These things are made to be forgotten. Temporal statements for the lustful trapped in fragmented moments.
Laughter dies quickest when everyone is watching.
This is a happy post.
It's a reminder that is meant to be ignored and displaced. Only to be found again, like a letter on the sidewalk. Maintaining some semblance of recognition.
Enough ramble
Thursday, May 12, 2011
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Tom Robbins essay on Shree Bhagwan Rajneesh also known as Osho
" I'm no disciple of Shree Bhagwan Rajneesh. I am not a disicple of any guru. I am, in fact, not convinced that the Oriental guru system is particularly useful to the evolution of consciousness in the wester world (although i'll be the first to admit that what is most "usful" is not always what is most important.) The very notion of guruhood seems at odds with the aspirations of the passionate individualist that I profress 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, scatttering 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, we 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 most aggressive of primates, with out hunger for order and our thirst for power, have made of this splendid world.
Introduction to Bhagwan: The Most Godless Yet the Most Godly of Men by Dr. George Meredith, 1987
NOTE: When Bhagwan was shown the preceding remarks, he laughed and said that he didn't believe in Oriental guru systems either. In fact, he disavowed any connection to guruhood, saying that the very notion of a guru-disciple relationship is an affront to human dignity. He explained that since his emphasis had always been on just being oneself, the act of refusing to be anybody's disciple is precisely what being a disciple of Bhagwan is all about. Bingo! I believe he was speaking truthfully and I love him for it. In complaining that others have misrepresented Bhagwan, I misrepresented him myself, and for that I apologize.
Incidentally, as the reader probably is aware, not long before Bhagwan was poisoned by a government assassins, he changed his name to Osho. At the Poona ashram, the name change was embraced so thoroughly, so fervently, one would have thought "Bhagwan" had never existed. It was almost reminiscent of one of those old Soviet appellation purges. However, I believe that had he lived, he would have eventually changed his name again, the whole point being, in my opinion, to demonstrate the ultimate fallacy of identifying with and becoming attached to one's name; or, for that matter, any other self-defining labels, including occupational titles and ethno-geographic distinctions. Who knows, had he survived, Bhagwan/Osho might have become Wolfagng, Bubba, or World B. Free."
Osho's Book of Secrets is great. Pick up anywhere and find little elements that will improve your life. Like Robbins said there's no ideology and nothing to believe in. It's more a deconstruction of belief and Self Knowledge.
Everything from Tom Robbins is great.
This is lifted from Wild Ducks Flying Backward The Short Writings of Tim Robbins
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, scatttering 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, we 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 most aggressive of primates, with out hunger for order and our thirst for power, have made of this splendid world.
Introduction to Bhagwan: The Most Godless Yet the Most Godly of Men by Dr. George Meredith, 1987
NOTE: When Bhagwan was shown the preceding remarks, he laughed and said that he didn't believe in Oriental guru systems either. In fact, he disavowed any connection to guruhood, saying that the very notion of a guru-disciple relationship is an affront to human dignity. He explained that since his emphasis had always been on just being oneself, the act of refusing to be anybody's disciple is precisely what being a disciple of Bhagwan is all about. Bingo! I believe he was speaking truthfully and I love him for it. In complaining that others have misrepresented Bhagwan, I misrepresented him myself, and for that I apologize.
Incidentally, as the reader probably is aware, not long before Bhagwan was poisoned by a government assassins, he changed his name to Osho. At the Poona ashram, the name change was embraced so thoroughly, so fervently, one would have thought "Bhagwan" had never existed. It was almost reminiscent of one of those old Soviet appellation purges. However, I believe that had he lived, he would have eventually changed his name again, the whole point being, in my opinion, to demonstrate the ultimate fallacy of identifying with and becoming attached to one's name; or, for that matter, any other self-defining labels, including occupational titles and ethno-geographic distinctions. Who knows, had he survived, Bhagwan/Osho might have become Wolfagng, Bubba, or World B. Free."
Osho's Book of Secrets is great. Pick up anywhere and find little elements that will improve your life. Like Robbins said there's no ideology and nothing to believe in. It's more a deconstruction of belief and Self Knowledge.
Everything from Tom Robbins is great.
This is lifted from Wild Ducks Flying Backward The Short Writings of Tim Robbins
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