Was Osho Enlightened?

[Nak Khid]

 

Question to Osho: Do you consider yourself a God?

Osho: "There is no God.  God is the greatest lie invented by man"

From early 1988, Rajneesh's discourses focused exclusively on Zen. In late December, he said he no longer wished to be referred to as "Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh", and in February 1989 took the name "Osho Rajneesh", shortened to "Osho" in September. He also requested that all trademarks previously branded with "Rajneesh" be rebranded "OSHO". His health continued to weaken. He delivered his last public discourse in April 1989, from then on simply sitting in silence with his followers.
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While the various legal battles ensued Rajneesh remained behind the scenes, having withdrawn from a public facing role in what commune leadership referred to as a period of "silence." During this time, which lasted until November 1984, in lieu of Rajneesh speaking publicly, videos of his discourses were played to commune audiences. His time was allegedly spent mostly in seclusion and he communicated only with a few key disciples, including Ma Anand Sheela and his caretaker girlfriend Ma Yoga Vivek (Christine Woolf).He lived in a trailer next to a covered swimming pool and other amenities. At this time he did not lecture and interacted with followers via a Rolls Royce 'drive-by' ceremony. He also gained public notoriety for amassing a large collection of Rolls-Royce cars, eventually numbering 93 vehicles.

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Setting aside all the scandals alleged to Osho's organization for this discussion my question is about two things

1) Can we say Osho or any other spiritual teacher is not enlightened because like what Osho said in the video at top when he was asked if he considered himself to be a God his reply was "there is no God, God is the greatest lie invented by man" ( an atheist statement) ?

2) Can Osho or any spiritual teacher be enlightened if they show off 93 Rolls Royces or similar extravagance which seems to represent extreme materialism?

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 8, 2019 by Nak Khid

[VeganAwake]

Yes Osho was so enlightened most people don't recognize it.. 

He knew that after a certain point you can't claim anything and he just said what it was

[Dumuzzi]

I try not to use the word "enlightened" because it is highly misleading. For sure, he had a fully awakened Kundalini and he showed all the signs of someone who was at that level, with the crucial distinction that he became evil. He became obsessed with money and fame and used the gifts of the Goddess (Shaktipat) to enrich himself and create a cult of personality around him. Ultimately, this got back to him in the form of Karma and led to his downfall. It is important to note, that just because a person is awakened, does not mean he is good. Just as there are benevolent gods and malevolent ones, awakened humans can also be of all sorts and some turn evil, despite their obvious power. I thought, that the fictional depiction of the Sith Lords and the Dark Side of the Force in Star Wars was an excellent illustration of this principle, when I first saw it.

[Nak Khid]

2 hours ago, Dumuzzi said:

I try not to use the word "enlightened" because it is highly misleading. For sure, he had a fully awakened Kundalini and he showed all the signs of someone who was at that level, with the crucial distinction that he became evil

What is the difference in using the term "fully awakened" and "enlightened" ? Many would say that is synonymous.

And isn't evil one of the  lowest  ego states?

Quote

There is no evil and there are
no evil forces in the world.
There are only people of awareness,
and there are people who are fast asleep -
and sleep has no force.
The whole energy is in the hands of the awakened people.
And one awakened person can awaken the whole world.
One lighted candle can make millions of candles lighted
without losing it's light.
- Osho

Awakened mind or devilry ?

Edited December 8, 2019 by Nak Khid

[VeganAwake]

 

[Dumuzzi]

@Nak Khid All I know is that Osho led a cult which destroyed countless lives and carried out a chemical terrorist attack within the borders of the United States. Seems pretty evil to me. I avoid using the word "enlightened", it is a western concept that doesn't quite apply to any of the various states of Turiya, Moksha, etc... that are talked about in Eastern Philosophy. 

A Kundalini Awakening refers to the awakening of the Serpent power, not necessarily the person in question. It can be used for both good and evil. Just contrast Gandhi and Hitler, who lived at the same time, were incredibly charismatic and magnetic, changed world history, but in very different ways. I would consider Hitler among those in whom the serpent power awoke in a dark and pathological manner, whereas in Gandhi, the very same power was benevolent and a force for good. Lunatic Asylums are filled with people in whom the serpent power arose in a dangerous and unnatural way.

[Forrest Adkins]

1) He was talking about an external god in the sense of a classic religion.

 

2) Marketing, its to this day what everyone talks about

[Conscious life]

You joke perfectly. There is no a person like osho who is enlightened. 

He is the next great after christ. 

[DrewNows]

no-one is enlightened (unless you are) 

[Nak Khid]

6 minutes ago, Forrest Adkins said:

1) He was talking about an external god in the sense of a classic religion.

 

2) Marketing, its to this day what everyone talks about

If you watch the video in the opening post Osho is asked "Do you consider yourself a God?"

He answers "there is no God so how can I consider myself a God?" "God is the greatest lie invented by man"

He was not asked about an external God

 

 

[Forestluv]

16 hours ago, Nak Khid said:

2) Can Osho or any spiritual teacher be enlightened if they show off 93 Rolls Royces or similar extravagance which seems to represent extreme materialism?

The mind likes to focus on personalities. To me, the primary question is “What is enlightenment?”. If we don’t have clarity on what enlightenment is, how can we determine if something or someone is enlightened? If someone asked “Is Oslo fribvuy?”, we would need to know what “fribvuy“ is to determine if Osho is “fribvuy”. 

[Nak Khid]

48 minutes ago, Serotoninluv said:

. To me, the primary question is “What is enlightenment?”

 

We're going by  Leo's definition

 

___________________________________________

additionally

Excerpts from “Theory Z”
(from Abraham Maslow's : The Farther Reaches of Human Nature)

1. For transcenders, peak experiences and plateau experiences become the most important things in their lives….

2. They speak more easily, normally, naturally, and unconsciously the language of Being (B-language), the language of poets, of mystics, of seers, of profoundly religious men…

3. They perceive unitively or sacrally (i.e., the sacred within the secular), or they see the sacredness in all things at the same time that they also see them at the practical, everyday D-level …

4. They are much more consciously and deliberately metamotivated. That is, the values of Being…, e.g., perfection, truth, beauty, goodness, unity, dichotomy-transcendence … are their main or most important motivations.

5. They seem somehow to recognize each other, and to come to almost instant intimacy and mutual understanding even upon first meeting…

6. They are more responsive to beauty. This may turn out to be rather a tendency to beautify all things… or to have aesthetic responses more easily than other people do…

7. They are more holistic about the world than are the “healthy” or practical self-actualizers… and such concepts as the “national interest” or “the religion of my fathers” or “different grades of people or of IQ” either cease to exist or are easily transcended…

8. [There is] a strengthening of the self-actualizer’s natural tendency to synergy—intrapsychic, interpersonal, intraculturally and internationally…. It is a transcendence of competitiveness, of zero-sum of win-lose gamesmanship.

9. Of course there is more and easier transcendence of the ego, the Self, the identity.

10. Not only are such people lovable as are all of the most self-actualizing people, but they are also more awe-inspiring, more “unearthly,” more godlike, more “saintly”…, more easily revered…

11. … The transcenders are far more apt to be innovators, discoverers of the new, than are the healthy self-actualizers… Transcendent experiences and illuminations bring clearer vision … of the ideal …of what ought to be, what actually could be, … and therefore of what might be brought to pass.

12. I have a vague impression that the transcenders are less “happy” than the healthy ones. They can be more ecstatic, more rapturous, and experience greater heights of “happiness” (a too weak word) than the happy and healthy ones. But I sometimes get the impression that they are as prone and maybe more prone to a kind of cosmic sadness … over the stupidity of people, their self-defeat, their blindness, their cruelty to each other, their shortsightedness… Perhaps this is a price these people have to pay for their direct seeing of the beauty of the world, of the saintly possibilities in human nature, of the non-necessity of so much of human evil, of the seemingly obvious necessities for a good world…

13. The deep conflicts over the “elitism” that is inherent in any doctrine of self-actualization—they are after all superior people whenever comparisons are made—is more easily solved—or at least managed—by the transcenders than by the merely healthy self-actualizers. This is made possible because they … can sacralize everybody so much more easily. This sacredness of every person and even of every living thing, even of nonliving things … is so easily and directly perceived in its reality by every transcender …

14. My strong impression is that transcenders show more strongly a positive correlation—rather than the more usual inverse one—between increasing knowledge and increasing mystery and awe… For peak-experiencers and transcenders in particular, as well as for self-actualizers in general, mystery is attractive and challenging rather than frightening … I affirm … that at the highest levels of development of humanness, knowledge is positively, rather than negatively, correlated with a sense of mystery, awe, humility, ultimate ignorance, reverence …

15. Transcenders, I think, should be less afraid of “nuts” and “kooks” than are other self-actualizers, and thus are more likely to be good selectors of creators  … To value a William Blake type takes, in principle, a greater experience with transcendence and therefore a greater valuation of it…

16. …Transcenders should be more “reconciled with evil” in the sense of understanding its occasional inevitability and necessity in the larger holistic sense, i.e., “from above,” in a godlike or Olympian sense. Since this implies a better understanding of it, it should generate both a greater compassion with it and a less ambivalent and a more unyielding fight against it….

17. … Transcenders … are more apt to regard themselves as carriers of talent, instruments of the transpersonal, temporary custodians so to speak of a greater intelligence or skill or leadership or efficiency. This means a certain peculiar kind of objectivity or detachment toward themselves that to nontranscenders might sound like arrogance, grandiosity or even paranoia…. Transcendence brings with it the “transpersonal” loss of ego.

18. Transcenders are in principle (I have no data) more apt to be profoundly “religious” or “spiritual” in either the theistic or nontheistic sense. Peak experiences and other transcendent experiences are in effect also to be seen as “religious or spiritual” experiences….

19. … Transcenders, I suspect, find it easier to transcend the ego, the self, the identity, to go beyond self-actualization. … Perhaps we could say that the description of the healthy ones is more exhausted by describing them primarily as strong identities, people who know who they are, where they are going, what they want, what they are good for, in a word, as strong Selves… And this of course does not sufficiently describe the transcenders. They are certainly this; but they are also more than this.

20. I would suppose… that transcenders, because of their easier perception of the B-realm, would have more end experiences (of suchness) than their more practical brothers do, more of the fascinations that we see in children who get hypnotized by the colors in a puddle, or by the raindrops dripping down a windowpane, or by the smoothness of skin, or the movements of a caterpillar.

21. In theory, transcenders should be somewhat more Taoistic, and the merely healthy somewhat more pragmatic.

22. …Total wholehearted and unconflicted love, acceptance … rather than the more usual mixture of love and hate that passes for “love” or friendship or sexuality or authority or power, etc.

23. [Transcenders are interested in a “cause beyond their own skin,” and are better able to “fuse work and play,” “they love their work,” and are more interested in “kinds of pay other than money pay”; “higher forms of pay and metapay steadily increase in importance.”] Mystics and transcenders have throughout history seemed spontaneously to prefer simplicity and to avoid luxury, privilege, honors, and possessions. …

24. I cannot resist expressing what is only a vague hunch; namely, the possibility that my transcenders seem to me somewhat more apt to be Sheldonian ectomorphs [lean, nerve-tissue dominated body-types] while my less-often-transcending self-actualizers seem more often to be mesomorphic [muscular body-types] (… it is in principle easily testable).

Edited December 8, 2019 by Nak Khid

[Forestluv]

37 minutes ago, Nak Khid said:

We're going by  Leo's definition

___________________________________________

additionally

Excerpts from “Theory Z”
(from Abraham Maslow's : The Farther Reaches of Human Nature)

It seems there is a general context for the usage of  “enlightenment” on the forum, yet I’ve noticed it used in many different contexts. For example, we could say that no person is enlightened because there is no person to become enlightened. We could also say enlightenment is a type of trans personal awareness which includes the person. I’ve seen lots of different expressions.

For me, direct experience transcends theory. Yet it can be easy to drift into an enlightenment story and miss the direct experience. 

[Nak Khid]

32 minutes ago, Serotoninluv said:

 

I wasn’t aware Leo has given a definition of enlightenment.

 

you kidding me? Leo has numerous videos defining enlightenment including the ones I posted and also one called "How To Become Enlightened - The Exact Step By Step Process Revealed!"

and a pinned thread called

Leo's Practical Guide To Enlightenment

Let's not get bogged down in definitions. Was Osho a highly awakened person and can a highly awaken person maintain that they are not God and a second question, would a highly awakened person parade around multiple Rolls Royces or similar materilaistic displays?

 

Edited December 8, 2019 by Nak Khid

[Forestluv]

1 hour ago, Nak Khid said:

Was Osho a highly awakened person and can a highly awaken person maintain that they are not God and a second question, would a highly awakened person parade around multiple Rolls Royces or similar extravagant displays?

In the video you linked the question is “Do you consider yourself a god?”. The question and response is in a traditional dualistic framework of subject-object god. Osho’s even references religion. The clip is not in the context of a transcendent/nondual context of god. Imo, Osho was correct to point this out that the existence of a separate god is a lie. Similar to how we could say the existence of “me” is a lie. To address the question at a deeper level, we would need to transcend the concepts of “you” and “god”. This generally takes years of practice. The questioner was not at this level and if the response points to transcendence, it would likely have been misinterpreted and misunderstood. Also keep in mind of the historical context. In the 1980s, the environment was very blue in western societies. This is very different than in a green level societal context. In a current example, Sadhguru interacts differently with Orange and green level audiences.

Regarding if a highly conscious person can have extravagant displays. . .  This frame uses a hierarchy of low to high conscious levels. Using that frame, I would say it is less likely that  a highly conscious being displays extravagance, because there is transcendence of the personal construct. It is personality immersion that gets off on that type of personal attention, validation and pleasure. With awakening there is an energetic shift away from self glorifying pleasures. Yet it’s possible for this to occur within a high conscious state, yet it would be less common and have different dynamics. For example, the Rolls Royce’s are simply happenings. There is awareness of Rolls Royce happenings and the pleasure of Rolls Royce happenings. Similarly, there are flower blossoms  happenings and pleasure of flower blossom happenings. . . . For me, the material thing is not too important. The attachment/identification to the material thing is of more interest. 

[Nak Khid]

1 hour ago, Serotoninluv said:

To address the question at a deeper level, we would need to transcend the concepts of “you” and “god”.

To address what question?

 "You are God" , Leo and others say this frequently in this forum

1 hour ago, Serotoninluv said:

 Rolls Royce’s are simply happenings.

A Rolls Royce is not an event it's a physical object

[Forestluv]

14 minutes ago, Nak Khid said:

To address what question?

The original question of the interviewer : Do you consider yourself a god?  To address this at a deeper level involves a realization and transcendence of “you”. This can take years and thousands of hours of practice and study. It’s not easily addressed in a simple linguistic response.

14 minutes ago, Nak Khid said:

 "You are God" , Leo and others say this frequently in this forum

Yes, and it often gets conflated with “you are god” - which was the orientation of the interviewer

“You are God” is a different context than “you are god“.

14 minutes ago, Nak Khid said:

A Rolls Royce is not an event it's a physical object

I’m using the term “happening” in a broader context. That is, everything happening now. There are appearances of sounds, smells and objects happening now.

In this context, there is simply what is Now. What is happening now may be sitting in nature listening to birds. Or what is happening now may be posing in photos by a Rolls Royce. From one perspective, this is simply what is Now. There is no personal attachment/identification to the birds or the Rolls Royce. 

[Nahm]

“Osho” gets the joke.

[bejapuskas]

2 hours ago, Nak Khid said:

We're going by  Leo's definition

Wow, that's a perfect definition of what Enlightenment is! You got it!

 

...or did you?  

[Nak Khid]

23 minutes ago, Serotoninluv said:

There is no personal attachment/identification to the birds or the Rolls Royce. 

by who?