Hi. I have a disagreement with Osho's teaching.

[Ibn Sina]

Hi. I have this question, which is like a disagreement to Osho's teaching ( I hope this is allowed ) . I was reading the book " God is dead zen is the only living truth" and at one point Osho says that sheel (moral conduct) is not important but only pragya (wisdom) is important.

Character arises out of enlightenment, it is not vice versa. It is not character that produces enlightenment, otherwise enlightenment would have a cause to it. Enlightenment is your nature; it has no cause. It is already there, you just have to discover it. It does not matter what kind of character you have. If you go inwards the sinner will find the buddha just as much as the saint. And after you have found your enlightenment, the radiation of the enlightenment becomes your character, your sheel. - Osho

However, as I read Buddhism and at the same time some psychology articles I find that the deliberate practice of compassion, forgiveness, love and kindness, helping others is just as important to mental and emotional well being. There is a quote by Buddha " Hate cannot go away by hate but only love". And even from a mental level, disciplining oneself towards a positive frame of mind, actually

works (https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/stress-management/in-depth/positive-thinking/art-20043950)

which is just the practice of sheel not just in action but in thoughts too. Negativity , hate I think agitates the mind, makes it less calmer, and the more negativity you allow the more negative you become, not less, and hence it's difficult to attain peace while practicing meditation too. The reason people might not want to practice sheel is because it is not easy, it is difficult to forgive those who have wronged you but psychologically it is proven that forgiveness is what gives you well being, helping others is what gives you well being although it can look difficult.Therefore, i think the practice of sheel is just as important, even to achieve peace in meditation.Which I wouldn't say is suppressing your emotions , of course one should release one's emotions, but at the same time making an effort to cultivate positivity, not allowing negativity to freely grow in your mind as it can lead to worse mental problems, but keeping them in check is important which I don't think is achieved by meditation alone, eg you meditated for an hour and for the rest of the day you are fighting , quarreling, arguing,overthinking, I don't think your meditation will work for you. So what do you guys think?
Thank you. ?

[Heyyyyyy]

What has happened, has happened. What will happen, will happen.

[Javfly33]

I agree with most Osho teaching's, including this one's. Ime understanding enlightenment as a moral endeavor is making it a dogma or religion, you definitely don't need to comply with culture moral rules to go for enlightenment, although since the path includes seeing your selfishness as what it really is (an attitude motivated by a deception), it's true that in the process you tend to align with values less selfish and more "including" and universal. Thus probably making your actions towards people or views towards the world more loving and less hateful

[Osaid]

@Ibn Sina Following moral conduct requires you to have rules for yourself in order to be moral. If your morality depends on rules that you set up for yourself, it is not a high form of morality. It depends more on forcing yourself to be moral rather than actually realizing why you should be moral, which often leads to neurosis.

If you saw reality exactly as it is (enlightenment), you would be moral without having to follow a set of rules. In a sense, no morality is true morality.

[Ibn Sina]

I am not saying - enforcing rules and  not  knowing should  be done , I am advocating  the buddhist method of - Sheel + Samadhi = Pragya,
 

which means a combination of meditation with morality.

If you meditate, but you are immoral, always angry, allowing yourself to go through the rabbit hole of negative thinking, then that wouldn't help you, that is what I am saying. Osho says it helps. I say it doesn't talking from my own life observations and psychology articles.

Even if you want to reach enlightenment, you would need a peaceful mind, and how can that happen if you are immoral, always angry with bad thoughts? if you want a  peaceful mind, then you cannot be immoral. If you want enlightenment, you will need a peaceful mind.

Edited April 10, 2020 by Ibn Sina

[Ibn Sina]

Of course it is not the goal, but from my research and experience, it is a gateway to a happier state of mind, compared to doing bad. 
That is how it helps in meditation.
What I am saying is, if you are a bad person who does bad to others, and you feel negative, but you meditate a lot, I am saying that doesn't help but the opposite does.

It's always a combination,  Good deeds + Meditation. Only good deeds can become devilry as you said. 

Edited April 10, 2020 by Ibn Sina

[Ibn Sina]

3 minutes ago, Meta-Man said:

Discover the True Self.

Yes, it is the end goal. 
The obvious methods are- Meditation , Introspection etc.

To this I am adding-  Moral conduct + Practices, contrast to - Immoral/unregulated conduct + Practices

Edited April 10, 2020 by Ibn Sina

[Ibn Sina]

2 minutes ago, Meta-Man said:

So the ego is doing good deeds to feel good about itself. 

I think it is quite the opposite.

Actually negativity , anger, bad deeds is the way ego tries to feel good about itself.

If I insult other people, if I gossip about other people, take revenge,

 the ego can feel big and good and that is how most people go about with their lives.

Positivity actually means diminishing your ego. 

4 minutes ago, Meta-Man said:

Are you meditating to ‘calm your mind’, feel good for a short while etc, like the kind that has become popular in mainstream culture, or are sitting down in silence, contemplating seriously what you truly are, deeply questioning the nature of Reality?

Feeling good for a short while is definitely not the end  goal. Playing playstation can also do that. The goal of meditation is definitely the latter part of what you said.

 

 

 

 

[mandyjw]

Who or what is it that judges negative from positive, good from bad, moral from immoral? By pointing at or defining one of these dualities you unconsciously create the other in thought. It is only through feeling and intuition, connecting with the deeper Self, that you can discern without discerning. 

No one goes around harming others consciously, just like no one in tune with their body eats junk food all day. So giving people rules to follow can temporarily help them connect to feeling and intuition until they hit a wall and have to drop the judgement and rules to go deeper. When people turn "no morality" into a dogma before they've gotten this realization, and connected to feeling on their own and you create zen devils... until they too hit a wall and see that they have to go deeper.  

Edited April 10, 2020 by mandyjw

[Ibn Sina]

7 minutes ago, Meta-Man said:

Sure, just be aware that good/bad is a highly relative/ego-subjective concept. 

 

8 minutes ago, mandyjw said:

Who or what is it that judges negative from positive, good from bad, moral from immoral?

 

It's quite easy. Don't make it a rocket science.
Doing good means- trying to lessen the suffering of other beings. Not having ill will, cultivating love, it is not difficult unless your mind makes it so. 

8 minutes ago, mandyjw said:

No one goes around harming others consciously, just like no one in tune with their body eats junk food all day. So giving people rules to follow can temporarily help them connect to feeling and intuition until they hit a wall and have to drop the judgement and rules to go deeper.

 

That is why Buddha says - Sheel + Samadhi. Doing good + Go deeper,  and he says examine my own teachings  and see if they work for you.

7 minutes ago, Meta-Man said:

Discovering the Truth will let you transcend this duality and deliver something far greater.

Sure. Buddha talks about  states of neither 'this' nor 'that, where all duality is eliminated.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 10, 2020 by Ibn Sina

[Ibn Sina]

7 minutes ago, Meta-Man said:

You still fail to see beyond the ideas of your ego-mind. Question all your ideas. I’ll leave it at that.

Currently I am not outside my ego mind, but to eliminate this ego mind it is better to embrace such ideas of- '  trying to lessen the suffering of other beings. Not having ill will, cultivating love, it is not difficult unless your mind makes it so,' + practices, compared to the contrary.

In the higher states, there is no this or that, all duality is eliminated, but to get there, I don't think immorality is the way, but morality + practices, is.

Edited April 10, 2020 by Ibn Sina

[Ibn Sina]

2 minutes ago, Meta-Man said:

Question that assumption aswell. Go to the heart of what you are. That will solve all problems. Morality is for church-goers.

Well, I did question that a lot, and I have already written the evidences and the research for why it works. 

Why do you think it doesn't work (if you think so)? Lets question your assumption.

Edited April 10, 2020 by Ibn Sina

[The observer]

i agree with osho. some people experience compulsive negative thoughts that they cant rid themselves of like pedophile or even homicide thoughts. take a look here www.quora.com/Is-the-desire-to-carry-out-a-murder-considered-a-mental-disorder and here iocdf.org/expert-opinions/expert-opinion-violent-obsessions/

of course im not justifying neither supporting these things but the point is that they exist. in which case it would be difficult to simply resist them and think positively and those people are usually highly moral and therefore experience deep confusion anxiety and suffering due to resisting their selves. osho is pointing people to go inwards because there the thoughts have no power over you and whether you think positively or negatively becomes irrelevant. hes basically saying be and accept who you are whatever you are cause good things can only stem from love and acceptance.

Edited April 10, 2020 by The observer

[Ibn Sina]

1 minute ago, Meta-Man said:

I also speak from experience. I gave away all my money to charity. Didn’t take me closer to Truth.

That is a very wrong conception of morality. 

And from my experience, morality works while the contrary has never (except temporary). 

I have become a very vindictive person trust me,  I have become brooding, very reactionary, and egoic and also unforgiving . Was like that for years.  
Then I research psychology articles and it says- Forgive people.

It works. 

One day I talked with people nicely, it worked, it felt  good..

Morality doesn't mean just action. It means thoughts as well. I decided to stop myself from negative thinking. It worked.

It is working for me. So that's that.

And it's a continuos process, it's not like an offering to God, but having an overall positive attitude, and psychologically it works, written by psychologists.
 

[Ibn Sina]

3 minutes ago, The observer said:

i agree with osho. some people experience compulsive negative thoughts that they cant rid themselves of like pedophile or even homicide thoughts. take a look here www.quora.com/Is-the-desire-to-carry-out-a-murder-considered-a-mental-disorder and here iocdf.org/expert-opinions/expert-opinion-violent-obsessions/

of course im not justifying neither supporting these things but the point is that they exist. in which case it would be difficult to simply resist them and think positively and those people are usually highly moral and therefore experience deep confusion anxiety and suffering due to resisting their selves. osho is pointing people to go inwards because there the thoughts have no power over you and whether you think positively or negatively becomes irrelevant. hes basically saying be and accept who you are whatever you are cause good things can only stem from love and acceptance.

Sure,

but the thing is, meditation and immorality cannot go hand in hand.

If you are practicing meditation, then you cannot just go on  harbor bad thoughts and be a murderer., one must die.

If you are   a murderer, then your meditation is dead, because you have an agitated mind.

So Sheel and meditation has to go hand in hand. 

There is the story of Valmiki, Valmiki wasn't a murderer when he was practicing his meditation. He renounced his bad life, he wore the cloak of virtue then he practiced meditation.

He practiced sheel with meditation.

And that  is what I am saying,

You cannot give me an example of a meditator  saint who was also very vile, negative, cruel a murderer.

One must die.

Those 2  cannot be seperated. That is my point. You cannot be immoral and practice meditation and expect enlightenment with that agitated mind.

 

 

[Ibn Sina]

10 minutes ago, Meta-Man said:

Don’t you get it? All conceptions of morality are bunk. Because they are just ideas. Until you realize this you are just spinning your wheels. Go beyond ideas. Discover yourself. End of story. 

I did say that in the higher states  there  is no duality. The state of neither this nor that. 

So what are you talking about? I wrote this 4-5 times already.

And doing good, having positive as opposed to negative thoughts, works. That is what your psychiatrist would recommend. It works. So what's there to argue?

Edited April 10, 2020 by Ibn Sina

[mandyjw]

8 minutes ago, Ibn Sina said:

It works. 

One day I talked with people nicely, it worked, it felt  good..

It felt good, why not leave it that? You don't have to label it as morality to try to lock it down, you discovered something that felt good, discovered a behavior pattern change you could observe and change that felt better. Stick with the feeling, stick with the love and connection and go in that direction, don't try to create rules for it because rules are made to be broken. We all have this tendency, the mind submits for a minute then recognized that it did something good, then comes back in and tries to own that good or that positive change. This can hinder it from making another breakthrough into feeling good. 

[Ibn Sina]

6 minutes ago, mandyjw said:

It felt good, why not leave it that? You don't have to label it as morality to try to lock it down, you discovered something that felt good, discovered a behavior pattern change you could observe and change that felt better.

These are not rules bro.

These are psychological facts.

There are behaviors which if you did , will have higher chances of your well being compared to other behaviors. 

Note - I am saying higher chance.

And these are not rules. These are what I have discovered actually is beneficial for mental health ( reading psychology), which happens to be the same as morality of buddhism.

 

 

Edited April 10, 2020 by Ibn Sina

[Ibn Sina]

3 minutes ago, Meta-Man said:

So you want to be a temporarily happy, ‘moral man’, not discovering the Truth

No, my goal is to discover the truth. 

But to discover the truth I don't do that by becoming immoral, I do that by becoming moral, that is what gives me well being at a ground level and I can work upward with practices.

For the 10th time I am writing- Good conduct + Meditation.

[The observer]

@Ibn Sina

i think you are partially correct and partially not. yes you cannot be enlightened with an agitated mind but if you put yourself in other peoples shoes you realize that the state of agitated mind is relative and some people experience more agitation than serenity due to forcing positive thinking. you experience peace of mind through positive thinking and thats great but from their point of view its extremely difficult to find peace of mind without letting themselves think that way even though they dont have to act that way and they usually dont. if i understand correctly your point is that everyone should only think positively but the reality is that not everyone is capable of that. also notice theres a distinction between thought and action. those people are not bad people we have to understand that thought is completely out of our control and by trying to force control over them we create resistance and therefore suffering. this is very different from acting on the thoughts. again people who experience those thoughts are genuinely good people so who are we to judge them. they need our help and understanding and thats what osho was offering.