Mahasamadhi

[Heart of Space]

2 minutes ago, Speedscarlet said:

@Shanmugam your posts are too long. Do you mind distilling the information into a smaller post so that I can read it?

Sadhguru is potentially a giant fraud and there are strange circumstances around his wife's death that casts suspicion on him.  

Personally, I'm wary of people who clearly try to manipulate their appearance in order to create a certain perception in others.  I'm also wary of people who make outrageous claims that could easily be verified by simple documentation like supposedly meditating for 13 days straight easily with no food or water.  I don't know what the answer is, but always be skeptical, especially when your instincts tell you to be.  

[Leo Gura]

@Shanmugam I find him genuine. I could of course be wrong. He might be an axe murderer for all I now. But I don't worry about it because I do not hinge anything serious on him. He is but one data-point in my entire understanding of this field out of hundreds of other data-points.

I don't like wasting my time arguing over spiritual teachers or digging into their personal lives. This is a distraction. Take the good, leave the bad, and study more. Don't hinge your path on any one teacher, and none of this will be a problem.

[Shanmugam]

@Speedscarlet  I wish I can do that but will be very difficult and almost an impossibility. Because, Sadhguru has certainly made a strong influence in many people and I was also one of them. My posts are longer because I have to give many examples to convince people that he is misleading people for his own benefit.

Just consider this one example...

People who attain Mahasamadhi are never cremated. They are buried. But Sadhguru's wife was cremated. The worst thing was, she was cremated before her parents could reach the place. They didn't even have a chance to have a last look at their daughter's face, even though they made a prior request.. Why?

[Speedscarlet]

@Heart of Space You still don’t believe in the paranormal? I’m amazed that you can stomach all of Leo’s latest videos whilst still holding onto the materialist paradigm. 

Here’s a documentary that could open your mind:

 

[Shanmugam]

1 minute ago, Leo Gura said:

@Shanmugam Don't hinge your path on any one teacher, and none of this will be a problem.

I agree! That is exactly what I want to convey.

The problem with Sadhguru is, there are certain things which happen in people's minds very slowly and they don't recognize it. They slowly create a cult of personality and take whatever he says as true.

I surely agree that you might have learn't a lot from his talks, which he himself repeats from what he has read in Osho's books. I don't see any harm in that. But the problem arises because he mixes truth with myths and the emphasis is more on the myths.

This doesn't have to be seen as an argument but a reminder to take everything he says with a pinch of salt.  And this is true for any spiritual teacher.  Sadhguru started out very well initially. His early talks that were delivered before 2000 were absolutely good. But then he slowly started bringing his own beliefs and started to pretend that he knows everything.

[Leo Gura]

@Shanmugam On the other hand, he may know much more than you.

[Shanmugam]

1 minute ago, Speedscarlet said:

@Heart of Space You still don’t believe in the paranormal? I’m amazed that you can stomach all of Leo’s latest videos whilst still holding onto the materialist paradigm. 

Here’s a documentary that could open your mind:

 

The misunderstanding has happened again. (I just mentioned about this in one of my posts in this thread

This is not about being open to paranormal stuff.

Let me give you an example.. Consider the following two statements

1) New York is a city in United States.

2) Jack,my next door neighbor, has been to New York.

Do you agree that these two are two different statements?

Just because Statement 1 is true, does it make Statement 2 true as well?

If someone is saying that Jack did not go to New York, you should not try to convince him by showing evidence for the existence of New York as a city. That is a fallacy... Just because New York exists, does that mean Jack has gone there? Does that exclude all the possibilities which show that Jack might be lying?

 

 

[Shanmugam]

2 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

@Shanmugam On the other hand, he may know much more than you.

This comment comes from the usual tendency of a typical human mind. Of course, he is so popular with millions of followers and I am just a random guy posting something on the internet... So, the natural way of thinking would be 'How could this guy possibly know more than Sadhguru'...

Anyway, I hope you agree that spiritual path is not about knowing a lot of information. There are 18 major mythological books in Hindu mythology. One can read all of them and impress people with the knowledge he has on mythology. There is no shortage for information.  But that doesn't mean that the bunch of information presented is actually true. It is possible that Sadhguru knows more than me on certain things based on certain books he has read. Anyone could do that, but that doesn't make him a realized person.

I also understand the difficulty here. Sadhguru is certainly a little advanced than the majority of population. But if he was not popular, he would be just like another member in actualized.org forum.  It is because of his popularity, people have difficulty in accepting that he may not be as genuine as he claims to be.

If you personally know me, have interacted with me, and know what my whole life is about, you may not have any problem to consider this possibility right away. The problem here is only this.. "Sadhguru is recognized as an authentic, realized person by thousands of people and a random unknown guy says that it is not true.. I would rather give more weight to the possibility that Sadhguru is indeed a realized person" . But I admit that I would have thought the same way a few years ago.

I have read one of your blog posts in which you had listed some of the misconceptions you had in the past which you got corrected later. It was a really good post and very impressive. But if you retain the same 'extraordinary open-mindedness' for the upcoming years, I am sure one day you would realize how wrong you were about Sadhguru.

One issue that I have noticed in people is this: They become open-minded only temporarily. For example, a hardcore Catholic needs to have extraordinary open mindedness to understand about spiritual enlightenment. But once he understands it from a guru, he or she will likely become close-minded again, when it comes to certain concepts which were taught by his or her own guru. It is very important to not let this happen.

[MarkusSweden]

@Shanmugam

Well, if I only know one thing regarding what separates two persons from each other, and that one thing is the fact that one is nothing but a random person, an average joe, and the other one is a famous and popular person with millions of followers..

..then, if I had to pick one of them to put my trust upon, I would definitely choose the anonymous random guy. 

But when it comes to you and Sadhguru, I have more information then that! 

Sadhguru might not be realised nor knowledgeable! 

But at least Sadhguru knows too much not to argue or to judge! 

Sadly, one can't say that about you! 

Also, why are you attached to the idea of popularity and correlation with other qualities?

Why not see popularity as a singular phenomenon without any links to other traits?  

Popularity isn't directly proportional to other characteristics!

 

 

 

 

Edited February 5, 2018 by MarkusSweden

[Shanmugam]

 

42 minutes ago, MarkusSweden said:

@Shanmugam

But at least Sadhguru knows too much not to argue or to judge! 

 

What is the difference between judging and simply sharing someone's observations?

What is the difference between arguing and discussing?

If you think New York is the capital of Germany and if I wish to correct your opinion, I would want to offer clarifications.. And if you say that some one told you that New York is indeed the capital of Germany, I may wish to state my observations about the person who said that and make you understand that this person has given such misleading information many times.

Argument is trying to desperately prove that one is correct, without giving a second thought that he could be possibly wrong. The main intention behind an argument is to feel better and not to understand the truth.

Judgement is indulging in discussing how bad others are, with an intention to show oneself in a better light than those others. The reason why it is said to a spiritual seeker to not to judge is because it is obviously a trap.

But I am neither arguing nor judging. It may appear to you and other people that way. But you need to realize that you have a very limited information about me and my life, just like I have no idea about who you are and how your life has been. You can either judge me by saying I am being judgemental and arguing or just consider what I say as a possibility and be open to it.

Read the talks of Osho. He was a very controversial person but his talks helped me tremendously towards my own liberation (which is popularly called as enlightenment. Yes, I am enlightened and I don't expect anyone to believe it ). Osho has criticized many popular people. Now, how would you interpret Osho's criticisms? Are they 'judgements' or 'his observations'?

There is a difference between judging someone and sharing the observations. There is also a difference between arguing and just trying to refute the objections. What did Adhi Shankara do in all his commentaries? He would state an objection and refute that objection. Can you call that as an argument?

The difference between the two is usually not obvious to an onlooker. Because, it really depends on the attitude, which is obviously not visible to the onlooker.  If I personally know a person for a long term, I may be able to say that he is too judgemental about others. Otherwise, it is not so obvious.

The biggest trap many people have is, they quickly assume things about a person with a very limited information. For example, you don't know anything about me and very confidently made a lot of assumptions about me. Now, was I judgemental in my last statement? No, I was simply sharing my observation. It doesn't have to be taken as a personal attack. Because, the only reason why I share my observations is to help people to see through some of the traps.

There are many other terms like this which can be interpreted in two different ways. Consider these two terms: Arrogance and truth.

I am very intelligent than an Average Joe. It is a genetic trait. No matter where I have lived, worked and studied, I have always earned the name as the most intelligent person. Now, am I being arrogant or simply stating the truth? I am just stating the truth. I am also aware that there may be millions of people who are way more intelligent than me.

I am not good at sports. Now, is this a lack of self-confidence, a belief or simply the truth? I don't have any need for  'self-confidence' or a 'belief'.. I am simply stating the truth. A 10 year old boy can win me in most of the outdoor sports.

And I think you misunderstood what I said about popularity. I said that the mind of a typical human being has the tendency to give more weight to what a popular and authoritative figure says. It is called authority bias and it is very much real.

Edited February 5, 2018 by Shanmugam

[MarkusSweden]

8 minutes ago, Shanmugam said:

And I think you misunderstood what I said about popularity. I said that the mind of a typical human being has the tendency to give more weight to what a popular and authoritative figure says. It is called authority bias and it is very much real.

Yup, I noticed that myself! And the other things you wrote in this last post make sense as well.

I just thought you pushed your perspective a little bit too far, that's all.

After all, the thread is about Mahasamadhi, not Sadhguru, no matter if he's a fraud or not. 

That might be a topic for another thread..

[Monkey-man]

1 hour ago, Shanmugam said:

Read the talks of Osho. He was a very controversial person but his talks helped me tremendously towards my own liberation (which is popularly called as enlightenment. Yes, I am enlightened and I don't expect anyone to believe it ).

Are you going to escape rebirth now? Will you commit Mahasamadhi?

[Markus]

8 hours ago, Shanmugam said:

This forum was doing perfectly fine until Sadhguru entered this forum... Just because he is a famous figure, has a long beard and millions of followers, there is a tendency in people to take everything he says as true. I myself fell for this trap and remained in this trap for many years... And I have seen enough of  him to confidently say that he just makes up a lot of what he says...

 

 

I am open to being wrong. I have more reasons than Sadhguru's word or anything related to assume there may be truth to what I said though.

[Shanmugam]

1 hour ago, Monkey-man said:

Are you going to escape rebirth now? Will you commit Mahasamadhi?

How did you come to know about rebirth or Mahasamadhi? Aren't those concepts something that you learned on the way?

I have no personal reasons to care about rebirth or mahasamadhi. If I want to, it wouldn't take a long time for me to write about something that I learned in a book regarding Mahasamadhi or rebirth. But I don't want to do that. I would always like to separate what I know for certain from what I have read or heard.

Have you heard a sufi mystic like Rumi, a practitioner of Kaballah or a Christian mystic talk about either rebirth or mahasamadhi? Are you aware that people like Adhi Shankara, Ramana Maharshi or Nisargadatta Maharaj didn't give a damn about Mahasamadhi? If you ask Ramana Maharshi about rebirth, he would ask to inquire who is the one that is reborn? 

I have a hypothesis about Mahasamadhi though, which makes more sense to me. I have heard from people like Osho and some others that a person, especially an enlightened one would come to know about his time of death exactly 9 months before it occurs.  According to this, only 9 months before the person's death, he would know he is going to die and he can predict his death. That is Mahasamadhi. So, it is probably not that one could decide at any time to die and just die consciously.

Anyway, the above paragraph is just what I have heard. I would know that for sure only 9 months before my death. And it can be confirmed only after my death. 

You need to keep in mind that Sadhguru predicted twice that he would attain Mahasamadhi. But that never happened. 

Regarding rebirth, I only know what I have read and heard. I don't remember any past lives myself. But to be honest, after 2014, such concepts no longer personally bothered me. There is a very clear reason for that, but I am in trouble if I try to communicate. But I will try, knowing very well that I am not going to succeed.

'Who am I' or 'what am I' is probably the best question when it comes to spiritual path. Because the whole thing is about an inquiry into the nature of 'I'. It is the starting point. But you can only recognize or explain what you are not. You can never explain what you really are, after enlightenment. The words simply fall back.  That is why it is said quite often that truth can never be explained. It is not a joke. Because enlightenment completely changes the perception of this 'self'. You would no longer have the need to mentally define who you are and you can't consider yourself as anything. In other words, you start by trying to solve the mystery of life and finally recognize that You are the mystery. The words 'I' and 'You' no longer have any meaning except the fact that they serve as a convenience or points of reference during communication. After this, you would no longer care about a rebirth or even the death of your body because nothing really matters.

One guy once asked me 'what if you are reborn as a devil or monster during your next birth. How are you so sure that something like that won't happen?'... Only when I receive such questions, I think about times when I was a seeker and when I myself used to raise these questions.. Otherwise, I don't care or even think about these things. Mind can create all kinds of problems. To be precise, fear can create thousands of problems which may not exist.

I used to tell my friend when I was a seeker that when you fear, you fear about 1000 things that may happen; but in reality, always one among those 1000 things happen. One of the best indications of enlightenment is the absence of anxiety or fear. I can get scared if you suddenly enter my room at 12 AM in the disguise of a devil.  It is just a response of my body to make me ready to fight or flee; it is a gift of nature. But I don't have a fear that something like that will ever happen. Do you see the difference between the two? If an earth quake is happening right now, being a little scared actually helps you to give you some energy to act. But if you worry thinking 'what if an earthquake happens tomorrow', then it is a fear created by duality. It is not a helpful trait that nature gave us but it is a disease that people should overcome.

 

[Monkey-man]

@Shanmugam Thank you for your elaborated answer!

Would you also say that there is a total absence of body/mind/self-image identification? (other than immediate survival impulses like from attack)

[Shanmugam]

@Monkey-man Yes.. there is a total absence of identification with body or mind... 

[MarkusSweden]

@Shanmugam You claim to be enlightened, so here's a question for you. 

When someone is enlightened to a point where he can and consider Mahasamadhi as an option.

This might happen when no "doing" is no longer worthwhile compare to just "be" 

Just to be, to rest in pure infinite awareness triumph everything that you can possible do as a human/body-mind.

At this stage, Mahasamadhi seem reasonable. 

However,  does it ever happens that enlightened beings that reach this highest stage of enlightenment, instead decide to decrease consciousness instead of choosing Mahasamadhi?

If he start working on decreasing his level of awareness, using tricks to create anger and fear in him to the point that "doing" becomes worthwhile again. 

When he has decreased his consciousness to a lower state he might find interest in seeking out for pleasure again like chasing casual sex, friendships, having a family, a carrier or something else that imply doing? 

You see what I mean?     

Edited February 5, 2018 by MarkusSweden

[Heart of Space]

7 hours ago, Speedscarlet said:

@Heart of Space You still don’t believe in the paranormal? I’m amazed that you can stomach all of Leo’s latest videos whilst still holding onto the materialist paradigm. 

Here’s a documentary that could open your mind:

 

I don't believe or disbelieve too strongly.  I'm just skeptical.  I'm honestly pretty easily convinced in the right situations.  

They've documented a marathon monk doing a 10 days sit and he was on deaths door by the end of that.  But 10 months yikes, that would definitely be pretty extraordinary.  

[Shanmugam]

@MarkusSweden What you are saying does happen but it is not like the way you describe.. I wouldn't say that it is a lowering of the level of consciousness. I will describe what happened to me to explain.

I was working in a BPO during 2014. Even two years prior to the year 2014, my life was very simple. I was trekking various hills during that and was mostly spending time in nature and solitude. After April 2014, I started to go deeper in my 'witnessing' practice.  For the months April, May and June, I was just going deeper and deeper. In July 2014, I stopped much of my talking and gossips with my friends (not intentionally, it happened automatically) and my friends clearly noticed a difference. Except what I had to talk on the phone, I almost didn't talk to anyone at all. I even didn't give a thought about it because such a thought didn't occur for a long time.

I was simply a witness to everything that was happening and I was slowly losing the need to do anything, except doing what I should do in my job and to maintain my body.  I almost lost the ability to think logically. My monkey mind stopped and I wasn't bothered by anything at all.  It is the peak and I felt like a king of the world. I still remember walking on the road one day, taking each and every step with absolute bliss and a feeling that there is a permanent vacation. 

But I had to relearn many things. For example, for the next six months, I wasn't worried even a single bit about how much sales I was making with customers. I just enjoyed talking to the customers on the phone, explaining about the product and just had a conversation with them. I didn't have the same desire to convince the customers. If a customer says 'I want to think about', I would say 'sure, take your time'. I even forgot that I was supposed to handle that as an objection and try to convince the customer to buy the product.  I didn't even remember to check my performance report for about 5-6 months. One day my team leader asked me to meet him and started scolding me. He spoke for about 30-40 minutes about my poor performance at work. (I used to be a very good performer before that). I couldn't really say anything for all those 40 minutes. I was simply looking at him. There was no feeling of insult or embarrassment. 

But gradually, I realized that even though things didn't matter to me, they matter to others who are expecting things from me. So, I had to consciously choose a direction that I need to go in life. I chose to perform well at work again. Once my performance drastically improved, my manager looked at me with surprise and asked me with a smile ' why and how this sudden change?'... I smiled and just said 'I am focusing more on getting sales'.

There was an integration period for about 2 - 3 years. And during this period, I learned certain things all over again. I am not talking about learning new information but learning certain behaviors. My straight-forwardness, courage, and ability to say anything without any hesitation was actually seen as a threat by many managers and team leaders. It created an impression that I don't respect them any longer. This is just one example. Only after consciously making certain changes, I was able to make sure that everything goes smoothly as my family would expect.  Also, there were a lot of old tendencies which took time to die.

But whatever changes that happened after 2014 is not something like a self-improvement or reaching another level of enlightenment. The changes just happened without the sense of a person wanting to reach something or somewhere. These changes were necessary to play the role that I am supposed to be playing, but it is not really lowering the level of consciousness. It is pretty much like a rebirth. I was like a kid during July 2014. And I developed many things all over again but it happened consciously and without feeling any duality, lack, incompleteness etc.

Spiritual seeking is a longing for becoming complete... There is a sense of lack when a person is seeking. There seems to be something lacking and there is a longing to unite with the whole. The fact that there is a phrase called 'mystical union' in Christian Mysticism and the fact that the word 'yoga' means 'union' is not a coincidence.. Once the union happens, you can't see yourself as a part of the whole anymore.. You realize that you are everything.. Your body may grow old, your mind may get exposed to new things, you may develop certain skills after enlightenment. But these are not the part of a 'self-agenda'.. You don't consider yourself as getting old or learning new things. Those changes just happen in the realm of relative reality. The person is simply 'no more'...

[MarkusSweden]

@Shanmugam Very interesting. Thank you! 

It's still hard to imagine it wasn't more of a friction to go from that stage where you were the happiest man on earth with those loving/friendly traits of yours just to become that somewhat cynical salesman again. 

Almost like forcing love to be competitive and comparing it looks like. 

A little bit of sadness arise in me with your story, because you manage to "break" through the relative level of reality so to speak, which is a huge accomplishment given how many people that try very hard but fails. 

What you experienced is very VERY rare, and you succeed only to find out that you have to go back to the relative reality of things. 

If finding heaven or that blissful state that you find which might very well be the most difficult task a man can succeed with.. 

..at least the reward should greater then a temporarily visit. 

But this is my perspective, from your perspective you haven't leaved that which you find, you've just harmonised it with the relative level of reality. 

Cool story, thanks for sharing!