centuries after Gautama Buddha in Vidarbha didstrict, Maharashtra, later became a disciple of Skri Kirti, a Buddhist saint and disciple of Buddha’s son Rahul Bhadra. Saraha, along with his father and four brothers, spent some time in the court of King Mahapala and he was particularly popular among his brothers for his knowledge of the Vedas.

After some time, the Brahmin Saraha became a sanyasin and chose Sri Kirti as his master. Immediately after his initiation, the first thing Sri Kirti asked Saraha was to drop all the Vedas, and all the learnings. After many years, Saraha became a great meditator. One day, while in meditation, Saraha had a vision that there was a woman in the market place who would become his real teacher. Saraha told his guru about the vision and with his blessings, left to seek the truth about his visions.

Sarah found the woman he saw in his vision in the marketplace. She was a young woman of a lower-caste arrowsmith family. She was making an arrow. For Saraha, this was a major shift – a learned Brahmin saint seeking out an arrowsmith woman as guru.

Saraha watched her carefully. The young woman was lively and luminous with life, cutting an arrow shaft, deeply absorbed in the process. Saraha immediately felt something extraordinary, something he had never heard or learnt in the scriptures or from any guru. Her very action of making the arrow illuminated the heart of Saraha.

He continued watching her working on the arrow. She, on the other hand, was working intensely without realising his presence or getting perturbed by his stare. For her, no one existed at that moment. After the arrow was ready, she closed one eye and opened the other as if pointing towards a target to check the fineness of the arrow. And that very moment something happened. Saraha understood the real meaning which he couldn’t discover in life despite reciting from various books. She was much absorbed in the act; there was no duality. She was one with her work. She gave Saraha the real message of Buddha – to be total in the action is to be free of action. Be total and you will be free. For the first time, he understood what meditation is.

The ordinary arrowsmith woman became the real teacher of a Brahmin guru without saying a word or mantra correcting scripture. Saraha got enlightened with just her presence involving routine work of making an arrow, albeit completely absorbed and melted with the act in the process.

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The ceremony took place before a packed house at the Mathäser Filmpalast in Munich, on April 26, 2013. The producer, Pavrati (Ela Buchwald), and Puja accepted the award.

Every year in spring, the Cosmic Cine Film Festival shows the Best Open Mind Movies that reflect the current zeitgeist with their meaning and significance, and inspire to make life one’s own responsibility. All nominated films form an overall symphony matching the theme of this year, “A World Full of Possibilities” and set creative impulses, show new understandings and ideas beyond borders.

Last year, widely-read German woman’s magazine Brigitte Woman published a 5-page interview with Puja as the cover story for their 10/12 issue, all about having more time for love, having slow sex, and how sex is so much more enjoyable when the partners are relaxed.

Satya Puja is the author of several books on Tantra, including Tantric Orgasm for Women and Tantric Love Letters, and is the co-author of Tantric Sex for Men. Together with her partner, Michael (aka Swami Raja), she has been teaching week-long “Making Love” retreats for couples since 1993. She lives in Switzerland.

DVD Slow Sex is available at innenwelt-verlag.de -  amazon.de

Credit to Jivana

Terence Stamp was born in 1938 in Mile End, East London. As a young actor, after his screen debut in Peter Ustinov’s film Billy Budd in the sixties, he was nominated for an Oscar. Another well-known movie he starred in at the time was John Schlesinger’s Far from the Madding Crowd; soon he was a movie icon and was seen around with many beautiful women, including July Christie and Jean Shrimpton. He was even contacted by producer Harry Salzman in 1967 to take over the role of James Bond after Sean Connery stepped out. Terence Stamp remembers with humor, “Like most English actors, I’d have loved to be 007 because I really know how to wear a suit… But I think my ideas about it put the frighteners on Harry. I didn’t get a second call from him.”

He lived in Italy for several years and in 1967/68 worked with Federico Fellini on his ‘Toby Dammit’ section of the Edgar Allan Poe portmanteau film Histoires extraordinaires/Spirits of the Dead and with Pier Paolo Pasolini on Theorem (keystone of the BFI retrospective). It was Fellini who introduced Terence Stamp to J. Krishnamurti in 1968, which sparked his interest in spirituality.

After filming The Mind of Mr. Soames in 1970, movie offers began to cease. In 1975 he filmed Hu-Man which for him “was the only serious film I did [during those years], and that was really independent. We’d get some money, shoot for a few days, use the money, ‘See you a few months later!’ – it was that kind of thing. So I travelled. I thought I’m not going to stay around here facing this day-in-day-out rejection and the phone not ringing… I went from being a lead actor to nothing. I was devastated. My agent told me people were now looking for a young Terence Stamp.”

He went to Egypt and then “wound up in India and that opened a whole new world to me – that was an amazing thing to happen to a young performer. It’s quite widespread now, but to go there as a very young man and to meet great thinkers and great sages and to learn about breathing and movement and the whole canvas of mysticism…”

And then there is a gap – the time he spent at Shree Rajneesh Ashram in Poona where he became Swami Deva Veeten in 1976. It is interesting to note that none of the newspapers mentioned that.

Returning to his acting career in 1978, he played the Kryptonian super villain General Zod in Superman. Nick Curtis, in the London Evening Standard writes, “The ashram filled the gap when work dried up for him in the 1970s, and he was changed after his return. The BFI season feels like a vindication of his decision not to do ‘crap’ films for money, he says. He is philosophical about not having children, and about being single after his six-year marriage to Elizabeth O’Rourke, a Singaporean-Australian pharmacist 35 years his junior, ended in 2008. ‘I was married and I can’t call that a mistake,’ he says. ‘But I am set in my ways. I have never been in a relationship where the silence was mutual. And being lonely for me isn’t the same as other people understand it.’”

In 1979, Peter Brook directed the movie Meetings with Remarkable Men that many of our readers are familiar with. Brook tells the story of Asian mystic G. I. Gurdjieff, with Terence Stamp playing Prince Lubovedsky. Film critic Hal Erickson states that Terence Stamp “briefly retreated from his career after this picture, in favour of Eastern meditation.”

Among his later key movies are The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, The Limey, and Bowfinger. His most recent film, Song for Marion, is a touching story about ways of letting go – of life, of self-consciousness, of inhibition, a comedy-drama about death, loss and choral singing. It was nominated for three awards at the 2012 British Independent Film Awards: for Best Actor, Best Screenplay, and Best Supporting Actress. At the 2013 Beijing International Film Festival Song for Marion was awarded with Best Actor for Terence Stamp.

Terence Stamp answers questions at the British Film Awards for 2012

Nick Curtis concludes in his article, “The greatest example of how Stamp differs from your average film star is that he is technically homeless. In America, he stays in a friend’s guest house in Ojai, California, or in the New York flat and Hamptons house owned by his brother Chris, who used to manage The Who and Jimi Hendrix, and who died last November. Stamp also has the use of properties in Geneva and Gstaad owned by Chris’ Swiss widow. In London he stays with two friends, in Notting Hill and Knightsbridge, or in hotels: ‘My favourite is the Savoy, but I often can’t afford it,’ he says. ‘The absolute, honest truth is I would love to come back to England, but my taste has exceeded my earning capacity by so much that whenever I see something I like, I am millions short. And I can’t really go back to Plaistow [where he lived as a child], you know.’

“That said, whenever he’s in London, he goes back to what used to be ‘the old Green Street Market’ on Barking Road, which is now ‘Little Bombay’, and the only place he can find a particular mango he got addicted to in India. Last time he visited, a porter greeted him with: ‘Allo Terry, what the f*** are you doin’ here?’ He always walks or takes the bus, and laments the passing of the Routemaster, and the fact that the No 15 doesn’t go as far as it used to.

“‘I feel I’m kind of an urban icon,’ Stamp says, ‘that I’ve earned my place, because, you know, what the English love best is longevity. I will be 75 this July. I am five years away from being 80. That’s ridiculous. But it’s all still working, so I’m delighted.’ He puts on his hat and walks into the Waterloo sunset.”

Way to go, Terence!

Bhagawati, Osho News

Related article Osho Initiates Terence Stamp into Sannyas

The Daily Bhaskar has gotten into the habit of publishing sensational and negative articles about Osho and sannyasins. In this particular article, they show great images of Osho and joyful female sannyasins to lure the reader, and then added to some of the photos words they attribute to Osho but are really knowingly distorted by them. This is just one batty article of many they are churning out on a regular basis.

daily.bhaskar.com

Related discourse by Osho Don’t be Angry at the Press People

Related letter Yellow Press

‘Did Osho destroy veteran actor Vinod Khanna’s Bollywood career?’

TDB must have had intense tutorials from such notorious news rags as Bild Zeitung in Germany, The Sun in England, and Weekly World News and The National Enquirer in the USA. By the way, the paper used in the distant past for colonial newspapers was made in England from rags, hence the expression, but I digress.

Someone at TDB found an interview from 2002 that Vinod gave to The Times of India and performed a hatchet job, using bits here and there to create sensationalist coverage. Speculations are rife at TDB that “there are many who believe that if Vinod Khanna wouldn’t have ‘followed’ Osho, the history of Bollywood would have been something else. Amitabh Bachchan might not be a superstar and Vinod Khanna’s career would not have been like this as it is believed that if any actor could have given a real fight to Big B, it was Vinod Khanna.”

As intelligent people know, speculations about the past are nonsense and irrelevant, and have nothing to do with the path Vinod chose.

Born in Peshawar in 1946 (then British India, now Pakistan), his family moved to Bombay when India was partitioned. While at boarding school he fell in love with motion pictures after watching the famous epic Mughal-e-Azam. After graduating from Sydenham College with a commerce degree, he embarked on his movie career. He debuted in Sunil Dutt’s 1968 film Man Ka Meet, playing a villain; he got rave reviews and within a week, he had signed up for 15 films.

He is considered to be one of the best looking actors in Bollywood and because of his charming personality, he became popular with the audience and featured in innumerable lead roles. He is one of the few Bollywood actors who could successfully transition from negative roles to positive lead roles.

With his career at a peak, he became Osho’s sannyasin on the last day of the year 1975 in Pune. I remember Vinod very well from the seventies at the ashram and hung out sometimes at his house to watch videos together with a few other friends, a rare opportunity back then; he was always amiable and joyful and never displayed big movie star eccentricity as far as I experienced.

While in Rajneeshpuram he worked mainly as a gardener (“I was Osho’s mali”). Upon returning to India and Bollywood, his comeback movie Insaaf (opposite Dimple Kapadia) in 1987 was a big hit, and Vinod starred as a hero in several movies until 1994. In 1999 he received a Filmfare Lifetime Achievement Award for his contribution to the film industry for over three decades.

Moving into politics because he had a feeling to serve the nation, he joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 1997 and was elected from Gurdaspur constituency in Punjab in the next year’s Lok Sabha poll. In July 2002 he became Union Minister for Culture and Tourism and was India’s Minister of State for External Affairs (junior foreign minister), holding office from 2003-2004.

He continues to star in movies and receiving awards, like the Zee Cine Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2007. His latest action movies from 2012 are Dabangg 2 and Players, while five new Hindi movies are scheduled to be released in summer 2013.

Vinod never concealed the fact that he is Osho’s sannyasin. To this day he remains connected with sannyasins, participates at events in Oshodham and Osho Galleria in New Delhi, visits Osho Nisarga in Dharamsala and a couple of years ago also visited Osho Tapoban in Nepal.

In aforementioned Times of India interview, Vinod concluded,

Everything is a manifestation of God: I have a vision and believe in making my own destiny. Spirituality is the transcendence of beliefs and systems. It involves gaining mastery over the mind. Spiritualism brings about peace of mind — it destroys everything that is negative. Everything around us, whether good or bad, is a manifestation of God.”

Bhagawati, Osho News
Illustrations credit: indya101.com, BollywoodSaesam, bollycurry,com, oshotapoban.com, oshoworld.com, Girish Shukla, Rajneesh Foundation Photo Services, BCCL timescontent.com

Credit to Santosh

Reports about rapes are increasing rapidly and especially women in Asia no longer keep silent about the brutal abuse they suffered and dare to go public in spite of often being shunned and attacked by their own families. After a heinous attack on a young woman and her boyfriend in Delhi last year, widespread public protests and outrage demanded the death penalty for the perpetrators and although new laws were recently passed in India to prevent and prosecute rape and other sex crimes, an independent UN expert said they “do not go far enough.”

What usually is not addressed is that especially in rural areas the blame is squarely put on the woman’s head, and although some of the perpetrators are eventually punished, nobody ever thinks about the victim who must try to rebuild her life after the ordeal. A typical example is the social attitude towards women in Haryana. In this region, close to Delhi, men still call the shots. The all-male village council meetings called khaps, are tremendously powerful both socially and politically. Women are usually not included in those meetings. One council elder was reported as saying that girls should be forced to marry young to protect them from rapists although it is clear that being married hasn’t protected women from being assaulted.

A new film shows the courage of Kainat Soomro, a young Pakistani woman who was 13 when she was brutally gang-raped and held in captivity for three days until she managed to flee. The men in her village denied her accusations and the tribal elders declared her as ‘outlawed’ for having sex outside marriage. They even had the gall to encourage Kainat’s family to kill her themselves. Courageously her father and brother refused and the case went to court.

The lengthy legal battle was followed by filmmakers Habiba Nosheen and Hilke Schellmann for years. They filmed the daily problems the family faced, reported on the murder of Kainat’s brother, followed her alleged rapists, and investigated women’s lives in traditional Pakistani communities. The result is the PBS Frontline documentary, ‘Outlawed in Pakistan’.

It is unimaginable cruelty that such men unleash on a woman, it is a crude and sick self-importance that makes them think they can just abuse and torture a woman as if it were their birth right. And don’t think this is only happening in Asia. It is happening everywhere 24/7 on this planet in various contexts.

Men have shown inconceivable disrespect of women down the ages. They have murdered millions of women by forcing them to be burned alive on their husbands’ funeral pyre. Have they forgotten that a woman gave birth to their miserable life? Have they forgotten that it is a woman who gives birth to their all important sons? This is widespread chauvinist oppression of women who are being used like cattle, many beaten by their husbands on a regular basis.

Whatever punishment is given will not deter other men to go about such dastardly deeds. Nobody addresses the root cause of these atrocious acts – male supremacy and sexual repression that turns into violent acts against women. This is what we must look at. We need change, not revenge. Although knowing that one’s perpetrator has been punished for years in prison might bring some mental relief to the victim, we see across the globe that a woman raped is ultimately being punished for it.

Demonstrations won’t change the bigoted male attitude, women’s liberation movement won’t change the sexist mind. What is needed is for the society to change.

Bhagawati

In this video, he speaks of “The Mystic Osho” and cites the quote that is shown on the screen behind him.

Watch on YouTube

At 4.13 minutes David Icke says, “The mystic Osho said about the awakened man, – woman, whatever, we are all consciousness anyway – he said,

‘People are afraid, very much afraid of those who know themselves. They have a certain power, a certain aura and a certain magnetism – a charisma that can take out alive, young people from the traditional imprisonment.The enlightened man cannot be enslaved – that is the difficulty – and he cannot be imprisoned.

…The enlightened man is the greatest stranger in the world, he does not seem to belong to anybody. No organization confines him, no community, no society, no nation.’

Osho, The Zen Manifesto: Freedom from Oneself, Ch 9, Q 1

davidicke.com
American Indian songsManantial
Lyrics for ‘We Must Come Together’ by GreenZilla

Credit to Sugit

(Picture for representational purposes only.)

Osho said, “Godliness is next to cleanliness” and I could understand this Osho idiom when I saw pictures of the oceanic garbage in the Uttarakhand area.

I fail to understand the minds of people who worship the idol in a temple and completely neglect the environment all around. The vast nature, the breathtaking beauty of the hills and the rivers has no meaning for such devotees. What kind of religious attitude is this that makes people so insensitive, so irreverent to life?

My friends in the West often ask me this question. One intelligent man asked, “Darshan is so important in Indian spirituality, you guys go to the guru, to the temple to have a darshan. And the meaning of darshan is to look closely, deeply, isn’t it?”

I said, “Yes,” without having the slightest clue what this was leading to. “If they have the capacity to look, they can see everything. So why can’t they have a darshan of garbage, the filth lying all around? Why can’t they see the poverty of the vast majority?”

I had no answer. He had touched a raw nerve. I could never understand it myself, too. The more religious a person becomes, the more he is careless about his surroundings. This could be because what they call religion, only exists in some rituals, some traditional methods of prayer and worship. Most people have a split personality.

Their religion does not transform their baser emotions. Their devotion does not make them more compassionate and kind to human beings, to the animals or to trees.

They go to the temples to collect some virtue, punya as if virtue means some kind of money that can be stored. Take Osho’s advice, “You have to clean yourself; and nothing less than emptiness will be accepted as cleanliness. Cleanliness is next to emptiness. In fact, cleanliness is another name for inner emptiness. Throw out all the rotten furniture and rags.”

It is an ancient culture, so it is full of ancient junk. Unless it is thrown out cleanliness will be next to impossible! – The writer is in the management team of Osho International Meditation Resort, Pune. She facilitates meditation workshops around the country and abroad.

‘The Speaking Tree‘, 30th June 2013, New Delhi, India.

Through her art, Pratiksha Apurv shows us how the Divine light permeates the layers of consciousness within.

For a meditator the biggest challenge is attaining sakshi bhav, a state where the seeker can clear the head of a cloud of thoughts. One must have experienced the distraction while sitting silently in meditation. The thoughts and the observer, both are one in this situation, thus making the journey to spiritual bliss not just difficult but arduous. This is because we have always ignored the unconsciousness to such an extent that we don’t even know its existence and the fact that it plays an important role in our daily lives.

Beyond Psychology 1, Oil on Canvas 2011

Sow The Seed

Our effort of removing thoughts without acknowledging the existence of the unconsciousness becomes a futile exercise hampering spiritual growth. First of all, we have to accept the existence of unconsciousness and its deep connection with consciousness. In other words, unconsciousness is the soil where you need to sow the seed for flowering in consciousness. We all are conscious, the word often used to describe our decision. What we don’t know is that a particular decision is rooted in action that emanates from the unconsciousness. There has to be a meeting point of consciousness and unconsciousness for implementation of that decision in practical terms, for flowering and to separate the thoughts from the observer, making the spiritual journey a blissful one.

The only way to discover the vast galaxy of unconsciousness is through hypnosis, something we know very little of. Hypnosis is the tool for seekers to reach the unconscious layer that is controlling the functions of the conscious layer. The two are connected — the seeds sown in the layer of unconscious soil, flowers in the conscious layer, our existing state. Hypnosis is not meditation; it is just a tool that helps you to meditate and takes you deeper into your path. It plays the role of a coordinator by establishing the harmonious balance between thoughts coming from the unconscious and action triggered by the conscious to remove the distraction.

If you find it difficult to meditate, then first go through hypnosis so that you get deep into the unconscious and that makes you understand that meditation is a simple thing and you are perfectly capable of doing it. Hypnosis can create that conviction in your life. And then, sitting silently, you will simply go into meditation without any difficulty as the whole unconscious will be supporting it and there will be no distraction.

There is nothing technical about hypnosis which is a significant part of our daily life. All you have to do is to develop trust in this therapy which ensures spiritual growth. Whenever you feel that thoughts have erected barriers in your path and attaining the observer status — where thoughts and observer become two different entities — this therapy can provide a solution by taking you into the unconsciousness galaxy and facilitating relevant changes that would be visible in your conscious. It is the only way of segregating the cloud of thoughts from the observer.

The meeting ground for the consciousness and unconsciousness is important and any visible change is possible only when the two are communicating or a connection between the two is established. In our normal life this is not happening, because both are separate and there is no meeting ground. Hypnosis is the only scientific tool that is capable of preparing a meeting of the two. Once you reach the collective consciousness, the dive in cosmic unconscious will be another step. True hypnosis will happen the moment you dive into the cosmic unconscious and establish the connection. You will undergo a complete mutation.

Hypnosis Helps

The hypnotist is only a guide to awaken you to your own power. This power can do tremendous work and can be used for many things: healing, making one live longer, medical, psychotherapeutic uses, military uses, for self-improvement, entertainment, forensics, sports, education, physical therapy, to heal irritable bowel syndrome, rehabilitation and in changing ones harmful habits, smoking and drinking. Hypnotic methods have been used to re-experience drug states and mystical experiences. It has been used as an aid or alternative to chemical anaesthesia and it has been studied as a way to soothe skin ailments

I have shown consciousness through the outer layer of my painting. The next layer is of the unconscious and the third one is of the collective unconscious. And finally, the darkest one in the centre is the cosmic unconscious layer. Before entering the layers of consciousness, the rays appear in various colours but the moment they permeate into the various layers of consciousness, all the colours turn grey.

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Actor Dustin Hoffman shares how the film ‘Tootsie’ came to be and why he felt compelled to play the role of Dorothy Michaels.

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In their ‘Mysticism’ section, The Speaking Tree (New Delhi, India) published Suman Bala’s contribution on July 9, 2013

Dear friends, inspired by Mr. Ranganathan Ganapathy’s blog titled ‘Man & Money’, I am sharing with you some very valuable thoughts from Osho’s book The Search.

Money attracts, power attracts – and without asking oneself: Why should I run after these things? We go on running. In fact, because the whole society is running, every child gets the disease by inheritance. Everybody is running – the child learns by imitation. The father is running, the mother is running, the brother is running, the neighbor is running, everybody is running – for power, prestige, money, things of the world. Unaware, the child is also forced into the main current of life. Before the child can start thinking, he is already running.

[…] See what is your inner need and then work for it, and work diligently for it, intelligently for it. But first see what your inner need is. And the inner need can be recognized only when you recognize who you are.

[…] I know people who have earned enough money; now they can retire. In fact, they have been saying their whole life that once they have attained to such money, they will retire. But they don’t retire. […] One very basic thing has to be understood: these things are not going to fulfill you because they are not basic needs. One needs something else. But that something else has to be searched for within yourself; nobody else can give you the direction. You have your destiny within you. You have the blueprint within you. Before you start running after anything, the most fundamental thing is to close your eyes, get in tune with yourself, with your energy, and listen to it – and whatsoever it say is good for you. Then you will feel fulfillment. By and by, you will come closer and closer to your blooming, to your flowering.

[…] The world is a dream. Not that it does not exist, not that it is not – the world is a dream because the world that you think is, is nothing but your dream, because you are asleep, unconscious, sleepy, moving, doing things. It is fortunate that you cannot go far! You can become awakened this very moment.

Source: Osho, The Search, Ch 1 (excerpts)

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He received some interesting feed-back:

“I have wasted my entire life,” wrote a professor emeritus from the USA.

“Sir, can I change my profession?” asked a CEO of an IT security firm in response.

And an old-time Osho disciple wrote, “Please send a burf bag – and it was these people who were jealous of the Rolls Royces we gifted to Osho, and were a device!”

This is a taste of the spicy comments for this article that went round the mail-forwarding circuit. Obviously, all of them had forgotten’ The Rich Man’s Guru’ who startled the world with wealthy communes, 99 Rolls Royces, designer watches, flamboyant robes and expensive sun shades – but no economic empire there…

One thing is clear that India’s Super Rich Gurus now have amassed massive wealth and property.

Yoga Guru Ramdev has established a mini-city near Haridwar with factories churning out mass production of traditional Indian medicines, toileteries and even groceries! Quite a commercial empire this and competing with global multi-nationals – all from the seed of yoga!

To be fair, some of them have set up schools, colleges, hospitals, old age homes, orphanages, clinics and hospitals for the common and needy people. Hugging saint Amma tops them all.

Sri Sri Ravishankar is a smooth talking guru with a good command of the English language who uses his basic meditation ‘Sudershan Kriya’, a watered-down version of Osho’s Dynamic Meditation.

Sant Shri Asaram Ji Bapu has no problem in quoting Osho extensively in his discourses as he collects followers.

The costumes of Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh Insaan are clearly inspired by Osho.

All of them have enlarged their institutions to spread their spiritual teachings. With their multi-billion empires and some having a rather lavish lifestyle, sitting on golden thrones, why is Osho still dubbed the ‘Rich Man’s Guru’?

Kul Bhushan, Osho News

Here’s the mailer:

Super-Rich Spiritual Gurus of India – Let’s All Become Babas….

These modern-day gurus are not only renowned but they also possess a lot of wealth through NGO’s and private funds. Some prominent ones who have passed away cannot be excluded, such as Satya Sai Baba who died recently and who could count more followers than any other Indian guru, and the financial worth of his spiritual empire is several times larger. Sai Baba’s wealth reportedly was more than Rs 40,000 crore (at present exchange rates, 6,7 billion US$).

Here are 5 super-rich Indian gurus who own vast business empires.

Yoga Guru Baba Ramdev gained popularity through ventures in yoga, alternative medicine and agriculture, as well as his advocacy on Indian political issues. His life is no less than a typical Bollywood movie. He was born in a poor farmer’s family in Haryana and until 15 years ago Ramdev was a struggling man who was often seen on the streets of Haridwar, peddling his bicycle as he went to temples and people’s homes to teach them yajnas. Later, through his knowledge of yoga asanas Baba Ramdev went on to build an enviable Rs 1,100 crore empire. He was also among the first to raise the issue of black money publicly in 2008 and before the assembly elections of 2009 it was during this time he officially announced his wealth of Rs 1,100 crore but, according to tehelka.com, he controls over Rs 11,000 crore. Wealthy Assets: Patanjali Yogpeeth and Divya Yogi Mandir trusts and other branches, Patanjali Ayurved College, Patanjali Chikitsalaya, Yog Gram, Goshala, Patanjali Food and Herbal Park, etc. His empire today consists of over three dozen companies.

Mata Amritanandamayi is the Hindu spiritual leader and teacher, who is revered as a saint by her followers. Amritanandamayi spontaneously embraces people to comfort them in their sorrow and therefore is also referred to as ‘The Hugging Saint’. She has hugged close to 30 million people to-date; she is widely respected for her humanitarian activities and is probably by far the richest godwoman in the country. Main source of income: Amrita Viswa Vidyapeetham colleges, Amrita Institute of Medical Science (Kochi), Amrita Schools, TV channel. Amrita Schools are located across Kerala where students are charged the same fee as in top-notch private schools. Adding to it are the contributions from her millions of Indian and foreign devotees. Even by modest estimates, the Amritanandamayi Trust, which she presides over, is said to have assets worth over Rs 1,500 crore. Today, her ashram at her native Vallikavu, a small island off Kollam, is a posh five-storey building.

Sri Sri Ravishankar is a renowned spiritual leader, known worldwide. He is the founder of the very famous Art of Living Foundation that has an estimated 300 million followers in 151 countries who donate millions to this foundation. He was born in Tamil Nadu and took up Vedic studies when he was just six years old and by the age of 17, he had completed his studies in Vedic literature and science according to India Today. Main source of income: Art of Living Centre (Bangalore), Sri Sri Shankar Vidya Mandir Trust, PU College (Bangalore), Sri Sri Centre for Media Studies (Bangalore), Sri Sri University, Art of Living Health & Educational Trust (US), etc. It is estimated that he has built an empire and that it has a total turnover of approximately Rs 1,000 crore that includes his Art of Living (AOL) institutes, pharmacy and health centres, and a hill 40 km from Bangalore he has on lease from the Karnataka government for 99 years.

Sant Shri Asaram Ji Bapu is endearingly known as Bapu among all the godmen and self-proclaimed saints mentioned above. Asaram Bapu is one of the most controversial of them. He is accused of land grabbing in Gujarat and various other cities and is busy settling the string of cases charged against him. There have also been rumors of “sinister activities” at his ashrams, after four children were found dead a couple of months ago, although it turned out that a student had killed them. It was bad publicity for the godman nonetheless. His most popular and well established Ashram Motera in Ahmedabad is said to be built on land acquired illegally. The trust headed by the controversial godman owns more than 350 ashrams in the country and abroad, besides 17,000 Bal Sanskar Kendras. Asaram Bapu’s trust is said to have a turnover of Rs 350 crore according to official announcement (figures may vary) which includes the multi-crore controversial ashram in Delhi’s Ridge area.

Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh Insaan is the current leader of an organisation called Dera Sacha Sauda. Since becoming the head of this sect, he has often been involved in controversy, even having criminal cases filed against him. The Dera Sacha Sauda was established by Shah Mastana Ji from Baluchistan in 1948, as a centre for spiritual learning. Assets: Over 700 acres of agriculture land in Sirsa, a 175-bed hospital in Ganganagar, Rajasthan, gas stations, market complexes and over 250 ashrams across the globe. Although his income isn’t revealed officially, he is considered to be one among the richest gurus. Ram Rahim, the Dera chief, is accused of murder, rape and sexual harassment. The most damaging allegation as yet on Baba Ram Rahim is of a female follower’s letter anonymously sent to the Prime Minister and President which claimed that Baba Ram Rahim had allegedly raped her as well as at least 50 more female followers in the Dera Sacha Sauda premises. This Baba is currently out on bail and is being investigated by the CBI. The trial is on before a special CBI court at Ambala.

I’m no disciple of Shree Bhagwan Rajneesh. I am not a disciple of any guru. I am, in fact, not convinced that the Oriental guru system is particularly useful to the evolution of consciousness in the western world (although I’ll be the first to admit that what is most “useful” is not always what is most important). The very notion of guruhood seems at odds with the aspirations of the passionate individualist that I profess to be, and I’d be only slightly more inclined to entrust my soul to some holy man, however pure, than to a political committee or a psychiatrist.

So, I am no sannyasin. Ah, but I recognize the emerald breeze when it rattles my shutters, and Bhagwan is like a hard, sweet wind, circling the planet, blowing the beanies off of rabbis and popes, scattering the lies on the desks of bureaucrats, stampeding the jackasses in the stables of the powerful, lifting the skirts of the pathologically prudish, and tickling the spiritually dead back to life.

Typhoon Bhagwan is not whistling Dixie. He is not peddling snake oil. He won’t sell you a mandala that will straighten your teeth or teach you a chant that will make you a millionaire. Although he definitely knows which side his bread is Buddha-ed on, he refuses to play by the rules of the spiritual marketplace, a refreshing attitude, in my opinion, and one that stations him in some pretty strong company.

Jesus had his parables, Buddha his sutras, Mohammed his fantasies of the Arabian night. Bhagwan has something more appropriate for a species crippled by greed, fear, ignorance, and superstition: he has cosmic comedy.

What Bhagwan is out to do, it seems to me, is pierce our disguises, shatter our illusions, cure our addictions, and demonstrate the self-limiting and often tragic folly of taking ourselves too seriously. His pathway to ecstasy twist through the topsy-turvy landscape of the Ego as Joke.

Of course, a lot of people don’t get the punchline. (How many, for example, realized that Bhagwan’s ridiculous fleet of Rolls-Royces was one of the greatest spoofs of consumerism ever staged?) But while the jokes may whiz far over their heads, the authorities intuitively sense something dangerous in Bhagwan’s message. Why else would they have singled him out for the kind of malicous persecution they never would have directed at a banana republic dictator or Mafia don? If Ronald Reagan had had his way, this gentle vegetarian would have been crucified on the White House lawn.

The danger they intuit is that in Bhagwan’s words, as in the psychedelic drugs that they suppress with an equally hysterical bias, there is information that, if properly assimilated, can help to set men and women loose from their control. Nothing frightens the state — or its partner in crime, organized religion — so much as the prospect of an informed population thinking for itself and living free.

Freedom is a potent wine, however. Its imbibers can take a long while to adjust to its intoxication. Some, including many sannyasins, never adjust. Patriotic Americans pay gassy lip service to their liberty, but as they’ve demonstrated time and time again, they can’t handle liberty. Whether more than a fistful of Bhagwan’s emulators can handle it has yet to be determined. It likely will take something more eschatologically dramatic than the unorthodox wisdom of a compassionate guru to dislodge most modern earthlings, be they seekers or suckers, from our age’s double helix of corruption and apathy, let alone to facilitate the human animal’s eventual escape from the web of time.

Meanwhile, though, Bhagwan’s discourses ring a lot truer than most. He has the vision to see through the Big Mask, the guts to express that vision regardless of the consequences, and the love and humor to place it all in warmly mischievous perspective. Moreover, here is one teacher who is honest enough, illuminated enough, alive enough to openly enjoy the physical world while simultaneously pointing out its ubiquitous traps and trickeries. Zorba the Buddha!

Predictably, the journalists who’ve investigated Bhagwan have each and every one been befuddled by his methods, his messages, and the delightful paradoxes that they see only as flaky contradictions. Even many of Rajneesh’s followers end up being confused by him. Well, Jesus left numerous contemporaries, including fellow Jewish reformers and his own disciples, in a comparable state. It goes with the territory, which is why they say in Zen, “The master is always killed on the road.” Frequently he’s killed by those who profess to love him most.

When Rajneeshis misbehave, the media and the public blame Rajneesh. They can’t understand that he doesn’t control them, has, in fact, no intention of ever trying to control them. The very notion of hierarchical control is antithetical to his teachings.

When Bhagwan learns of vile and stupid things done in his name, he only shakes his head and says, “I know they’re crazy, but they have to go through it.” That degree of freedom, that depth of tolerance, is as incomprehensible to the liberal hipster as it is to the rigid square. And yet, as an outsider who’s been moved, impressed, and entertained by the manner in which Bhagwan has put the fun back in profundity, I know it’s a level of wisdom that we simply must attain if we’re to climb out of the insufferable mess we, the most aggressive of primates, with our hunger for order and our thirst for power, have made of this splendid world.

From Wild Ducks Flying Backward: The Short Writings of Tom Robbins

Credit Osho Afroz and Daya

Michael Hanlon writes in the ‘Daily Mail‘ on 13.8.2013:

The world’s first genetically modified humans have been created, it was revealed last night.

The disclosure that 30 healthy babies were born after a series of experiments in the United States provoked another furious debate about ethics.
So far, two of the babies have been tested and have been found to contain genes from three ‘parents’.

Fifteen of the children were born in the past three years as a result of one experimental programme at the Institute for Reproductive Medicine and Science of St Barnabas in New Jersey.

The babies were born to women who had problems conceiving. Extra genes from a female donor were inserted into their eggs before they were fertilised in an attempt to enable them to conceive.

Genetic fingerprint tests on two one-year-old children confirm that they have inherited DNA from three adults – two women and one man.

The fact that the children have inherited the extra genes and incorporated them into their ‘germline’ means that they will, in turn, be able to pass them on to their own offspring.

Altering the human germline – in effect tinkering with the very make-up of our species – is a technique shunned by the vast majority of the world’s scientists.

Geneticists fear that one day this method could be used to create new races of humans with extra, desired characteristics such as strength or high intelligence.

Writing in the journal Human Reproduction, the researchers, led by fertility pioneer Professor Jacques Cohen, say that this ‘is the first case of human germline genetic modification resulting in normal healthy children’.

Some experts severely criticised the experiments. Lord Winston, of the Hammersmith Hospital in West London, told the BBC yesterday: ‘Regarding the treatment of the infertile, there is no evidence that this technique is worth doing . . . I am very surprised that it was even carried out at this stage. It would certainly not be allowed in Britain.’

John Smeaton, national director of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, said: ‘One has tremendous sympathy for couples who suffer infertility problems. But this seems to be a further illustration of the fact that the whole process of in vitro fertilisation as a means of conceiving babies leads to babies being regarded as objects on a production line.

‘It is a further and very worrying step down the wrong road for humanity.’ Professor Cohen and his colleagues diagnosed that the women were infertile because they had defects in tiny structures in their egg cells, called mitochondria.

They took eggs from donors and, using a fine needle, sucked some of the internal material – containing ‘healthy’ mitochondria – and injected it into eggs from the women wanting to conceive.

Because mitochondria contain genes, the babies resulting from the treatment have inherited DNA from both women. These genes can now be passed down the germline along the maternal line.

A spokesman for the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), which regulates ‘assisted reproduction’ technology in Britain, said that it would not license the technique here because it involved altering the germline.

Jacques Cohen is regarded as a brilliant but controversial scientist who has pushed the boundaries of assisted reproduction technologies.

He developed a technique which allows infertile men to have their own children, by injecting sperm DNA straight into the egg in the lab.

Prior to this, only infertile women were able to conceive using IVF. Last year, Professor Cohen said that his expertise would allow him to clone children – a prospect treated with horror by the mainstream scientific community.

‘It would be an afternoon’s work for one of my students,’ he said, adding that he had been approached by ‘at least three’ individuals wishing to create a cloned child, but had turned down their requests.

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Credit to Max

Published in ‘The Speaking Tree‘, Delhi, India, 16.8.13

In spirituality, the term ‘liberation’ has been used to explain the ultimate objective of sadhana –freeing oneself from human life-cycle, attaining a stage where the soul is liberated and merged into Ultimate Reality. The stage is known as moksha, where everything ends, even the very thought of liberation. However, the beginning of this spiritual journey and the idea of liberation is often mixed with greed.

The moment we take the first step in meditation or into our spiritual journey, the desire for the ultimate is sown. This is interesting because the idea of moksha is born out of desire to put an end to rebirth. Now, this desire makes no sense when we talk about liberation because desire is fickle and liable to change depending on the situation. And this desire is scary. It is the only obstacle between a meditator and the stage of liberation. But our conditioning is so strong that we add more desires, raising more obstacles in the journey.

Tomorrow Is Another Day
Today, you have a certain desire, but it is inconsistent because tomorrow you will have another. The desire will keep changing without transforming your inner Self in the true sense. With a new desire, you may get an idea that inner transformation is likely to change, but unfortunately, that is only leading to deeper bondage.

Total liberation is possible when there is no desire. When the great master Naropa became enlightened, someone out of curiosity asked him, “Naropa, have you achieved liberation now?” Naropa said, “Yes and no. Yes, because there is no bondage now, but since there is no bondage, liberation has also disappeared, that is why I say ‘no’.”

Beyond Greed, Acrylic and Oil on Canvas, 2012

Naropa was the disciple of the great Indian Master Tilopa. He thought for a moment and added, “Both were part of it and now I’m beyond – neither in bondage nor in liberation.”

Your spiritual journey has to go beyond desire. One has to be careful of the tricks the mind plays in enforcing desire and greed. The moment you drop desire and greed for moksha, transformation becomes possible. Try to understand the trick the mind plays as it goes on desiring. One should use the awareness to transform greed and desire into trust in existence. One should express gratitude for what existence has given.

Once, Narada, a great Indian sage, was on his way to see God. His meeting with God used to be very interesting as Narada was also a great traveller and full of information about what was happening around the world. In true sense, he was like the first mythological journalist, bringing peoples’ news to God and informing people about what God had to say on certain issues. So while playing God’s hymns on the veena, Narada came across an old saint sitting under a tree.

The old saint told Narada, “Please ask God one question on my behalf. I have made all the effort needed to last me three lifetimes, now how much more is needed? When is my liberation going to happen?” Narada assured him that the next time he meets God he will ask this question.

As he crossed another forest, he came across a young man dancing and playing on his musical instrument —ektara. Just to tease the young fellow, Narada asked him, “Do you have any question for God, would you like to know anything from him?”

The young man behaved as if he had not heard what Narada said. He was totally immersed in his song and dance.

Narada returned after a few days. He told the old saint, “I asked God about you. He said three more lifetimes.” Narada’s reply got the old saint into a rage. He threw away the beads and books saying, “It is absolutely unjust, three lives more. This is not what I expected from God.”

Convey My Thanks
Narada laughed. He then went to see the young man who was still dancing, singing and playing on his ektara. Narada said, “Although you did not have any question for God, I asked him about you. But after seeing the angry reaction of the old saint, I’m scared to to tell you his answer.”

Again, the young man behaved as if he hadn’t heard Narada. He continued with his singing. Finally, gathering some courage, Narada said, “When I asked about you, God said ‘Tell the young man who is singing my prayers that he will have to be born as many times as there are leaves on the tree under which he is dancing.”

Listening to what Narada said, the young man started dancing and singing even more ecstatically. He said, “Don’t tell me, it’s unbelievable, so fast? There are so many trees in the world and so many leaves… only this tree and these many leaves? When you next go to God, give him my gratitude, my thanks.”

And it is mentioned in the epics that the young man became liberated that very moment. Liberation happened under the same tree in the presence of Narada. If totality of trust arises inside, time becomes meaningless. It is not needed. However, if there is no trust, even three-four lifetimes are not enough for liberation.

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