In collaboration with J. Sri Bhagovwid (who I do custom graphics for, for free, and snippets of wisdom).
J. Sri Bhagovwid is highly critical of OSHO, claiming, “The most amazing thing about OSHO is the miracle of persuading people he is anything but a clown. He has had armed guards, fleets of cars, and inspected his female followers breasts and “chakras”. The worst thing about him is he took advantage of naive people seeking a better, more spiritual life. His corruption destroyed the lives of many of his followers, which is not hard to imagine when one considers he got all of their money, acted as a dictator over them in his Ashram, and even molested some of the females. His Ashram poisoned the public in Oregon by deliberately contaminating salad bars with a liquid containing Salmonella, resulting in over 700 documented cases of acute food poisoning. He was a grotesque caricature of an evil villain of a guru. In fiction he would be seen as too unrealistic to be believable, yet in real life he is accepted as genuine. THAT is a miracle!”
When it came to enlightenment, Osho was a “no show”.
Let me get this out of the way right quick – spirituality for the rich only is like a diet for the thin only. This doesn’t mean that the rich are spiritual, far from it, but just that they are much less likely to need a way out of suffering when they are being pampered in a life of luxury. The Buddha didn’t seek a way out of suffering for humankind until after he left his father’s palace grounds. Osho offers relief only to those who reside within the equivalent of today’s palace grounds, and who are just looking for a placebo to assuage their guilty consciences. Deep down, they know they have far more than they need while others truly suffer, and they seek even more, and at the expense of others. Who better to help them self-delude than a guru who does the same thing: exults in ridiculous luxury while demanding his followers live a meager existence.
Osho is a whopping cliché, and that of the worst possible, most corrupt guru. His picture is essentially in the encyclopedia next to the definition of fake guru. You can find a lengthy examination of him and his crimes in Wikipedia.
Imagine that you honestly wanted to become a better person, and traveled off to an ashram to meditate and seek spirituality. What kinds of deeds might a guru do to thoroughly put you off and shake any confidence you might have that he’s a real saint? How about he has sex with his young female seekers, and boasts of having had hundreds of them? How about he demands his followers give him large amounts of money, often their life savings, and he uses it to buy a fleet of Rolls Royces and other outlandish luxuries for himself? This is all well documented, and anyone can find out about it simply by visiting Wikipedia.
Do you still think he’s an enlightened saint, like the Buddha or Christ?
- He claims he can perform miracles, but it is beneath himself to do so?
- Claims to have been reincarnated many times and to have had an illustrious past as a series of enlightened masters.
- Takes sleeping pills, Valium, and heroic doses of nitrous oxide (laughing gas).
- Praises Hitler and denounces Gandhi.
- Loves and praises money.
- Looks down upon the poor and discriminates against them.
- Is openly homophobic.
- His ashram in Oregon orchestrated a bio-terror attack by deliberately spreading poison in salad bars to effect county elections.
- His ashram plotted to assassinate politicians in Oregon who got in its way.
- Some of his books were written for him by others.
- His material was largely taken from other sources.
Here, look at him bragging about them in this video (at 2 minutes and 24 seconds):
And what’s with that getup? He looks like he’s not just “the rich man’s guru” but also “the Ashtar Galactic Command’s guru”. Is that his $1,000,000 watch?
Osho is lying in this video about his Rolls Royces. He says his people, followers, or “sanyasins” want him to have 360 Rolls Royces. It’s Osho who wants them for himself. When he had his commune in Oregon “Rajneeshpuram”, he pressured his staff to secure more Rolls Royces because he wanted to break the record for how many anyone had. This was costing his commune $200,000 per month. Meanwhile, much of this money was coming from his followers, many of whom sold off all of their worldly possession and donated all of their wealth to Rajneeshpuram. The guru also wanted a million dollar watch to wear, and told his second in command to divert money from the commune’s needs, if necessary, to secure this luxury for himself.
People don’t know that he said, “as a homosexual, you are not even a human being.” They don’t know his statement, “living in poverty is far more dangerous, far more suffering than dying in a beautifully, scientifically managed gas chamber in Germany. Within a second you are smoke, holy smoke, rather than suffering for millions of years.“ They don’t know that he called himself, “the rich man’s guru” and said “the beggar can not come to me.” Not only is Osho a fraud, he’s an obvious one who has taken himself way out on a limb and made a complete fool of himself. A preacher of antisemitism and homophobia is not enlightened in any sense of the word, and that’s just scratching the surface of his legacy of mammoth egotism and opportunism.
Osho is the inverse of enlightened. He’s a megalomaniac. Nevertheless, and despite his having died over 20 years ago, his fan page on Facebook has over 1,800,000 followers, and over 1,400 people use his “quote + photo” app per month on Facebook. When you quote OSHO, you are unwittingly announcing you are one of the duped.
OSHO is a business, and the customers are being suckered.
Nisargadatta Maharaj didn’t own a luxury automobile, and he gave free talks in his home. Ramana Maharshi had a squirrel. What need does a guru have for luxury? If he is as happy with a stone as with a throne, he’s not going to bother about a throne, let alone 90 of them.
Defenders of OSHO, of which there are many (I wonder how many of them are invested in the business of OSHO) will try to sideline his more outrageously offensive and inhumane statements, but they stand as a testament to his delusional personality, the gaping holes in his education, and a radical departure from reality. And, no, what he says isn’t any less ridiculous “in context”. Here are some more choice quotes:
“Do you want me to support AIDS. Supporting homosexuality means exactly that – supporting AIDS.” ~ OSHO.
Wow! Homosexuality = AIDS. Is this guy a guru or a knee-jerk conservative radio talk show host? He says that he “condemns homosexuality” because it is “unnatural.” Talk about compassion and empathy. If you got AIDS, it was because you were a pervert. I’m not putting words in his mouth, he claimed that “Walt Whitman is the only American to talk of these heights, but he also missed. He missed when he was just on the verge, he was hindered by his homosexuality,” and “Homosexuality is a perversion, a perversion of one’s own body chemistry.” Just for the gay followers of Osho, it’s time to reject him as he rejects you.
“In fact, a man shaving his beard looks like a woman — it is ugly. As far as women are concerned, they love beards. You can ask my women here. A man without a beard and a mustache is just half man.” ~ OSHO
Whack job.
Questioner: HOW WOULD YOU JUDGE HITLER MORALLY AND POLITICALLY?
OSHO: Morally, he was as moral as Mahatma Gandhi.
Questioner: AS MAHATMA GANDHI?
OSHO: Yes, because I consider both absolutely immoral. In fact, he was more a Hindu than Mahatma Gandhi himself…
Hitler is a better Hindu than Gandhi. Fantastic! If you were poor (not rich), Jewish, or gay, Osho had no time for you and/or condemned you outright. So, before you start wearing OSHO on your lapel, find out a little about who the guy really was. Osho was probably short for “OSHOLE”.
Aside from Osho’s own statements, preserved in self-damning videos, his commune in Oregon, which he tried to build into a city, was guilty of poisoning the local community, arson, and attempts to murder local officials who stood in the way of establishing and expanding the commune. These murder plots included poison, and even gunning down the U.S. Attorney for Oregon. Some like to say that Osho (then going by the name Rahjneesh) didn’t know what was going on in his own commune, but he has been recorded in one meeting concerning radical tactics to preserve the commune as saying, “if 10,000 have to die to save one enlightened master, so be it”.
Finally, If it isn’t painfully obvious why you can’t have a fabulously wealthy guru with 90 Rolls Royces, who claims to be only for a rich audience, I can clear this up. Let’s just go back to the one guy that, if anyone, was really enlightened = the Buddha. He grew up, so they say, in a kind of palace, and was completely sheltered from the rough world outside. When he finally did venture out he was so struck by poverty, aging, illness, and vulnerability/mortality in general, that he needed to find a way out. Suffering, he saw, was inevitable. But there must be a way to not simply be crushed. So he sought a way to overcome the suffering of the world, and this led him to test himself and undergo self-deprivation before finally finding his middle-way path. So, for the sake of argument, let’s just agree that there is such a thing as enlightenment. The people who need it most are those who are actually suffering and/or most at risk.
The enlightened person, so it is claimed, accepts reality as it unfolds without resistance, and has no preference or need for luxury. This ability to completely accept whatever comes is how he or she overcomes suffering. One is no longer a separate individual in a hostile world and vulnerable to devastation from outside. As an indivisible part of the whole of reality, one no longer views the eventual tragic circumstances we all must face as separate or alien. Since the individual is an illusion, he cannot be destroyed. The entirety remains. So goes the philosophy.
If the path of enlightenment is the way to overcome suffering in this world, indulging in luxuries doesn’t really show either a capacity to deal with real suffering, or a lack of preference for pleasure. Osho does the equivalent of showing that the way to overcome alcohol addiction is to drink oneself to death. The guru who needs to break the world record for Roll’s Royce ownership, sacrifices his followers’ basic needs to adorn himself with a million dollar watch, and thinks the lives of tens of thousands are not worth as much as his own, is not enlightened, but megalomaniacally rooted in the nether recesses of the selfish ego. If enlightenment is a possibility, and there are or ever were real enlightened people or saints, Osho helps shatter any confidence that any of that may be real. He does, however, appeal to a certain brand of person who likes to think of himself as enlightened, but also absolved of any sin or crime, no matter how selfish, cruel, or petty, because he transcends the Earthly, terrestrial morality and law.
To those that worship Osho, and think he’s merely being provocative and that it takes countless lives to understand him, I suggest you find a new guru. There is a miracle surrounding the name of Osho, and it is that so many are still purchasing Osho products.
If you’ve read this far, and are about to post an angry and insulting comment, consider why you want to defend Osho and attack us for criticizing him. Is it because you think he is an enlightened being and a great spiritual teacher, and thus can do no wrong, and therefore everything he does must be valid and useful for some reason beyond the morality and rational understanding of normal mortals? We see it the other way around. Because of his bad actions, selfishness, egotism, and lack of self control, he cannot be a great spiritual teacher. But he was smart to realize that people worship celebrity, royalty, and divinity. If he could persuade people that he was intrinsically different, than he would be above all criticism. This is a common technique, and why the fake gurus often employ cheap magic tricks, such as when Sai Baba would materialize gold watches to give to his followers. Osho is a huckster selling snake oil to gullible yokels who want to believe a miracle.
Written by J. Sri Bhagovwid, and edited by me .
Art & Crit by Eric Wayne 
Maybe not. But in India ‘Bhagwan’ is used as slang for male genitalia.
I’ve been in two minds about Osho for a long time.
I was aware of nearly all of the stuff in your post and up until I first went to India all the Rajneeshis I knew were … well … let’s say ‘kinda silly’.
Then I met a German Rajneeshi in Pushkar who later migrated to Australia before moving on to New Zealand. We hit it off at first sight and she is one of the very few friends (as opposed to acquaintances, colleagues, teachers, etc) that I could ever talk sensibly with about spiritual stuff. She gave me a few of Rajneesh’s books (he wasn’t Osho yet) to check out and while I didn’t see much original thought in them I was impressed by the breadth of his scholarship. It kindled an appreciation of the Bauls and dervishes in me, among other things. I also became convinced he was a bona fide mystic (or just as crazy as me at least).
Fast forward six years, I’m back in India and Osho drops dead while I’m in Dharamsala (establishing an alibi here). A couple of month’s later in Madhya Pradesh I run across this neurotic British girl who has taken up with a local Hindutva aristocrat (who treated me very well despite our diametrically opposed politics). She’s been in India six years and hated every day of it, but Osho has told her that it’s very important for her spiritual path to stay there until he tells her she can leave. Problem is he’s dead. I tell her she should meditate on Osho’s image every night until he tells her she can go home. The Hindutva guy has somehow convinced himself that I’ve been sent as some kind of messenger and endorses everything I tell her (maybe he just wanted to get rid of her). Hopefully she found her way home after that.
Finally in 2002 a friend of mine is dying of AIDS related dementia (same guy I mention in ‘Lifting the curse’) and in the process of fighting to get him out of a disgusting locked ward for elderly dementia patients in Royal Adelaide Hospital I’m introduced to a prominent human rights lawyer who was also a good friend of his. We became close confidantes on lots of issues and it turns out she is a former Rajneeshi too (she now follows Ignatian spirituality – that’s Iggy of Loyola, not my guru Iggy of Ann Arbor). She was the only person to tell me that my despair of 2003 to 2012 was a spiritual crisis and it turns out she’s right. She also gives me heaps of other helpful spiritual advice that she attributes to Osho.
So I’ve gotta say my life has been touched indirectly by Osho and it’s been for the better.
Doesn’t mean he wasn’t an arsehole of course, but at least two of his followers sure aren’t (I’ve actually met a couple of other former Rajneeshis who seem to have gotten something important from their practice too).
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I think one just has to watch the video of him talking about being the rich man’s guru to see he’s a fraud. It’s just a travesty and an embarrassment. The ability to speak fine words or be a scholar of Hinduism is within the reach of any good student. Sure, Osho could make some fine quotes, but how hard is it really to regurgitate the fine quotes of prior gurus? Then, people who seek enlightenment or evolution of consciousness or whatever, if they happen to be doing it for authentic reasons, are probably already good people. So, you have good people finding good messages in the writings of a fraud who nevertheless quotes or reinterprets quality material from others. Osho condemned himself when he started to veer away from the Upanishads and other classics, and started to speak his own true mind. I’ll give him that he’s clever, but his clothes alone show he’s lost touch with reality. I mean, come on, he had a Rolls Royce collection!
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Well, you’ve got to study the prior gurus in the first place. Then you’ve got to come up with some erudite way of communicating what you’ve learned across cultural boundaries.
Given my own utter failure to pass on any of what I narcissistically believe to be my own spiritual insights I’m not really ready to dismiss Osho’s achievements in that area. And regarding the RRs, I guess I gave up judging people through the lens of my own morality last October.
Vivekananda would have been the first to admit he never had an original spiritual insight, but nonetheless I highly value the work he did in bringing those of others to the west.
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✌👍👌
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Well done Eric. You are very intelligent person. Keep on spreading the truth which only a few person like you know but, please change ur display pic .Change it or put someone else pic which can properly match with your intelligence. In this pic you look quite stupid. If you dont find any pic kindly put an Owls pic….thanks for spreading it.
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This could be a compliment or an attack or both. I’d say “fascinating”, but, it’s probably the opposite.
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Eric you seem way too much disturbed from Osho, looking at your long comments in order to prove your points. Surely the way you fight shows how much he has affected and shaken you.
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That post is from years ago, and I rarely think about Osho at all. What disturbed me about him was purely negative. I was not shaken, I was disgusted. Consider I’d already been well into Eastern philosophy for years before I even learned about him. I preferred the likes of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, and still do, and still read him to this day. For me, Osho is to Eastern philosophy what Vanilla Ice is to rap: an also-ran, derivative, inauthentic, opportunistic fraud. Again, I was disturbed not in the way you imply, as if I were deeply challenged by his revolutionary thoughts, insights, or vision – if would have been fascinated if he presented those sorts of outlets and opportunities for mind and spirit – but just the opposite. I found him crushingly dull, pretentious, and uninspiring. I found his nasty tone and the way he’d trained himself to not blink in order to lend himself gravity repugnant. I feel about him like I do about pedophile priests, if that helps clear things up for you. I am convinced he’s a fraud and an exploiter of people, masquerading as an enlightened being. That’s disturbing, and not in any sort of a good way.
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Oh, am I? Thank you for your diagnosis. All who know themselves tell others they are enough and indeed each is. I appreciate OSHO’s Trickster ways. He is just one of many who point inside. Wishing you clarity and peace, but seek neither. When you meet the Magician, tell him the Smelly Goat says hello.
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Nowadays I demand proof. Nobody gets away with just claiming to be enlightened or regurgitating ancient Hindu texts. One has to prove his or her self-awareness in some other form than a mere claim or utterance in linguistic structures.
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Nothing can or needs to be proved to anyone but oneself.
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Why stop there? Why does anything need to be proved to oneself? The opposite may be more true, which is that society may needs proofs, but an individual may realizing that there is no absolute truth.
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The water washes over us
The wind blows through us
What is lost and gained
What is good or bad
It just doesn’t matter
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Than don’t bother commenting, because your opinion doesn’t matter, either. Far, far from it. Your actions prove you believe the complete opposite.
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There is no truth or proof, it’s pointless as I am. I just apparently appear hear. I don’t care what it means or not. I accept the appearances and I don’t now anything else about what is than what is and neither does anyone else. We made it all up.
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Than stop commenting.
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Jack off in your eye muppet. Moron.
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And here you show your true colors. A moment ago you were pretending to be enlightened. Now look at you, a puny ego trying to crush your perceived enemy.
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After receiving multiple more rapid-fire angry messages from this same person, I had to block him.
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Relax muppet, I’m just messing with you because you can be messed with 😉 I can not be moved, it all passes through. Muah.
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obviously you care, you are angry, you are lashing out, you want attention, and you want to believe you are spiritually evolved.
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Great Santino, Eric is not aware that he is caught in Osho’s net. It will not be so easy to get out. And he is doing all this with Osho’s blessings.
One person asked Osho ..I WANT TO PROPAGATE AGAINST YOU. WOULD YOU PLEASE BLESS ME?
Osho answered:
“This is a good idea. I bless you absolutely; because to propagate against me is also to propagate for me. Knowingly, unknowingly, whosoever says anything against me says something about me, and nobody knows: if you are talking against me to somebody, he may become interested in me. So go and propagate with all my blessings.”
(Discourse series, Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, vol5, Chapter 6, question 6)
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Apparently you are caught in OSHO’s codpiece. When people learned that Thalidomide, a sleeping pill, was causing drastic deformities in babies, the news didn’t make people run out and ingest more of it.
Thus, when people here what a fraud OSHO was, how corrupt and weak, they don’t believe in him, unless they are desperate for some sort of excuse for their own corruption and weakness.
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wow, clever saying!
but i dont buy his cleverness, so i dont mension his name…
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I’m an ugly smelly goat. Thanks.
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They ugly, smelly goat doesn’t know it’s ugly or smelly, and doesn’t pretend to be more than that while being that. It just is.
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Hello delusional person! OSHO was a bloody fraud and a manipulative person (not a guru in anyway). When looking for enlightenment, you don’t feel vengeance towards others, don’t use foul language, and oh well NO DRUGS GUNS AND RICHES! OWLS YOU IGNORANT PERSON, WERE ICONS OF WISDOM! (eyes rolling)
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i think, why dont you all just consider yourself as a GURU first and than do the goods and teach others the same !!! FORGET THE REST. do good and teach good. BE THE SAME INSIDE AND OUTSIDE, when you equal both, you and others will know you as a person. and thats it, just go on, meditate on your own and stop calling anyone above and beyond you. we all are JUST HUMANS. no one can do the MAGIC, you are the MAGICIAN of your own WORLD !!! Good luck..
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Well said
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What makes people think that Osho’s followers don’t already know exactly what he stands for and agree with him? Not everyone has the same views, I love Osho’s work and Hitler’s too!
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If you love Hitler’ss and Osho’s work both, there’s no need for me to make a counterargument.
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In Indian ‘Bhagwan’ means God and nothing else, you can’t get any more ill-informed than that. The Shiva Lingam on the other hand can easily be interpreted as a symbol of male reproductive force, penis in it’s physicality. The root of the problem I think is how ancient Indian schools of thought have been portrayed by con-gurus like the Osshole. It should be your conscious choice how you want your future convictions to be served – in direct or indirect scope of a ‘dhongi baba’ or by means of pursuit of truth – wherever it may lead you.
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Super idiot eric. Who the fuck are you to criticize osho. You are a mediocre mind with some stupid fixed idiology. You are simply reacting from your stupid conditioning. From your words you proved yourself that you are living from the darkest valley of your soul. Did you read osho from A_Z? How could you vomit such childishly before you deeply study him? A mediocre mind like you can’t understand a man like OSHO.
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Nope. Problem is my mind is greater than OSHO’s and I can see right through his bullshit. As I said in the article, there are far better gurus, such as Nisargadatta Maharaj, if one is truly interested in Eastern philosophy. OSHO is for people who need to believe in a charismatic cult leader who wears space garb and has trained himself to not blink in order to look more demonic.
OSHO isn’t worthy of my attention other than to dismiss his brand of lunacy, and the blight he is on Eastern philosophy (he shakes people’s faith in enlightenment like pedophile priests destroy people’s confidence in the church). OSHO is SHITO.
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ERIC KEEP IT UP PLEASE!
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SHUT UR FUCKING MOUTH ,
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OSHO follower. Nuff said.
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Just saw a quote of his painted on the wall at a hippie joint here in Chiang Mai. It ruined the meal for me, and frankly I just want to scream, why are you supporting this evil person!!!!
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They just don’t know enough about him, and the words quoted are probably inspiring enough. The problem for me is that when we worship these false prophets and megalomaniacs, even unintentionally, we don’t discover or we trivialize the real versions.
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What about the bio-terror attack in Oregon, when followers poisoned restaurant buffets with Salmonella sending hundreds to the hospital? Threats of bombs, murder and basic mayhem. Great article in the Oregonian newspaper: http://www.oregonlive.com/rajneesh/index.ssf/2011/04/part_one_it_was_worse_than_we.html
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Yup. There’s no end to the scandals and ridiculous nonsense Osho go himself mixed up with. I find people mostly want to make excuses for him, but most of the ones making excuses aren’t rich enough to be worthy of his teachings, according to him. When you go around parading yourself as an enlightened guru with your own religion, you are basically saying you’re a Buddha or Christ. In that case you have to live up to it at least a bit. People are going to be skeptical. Declaring the poor unworthy of his teachings is one of Osho’s glaring flaws that how him to be a fraud.
Thanks for the link to the article. Looks good. I’m going to read it now.
Finished the article and updated my post to include a few goodies gleaned from it. My favorite is that Osho actually milked his followers for money for more Rolls Royces because he wanted to break a record. It wasn’t, as he said, that they just generously gave them to him out of love.
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Umm, because I don’t know he was ‘evil’ any more than you do. In fact I don’t know that anyone is ‘evil’.
I suppose I’m just in the habit of sticking up for those who are vilified by the media and reviled by those who only know them from lurid headlines. Comes from my criminal justice activism I guess.
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I don’t think Osho is so much vilified by the media as deified by popular culture and a business built around marketing New Age clap-trap to a gullible audience.
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Based on Osho’s popularity, I don’t know that he’s been vilified. I mean, if he has, then it hasn’t worked.
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Jeez, when I was in Chiang Mai in the 80s and 90s I don’t think I ran across anyone who showed any interest in Osho, though of course I only hung out with farangs and the tiny subset of locals I met in my intermittent visits so I could have missed a lot. I ran across quite a few of them in India – as you might expect – but I don’t remember seeing his followers or books in any of the tourist places in Thailand when I was there. I did meet some Thais in Songhkla who were Sai Baba followers though, much to my surprise. Lots of Western Buddhists of course and a smattering Western ‘Hindus’. But no Osho.
Business there must have picked up since he carked it. He always was canny that way.
In Australian suburbia his name was mud from the start in the media and with the bulk of the populace. He went through a bit of a fad with young urban adults in the late seventies but well before he died his ‘Zorba the Buddha’ discos had gone bust and you stopped seeing people all in orange around Sydney. I’ve had four Rajneeshi or ex-Rajneeshi friends in my lifetime and I tend to socialise with the same demographic as most of his followers – at least at his peak.
But what everyone in Australia knows him for is the media scandals. The Rolls Royces, the Tantra, the outrageous statements, the paranoia – especially about AIDS, the Oregon ashram and Ma Sheela. Everyone seems to have an opinion but hardly anyone I’ve met has a clue about his teachings. The few who did liked him. And they weren’t stupid or evil people.
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That may all be true, but, if you’ve read some other gurus, OSHO isn’t saying anything special or that he couldn’t have lifted from someone else and just put a little spin on it, like Tolle does with Advaita to make it more palatable to the well-to-do who can afford his $1,000 workshops.
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BTW, the main cult my Thai friends were interested in in the 1980s was the local one, Santi Asoke.
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Check out OSHO on Facebook. He has multiple pages in different countries: https://www.facebook.com/osho.international The most popular has over 1,000,000 followers. He’s an industry.
By me, the video of him talking about his Roll Royces and why poor people can’t come to him is a big enough self-indictment. He’s like the rich man’s Jesus Christ. It doesn’t work.
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C’mon Eric, this is 2013 on the internet. Cute kittens get more than 1000,000 Facebook followers.
When was the last time you had a Rajneeshi in your face?
Compared to say Scientologists, Mormons, Sai Baba nuts, Miley Cyrus fans or Marxists?
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That’s just ONE of the OSHO groups on fb. He also has apps, and there are 15 pages of OSHO books on Amazon. I see his books on shelves that only have a handful of spiritual books.
For some reason you want to believe in him, but, I’ve watched several of his videos, and he’s chock full of shit! His clothes and his watch should be red flags. But the Rolls Royces and complete crap about being the rich man’s guru is more than enough to damn him.
Watch this video, and if you don’t fill like vomiting, laughing, scoffing or punching your monitor, I’ll be impressed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0O9IK8bxM8
Just the way he holds his final consonants annoys me. “In fact Jesus never died on the crossssssssss.” His arrogance is offensive, and when he veers from reinterpreting standard Hindu beliefs he ventures off into gibberish and cliches. He’s insufferably boring.
In a word, OSHO sucks.
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only an idiot judges a book by reading a single page!
In fact such an idiot is not qualified to criticize!
Nothing more to say.
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Step up to the plate if you think you are up to a debate. Otherwise keep your epithet of idiocy to crown yourself with, which seems a wholly appropriate act. I’ve looked at a range of sources about OSHO, and watched several videos, including ones which were not critical of him. You can’t get around his statement that he is a guru for the rich only. I for one do not have enough money for OSHO to be my guru. So, I call him a fraud, which is painfully obvious if you watch the video I linked to where he brags about his 90 Rolls Royces. Anyone who defends him is doing rhetorical back-flips through flaming hoops, which is why I’m happy to debate you on this. Please, you are welcome to defend the rich man’s guru.
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To answer in short : Below is the hierarchy of needs – Maslow’s hierarchy…
A person has has to move through the needs hierarchy, when one level gets fulfilled, interest arises towards the next…
when you look at the levels – self actualization which osho mostly speaks about is at the highest level – level 5
To understand what he says and to be actually interested, one has to be somewhere closer to the level.
A poor man would typically be at level 1 or 2, struggling to earn his food or a place to live, nothing wrong with that but to expect him to understand or desire level 5 needs is not practical….it would typically be a rich man or a man well off who could/would be closer to level 5 needs
1. Biological and Physiological needs – air, food, drink, shelter, warmth, sex, sleep.
2. Safety needs – protection from elements, security, order, law, limits, stability.
3. Social Needs – Belongingness and Love, – work group, family, affection, relationships.
4. Esteem needs – self-esteem, achievement, mastery, independence, status, dominance, prestige, managerial responsibility.
5. Self-Actualization needs – realizing personal potential, self-fulfillment, seeking personal growth and peak experiences.
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I’m familiar with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, however, it doesn’t quite apply because self-actualization isn’t the same thing as enlightenment, or selflessness, and OSHO presents himself as an enlightened guru, not a self-help coach for the elite. Maslow’s hierarchy dates from mid last century, and has been criticized for being primarily a Western outlook that didn’t take into account collectivist societies that don’t hold the individual as primary.
However, for the sake of argument, let’s just say that Maslow’s hierarchy IS accurate, and the poor are largely relegated to the bottom rung by circumstances. It would be the poverty that would keep them at the bottom rung. It wouldn’t be that their lack of self-actualization kept them there. So, the impediments to self-actualization are largely circumstantial. Where do these circumstances come from? Who is skewing economies so that more and more people are poor? The ultra rich. The Wall Street bankers. The supposedly self-actualized. See the problem here? Wealth does not indicate enlightenment or selflessness at all. Quite the opposite, it frequently involves selfish corruption and greed, the antithesis of enlightenment. If we go with your argument, than Tyrants should be the most self-actualized.
So, then you have a guru who takes money from his followers in order to try to break the record for Rolls Royce ownership, and to buy himself a million dollar watch. Does this make him more altruistic, or less so? If we accept that poverty keeps people from being self-actualized, why not use those millions of dollars to alleviate poverty rather than try to break records for individual wealth, including at the expense of the devotees in his own commune? He was sacrificing their self-actualization for his own.
Actions speak louder than words stolen from the Upanishads, and Osho behaved selfishly, showing he wasn’t enlightened, but a megalomaniac in a mad quest for power and riches. He doesn’t transcend the lower needs of a calcified ego, he bathes in them.
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You are missing the point !!!
Too obsessed with Rolls Royces 🙂
Forget about people who are selling on his name…ignore the man himself….just ignore him…
You are taking his speeches way too seriously….he himself does not seem to take them seriously…if you listen to enough of his speeches you will understand, he emphasizes on the same point(s)…the rest are all rubbish(his own comment about his speeches)…
His only message is – “meditate” – that is all there is…
Don’t know how to find fault with that, unless one is too lazy or just needs a reason not to try…..
There are numerous methods to try and it does not cost anything…one doesn’t have to spend for it…if people are, I guess they are just trying to get a shortcut… !!!
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One could get the message “meditate” from any and every guru no matter how lousy they might be.
The 90 + Rolls Royces can not be ignored. And neither can the poisonings and plots to murder people, by his closest facilitators, who stood in the way of the expansion of his commune in Oregon
Might as well say, “Forget the Holocaust, listen to his message about vegetarianism”. I’d rather learn about vegetarianism from someone else.
And I’d rather learn about meditation from someone who wasn’t a greedy megalomaniac who fleeced his own followers in order to drape himself in extraordinary luxury. If meditation creates OSHOs, it’s better, much better, to NOT meditate.
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Eric is familiar with everything in this world except his stupidity….lol bt true…and dont think Eric that I am angry from you…I have no problem even if you write more n more against Osho…I am just loving to write on stupid’s blog…
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Calling me stupid is a stupid comment.
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A true Buddhist never speaks ill of a dead person however evil that person maybe
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Most of us would do well enough to not speak ill of living people all the time. You do know that OSHO “spoke ill” of Gandhi when he said that Hitler was a better Hindu.
In my case I am not speaking ill of the dead for the sake of it, but rather uncovering the continuing legacy of a fraud that is still duping people. OSHO is now the facade of a business. You can say that I am criticizing the marketing machine of the OSHO empire, if you like.
Ultimately, precepts aside, I believe it is what people actually do in the world that matters. OSHO, stripping naive devotees of their live savings was a scoundrel.
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Obviously the assholes who wrote this page are not Buddhists and not gurus and they claim 🙂
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Usually I delete these messages, but I think it’s good to include them to show the smallness and nastiness of some of the OSHO supporters.
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Uh, guess that was in Swedish. Google Translate interprets it as “There is Guru and there is Guru”.
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From skimming through the points and highlights (including pictures) of this blog I am going to say that this was created on a whim without any real in depth analysis of OSho philosophies. Needless to say you have taken a glass cupp dipped in the ocean and claimed that this is all there is in the ocean.
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My arguments are solid and in-depth enough that you can’t debate me on them. I challenge you to try. First off, I’ll defeat your analogy. If I dip a cup in the ocean and it comes out filled with oil, I can’t say that the water is pristine.
Your boy, Osho, said extremely clearly that he is the rich man’s guru and the poor can’t come to him. That’s the only real self-condemnation he needs. You just can’t pose as an enlightened person and say you are only for the rich, on video, while wearing a space suit, and a watch that may have cost up to a million dollars.
Look forward to debating you if you are up to it at all .But, I very seriously doubt it.
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I agree with your views. And u haven’t even touched on all the other bizarre stuff with osho, such as the polygamy etc. he was a fraud and charlatan for sure. 2 points I will raise: 1) despite this, sometimes in some of his books – assuming he even wrote any/all of them- hit on some truths. Although certainly not original and you can get much better insights from those before him such as Alan watts, Suzuki, Vedanta teachers such as Sri nisagradatta, Maharishi, vivekenanda, and more modern teachers such as vernon Howard, an some new though eg emmet fox. 2) I’m stil not sure how to treat him, given my own development and insight from teachings…as Alan watts says, we need “bad” people too to know what is good…this is a function of the dualist world. And the Vedanta teachers all tell us distinctions between good bad/ evil are false and fictitious given it is all atman/brahman that underlies all of us. So I ask myself what game was god playing at to be playing the role of osho? so yes, I agre with you for sure the guy was a crepmans a fraud, But not sure the is much to be done, judging him wont help.its just a fact of this imperfect world and if we are vedantists it is just another god at play, the lila of god that creates the maya of our existence.
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Great comment Barry, and you raise a very interesting question/problem. If a falst guru like Osho is part of the big picture, and a necessity, than is it necessary to do anything about him at all? I’d say YES, in the same way that I’d swat a malarial mosquito rather than letting it bite me. Why use hand sanitizer on a crowded subway during an outbreak of Avian flu if the virus in an intrinsic part of an inseparable whole? Because we need to be practical and reasonable to survive. You answer your own question every time you brush your teeth. Why bother? Why not simply let them decay? Because avoidable harm should be prevented. We should stop the destruction of the environment and oppose war.
I think it’s like using reason. There is that which transcends rational thought, but for daily life reason is our best ally. One may realize reason is a tool, and use it effectively but not be controlled or encompassed by the rational mind alone. You’ve probably encountered this argument about the ego = it’s a great tool, but a terrible master. So, when it comes to maintaining our health or taking care of our automobile, we should use reason.
Osho is a negative influence and destroys people’s openness to Eastern mysticism/philosophy/spirituality. I can say this with confidence, because the likes of him, Eckhart Tolle, and others, who have embraced commercialism and take their teachings to the bank have put me off to Eastern spiritual teachers in general, and their Western derivatives. Even Alan Watts, who I also like, loses me in being an alcoholic. If you are enlightened, I think you probably don’t need another beer. I know there are myriad excuses for such people, but let’s not lose site of the obvious.
I would suggest setting aside the notion that evil or corruption is inevitable and thus there’s nothing to do about it. The same could be said of cancer, but we try to prevent it and if we get it to destroy it before it destroys us. In day to day problems, it might make more sense to just be practical and do the obvious good thing to do. Decry the charlatan and expose the corrupt politician! Otherwise you are like a white blood cell that just floats about in the blood stream and doesn’t do it’s part to fight cancers that will destroy the body.
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Erickuns, I couldn’t agree more… as a matter of fact there are many more OSHOS in this world thriving on ignorant and ill informed people.
People need to wake up from their sleep and start questioning everything, only then they can begin living.
Otherwise, many more OSHO’s will keep sprunging to live off of ignorant people….
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[Offensive troll comment removed by moderator.]
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[Offensive troll comment removed by moderator.]
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dude it seems you are poor and you are not understanding.
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That is a mere assertion and not an argument. In fact I understand all too well. The word “poor” applies best to Osho as a philosopher or guru. Why do you think it is OK for him to have sex with his followers or buy 90 Rolls Royces with their money? You don’t have to be smart or know anything about Eastern philosophy or be at all spiritual to see the obvious = Osho is a fraud.
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Osho has never been a fraud, you people who care about all the rolls royces, expensives watches and sex where the cause of him doing that, buying expensive stuff, he wanted to show that is no big deal to be rich and make sex, why cant a sacred person make sex and be rich??? whats wrong in that? You people are crazy, just that. He bought all of that cars to idiots like you could stay with eyes wide open, all al attention he could get from that, even if its bad would be good, because he was teaching something trully worthy wich is meditation.
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were*
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You probably meant “are”. My counterargument to a mere assertion need only be a counter assertion. Aren’t!
Can you make any reasonable argument to defend Osho? I didn’t think so.
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Well then, what is your justification for his having sex with his followers and using their money to buy over 90 Rolls Royces? I’d love to hear your argument. How was he helping them? Why did he want a million dollar watch? Why did he reject poor people as unworthy of him. Why did he believe homosexuals weren’t even human?
He could hardly have been more of a fraud. If he was a fraud in the Simpson’s cartoon he wouldn’t even be believable, he’s so ridiculously bad.
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good. someone with a clue! all these views are exactly the point Buddha makes when he says a person must have right view if he is to be enlightened. most comments here do not understand this point.
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Does “right view” include poisoning people and amassing a fleet of Rolls Royces?
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Thanks for this very informative report. I gained much
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Glad you liked it.
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[offensive troll comment removed by moderator.]
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I just don’t see how people look past Osho’s homophobic comments and the sketchy plots that were cracked up at his commune. I think it’s great if he’s gotten people to meditate but I feel that Osho’s actions stained everything he taught. I feel bad for anyone that believes this guy was an honest and/or enlightened human being.
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Agreed. One could learn meditation from thousands of people these days. There’s apparently no shortage of self-proclaimed, or self-insinuated enlightened beings looking for followers.
One of my biggest problems with all the fake gurus, and fake enlightened people, is it undermines any confidence people might have that there’s even such thing as enlightenment. If Osho, Sai Baba, and a host of other popular gurus are frauds, then one starts to wonder if there are any truly legitimate ones.
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This article helped me, initially i started believing OSHO, but his deeds is makes my inner sense to not to believe him, i am always scared to believe in any spirtual leaders as many of them are bogus in India
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Yes. I agree. I think a guru should be a better person than I am, and a better example. He (or she) should be more selfless, kind, understanding, tolerant, and generous. I respect such a person.
However, if he (or she) shows himself to be less than me, I’m not going to follow him.
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Who says a guru is suppose to be selfless, kind, understanding, tolerant, and generous?
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I do. Debate me.
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OSHO has 90 Rolls Royce cars. He is the guru for the rich! But some fail to understand what he is saying. He is a satire for the world. A oxymoron staring back at us as ourselves. He is a cliché. Not a god or God. Live and learn from OSHO and maybe you too will have at least a few Rolls Royce cars.
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The world doesn’t need any more rich assholes.
I’d rather have one bicycle and not be a corrupt megalomaniac that fleeces idealistic young people out of their life savings, is involved in plots to murder adversaries, is an abominable bore, homophobic, praises Hitler, denounces Gandhi, and lives in a self-delusional protective bubble.
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You assessments demonstrate you do not know what enlightenment is. Your views are exactly those Buddha said you must drop, which concern ‘right view’; your own (prejudiced) views are I am afraid preventing you from seeing beyond your noses. Read Buddha.
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I am a lover of Rajneesh. I am also VERY critical of him. I think the best balanced book about him is The Golden Guru by James S. Gordon. I am not really going to defend or debase him here, just point out that out of context or looking at things through our clouded glasses, interpretations can run many.
Regarding him claiming to be “the rich man’s guru,” if you look at the people who followed him they consisted of rich, poor and in between. He was saying–and said–that, in general a poor person will always still think, “If I had money THEN I would be happy.” A rich person who is unhappy realizes that money will never buy him happiness. He was not talking about mindless, selfish rich people who have no desire for growth.
Regarding comparing Hitler to Gandhi, anyone who knows even the minutest amount about Rajneesh knows he intentionally tried to be controversial. But even utilizing what you quoted above, he is not “praising” Hitler but saying he is, like Gandhi, also immoral. He has voiced his admiration for aspects of Gandhi, but these are not as “exciting” to repost and so you won’t see them many places. But he was a staunch critic of Gandhi’s desire to go back to the Stone Age concerning not embracing technology, his use of guilt at his ashram and to resolve conflict, saying he’ll fast to death if people won’t stop. Rajneesh was helping people challenge even their blind faith in cartoon versions of evil (Hitler) and good (Gandhi.) If there was a Rajneesh double separate from himself, he would have probably challenged our conceptions of him as well. But there wasn’t, and his ego was too large.
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Well, your comment is yoga itself, at least in terms of bending over backwards to defend a guru who boasted having sex with his female followers, had 90 Rolls Royces, and whose ashram in Oregon poisoned the local populace with salmonella. A “balanced” view on that is that he was corrupt, and a fraud. Your defense is a mere rhetorical sleight of hand, coming up with any plausible sounding justification for ridiculous, ignorant, and offensive views, while not addressing his actual criminal behavior. No, the poor do not always think that mere money would solve their problems. THAT is adding insult to injury. In reality, the poor had no money to give Rajneesh, and so were not worthy customers. Sure, he may have wanted to provoke people, but that isn’t necessarily a good thing at all, if his provocations are merely offensive statements. Osho’s a fraud, and his followers are chumps, or people who refuse to condemn him because they need to be able to have such a tarnished guru be accepted as “enlightened” in order for them to fool themselves into believing that they, too, foibles and all, are enlightened beings.
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Eric, I too can be very passionate about issues but I have to say your response sounds a touch fanatical to me :). Regarding having sex with his followers, your conditioned belief is that this is wrong–probably based on the the usual, often false, claim that gurus are celibate and what it means to be spiritual. Rajneesh openly said he was not a celibate. Never made any claims to the contrary.
I have done the research and have NEVER found anyone who complained that they either had sex with him against their will or were somehow duped into it. Look at claims of Swami Satchidananda, Swami Muktananda and Sai Baba’s sexual abuse, to make just a few. Makes Rajneesh look like an altar boy! Of course, there is the danger of vulnerable people having sex with all its related emotions. His boasting about it? He had a huge ego and arrogance. This is not a defense. I don’t admire those qualities.
The Rolls Royce collection was either a great trick to get everyone talking about him, which it definitely did, or more of his ego needs–or both. Funny how many who talk about his car collection never once discuss any of his spiritual tenets. It is possible he was also challenging the false idea that one has to be poor to be spiritual. Ramana was awesome and inspiring on many regards, but why sit on a hard rock when you can sit in a comfortable chair? If his people bought him a Lazy Boy, many, including perhaps you, would be focusing on that instead of his state of awareness.
While certainly there are poor people who don’t think all their problems are due to lack of money–or even desire money–your statement seems ignorant to the fact that poor people, in reality or in their minds, tend to think that their issue is money. I have talked to so many middle-class people that feel they would be happy if only they had enough money, or a girlfriend or boyfriend, or a better job. This doesn’t really seem up for debate to me but your arguing this point shows me that you have dug your heels into a position and are not open for discussion.
I am not justifying his group’s criminal behavior, nor offering “slight of hand” as you say. I was just not focusing on it. Focusing on the obvious is for the simple; I’ll leave that to you, if you’d like. I may think that Christianity is a farce and that Jesus might have been a master but not a messiah, but to claim he had no impact, or had nothing to offer, or didn’t touch people, or that anyone who might have learned about themselves through his teaching is a “chump,” is just as arrogant as Rajneesh ever was. In my example, I could focus on the teachings of Jesus or whether or not he was a fraud. The first might give me benefit–or not. The second will give me nothing, other than maybe a small following online and a boost to my ego for “knowing more than all those other chumps.”
How many readers of Jesus read everything as literal and therefore miss all the depths that may be contained in metaphor and symbolism and even as tools like koans to stimulate his students? Sure, we can read into just about any statement and make it something it is not but just calling “Heaven” a location on a cloud probably misses the “Heaven is inside of you” angle. To read words without knowing the man or the context is like trying to understand Greek with a German/English dictionary.
As someone who DID his meditations, read him extensively, meditated on him, went to Poona and took sannyas–and is VERY critical of him, my words carry more weight than someone who has had no involvement with him other than through the tabloids. After reading almost 40 books by and about him, many of which I sought were negative as I desired truth over loyalty, I offer what I found to be the most balanced book to you and any readers of this thread. You put “balanced” in quotes, expressing your ignorance that anyone–be it Rajneesh or Hitler or Gandhi–is a cartoon character that is all good or all bad. Only in Marvel Comics, my friend.
I don’t like a lot of the way he expressed himself or his version of Truth, the abuses he committed and allowed to let happen. But I don’t read every statement of his so surface. Your takes on his Gandhi/Hitler and “rich man’s guru” were just that. I encourage you to dive deeper in your understanding. I am guessing, like me, you will still be very critical of Rajneesh. But hopefully you won’t be so obvious, unoriginal and boring about it.
-www.rebelyogi.com
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Hi “Swami”. Ah good, it looks like a debate. You wrote: “Regarding having sex with his followers, your conditioned belief is that this is wrong”. What makes it a “conditioned belief”? From my perspective YOU have been conditioned to believe that a self-proclaimed enlightened being (who is reported to have confessed he was tired of pretending to be enlightened, incidentally) can do no wrong, and anything he does must, by definition, be unassailable. No, I didn’t say a “guru” has to be celibate. He can be married, or have a girlfriend. However, when it comes to inviting female devotees into his chamber to examine their “chakras”, that is actually sexual harassment, and molestation.
You wrote, “I have done the research and have NEVER found anyone who complained that they either had sex with him against their will or were somehow duped into it.” You apparently didn’t try very hard. Here’s a quote from one person’s first person experience with OSHO:
“Rajneesh often asked women half his age to strip in front of him so that he could “feel their chakras.” To facilitate this practice, he installed an electric lock on his bedroom door that could be activated from a button on his desk. Rajneesh groped the breasts of two of my female friends and felt the chakras of a third. … My lady friend who suffered the chakra feeling incident was so put off that she never came back to see him again. He had told her “Don’t worry. You are mine now.” That grasping statement had chilled her as much as the sexual advance.”
Rajneesh was deported from America after he pleaded guilty to not only immigration fraud, but sexual abuse with minors. There’s no defense for that. Furhter, Krishnamurti considered Rajneesh to be a “criminal” for his abuse of the guru-disciple relationship.
You admit that he had “a huge ego and arrogance”. Do YOU think those are really the qualities of an enlightened person? They are precisely NOT the qualities of someone who has transcended the false identification with the go, but rather the qualities of a megalomaniac who overly identified with the ego.
Your take on the Roll’s thing is the typical defense, and can easily be rationally debunked. He paid for his car collection with money from his followers. How is it challenging the idea that you have to be poor to be spiritual, if he is impoverishing his own followers in order to enrich himself? He is one of many gurus who have made themselves fabulously wealthy off of their followers. They may all have excuses, but they are all bullshit. Osho lived a luxurious life of privilege at the expense of those naive enough to follow him. He had a private, heated, indoor pool, and large screen TV, while he had his devotees working up to 12 hours a day.
You say, “Why sit on a hard rock if you can sit on a comfortable chair”. It’s not a good analogy. Why require a gilded throne when a throw cushion is just as comfortable? Ramana had chairs.
Of course poor people think that money would solve a lot of their problems, in the same way that starving people think that food would solve theirs. But that does NOT mean that poor people think that money can solve all problems.
At this point, I must point out that you keep calling me ignorant and stuff like that. Watch your tone, “Swami”. You are losing the debate AND attacking me personally.
You wrote, “Focusing on the obvious is for the simple; I’ll leave that to you”. Another insult. Try to step up your debating style. If I say the Earth is round, that may seem simple to you, but it is also the truth (unless you want to be more specific and say it’s an oblate spheroid). Convoluted bullshit isn’t superior to obvious truth, when trying to clean up messy thought and conclusions born of wishful thinking. And from my perspective your argument is simplistic, not mine, despite your declarations.
I didn’t say anything about Jesus or his followers. That is a combination “straw man” and “red herring” logical fallacy on your part.
It doesn’t matter how many books you read of OSHO’s, or why you passionately believe in him, it is obvious from his videos, his well documented acts, and his statements, that he was not a spiritually evolved being. I don’t need to meet Hitler or Charles Manson to know that they wren’t saints. There are enough facts to show otherwise. And the same goes for your OSHO.
You wrote in anger, “But hopefully you won’t be so obvious, unoriginal and boring about it.”
Ah, no. My take was original, witty, and incisive. I even made a cartoon and custom graphics. Well, at least compared to your defense of him. You merely come off as just another guy who thinks he’s more-spiritual-than-thou because he’s subscribed hook, line, and sinker to a certain strain of Eastern philosophy.
Listen, self-proclaimed “swami”. You are so full of insults and condescension that it shows your lack of spiritual and intellectual development. Let’s face it, my guess is that you have a vested interest in believing that YOU are enlightened, or on your way, and so you need to believe in OSHO and probably Sai Baba as well. But from my standpoint, just your trying to talk down to me shows you have a long, long way to go. You, my friend, if you are posing as enlightened or spiritually evolved, are also a fraud. You are a competitive ass (which your condescension shows), and if you bristle at that, than that further shows you haven’t transcended your identification with your more basal mental aspects. Wake up, put down your OSHO or Rajneesh, step down from your pedestal, and stop pretending. Your biggest obstacle to spiritual evolution is your conviction that you have already achieved it. Pah! Forget all that nonsense. #1) Stop being selfish. #2) Be humble. Then you will have a chance, at least of being a decent unenlightened human, instead of a self-aggrandizing wanker who holds himself as somehow superior, like Rajneesh, who is similarly held as above questioning. All else is bullshit. Good luck.
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Oh, “Eric.” Where to begin. I guess at the beginning. The most offensive thing I find about your ranting is that you create statements and then claim they came from my mind or mouth when they didn’t. This pattern suggests to me that you have done the same regarding “Rajneesh.” I never said a self-proclaimed–or even an other-proclaimed–enlightened person can do no wrong.
Concerning the sex with followers…if it is not a conditioned belief of yours then clearly it is a belief of yours that a so-called enlightened person shouldn’t have sex with his followers. Why not? Because you define it as abuse? As I said, I have not come across people claiming he sexually abused them. Can you tell me what that third-person quote (that would be called “hearsay” in court) came from? Contrary to your statements otherwise, I have never said he has done no wrong. But, out of hundreds of thousands of followers, you quoting hearsay about a few friends of one of his followers somewhat supports what I was saying, that you don’t really hear to much from people claiming to be sexually abused by him–but II am guessing that perception exists.
And, FACT, he was not deported for sexually abusing a minor. I believe it was immigration fraud related to sham marriages and for visa fraud for intending to stay permanently when only filing for a temporary visa. Please back your statements up with facts, quotes, citations.
You mention my statement about his big ego and then nearly jump out of your panties by saying, “You see! You see! How can you say he was enlightened??” Awesome point. Unfortunately I never said this. Talk about straw men.
“Krishnamurti” obviously had a different view of the guru-disciple relationship. I can show you people who think others are going to Hell for eternity because they don’t follow their prophet. Doesn’t make it fact. “Krishnamurti” gave no techniques to anyone and so, after 70 years of teaching, he transformed no one. He was brilliant and stimulated a lot of minds, but changed nobody.
You missed my suggestion–not take–at a POSSIBLE reason for the Rolls Royce collection. Again, your ranting misses what I am actually saying, which adds no wonder to how you might miss a man much more complicated than myself. He might be presenting that one can be spiritual and enjoy wealth. This is challenging the idea that poverty is somehow spiritual. Then again, he may just like Rolls Royces.
With your statements about the luxury he lived in, you need to read no further than “Hugh Milne,” former bodyguard and critical author of “Rajneesh,” for a common quote from anyone who had actually seen his room. He says how plain it was, with basically just a bed and a small table. Did he have a television and pool later? I don’t know. Maybe.
Your “throw cushion” statement illustrates your utilitarian mindset, that “functional” and “good enough” is, well, good enough. Why settle for good enough. As I suggested, if you saw “Ramana” in a Lazy Boy, I can imagine how incongruous it would seem to you and how your mind would spin–to the chagrin of any discussion on Self Inquiry.
Yes, you didn’t say anything about “Jesus.” Does that mean I can’t bring him up? It was an analogy, not a straw man. It was illustrating the obvious how so many claim and even kill in the name and words of Jesus when their interpretations are based on shallow understandings of his teachings. It seems because you see red anytime someone presents thoughts outside of your belief system, you couldn’t hear my words and, as has been typical of you to me and also “Rajneesh,” you instead characterize what we meant–according to you, of course.
There is a difference between reading or watching videos and meditating. I have tasted “Rajneesh” and found him delightful, bitter, ambrosia, poison and a myriad of other flavors. You have only tasted poison. Whether your tongue or mine is the more accurate, my savoring has tastes the high and low notes of his vintage. You just took a sip and immediately spit him out.
Bravo on cartoon and graphics. But, yes “Eric,” your arguments are nothing new and, to my taste, boring. You’re putting “swami” in quotation marks every time you use it to address me shows another of your biased conditioning, that a swami has to be meek and mild mannered. If I were Reverend X would you be writing “Reverend” in quotation marks each time you addressed me? All names are self-proclaimed, one’s birth name. They are nothing but labels for utilitarian reasons, though some try to make them more.
And then you conclude your hysteria by making a self-proclaimed “guess” about me, my beliefs in my own enlightenment, my loyalties to “Rajneesh”and “Sai Baba.” You say that I wrote “in anger” that your commentary was obvious, unoriginal and boring. No, “Eric,” it wasn’t written in anger. Seems you know me about a little as you know “Rajneesh.”
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Hi “Swami X”:
First off, if you want someone to listen to your perspective, you can’t attack them. You can’t accuse me of fanaticism and ranting and then expect me to be the bigger person and give your arguments careful consideration. What you are doing is using the tactic of belittling me in order to diminish my arguments. Having pointed that out, I’m NOT going to retaliate in kind, but will give your arguments careful consideration (minus the insults and continued condescension), and refute them.
You asked the question, “Why shouldn’t a guru have sex with his followers?” Because it is an abuse of power. Because he should be above taking advantage of people who naively believe he is something other than an ordinary mortal. Because he shouldn’t have a button in his bedroom that he uses to lock people inside against their will. Because people came to him to develop themselves spiritually, not be taken advantage of, and used, physically. Do I need to go on? Because it is weak. Because sex isn’t just a physical act and he should realize that it would have repercussions on his followers if he imposed himself on them sexually. He should also be able to have self control, and he should be taking care of his followers, not seek to exploit them for his own titillation. These are the same reasons a teacher doesn’t have sex with his students, a priest with his congregation, a boss with his employees, or a psychologist or psychiatrist with his patient. Because I have made an argument, it is NOT a “conditioned belief”.
What is your argument why it is OK, or even desirable for a guru to have sexual contact with his followers?
As for quotes about Rajneesh abusing people sexually, of course I cannot give you a first person account, because I have not had sex with Rajneesh. Have you? But there are a lot of accounts out there, and as you’ve probably learned with Sai Baba, it only takes one confirmed case of sexually abusing a follower to destroy a guru’s attempt to present himself as a saint. Now, many will argue that an enlightened person need not be a saint at all, and can be a billionaire playboy. Making such an argument has monetary rewards, so one can see an ulterior motive in trying to sell it to rich customers. But did Jesus or the Buddha have sex with their followers? No? How about the Dalai Lama? No again? And even if someone, perhaps you, thinks it’s not a problem for a guru to fuck his followers (apparently Osho usually lasted 2 minutes and was anything but a Tantric expert), why can’t he find suitable partners outside of his ashram? Let the followers find their own partners. This is not a place for the guru to get involved.
Why would he even feel the need or desire to get at his female devotees “chakras”? He wasn’t a teenager anymore. Couldn’t he control his own body, or direct his libido in a more appropriate direction? Hopefully you aren’t going to go down the dark path of suggesting that sex with OSHO was a blessing and a path towards spiritual enlightenment. And, considering the level of some of your attacks/insults, no, I’m not a prude, I just don’t think a guru should be fucking his followers any more than a priest should.
“Fourteen- and 15-year-old girls were often initiated into sex by visiting group leaders.” From the Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/jan/11/india.biography
“Stork discovered that while in the organization, her children were sexually abused.” From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breaking_the_Spell:_My_Life_as_a_Rajneeshee_and_the_Long_Journey_Back_to_Freedom
“According to highly credible published reports, Rajneesh allowed middle aged men to have sexual intercourse with underage girls at the commune in the name of sexual freedom”: http://meditation-handbook.50webs.com/osho2.html
“While living in Bombay, Rajneesh made one young woman pregnant through an aggressive and unasked for seduction. This was not rape by any definition, but rather a case of psychic overpowering, which is not against any law because no legal system recognizes that psychic powers even exist. The woman was highly upset and forced by circumstance to have an abortion. In order to protect his image as a great guru, Rajneesh lied about his involvement and claimed that the girl had imagined the whole affair. The young woman told the American Embassy her story, and that incident marked the beginning of Rajneesh’s troubles with the United States Government”: From the same source.
Now, if a woman went to the American Embassy to complain, you can’t say that nobody has complained.
“Rajneesh … had sex with hundreds of young women half his age.” http://meditation-handbook.50webs.com/wrong-way.html
I can’t find the article which claimed that he pleaded guilty to sexual conduct with minors (there are so many about sexual misconduct that I can’t track it down). It did NOT say he was convicted for that, but merely pleaded guilty. There only needed to be a conviction on one thing for him to be deported, and the immigration fraud was enough. Since I can’t find it, I won’t stand by that statement.
Further, you might realize that people aren’t going to be eager to come out and say that OSHO molested them. It’s the same reason most rapes go unreported. There’s a lot of shame involved, and such a person would also find plenty of condemnation from OSHO followers the world over, perhaps including yourself. They might rather put that shit behind them than brand themselves with it for life.
You wrote: “You mention my statement about his big ego and then nearly jump out of your panties by saying, “You see! You see! How can you say he was enlightened??” Awesome point. Unfortunately I never said this.”
Are you trying to start a fight with me? Come now. Anyway, I actually quoted you directly, and I shall do so again: “He had a huge ego and arrogance. This is not a defense. I don’t admire those qualities.” So, you did say it, and then you insulted me on top of it with the type of words that would cause a fight on a playground. Also, the statements you put in quotes are not anything I said. If you are going to paraphrase me, don’t put it in quotes. That shows a deliberate attempt to deceive. My argument stands, if he had a huge ego and was arrogant, as you attest, doesn’t that suggest he was not enlightened?
Your comments about Krishnamurti not changing anyone are just bold assertions. Personally, I find Krishnamurti far, far more interesting and relevant than OSHO. OSHO is all spectacle and pretentiousness. It’s all about celebrity and him being a demigod on Earth. He claimed himself to be the “Messiah” America was looking for. I prefer Nisargadatta Maharaj to either.
You say OSHO might just like Rolls Royces, or that he was trying to prove that you can be rich and spiritual at the same time. These are weak arguments. Can you horde luxury and be spiritual at the same time, while paying for it all with the life savings of your own followers? The answer is no. If you are sacrificing the well-being and livelihoods of thousands for your own personal self-aggrandizement, you can not say that that is a spiritual accomplishment or example in the world. It justifies corruption, greed, and exploitation. In reality, his actions are those of a typical tyrant, even including armed body guards.
You wrote, as regards Ramana Maharshi and what was adequate for him to sit on, “Why settle for good enough?” I’ll counter it more personally. I am sitting on a decent computer chair. It’s comfortable. I don’t require a better one. I don’t need it. It does not need to be made of gold and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. It is not settling for good enough, but rather not yearning after sheer luxury that is completely superfluous.
I can say that I expect enlightened beings to be better than I am, not shallower, weaker, more clinging to physical things, more enamored of wealth, more avaricious, more greedy, more corrupt, more perverted, more selfish, and more self-centered. Yes, I hold self-proclaimed enlightened people to be at least as good as I am, at least as strong. If I don’t need even one Rolls Royce, I can’t respect someone who needs a fleet to feel he has self worth.
No, your comment about Jesus WAS a “straw man” because you were saying that I said his followers were chumps. I said OSHO’s followers were chumps. If you then say that I am saying the Buddha’s followers are chumps, that’s a cheap way to defeat my argument, which of course doesn’t work. I’m talking about the self-proclaimed “sex guru” and “rich man’s guru”, and NOT Jesus, or the Buddha, or Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj. Yes, you are a chump to worship a guru with 90 Roll Royces. No, you are not a chump to follow the Buddha.
You wrote: ” It seems because you see red anytime someone presents thoughts outside of your belief system”.
Whose “seeing red”? What “belief system”? What “conditioned belief”? Those are just labels you project on to me in lieu of having a good argument. From my perspective, if anyone has a “belief system” it’s you. But I will stick to your arguments.
You wrote, “You’re putting “swami” in quotation marks every time you use it to address me shows another of your biased conditioning”.
I have to put it in quotations, because it means that you are a religious teacher. But you are obviously acting from the standpoint of a calcified and competitive ego. if you are a swami, than I must be the Second Coming. Please, at least be more mature, wise, centered, selfless, and compassionate than ME, if you are going to call yourself a spiritual teacher. I just call myself an artist. Apparently, you need to take lessons from me. Here’s one. Stop being selfish. That’s all you really need.
If you are enlightened than forsaking luxury, which most of us can’t even dream of having, isn’t difficult. You have transcended yearning and revulsion, and you accept reality as it unfolds without preference. So why lust after luxury and virgins? Why set the worst example possible? Who does that challenge? A true guru has no need for those things and gains no satisfaction from them. Au contraire. They would be encumbrances. We must look at the actions of the guru. If he needs luxury cars, than so do we. If he can’t resist taking advantage of those who entrusted themselves to his help, than neither can we.
What is the use of enlightenment if the enlightened person has all the weaknesses of the unenlightened, and indulges in them at the expense of others? Again, I don’t care if a so-called “guru” has fantastic sex with an appropriate other party, trips balls on psychedelics, goes to watch the latest films, and eats delicious food. But he should not NEED it all, and more, much, much more, including to benefit himself through the explicit harm of others. He, or she, should be content even with much less than you or I have. If not, than enlightenment is useless, and that which people are calling “enlightenment” is merely a self-serving, self-delusion, and pernicious.
A swami doesn’t have to be “meek and mild mannered” but he shouldn’t be aggressive, condescending, immature, and insulting, either.
Please don’t waste any more of my time. If you insult me again I will edit or delete your comments. I have been tolerant so far, but you are insulting me on my own blog, and your stuff about “panties” is a sophomoric level of attack. I think I’ve endured enough of that sort of thing from you. And finally, If you want to call yourself “swami”, you really need to be less of a dick.
However, if you can stick to just making arguments, and shelve all the other bullshit, I’d absolutely LOVE to hear your reasons for supporting “gurus” having sex with their followers. I have to warn you though, that once you take personal attacks out of your toolkit, you will find me a much more difficult opponent in a debate. Proceed with caution and maturity.
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Interesting conversation, to say the least. I found this blog after watching some Youtube videos and noticing the fancy watches Osho sported. I wondered what his story was, and the bits about Oregon are troubling. That being said, there is one thing I notice when watching his talks, and that is that he is unapologetic about everything. So I guess in this world with so many scumbags, I would rather have someone tell me they were a scumbag and go on about their scumbagging than someone pretending to be a saint acting that way. It is odd to me that there are so many of these types of gurus out there whose message is to think for one’s self, yet people flock to them and hang on every word. It’s almost as if the gurus know that there’s a certain percentage of people that won’t get it, and will drop whatever they own to be around the guru. I bought an audio book last week for a trip I had to take, and for $10, I got everything I needed from him, along with all of the Youtube videos. I wouldn’t spend another dime on anything Osho, because I already got the message.
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That is probably accurate. The message just gets repeated. The difficult thing isn’t understnading it, but actually getting it, or realizing it, so to speak. Problem is any asshole who understands it can convince himeself (or herself) that he is enlightened. The core messages of OSHO are not that different, when you take off his ridiculous trimmings, from classical Hinduism, no matter what he says. All the Eastern philosophies say variations on the same thing.
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False Gurus are proliferating like maggots. I would ask the people of the US and Europe not to be taken in by the utter nonsense these “Gurus” are spouting.
Sanatana Dharma( as Hinduism is rightly called) is far more complex and its truths are simple and profound at the same time. The same with the set of postures you think are “Yoga”. These people preaching to you are giving you a distorted fraction of the splendors of the Vedas. If you wish to experience some of Sanatana Dharma’s way of life, it is best to live side by side and experience life in those parts of India where it still exists. The Orthodox Mathas ascribe still to the true ways of Sanathana Dharma and that is where you will likely find a portion of what you seek.
Please attain knowledge from the right sources. Learn Sanskrit, and read the Vedas for yourself. Read the Upanishads, and read Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras to gain undiluted knowledge. The bunch of stretching exercises you think “Yoga” to be is nothing but the very first step of it called “Asana”. Diluted knowledge is not knowledge at all.
The secrets and opulence of Ancient India are lost forever. But it is possible to get a peek to what was a golden time for humanity through the Vedic epics and scriptures. I entreat you not to pay any mind to these fake gurus. We need no so-called “Guru”: to know that hankering after money for its own sake is bad, nor do we need them to tell us not to hurt or kill. We possess within ourselves all the ability necessary to prosper and enlighten.
A thumb rule for the people of the west regarding “Gurus”: If one proclaims he is enlightened, then he is likely a pretender/schizophrenic/ or hallucinating.
Sincerely,
TruthSeeker
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Please keep comments civil, and try not to insult me (which includes being condescending). I’ve recently had to delete over-the-top personal attacks, and it’s not the first time. I’m happy to have rational dialogue, but can’t devote time and energy to slug fests.
I get more hostile comments on this post than all others combined. Part of the problem, as I see it, is that people who believe they are enlightened (whether or not they boast about it), have a very strong tendency to believe they are automatically right, and can’t help but be exceedingly condescending, which ironically demonstrates how egotistical and competitive they are (which undermines their performance as “enlightened beings”). Again, because they believe that they are enlightened, they also believe they know what they are talking about, and anyone who isn’t enlightened doesn’t [in reality because they are NOT enlightened, this can be very enervating to a rational person engaged in debate with one of them.]
It is usually the people who have convinced themselves that they are enlightened, or are trying to become enlightened, who defend OSHO, as a fellow enlightened being. Part of the reason is to lower the bar of what it means to be enlightened so that they may claim it for themselves. If OSHO can be enlightened, well, than there’s a whole laundry list of excuses you can make for not behaving as an enlightened person. In fact, you can get away with anything and still believe you are enlightened.
Naturally, people who believe they are enlightened aren’t living in reality, and thus it is difficult to have a rational and clear debate with them. Hypothetically, if a genuinely enlightened person were to come across this blog post, she or he wouldn’t feel compelled to insult me left and right for questioning the opportunistic, fake guru, OSHO.
So, if you are here to posture as enlightened, even if you won’t openly claim it (while nevertheless insinuating it absolutely), please try to at least act like it while you are posting. If you can’t do that, then, you need to go back and work on your act some more. If you are looking to make money off of selling yourself as a guru, you need to iron out these wrinkles in your disguise. And if you need other people to believe you are enlightened, isn’t it obvious that you aren’t?
I haven’t really had too much of a problem with people who are openly not enlightened.
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Hm, It seems you have misconstrued my intentions. I did not intend condescension or insult against you or anyone else. When I said “you”, it meant the general public and not you specifically. I tried to convey my intentions to a broader audience. I believed that was implied from the tone of my post.
I claim no enlightenment, but I believe such a thing exists. It is just that today’s society or people (or me for that matter) are unable to achieve it. I am an ordinary person, Mr.Wayne, and I detest gurus of all sorts. Not every opinion is an attack against you, veiled or otherwise. Last I checked, posting opinions on a blog was allowed.
I share your contempt for these so-called “gurus”. The only other point I intended to make is that if one is so fascinated by Eastern religious practices, then one might be better served going directly to the source instead of intermediaries or godmen. Then their opinions will be based on a proper source, and their decision for or against said philosophies will be truer. Authenticity was what I tried to emphasize, and what you percieved as an attack against you. For god’s sake, not everything is about you!
Kindly take it a bit easier. For the most part I agree with you. Where we disagree seems to be the existence of enlightenment, but that is again a moot point. This is a blog about the dubious practices of certain gurus, not the tools they use to decieve. They will use anything, any concept to befuddle the masses. Our only shield against this wave of corruption and distortion is real information, truth as close as we can get to it.
This was what I was trying to say.
Sincerely,
TruthSeeker (I know this name may have put you off somewhat, but I chose it simply because it is so cliche and easy!)
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Hi TruthSeeker:
That wasn’t in reply to you! Your comment was NOT deleted! Nothing you said offended me, or seemed personal. You do seem to have an agenda about traditional Hindu practices, and I wondered why you didn’t include Buddhist and other ones. I assume you are for any of the more traditional ones, because you ask why not go to the source. Yes, why read Tolle when you can read Nisargadatta Maharaj?
I also agree with you that enlightenment might be possible, but the thousands claiming it mostly have a very loose definition, usually based on an interpretation of select fragments of Advaita. They particularly latch on to the notion that we are all already enlightened, but we just don’t know it. Once they believe that, it’s not difficult for them to convince themselves that their everyday experience of quotidian existence is enlightenment, even if it is no different from everyone else’s. Theirs’ is a kind of trick in which they convince themselves that their unenlightened state has been enlightenment all along, and they just woke up to it. Then they go out trying to get others to believe that they are enlightened, because, well, nobody even suspects it judging from their behavior. And they get irate when they are challenged on it.
Your response to my general comment, however, was personal. YOU make comments directly to me and put my name in them. You did it out of confusion, OK, but, I found myself reading a lecture about not taking stuff personally by someone who took something personally that wasn’t written for them. See the irony?
I try to keep things more neutral so we can focus on ideas and not ego battles and other bullshit.
Cheers.
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Do you still think he’s an enlightened saint, like the Buddha or Christ?
He claims he can perform miracles, but it is beneath himself to do so?
>> When he claims to perform miracles then he claims absolute, may be your concept of miracles is just opposite of concept of miracles he is talking about. (sorry it a poor explanation u might not convinced what i am saying but its non of my business to convince you)
Claims to have been reincarnated many times and to have had an illustrious past as a series of enlightened masters.
>> He actually lied, oh sorry he was right, oh noo how can he reincarnate, hey wait whats wrong in reincarnation, well i dont knw what to say or not sure should i say.. I am sure u might get the answer.
Takes sleeping pills, Valium, and heroic doses of nitrous oxide (laughing gas).
>> I simply request you to please mention “it was allegations of taking pills” as u are contentiously mentioning above “He claims” both words (allegation & claims) quite similar, in both words reality is hidden.
Praises Hitler and denounces Gandhi.
>> Yes Hitlor was true detector and Gandhi was false Mahatma, so he praise Hitlor’s true Dictatorship and denouncing Gandhi’s false Mahatmahood.
http://oshosearch.net/Convert/Articles_Osho/From_Death_to_Deathlessness/Osho-From-Death-to-Deathlessness-00000015.html
Loves and praises money.
>> Please right one single reason to NOT love or praise money.
Looks down upon the poor and discriminates against them.
>> Oh yes, according to him there should be no poor in this world and poor are himself responsible for their poverty (this link might be helpful)
http://www.oshoworld.com/biography/innercontent.asp?FileName=biography5/05-34-poor.txt
Is openly homophobic.
>> He is openly for almost everything what an individual wants for himself even if its homophobia still its perfectly fine.
His ashram in Oregon orchestrated a bio-terror attack by deliberately spreading poison in salad bars to effect county elections.
>>USA Should had imprison him for at-least 150 years for this crime, i wonder how US gov is so kind to Osho.. i think Osho was enough rich to Buy the whole US Judicial system. ( I am sure this time u convinced with me)
His ashram plotted to assassinate politicians in Oregon who got in its way.
>> Hell, again no one was killed.. lucky politicians.
Some of his books were written for him by others.
>> He never wrote a single book, all books are exactly the same words of his discourses.
His material was largely taken from other sources.
>> I dont consider this a point, sorry.
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The points about him claiming to be able to perform miracles and having been reincarnated many times are just obvious examples of lies intended to impress the gullible into thinking he’s more than human. Miracles and reincarnation are not necessary for enlightenment, and are usually claimed by charlatans. If a guru claims he can perform magic, it’s a sure sign he’s a fraud.
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Miracles and reincarnation are not necessary for enlightenment, and are usually claimed by “charlatans”. If a guru claims he can perform magic, it’s a sure sign he’s a fraud – Sir Eric Wayne ( December 24, 2014 at 7:05 pm)
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Don’t take it from me, here’s what Nisargadatta Maharaj had to say about miracles:
“I know nothing about miracles, and I wonder whether nature admits exceptions to her laws, unless we agree that everything is a miracle. As to my mind, there is no such thing.”
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https://www.facebook.com/notes/jeevan-ekin/osho-do-miracles-really-not-exist/10150534304757516
(Please point us that sentence where Osho has claimed he can perform miracles )
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The statement is that he said he was capable of performing miracles, but it was beneath him to do so. Convenient. I don’t know where I got that information originally, since it was written a year and a half ago.
Anyway, I looked at your link and if you read carefully, even though it is about miracles being impossible, he claims a miracle in there, the miracle of his own identity.
“The boatman saw this and said, “What are you doing, Baba? You have never touched anybody’s feet.”
And Baba said, “This is not anybody; and you are a fool – you should take them to the other side.
Don’t be worried. The soul that is within this womb is capable of saving thousands of people, so don’t be worried about your sixty people – take her.”
That was about a boatman who had refused to take Osho’s mother across a river. But Sai Baba recognized the MIRACLE of Osho being the baby.
Osho carefully says there are no miracles, while documenting miracles that surrounded him, like the water going backwards in a flood when it reached as high as his mother’s stomach. He knows very well that people will forget his argument and remember the miracle. They will remember that a famous guru knew by touching his foot while he was in his mother’s womb that he was a great spiritual being. And they will remember that somehow a flood stopped, and the water moved backwards, when it approached him, while still in the womb.
Very clever indeed. He claims supernatural birth and powers, and then pretends to poo-poo it. Meanwhile even his claim of being a living Buddha at the age of 21 is asserting a miracle. You’ve got to look beneath the surface and read between the lines. He is a master manipulator.
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“I don’t
know where I got that
information originally,
since it was written a
year and a half ago.”
> strange as u said he was master in manipulate…. What i am noticing about you the points u have mentioned on TOP about miracles in ur points against him which u dont knw wher u have came to knw originally… I doubt if u are copying him in Maniputing… 😀
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We’ll start worrying about my manipulation skills when I have one Rolls Royce. Until then, we can safely assume I’m disentangling the manipulation. And, no, it’s not a surprise at all that I don’t remember which of many sites I visited from where I gleaned information over a year and a half ago. I have hundreds of other posts on this blog, and I don’t remember where I found something from yesterday.
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Hmmmm… let me get into ur real concern… its absolutely not his claim of performing miracles or reincarnation or favoring homo or defaming Gandhi.. Its Rolls Royce that has cause u a deep pain that you are as good as osho in manipulating anyone and you have left with zero rolls royce against 99… I am noticing our conversation with beginning which starts with a sensational 11 rapid fire points out of which you protest against his claim to perform miracles which u didn’t find in his discourse and end with Roll Royce as if this car only can owned by someone with whom we can worry about their manipulation skill (we do not need to worry about you cos u have not own any)… Well Mr. Wayne I sincerely request you to share ur real concern with Osho as he was a spiritual teacher and i would love to hear from you if you can same me manipulating from his teaching not from his Car collections..
No wonder if Osho has clearly said about your concern openly…
http://www.oshoworld.com/biography/innercontent.asp?FileName=biography8/08-20-rolls.txt
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I’m going to turn this over to J. Sri Bhagovwid, if he’s willing to talk to you. I don’t have the sort of patience needed.
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erickuns says:
October 13, 2013 at 2:17 pm
Step up to the plate if you think you are up to a debate. Otherwise keep your epithet of idiocy to crown yourself with, which seems a wholly appropriate act. I’ve looked at a range of sources about OSHO, and watched several videos, including ones which were not critical of him. You can’t get around his statement that he is a guru for the rich only. I for one do not have enough money for OSHO to be my guru. So, I call him a fraud, which is painfully obvious if you watch the video I linked to where he brags about his 90 Rolls Royces. Anyone who defends him is doing rhetorical back-flips through flaming hoops, which is why I’m happy to debate you on this. Please, you are welcome to defend the rich man’s guru.
Eric Wayne says:
December 29, 2014 at 7:53 pm
I’m going to turn this over to J. Sri Bhagovwid, if he’s willing to talk to you. I don’t have the sort of patience needed.
Mr. Wayne…. please keep atleast ur own words… I am simply requesting you to prove his teaching wrong, not his lifestyle… as far as i can see, you cant even handle to criticize his lifestyle correctly… its lot more to criticize about Osho then only to nagging over his poor Rolls Royce.. hope you to keeping it on…. all the best 🙂
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You should try reading what I wrote. I directly critique his stance on being a guru for the rich only, and give an argument as to why this is a problem. AND, his actions are at least as important as his words, which is why nobody goes around quoting Charles Manson. Nobody really cares what words of wisdom a pedophile priest has to say, and the same goes for a filthy rich guru. If you want to call yourself an enlightened being and a living Buddha, you have to live up to a higher standard than a corrupt businessman. So, your attempt to say his life doesn’t matter, and only his words matter, doesn’t work. Anyone can spout philosophy, and Osho had a degree in philosophy. You understand? Even I can spout Eastern philosophy, especially after brushing up on a book or two. And most politicians know how to tell people what they want to hear. So, there you have Osho. He can easily regurgitate Eastern philosophy (with his own little spin), and he can tell people what they want to believe.
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Eric, funny how you have criticized me and others for attacking statements while you feel free to comment on one’s “epithet of idiocy” without constraint. Not to mention, when you include a picture of Osho awithut a title of “Osho is full of shit” that you set a tone that you are not a black tie blog. Oh, it’s your blog, your rules. I have been busy and haven’t felt the desire to debate with someone who already has his mind made up but some of your last responses have been such “epiteths of idiocy” (quoting you) I couldn’t help but comment.
You said that because you don’t have any Rolls Royces that you could not be manipulating.
QUESTION: HAS THERE BEEN NO PEOPLE–INCLUDING SO-CALLED GURUS–THAT MANIPULATED OTHERS WHO DIDNT OWN A ROLLS ROYCE?
Next: “You can’t get around his statement that he is a guru for the rich only.” Watch me.
QUESTION: ARE YOU ASSERTING THAT THE ONLY PEOPLE WHO FOLLOWED OSHO AT HIS ASHRAM, RANCH OR AROUND THEN WORLD ARE RICH? The answer: this is another “epiteth of idiocy.” Most of his followers were NOT rich.
You limited my longer comments in the past. Do me and any of the readers of your blog who still have an open mind a favor and only answer the two questions above with no other commentary. You can be brief and just write “No” and “No.” Yet somehow I think you won’t. And look forward to more single-question comments which will illustrate your “epithetical limitations.”
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I’ll let JSB field this one. He’s here.
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Everyone is manipulative. That is the nature of the mind. But we can say that some deliberately manipulate and deceive others for ulterior or malicious purposes, while a parent will often try to manipulate their children in ways they believe are beneficial to them. Eric is manipulating, yes, but without an ulterior motive. He sees corruption as the root problem of civilization, and corruption as stemming from selfishness. Because he sees Osho as corrupt and selfish, he cannot see him as leading the way out of corruption and selfishness. He tried to manipulate people into not following someone he believes is a false prophet.
Osho had rich and poor followers, you are correct, just as the successful businessman has rich and poor customers. This is not the real problem. The real issue was his argument that only rich and educated people could understand his spiritual message. Is spiritual awareness something that is apprehended with the mind, or does it come when the mind lets go of apprehension? Is it something built up with the intellect? Or is it something the intellect obscures? Intelligence, education, and wealth have nothing to do with releasing the mind from its cell, and can work to fortify that same prison.
A guru who will not help the poor is a doctor who will not help the sick, but will only take as his clients the affluent who seek cosmetic surgery. He may be skilled at his craft, but does not save lives.
~JSB
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Openly hostile and disrespectful comment removed by moderator. We cannot publish long winded personal attacks.
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Swami X, Your open hostility is more powerful than your words. You write like you are shouting at someone and jabbing your finger in his face. Your identification with Osho as a fellow prophet is first and foremost “identification”. All identification is false and an impediment, and identification with a spiritual master is the worst kind, because of its arrogance and presumptuousness. You are an avatar in a computer game, trying to persuade other avatars that you are special. You want followers. This is a weakness. Stop playing the game, and your anger will disappear.
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Slam dunk, JSB. When people start wanting followers, they should know they are in troubled waters. I now remember your story about how if anyone tried to follow you, you would walk to the filthiest public toilet in the neighborhood and practice “listening meditation” by sitting and following the sound of the flies. In this way you got rid of all followers. You said, “You can’t follow someone else out of the dome. You must go on your own. Thus if you get people to follow you, they will never find their own way.” All the following and getting followed is playing the game rigorously, when the key is to get out of the game entirely. Or so you say.
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Everyone has to play the game to survive in society, pay the bills and whatnot. But you don’t have to believe in it. But this is harder than it sounds. We spend most our thoughts endlessly reinforcing our belief in the game, and this includes things like believing in Osho. If you watch your mind you can witness it perpetually spinning webs of reinforcing thoughts and rationalizations. This is the way of the mind. And the mind does not want to be free because it cannot be free. You can be free of the mind, but the mind is only a nexus of thought and identification. It is necessary as an epicenter of action, and it believes it is the real you. But you are not it. It is in you, and you believe you are it most times, but you are not it. The mind is a phantasm that desperately wants to be real, and suffers constantly in this impossible attempt. Just remember that you are not the mind. It is a tool, and it is unreal. You are real. You are reality.
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Is this so difficult? If you have become addicted to alcohol and you want to quit, do you go to ask the man how to do it who is himself a drunken mess, who has wasted his life and cannot himself quit? However good his advice to you may be, however elegantly he expresses it, even if it is the most accurate and trusted method, if it didn’t even work for him, how can you trust it?
And so it is with freeing oneself from being the fragile mind that props itself up with self-importance and surrounds itself with objects in order to feel secure and lasting. Do we go to the man who is arrogant and depends on vast riches to feel satisfied with himself? How can he free you when he is a prisoner himself?
~ JSB
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Pleasure meeting you Srhi JSB.. 🙂
Mr. Wyane & Shri JSB please get out of the pre historic image of a Enlightened Mater sitting under a tree in Jungle, wearing a saffron cloth and meditating in 24 hours shift, denouncing wealth and criticizing women’s for no reason. Osho is simply saying with his lifestyle that enlightenment is for all, even if someone owns 90 Roll Royce it doesn’t effect on his Budhhahood.
“Mr. Wyane has pointed us that – Nobody really cares what words of wisdom a pedophile priest has to say, and the same goes for a filthy rich guru. If you want to call yourself an enlightened being and a living Buddha, you have to live up to a higher standard than a corrupt businessman.”
Point to be noted sir as u said Nobody really cares what words of wisdom a “pedophile priest” has to say. Well tell me who will decide if he was “pedophile priest” and suppose if he was, then why u are admitting of his “word of wisdom” and if u are admitting his words of wisdom then why you are to announce that “nobody really cares”..??? At least I do care.
Further to your next sentence .” If you want to call yourself an enlightened being and a living Buddha, you have to live up to a higher standard than a corrupt businessman.” I simply pity on you while read this sentence in which you yourself asking for maintain higher standard to prove someone enlightened, as you might not even aware of what higher standard should be setup for a enlightened master…
May be Shri JSB can help us out distinguish between proper higher standard and corrupt businessman…
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Who was criticizing women? Who said anything about wearing robes or meditating for 24 hours under a tree? As for denouncing wealth, it’s not wealth in and of itself, but greed, selfishness, and avarice that are the problem.
I’m not sure what else you were going on about, because of your use of English. Anyway, anyone can say wise sounding words and not follow them. Politicians do this every day.
Your thing about Osho saying that enlightenment is for all is just falling for his marketing ploy = selling to the rich the idea that they can be selfish, greedy, and spiritual all at the same time.
As for the higher standards for a enlightened person. They should be above greed, selfishness, competitiveness, spitefulness and all the other characteristics of a calcified, immature ego. Isn’t that obvious?
I think JSB had enough of what he calls “the world wide ego”. He’s not online very often. If you raise something I think is worthy of asking him, I’ll try to get an answer from him. But, merely bein insulting or making rationalizations for Osho’s obviously immature and selfish behavior isn’t something I’m going to bother him about.
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Shri JSB.. With great respect I thank you so much for your beautiful words over Mind and how does it work… but unfortunately we are here discussing why or why not Osho was one of the great master who has ever walked on earth… Further as u said “We spend most our thoughts endlessly reinforcing our belief in the game, and this includes things like “believing” in Osho, and you are absolutely correct if something like this happens.. I myself dont believe in Osho, I simply trust him… as you also know, belief is a lie, it is insincere, dishonest. To believe something means you don’t know it and yet you believe. It is hypocrisy. Belief is out of fear or out of greed. Belief is a conditioning by others imposed upon you; it is a slavery.. Trust means “I know,” not “I believe.” And the person who knows, he need not believe at all — and for what? I knows so there is no question of belief. Only those who don’t know, do believe.
Yes your first line ‘Everyone has to play the game to survive in society, pay the bills and whatnot” is the ultimate reality i consider, so you can go on criticizing and play your part well… i am enjoying playing my part.. 🙂
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You say you trust Osho. Trust in a charismatic leader is dangerous. Over 900 people died after drinking cyanide Kool-Aid because they trusted their leader, Jim Jones, with their lives. Jones was a fighter for the rights of black people, and promoted many good causes. In fact, it is difficult for me to read about Jim Jones and about Osho, and not see serious overlap. Both established their own communities. Both had sex with their followers. Both believed they were enlightened (or at least Jones asserted he was the reincarnation of the Buddha…).
You say that you don’t “believe” and believing is bad, but instead you “trust” and “know”. It is not clear the difference between these, because their meaning depends on their usage. Trust is a synonym of believe. Further, many “believe” they “know”.
The reason people who believe or trust or know will follow a charismatic leader and end up doing stupid things or sacrificing their lives, one way or another, is because they lack a capacity for critical, objective thinking.
True, thinking is not the path to enlightenment. An explanation of reality is not reality. An answer is not a truth. But clear thinking is a useful and necessary tool for self-preservation, just as a healthy and strong body is needed to function optimally in the world.
If there are objective facts about Jim Jones or Osho that cause one to be suspicious, we should not ignore them and put our full trust in the spiritual teacher. A disciple is supposed to trust his or her guru, and a corrupt guru who is looking to take advantage of his followers knows this and will use it against them to easily take advantage. So many have been deceived by the fake gurus.
So, it is important to be able to tell a real guru from a fake one. Unfortunately, most gurus are frauds. One of the surest signs of a fake guru is one who benefits monetarily from those that entrust themselves to him. Osho is a perfect example of this sort of guru.
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Shri JSB… Now i can really consider you a funny guru as you comparing Osho with Jim Jones…
If a normal healthy person comes to know both he simply can not compare between Osho and Jones, well i am really not interested to prove it as its looks very absurd… One thing i am noticing about you is when you need to present your views you talk about the essence of the point, you talk very clear and core of the subject and your write very impressively but in other hand when you criticize Osho you simply act foolish even illiterate, you blame exactly with same attitude and words, same as the world have been treating him with, i am sorry to offend you but its really what i feel. Somewhere deep under my unconsciousness i am eagerly seeking someone (anyone) who can prove my beloved master wrong, and really take me out of his lap (trap for you) as i am so much involved in him i know its really gonna painful for me to cross my last barrier – my beloved master Osho.
I was illuminated with hope to find you here wondering you may be capable of taking me out of this but what i can see you is a helpless single minded outspoken but indeed funny guy (Guru) who is himself consoling himself in name of enlightenment, Nirvana, Moksha.
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Unwrap yourself to find the source. There’s no need for Osho.
Osho, the master you so admire, is a person. But a person can not be enlightened.
If there is enlightenment, there is no person. And if there is a person, there is no enlightenment.
Admire the source, and skip the person wrapped around it.
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First time I saw Osho on TV, I thought he was an English comedian pretending to be an India. I was really shocked when I finally found out that he was a guru. The guy is a joke. I can become a guru tomorrow and I prmise you I will be far more spiritual. Unfortunately, sometimes people are so desperate to find the way to the real spirituality, and they end up misguided by beautiful words.
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I actually find him kinda’ scary, the way he doens’t blink and hisses all his “s”s. He comes off as devious.
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Thank you for posting this. I never understood what people liked about Osho. I was seeing his quotes on Facebook, etc. and they all seemed bland/cliched/unoriginal. I had the impression he was just someone looking to be a celebrity or get attention, like a cult-leader. Some things he said seemed egotistical and that only raised my suspicions. So I looked him up, found a few articles (including yours, which is the best by far), and it seems I was right. Not only that, but he was more scandalous than I thought. Thanks again.
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You’re welcome. Most comments I get about my Osho post are pro-Osho, so it’s refreshing when someone actually agrees with me. Gurus like Osho destroy any hope/faith I might harbor that enlightenment is a real thing.
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It’s also funny that he tries justifying his contradictions since he can’t deny them. But the fact that so many people take him seriously makes it not funny.
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Hey Eric, Couldn’t agree more. with your post. Its bang on. Cant believe people are so naive. But then again there are many like him (fake yoga gurus : Bikram) and then you have this Isha foundation guy: Jaggi Vasudev Hes another fraud masquerading as a guru.
I mean its so difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff these days …
Only rarely do we ever get to meet sublime souls like Ramana Maharishi/ Nisargadutta Maharaj
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Yup. At first I liked Jaggi Vasudev, but then I started seeing red flags, like him claiming to have had many previous lives. He lost me completely when he started doing corporate stuff.
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I didnt even read your hole post, nut i have to say you dont understand osho and his message you dont even understand your life! Dont get personal here but He gave a new vision to everyone.he spotke about individuality and all i have to say is that he really make people feel as they should feel, Living Gods, Not feeling guity of Richness wich was so condemned by religion with such hipocrisy, when they acumulat so much stuf, and i talk about every religion and politics that dont want people to be materialistic rich so they can keep they exploit.
As Allan Watts sayd: Society is Hoax, is in our minds you creat your own reality out of it, and poverty never make anyone aware! Anyone.
As Himself sayd osho: “Only when you became rich other dimentions of reality open up to you”, By the way everything is na illusion on this word including owr own bodies, so Celebrat It!
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I understand it all too well. That’s the problem.
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i was entranced by him for a while. his slow speaking allowed me to start releasing some “tight-woundness” in myself. i’ve now left most of his teachings behind and have been making some actual yogic process by listening to teachers who emphasize brahmacharya and sexual transmutation. a year and a half ago i started hearing om. the guru by whose grace this happened is very critical of osho and says he is fake and evil. but i think it’s more complex than that. have you heard of david hawkins? he calibrated all people, things, & ideas on a 1-1000 through muscle testing. 200 is courage where integrity begins. below are negative qualities. 85% of people are below 200 right now. 500 is love, 540 is unconditional love or joy, 600 is peace, and enlightenment begins at 700. ramana was at 720. jesus, buddha, krishna, & zoroaster were at 1000. interestingly, osho is on his list of fallen teachers. at some point he reached 570, not quite enlightenment, but a very high, rare level, but fell to 180, “pride.” that might be why his teachings are so popular and so destructive: they contain many true mystical insights, but now harnessed or enlisted for impure or evil purposes, causing much confusion. christopher calder’s “wrong-way rajneesh” is a very interesting balanced critique also along these lines.
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“There is nothing wrong if two persons choose a certain style of sexual relationship; it should be nobody’s business.”
From http://www.osho.com/read/featured-articles/the-other-myself/the-return-to-innocence.
Where did you get that AIDS=homosexuality?
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Osho probably means there a guru disciple sexual relationship, which he was all for. His stance on homosexuality is well documented, as was his attitude towards AIDS. You can just Google it to find out more. I don’t remember where I got my quotes over a year ago. You can read this article by him to find out what he thinks: http://oshotimes.blog.osho.com/2012/06/same-sex-relationships/
This is his softer stance, and if you are gay, you are not going to like it being a “social disease” and “boring”. Enjoy your Osho!
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On the article you posted:
– social disease referred to the fact of society separating girls from boys, not homosexual relationships
– boring referred to the difference between homosexual and heterosexual relationships, according to Osho’s opinion heterosexual relations were more ‘colorful’
Not my Osho. Just logic.
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Here’s the link for OSHO on homosexuality and AIDS, in which he says supporting gays is supporting AIDS, and homosexuality is a perversion and an ugly habit. Please get back to me and tell me if you find that “logical” and if you like OSHO. To not do so would be rude. http://www.osho.com/iosho/library/read-book/online-library-condemning-natural-primitive-7e24e759-131?p=bfe16b451b84c53e19a9d82acc77ec24
Also note that the quote in my article is a direct link to the article above, and if you’d clicked on it you would have found the material youself easily.
And would you like more stupid quotes from the other “logical” article I shared with you yesterday? How about this, “Homosexuality has arisen because we have deprived people of heterosexuality.” This is obviously not true, and is a long ago dismissed myth. Do you really see genders separatede in the West? Really? Where?
“Two women in relationship can’t have a very great love affair.” Share that with your lesbian friends, and turn them on to OSHO.
Thanks.
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Yeah, that’s not logical from Osho. I am not an Osho fanatic, thanks for sharing that information. I did not read completely so I did not find the article.
> And would you like more stupid quotes from the other “logical” article I shared with you yesterday?
Yes, that would be great, but if you don’t have time that’s fine, as I said, I am not an Osho fanatic, I know he can be wrong in many things, I appreciate you effort to teach some stranger.
> Do you really see genders separated in the West? Really? Where?
My case, and much other males that are not able to have a relaxed relation with a female. In male female relationships everything is sex and tension for people like me, for my parents and family was a taboo, I am trying to get over it. But maybe this is natural and not socially inducted.
> “Two women in relationship can’t have a very great love affair.” Share that with your lesbian friends, and turn them on to OSHO.
Yes, that does not make sense as a generalization, just as an Osho’s opinion.
Thanks.
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This guy, Eric, looks like has a lot of problems in his life. That’s why he’s so full of shit.
Osho is not a topic for Sadistic or Masochists. If you love yourself, you’ll like what he said….and that’s the bottom line.
Idiotic people keeps playing with lifestyle, Rolls Royces, diamond watches, etc.
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I’ll take that as a compliment, which, when one considers the source, it is.
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i think, why dont you all just consider yourself as a GURU first and than do the goods and teach others the same !!! FORGET THE REST. do good and teach good. BE THE SAME INSIDE AND OUTSIDE, when you equal both, you and others will know you as a person. and thats it, just go on, meditate on your own and stop calling anyone above and beyond you. we all are JUST HUMANS. no one can do the MAGIC, you are the MAGICIAN of your own WORLD !!! Good luck..
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Osho has clearly done a lot of awful things, and I’m thankful that you outlined them here so that we can all be aware.
I wasn’t aware of Osho’s behavior and I do have a few books by him. The only one I liked any decent number of ideas in was “Joy.” While the sayings there may be recycled from other people, I still got something from some of them — though I wish I knew where those particular ideas came from so I could read them from the original source instead (if he’s not the original source).
Though I did take something from that book, he no longer has my respect as a teacher. Even before reading this article, he lost my respect by speaking so harshly about different races and groups of people in what I read by him. I mean, if you’re fulfilled in and of yourself, what could you possibly gain by putting someone down? — Even if it is only meant in jest, it’s obviously something that could hurt people, so then why say it? (I find myself thinking this a lot when reading things by him, which is why reading his writings isn’t something I do often.)
I don’t know him, I never met him, but his behavior — all the preoccupation with money and fame and sexual encounters — it shows me that he’s looking for happiness outside himself. That, to me, goes against the idea of “guru.” It’s something others who are also looking for happiness outside themselves can relate to, but that’s why it often misses the point when it comes to the spiritual end of things. He seems to process some ideas well and explain them well, but it’s only an intellectual understanding when his behavior so clearly shows that he didn’t integrate these ideas into his life.
Still, I think that something can be taken away from him. This is because even if a person doesn’t give you an example of what it would be good to be, they can give you an example of what to avoid…
When you search for happiness outside yourself, it’s fragile, it comes and goes, it breaks, and moves away. You could feel the need for 90 Rolls Royces, or 1,000, or more, even, because these are passing things. They don’t stay with you wherever you go, and they’re temporal, subject to the elements and time. Yet, your self is something that’s always with you. The moment it’s really gone, so are you. It’s the only thing that’s always there to some degree or another. So, if you can put your happiness in a place that’s always with you or in one that can rust and fall apart, be stolen, wrecked, or otherwise fall apart, where would be the best place to put it?
One’s answer to this makes all the difference.
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By the look of the comments here , despite overwhelming evidence , you really can lead a horse to water and they really can’t be made to drink. This is an example of why we should watch Life of Brian on a regular basis. He’s not the messiah. He’s a very naughty boy.
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If I could just get my Facebook friends to stop posting Osho quotes…
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LOL, Whoever wrote it against OSHO cannot be less than a son of a bitch, I hate you back to your grandmother B-)
You know nothing about Osho’s work.
Go Meditate for a month, have some rest .!
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Just an aside, but, I’ve finally reached the point where I can’t stand it when someone write “LOL” anymore.
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What else?
Because you are raising questions for someone who shared unconditionally with everyone without concerning anything.
You are not aware at all of what you are saying and why you are saying and against whom you are saying.
Sir if you be true, you are proving yourself an ignorant. you are more like stupid too.
stupid in the matter that you are judging someone from a far away point.
one can’t judge from facts, to judge one has to be in the place first.
You have not experienced anything and you are talking big.
What you have seen is all shallow, you are missing the sublime. you are missing the point. you are missing life 🙂 stay like this because it doesnt matter to anyone else.
To whomsoever it may concern LOL 😀
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Wonder why the comments from the OSHO ditto-heads are always so abusive. You can’t have that sort of tone and be taken seriously.
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Haha,
Eric Sir, Its good that at least you are wondering upon something. Its your tone which seems so serious indeed.
Don’t you even dare to take comments from Osho ditto-heads “Seriously” otherwise you will fall into the greatest halt of your life.
This is his whole teaching (though its not a teaching at all), don’t take anything seriously ^^ (not even abuses)
LOL does it happen everyday? that someone is coming and talk like that?
and everyday your foundations are shaken, and each day you exactly get to know that you are standing on quick-sand.
I wonder that how you can afford to keep missing the essence of Osho’s work?
Even though you are a critic and against him, then too you would have read something in its full length? did you.
And if you really read his book (ANY and Any means any out of thousands) then you cant say and state what you kept doing 🙂 .
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The other fascinating thing (well not really, it’s rather predictable and disappointing) about OSHO devotees, besides their being abusive, is their smug spiritual condescension. They always presume that they are more spiritually evolved, and that’s why someone like me can’t comprehend OSHO. This spiritual pretension is part of the aggression and condescension. Their self-perception as spiritually superior is tied in with OSHO’s teachings (which allow one to be an ass and claim enlightenment at the same time), and thus if you knock the legs out from under OSHO, they are flattened along with him. There are much better gurus to learn from, such as Nisargadatta Maharaj and Ramana Maharshi, but even they have their bombastic followers who believe that they themselves are enlightened. Ah, when one first dips their big toe in the water, they imagine they’ve plummeted the depths of the ocean. Their arrogant trumpeting of their supposed spiritual achievements, along with their aggression, insults, and condescension make it perfectly obvious that they aren’t even as spiritually evolved as someone who can comport themselves with common decency in an office setting in the daily grind.
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Eric,
I like you are discussing this topic, but I think you are generalizing when you say that Osho followers feel superior. I felt that before because my father is one of those who feel superior, but not all the people is like that.
What I think you are missing is that Osho has good and bad things. He even tells his disciples not to follow him. That he is just another person, just that he is self aware(what you are saying Eric, he is entitled). But he always keep the duality. For example, when he says he is self aware, I felt that he is telling the contrary at the same time.
With him, I felt that no word is enough, because all realities are probable realities.
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I meant Osho followers who are insulting, condescending, and claim spiritual superiority. I’m sure there is a fairly wide range of Osho followers, including some people who extract the good out of his “teachings” like oil is refined from tar sands. I disagree that all realities are probable realities, which is a kind of relativism. For example, Marshall Applegate’s philosophy (Heaven’s Gate cult founder) is not as probable as, let’s say, physicist Richard Feynman’s. Or, to put it another way, reality is not probable, but people’s understandings and perceptions of it are, though they are not at all equal. The only reason to defend Osho that I can see is a psychological need to believe he is somehow special, or enlightened. It’s the same sort of reason people worship Kimg Jong-un. Their own self worth is tied up with his. People believe if Osho is special than so are they, in a similar way. Hence, if he is a fraud, than they are not special anymore. A possible solution would be to find a guru who isn’t a fraud, or another way of seeking or finding self-validation altogether. Defending Osho is like defending a pedophile preist: it’s a kind of exculpating them in order to protect the religion, the belief system, and ones own sense of belonging within it. Of course others will blast a fallen priest and still hold on to their religion, just as others will call out Osho as a fraud as they step up the ladder from false prophets to real ones, or just away from them, which is to move into a greater reality that isn’t a self-serving and delusional fantasy.
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Oh mine where do i comment now,
where is my thread? so i could reply :’3
And if someone changing Names? from Your’Dad to Your’Mammy, even if he is, It Ain’t going to matter Kid!
children do that, i hope your blog doesnt run on its own.
One saying others being delusional in their own fantasies , No nobody is being delusion,
the case is you are deceiving by trying to deceive others.
SIR YOU ARE DECEIVED!
you are not just deceived, in Negating everything you have Befooled Yourself for long!
LOL isnt that a real loss? Aren’t you a stupid child B-)
just saying ;D keep doing what you are doing !
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I’m just approving this sort of petty attack so I have evidence when I say that the people who comment on my Osho post are the nastiest.
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Hahahahaha ;D
you are such a stupid and idiotic person(you are not even a kid at least kids are ignorant but you are full of stupidity)
-First thing about fake identity-
Eric Eric, My fake identity is much more-real than your real identity!
on the first hand you are a fake person with real identity :’3
and what do you mean when you say my identity is fake LOL,
as if, if i post comment from my Identity(which you happen to call real) will make any difference, my comments will be the same.
and as if you would be able to do anything if i comment by my identity.
your blog gives an option to comment like that so i am commenting, why in the seventh heaven you now want one to
comment from his real identity.
Firstly what do you mean by Real and Fake on internet, Define!
-Second thing about your second comment-
you said “I’m just approving this sort of petty attack so I have evidence when I say that the people who comment
on my Osho post are the nastiest.”
As if your approval means anything in the first place.
You are really dull too. do you have any intelligence of your own or not?
Or everything you have is borrowed?
-since when all fingers are equal?
do you even know the diversity?
Do you think all Osho followers are same so you may show my comments to other people LOL, so they may think how
nasty Osho people are.
each and every person is different so how come you can say all would be same :3
stop living in abstractions, abstraction exist not. you cant blame whole nation because of sigle person you idiot 😀
and moreover what if i say i am a follower of J. Sri Bhagovwid B-)
so i must be a well behaver?
as if any of The-Masters teach mechanical ways to their desciples.
as if any Master cultivates same kind of people.
In fact literally you are not against Osho, you are against yourself.
you feel defeated against Osho, hence you have created all the fuss about him.
a person who suffers great defeat blows trumpets of his victory, telling he is the winner but he is a Loser.
-Thirdly
yes you did not change anything in my comment, but you did change your’Dad to your’Mammy haha and you became so serious about that, stop being so much serious otherwise you will be diagnosed with high blood pressure soon.(just saying)
p.s. Tell the world tell the worls that An-Osho follower has called Eric Wayne-Son Of A Bitch Lol. And for that he doesnt even need his real Identity because An Anonymous Identity served great too B-)
i assure you i will not leave comments in half 😉
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More evidence that the OSHO devotees are assholes.
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So soon you have come to your real tone 😀
All your character is superficial you cunt B|
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Surely without any doubt. At least Osho followers are not dull and serious like you who feed upon Negative points of the great ones which in fact are not Negative at all.
Have you ever seen that your whole blog is fake but still people visit it, do you wanna know why?
because of Real people like Osho.
Your Blog is kind of fake-coin which has a little value just because real coins really exist.
If there were No Osho, you could not have made a blog against him, so you are feeding upon his Reality being as fake person.
put water on the burn area….
you just encountered an ass kicker LOL 😉
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And everybody else will know why you would not have approved my next comment after reading your last comment, and it will escalate very quickly to them too, that you would now like to hide behind pillow awwwwwww little child.
Yes don’t approve my comment :3
else i would bring out what is hidden in you, you cant tolerate me.
you think you are an artist, but you just are not an artist at all you are a pretender.
Firstly you are not original at all,
to attain original you have to be original too while you are just a pretender, pretending that you are a great intellectual. you have good art but you did not respect the greatest arts from the greatest artist of all time on the contrary you became so crippled and started criticizing others.
you used many great words to make your comments highly influential but they are just words.
You have not experienced anything yet!
You have not come across of anything valuable in life, APPARENTLY YOUR BLOG REPRESENTS THAT.
You are a puppet. yes very sophisticated and cultivated puppet nourished out of discontent of life LOL.
p.s. You can’t repress the truth which you are trying to do and it will keep surfacing itself.
oh my god i talk so spiritually 😀 Don’t I ?
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Blacklisted
Oh no, is this, uh, what was her name I already blacklisted, Margot Larsen? Or is it another nut job. Can’t know for sure, and don’t really care.
Also, feel free to share whatever with whomever. Thanks for the publicity.
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No. You are blacklisted for your nasty comments.
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I have read almost all comments. I just want to say that go and meditate and find what it means to be an enlighten person.
These counter attacks will go on an on…and nothing will be achieved by winning and losing the arguments.
Sorry for my bad English.
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Another person posing as enlightened and presuming to condescend. That’s the problem to begin with.
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No, you are taking it in a wrong way. I am not an enlightened person. I am just a normal person who is trying to meditate. I just want to know what we will achieve by doing all this. Does it make any difference if OSHO was fraud or genuine Guru, I just want to say that whatever he said that you feel is right just take that and leave the ones where you find fault.
I think there is a competition going on here to win arguments. Ego is hurting !!!
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Then go meditate.
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thanks Eric 🙂
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To begin with, apologies for a long…really long comment…more of a rant, actually. Just wanted to get a somewhat troubling personal exchange off my chest…and this post seemed to be the best place to vent out, simply because I enjoyed the artwork & the vomments so much…even more than the post itself. The post by itself tells me nothing that I didn’t know earlier…and I for one, don’t enjoy stale stuff that much (I use the word ‘stale’ in a very matter-of-fact fashion here…and no condescension or criticism is intended in its usage). The artwork, on the other hand, is light, witty and genuinely funny. And the comments…well…take a bow, Eric…for having debated with the one-trick ponies without once compromising on the rules of civil debate. Anyways…the initial niceties done, herein follows my rant.
I’m no spiritual slouch. I’ve been a truth-seeker for more than 15 years now..and have come a long way down the path…and can claim to have a fair bit of understanding of both real-world and metaphysical philosophies. In my endevour towards self-realization, I’ve exposed myself to various schools of philosophical thought that enrich the path to truth by complementing and contradicting each other. Parallel to this addhayan (study), I’ve also indulged in copious amounts of chintan (contemplation), thus honing my unique understanding of ‘who am I?’ as well as ‘why am I?’. It has been a fascinating journey so far…and I look forward in excitement to whatever remains of it.
Now, I have this close friend…for whom I have nothing but unconditional love…warts and all. One of the warts happens to be an unquestioning devotion to the subject of this post – Chandra Mohan Jain (although, she vehemently denies this devotion by saying that she’s not a follower…something I don’t see any point arguing with). Now…that devotion is entirely her choice, which I respect…and so, I never interfere with it despite my disagreement with it. She, on the other hand, has a penchant for trying to sell me this Osho schtick by bombarding me with his quotes, audios and videos on my whatsapp. Not a day goes by without her indulging in this wishful evangelism. My initial reaction to this bombardment was silence. However, over the past few weeks or so, I’ve started responding to these solicitations by rebutting the fallacies and inconsistencies inherent in his words. Given my background as a truth-seeker and a studenr of philosophy, my rebuttals tend to be rather pointed and precise…something that she, in all likelihood, wasn’t taking in her stride…though she didn’t mention it initially.
The tipping point came sometime last week, when she sent me a video where he was advocating vegetarianism (she captioned it ‘perfect understanding of the veg v/s non-veg debate’). His argument? Since the sentience level of animals is higher than that of plants…and animals feel pain far more than plants, we should stick to food derived from plants as that’s the right thing to do. He further adds that if taste were to be the predominant criterion in choosing one’s food, one might as well choose to eat the meat of human infants, since it’s the tastiest. I found his arguments to be problematic at multiple levels…ao I countered it accordingly with the following points…
(a) Taste is a subjective quantity. So, when he says that the meat of human infants is the tastiest, he’s trying to pass off a subjective opinion as an objective fact…thus exposing his laxk of understanding of simple philosophical concepts. Moreover, how did he come to know that infant meat was the tastiest? Did he taste it himself?
(b) He has constantly maintained that morality is a social construct concocted by false religions to curb individual freedoms…and there is no such thing as ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. How come he’s arguing this debate from the perspective of right and wrong then?
(c) Even if we assume that what he says is valid…for argument’s sake, how does he reconcile this argument with his justification of Stalin’s killing of more than a million Russians (ref : Communism and Zen Fire, a book in which he argues that Stalin’s crimes were justified as he killed poor peasants who would’ve been a roadblock to the success of communism in Soviet Russia). Whatever happened to the sentience levels of those million peasants? Or is it that only the rich human beings are sentient?
My rebuttal sparked off a tirade from her. She claimed that I consider myself a super-enlightened being and that I always have to criticize others. She also claimed that I think too much and avoid listening to my heart (this…IMO…is the charlatan’s most destructive teaching…as is evident from the obvious lack of rational thought amongst his followers. He has projected thinking itself as some kind of counter-productive activity…thus leading his blind followers on a path antithetical to the way of truth). I responded by asking how she inferred so from my expression of an honest opinion on a piece of bunk? She responded by saying that he was the most enlightened soul in the history of humankind and one needs to shed off one’s ego to understand him. I asked her whether she would believe me if I told her that Asaram (an Indian godman currently in trouble for having raped more than one female devotee and being a conspirator in more than one murder…see the similarities?) was the most enlightened soul in human history? She took offence to that rhetorical question…and said that I was resorting to underhand tactics since my male ego couldn’t digest losing an argument to a woman (an argument I. knew nothing about till that moment…LOL). I smiled to myself and ended the conversation there.
Over the weekend that just went by, I ended up checking some posts where he is being debated. And I wasn’t surprised to see that my friend is not alone in exhibiting this unquestioning servitude. The man died 25 years ago…but the groupthink he set in motion lives on…getting stronger by the day. Makes me sad when I see this happen.
P.S. : It’s not that I find everything he says to be fallacious. For example, I stand by him in his opposition to organized religion and the modern nation-state. But then, neither are those points original (there are far superior elucidations of those points by others) nor is he consistent on even one of those (for example…he claims to oppose organized religion…but ends up creating one of his own and he claims to stand for the individual and against the modern nation-state but fawns upon totalitarian communism). Epic fails abound.
P.P.S. : This comment is not an invitation for the sheep to debate. I have neither the time nor the inclination tyo debate with closed minds of strangers…so don’t even bother responding.
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Firstly, the whole thing about vegetarianism – He is not arguing from a moral perspective, he has repeatedly said meat-eating is not wrong and not a sin (in his whole philosophy which is really anti-christian and anti-religion there is no concept of sin), he says it just hinders your meditation (something which he has the authority to conclude because he is a meditator) and there is also a video of him stating that it is a question of aesthetics – can you kill an animal purely for taste ?. Osho claims animals have more feeling than plants (both being sentient beings) – and that is his argument for vegetarianism. Now you may choose to believe that or not, its just his opinion and he also says if you meditate you would become sensitive enough to know it as fact – he is suggesting a scientific method for you to find out if what he says is true. Don’t agree ! No one is forcing you to agree!
Second, he never justified Stalin or Hitler – he stated the reasons and motives WHY they did what they did and then proceeds to answer his disciples questions – he just takes these examples to show disciples sides of their own personality that they did not know before.
I believe you are referring to this quote here from Communism and Zenfire
“Family is one of the most ancient institutions. Emotionally, sentimentally, psychologically, it is
very difficult to dissolve it. It was difficult to dissolve private ownership of property and
make it public — Stalin had to kill at least one million Russians just to make a classless
society possible. They found it was difficult: “It can be taken care of later on when
communism becomes more established; don’t take on too many problems.”
Here Osho is simply stating historical facts (not supporting Stalin as you mentioned) and why does he do it ? Simply to state that it is more difficult to dissolve the institution of family- more difficult that it is to dissolve private property (dissolution of family is one of the tenets of Marx and the book is about the pros and cons of Communism). Stalin had to kill millions just to dissolve private property.
The Hitler-Gandhi thing is another thing that people take out of context without bothering to read his whole work. You can find a video on youtube where he condemns Gandhi as a cunning politician and Hitler as an idiotic politician. There are thousands of instances of him condemning Nazi Germany. The author here takes quotes out of contexts, thereby distorting its meaning.
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There is no “scientific” connection between meditation and what one thinks or feels about vegetarianism, because meditation addresses a subjective impression not an objectively apparent truth. Different mediators will come up with different tenable conclusions on any topic. I’d have more respect for him if he did make a moral argument as to why not to eat animals, rather than pussy-foot around and say that meditation will make you aware that a dog has more feeling than a carrot.
Your quote about Stalin affirms that OSHO shares the goal of dissolving the family and doing away with private property, etc… While this specific quote isn’t exactly an “endorsement”, it does sound positive in that someone “had to” kill people to make something OSHO also desires “possible”. One megalomaniac often admires another.
Let’s face it, OSHO was a fraud, not enlightened, and an exploiter of people seeking spiritual understanding and to be a better person. He is a blight on spirituality and a nasty stain on the credibility and believably of gurus in general. OSHO is to Eastern mysticism/philosophy what pedophile priests are to Christianity.
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Adding this comment only to subscribe to the comments here. Forgot to do so the last time around. Moderator : Please delete this comment.
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Hi Sam:
Thanks for sharing your story. [By the way I haven’t always been civil in this thread, and at times have become fed up with people.] The first thing that’s obvious is that your colleague is not your equal when it comes to rational debate. This doesn’t mean you are right. You appear to adhere to a school of thought that holds that the best and most rational argument should be acknowledged as probably the most true, at least until a better argument comes along. I am a member of the same club, and a rather devout one at that. But I think we both know that reason and logic have their limitations. And when debating with someone who has less skill at argument, it’s possible to defeat them even if one is wrong, just as a good lawyer can win a case for a guilty client. Your opponent could be right, but not have the ability to formulate an argument to back her case.
I think this is unlikely though, considering the nature of what she has said. The cheap attacks on “ego” are the big, telegraphed, haymakers of desperate spiritual condescension. Everyone knows that spiritual evolution is synonymous with overcoming the ego, so accusing someone of being egotistical or existing entirely within his or her ego is the worse insult one can make within the paradigm. As presented, I for one agree with your arguments.
The sad thing about the OSHO phenomenon is that people who are truly wishing to evolve are so often led astray by charlatans whose purpose is to milk gullible fools of all they’re worth. Nevertheless people become addicted to the paradigm, belief-system, perspective, narrative, or whatever one wants to call it. Which brings me back to the problem of having the best rational argument. As you probably well know, spiritual knowledge is apart from reason. You can’t use reason to access it, describe, or define it. And so many people have an entirely intellectual understanding of the texts, talking points, and even the fine points of spiritual understanding, without even having have the experience. Conversely, some may have the experience and not be able to articulate much about it with language and reason.
Language and reason are an artificial construct upon reality, and part of the civilization which humans tether themselves to, rather than free fall into some contextless lostness –much like losing grip of a space-ship and drifting off into space. Whether one is proficient at it or not, it’s still our anchor to consensual reality. So many have anchored themselves to OSHO and accept his arguments as gospel. It’s no surprise that they might not be that great at rational thinking and analysis, otherwise they’d notice, as you do, the glaring flaws in some of OSHO’s pronouncements. Meanwhile, being a phD himself in philosophy, he started out with more than enough book-learned knowledge to outwit most the people he would encounter, especially if he’s succeeded in persuading them to not attempt to use their intellects (in which case they wont’ attempt to unravel his discourse).
Oh, yeah, this thread is so old that I am bored with it as well. I’m more interested in art as a medium to search for the sublime or transcendent. At least art produces something more than what amounts to a written statement.
Lastly, I don’t much care anymore if people want to follow OSHO. They probably find good things within his oeuvre (though if find the sort of person who suddenly discovers he or she is already enlightened painful to endure). In the end believing in Osho is not unlike believing in Christ, or Allah, or whomever. Is there really anyone we can believe in? I’d rather steer them towards a better guru. For that I only recommend Nisargadatta Maharaj, who not only has some the best articulation of “enlightement” I’ve come across, but also lived humbly, and charged nothing for his talks. But can anyone who is not enlightened his or herself recommend anyone?
Probably the best thing is to tolerate the fools, be supportive, and find your own way with dedication.Your skill at reason is a great asset, but also an elaborate edifice.
Maybe you can just tell your friend that you respect her path, but you are on a different one, and they all meet in the same place. Let her off the hook, and work on your music.
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Where’s your evidence? Nisargadatta gave lectures from his home for free, and lived very humbly. So, how was he benefiting from rich Brahmans like OSHO with is 90+ Rolls Royces?
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This page was created by a sad and sick Osho wannabee. You will never be Osho, sorry you are trying so hard. Go get a job.
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This is on my blog, and I certainly have no interest or aspiration to be a guru, and especially not a megalomaniac cult leader version of guru. J Sri Bhagovwid, on the other hand, well, I don’t think he cares for money, fame, or followers, so probably really doesn’t want to be anything like an OSHO either. As for sad and sick, can you make some intelligible argument to back your accusations? Rather I think it’s a fairly obvious rational attack on fake, opportunistic, and parasitic faux-gurus who exploit earnest young people in search of a spiritual life. I lo0k forward to your carefully considered and intelligent response reflecting your mature ability to write without recourse to insults.
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DAESH, Osho and Hitler… The only difference is the strategy used in slaughter.
Osho was not just a pervert, but almost advocated forced rape for gay men by asking them to throw themselves on women. Pope Francis is a saint compared to this grotesque evil.
His death might have been a boon to this world.
Someone who praises Hitler, rapes n advocates rape of women, almost lovingly’ kills homosexual men… It’s a pity that he couldn’t be hanged.
I was an ISKCON devotee before I noticed the anti atheist n anti gay sentiments of Prabhupada. But still, a lot higher than this dipshit. Even some Saudi imaams are moral than him.
N the most ugly part… He attached himself with Zen Buddhism.
it’s like Washing the floor of Buckingham palace with dog excretion.
It’s a stain that will take many many years to clean off from this philosophy.
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Don’t hold back. Anyway, I’m sure it’s a bit of hyperbole, but I wouldn’t want to see him hanged, myself. I’m looking forward to the day when those of us who aren’t corrupt can set a better example (which isn’t to say that I’ve ever been put to the “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely” test.
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Great gob mr. Eric . I agree with you . In my experience osho was also a theif . And his teaching indicate this.
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You don’t come off as a “funny” guru…
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J. Sri Bhagovwid has been a little less funny over time. Maybe it’s a phase he’s going through.
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You don’t come at all apparently. But since you don’t even know where we are, I would be just as wicked as you to assume I know where everyone should be headed.
Did we get there yet or are you still not coming? I am speaking from the perspective that you already fully trust how URI. Leave NE of your doubt at the door.
And since I am wicked enough to play this game of ‘hold the guru to his word’, hold me to these words:
You CAN twist yourself so perfectly that you untie this knot you claim is a ‘guru.
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Try putting it on an info-poster. I can’t make sense of what you are going on about. I think you are saying that you’ve achieved enlightenment, and you are trying to, y’know, show off.
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