[SP] Osho, Bhagwan Rajneesh & Kebenaran yang Hilang (4/4)

[Hudoyo Hupudio]

http://home.att.net/~meditation/Osho.html

Osho, Bhagwan Rajneesh, and the Lost Truth <habis>

Addendum - On letters I have received

Any thoughtful person can imagine the wide range of letters I have received as a result of posting my Web essay on Acharya - Bhagwan - Osho - Rajneesh. To date about half of the letters have been from former Rajneesh disciples who generally agree with my comments and who thank me for putting them on the Web. Those who agree tell me they see "compassion for all involved" on my Web page and that I got it "just about right."

The other letters I receive are from current disciples of the now deceased Osho, many whom have never actually met the man in person. Those letters range from death threats from several German disciples to poorly written and often unsigned insults. The Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance also gets lots of hate mail, but from many different cults, not just from one. It is interesting to see how most personality cults are alike in this regard. The us vs. them mentality takes over and anyone who does not tow the party line of the cult is deemed a villain.

Meditation has nothing to do with cults, organizations, politics, or business, but for many meditation is a secondary issue. For them it is all about hero worship and blind obedience to the memory of a now dead guru, which is a silly waste of time in my opinion. Why not go directly to the source of all gurus and religions through your own meditation? There is an old Zen saying that "One should not become attached to anything that can be lost in a shipwreck." Certainly this admonition applies to gurus as well.
Several Osho followers have written me claiming to be enlightened and I hear reports that many Osho disciples now make that claim. One man said that he was "the new Osho" and invited me to visit his Web page. His page displayed a large heroic picture of himself, much self-promotion, and an advertisement for prostitutes in Russia, who he claimed were practicing "Tantra." So for him "enlightenment" and being "the new Osho" literally means to be a pimp.

Another man, who had never met Osho in person, claimed that reading Osho's books helped him get over his "mental illness" and now he was "enlightened" himself. He then forcefully instructed me to rewrite my Web page to make it "less judgmental" and suggested that Osho's hypocrisy was just a means to convey his enlightenment to others. Well, Osho certainly did conveyed his hypocrisy to others!
One young woman, who grew up on the Rajneesh Oregon commune, asked me how she could make money out of teaching Osho's meditation techniques. I replied that she should go to an employment agency and get an honest job. Meditation and business do not mix and there are too many money hungry gurus out there already.

It shocks me to find that many Osho disciples do not care about the crimes that were committed and are not bothered by the lies and hypocrisy of their own movement. They don't seem to comprehend that as a result of the germ warfare attack committed by Rajneesh sannyasins on a restaurant in Oregon that meditation groups have gotten a very bad name around the world. The unrelated but equally infamous Aum Shinrikyo (a Japanese cult) nerve gas attack on a subway station in Tokyo worsened this situation considerably.

The attitude of many Osho sannyasins seems to be that as long as they get their psychic kicks it does not matter who was hurt or how unethical and disgraceful the behavior was. In their minds everyone in the world was responsible for the Oregon debacle except them. As a result of this careless attitude many Americans now feel that if a meditation group starts an ashram nearby it is time to buy a gun and a gas mask.

The amount of historical revisionism and propaganda put out by some Osho disciples rivals the efforts of Maoists during the 1960s and their state of mind is similar. If you want to believe in one perfect man, a Pope of the universe, then anyone who criticizes that Pope is deemed a devil. Thus all the subtleties of my essay are lost on these disciples and all they claim to see on my Web page is "hate and anger." Of course they do not see the hate in themselves directed at anyone who does not share their own narrow beliefs.

Shivamurti's book, Bhagwan: The God That Failed, could have easily also been entitled The Man Who Became His Own Opposite, or The Man Who Betrayed Himself. I often tell people that if they could go back in time and kidnap the Acharya Rajneesh of 1970, then bring him up through the years to meet the Osho of the late 1980s, that the two men would be at war with each other. Acharya would have hated Osho's pompous self-indulgence and Osho would have never tolerated the young Acharya's brash criticisms. Acharya Rajneesh spoke of freedom and compassion. Osho once said that he wished someone would "shoot" (assassinate) former Soviet leader Mikael Gorbachev because he was leading the Soviet Union to Western style capitalism instead of his own imagined "spiritual communism." The change in his teaching was remarkable, to say the least.

I would like to think that the early Acharya Rajneesh would have approved of my essay, but who can say for sure. For those who suggest I am not being loyal to Osho, I counter that I am honestly trying to be loyal to Acharya Rajneesh, the man I took sannyas from, not Osho. The Acharya was a man I still deeply love and respect. But that Acharya Rajneesh died along time before Osho was even born and the two men were as different as day and night.

My message to letter writers is to go ahead and write me. You can vent anger or thank me, but neither will have much effect on me as I have heard it all before, from both sides. I can only sigh and ask myself how Acharya Rajneesh, who started out as an anti-guru extraordinaire, ended up as he did with this current crop of disciples. Perhaps it shows that power really can corrupt anyone and that the means rarely justifies the ends.

In the end where is meditation in all of this? "Color Puncture," "Tantric Tarot," encounter groups, and every phony crackpot scam in the book is being peddled by Osho disciples for large sums of money. But what about meditation? Then I think back to the day when the just turned 40 year old Acharya wisely instructed a friendly Japanese woman that "Meditation must not be made into a business." The corrupt means have gotten so far out of hand that the original intent of the ends, Acharya Rajneesh's noble vision, have long been forgotten by many, but not by me.

*Dynamic Meditation: (warning) This spectacular meditation method was Rajneesh's trademark and remains a tremendously effective tool for naturally expanding consciousness. Rajneesh never did the technique himself because he didn't need to. He developed the method simply by observing his disciples, who would occasionally go into spontaneous body movements during his early meditation camps. When his judgment started to decline he unfortunately changed the third and fourth stage of the method into a pointless torture test. The correct and most effective version of this meditation technique has four stages, each lasting ten minutes.

Stage #1) Start by standing with your eyes closed and breath deep and fast through your nose for ten minutes. Allow your body to move freely. Jump, sway back and forth, or use any physical motion that helps you pump more oxygen into your lungs.

Stage #2) The second ten minute stage is one of catharsis. Let go totally and be spontaneous. You may dance or roll on the ground. For once in your life screaming is allowed and encouraged. You must act out any anger you feel in a safe way, such as beating the earth with your hands. All the suppressed emotions from your subconscious mind are to be released.

Stage #3) In the third stage you jump up and down yelling Hoo!, Hoo!, Hoo! continuously for ten minutes. This sounds very silly, and it is funny, but the loud vibration of your voice travels down to your centers of stored energy and pushes that energy upward. When doing this stage it is important to keep your arms loose and in a natural position. Do not hold your arms over your head as that position can be medically dangerous.

Stage #4) The fourth 10 minute stage is complete relaxation and quiet. Flop down on your back, get comfortable, and just let go. Be as a dead man, totally surrendered to the cosmos. Enjoy the tremendous energy you have unleashed in the first three stages and become a silent witness to the ocean as it flows into the drop. Become the ocean.

Rajneesh unwisely changed the third stage of the method to rigidly holding your arms over your head while shouting 'Hoo!' Even worse, he changed the fourth stage to freezing in place like a statue with your arms still awkwardly held over your head. This method is not only uncomfortable to the point of torture, it can also be medically dangerous. When you stand with arms elevated over your head you increase your level of orthostatic stress. This means that your heart must work harder to pump blood that has traveled down to your legs back up to your heart and on to your brain. You could easily pass out in this position or induce a heart attack in individuals with underlying coronary artery disease.

Freezing in place makes deep relaxation impossible as it keeps your mind's controlling functions fully operational. This holds your consciousness on the surface, defeating the purpose of the exercise. The point of the technique was to have three stages of intense action followed by a fourth stage of deep relaxation and complete let go. Rajneesh himself could never have practiced the freeze method even in his youth. Asking his disciples to do it simply showed that he had lost touch with physical reality. Rajneesh was a fallible human being, never a perfect God.

I advise students to only use the enjoyable early version of Dynamic Meditation and not the pointlessly difficult freeze method version. This wonderful technique was intended to grow with the student and change as the student changes. After a few years of practicing the method vigorously the first three stages of the meditation should drop away spontaneously. You then go into the meditation hall, take a few deep breaths, and immediately go deep into the ecstasy of the fourth stage. Rajneesh intended the method to be fluid, health giving, and fun. Those new students who wish to experiment with Rajneesh Dynamic Meditation should read the section on Cathartic Dancing Meditation in Meditation Handbook for further warnings and details before experimenting with this powerful technique.

Christopher Calder E-mail

Please feel free to copy, repost, or publish Osho, Bhagwan Rajneesh, and the Lost Truth.

Other Web pages at this site
Meditation Handbook
The TES Hypothesis
The Seven Bodies
Call For a New Buddhism
Common Lies of the Phony World of Mystics

Useful outside links
Link to facts about Rajneesh and the Oregon commune

http://www.religioustolerance.org/rajneesh.htm - Brief overview of Rajneesh.

http://cti.itc.virginia.edu/~jkh8x/soc257/nrms/rajneesh.html - This page presents many facts about the life of Rajneesh, most of which are true but which are mixed in with some misstatements of fact and unfair commentary. The most ridiculous mistake is that the author identifies Sheela, not Vivek, as Rajneesh's "consort." The author assumes that Rajneesh was only after money from the very beginning, which was not the case, in my opinion.

http://www.empnet.com/imageworks/Raj1.htm - A few pictures of the Oregon commune.

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/M.E. information

http://www.cfids.org/
17th Karmapa Ugyen Trinley Dorje, a true living Bodhisattva.

http://www.personal.u-net.com/~samye/17gyalwa.htm - background
http://www.nalandabodhi.org/ - news

Jiddu Krishnamurti A dry, publicly humorless enlightened teacher who was uniquely lovable. His powerful vibrations can still be felt at Arya Vihara, his former home in Ojai, California.
http://www.kfa.org/ Krishnamurti Foundation of America
http://www.silcom.com/~jmsloss Lives in the Shadow with J. Krishnamurti

Ramana Maharshi Amazingly, every major religious group in India agreed that Ramana Maharshi was enlightened.
http://www.ramana-maharshi.org/

George Ivanovich Gurdjieff The only enlightened Westerner I know of.
http://www.gurdjieff.org/

U.G. Krishnamurti This talkative Indian man (not related to J. Krishnamurti) may be on some level of enlightenment. In 1970 Rajneesh referred to U.G. as "realized." After U.G. started publicly criticising Rajneesh by calling him, among other things, "the worlds biggest pimp," Rajneesh started referring to U.G. as a "phony guru." In my personal opinion, U.G. Krishnamurti is in the 5th stage, the first level of self-realization, not fully enlightened. I also believe he has an underdeveloped heart center, thus his loveless negativism. Despite his shortcomings, much of what he says is true and of great value, but his gems are combined with a great deal of rubbish.
http://www.ugkrishnamurti.org/ug/ug_video/index.html

The Secret Life of Swami Muktananda When I first went to India in 1970, I stayed at Muktananda's ashram in Ganeshpuri for several weeks. It is interesting that Muktananda was very different from Rajneesh, yet both men ended up committing many of the same mistakes. Muktananda was a very advanced student of meditation, not enlightened, and was not articulate. His crude manner reminded me of Benito Mussolini. Rajneesh, by contrast, was fully enlightened, highly articulate, and a master of subtlety. Yet in the end, given absolute power and treated as royalty, both men became as corrupt as the Caesars. Democracy is not such a bad thing after all.
http://www.cyberpass.net/truth/secret.htm

Swami Satchidananda Virtually every teacher I met or became involved with had scandals, except for J. Krishnamurti, the 16th Karmapa, and Swami Chidananda. Swami Satchidananda was quite a nice man, but he could not practice what he preached.
http://www.rickross.com/groups/yogaville.html

Suggested reading

Bhagwan: The God That Failed, by Hugh Milne, Saint Martin's Press. The sordid details of a fall from reason and sanity. This book can be bought second hand through Amazon.Com.

Promise of Paradise: A Woman's Intimate Life With 'Bhagwan' Osho Rajneesh, by Satya Bharti Franklin, published by Barrytown/Station Hill Press. Satya documents much of the strange corruption of the Rajneesh cult and describes in detail the illegal sexual exploitation of children at the Oregon commune. Her book is also out of print but can be purchased secondhand through Amazon.Com.

Rajneesh's (Osho's) books - Be warned that Rajneesh/Osho used words as a device to draw people close to him and was not concerned about speaking the truth. In my opinion about half of what he said was true, either factually or at least poetically. The rest was a mixture of fluff, fill, and balderdash. Much of his words represented a kind of self-serving spiritual pornography.

At his worst Rajneesh came out with titles like "The World of Rajneesh" and his organization's recent printing of "Autobiography of a Spiritually Incorrect Mystic." This is like an arrogant television newsman who thinks that he is the story rather than the headlines of the day. The real spiritual news is that we are all the same and have exactly the same biography, which is the biography of the total universe. How can the compulsive showboat personality of one man on one little planet be of any importance in a universe of infinite size? My advice to sincere students of meditation is to read just a few of Rajneesh's books, not all of them like an addict, and don't take his words very seriously. Those book addicted students who read the most always seem to be the poorest students of meditation. If you can meditate directly why is there any need to read about spirituality at all?

Note Opinions expressed on this page must be viewed as the ideas of an ordinary student of meditation. While I truly believe everything I say, you should not believe anything unless you see it, feel it, and know it for yourself. I make no claims of infallibility. In fact I absolutely claim fallibility.

Truth is a sword that cuts in all directions.

It is a mind that is unprejudiced by religion, philosophy, and cultural conditioning. It is going naked in the stars.

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