A Mega Thread Of Osho - The Spiritually Incorrect Mystic

[Faceless]

3 minutes ago, Ether said:

@Faceless u guys smoke a lot of weed, dont U? jk

Lol 

this is seen by self learning

?

??

[Ether]

@Faceless?

[Gabriel Antonio]

I felt like contributing a bit to this topic. Found this "accidentally" (Nothing is an accident, right, Shifu? :P). Great reminder to keep an eye on self-torture and how it has nothing to do with true spirituality.

 

From Unconsciousness to Consciousness

Chapter 9: JUST TO BE BORN IS NOT ENOUGH TO BE ALIVE

So he thought, "It is better to keep silent about it, not to say anything; it will look bad." And he thought that rather than spoiling all the food - because all these people were dipping their bread in it and eating - he thought, "It is better to finish it in one gulp and then take the food; that is easier." So he took one gulp, with closed eyes, with closed breath - just somehow to finish it, because nothing could be left. And do you know what Gandhi did? Gandhi called the cook and said, "Look how much he liked it! Bring another cup; he loved it!" So the cup was filled again. 

To live the lief of the poor, Gandhi would not allow anybody to use a mosquito net; that is luxury. And the place where he used to live, Wardha, is a very hot place, exactly in the middle of India, exactly in the center - one of the hottest places. And so many mosquitoes all around, that even in the daytime you had to use a mosquito net and sit inside it if you wanted to do any work: reading, writing, or anything. Even n the day, hundreds of mosquitoes are all over your body; how can you sleep in the night? But the idea of poverty: how can you use a mosquito net? That is a great luxury. 

So Gandhi had discovered - and he was a great discoverer of things, such things - he discovered that if you put kerosene oil on your face, your hands, then mosquitoes cannot come close to you because of the smell. Certainly they don't come, they are not so foolish as you are; but because of the smell you cannot sleep! I simply refused to stay there. I told Ramdas, "This is not the place for me. What kind of nonsense is going on here? And you are torturing these thirty-five people in the name of asceticism. You are glorifying all this."

Gandhi was doing this his whole life. He was absolutely a masochist, who enjoyed torturing himself - and also a sadist. It is a rare combination, very unique. There are people who are masochists, there are people who are sadists, but to be a sadomasochist is a very unique phenomenon. There are very few people - but there are some - who enjoy both: torturing themselves and torturing others. In the same of religion it is very easy because you can give a motivation to people - that if you torture yourself, you will gain much in the other life. 

That motivation, that greed, they don't call it motivation or greed, and they don't call it torture what I am calling torture - they call it tapascharya, sadhana, spiritual discipline. But just giving a good name to a un ugly thing does not change its nature. It is not a spiritual discipline, it is simple torture. But under the name of spiritual discipline you can torture yourself. 

Down the ages, in how many ways have religious people tortured themselves? If you come to know the whole story you will be simply amazed. There have been Christian ascetics whose practice consisted - still consists, they are still in existence - in beating themselves, early in the morning, naked. And the person who managed to beat himself the most was thought to be the greatest saint. The blood would be oozing out of the body, and they would go on flagellating. And the crowd would gather around their monastery to see this scene. And that crowd would support them, appreciate them, clap them, and help them to beat themselves more. And of course when a big crowed is appreciating you, you can go to any limit. 

[psychoknaut]

Nobody is going to mention that Osho was a cult leader? https://roadtrippers.com/stories/the-nitrous-huffing-cult-leader-and-his-93-rolls-royces

[Prabhaker]

2 hours ago, psychoknaut said:

Nobody is going to mention that

OSHO: I Am a Spiritual Playboy

 

[Shin]

DEAL WITH IT !!! ?

 

Edited March 5, 2018 by Shin

[Ether]

1 hour ago, Shin said:

DEAL WITH IT !!! ?

 

another Shin reply

[Shanmugam]

                                                                                             

                                                                                                          You are the Barrier

Be aware that through me you are not going to gain anything. Through me you can only lose all – because unless you are lost, the divine cannot happen; unless you disappear totally, the real cannot arise. You are the barrier. And you are so much, so stubbornly much, you are so filled with yourself that nothing can penetrate you. Your doors are closed. When you disappear, when you are not, the doors open. Then you become just like the vast, infinite sky. And that is your nature. That is Tao

The Empty Boat, Osho

[Faceless]

No past ‘self’ no imposition of limit onto the present. 

Past ‘self’ imposed on to the present makes for a finite experience. 

No past, no imposition of self onto the present is a movement of the infinite/whole

Edited March 6, 2018 by Faceless

[Shanmugam]

                                                                                           Becoming a Nobody

To think oneself a rooster is crazy; to think oneself a body is also crazy, even crazier. To think oneself a rooster is madness; to think oneself a human being is a greater madness, because you don’t belong to any form. Whether the form is that of a rooster or of a human being is irrelevant – you belong to the formless, you belong to the total, the whole. So whatsoever form you think you are, you are mad. You are formless. You don’t belong to any body, you don’t belong to any caste, religion, creed; you don’t belong to any name. And unless you become formless, nameless, you will never be sane.

Sanity means coming to that which is natural, coming to that which is ultimate in you, coming to that which is hidden behind you. Much effort is needed because to cut form, to drop, eliminate form, is very difficult. You have become so attached and identified with it.

This Samadhi Sadhana Shibir, this meditation camp, is nothing but to persuade you towards the formless – how not to be in the form. Every form means the ego: even a rooster has its ego, and man has his own. Every form is centered in the ego. The formless means egolessness; then you are not centered in the ego, then your center is everywhere or nowhere. This is possible, this which looks almost impossible is possible, because this has happened to me. And when I speak, I speak through experience.

Wherever you are, I was, and wherever I am, you can be. Look at me as deeply as possible and feel me as deeply as possible, because I am your future, I am your possibility.

Whenever I say surrender to me, I mean surrender to this possibility. You can be cured, because your illness is just a thought. The prince went mad because he became identified with the thought that he was a rooster. Everybody is mad unless he comes to understand that he is not identified with any form – only then, sanity.

So a sane person will not be anybody in particular. He cannot be. Only an insane person can be somebody in particular – whether a rooster or a man, a prime minister or a president, or anybody whatsoever. A sane person comes to feel the nobodiness. This is the danger....

You have come to me as somebody, and if you allow me, if you give me the opportunity, this somebodiness can disappear and you can become a nobody. This is the whole effort – to make you a nobody. But why? Why this effort to become a nobody? Because unless you become nobody you cannot be blissful; unless you become nobody you cannot be ecstatic; unless you become nobody the benediction is not for you – you go on missing life.

Really you are not alive, you simply drag, you simply carry yourself like a burden. Much anguish happens, much despair, much sorrow, but not a single ray of bliss – it cannot. If you are somebody, you are like a solid block of stone, nothing can penetrate you. When you are nobody you start to become porous. When you are nobody, really you are an emptiness, transparent, everything can pass through you. There is no hindrance, there is no barrier, no resistance. You become a passivity, a door.

Right now you are like a wall; a wall means somebody. When you become a door you become nobody. A door is just an emptiness, anybody can pass, there is no resistance, no barrier. Somebody...you are mad; nobody...you will become sane for the first time.

But the whole society, education, civilization, culture, all cultivate you and help you to become somebodies. That is why I say: religion is against civilization, religion is against education, religion is against culture – because religion is for nature, for Tao.

All civilizations are against nature, because they want to make you somebody in particular. And the more you are crystallized as somebody, the less and less the divine can penetrate into you.

You go to the temples, to the churches, to the priests, but there too you are searching for a way to become somebody in the other world, for a way to attain something, for a way to succeed. The achieving mind follows you like a shadow. Wherever you go, you go with the idea of profit, achievement, success, attainment. If somebody has come here with this idea he should leave as soon as possible, run as fast as possible from me, because I cannot help you to become somebody.

I am not your enemy. I can only help you to be nobody. I can only push you into the abyss...bottomless. You will never reach anywhere; you will simply dissolve. You will fall and fall and fall and dissolve, and the moment you dissolve the whole existence feels ecstatic. The whole existence celebrates this happening.

 - From 'The Empty Boat' , Osho

[Shanmugam]

                                                                               Bliss is Showering on you Every Moment

Mind can live in the future, but cannot live in the present. In the present, you can simply hope and desire. And that’s how you create misery. If you start living this very moment, here and now, misery disappears.

But how is it related to the ego? Ego is the past accumulated. Whatsoever you have known, experienced, read, whatsoever has happened to you in the past, the whole is accumulated there. That whole past is the ego, it is you.

The past can project into the future – the future is nothing but the past extended – but the past cannot face the present. The present is totally different, it has a quality of being here and now. The past is always dead, the present is life, the very source of all aliveness. The past cannot face the present so it moves into the future – but both are dead, both are nonexistential. The present is life; the future cannot encounter the present, nor can the past encounter the present. And your ego, your somebodiness, is your past. Unless you are empty you cannot be here, and unless you are here you cannot be alive.

How can you know the bliss of life? Every moment it is showering on you and you are bypassing it.

 - From 'The Empty Boat' , Osho

[Shanmugam]

                                                                                        The So-called Good Men

Whenever you come near a good man, you will always feel tortured – not that he is torturing you, it is just his presence. With so-called good men you will always feel sad, and you would like to avoid them. So-called good men are really very heavy. Whenever you come into contact with them they make you sad, they depress you, and you would like to leave them as soon as possible.

The moralists, the puritans, the virtuous, they are all heavy, and they carry a burden around with them, and dark shadows. Nobody likes them. They cannot be good companions, they cannot be good friends. Friendship is impossible with a good man – almost impossible, because his eyes are always condemning. The moment you come near him, he is good and you are bad. Not that he is doing anything in particular – just his very being creates something, and you will feel angry.

..........................

Chuang Tzu is saying that the halo of saintliness around you shows that you are still there. The halo that you are good is sure to create calamity for you, and calamity for others also. Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu – master and disciple – have never been painted in pictures with halos, auras, around them. Unlike Jesus, Zarathustra, Krishna, Buddha, Mahavira, they have never been painted with an aura around their head, ”because,” they say, ”if you are really good no aura appears around your head; rather on the contrary, the head disappears.” Where to draw the aura? The head disappears.

All auras are somehow related to the ego. It is not Krishna who has made a self-portrait, it is the disciples. They cannot think of him without drawing an aura around his head – then he looks extraordinary. And Chuang Tzu says: To be ordinary is to be the sage. Nobody recognizes you, nobody feels that you are somebody extraordinary. Chuang Tzu says: You go in the crowd and you mix, but no one knows that a Buddha has entered the crowd. No one comes to feel that somebody is different, because if someone feels it then there is bound to be anger and calamity. Whenever someone feels that you are somebody, his own anger, his own ego is hurt. He starts reacting, he starts attacking you.

So Chuang Tzu says: Character is not to be cultivated because that too is a sort of wealth. And so-called religious people go on teaching: Cultivate character, cultivate morality, be virtuous.

But why? Why be virtuous? Why be against the sinners? But your mind is a doer, you are still ambitious. And if you reach paradise and there you see sinners sitting around God, you will feel very hurt – your whole life has been wasted. You cultivated virtue, you cultivated character, while these people were enjoying themselves and doing all sorts of things which are condemned, and here they are sitting around God. If you see saints and sinners together in paradise you will be very hurt, you will become very sad and miserable – because your virtue is also part of your ego. You cultivate saintliness to be superior, but the mind stays the same. How to be superior in some way or other, how to make others inferior, is the motive.

If you can gather much wealth, then they are poor and you are rich. If you can become an Alexander, then you have a great kingdom and they are beggars. If you can become a great scholar, then you are knowledgeable and they are ignorant, illiterate. If you can become virtuous, religious, respectable, moral, then they are condemned, they are sinners. But the duality continues. You are fighting against others and you are trying to be superior.

Chuang Tzu says: If you cultivate your character and outshine others, you will not avoid calamity. Don’t try to outshine others, and don’t try to cultivate character for this egoistic purpose. So for Chuang Tzu there is only one character worth mentioning, and that is egolessness. All else follows it. Without it, nothing has worth. You may become godlike in your character, but if the ego is there inside, all your godliness is in the service of the devil; all your virtue is nothing but a face and the sinner is hidden behind. And the sinner cannot be transformed through virtue or through any type of cultivation. It is only when you are not there that it disappears.

.................................................

Religious people go on teaching: Be content with yourself. But yourself remains there to be content with. Chuang Tzu says: Don’t be there, then there is no question of contentment or discontentment. This is real contentment, when you are not there. But if you feel that you are content, it is false – because you are there, and it is just an ego fulfillment. You feel that you have achieved, you feel that you have reached.

Tao says that one who feels that he has achieved has missed already. One who feels that he has reached has lost, because success is the beginning of failure. Success and failure are two parts of one circle, of one wheel. Whenever success reaches its climax the failure has already started, the wheel is already turning downwards. Whenever the moon has become full there is no further progress. Now there is no further movement. Then next day the downward journey starts and now every day the moon will be less and less and less.

Life moves in circles. The moment you feel that you have achieved, the wheel has moved, you are already losing. It may take time for you to recognize this, because mind is dull. Much intelligence is needed, clarity is needed, to see things when they happen. Things happen to you and you take many days to recognize it, sometimes many months or years. Sometimes you even take many lives to recognize what has happened.

But just think about your past. Whenever you had a feeling that you had succeeded, immediately things changed, you started falling – because the ego is part of the wheel. It succeeds because it can fail: if it cannot fail then there is no possibility of success. Success and failure are two aspects of the same coin.

 - From 'The Empty Boat' , Osho

[Shanmugam]

                                                                                          Empty Your Boat

This is going to be your path. Empty your boat. Go on throwing out whatever you find in the boat until everything is thrown out and nothing is left, even YOU are thrown out, nothing is left, your being has become just empty.

The last thing and the first thing is to be empty: once you are empty you will be filled. The all will descend on you when you are empty – only emptiness can receive the all, nothing less will do, because to receive all you have to be empty, boundlessly empty. Only then can the all be received. Your minds are so small they cannot receive the divine. Your rooms are so small you cannot invite the divine. Destroy this house completely because only the sky, space, total space, can receive.

Emptiness is going to be the path, the goal, everything. From tomorrow morning try to empty yourself of all that you find within: your misery, your anger, your ego, jealousies, sufferings, your pain, your pleasures – whatever you find, just throw it out. Without any distinction, without any choice, empty yourself. And the moment you are totally empty, suddenly you will see that you are the whole, the all. Through voidness, the whole is achieved.

Meditation is nothing but emptying, becoming nobody.

- From 'The Empty Boat' , Osho

[Faceless]

51 minutes ago, Shanmugam said:

Meditation is nothing but emptying, becoming nobody.

 

Headlessness 

[Shanmugam]

                                                               A Man of Tao is the Aristocrat of the Inner World                                                                           

A man of Tao is not a man of much activity. His actions are the most essential – those which cannot be avoided. That which can be avoided, he avoids. He is so happy with himself there is no need to move in actions. His activity is like inactivity; he does without there being anybody doing.

He is an empty boat, moving on the sea, not going anywhere.

YET HE DOES NOT KNOW HIMSELF TO BE KIND AND GENTLE.

Allow this point to penetrate deep into your heart. YET HE DOES NOT KNOW HIMSELF TO BE KIND AND GENTLE – because if you know, you have missed the point; if you know that you are a simple man, you are not. This knowledge makes it complex. If you know that you are a man of religion, you are not, because this cunning mind which knows is still there.

When you are gentle, and you don’t know, when you are simple, and you are not aware of it, it has become your nature. When something is really natural you are not aware of it, but when something is imposed, you are aware of it. When somebody becomes rich, newly rich, he is aware of his house, of his swimming pool, of his riches, and you can see that he is not an aristocrat, because he is so concerned with show.

A newly rich man ordered three swimming pools for his garden. They were made and he was showing them to a friend. The friend was a little puzzled. He said, ”Three swimming pools? For what? One will do.”

The newly rich man said, ”No, how can one do? One for hot baths, one for cold baths.” His friend asked, ”And the third?” He answered, ”For those who cannot swim. So the third swimming pool is going to stay empty.”

You can see if a man has newly acquired wealth – he will be showing it. A real aristocrat is one who has forgotten that he is rich. A man of Tao is the aristocrat of the inner world.

If a person shows his religion he is not yet really religious. The religion is still like a thorn, it is not natural, it hurts, he is eager to show it. If you want to show your simplicity what type of simplicity is this? If you exhibit your gentleness, then it is simply cunning, nothing gentle exists in it.

A man of Tao is an aristocrat of the inner world. He is so attuned to it, there is no exhibition – not only to you, he himself is not aware of it. He does not know that he is wise, he does not know that he is innocent – how can you know if you are innocent? Your knowledge will disturb the innocence.

- From 'The Empty Boat' , Osho

[Ether]

1 hour ago, Faceless said:

Headlessness 

Facelessness

[Shanmugam]

[Clown]

Quote

Gurdjieff says: Go on remembering the observer – self-remembering. Buddha says: Forget the observer just watch the observed. If you have to choose between Buddha and Gurdjieff, I suggest choosing Buddha. There is a danger with Gurdjieff that you may become too self-conscious – rather than becoming self-aware, you may become self-conscious, you may become an egoist. I have felt that in many Gurdjieff disciples, they have become very, very great egoists. Not that Gurdjieff was an egoist – he was one of the rarest enlightened men of this age; but the method has a danger in it, it is very difficult to make a distinction between self-consciousness and self-remembering. It is so subtle it is almost impossible to make the distinction; for the ignorant masses it is almost always self-consciousness that will take possession of them; it will not be self-remembering.

The very word “self” is dangerous – you become more and more settled in the idea of the self. And the idea of the self isolates you from existence.

Buddha says forget the self, because there is no self; the self is just in the grammar, in the language – it is not anything existential. You just observe the content. By observing the content, the content starts disappearing. Once the content disappears, watch your anger – and watching it, you will see it is disappearing – once the anger has disappeared there is silence. There is no self, no observer, and nothing to be observed; there is silence. This silence is brought by Vipassana, Buddha’s method of awareness.

Osho, This Very Body the Buddha, Talk #4 

 

I found this intriguing. When doing self-investigation or self-inquiry, I notice that there isn't really a "self" anywhere. Awareness is just everywhere. It's almost like the objects themselves eminate awareness. So the search for the "self" turns into this endless feedback loop unless you accept that there isn't actually a self in all this. 

So this Osho quote is pretty helpful in that sense. 

Lately I've been reading a lot more what Osho has said and it's all very good stuff. I like that he is a well-read guy who knows a lot of stuff and has a way with words that makes sense. And also a sense of compassion that comes through even in just text.

And yeah, this has been said many times before but Sadhguru definitely has read or heard Osho's talks. It's a bit too obvious. I'm not saying it's a bad thing as the stories are told in relevant contexts. Maybe Sadhguru himself doesn't even realize how much he takes from Osho.

Oh and I just remembed, I have this Osho Tarot pack with accompanying book. Any thoughts on that? Too "new age"?

[Hsinav]

Osho, The Art of Dying, Talk #1

Death is an organic, integral part of life, and it is very friendly to life. Without it life cannot exist. Life exists because of death; death gives the background. Death is, in fact, a process of renewal. And death also happens each moment, as life happens, because the renewal is needed each moment. The moment you breathe in and the moment you breathe out, both happen. Breathing in, life happens; breathing out, death happens. That’s why when a child is born the first thing he does is breathe in, then life starts. And when an old man is dying, the last thing he does is breathe out, then life departs. Breathing out is death, breathing in is life – and both are like two wheels of a bullock cart. You live by breathing in as much as you live by breathing out. The breathing out is part of breathing in. You cannot breathe in if you stop breathing out. You cannot live if you stop dying. The man who has understood what his life is allows death to happen; he welcomes it. He dies each moment and each moment he is resurrected. His cross and his resurrection are continuously happening as a process. He dies to the past each moment and he is born again and again into the future.

 

If you look into life you will be able to know what death is. If you understand what death is, only then are you able to understand what life is. They are organic. Ordinarily, out of fear, we have created a division. We think that life is good and death is bad. We think that life has to be desired and death is to be avoided. We think somehow we have to protect ourselves against death. This absurd idea creates endless miseries in our lives, because a person who protects himself against death becomes incapable of living. He is the person who is afraid of exhaling, then he cannot inhale; then he is stuck. Then he simply drags; his life is no longer a flow, his life is no more a river.

 

If you really want to live you have to be ready to die. Who is afraid of death in you? Is life afraid of death? It is not possible. How can life be afraid of its own integral process? Something else is afraid in you. The ego is afraid in you. Life and death are not opposites; ego and death are opposites. Life and death are not opposites; ego and life are opposites. Ego is against both life and death. The ego is afraid to live and the ego is afraid to die. It is afraid to live because each effort, each step towards life, brings death closer.

[pluto]

He passed 1 year before i was born and i only found about him 20 years later sadly